The Blue Hawk by Peter Dickinson

Author:Peter Dickinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

XI

Between the hills and the desert, between the realm of the Gods and the Kingdom of Men. Scenes from that journey.

The twinkly shade of a sparse grove of eucalyptus. At its far edge Curil and Onu Ovalaku halt, outlined against the hammering glare of O. Tron, leg-weary and footsore from the endless and undifferentiated track across the hills, stops a few feet behind them, to take full advantage of the spice-smelling shade and to keep the Blue Hawk clear of the fret of their presence, which it seems to sense even through its hood.

But when Curil points ahead and Onu Ovalaku claps him lightly on the shoulder to show pleasure, Tron strolls forward to join them and finds that they have come to the edge of the plateau.

Four miles ahead and several hundred feet below them, Tan drives toward the east; beyond Her the brown hills shoulder up, like the ridged backs of gigantic cattle, but over to the left and incredibly blue and green after the barren upland, a vast flatness stretches away. Onu Ovalaku lets out his breath in a slow gasp and for want of language makes an absurd gesture with his arms as though he could hold all that vastness in his embrace.

“Durr Kaingland?” he says.

“Yes,” says Tron somberly, “that’s the Kingdom.”

Night. Firelight. Onu Ovalaku cross-legged on the earth by the fire, wearing the livery of an upper servant in the household of Kalavin’s father, the General of the Southern Levies. The General on a stool beside him. The light casts masklike shadows on their contrasting faces, Onn Ovalaku’s round, smooth, solemn and eager, the General’s arrogant and impatient. Tron is still puzzled by the General. The old man seems so ready to break into a furious outburst at the slightest deviation from accepted behavior—a tiny mistake in dress or speech or even food can throw him into a passion—and yet at the same time he is prepared to break all rules and rituals, however important, in order to fulfill his Obligation to convey Onu Ovalaku and the Red Spear safe to the King. Now he cranes forward to watch while once more his guest attempts to explain his mission.

Onu Ovalaku smooths out a patch of mingled ash and dust, dampens it and smooths it again. Deftly on this surface he draws pictures with the point of his dagger—horsemen, naked, with great dogs leaping beside them.

“Mohirrim,” he says drily.

He adds a group of armored men fighting against the horsemen.

“Falathi,” he says, then repeats the word, tapping himself on the chest.

He wipes the picture out and draws again. This time the naked horsemen are burning a house. One of them has speared a woman, and a dog is leaping at a child. Onu Ovalaku destroys that picture and draws another and another, and another. Each time there are the same horsemen and dogs, fighting, killing, destroying; and each time he draws them he says the same word, “Mohirrim.”

Tron, dizzy from the first day’s jolting chariot ride, half-hypnotized

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