Shardik

17 The Road to Gelt

That evening the army of Ortelga, led by Ta-Kominion, began crossing the strait: a grimy, shouting horde a few thousand strong, some armed with spear, sword or bow, some carrying nothing but mattocks or sharpened stakes: some-mostly servants, these-moving in bands under their masters for officers, others mere gangs of drinking-companions, or ruffians slouching with club and bottle for company: but all eager to march and ready to fight, all convinced that Bekla was destined to fall to the revealed power of God, by whose will they were to have full stomachs and never toil again. Some wore crude armour – scooped-out caps of fire-hardened wood, or rough-edged plates of iron fastened across their chests – and most had, scratched or painted somewhere about them, the rough likeness of a bear's head.

At the dangerous points in the broken causeway Ta-Kominion had had ropes stretched between wedged stakes or anchored rafts and at these there was sousing and horseplay, until a man was swept downstream and drowned. As darkness came, those still gathering on the. island shore fell to drinking and singing as they waited for moon-rise; and Ta-Kominion's henchmen made a last search through the town, rousing up any who remained in two minds or seemed inclined to feel that they might be leaving more than they could gain.

On the mainland shore other groups were mustering from the outlying lands: a party of foresters and woodmen, armed with their axes, mauls and crowbars; a baron named Ged-la-Dan, whose substance came from the coloured quartz – topaz and aquamarine – for which his men dived in rocky bays downstream; and a factor and his porters, just returned from their trading-post in Gelt with a load of iron ore, who were quick-witted enough to auction themselves as guides to the highest bidders among the leaders.

Women, too, made the crossing, laden with arms, clothes, arrows or bags of food got together at the last minute, beg, borrow or steal. Some of these, confused by the crowd, wandered here and there in the torch-lit twilight, calling the names of their men and dealing as best they could with importuners and thieves.

Ta-Kominion, having asked Fassel-Hasta to count the numbers and do his best to organize the force into companies, himself set off to re-cross the causeway, ignoring the surly nod and grunt with which the older baron left him. For some hours past he had been drenched through, first standing up to his waist in midstream to see the ropes fixed and then remaining at the gaps, less to encourage the rabble, most of whom were in high spirits, than to establish his authority and make sure that they knew him and would know him again. Already wearied by the work of the previous night and day, he was now intending a second night without sleep. He waded ashore on Ortelga, commandeered the nearest hut, bolted the food that was brought to him and then slept for two hours. When his servant, Numiss, woke him, the moon was well risen and the stragglers were being guided and coaxed across. He sat impatiently while Numiss changed the dirty cloth bound round the deep, jagged wound in his forearm; and then made his way upstream the length of the town, until he came to the shendron's post under the zoan tree.

There was no shendron there now, not even a woman or an old man, for Ta-Kominion was not concerned to set guards round Ortelga. Waiting, however, under the tent of leaves he found, as he had expected, two of the Tuginda's girls with a canoe. Numiss and another had been despatched that morning, as soon as the fight was over, to cross the strait, find the Tuginda and ask for guides to be sent to the zoan tree after moonrise.

As the canoe moved obliquely across the midstream current and on into the slack water under the further bank Ta-Kominion, sitting in the stern, could make out, away to his left, the dull glint of weapons held high out of the water, an occasional splash – the sound reaching him an instant after the quick glitter in the moon – and the onward creeping of the line of black shapes as the last of his followers made the crossing. Coming ashore he stumbled, struck his arm against a tree and stood biting his lip as the pain slowly subsided. All day he had made light of the wound but now, when one of the girls unfastened the leather strap of her quiver to make him a rough sling, he was ready enough to do as she bid, bending his head meekly to let her tie the knot behind his neck.

The girls had become adept at moving in the dark. Whether they were following any path or how they knew their way he could not tell and was beginning to feel too feverish to care. His arm throbbed and his hearing seemed continually to change, now magnified, now dulled. He walked behind them in silence, revolving in his mind all that still remained to be done. At length he saw, far-off, the leaping of a fire between the trees. He went towards it, halting as his guides were challenged and answered with some password. Then he stepped into the firelight and Kelderek came forward to meet him.

For a few moments they stood looking at one another, each thinking how strange it was that in spite of all that had passed he should not yet be familiar with the other's face. Then Kelderek dropped his eyes to the fire, stooped and threw on a log, speaking diffidently as he did so.

'Crendro, Ta-Kominion. I am glad that you have won Ortelga, but sorry to see you wounded. I hope you found the girls waiting?'

Ta-Kominion nodded and sat down on a creeper-covered log. Kelderek remained standing, leaning on a long stake which the girls had been using to stir the fire. 'Is the wound serious?' 'It's of no importance. Others were luckier – others who won't be afraid to fight again.' 'How long did the fight last?'

'I don't know. Longer than it took you to get across the strait, I dare say.'

He pulled a splinter from the log. A turn of the breeze blew the smoke into his face but he ignored it Kelderek stirred the fire and shifted his feet At length he said, 'Most of the Tuginda's stuff is still on the other side. The women left it this morning when they followed us across the river.' There was another silence.

'It puzzles me,' said Kelderek, 'that last night, in spite of his hunger, Lord Shardik would not go on through the forest. He must have caught the scent of food from Ortelga, yet he turned back from the Dead Belt and took to the river.'

Ta-Kominion shook his head as though the matter were of little interest to him. 'What has happened to Bel-ka-Trazet?' asked Kelderek. 'Oh, he took to the water, like you; not quite so quickly.'

Kelderek drew in his breath and clenched his hand on the stake. After some moments he said, 'Where has he gone?' 'Downstream.' 'Do you mean to pursue him?'

'It's not necessary. He isn't a coward, but to us he can be no more dangerous now than if he were.' He looked up. 'Where is Lord Shardik?'

'Over there, not far from the road. He reached the road this afternoon but then went back into the forest. I was near him until moonrise, but I returned to meet you.' 'What road?' "The road to Gelt. We are not far from it here.'

Ta-Kominion got up and stood squarely in front of Kelderek, looking down into his face. His back was to the fire and, with his long hair falling forward, he seemed to be wearing a mask of heavy shadows, through which his eyes burned cold and harsh. Without turning his head he said, 'You may leave us, Numiss.' 'But where are we to go, my lord?'

Ta-Kominion said nothing more and after a moment the red-haired fellow and his companion slipped away among the trees. Before Ta-Kominion could speak again Kelderek burst out,

'My place is with Lord Shardik, to follow and serve himl That is my task! I am no coward!' 'I did not say you were.'

'I have walked beside Lord Shardik, slept beside him, laid my hands upon him. Is that work for a coward?'

Ta-Kominion closed his eyes and passed his hand once or twice across his forehead.

'I did not come here, Kelderek, either to accuse you or to quarrel with you. I have more important things to speak of.'

'You think I'm a coward. You have as good as said so!'

'What I may have let slip is nothing to do with our affairs now. You'd do better to put such personal ideas out of your mind. Every man in Ortelga who can use a weapon is across the Telthearna and ready to march on Bekla. They'll start soon – before dawn. I shall join them from here – no need to return to the camp. We shall be at Bekla in five days – perhaps sooner. It's not only surprise we need. We've got no more than three days' food, but that's not the whole of it either. Our people have got to take Bekla before they can lose the power that's burning in their hearts. Whose, do you suppose, is that power?' 'My lord?' It had slipped out before Kelderek could check himself.

'It was the power of Shardik that took Ortelga today. We were lucky – there were many who saw him before he crossed the causeway. Bel-ka-Trazet was driven out because he was known to be Shardik's enemy. The people have seen for themselves that Shardik has returned. They believe there's nothing he won't give them -nothing they can't do in his name.'

He took a few uncertain steps back to the log and sat rigid and frowning, fighting a sudden fit of giddiness. For an instant his teeth chattered and he pressed his chin upon his open hand.

'Shardik has been sent to restore us to Bekla, peasant and baron alike. The peasants need to know no more than that. But I – I have to find the right way, the way to bring about victory through Shardik. And this is the way – or so it seems to me. Either we take Bekla within seven days or not at all.'

'Why?' Ta-Kominion paused, as though choosing his words.

'Common people can sing a song only when they are dancing, drinking or about some occupation – then it rises to their lips without thought. Ask them to teach it to you and it's gone from their heads. While their hearts are full of Shardik our men will do the impossible – march without sleep, fly through the air, tear down the walls of Bekla. But in the hearts of common men such power is like mist. The wind or the sun – any unexpected adversity – may disperse it in an hour. It must be given no chance to disperse.' He paused and then said deliberately, 'But there is more besides. Out of sight, out of mind. You understand children, I'm told. So you'll know that children forget what is not kept before their eyes.' Kelderek stared, guessing at his meaning.

'Shardik must be with us when we come to fight,' said Ta-Kominion. 'It is all-important that the people should see him there.' 'At Bekla – in five days? How?' 'You must tell me how.'

'Lord Shardik cannot be driven a hundred paces and you are speaking of five days' journey!'

'Kelderek, Bekla is a city more rich and marvellous than a mountain made of jewels. It is ours of ancient right and Shardik has returned to restore it to us. But he can restore it only by means of ourselves. He needed my help to take Ortelga today. Now he needs your help to bring him to Bekla.' 'But that is impossible! It was not impossible to take Ortelga.'

'No, no, of course not – an easy matter, I dare say, to those who did not happen to be there. Never mind. Kelderek, do you want to cease to be a simpleton playing with fatherless children on the shore? To see Shardik come in power to Bekla? To bring to its right end the work you began on that night when you faced Bel-ka-Trazet's hot knife in the Sindrad? There must be a way! Either you find it or we are fast on a sheer cliff. You and I and Lord Shardik – it is we who are climbing, and there is no way back. If we do not take Bekla, do you think the Beklan rulers will let us alone? No – they will hunt us down. They will not be long in dealing with you and your bear.' 'My bear?'

'Your bear. For that is what he will become, Lord Shardik of the Ledges, who is ready at this moment to give us a great city and all its wealth and power, if only we can find the means. He will shrink to a creature of superstition, over which some rough fellows on Ortelga have made trouble and turned out their High Baron. A stop will be put to him – and to you.'

A great bat came hovering out of the darkness, flittered soundlessly along the edge of the fire, turned away from the crackling heat and vanished as it had come.

'Kelderek, you say I think you're a coward. Is it I that think it, or you? It's not too late for you to redeem yourself, Kelderek Play-with-the-Children: to show yourself a man. Find a way to bring Lord Shardik to the plains of Bekla – fight for him there with your own hands. Think of the prize – a prize beyond reckoning! Do this, and no one will ever call you a coward again.' 'I never was a coward. But the Tuginda -' For the first time, Ta-Kominion smiled at him.

'I know you are not. When we have taken Bekla, what reward do you suppose there will be for him to whom Shardik first appeared, for him who brought the news to Quiso? Why, there is not a man on Ortelga who does not know your name and honour it already.' Kelderek hesitated, frowning. 'How soon must we begin?'

'At once – now. There is not a moment to lose. There are two things, Kelderek, that a rebel leader needs above all. First, his followers must be filled with a burning ardour – mere obedience is not enough – and secondly he himself must be all speed and resolution. The second I myself possess. The first only you can ensure.'

'It may perhaps be possible: but I shall need every blacksmith, wheelwright and carpenter in Ortelga. Let us go and speak with the Tuginda.'

As Ta-Kominion rose, Kelderek offered him the support of his arm, but the baron waved him aside, staggered a few steps, hesitated, then himself put his sound arm through Kelderek's and drew himself upright, leaning hard until he found his balance. 'Are you ill?' 'It's nothing – a touch of fever. It will pass off.' 'You must be tired out. You ought to rest.' 'Later.* Kelderek guided him away from the fire. In the close darkness under the trees they paused, sightless after the flame-light. A hand plucked Kelderek's sleeve and he turned, peering.. 'Shall I guide you, my lord? Are you returning now to Lord Shardik?'

'Is it your watch, Neelith?' 'My watch is ended, my lord. I was coming to wake Sheldra, but it's no matter if you need me.' 'No, get to sleep. Who is watching Lord Shardik?' 'Zilthe, my lord.' 'Where is the Tuginda?' The girl pointed, 'Down yonder, among the ferns.' 'Is she asleep?' 'Not yet, my lord; she has been praying this hour and more.'

They left the girl and, their eyes becoming accustomed to the dark, moved on more easily. Soon the trees grew fewer and the close growth overhead opened here and there to reveal clouds and moonlight. The white beams faded and reappeared continually between the branches as the clouds drifted eastward across the moon. The turbid heat of the forest, a single block of dense air lying all about them, seemed now to begin to be assailed, whittled, rifted, encroached upon by gusts and momentary, cooler currents coming and going like the first wavelets of flood-water lapping round a dry shoal. As the leaves and light shifted in response to the breeze outside, the mass of the hot darkness on the ground sdrrcd, slow and heavy as a bed of weed under water. As yet unpenetrated, it felt already on its outskirts the first impulse of that appointed, seasonal force that soon would grow to split it with lightning and storm.

Ta-Kominion stopped, lifting his head and sniffing the fresher air. 'The rains can't be long now.' 'A day or two,' replied Kelderek.

'That's the strongest reason of all for speed. It's now or never. We can't march or keep the field in the wet and nor can they. Even Bekla lies low in the rains. The last thing they'll be expecting is any sort of attack at this time of year. If they have no warning and we get there before the rains break we shall have complete surprise.' 'Have they no spies?'

'We're not worth spying on, man. Ortelga? A bunch of scavengers perched on the butt-end of an overgrown spit.'

'But the risk! If the rains come first, before we can fight, that will be the end of us. Are you sure there's time?' 'Lord Shardik will give us time.'

As he spoke they came suddenly upon a broad slab of rock rising upright from the ground like a wall. It was flat, about as thick as a man's body, and rose irregularly to a blunt apex an arm's length above their heads. In the faint light the two sides appeared almost smooth, though as Kelderek groped wonderingly across one of the planes he could feel that it was rougher than it looked, flawed here and there and ridged with excrescent mosses and lichens. The rock was set deep in the soft earth of the forest like a wedge hurled down and hammered in by a giant long ago. Beyond, they could make out another, also flat but larger, slightly tilted and of a different shape. This, when they came to it, they saw was half-covered on one side with rusty-red lichen like a stain of dried blood. And now they found themselves peering and wandering between numbers of these tall, flat-sided masses – some, like fences, long and no higher than a man's shoulder, others rising in steep, conical blocks or cut, as it seemed, into flights of steps vanishing upwards in the dark: but all worked to an even thickncss and sheer-sided like gigantic axe-heads, with never a broadening at the foot to anything resembling a base or plinth. Among them grew the ferns of which the girl had spoken – some huge, like trees, with moss hanging from the under-sides of their fronds; others small and delicate, lacc-fronded with tiny leaflets that trembled like aspen leaves in the still air. From hidden places among the rocks there came, even at this time of year, thin tricklings out of the peaty mould, scarcely enough to form anywhere a pool bigger than a man's cupped hands; though they shone, where the moonlight caught them, in faint streaks along the stones and the moist, dim fern-boughs. A snatch of breeze brought for an instant the minute pattering of drops blown across the shallowest of surfaces.

'Have you never been here before?' asked Ta-Kominion, as Kelderek stared up at the outlinc of a rock that seemed to be toppling forwards between his eyes and the moving clouds above. 'These are the Two-Sided Rocks.'

'Once, many years ago, I came here; but I was not old enough then to wonder how the rocks were brought – or why.'

'The rocks were here from the beginning, as I was told. But the men who made the Ledges on Quiso – they worked them, as others might trim a hedge or shape a tree, to strike wonder into the hearts of pilgrims approaching Ortelga. For it was here that the pilgrims used to assemble to be guided down to the causeway.'

'This place is Lord Shardik's then, as Quiso is, and that is why he has led us here.'

The Tuginda was standing a little way off, in an open place among the ferns. Her back was half-turned, her hands clasped at her waist and her head inclined as she gazed into the moonlit distance. Her bearing recalled to Kelderek the moment when she had stood on the edge of the pit, filled with the knowledge that it was none other than Shardik lying among the trepsis below. Plainly she was not withdrawn into contemplation, but seemed rather to have attained to some heightened state of alertness, in which she was aware with rapture of all that lay about her. Yet just as evidently, her eyes passed through the fern grove as they might have passed through water to perceive – or partly perceive – the moving life within it, the silence of the pool. For an instant Kelderek understood that not only now, but always, his own eye was filled with reflections from a surface through which her sight passed unimpeded. She seemed to be gazing into the sultry gloom as though at some marvellous spectacle, a dance of light and flowers. Yet still there remained about her that air of plain directness and shrewdness that had both deceived and reassured him by the Tereth stone on Quiso. If her prayer had had words, she might have been speaking of leather, wood and bread.

Ta-Kominion stopped, withdrew his arm from Kelderek's and leaned against one of the rock slabs, pressing his forehead against the cool stone. 'Is that the Tuginda?'

'Yes.' He was surprised for a moment, before remembering that Ta-Kominion could never have seen her unmasked – might never, perhaps, have seen her at all. 'Are you sure?' Kelderek made no reply. 'The girl said she was praying.' 'She is praying.'

Ta-Kominion shrugged his shoulders and pushed himself upright. They went on. While they were still a little distance away the Tuginda turned towards them. Her face, in the moonlight, was full of a calm, tranquil joy which seemed to embrace and sanctify rather than transcend the dark forest and the danger and uncertainty surrounding all Ortelga. To Kelderek's eye, faith streamed from her as light from a lantern.

'It is she,' he thought, in a swift access of self-knowledge, 'she, not I, through whom the power of Shardik will be transmuted and made a blessing to us all. Her acceptance and faith – his force and savagery – they are one and the same. He is weak as a dumb creature without knowledge. She is strong as the shoots of the lilies, that great stones cannot prevent from breaking through the earth.'

They stood before her and Kelderek raised his palm to his forehead. Her smile in reply was like the answering step in some happy dance, an exchange of mutual respect and trust. 'We interrupted you, saiyett.'

'No, we are all doing the same thing – whatever it is. I came here because it's cooler among the ferns. But we'll go back to the fire now, Kelderek, if you prefer.' 4 Saiyett, your wishes are mine, and always will be.' She smiled again. 'You're sure?' He nodded, smiling back at her.

"This is the High Baron of Ortelga, Lord Ta-Kominion. He has come to talk about Lord Shardik.' *I am afraid you are not well,' she said, reaching out her fingers to take his wrist. 'What has happened?'

'It is nothing, saiyett. I have been telling Kelderek that time is very short. Lord Shardik must come -'

At that instant, from somewhere in the middle distance, an appalling scream pierced the forest – a cry of fear and agony, confounding the minds of its hearers as lightning dazzles and confounds the eyes. There was a moment's silence. Then followed another scream, which broke off as suddenly as though a man falling in terror from a height had struck the ground.

Kelderek's eye met Ta-Kominion's and without a word the thought passed between them, 'That was a man's death-cry.'

Numiss and his companion came running towards them through the trees, their swords drawn in their hands. 'Thank God, my lord! We thought -' 'Never mind,' said Ta-Kominion. 'Follow me, come on!'

He set off at a run, threading his way in and out of the ferns and tall rocks. The two servants followed. Kelderek, however, remained with the Tuginda, suiting his pace to hers as he tried to persuade her to remain out of danger.

'Be advised, saiyett! Wait here and let me send you word of what we find. You must not risk your life'

'There's no risk now,' she answered. 'Whatever has happened, it's past mending.' 'But there may -'

'Give me your arm over these rocks. Which way did the young baron take? The undergrowth is thick on the edge of the forest, but with luck they will break a way through for us.'

Soon they came upon Ta-Kominion and the servants hacking with their knives at a belt of creepers.

'Is there no easier way, my lord?' panted Numiss, picking the trazada thorns from his forearm and stifling his curses as he caught sight of the Tuginda.

'Very likely there is,' replied Ta-Kominion, 'but we must make straight towards where the cry came from, or we shall lose direction and never find the fellow until daylight.'

Suddenly Kelderek's car caught a sound somewhere between weeping and the whimpering of fear. It was a woman's voice, a little distance away. 'Zilthe!' he called. 'My lord!' replied the girl. 'Oh, come quickly!'

As Numiss cut his way out through the further side of the creepers, Kelderek followed Ta-Kominion through the gap. He found himself clear of the trees and looking across an open valley. Opposite perhaps half a mile away, the edge of the forest in the moonlight showed black and dry as a hide hung to cure on a line. Down in the bottom he could just make out the dark cleft of a brook, while far to his right the Gelt mountains showed dimly against the night sky.

Below the place where they were standing ran the road from Ortelga to Gelt – a track trodden along the hillside between scrub and bushes, with here and there the stump of a long-felled tree and here and there, to mend some muddy or broken place, a patch of stones carried up from the bed of the brook and laid haphazard, to settle to a level with use and time.

Down at the edge of the road Zilthe, her bow lying beside her, was bending on one knee over the dark shape of a body. As Kelderek watched she rose, turned her head and looked up towards him, but evidently could not perceive him among the trees and shadows.

The Tuginda came through the creepers. He pointed without speaking and together they began to make their way down. Ta-Kominion, motioning his servants to remain a little behind, muttered, 'A dead man – but where's the killer?'

The others made no reply. As they approached, Zilthe stepped back from the body. It was lying in blood which glistened viscous, smooth and black in the moonlight. One side of the head had been smashed into a great wound and from below the left shoulder blood was still oozing through lacerated rents in the cloak. The eyes were staring wide, but the open mouth and bared teeth were partly hidden by one arm which the man must have flung up to try to defend himself. He was wearing heeled boots, the boots of a messenger, and beneath the heels were dents in the ground, which he must have kicked as he died.

The Tuginda put her arm round Zilthe's shoulders, led her a little distance away and sat down beside her. Kelderek followed. The girl was weeping and terrified but able to speak.

'Lord Shardik, saiyett – he was sleeping. Then he woke suddenly and began to return towards the road, the same way that he went this afternoon. One would have thought that he had some purpose of his own. I tried to follow him but after a little he went fast, as though he were hunting – pursuing. When I reached the edge of the trees' – she pointed up the slope – 'he was already down here. He was waiting – crouching behind the rocks. And then, after only a little, I heard the man – I saw him coming up the road and I ran out of the trees to call out and warn him. But I caught my foot – I stumbled and fell: and as I got up, Lord Shardik came out from behind the rocks. The man saw him and screamed. He turned and ran, but Lord Shardik followed him and struck him down. He – he -' In the vividness of her recollection the girl beat at the air with one arm held out stiffly, open-handed, the fingers apart, rigid and curved. 'I might have saved him, saiyett -' She began to weep once more.

Ta-Kominion came over to them, his tongue protruding between his bared teeth as he shifted the position of his wounded arm in its sling. 'Do you recognize that man, Kelderek?' he asked. 'No. Is he from Ortelga?' 'He is from Ortelga. His name was Naron and he was a servant.' 'Whose?' 'He served Fassel-Hasta.' 'Served Fassel-Hasta? Then what could he have been doing here?'

Ta-Kominion hesitated, looking back at Numiss and his fellow, who had lifted the body to the other side of the track and were doing what they could to make it decent Then he held out a blood-spattered leather scrip, opened it and showed to the Tuginda two strips of bark inked with brush-written letters. 'Can you read this message, saiyett?' he asked.

The Tuginda took the stiff, curved sheets and held first one and then the other at arm's length in the moonlight Kelderek and Ta-Kominion could learn nothing from her face. At last she stood up, returned the sheets to the scrip and without speaking gave it back to the baron. 'You have read it, saiyett?'

She nodded once, rcluctantly it seemed, as though she would have preferred, if she could, to disown knowledge of the message.

'Docs it tell us what this man was doing here?' persisted Ta-Kominion.

'He was carrying news to Bekla of what happened in Ortelga today.' She turned aside and looked down into the valley.

Ta-Kominion cried out and the servants across the road looked up, staring.

'God! It tells that we have crossed the causeway and what we mean to do?'

She nodded again.

'I might have guessed it! Why didn't I post my own men to watch the road? That treacherous -'

'But the road was watched for us nevertheless,' said Kelderek. 'Surely it was no accident that Zilthe stumbled before she could warn the man. Lord Shardik – he knew what had to be done!'

They stared at each other as the long, moonset shadow of the forest crept lower down the hillside. 'But Fassel-Hasta – why did he do it?' asked Kelderek at last.

'Why? For wealth and power, of course. I should have guessed! It was always he who dealt with Bekla. "Yes, my lord." "I'll write it for you, my lord." By the Bearl I'll write on his face with a hot knife this morning. That for a start. Numiss, you can leave that body for the buzzards – if they'll touch it.'

His loud words, echoing, starded direc or four pigeons out of the cleft of the brook below. As they rose with a clatter of wings and flew across the road and up into the forest Ta-Kominion, watching their flight, suddenly pointed.

From the edge of the trees, Shardik was looking down into the valley. For a moment they saw him plainly, his shape, black against the line of the woods, like an opened gate in a city wall. Then, as Kelderek raised his arms in salutation and prayer, he turned and vanished into the darkness.

'God be thanked!' cried Ta-Kominion. 'Lord Shardik saved us from that devil! There – there is your sign, Kelderek! Our will is Shardik's will – our plan will succeed! No more children's games on the shore for you, my lad! We'll rule in Bekla, you and I! What is it you need? Tell me, and you shall have it within an hour of daybreak.' 'Hark!' said the Tuginda, laying a hand on his arm. From the forest above came faint calls. 'Saiyett!' 'Lord Kelderek!'

'Neelith will have woken Rantzay when she heard the man scream,' said Kelderek. 'They're looking for us. Zilthe, go up and bring them down. You are not afraid?' The girl smiled. 'Not now, my lord.' As she set off up the slope the Tuginda turned to Kelderek. 'What plan is he speaking of?' she asked.

'Lord Ta-Kominion is going to lead our people against Bekla, saiyett, to win back what is ours by ancient right. They have crossed the Telthearna -' 'By now they will already be on the march,' said Ta-Kominion.

'And our part, saiyett,' went on Kelderek eagerly, 'is to take Lord Shardik there, you and I. The baron will give us craftsmen to make a wheeled cage and men to draw it -'

He stopped a moment, meeting her incredulous eyes: but she said nothing and he resumed.

'He will be drugged, saiyett, as he was in the first days. I know it will be difficult – dangerous too – but I am not afraid. For the sake of the people -' 'I never heard such nonsense in my life,' said the Tuginda. ' Saiyett!'

'It will not be attempted. It is plain that you know nothing either of Lord Shardik or the true nature of his power. He is not some weapon or tool to be used for men's worldly greed. No -' she held up her hand as Ta-Kominion was about to speak '- nor even for the material gain of Ortelga. What God is pleased to impart to us through Shardik, that we should be holding ourselves ready to receive with humility and thanks. If the people believe in Shardik, that is their blessing. But you and I – we neither determine nor confer that blessing. I drugged Lord Shardik to save his life. He will not be drugged in order that he may be taken in a cage to Bekla.'

Ta-Kominion remained silent for a little, the fingers of his injured arm, in its sling, tapping gently against his left side. At length he said, 'And long ago, saiyett, when Shardik was brought to the Ledges, how, may I ask, was he brought, if not drugged and restrained?'

'Means used for an end appointed by God, that his servants might serve him. You are intending to make him a weapon of bloodshed for your own power.' 'Time is short, saiyett. I have no time for argument.' 'There is nothing over which to argue.' 'Nothing,' replied Ta-Kominion in a low, hard voice.

Stepping forward, he grasped the Tuginda strongly by the wrist. 'Kelderek, you shall have your craftsmen within two hours, though the iron and some of the heavy materials may take longer. Remember, everything depends on resolution. We'll not fail the people, you and I.'

For an instant he looked at Kelderek and his look said, 'Are you a man, as you maintain, or an overgrown child under the thumb of a woman?' Then, still gripping the Tuginda's wrist, he called to the servants, who approached hesitantly from the scrub on the other side of the track. 'Numiss,' said Ta-Kominion, 'the saiyett is returning with us to meet Lord Zelda and the army on the road.' He slipped his arm out of the leather strap. 'Take this and tie her wrists behind her back.' 'My – my lord,' stammered Numiss, 'I am afraid -' Without another word Ta-Kominion, setting his teeth against the 130 pain in his arm, himself drew the Tuginda's hands behind her back and bound them tightly with the strap. Then he put the free end into Numiss's hand. He held his knife in his teeth the while and was clearly ready to use it, but she made no resistance, standing silent with closed eyes and only compressing her lips as the strap cut into her wrists.

'Now we will go,' said Ta-Kominion. 'Believe me, saiyett, I regret this affront to your dignity. I do not wish to be obliged to gag you, so no cries for help, I beg you.'

In the near-darkness of moonset the Tuginda turned and looked at Kelderek. For a moment his eyes met hers; then they fell to the ground, and he did not look up as he heard her footsteps begin to stumble away along the track. When at length he did so, both she and Ta-Kominion were already some distance off. He ran after them and Ta-Kominion turned quickly, knife in hand.

'Ta-Kominion!' He was panting. 'Don't harm her! She must not be hurt or ill-treated! She is not to come to -my harm! Promise me.' 'I promise you, High Priest of Lord Shardik in Bekla.'

Kelderek stood hesitant, half-hoping that she might speak even now. But she said nothing and soon they were gone, sight and sound, into the dawn-mist and gloom of the valley. Once he heard Ta-Kominion's voice. Then he was alone in the solitude.

He turned and walked slowly back, past the dead man shrouded in his bloody cloak, past the rock where Shardik had lain in wait On his left, above the dreary forest, the first light was gathering in the sky. Not a blow had yet been struck in the war, and yet he was filled with a sense of loneliness and danger, of being already committed past recall on a desperate enterprise which, if it did not succeed, could end only in ruin and death. He looked about the empty, twilit valley with a kind of puzzled surprise, such as a malicious child might feel, on holding a burning torch to a rick or thatch, to find that it caught slowly and did not on the instant blaze up to match the idea he had formed in his mind. Was desperation, then, so slow a business?

From the hillside he heard his name called and, turning, saw the tall shape of Rantzay striding down, with six or seven of the girls. At once his apprehension left him and he went to meet them, clear in mind and purposeful.

'Zilthe* has told us, my lord, how Lord Shardik struck down the traitor from Ortelga. Is all well? Where are the Tuginda and the young baron?'

'They – they have returned together down the valley. The army has already set out and they have gone to join it. It is Lord Shardik's will to join the march on Bekla. We have to carry out that will, you and I, and there is no time to be lost.' 'What are we to do, my lord?'

'Have you still got the sleeping-drug in the camp – the drug which was used to heal Lord Shardik?'

'We have that and other drugs, my lord, but none in great quantity.'

'There may well be enough. You are to seek out Lord Shardik and drug him insensible. How can it best be done?'

'He may take it in food, my lord. If not, we shall have to wait until he sleeps and then pierce him. That would be very dangerous, though it could be attempted.'

'You have until sunset. If by some means or other he can be brought near this place, so much the better. Indeed, he must not fall asleep in thick forest, or all may fail.'

Rantzay frowned and shook her head at the difficulty of the task. She was about to speak again, but Kelderek forestalled her.

'It must be attempted, Rantzay. If it is God's will – and I know that it is – you will succeed. At all costs, Lord Shardik must be drugged insensible by sunset.'

At that moment they became aware of a confused noise, far off and still so faint as to be audible only between the gusts of the dawn breeze. As they listened it grew louder, until they could discern metallic sounds and human voices, a shouted order, a snatch of song. At length in the growing light they saw, far below them, a slowly-moving, dusty line, creeping on like a thread of spilt water across a paved floor. The vanguard of Ta-Kominion's army was coming up the valley.

Kelderek spoke quickly. 'Only put aside doubt, Rantzay, and act out of a true belief that this can be achieved, and all will be well. I am going down to meet Lord Ta-Kominion. I shall return later and you will find me here. Sheldra and Neelith, come with me.'

As he strode downhill between the two silent girls, with the sound of the marching tumult coming up to meet him, he felt his inward prayers turned back upon himself. Whether or not he had been right could be revealed only by the outcome. Yet Ta-Kominion was certain that it was Shardik's divine purpose to lead the army to victory. 'We'll rule in Bekla, you and I.' 'And when that day comes,' he thought, 'no doubt the Tuginda will understand that all was for the best.'

18 Rantzay

On the edge of the forest, Rantzay knelt over the tracks showing faintly in the hard ground. They led westward, into thick undergrowth, and where they disappeared the bark of a kalmet tree had been slashed white, high up, by the bear's claws. She knew that it was not two hours since Shardik had deliberately lain in wait for and killed a man. In this mood he might well kill again – might lie in wait for those who tracked him or steal, elusive and silent, through the woods until he was behind them and the pursuers became the pursued.

The strain of the past month had told increasingly upon the priestess. She was the oldest of the women who had followed Shardik down Ortelga and across the Telthearna strait, and though her belief in his divine power was untouched by the least doubt, she had felt also – more and more as the days went by – the hardship of the life and the continual fear of death. The young risk their lives heedlessly – often actually for sport – but their ciders, even while they may grow in humility and selflessness, grow also in prudence and in regard for their own lives, those little portions of time in which they hope to create something fit to be offered at last to God. Rantzay, novice mistress and Warden of the Ledges, had not, like Melathys, been caught unawares by the sudden coming of Shardik like a thief in the night. From the moment when the Tuginda's message had reached Quiso, she had known what would be required of her. Since then, day after day, she had been driving her gaunt and ageing body over the rocky hillsides and through the thickets of the island, struggling with her own fear even while she calmed some near-hysterical girl and persuaded her to take part once more in the Singing: or herself took the girl's place and felt yet again the slow response of her muscles to the bear's lithe, unpredictable movements. On Quiso Anthred, the woman struck down and killed among the trees by the shore, had been first her servant, then her pupil and finally her closest friend. Once, in a dream, she had embraced her as her own child and together they had dug up and burned that day in the rains, long ago, when Rantzay's disappointed father, frightened at last by her waking fits, her swoons and the voices that spoke and babbled from her at these rimes, had gone to the High Baron to offer to the Ledges his ugly, unmarriageablc tent-pole of a daughter. She had recalled the dream as she performed the traditional rite of burning Anthred's quiver, bow and wooden rings upon her grave by the Telthearna strait

By what means was Shardik to be brought into the open and drugged insensible: and if the means she chose were faulty, how many lives would be lost with nothing to show? She returned to the girls, who were standing together a little way off, looking down into the valley. 'When did he last eat?'

'No one has seen him eat, madam, since he left Ortelga yesterday morning.'

"Then he is likely to be looking for food now. The Tuginda and Lord Kelderek say that he is to be drugged.'

'Can we not follow him, madam,' said Nito, 'and put down meat or fish with tessik hidden in it?'

'Lord Kelderek says he must not fall asleep in the thick forest If it can be accomplished, he is to return here.'

'He will hardly return here, madam,' said Nito, nodding her head towards the road below.

At the foot of the slope fires were already burning and the sounds came up of many men at work; sudden cries of urgency or warning, the flat ringing of a hammer on iron, the gushing of flame fanned by a bellows, the rasp of a saw, the tap-tap-tap of a mallet and chisel. They could see Kelderek going from one group to another, conferring, pointing, nodding his head while he talked. As they watched, Sheldra left his side and came climbing quickly towards them. Impassive as usual, she showed no excitement or breathlessness as she stood before Rantzay and raised her palm to her forehead.

'Lord Kelderek asks whether Shardik has yet gone far and what is to be done?'

'He may well ask – and he a hunter. Does he think Shardik is likely to stay near that stinking smoke and tumult?'

'Lord Kelderek has ordered that some goats should be driven higher up the valley and tethered on the edge of the forest He hopes that if Lord Shardik can be prevented from hunting or feeding elsewhere, he may perhaps make his way towards them and that you may find means, madam, to drug him there.'

'Go back and tell Lord Kelderek that if it can be done we will find a way to do it, with God's help. Zilth?, Nito; go back to the camp and bring up what meat you can find and all the tcssik that is there – the green leaves as well" as the dried powder. And you are to bring the other drug too – the theltocarna.'

'But theltocarna can be administered only in a wound, madam, and not in food: it must be mingled with the blood.'

'I know that as well as you,' snapped Rantzay, 'and I have already told you to bring it. There are six or seven gall-bladders packed with moss in a wooden box with a sealed lid. Handle it carefully – the bladders must not be broken. I will send back one of the other girls to meet you here and bring you on to join us, wherever we may be.'

The long and dangerous search for Shardik, westward through the forest, continued until after noon, and when at last Zilthe" came running between the trees to say that she had caught sight of the bear prowling along the bank of a stream not far away, Rantzay already felt herself on the point of collapse from strain and fatigue. She followed the girl slowly through a grove of myrtles and out into an expanse of tall, yellow grass buzzing with insects in the sun. Here Zilthe pointed to the bank of the stream.

Shardik gave no sign that he had seen them. He was fishing -splashing in and out of the water and every now and then scooping out a fish to flap and jump on the stony bank before he held it down and ate it in two or three bites. Watching him, Rantzay's heart sank. To approach him was more than she dared attempt. The girls, she knew, would not refuse to obey her if she ordered them to do it But what end would it serve? Suppose they could, somehow, succeed in startling him from the brook, what then? How were they to drive or entice him to return in the direction from which he had come?

She went back to the trees and lay prone, her chin propped on her hands. The girls, gathering about her, waited for her to speak, but she said nothing. The shadows moved over the ground before her eyes and the flies settled at the corners of her mouth. The heat was intense but she gave no sign of discomfort only now and then standing up to look at the bear and then lying down as before.

At length Shardik left the stream and stretched himself out in a patch of great hemlock plants not far from where the priestess was lying. She could hear the hollow sound of the stems as they snapped and sec the white umbels of bloom toppling and falling as the bear rolled among them. The silence returned, and with it the weight of her impossible task and the agony of her determination. In her perplexed exhaustion she thought with envy of her friend, free at last from every burden – from the laborious dedication of the Ledges and the continual fatigue and fear of the last weeks. If one had power to change the past – it was a favourite fantasy with her, though one which she had never shared, even with Anthred. If she had power to change the past at what point would she enter it, to do so? At that night on the beach o? Quiso, a month ago? This time she would not guide them inland, but turn them back, the night-messengers, the heralds of Shardik.

It was dark. It was night. She and Anthred were standing once more on the stony beach with the flat, green lantern between them, splashing the shallow water with their staves.

'Go back!' she cried into the darkness. 'Go back, return whence you came! You should never have come here! I – yes, I myself – am the voice of God and that is the message I am sent to deliver to you!'

She felt Anthred clutch at her arm, but pushed her aside. The windless, moonless darkness was thick about them: only the sky retained a faint trace of light. Something was approaching, splashing slowly and heavily towards the shore. A huge, black shape loomed above her, its lowered head turning from side to side, the mouth open, the breath foetid and rank. She faced it imperiously. Once she and it had gone their several ways, then – ah! then she would return with Anthred to find her girlhood, to turn its course away from Quiso for ever. She raised her arm and was about to speak again, but the presence, with a soft, shaggy slapping of wet feet on the shore, passed by her and was gone into the wooded island.

There was a blinding light and a noise of scolding birds. Rantzay looked about her in bewilderment. She was standing knee-deep in the dry, tawny grass. The sun was thinly covered with a fleece of cloud and suddenly a long, distant roll of thunder ran round the edge of the sky. Some insect had stung her on the neck and her fingers, as she drew them across the place, came away smeared with blood. She was alone. Anthred was dead and she herself was standing in the dried-up, bitter forest south of the Telthearna. The tears flowed silently down her haggard, dusty face as she bent forward, supporting herself upon her staff.

After a few moments she bit hard upon her hand, drew herself up and gazed about her. Some distance away, Nito looked out from among the trees and then approached, staring at her incredulously.

'Madam – what – the bear – what have you done? Are you unharmed? Wait – lean on me. I – oh, I was afraid – I am so much afraid -' 'The bear?' said Rantzay. 'Where is the bear?'

As she spoke, she noticed for the first time a broad path flattened through the grass beside her and on it, here and there, the tracks of Shardik, broader than roof-tiles. She bent down. The smell of the bear was plain. It could have passed only since she had last seen it among the hemlocks. Dazed, she raised her hands to her face and was about to ask Nito what had happened, when she became conscious of yet one more bodily affliction. Her tears fell again – tears of shame and degradation.

'Nito, I – I am going down to the stream. Go and tell the girls to follow Lord Shardik at once. Then wait for me here. You and I will overtake them.'

In the water she stripped and washed her body and fouled clothes as well as she could. On Quiso it had been easier; often Anthred had been able to perceive when one of her fits was coming on and had contrived to help her to save her dignity and authority. Now there was not one of the girls whom she could think of as her friend. Looking back, she caught a glimpse of Nito loitering discreetly among the trees. She would know what had happened, of course, and tell others.

They must not be too long in catching up. Left to themselves the girls would not be steady, and if by some incredible stroke of fortune Shardik were indeed to return whence he had come, nevertheless without herself they could not be relied upon to do their utmost -to death if necessary – to carry out the Tuginda's instructions.

She and Nito had not gone far when she realized that the fit had left her dulled and stupefied. She longed to rest Perhaps, she thought Shardik would stop or turn aside before the evening, and Lord Kelderek would be forced to allow them another day. But each time they came up with one or other of the girls waiting to show them the direction, the news was that the bear was still wandering slowly south-eastward, as though making for the hill-country below Gelt

Evening came on. Rantzay's pace had become a limping hobble from one tree-trunk to the next; yet still she exhorted Nito to keep her eyes open, to make sure of the right way forward and to call from time to time in hope of hearing a reply from ahead. Vaguely, she was aware of twilight, of the fall of darkness and later of moonlight among the trees; of intermittent thunder, far off, and of swift momentary gusts of wind. Once she saw Anthred standing among the trees and was about to speak to her when her friend smiled, laid a ringed finger to her lips and disappeared.

At last in clear moonlight at some mid hour of the night she looked about her and realized that she had caught up with the girls. They were standing close together, in a whispering group; but as she approached, leaning on Nito's arm, they all turned towards her and fell silent To her their silence seemed full of dislike and resentment. If she had hoped for comradeship or sympathy at the end of this bitter journey, she was clearly to be disappointed. Handing her staff to Nito she drew herself up, almost crying out as she put her full weight upon the broken-blistered soles of her feet 'Where is Lord Shardik?*

'Close at hand, madam – not a bowshot away. He has been sleeping since moonrise.'

'Who is that?' said Rantzay, peering. 'Sheldra? I thought you were with Lord Kelderek. How do you come to be here? Where are we?'

'We are a little higher up the valley that you left this morning, madam, and on the edge of the forest. Zilthe came down to the camp to tell Lord Kelderek that Shardik had returned, but she was exhausted, so he sent me back instead of her. He says that Lord Shardik must be drugged tonight.' 'Has any attempt been made to drug him?' No one replied. 'Well?'

'We have done all we could, madam,' said another of the girls. 'We prepared two haunches of meat with tessik and placed them as close to him as we dared, but he would not touch them. There is no more tessik. We can only wait until he wakes.'

'Before I left Lord Kelderek, madam,' said Sheldra, 'a messenger arrived from Gelt, from Lord Ta-Kominion. He sent word that he expected to fight the day after tomorrow and that Shardik must come no matter what the cost. His words were, "The hours now are more precious than stars." '

From the hills to southward the lightning flickered between the trees. Rantzay limped the few yards to the edge of the forest and looked out across the valley. The sound of the brook below wavered on the air. Away to her left she could see the fires of the camp where the Tuginda and Kelderek must at this moment be waiting for news. She thought of the black shape that had passed her in the noon-day night, through the watery shallows of the grass; and of Anthred smiling among the trees, her hands adorned with the plaited rings that she herself had burned by the shore. These signs were clear enough. The situation was, in fact, a simple one. All that was required was a priestess who knew her duty and was capable of carrying it out with resolution.

She returned to the girls. They drew back from her, staring silently in the dimness. 'You say Lord Shardik is close at hand. Where?'

Someone pointed. 'Go and make sure that he is still sleeping,* said Rantzay. 'You should not have left him unwatched. You are all to blame.' 'Madam -'

'Be silent!' said Rantzay. 'Nito, bring me the box of theltocarna.'

She drew her knife and tested it. The sharp edge sliced lightly through a leaf held between her finger and thumb, while the point, with the least pressure upon it, almost pierced the skin of her wrist. Nito was standing before her with the wooden box. Rantzay stared coldly down at the girl's trembling fingers and then at the knife held motionless in her own steady hand. 'Come with me. You too, Sheldra.' She took the box.

She remembered the last time that she and Anthred had walked through fire, in the courtyard of the Upper Temple, on the night when they had led Kelderek to the Bridge of the Suppliants. There was an unreality about the memory, as though it were not hers but some other woman's. The night-sounds seemed magnified about her. The dry forest echoed through caves of dripping water and her body felt like a mass of hot sand. These were symptoms she recognized. She would need to be quick. Her fear was somewhere behind her, searching for her, overtaking her among the trees.

The bear was stretched on its side in a thicket of cenchulada saplings, two of which he had pushed down and snapped in making a place to sleep. A few feet away lay one of the haunches of meat. Whoever had put it there had not lacked courage. The huge mass of the body was dappled with moonlight and leaf-shadows. The shaggy flank, rising and falling in sleep and overlaid with the speckled, moving light, appeared like a dark plain of grass. Before the half-open, breathing mouth the leaves on one of the broken branches sdrred and glistened. The claws of one extended fore-paw were curved upward. Rantzay stood a few moments, gazing as though at a deep, swift river into which she must now plunge and drown. Then, motioning the girls away, she stepped forward.

She was standing against the ridge of Shardik's back, looking over his body, as though from behind an earthwork, at the restless, wind-moved forest. The thunder muttered in the hills and Shardik stirred, twitched one ear and then once more lay still.

Rantzay thrust her left hand deep into the pelt. She could not lay bare the skin and began cutting away the oily hair, matted and full of parasites as a sheep's fleece. Her own hands were trembling now and she worked faster, lifting each handful carefully, cutdng and then drawing it away from under the sharp knife.

Soon she had cut a wide, bristling patch across the shoulder, almost baring the grey, salt-flaked skin. Two or three veins ran across it, one thick enough to reveal the slow beating of the pulse.

Rantzay turned and stooped for the box beside her. Taking out two of the little, oiled bladders, she placed them between the fingertips of her left hand. Then she drove the point of the knife into the bear's shoulder and drew the blade back towards her, opening a gash half as long as her own forearm. Smoothly, without a pause, she pushed the bladders into it, drew the edges of the incision over them, pressed downwards and felt them crush inside.

With a snarl, Shardik threw back his head and rose upon his hind legs. Rantzay, flung to the ground, got up and stood facing him. For a moment it seemed that he would strike her down. Then, lurching forward, he crushed her against his body. A few steps he carried her, hanging grotesquely in his grip. Then, letting her drop, limp as an old garment fallen from a line, he staggered out to the open slope beyond the trees. He rolled on the ground and froth flew from his mouth as he bit and tore at the grass.

Sheldra was the first to reach the priestess. Her left hand had been gashed by her own knife, her tongue protruded and her head lay grotesquely upon her shoulder, like that of a hanged man. When Sheldra put one arm beneath her and tried to raise her a terrible, crackling sound came from the broken body. The girl laid her back and for a moment she opened her eyes. 'Tell the Tuginda – did what she said -'

Blood gushed from her mouth and when it ceased her gaunt, bony body vibrated very lightly, like the surface of a pool fluttered by the wings of a trapped fly. The movement ceased and Sheldra, perceiving that she was dead, drew off her wooden rings, picked up the box of theltocarna and the fallen knife and made her way out to the slope where Shardik lay insensible.

19 Night Messengers

The cage had taken all day to complete – if complete it were. On hearing his orders Baltis, the master smith, had shrugged his shoulders, making light of Kelderek, whom he had heard of as a simple young fellow with neither family, wealth nor craft – for in his eyes hunters were not craftsmen. He and his men, being armed with excellent weapons of their own making, had supposed that they were about to play their part in the sack of Bekla – or at any rate the sack of Gelt – and took it ill to be called out of the march and put back on their accustomed work. Kelderek, having tried in vain to bring home to the great, lumbering fellow the vital importance of what he had to do, went back to Ta-Kominion, catching him just as he was about to set out with the advance guard. Ta-Kominion, cursing with impatience, summoned Baltis to him under the tree which bore the body of Fassel-Hasta and promised him that if the cage were not complete by nightfall he should hang like the baron. This was talk that Baltis could understand clearly enough, and he immediately asked for double the number of men he expected to get Ta-Kominion, being in too much haste to argue, allowed him fifty, including two rope-makers, three wheelwrights and five carpenters. As the army wound away up the valley in the thickening, sultry morning, Kelderek and Baltis fell to their work.

Messengers were sent back to Ortelga and before midday all the stored fuel on the island, much of its stock of sawn timber and every piece of forged iron had been carried up to the camp by women and boys. The iron was of different lengths and thicknesses, much of it too short to be of use except as pieces for welding. Baltis set his men to make three axles and as many iron bars as possible, the latter to be of equal length and thickness, pointed and pierced at both ends. Meanwhile the carpenters and wheelwrights, using seasoned wood, some of which had until that morning formed part of the walls, roofs and tables of Ortelga, built a heavy platform of strutted planks, which they raised with levers and mounted upon six spokeless wheels, solid wood to the rims.

By evening Baltis' men had forged, welded or cut sixty bars -disparate, rough-edged things, yet serviceable enough to be driven point-first through the holes drilled round the edges of the platform and then secured with iron pins.

'The roof will have to be wooden too,' said Baltis, looking at the poles sticking up out of the planks and pointing this way and that like a bed of reeds. 'There's no more iron, young man, and none to be had, so no use to fret over it.'

'A wooden roof will shake to pieces,' said the master-carpenter. 'It'll not hold the bear, not if he goes to break it'

'It's not work to be done in a day,' growled Baltis. 'No, not in three days. A cage to hold a bear? I was the first to see Lord Shardik come ashore yesterday morning, barring that poor devil Lukon and his mate -'

'How's the bear to be brought to the cage?' interrupted the carpenter. 'Ah, that's more than we know

'You are here to obey Lord Ta-Kominion,' said Kelderek. 'It is the will of God that Lord Shardik is to conquer Bekla; and that you will see with your own eyes. Make the roof of wood if it must be so, and bind the whole cage round with rope, twisted tight'

The work was finished at last by torchlight and Kelderek, when he had dismissed the men to cat, remained alone with Sheldra and Neelith, peering and probing, kicking at the wheels, fingering the axle-pins and finally testing each of the six bars set aside to close the still open end.

'How is he to be released, my lord?' asked Neelith. 'Is there to be no door?'

'The time is too short to make a door,' answered Kelderek. 'When the hour comes to release him, we shall be shown the way.'

'He must be kept drugged, my lord, as long as possible,' said Sheldra, 'for neither that nor any other cage will hold Lord Shardik if he is minded otherwise.'

'I know it,' said Kelderek. 'We might as well have made a cart to put him in. If only we knew where he is -'

He broke off as Zilthe came limping into the torchlight, raised her palm to her forehead and at once sank to the ground.

'Forgive me, lord,' she said, drawing her bow from her shoulder and laying it beside her. 'We have been following Lord Shardik all day and I am exhausted – with fear even more than with fatigue. He went far -' 'Where is he?' interrupted Kelderek.

'My lord, he is sleeping on the edge of the forest, not an hour from here.'

'God be praised!' cried Kelderek, clapping his hands together. 'I knew it was His will!'

'It was Rantzay, my lord, who brought him back,' said the girl, staring up at Kelderek as though even now afraid. 'We came upon him at noon, fishing in a stream. He lay down near the bank and we dared not approach him. But after a long time, when it seemed that there was nothing to be done, Rantzay, without telling us what she intended, suddenly stood up and went out into the open where Lord Shardik could sec her. She called him. My lord, as I live, she called him and he came to her! We all fled in terror, but she spoke to him in a strange and dreadful voice, rebuking him and telling him to return, for he should never have come so far, she said. And Shardik obeyed her, my lord! He passed by her, where she stood. He made his way back at her command.'

'God's will indeed,' said Kelderek with awe, 'and all that we have done is right. Where is Rantzay now?'

'I do not know, my lord,' said Zilthd, almost weeping. 'Nito told us we were to follow Lord Shardik and that Rantzay would overtake us. But she did not, and it is many hours now since we last saw her.'

Kelderek was about to send Sheldra up the valley when a challenge and answer sounded from further along the road. After a pause they heard footsteps and Numiss appeared. He, too, was exhausted; and did not ask Kelderek for leave to sit before flinging himself to the ground.

'I've come from beyond Gelt,' he said. 'We took Gelt easy – set it on fire – not much fighting but we killed the chief and after that the rest of 'em were willing enough to do what Lord Ta-Kominion told 'em. He talked to some of 'cm alone and I dare say he asked them what they knew about Bekla – how to get there and all the rest of it. Anyway, whatever it was -'

'If he gave you a message, tell me that,' said Kelderek sharply. 'Never mind what you heard or suppose.'

'This is the message, sir. "I expect to fight the day after tomorrow. The rains can be no later and now the hours are more precious than stars. Bring Lord Shardik no matter what the cost." '

Kelderek jumped up and began pacing to and fro beside the cage, biting his lip and smidng his clenched fist into his palm. At length, recovering himself, he told Sheldra to go and find Rantzay and, if Shardik had been drugged, to bring back word at once. Then, fetching some brands to start a fire, he sat down by the cage, with Numiss and the two girls, to wait for news. None spoke, but every now and again Kelderek would look up, frowning, to mark the slow time from the wheeling stars.

When at last Zilthe started and laid a hand on his arm, he had heard nothing. He turned to meet her eyes and she stared back at him, holding her breath, her face half fire-lit, half in shadow. He too listened, but could hear only the flames, the fitful wind and a man coughing somewhere in the camp behind them. He shook his head but she nodded sharply, stood up and motioned him to follow her along the road. Watched by Neelith and Numiss they set off into the darkness, but had gone only a little way when she stopped, cupped her hands and called, 'Who's there?'

The reply, 'Nito!', was faint but clear enough. A few moments later Kelderek caught at last the girl's light tread and went forward to meet her. It was plain that in her haste and agitation she had fallen – perhaps more than once. She was begrimed, dishevelled and grazed across the knees and one forearm. Her breath came in sobs and they could see the tears on her cheeks. He called to Numiss and together they supported her as far as the fire.

The camp was astir. Somehow the men had guessed that news was at hand. Several were already waiting beside the cage and one spread his cloak for the girl across a pile of left-over planks, brought a pitcher and knelt down to wash her bleeding grazes. At the touch of the cold water she winced and, as though recalled to herself, began speaking to Kelderek.

'Shardik is lying insensible, my lord, not a bowshot from the road. He has been drugged with theltocarna – enough to kill a strong man. God knows when he will wake.' 'With theltocarna?' said Neelith, incredulously. 'But-'

Nito began to weep again. 'And Rantzay is dead – dead! Have you told Lord Kelderek how she spoke to Shardik beside the stream?' Zilthe nodded, staring aghast.

'When Shardik had passed her and gone, she stood for a time stricken, it seemed, as though, like a tree, she had called lightning down to her. Then we were alone, she and I, following the others as best we might. I could tell -I could tell that she meant to the, that she was determined to die. I tried to make her rest but she refused. It is not two hours since we returned at last to the edge of the forest All the girls could see her death upon her. It was drawn about her like a cloak. None could speak to her for pity and fear. After what we had seen by the stream at noon, any one of us would have died in her place; but it was as though she were already drifting away, as though she were on the water and we on the shore. We stood near her and she spoke to us, yet we were separated from her. She spoke and we were silent. Then, as she ordered, I gave her the box of theltocarna, and she walked up to Lord Shardik as though he were a sleeping ox. She cut him with a knife and mingled the theltocarna with his blood: and then, as he woke in anger, she stood before him yet again, with no more fear than she had shown at noon. And he clutched her, and so she died.' The girl looked about her. 'Where is the Tuginda?'

'Get the long ropes on the cage,' said Kelderek to Baltis, 'and set every man to draw it. Yes, and every woman too, except for those who carry torches. There is no time to be lost. Even now we may be too late to reach Lord Ta-Kominion.'

Less than three hours later the enormous bulk of Shardik, the head protected by a hood made from cloaks roughly stitched together, had been dragged with ropes down the slope and up a hastily-piled ramp of earth, stones and planks into the cage. The last bars had been hammered into place and the cage, hauled in front and pushed behind, was jolting and rocking slowly up the valley towards Gelt.

20 Gel-Ethlin

It could surely be no more than a day – two days at the most -thought Gel-Ethlin, to the breaking of the rains. For hours the thundery weather had been growing more and more oppressive, while rising gusts of warm wind set the dust swirling over the Beklan plain. Santil-ke-Erketlis, commander of the northern army of patrol, being taken sick with the heat, had left the column two days previously, returning to the capital by the direct road south and entrusting Gel-Ethlin, his second-in-command, with the task of completing the army's march to Kabin of the Waters, down through Tonilda and dience westward to Bekla itself. This would be a straightforward business – a fortification to be repaired here, a few taxes to be collected there, perhaps a dispute or two to be settled and, of course, the reports to be heard of local spies and agents. None of these matters was likely to be urgent and, since the army was already a day or two behind time for its return to Bekla, Santil-ke-Erketlis had told Gel-Ethlin to break off as soon as the rains began in earnest and take the most direct route back from wherever he happened to find himself.

'And high time too,' thought Gel-Ethlin, standing beside his command banner with the falcon emblem, to watch the column go past. 'They've marched enough. Half of them are in no sort of condition. The sooner they get back to rain-season quarters the better. If the stagnant water fever hit them now they'd go down in cursing rows.'

He looked northward, where the plain met the foothills rising to the steep, precipitous ridges above Gelt. The sky-line, dark and threatening, with cloud hiding the summits, appeared to Gel-Ethlin full of promise – the promise of early relief. With luck their business could be decently cut short in Kabin and one forced march, with the rains and the prospect of home-coming to spur them on, would see them safely in Bekla within a couple of days.

The two Beklan armies of patrol – the northern and the southern -customarily remained in the field throughout the summer, when the risk was greatest of rebellion or, conceivably, of attack from a neighbouring country. Each army completed, twice, a roughly semicircular march of about two hundred miles along the frontiers. Sometimes detachments saw action against bandits or raiders, and occasionally the force might be ordered to make a punitive raid across a border, to demonstrate that Bekla had teeth and could bite. But for the most part it was routine stuff – training and manoeuvres, intelligence work, tax collection, escorting envoys or trade caravans, road and bridge mending; and most important of all, simply letting themselves be seen by those who feared them only less than they feared invasion and anarchy. Upon the onset of the rains, the northern army returned to winter in Bekla, while the southern took up its quarters in Ikat Yeldashay, sixty miles to the south. The following summer the roles of the armies were reversed.

No doubt the southern army was already back in Ikat, thought Gel-Ethlin enviously. The southern army had the easier task of the two; their route of march was less exhausting and the dry season was less trying a hundred miles to the south. Nor was it only a question of work and conditions. Although Bekla was, of course, a city beyond compare, he himself had found, last winter, an excellent reason – in fact, for a soldier, a most time-honoured and attractive (if somewhat expensive) reason – for preferring Ikat Yeldashay.

The Tonildan contingent, a particularly sorry-looking lot, were marching past now, and Gel-Ethlin called their captain out to explain why the men looked dirty and their weapons ill-cared for. The captain began his explanation – something about having had the command wished on him two days ago in place of an officer ordered to return with Santil-ke-Erketlis – and while he continued Gel-Ethlin, as was often his way, looked him sternly in the eye while thinking about something completely different.

At least this summer they had not had to go trapesing over the hills of Gelt and into the backwoods. Once, several years ago, when he was still a junior commander, he had served on an expedition to the south bank of the Telthearna; and a dismal, uncomfortable business it had been, camping among the gloomy forests, or commandeering flea-ridden quarters from some half-savage tribe of islanders living like frogs in the river mists. Fortunately the practice of sending Beklan troops as far as the Telthearna had almost ceased since their intelligence reports from the island – what the devil was it called? Itilga? Catalga? – had become so regular and reliable. One of the less ape-like barons was secretly in the pay of Bekla and apparently the High Baron himself was not averse to a little diplomatic bribery, provided a show was made of respecting his dignity and position, such as they were. During the recent summer marches Santil-ke-Erketlis had received two reports from this place. The first, duly passed on to headquarters at Bekla, had resulted in instructions being returned to the army that once again there was no need to send troops into inhospitable country so far afield. It had, in fact, contained nothing worse than news of an exceptionally widespread forest fire that had laid waste the further bank of the Telthearna. The second report had included some tale of a new tribal cult which it was feared might boil over into fanaticism, though the High Baron seemed confident of keeping it under control. Bekla's reactions to the second report had not yet found their way back to the northern army, but anyway, thank God, it was now too late in the season to think of sending even a patrol over the hills of Gelt. The rains were coming any day – any hour.

The officer had finished speaking and was now looking at him in silence. Gel-Ethlin frowned, gave a contemptuous snort, suggesting that he had never heard such unconvincing nonsense in his life, and said he would inspect the contingent himself next morning. The officer saluted and went off to rejoin his men.

At this moment a messenger arrived from the governor of Kabin, sixteen miles to the east. The governor sent word that he was worried lest the rains should begin and the army withdraw to Bekla before reaching him. During the past ten or twelve days the level of the Kabin reservoir, from which water was brought by canal sixty miles to Bekla, had sunk until the lower walls had become exposed and a section had cracked in the heat. If a disaster were to be prevented the repair work ought to be carried out at once, before the rains raised the level again: but to complete the job in a matter of a day or two was beyond local resources.

Gel-Ethlin could recognize an emergency when he was faced with one. He sent at once for his most reliable senior officer and also for a certain Captain Han-Glat, a foreigner from Terckenalt, who knew more than anyone in the army about bridges, dams and soil movement. As soon as they appeared he told them what had happened and gave them a free hand to select the fittest troops, up to half the total strength, for a forced march to Kabin that night. As soon as possible after getting there they were to make a start on repairing the reservoir. He himself, with the rest of the men, would join them before evening of the following day.

By late afternoon they were gone, the soldiers grumbling but at least not mutinous. There was a good deal of limping and their pace was slow. Still, that was less worrying than the thought of the probable condition they would be in when they got to Kabin. Presumably, however, Han-Glat would need a few hours to survey the reservoir and decide what needed to be done, and this in itself would give them some rest. At any rate he, Gel-Ethlin, could hardly be criticized by headquarters in Bekla for the way he had gone about the matter. As night fell he went the rounds of the sentries and bivouacs – a shorter task than usual, with his command down to half-strength – heard the casualty reports and authorized a handful of genuinely sick men to be sent back to Bekla by ox-cart; ate his supper, played three games of tvari with his staff captain (at which he lost fifteen meld) and went to bed.

The following morning he was up so early that he had the satisfaction of rousing some of his officers in person. But the low spirits of the men gave him much less satisfaction". The news had got round that they were in for not only a forced march to Kabin, rains or no rains, but also for plenty of work when they got there. Even the best troops are apt to take it hard when ordered to do something arduous after having been led to believe that their work is virtually finished, and Gel-Ethlin had deliberately retained his second-best. Himself a sturdy, energetic man, staunch in adversity, he could hardly contain his annoyance at the stupidity of the soldiers in being unable to realize the serious nature of the news from Kabin. It was only with difficulty that three or four of his senior officers were able to convince him that it was hardly to be expected that they would.

'It's a curious thing, sir,' said Kapparah – a leathery fifty-five-year-old who had survived a lifetime's campaigning and prudently turned all the loot that had stuck to his fingers into farmland on the borders of Sarkid – 'it's always struck me as a curious thing, that when you're asking men to give a little extra, the amount they're genuinely able to give depends on the reason. If it's defending their homes, for instance, or fighting for what they believe is theirs by right, they'll find themselves able to do almost anything. In fact, if it's a matter of any sort of fighting, they're nearly always able to give a good deal. They can understand that, you see, and no one wants his mates to think he's a coward, or that he dropped out while they went on. Those kinds of thoughts are like keys to a secret armoury. A man doesn't know what he's got inside until the key opens it. But to repair the reservoir at Kabin – no, they can't grasp the importance of that, so it's a key that doesn't fit the lock. It's not wont, sir, it's can't, you know.'

The camp had been struck, the columns were drawn up ready to march and the pickets, who had been fed and inspected at their posts, were being called in last of all, when the guard commander brought in a limping, blood-stained hill-man. He was little more than a boy, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, staring about him and continually raising one hand to his mouth as he licked the bleeding gash across his knuckles. Two soldiers had him under the armpits or he might well have turned tail.

'Refugee, sir,' said the guard commander, saluting Bekla-fashion, with his right forearm across his chest, 'from the hills. Talking about some sort of trouble at Gelt, sir, as near as I can make him out.'

'Can't stop for that sort of thing now, guard commander,' said Gel-Ethlin. 'Turn the fellow loose and get your men fallen in.'

Released by the soldiers, the hill-man at once fell on his knees in front of Kapparah, whom he probably took for the senior officer present. He had babbled a few words in broken Beklan – some-thing about 'bad men' and 'fire' – when Kapparah stopped him by speaking to him in his own language. There followed a swift dialogue of question and answer so incisive and urgent that Gel-Ethlin thought it better not to interrupt. Finally Kapparah turned to him.

'I think we'd better get the whole story out of this man before we set off for Kabin, sir,' he said. 'He keeps saying Gelt's been taken and burned by an invading army and he will have it that they're on their way down here.'

Gel-Ethlin threw out his hands with a questioning look of mock forbearance and the other officers, who did not particularly like Kapparah, smiled sycophantically.

'You know what we're up against at Kabin, Kapparah. This is hardly the time -' He broke off and began again. 'Some terrified peasant lad from the hills who'll say anything

'Well, that's just it, sir; he's not a peasant lad. He's the chief's son, run for his life, it seems. 'Says the chief's been murdered by fanatics in some religious war they've started.' 'How do we know he's the chief's son?' 'By the tattooing on his arms, sir. He'd never dare to have that done just to deceive people.' 'Where are these invaders supposed to have come from? 'From Ortelga, sir, he says.'

'From Ortelga?' said Gel-Ethlin. 'But at that rate we should have heard-'

Kapparah said nothing and Gel-Ethlin thought the problem over quickly. It was an awkward one. In spite of there having been no recent report from Ortelga, it was just possible that some sort of tribal raid really was going to be made on the Beklan plain. If it took place after he had marched away to Kabin, ignoring a tribesman's warning uttered in the hearing of his senior officers – and if lives were lost – He broke off this train of thought and started another. If the great reservoir were breached and ruined in the rains for lack of an adequate labour force, after he had marched away towards Gelt on the strength of a hysterical report made by a native youth in the hearing of his senior officers – He stopped again. They were all looking at him and waiting.

'Bring the boy to that shed over there,' said Gel-Ethlin. 'Let the men fall out, but see that they stay in their companies.'

Half an hour later he had concluded that the story was one that he could not ignore. Washed and fed, the youth had recovered himself and spoken with restraint and dignity of his own loss, and with consistency of the danger that was threatening. It was a curious and yet convincing talc. An enormous bear, he said, had appeared on Ortelga, probably fugitive from the fire beyond the Telthearna. Its appearance was believed by the islanders to herald the fulfilment of a prophecy that Bekla would one day fall to an invincible army from the island and had started a rising, led by a young baron, in which the previous ruler and certain others had been cither killed or driven out. Gel-Ethlin perceived that this, if true, would account for the failure of the Beklan army's normal flow of intelligence. Yesterday afternoon, the youth continued, the Ortelgans had suddenly appeared in Gelt, set it on fire and murdered the chief before he could organize any defence of the town. Fanatical and undisciplined, they had swept through the place and apparently subdued the townspeople altogether. Several of the latter, their homes and means of livelihood destroyed, had actually joined the Ortelgans for what they could get. Surely, said the young man, there could never have been men more eager than the Ortelgans to go upon their ruin. They believed that the bear was the incarnation of the power of God, that it was marching with them, invisibly, night and day, that it could appear and disappear at will and that it would in due course destroy their enemies as fire burns stubble. On the orders of their young leader – who was evidently both brave and able, but appeared to be ill – they had thrown a ring of sentries round Gelt to prevent any news getting out. The youth, however, had climbed down a sheer precipice by night, escaping with no more than a badly-gashed hand, and then, knowing the passes well, had come over twenty miles during six hours of darkness and daybreak.

'What a damned nuisance!' said Gel-Ethlin. 'Which way does he think they're likely to come, and when?'

The young man apparently thought it certain that they would come by the most direct route and as quickly as they could. Indeed, it was probable that they had already started. Setting aside their eagerness to fight, they had little food with them, for there was virtually none to be commandeered in Gelt. They would have to fight soon or be forced to disperse for supplies.

Gel-Ethlin nodded. This agreed with all his own experience of rebels and peasant irregulars. Either they fought at once or else they fell to pieces.

'They don't sound likely to get far, sir,' said Balaklesh, who commanded the Lapan contingent. 'Why not simply go on to Kabin and leave them to fall apart in the rains?'

As is often the way, the wrong advice immediately cleared Gel-Ethlin's mind and showed him what had to be done.

'No, that wouldn't do. They'd wander about for months, parties of brigands, murdering and looting. No village would be safe and in the end another army would have to be sent to hunt them down. Do you all believe the boy's telling no more than the truth?' They nodded. .'Then we must destroy them at once, or the villages will be saying that a Beklan army fell down on its job. And we must reach them before they get down the hill-road from Gelt and out on the plain – partly to stop them looting and partly because once they're on the plain they may go anywhere. We might lose track of them altogether and the men are in no state to go marching about in pursuit. There's even less time to be lost now than if we were going to Kabin. Kapparah, hang on to the lad; we'll need him as a guide. You'd all better go and tell your men that we've got to get to the hills by the afternoon. Balaklesh, you take a hundred reliable spearmen and start at once. Find us a good defensive position in the foothills, send back a guide and then push on and try to find out what the Ortelgans are doing.'

Within an hour the sky had clouded over from one horizon to the other and the west wind was blowing steadily. The red dust filled the soldiers' eyes, ears and nostrils and mingled grittily, beneath their clothes, with the sweat of their bodies. They marched with cloths or leather bound over mouths and noses, continually screwing up their eyes, unable to see the hills ahead, each company following that in front through the thick helter-skelter of dust which piled itself like snow along the windward sides of rocks, of banks, of the few sparse trees and huts along the way – and of men. It got into the rations and even into the wine-skins. Gel-Ethlin marched behind the column on the leeward flank, whence he could check the stragglers and keep them in some sort of order. After two hours he called a halt and re-formed the column in echelon, so that when they set out again each company was marching downwind of that immediately behind it. This, however, did little to relieve their discomfort, which was due less to the dust they raised themselves than to the storm blowing over the whole plain. Their pace diminished and it was not until a good three hours after noon that the leading company reached the edge of the plain and, having reconnoitred half a mile in either direction, found the road to Gelt where it wound up through the myrtle and cypress groves on the lower slopes.

About a thousand feet above the plain the road reached a level, green spot where the ghost of a waterfall trickled down into a rock-pool; and here, as they came up, the successive companies fell out, drank and lay down in the grass. Looking back, they could see the dust-storm on the plain below and their spirits rose to think that at least one misery was left behind. Gel-Ethlin, grudging the delay, urged his officers to get them on their feet again. The afternoon had set in dark and the wind over the plain was dropping. They stumbled on wearily, their footsteps, the clink of their arms and the occasional shouts of orders echoing from the crags about them.

It was not long before they came to a narrow gorge, where two officers of the advance party were awaiting them. Balaklesh, the officers reported, had found an excellent defensive position about a mile further up the road, beyond the mouth of the gorge, and his scouts had been out ahead of it for more than an hour. Gel-Ethlin went forward to meet him and see the position for himself. It was very much the sort of thing he had had in mind, an upland plateau about half a mile wide, with certain features favourable to disciplined troops able to keep ranks and stand their ground. Ahead, to the north, the road came curving steeply downhill round a wooded shoulder. On the right flank was thick forest and on the left a ravine. Through this bottleneck the advancing enemy must needs come. At the foot of the shoulder the ground became open and rose gently, among scattered crags and bushes, to a crest over which the road passed before entering the gorge. Balaklesh had chosen well. With the crags as natural defensive points and the slope in their favour, troops in position would take a great deal of dislodging and it would be extremely difficult for the enemy to fight their way as far as the crest. Yet unless they did so they could not hope to pursue their march down to the plain.

Gel-Ethlin drew up his line on the open slope, with the road running at right-angles through his centre. There would be no need for his weary men to break ranks or advance until the enemy had shattered themselves against his front.

Under the still thickening clouds, the lowest vapours of which were swirling close above them, they waited on through the clammy, twilit afternoon. From time to time there were rolls of thunder and once lightning struck in the ravine half a mile away, leaving a long, red streak like a weal down the grey rock. Somehow the men had got wind of the magic bear. The Yeldashay spearmen had already produced a doggerel ballad about its hyperbolical (and increasingly ribald) exploits; while at the other end of the line some regimental buffoon seized his chance, capering and growling in an old ox-hide, with arrow-heads for claws on his fingers' ends.

At last Gel-Ethlin, from his command post on the road half-way down the slope, caught sight of the scouts returning down the hill among the trees. Balaklesh, running, reached him quickly. They had, he reported, come very suddenly upon the Ortelgans, who were advancing so fast that they themselves, already tired, had barely been able to get back ahead of them. As he spoke, Gel-Ethlin and those about him could hear, from the woods above, the growing hubbub and clatter of the approaching rabble. With a last word about the supreme importance of not breaking ranks until ordered, he dismissed his officers to their posts.

Waiting, he heard drops of rain beating on his helmet but at first could feel none on his outstretched hand. Then, filling all the distance, an undulating gauze of rain came billowing over the edge of the ravine from the left. A moment later the view below became blurred and a kind of growling sigh rose from the lines of soldiers on either side. Gel-Ethlin took half-a-dozen steps forward, as though to see better through the moving mist of rain. As he did so a band of shaggy-haired men, half-savage in appearance and carrying various weapons, came tramping together round the curve of the road below and stopped dead at the sight of the Beklan army confronting them.

21 The Passes of Gelt

To burn Gelt had been no part of Ta-Kominion's intention. Nor could he find out who had done it, each of the barons denying all knowledge of how or where the fire had begun. Ta-Kominion, with his personal followers, had readied the wretched little square in the centre of the town to find two sides already ablaze, the body of the chief lying with a spear in the back and a crowd of Ortelgans looting and drinking. He and Zelda, with a handful of the steadier men, beat some sort of order into them and – there being no water in the place except what could be scooped from two wells and one shrunken mountain-brook – checked the fire by breaking up the huts down-wind and dragging away the posts and straw. It was Zelda who pointed out that at all costs they must prevent any of the townspeople from carrying the news down to the plain. Guards were set on all roads and paths leading out of the town, while a young man named Jurit, to whom Ta-Kominion had that morning given Fassel-Hasta's command, led a reconnoitring force down the steep southward road to find out what lay before them.

Ta-Kominion sat on a bench in one of the dim, fly-buzzing huts, trying to convince four or five frightened, speechless town elders that he meant them no harm. From time to time he broke off, frowning and groping for words as the walls swam before his eyes and the sounds from outside rose and fell in his cars like talk from beyond a door continually opening and closing. He moved restlessly, feeling as though his body were wrapped in stiff ox-hides. His wounded forearm throbbed and there was a tender swelling in his armpit. Opening his eyes, he saw the faces of the old men staring at him, full of wary curiosity.

He spoke of Lord Shardik, of the revealed destiny of Ortelga and the sure defeat of Bekla, and saw the dull disbelief and fear of reprisal and death which they could not keep from their eyes. At last one of them, shrewder perhaps than the rest, who must have been calculating the probable effect of what it had occurred to him to say, replied by telling him of the northern army of patrol under General Santil-ke-Erketlis which, if he were not mistaken – as well he might be, he added hastily, his cunning peasant's face assuming an expression of humility and deference – was due at this time to cross the plain below on its circuit to Kabin and beyond. Did the young lord mean to fight that army or would he seek to avoid it? Either way, it seemed best not to remain in Gelt, for the rains were due, were they not, and – he broke off, acting the part of one who knew his place and would not presume to advise the commander of so fine an army.

Ta-Kominion thanked him gravely, affecting not to be aware that it mattered little to those standing before him whether he went forward or back, so long as he left Gelt If the old man had meant to frighten him, he had reckoned without the blazing faith in Shardik that filled every heart in the Ortelgan army. Probably the elders supposed that he intended only to raid one or two villages in the plain and then escape back over the hills with his booty -weapons, cattle and women – covered from pursuit by the onset of the rains.

Ta-Kominion, however, had never from the outset intended other than to seek out and destroy all enemy forces, whatever their strength, that might lie between himself and Bekla. His followers, he knew, would be content with nothing less. They meant to fight as soon as possible, since they knew that they could not be defeated. Shardik himself had already shown them what became of his enemies, and to Shardik it would make no difference whether his enemies were treacherous Ortelgan barons or patrolling Beklan soldiers.

The thought of the Beklan army, with which the crafty elder of Gelt had thought to dismay him, filled Ta-Kominion only with a fierce and eager joy, restoring to him the will-power to drive on his sick body and feverish mind.

Bowing to the old men, he left the hut and paced slowly up and down outside, heedless of the stinking refuse and the scab-mouthed, mucous-eyed children begging among his soldiers. Not for one moment did it occur to him to deliberate whether or not he should fight. Lord Shardik and he himself had already decided upon that. But on him, as Shardik's general, fell the task of deciding when and where. Even this did not occupy him long, for all his thoughts led to one and the same conclusion – that they should march straight on towards Bekla and fight the enemy wherever they might meet him on the open plain. There was scarcely any food to be commandeered in Gelt and the events of the afternoon had shown him how little real control he had over his men. The rains might come at any hour and despite Zelda's cordon the news could not long remain secret that Gelt had fallen to the Ortelgans. More immediate than all these, because he felt it within his own body, was the knowledge that soon he might become incapable of leading the army. Once the battle was won his illness would matter little, but his collapse before they fought would bring to his men misgiving and superstitious dread. Besides, he alone must command the battle. How else to become lord of Bekla?

Where was the Beklan army and how soon could they hope to meet it? The elders had said that the distance to the plain was about a day's march, and he could expect the enemy to seek him out as soon as they had news of him. They would be as eager for battle as himself. In all probability, therefore, he could expect to fight on the plain not later than the day after tomorrow. This must be his plan. He could make no better, could only offer to Lord Shardik his courage and zeal to use as he would. And to Shardik it must remain to delay the rains and bring the Beklans in their path.

Where was Shardik and what, if anything, had Kelderek achieved since he left him? No two ways about it, the fellow was a coward: yet it mattered little, if only he could somehow or other contrive to bring the bear to the army before they fought. If they won – as win they would – if indeed they came at last to take Bekla itself – what would Kelderek's place be then? And the Tuginda -that futile yet disturbing woman, whom he had sent back to Quiso under guard – what was to be done with her? There could be no authority that did not acknowledge his own. Get rid of them both, perhaps, and in some way alter the cult of Shardik accordingly? Later there would be time to decide such things. All that mattered now was the approaching battle.

Feeling suddenly faint, he sat down upon the rubble of a burned hut to recover himself. If, he thought, this sickness had not left him by the time the battle was over, he would send for the Tuginda and offer to reinstate her on condition that she cured him. Meanwhile, he could only rely on Kelderek to exercise authority in her name. But it was important that the fellow should be urged on to complete his task.

He stood up, steadied himself against the still-standing door-post until the surge of giddiness had passed off, and then made his way back to the hut. The elders had left and, calling his servant Numiss, he gave him a brief message to carry to Kelderek, stressing that he expected to fight within two days. As soon as he had made sure that the man had his words by heart, he asked Zelda to see to his safe conduct through the pickets and himself lay down to sleep, giving orders that all was to be ready for the march to continue at dawn next day.

He slept heavily, undisturbed by the looting, raping and drunkenness that broke out again at nightfall and continued unchecked, none of the barons caring to run the risk of trying to stop it. When at last he woke, he knew at once that he was not merely ill, but worse than he had been in his life before. His arm was so swollen that the bandage was pressing into the flesh, yet he felt that he could not bear to cut it. His teeth chattered, his throat was so sore that he could scarcely swallow and as he sat up pain throbbed behind his eyes. He got up and staggered to the door. Gusts of warm wind were blowing from the west and the sky was thick with low cloud. The sun was not to be seen, but nevertheless he knew that it must be well after dawn. He leant against the wall, trying to summon the strength to go and rouse the men who should have been obeying his orders.

It was not until an hour before noon that the army at last set out Their pace was slow, several of the soldiers having burdened themselves with such loot as they had been able to come by – cooking-pots, mattocks, stools, the sorry and valueless possessions of men poorer than themselves. Many marched with aching heads and curdled stomachs. Ta-Kominion, no longer able to conceal his illness, walked in a confused and troubled dream. He scarcely remembered what had happened that morning, or what he had done to get the men on their feet He could recall the return of Numiss, with his report that Shardik had been drugged at the cost of a priestess's life. Kelderek, so the message ran, hoped to overtake them by nightfall. The last nightfall, thought Ta-Kominion, before the destruction of the Beklan army. When that was done, he would rest

The narrow road wound along the sides of steep, wooded ravines sheltered from the wind, against rock-faces where the brown ferns drooped for rain. For a long time the sound of an invisible torrent rose up from below, through mists that swirled hither and back, but dispersed no more than did the cloud above. All was solitude and echo, and soon the men ceased to sing, to jest or even to talk beyond a few words in low voices. One tattered fellow, loosing an arrow, hit a buzzard as it swooped above them and, proud of his marksmanship, slung the carcase round his neck until, as the parasites began to creep from the cooling body, he slung it over a precipice with a curse. Once or twice, looking out across the tops of trees, they caught glimpses of the plain below, and of tiny herds of cattle galloping among the windy dust-clouds. In superstitious dread of these wild hills they pressed on, many glancing uneasily about them and carrying their weapons drawn in their hands.

The straggling horde covered more than two miles of the track and there were no means of passing orders save by word of mouth. Between two and three hours after noon, however, when they had descended below the mists and the higher hills, a halt took place without any order being given, the several companies and bands coming up to find the vanguard fallen out and resting in an open wood. Ta-Kominion limped among the men, talking and joking with them as though in a trance, less to encourage than to let them see him and try to learn for himself what fettle they were in. Now that they had left the sheer solitudes which had disquieted and subdued them, tiieir ardour was returning and they seemed as eager as ever to join battle. Yet Ta-Kominion – who as a lad of seventeen had fought beside Bel-ka-Trazet at Clenderzard and three years later commanded the household company which his father had sent to Yelda to fight in the slave wars – could sense how green and unseasoned was their fervour. In one way, he knew, this might be counted to the good, for in their first battle men spend what they can never recover to spend again, so that that battle – even for those for whom it is not the last – may well be their best But the toll taken of such inexperienced fervour was likely to be high. From such troops little could be expected in the way of disciplined manoeuvre or steadiness under attack. The best way to use their rough, untrained quality would be simply to bring them quickly to the plain and let them assault the enemy in full strength and on open ground.

A spasm seized him and the trees before his eyes dissolved into circling shapes of yellow, green and brown. Somewhere far off, it seemed, rain was beating on the leaves. He listened, but then realized that the sound lay within his own ear, as full of pain as an egg is full of yolk. He had a fancy to break it open and watch the thick, fluid pain spill over the ground at his feet.

Someone was speaking to him. He opened his eyes yet once more and raised his head. It was Kavass, his father's fletcher, a decent, simple-minded man, who had taught him his archery as a boy. With him were four or five comrades who – or so it seemed to Ta-Kominion – had prevailed upon Kavass to come and ask the commander to settle some difference between them. The fletcher, who was tall, as tall as himself, was looking at him with respectful sympathy and pity. In reply he grimaced and then managed to force a wry smile.

'Touch of the fever, sir, eh?' said Kavass deferentially. Everything about him – his stance, his look and the sound of his voice -tended to confirm Ta-Kominion in his leadership and at the same time to emphasize their common humanity.

'Seems like it, Kavass,' he answered. His words boomed in his own head, but he could not tell whether in fact he was speaking loud or low. 'It'll pass off.' Clenching his teeth to stop them chattering, he missed what Kavass said next, and was about to turn away when he realized that they were all waiting for him to reply. He remained silent, but looked steadily at Kavass as though expecting him to say something more. Kavass seemed confused.

'Well, I only meant, sir – and no disrespect, I'm sure – when he came ashore that morning, when you was with him, whether he told you he'd appear again, like – that he'd be there to make sure we won the battle,' said Kavass.

Ta-Kominion continued to stare at him, guessing at his meaning. The men became uneasy.

'Nothing to do with us,' muttered one. 'I said as 'twas nothing to do with us.'

'Well, only it's like this, sir,' pursued Kavass. 'I was one of the first beside you that morning, and when Lord Shardik went over the water, you told us he knew Ortelga was as good as taken and he was off to Bekla – to show us the way, like. And what the lads was wondering, sir, was whether he's going to be there to win for us when we come to fight?'

'We're bound to win, aren't we, sir?' said another of the men. 'It's the will of Shardik – the will of God.'

'How do you know?' said a fourth, a surly, sceptical-looking fellow with blackened teeth. He spat on the ground. 'D'you think a bear talks, eh? 'Think a bear talks?'

'Not to you,' replied Kavass contemptuously. 'Of course he don't talk to the likes of you – or me either, for the matter of that. What I told you was that Lord Shardik had said we was to march on Bekla and that he was going there himself. So it stands to reason he's going to appear when we fight the battle. If you don't place no reliance on Lord Shardik, why are you here?'

'Well, it's all according, ain't it?' said the man with the blackened teeth. 'He might be there and then again he might not. All I said was, Bekla's a strong place. There's soldiers -'

'Be quiet!' cried Ta-Kominion. He walked across to the man as steadily as he was able, took his chin in his hand and lifted his head as he tried to focus his eyes on his face. 'You blasphemous fool! Lord Shardik can hear you now – and see you as well! But you will not see him until the appointed time, for he means to test your faith.'

The man, twenty years older than Ta-Kominion at least, stared back at him sullenly without a word.

'You can be sure of this,' said Ta-Kominion, in a voice that could be heard by everyone near by. 'Lord Shardik intends to fight for those that trust him. And he will appear when they fight – he will appear to those that deserve it! But not to those who deserve a wood-louse for a God.'

As he stumbled away he wondered yet again how long Kelderek would need to overtake them. If all went well it might be possible, while the army encamped that night, to discuss with Kelderek how best they could make use of Shardik. Whatever might be disclosed afterwards by Baltis and the other men who were now with Kelderek, Shardik must appear to the enemy in awe-inspiring power – he must not be displayed insensible and drugged. Also, it would be better to keep him away from the men altogether until he was revealed at the proper time, which would presumably be immediately before the battle. Yet Ta-Kominion knew that he himself would not be able to retrace even a mile of the road tonight. If Kelderek did not reach the army he would have to send Zelda back to find him and speak with him. As for himself, he could not go on much longer without a rest. He must lie down and sleep. But if he did so, would he be able to get up again?

The march was resumed, the army following the road through the wood and down the hillside beyond. Ta-Kominion took up a place in the middle of the column, knowing that if he remained in the rear he would not be able to keep up. For a time he leaned on Numiss's arm until, perceiving that the wretched man was exhausted, he sent for Kavass to take his place.

They went on through the darkening, sultry afternoon. Ta-Kominion tried to estimate how far ahead the vanguard might be. The distance down to the plain could not now be more than a few miles. He had better send a runner to tell them to halt when they reached it. Just as he was about to call the nearest man he slipped, jolted his arm and almost fell down with the pain. Kavass helped him to the side of the track. 'I'll never get there, Kavass;' he whispered.

'Don't worry, sir,' replied Kavass. 'After what you told the lads, they'd fight just as well, even if you did have to sit it out, like. That's got round, you know, sir, what you said back there. Most of them never actually saw Lord Shardik when he came ashore on Ortelga, you see, and they're keen to fight just to be there when he shows up again. They know he's coming. So even if you was to have to lay down for a bit-'

Suddenly there reached Ta-Kominion's cars a confused, distant clamour, echoing up from the steep woods below; the familiar, gutteral cries of the Ortelgans and, clearly distinguishable at rhythmic intervals, a higher, lighter sound of other voices, shouting together. Underneath all was the thudding, trampling noise of a tumultuous crowd.

Ta-Kominion knew now that he must be delirious, for evidently he could-no longer tell reality from hallucination. Yet Kavass seemed to be listening too. 'Can you hear it, Kavass?' he asked.

'Yes, sir. Sounds like trouble. Part of that noise isn't our lads, sir.'

Commotion was working back along the column like flood water flowing up a creek from the main river. Men were running past them down the hill, looking back to point and shout to those behind. Ta-Kominion tried to call out to them but none regarded him. Kavass flung himself at a running man, stopped him by main force, held him as he gabbled and pointed, flung him aside and returned to Ta-Kominion.

' 'Can't make it out altogether, sir, but there's some sort of fighting down there, or at least that's what he said.'

'Fighting?' repeated Ta-Kominion. For a few moments he could not remember what the word meant. His vision had blurred and with this came the curious sensation that his eyes had melted and were running down his face, while still retaining, though in a splintered manner, the power of sight. He raised his hand to wipe away the streaming liquid. Sure enough, he could no longer see. Kavass was shouting beside him. 'The rain, sir, the rain!'

It was indeed rain that was covering liis hands, blurring his eyes and filling the woods with a leafy sibilance that he had supposed to be coming from inside his own head. He stepped into the middle of the track and tried to make out for himself what was going on at the foot of the hill. 'Help me to get down there, Kavass!' he cried.

'Steady, sir, steady,' replied the fletcher, taking his arm once more.

'Steady be damned!' shouted Ta-Kominion. 'Those are Beklans down there – Beklans – and our fools are fighting them piecemeal, before they've even deployed! Where's Kelderek? The rains – it's that bitch of a priestess – she's cursed us, damn her! – help me down there!'

'Steady, sir,' repeated the man, holding him up. Hobbling, hopping, stumbling, Ta-Kominion plunged down the steep track, the clamour growing louder in his ears until he could plainly discern the clashing of arms and distinguish the cries of warriors and the screams of the wounded. The woodland, he saw, ended at the foot of the hill and the fighting, which he still could not make out clearly, had been joined in the open, beyond. Men with drawn weapons were running back among the trees. He saw a great, fair-haired fellow pitch to the ground, blood oozing from a wound in his back.

Suddenly Zelda appeared through the leaves, calling to the men about him and pointing back into the open with his sword. Ta-Kominion shouted and tried to run towards him. As he did so he felt a sharp, clutching sensation pass through his body, followed by a cold rushing, a crumbling and inward flow. He blundered into a tree-trunk and fell his length in the road. As he rolled over he knew that he could not get up – that he would never get up again. The flood-gates of his body had broken and very soon the flood would cover hearing, sight and tongue for ever.

Zelda's face appeared above him, looking down, dripping rain on his own. 'What's happened?' asked Ta-Kominion.

'Beklans,' answered Zelda. 'Fewer than we, but they're taking no chances. The ground's in their favour and they're simply standing and blocking the road.'

'The bastards – how did they get up here? Listen – everyone must attack at the same time,' whispered Ta-Kominion.

'If only they would! There's no order – they're going for them all anyhow, just as they happen to come up. There's some have had enough already, but others are still out there. It'll be dark in less than an hour – and now the rain -'

'Get them – all back – under the trees – re-form – attack again,' gasped Ta-Kominion, contriving to utter the words with an enormous effort. His mind was drifting into a mist. It did not surprise him to find that Zelda had gone and that he was once more facing the Tuginda on the road to Gelt. She said nothing, only standing submissively, her wrists tied together with a soaked and filthy bandage. Her eyes were gazing past him at the hills and at first he thought that she must be unaware of his presence. Then, with a conclusive and sceptical glance, like that of some shrewd peasant woman in the market, she looked into his face and raised her eyebrows, as much as to say, 'And have you finished now, my child?'

'You bitch!' cried Ta-Kominion. 'I'll strangle you!' He wrenched at the bandage; and the deep, suppurating wound along his sword-arm, which for more than two days had been pouring poison into his body, burst open upon the rain-pitted dust of the track where he lay. For a moment he jerked his head up, then fell back and opened his eyes, crying, 'Zelda!' But it was Kelderek whom he saw bending over him.

22 Tie Cage

Throughout the latter part of the night and on into the dawn that appeared at last, grey and muffled, behind the clouds piled in the cast, Baltis and his men slowly hauled the cage above the forests of the Telthearna. Behind and below them the miles of tree-tops -that secluded, shining haunt of the great butterflies – appeared, like waves seen from a cliff-top, to be creeping stealthily down-wind. Far off, the line of the river shone in the cloudy light with a glint dull as a sword's, the blackened north bank dim in the horizon haze.

The bear lay inert as though dead. Its eyes remained closed, the dry tongue protruded, and with the jolting of the boards the head shook as a block of stone vibrates on the quarry floor at the thudding of rocky masses falling about it. Some of the dusty, footsore girls clung to the ramshackle structure to steady it as it went, while others walked ahead, removing stones from the track or filling ruts and holes before the wheels reached them. Behind the cage plodded Sencred, the wheelwright, watching for the beginnings of play in the wheels or sagging in the axle-trees, and from time to time calling up the rope-lines for a halt while he checked the pins.

Kelderek took his turn at the ropes with the others, but when at length they stopped to rest – the girls pushing heavy stones for blocks behind the wheels – he and Baltis left the men and walked back to where Sencred and Zilthe stood leaning against the cage. Zilthe had thrust her arm through the bars and was caressing one of the bear's fore-paws, with its curved sheaf of claws longer than her own hand. 'Waken, waken to destroy Bekla,

Waken, Lord Shardik, na kora, na ro,' she sang softly, rubbing her sweating forehead against the cool iron.

Full of sudden misgiving, Kelderek stared at the bear's corpse-like stillness. There seemed not the least swell of breathing in the flank and the flies were settling about the cars and muzzle. 'What is this drug? Are you sure it has not killed him?'

'He is not dead, my lord,' said Zilthc, smiling. 'Seel' She drew her knife, bent forward and held it under Shardik's nostrils. The blade clouded very slightly and cleared, clouded and cleared once more; she drew it back and held the flat, warm and moist, against Kelderek's wrist.

'Theltocarna is powerful, my lord; but she who is dead knew -none better – how it should be used. He will not die.' 'When will he wake?' 'Perhaps this evening, or during the night I cannot tell. For many creatures we know the dose and the effect, but his body is like that of no other creature and we can only guess.' 'Will he eat then? Drink?' 'Creatures that wake from theltocarna are always dangerous. Often there is a frenzy more violent than that before the trance, and then the creature will attack anything that it encounters. I have seen a stag break a rope as thick as one of these bars, and then kill two oxen.' 'When?' asked Kelderek wonderingly.

She began to tell him of Quiso and the sacred rites of the spring equinox, but Baltis interrupted her. 'If what you're saying's true, then those bars won't hold him.'

'The roof's not stout enough to hold him either,' said Sencred. 'He's only got to stand upright and it'll smash like a pie-crust.'

'We've been wasting our time,' said Baltis, spitting in the dust. 'He might as well not be the other side of those bars at all. He'll get up and go when he wants. But I'll tell you this, I'll go first.' 'We shall have to drug him again, then,' said Kelderek.

'That would certainly kill him, my lord,' put in Sheldra. 'Theltocarna is a poison. It cannot be used twice – no, not twice in ten days.' There was a murmer of agreement from the other girls.

'Where is the Tuginda?' asked Nito. 'Is she with Lord Ta-Kominion? She would know what to do.'

Kelderek made no answer but, walking back up the track, began getting the men to their feet again.

An hour later the going became easier as the ascent flattened off and the road grew less steep. As near as he could judge from the confused, murky sky, it was about noon when at last they came into Gelt. The square was littered as though after a riot There was scarcely a living creature to be seen, but a smouldering reek hung in the air and a smell of garbage and ordure. A solitary, ragged urchin loitered, watching them from a safe distance. 'Smells like a herd of bloody apes,' muttered Baltis.

'Tell your men to eat and rest,' said Kelderek. 'I'll try to find out how long the army's been gone.'

He crossed the square and stood looking about him in perplexity at the shut doors and empty alleys beyond. Suddenly he felt a sharp, momentary pain, like the sting of an insect, in the lobe of his left ear. He put his hand to the place and drew it away with blood between finger and thumb; and in the same instant realized that the arrow that had grazed him was sticking in the doorpost across the way. He spun round quickly, but saw only another deserted lane running between closed doors and shuttered windows. Without turning his head, he stepped slowly backwards into the square and remained watching the blank, silent hovels for any sign of movement

'What's up?' asked Baltis, coming up behind him. Kelderek touched his ear again and held out his fingers. Baltis whistled. 'That's nasty,' he said, 'Throwing stones, eh?'

'An arrow,' said Kelderek, nodding at the doorpost Baltis whistled again.

At that moment with a grating sound upon the threshold, a nearby door opened, and a bleary, dirty old woman appeared. She was hobbling and staggering beneath the weight of a child in her arms. As she came nearer Kelderek saw with a start that it was dead. The old woman tottered up to him and laid the child on the ground at his feet. It was a girl, about eight years old, blood matted in her hair and a conjunctive, yellow discharge round the open eyes. The old woman, bent and muttering, remained standing before him.

'What do you want grandmother?' asked Kelderek. 'What's happened?'

The old woman looked up at him from eyes bloodshot with years of crouching over wood fires.

'Think no one sees. They think no one sees,' she whispered. 'But God sees. God sees everything.'

'What happened?' asked Kelderek again, stepping over the child's body and grasping the stick-thin wrist beneath the rags.

'Ay, that's right, better ask them – ask them what happened,' said the old woman. 'You'll catch 'cm if you're quick. They're not gone far – they're not gone long.'

At this moment two men came striding side by side round the corner. They kept their eyes fixed before them and their faces bore the tense, resolute expression of those who knowingly run a risk. Without speaking to Kelderek they grasped the old woman's arms and began leading her away between them. For a moment she struggled, protesting shrilly.

'It's the governor-man from Bekla! The governor-man! I'm telling him -'

'Now just you come along, mother,' said one of the men. 'Just come along with us now. You don't want to be standing about here. Come along now -'

They shut the door behind them and a moment later came the sound of a heavy bar falling into place.

Kelderek and Baltis left the child's body on the ground and returned across the square. The men had formed a ring round the girls and were looking nervously about

'I don't think we ought to stop here,' said Sencred, pointing. 'There's not enough of us to make it safe.' A crowd of men had gathered at the far end of a lane leading off the square, talking and gesticulating among themselves. A few were carrying weapons.

Kelderek took off his belt, laid his bow and quiver on the ground and walked towards them.

'Careful,' called Baltis after him. Kelderek ignored him and walked on until he was thirty paces from the men. Holding his hands open on either side of him, he called, 'We don't want to hurt you. We're your friends.'

There was a burst of jeering laughter and then a big man with grey hair and a broken nose stepped forward and answered, 'You've done enough. Let us alone, or we'll kill you.' Kelderek felt less afraid than exasperated. Try and kill us, then, you fools I' he shouted. 'Try it!'

'Ah, and have his friends come back,' said another man. 'Why don't you go and catch your friends up? They've not been gone an hour.'

'I'd say, take his advice,' said Baltis, who had approached and was standing at Kelderek's shoulder. 'No point in waiting till they work themselves up to rush us.' 'But our people are tired,' answered Kelderek angrily.

They'll be worse than that, my boy, if we don't get out of here,' said Baltis. 'Come now – I'm no coward and neither are those lads of mine: but there's nothing to be gained by staying.' Then, as Kelderek still hesitated, he called out to the men, 'Show us the way, then, and we'll go.'

At this, like a pack of pic-dogs, they all took a few wary steps forward; and then began shouting and pointing southwards. As soon as he was sure of the way, Kelderek drew a line in the dust with his foot and warned them not to cross it until the Ortelgans were gone.

'Ay, we can leave Gelt without any help from you,' shouted Baltis, laying hold of the ropes once more to encourage his weary men.

They plodded slowly away, the townspeople staring after them, chattering together and pointing at the huge, brown body stretched behind the bars.

Outside the town the road fell away downhill. Soon it became so steep that their task was no longer to drag the cage after them but rather to control its downward course. Coming to a broad, level place above a long slope, they turned it about and took the strain on the ropes from behind. At least the ground, dry and gritty, gave good foothold and for a time they made better speed than during the morning. A mile or two below, however, the road narrowed and began to wind along the rocky side of a ravine, and here they were forced to let the cage down foot by foot, straining backwards while Sencred and two or three of his men used poles to lever the front wheels this way and that. At one place, where the bend was too sharp, they had to set to work to broaden the track, prising out the rocks with hammers, iron bars and whatever came to hand, until at last they were able to shift an entire boulder and send it plummeting over the edge into long seconds of silence. Further on, two of the men slipped and the rest, cursing and terrified, were jerked forward and nearly pulled off their feet.

Not long after this, Kelderek saw that play had increased in the wheels and that the whole structure had shifted and was no longer true on the frame. He consulted Baltis.

'It's not worth trying to right it,' answered the smith. 'The truth is, another hour or two of this is going to shake the whole damned thing to pieces. The frame's being ground Like corn, d'ye see, between the road below and the weight of the bear above. Even careful work couldn't stand up to that for ever, and this lot had to be done quick – like the loose girl's wedding. So what d'ye want, young fellow – are we going on?'

'What else?' replied Kelderek. And indeed for all their hardship and near exhaustion, not one of the men had complained or tried to argue against their going on to overtake the army. But when at last they had done with the precipices and the steep pitches and were resting at a place where the road broadened and entered an open wood, he allowed himself for the first time to wonder how the business would end. Apart from the girls, who were initiates of a mystery and in any case would never question anything he told them to do, no one with him had any experience of the strength and savagery that Shardik could put forth. If he were to waken in the midst of the Ortelgan army and burst, raging, out of the flimsy cage, how many would be slaughtered? And how many more, through this, would become convinced of his anger and disfavour towards Ortelga? Yet if Baltis and the rest, for their own safety, were told to abandon Shardik now, what could he himself say to Ta-Kominion, who had sent word that Shardik must be brought at all costs?

He decided to press on until they were close behind the army. Then, if Shardik were still unconscious, he would go forward, report to Ta-Kominion and obtain further orders.

But now it became a matter of finding men with enough strength left to pull on the ropes. After the past twelve hours some were scarcely able to put one foot before the other. Yet even in this extremity, their passionate belief in the destiny of Shardik drove them to stumble, to stagger, to hobble on. Others, in the very act of pulling, fell down, rolling out of the track of the wheels and gasping to their companions to give them a hand. Some set themselves to push behind the cage, but as soon as it gathered a little speed, fell forward and measured their length on the road. Sencred cut himself a forked crutch and limped on beside his splayed wheels. Their pace was that of an old man creeping the street, yet still they moved -as a thaw moves up a valley, or flood-water mounts in minute jerks to burst its banks at last and pour over the land. Many, like Zilthe, put their arms through the bars to touch Lord Shardik, believing and feeling themselves strengthened by his incarnate power.

Into this bad dream fell the rain, mingling with sweat, trickling salty over puffed lips, stinging open blisters; hissing through the leaves, quenching the dust in the air. Baltis lifted his head to the sky, missed his footing with the effort and stumbled against Kelderek. 'Rain,' he grunted. 'The rain, lad! What's to be done now?'

'What?' mumbled Kelderek, blinking as though the smith had woken him. 'The rain, I says, the rain! What's to become of us now?' 'God knows,' answered Kelderek. 'Go on – just go on.*

'Well – but they can't fight their way to Bekla in the rain. Why not go back while we can – save our lives, eh?'

'No!' cried Kelderek passionately. 'No!' Baltis grunted and said no more.

Many times they ground to a stop and as many times found themselves moving again. Once Kelderek tried to count their lessening numbers, but gave up in confusion. Sencred was nowhere to be seen. Of the girls, Nito was missing, Muni and two or three more. Those who were left still kept beside the cage, daubed from head to foot with rainy mud churned up by the wheels. The light was failing. In less than an hour it would be dark. There was no sign of the army and Kelderek realized with desperation that in all probability his band of fireless stragglers would be forced to spend the night in the wilderness of these foothills. He would not be able to keep them together. Before morning they would be shivering, sick, mutinous, victims of panic fear. And before morning, if Zilthe were right, Shardik would awaken. Baltis came up beside him again.

'It's a bad look-out, y'know, young fellow,' he said between his teeth. 'We'll have to stop soon: it'll be dark. And what's to be done then? You and I'd better go on alone – find the young baron and ask him to send back help. But if you ask me, he'll have to come back out of it himself if he wants to stay alive. You know what the rains are. After two days a rat can hardly move, let alone men.' 'Hark!' said Kelderek. 'What's that noise?'

They had come to the top of a long slope, where the road curved downhill di rough thick woodland. The men on the ropes stood still, one or two sinking down in the mud to rest. At first there seemed to be no sound except, all about them, the pouring of the rain in the leaves. Then, faintly, there came again to Kelderek's ears the noise he had heard at first – distant shouting, sharp and momentary as flying sparks, voices confusing and overlaying one another like ripples on a pool. He looked from one man to the next. All were staring back at him, waiting for him to confirm their single thought 'The army!' cried Kelderek.

'Ay, but what's the shouting for?' said Baltis. 'Sounds like trouble to me.' Sheldra ran forward and laid her hand on Kelderek's arm. 'My lord I' she cried, pointing. 'Look! Lord Shardik is waking!'

Kelderek turned towards the cage. The bear, its eyes still closed, was haunched on the rickety floor in an unnatural, crouching position, suggesting not sleep but rather the grotesque posture of some gigantic insect – the back arched, the legs drawn up together under the body. Its breathing was uneven and laboured and froth had gathered at its mouth. As they watched it stirred uneasily and then, with an uncertain, stupefied groping, raised one paw to its muzzle. For a moment its head lifted, the lips curling as though in a snarl, and then sank again to the floor.

'Will he wake now – at once?' asked Kelderek, shrinking involuntarily as the bear moved once more.

'Not at once, my lord,' answered Sheldra, 'but soon – within the hour.'

The bear rolled on its side, the bars clattered like nails on a bench and the near-side wheels lurched, splaying under the massive weight. The sounds of battle were plain now and through the shouting of the Ortelgans they could discern a rhythmic, intermittent cry – a concerted sound, hard and compact like a missile. 4Bek-la Mowt! Bek-la Mowt!'

'Press on!' shouted Kelderek, hardly knowing what he said. 'Press on! Shardik to the battle! Take the strain behind and press on!'

Fumbling and stumbling in the rain, they unfastened the wet ropes, hitched them to the other end of the rickety bars and pushed the cage forward down the slope, checking it as it gathered momentum. They had gone only a short distance when Kelderek realized that they were closer to the battle than he had supposed. The whole army must be engaged, for the din extended a long way to right and left. He ran a short distance ahead, but could see nothing for the thick trees and failing light. Suddenly a little knot of five or six men came running up the hill, looking back over their shoulders. Only two were carrying weapons. One, a red-haired, raw-boned fellow, was ahead of the others. Recognizing him, Kelderek grabbed his arm. The man gave a cry of pain, cursed, and aimed a clumsy blow at him. Kelderek let go and wiped his bloody hand on his thigh. 'Numiss!' he shouted. 'What's happened?'

'It's all up, that's what's happened! The whole damned Beklan army's down there – thousands of 'em. Get out of it while you can!' Kelderek took him by the throat 'Where's Lord Ta-Kominion, damn you? Where?' Numiss pointed.

'There – lying in the bloody road. He's a goner!' He wrenched himself free and vanished.

The cage, following down the hill, was now close behind Kelderek. He called to Baltis, 'Wait – hold it there till I come back!' "Can't be done – it's too steep!' shouted Baltis.

'Wedge it then!' answered Kelderek over his shoulder. 'Ta-Kominion's here -' 'Too steep, I tell you, lad! It's too steep!'

Running down the hill, Kelderek glimpsed beyond the trees a rising slope of open, stony ground, over which Ortelgans were streaming back towards him. From further away, steady as a drumbeat, came the concerted shouts of the enemy. He had not gone half a bow-shot before he saw his man. Ta-Kominion was lying on his back in the road. The downhill flow of rain, with its flotsam of twigs and leaves, was dammed against his body as though beneath a log. Beside him, chafing his hands, crouched a tall, grey-haired man – Kavass the fletcher. Suddenly Ta-Kominion screamed some incoherent words and tore at his own arm. Kelderek ran up and knelt over him, his gorge rising at the smell of gangrene and putrefaction.

'Zelda!' cried Ta-Kominion. His white face was horribly convulsed, its shape that of the skull beneath and only more ghastly for the life that flickered in the eyes. He stared up at Kelderek, but said nothing more.

'My lord,' said Kelderek, 'what you required has been done. Lord Shardik is here.' Ta-Kominion uttered a sound like that of a mother beside a fretful child, like that of the rain in the trees. For an instant Kelderek thought that he was whispering him to silence. 'Sh!Sh-sh-ardik!' 'Shardik has come, my lord.'

Suddenly a snarling roar, louder even than the surrounding din of battle, filled the tunnel-like roadway under the trees. There followed a clanging and clattering of iron, sharp cracks of snapped wood, panic cries and a noise of dragging and scraping. Baltis' voice shouted, 'Let go, you fools!' Then again broke out the snarling, full of savagery and ferocious rage. Kelderek leapt to his feet. The cage had broken loose and was rushing down the hill, swaying and jumping as the crude wheels ploughed ruts in the mud and struck against protruding stones. The roof had split apart and the bars were hanging outwards, some trailing along the ground, others lashing sideways like a giant's flails. Shardik was standing upright, surrounded by long, white splinters of wood. Blood was running down one shoulder and he foamed at the mouth, beating the iron bars around him as Baltis' hammers had never beaten them. The point of a sharp, splintered stake had pierced his neck and as it swayed up and down, levering itself in the wound, he roared with pain and anger. Red-eyed, frothing and bloody, his head smashing through the flimsy lower branches of the trees overhanging the track, he rode down upon the battle like some beast-god of apocalypse. Just in time Kelderek threw himself against the bank. Spongy and sodden, it gave way beneath his weight and he sank backwards into the mud. The cage thundered past him, grinding over the very spot where he had been kneeling, and the three near-side wheels, each as thick as a man's arm, passed across Ta-Kominion's body, crushing a bloody channel through clothing, flesh and bone. Still further it went, driving through the Ortelgan fugitives like a demon's chariot until, striking head-on against a tree-trunk, it tilted forward and smashed to pieces. For a few moments Shardik, thrown upon his back, thrashed and struggled for a footing. Then he stood up and, with the point of the stake still embedded in his neck, burst through the trees and on to the battlefield.

23 The Battle of the Foothills

Gel-Ethlin looked right and left through the falling dusk and rain. His line remained unbroken. For well over an hour the Beklan troops had simply stood their ground, repulsing the fierce but piecemeal attacks of the Ortelgans. At the first onslaught, delivered unhesitatingly and with fanatical courage by no more than two or three hundred men, he had concluded with relief that he was not opposed by a large force. Then, as more and still more of the Ortelgans emerged from the woods, jostling and pushing their way into a rough-and-ready battle-line that spread to right and left until it was as long as his own, he saw that the youth from Gelt had spoken no more than the truth. This was nothing less than an entire tribe in arms, and altogether too numerous for his liking. Soon one attack after another was breaking upon his line, until the slope was covered with dead and crawling, cursing wounded. After some anxious time, however, it became clear that the enemy, who had come upon him as unexpectedly as he had intended, possessed no effective central command and were merely attacking under individual leaders, group by group as each baron might decide. He realized that although he was probably outnumbered by something like three to two, this would not in itself bring about his defeat as long as the enemy lacked all real co-ordination and discipline. He need do no more than defend and wait. All things considered, these remained the best tactics. His army was at half strength and that the weaker half; the poor condition of the men, after several days' marching in the heat, had been aggravated by their pummelling in the dust and wind that morning; and the slope below was becoming more muddy and slippery at every moment. As long as the Ortelgans continued to make sporadic attacks here and there along the line, it was an easy matter for the Beklan companies not engaged on either side to turn inwards and help to break them up. By nightfall – soon, now – his troops might well have had enough, but what it would be best to do then would depend on the state each side was in. His most prudent course might be to return to the plain. It was unlikely that these irregulars would be able to follow them or that they would even be able, now that the rains had broken, to keep the field. Their food supplies were probably scanty, whereas he had rations – of a sort – for two days and, unlike the enemy, would have the opportunity to commandeer more if he retreated into friendly country.

Stand firm until darkness, thought Gel-Ethlin, that's the style. Why risk breaking ranks to attack? And then come away, leaving the rain to finish the job. As he watched the enemy, among the trees below, re-forming for a fresh attack under the command of a dark, bearded baron with a gold torque on one arm, he thought the idea over and could see nothing wrong with it: and if he could not, presumably his superiors in Bekla would not. He ought not to risk his half-army, cither by attacking unnecessarily or by keeping it out in these hills in the rains. His part should be that of a sound, steady commander; nothing flashy.

And yet – he paused. When they got back to Bekla, Santil-ke-Erketlis, that brilliant opportunist, would probably smile understandingly, sympathize with him for having been obliged to come away without destroying the enemy, and then point out how that destruction could and should have been effected. 'You a commander-in-chief, Gel-Ethlin?' Santil-ke-Erketlis had once said, good-humouredly enough, while they were returning together from a drinking-party. 'Man, you're like an old woman with the housekeeping money. "Oh, I wonder whether I might have beaten him down another meld – or perhaps if I'd gone to that other man round the corner -?" A fine army strikes Like the great cats, my lad -swiftly and once. It's like the wheelwright's work – there comes a moment when you have to say, "Now, hit it." A general who can't see that moment and seize it doesn't deserve victory.' Santil-ke-Erketlis, victor of a score of engagements, who had virtually dictated his own terms at the conclusion of the Slave Wars, could afford to be generous and warm-hearted. 'And how does one seize the moment?' Gel-Ethlin had asked rather tipsily, as they each seized something else and stood against the wall. 'By never stopping to think of all the things that can go wrong,' Santil-kc-Erketlis had replied.

Another attack came up the slope, this time straight towards his centre. The Tonildan contingent, a second-rate lot if ever there was one, were breaking ranks with a kind of nervous anticipation and advancing uncertainly downhill to meet it. Gel-Ethlin ran forward, shouting, 'Stand fast! Stand fast, the Tonilda!' At least no one could say that he had a thin word of command. His voice cut through the din like a hammer splitting a flint. The Tonilda fell back and re-formed line, the rain pouring off their shoulders. A few moments later the Ortelgan attack came rushing across the last few yards and struck like a ram against a wall. Weapons rang and men swayed back and forth, panting and gasping like swimmers struggling in rough water. There was a scream and a man stumbled out of the line clutching his stomach, pitched forward into the mud and lay jerking; resembling, in his unheeded plight, a broken fish cast up and dying on the shore. 'Stand fast, the Tonilda!' shouted Gel-Ethlin again. A red-headed, raw-boned Ortelgan fellow burst through a gap in the line and ran a few steps uncertainly, looking about him and waving his sword. An officer thrust at him, missed his body as he moved unexpectedly and wounded him in the forearm. The man spun round, yelling, and ran back through the gap.

Behind the line Gel-Ethlin, followed by his pennant-bearer, trumpeter and servant, ran to his left until he was beyond the point of attack. Then, pushing through the front rank of the Deelguy mercenaries, he turned and looked back at the fighting on his right The din obliterated every noise else – the rain, his own movements, the voices of those about him and all sounds from the wood below. The Ortelgans, who had evidently now learned – or found a leader with enough sense – to protect the flanks of their assault, had broken through the Tonildan line in a wedge about sixty yards broad. They were fighting, as they had all the evening, with a kind of besotted ferocity, prodigal of life. The trampled, muddy ground which they had won was littered with bodies. His own losses, too, were mounting fast – that was only too plain to be seen. He could recognize some of the men lying-on the ground, among them the son of one of Kapparah's tenants, a decent lad who last winter had acted as his go-between to the girl in Ikat. The attack had become a dangerous one, which would have to be halted and thrown back quickly before the enemy could reinforce it. He turned and made towards the nearest commander in the line – Kreet-Liss, that cryptic and reticent soldier, captain of the Deelguy mercenaries. Kreet-Liss, though anything but a coward, was always liable to turn awkward, an ally suddenly afflicted with difficulty in understanding plain Beklan whenever orders did not suit him. He listened as Gel-Ethlin, whom the noise obliged to shout almost into his ear, told him to withdraw his men, bring them across into the centre and counter-attack the Ortelgans.

'Yoss, yoss,' he shouted back finally. 'Bad owver ther, better trost oss, thot's it, eh?' The three or four black-ringleted young barons standing about him grinned at each other, slapped some of the rain out of their gaudy, bedraggled finery and went to get their men together. As the Deelguy fell back Gel-Ethlin found himself unable, in the failing light, to attract the attention of Shaltnekan, the commander adjacent to their left, whom he wanted to close up and fill the gap. He sent his servant across with the order and as he did so thought suddenly, 'Santil-ke-Erketlis would have sent the Deelguy out in front of the line, to attack the Ortelgans' rear and cut them off.' Yes, but suppose they had proved not strong enough for the job and the Ortelgans had simply cut them to pieces and got out? No, it would have been too much of a risk.

Young Shaltnekan and his men were approaching now, their heads bent against the rain driving into their faces. Gel-Ethlin went to meet them, flailing his arms across his chest, for he was wet through to the skin.

'Can't we break ranks and attack them, sir?' asked Shaltnekan, before his commander could speak. 'My lads are sick of standing on the defensive against that bunch of flea-bitten savages. One good push and they'll break up.'

'Certainly not,' answered Gel-Ethlin. 'How do you know what reserves they may have down in those woods? Our men were tired when they got here and once we break ranks they could be fan-game for anything. We've nothing to do but stand fast. We're blocking the only way down to the plain and once they realize they can't shift us they'll go to pieces.'

'Just as you say, sir,' answered Shaltnekan, 'but it goes against the grain to stand still, when we might be driving the bastards over the hills like goats.'

'Where's the bear?' shouted one of the men. It was evidently a newly-invented catch-phrase, for fifty voices took it up. "E isn't here!' "E's in despair!' continued the joker. "E wouldn't dare!' 'We'll comb 'is 'air!'

'They're still in good spirits, sir, you sec,' said Shaltnekan, 'but all the same, there's one or two good men have been cut up today by those river-frogs and the boys are going to take it very hard if they're not allowed to have a cut at them before it gets too dark.'

'And I say stand fast!' snapped Gel-Ethlin. 'Get back into line, that man!' he shouted to the buffoon who was playing the part of the bear. 'Dress the front rank – sword's length between each man and the next!' 'Stand and bloody shiver,' muttered a voice.

Gel-Ethlin strode to the rear, feeling his wet clothes clammy against his body. The twilight was deepening and he was obliged to look about for some moments before he caught sight of Kreet-Liss. He ran towards him and arrived just as the Deelguy went forward into their attack. The concerted, rhythmic cry of 'Bek-la Mowt!' Bek-la-Mowt!' was taken up along the whole line, but broke off in the centre as the Deelguy closed with the enemy. It was plain that the Ortelgans were ready to pay dearly to hold the gap they had made. Three times they repulsed the mercenaries, yelling as they stood astride the bodies of their fallen comrades. Many were brandishing swords and shields taken from the dead of the decimated Tonilda, and each time an enemy was cut down the Ortelgan opposing him would stoop quickly to snatch the foreign arms which he believed must be better than his own – though both, as like as not, had been forged from iron of Gelt.

Suddenly a fresh Beklan attack fell upon the Ortelgan right and again the steady, bearing cry of 'Bek-la Mowt!' rose above the surrounding clamour. Gel-Ethlin, who had been about to order Kreet-Liss to attack once more, was peering to It's left to make out what had happened, when someone plucked his sleeve. It was Shaltnekan. 'Those are my boys attacking them now, sir,' he said.

'Against orders!' cried Gel-Ethlin. 'What do you mean by it? Get back-'

'They're going to break in a moment, if I know anything about it, sir,' said Shaltnekan. 'Surely you won't stop us pursuing them now?' 'You'll do no such thing!' replied Gel-Ethlin.

'Sir,' said Shaltnekan, 'if we let them off the field in any sort of order, what's going to be said back in Bekla? We'll never live it down. They've got to be routed – cut to bits. And now's the time to do it, or they'll be off in the dark.'

The Ortelgans were running back out of the gap as Shaltnekan's attack drove in their right flank. Kreet-Liss and his men followed them, stabbing the enemy's wounded as they advanced. A few minutes later the original Beklan line was restored and Gel-Ethlin, peering, could make out to his left the gap where Shaltnekan's company had left their place. There could be no denying that it had been a fine stroke of initiative: and no denying, either, that there was a good deal of force in the argument that the enemy's escape, after the mauling they had suffered, would probably be ill-received in Bekla. To destroy them, on the other hand, would establish his reputation and silence any possible criticism on the part of Santil-ke-Erketlis.

The Beklan officers, obedient to orders, had halted their men on the original defensive line and the Ortelgans were streaming down the slope unpursucd, several supporting their wounded or carrying looted Beklan equipment As Gel-Ethlin watched them, a voice spoke from the ground at his feet. He looked down. It was the tenant lad from Kapparah's farm near Ikat He had raised himself on one elbow and was trying to staunch with his cloak a great gash in his neck and shoulder.

'Go on, sir, go on!' gasped the boy. 'Finish them offl I'll take a letter down to Ikat tomorrow, won't I, just like old times? God bless the lady, she'll give me a whole sackful of gold!'

He pitched forward on his face and two of Shaltnekan's men dragged him back behind the line. Gel-Ethlin, his mind made up, turned to the trumpeter.

'Well, Wolf,' he said, addressing the man by his nickname, 'no good you standing there doing nothing! Break ranks – general pursuit. And blow hard, so that everyone can hear it!'

The trumpet had hardly sounded before the various Beklan companies began racing down the slopes, those on the wings scattering widely and trying to turn inwards towards the road. Every man hoped to beat his comrades to the plunder – such as it might be. This was what they had marched through the wind for, withstood the attacks for, shivered obediently for in the rain. True enough, there would be little or nothing to take from these barbarians except their fleas, but a couple of slaves would fetch a good price in Bekla and there was always the sporting chance of a baron with gold ornaments, or even a woman among the baggage behind.

Gel-Ethlin ran too, among the foremost, his pennant-bearer on one side of him and Shaltnekan on the other. As they reached the foot of the slope and came close to the edge of the wood, he could see, among the trees, the Ortelgans once more forming line to meet them. Evidently they meant to go down fighting. For the first time he drew his sword, tie might as well strike a blow or two on his own account before the business was done.

From close at hand, somewhere inside the wood, there came a loud grinding, rumbling sound which grew nearer and changed to a smashing and splintering of wood and a clashing of iron. Immediately after, there sounded above all the tumult a savage roaring, like that of some huge beast in pain. Then the boughs burst apart in front of him and Gel-Ethlin stood rigid with horror, bereft of every feeling but panic fear. The ordinary course of things seen and comprehended; the senses, that five-fold frame of the world; the unthinking, human certainty of what can and cannot reasonably happen, upon which all rational living is based – these dissolved in an instant. If a rag-draped skeleton had come stalking out of the trees on bare, bony feet, invisible to all but himself, and made towards him with wagging head and grinning jaws, he could not have been more stupefied, more deeply plunged into terror and mental chaos. Before him, no more than a few yards away, there stood, more than twice as tall as a man, a beast which could have no place in the mortal world. Most like a bear it looked, but a bear created in hell to torment the damned by its mere presence. The cars were flattened like a cat's in rage, the eyes glimmered redly in the failing light and streaked, ochreous foam came frothing from between teeth like Deelguy knives. Over one shoulder – and this drove him almost mad with fear, for it proved that this was no earthly creature – it carried a great, pointed stake, dripping with blood. Blood, too, covered the claws curving from the one paw raised above its head as though in some horrible greeting of death. Its eyes – the eyes of a mad creature, inhabiting a world of cruelty and pain – looked down upon Gel-Ethlin with a kind of dark intelligence all too sufficient for its single purpose. Meeting that gaze, he let his sword drop from his hand; and as he did so the beast struck him with a blow that crushed his skull and drove his head down through his shoulders.

A moment later Shaltnekan fell across his body, his chest broken in like a smashed drum. Kreet-Liss, stumbling on the wet slope, made one thrust with his sword before his neck was ripped open in a fountain of blood. And this sword-thrust, wounding it, drove the creature to such a frenzy of murderous destruction that every man ran shrieking as it ploughed its way up the crowded slope, seeking whom to tear and destroy. The men on the wings, halted and crying out to learn what had happened, felt their bowels loosen at the news that the bear-god, more dreadful than any imagined creature from the nether wastes of fever and nightmare, had indeed appeared, and had recognized and killed of intent the General and two commanders.

From the wavering Ortelgan line there rose a triumphant shout. Kelderek, limping and staggering with exhaustion, was the first man to emerge from the trees, shouting 'Shardik! Shardik the Power of God!' Then, with yells of 'Shardik! Shardik!', which were the last sound in the ears of Ta-Kominion, the Ortelgans poured up the slope, hacking and thrusting anew through the broken Beklan centre. A few minutes afterwards Kelderek, Baltis and a score of others reached the mouth of the gorge beyond the ridge and, heedless of their isolation, faced about to hold it against any who might try to force an escape. Of Shardik, vanished into the falling darkness, there remained neither sight nor sound.

Within half an hour, when night put an end to the bloodshed, all Beklan resistance had been quenched. The Ortelgans, following the terrible example which had redeemed them from defeat, showed no mercy, killing their enemies and stripping their bodies of weapons, shields and armour, until they were as well-found a force as had ever swept down upon the Beklan plain. A few of Gel-Ethlin's men succeeded in escaping towards Gelt. None found his way past Kelderek, to regain the plain by the road up which they had marched that afternoon.

With the clouded, rainy moon rose the white smoke of fires coaxed into life by the victors to cook the plundered rations of the enemy. But before midnight the army, urged forward by Zelda and Kelderek so fervently that they stayed not even to bury the dead, were limping on towards Bekla, outstripping all news of their victory and of the total destruction of Gel-Ethlin's force.

Two days later, reduced to two-thirds of their strength by fatigue and the privations of their forced march, the Ortelgans, advancing by the paved road across the plain, appeared before the walls of Bekla; smashed in the carved and gilded Tamarrik gate – that unique masterpiece created by the craftsman Fleitil a century before – after storming it for four hours with an improvised ram at a cost of over five hundred men; overcame the garrison and the citizens, despite the courageous leadership of the sick Santil-ke-Erketlis; sacked and occupied the city and began at once to strengthen the fortifications against the risk of counter-attack as soon as the rains should end.

Thus, in what must surely have been one of the most extraordinary and unpredictable campaigns ever fought, fell Bekla, the capital of an empire of subject provinces 20,000 square miles in extent. Of those provinces, the furthest from the city seceded and became enemies to its new rulers. The nearer, rather than face the rapine and bloodshed of resistance, put themselves under the protection of the Ortelgans, of their generals Zelda and Ged-la-Dan and their mysterious priest-king Kelderek, styled Crendrik – the Eye of God.