The King

CHAPTER 31

“Draw again the sled, slave girl,” said Tuvo Ausonius, after a time.

She swiftly crossed before the sled, and, in a moment, with the help of Tuvo Ausonius, was fitted into the harness.

“Master?” she asked, for the harness was not simply slipped into, as it had been with Tuvo Ausonius, when he had drawn the sled, but it was tightened and buckled on her, even to a ring and band about her throat, through which, by means of a rein running back to the sled, pressure might be exerted upon her. A bridle, too, was put upon her, with its bit, headstall and reins. Her small hands, too, were buckled behind her in the leather cuffs, between the fur sleeves and the fur mittens.

No more then could she speak for the bit was back, between her teeth, fastened there, she helpless.

She looked wildly, questioningly, at Tuvo Ausonius, but he paid her no attention.

The bit would keep her quiet.

She whimpered.

Tuvo Ausonius raised his hand angrily, menacingly, and she was instantly, totally silent.

Things had not been thus with her when she had been a lady’s maid, with little to worry her but her mistress’s hair, clothes and switch, but she was now in the power of men.

Nika secured, at least to that moment, to that extent, though not at that moment in ankle hobbles, Tuvo Ausonius freed his rifle from the sled. Fifteen minutes earlier, as Tuvo Ausonius had counted, as Julian had prescribed, Julian had stepped from the sled to rocks, between which the sled was conducted. Julian had then, snowshoes on his back, rifle in his mittened hand, left them.

They waited there for some five minutes when, suddenly, on the backtrail, perhaps a half mile or more behind them, there were three flashes, sudden and bright, one after the other, brilliant in the cold, pure air. He saw them reflected even from the lowering clouds, and flashed back, a lighter, sudden, momentarily flickering gray, on the snow.

After a minute or two there were more flashes.

“There were flankers!” said Tuvo Ausonius, angrily.

In a moment there was another flash, and then only the stillness of the winter night.

Tuvo Ausonius, stopping only for a moment, began to parallel the backtrail, hurrying beside it, a few yards from it, rifle in hand.

In a few minutes he came on a burned body in the snow. He could see flesh inside the blackened, opened fur.

He turned the body over with the rifle muzzle.

It was not Julian.

“Do not fire!” called a voice from the side.

“Milord!” cried Tuvo Ausonius.

“There were five,” said Julian.

“And how many are accounted for, milord?”

“Five,” said Julian. “One fled, wounded, returning to Venitzia. I followed the blood for a few yards. It was plenteous. I finished him by firing into the snow in which he had sought to hide himself.”

“There,” said Julian.

Tuvo Ausonius’ glance followed the muzzle of Julian’s rifle. A body lay there, its lower portions frozen in ice. In the flash of heat from the rifle, the snow had spumed upward, yards into the air, then rained down in droplets and crystals. About the body itself, it and its vicinity momentarily torrid with heat, the snow had melted, forming a small lake in a hollow, which fluid had then, in moments, frozen. The lower body lay then locked in ice, as in a congealing pond, its image distorted. The furs had been muchly burned away, and the skeleton, the upper right quadrant, was partly exposed. Julian had fired from short range with a wide setting on the muzzle. He had not been certain where in the mound of snow the target had been hidden. With that setting, effective only within a few feet, it did not much matter.

“We are safe now,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

“No,” said Julian. “These fellows may have inadvertently accomplished their purpose.”

“How so, milord?”

“The light, the flashes, the concussions in the air, the burned flesh, the scent of blood,” said Julian, “may attract animals, vi-cats, wolves, such things. In the winter they might sense such things, for miles about.”

“We have ammunition,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

“It is limited,” said Julian.

In a few minutes they had returned to the sled.

Nika, of course, was waiting for them, in the harness. She was a highly intelligent young woman, and would have remained where she was, of course, knowing herself a captive of the sled, and well fastened to it, even had Tuvo Ausonius not, in that brief moment before he had addressed himself to the backtrail, assured himself of it, locking her in slave hobbles.

“Let us be on our way,” said Julian.

Tuvo Ausonius removed the slave hobbles from the girl, the flat, fixed ankle bands, joined by the short, stout, inflexible metal bar, four inches in length, and put them on the sled. “Move,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

“Yes, Master,” she said, struggling, thrusting her small body against the straps of the harness.

There was a grating on the crusted snow and the sled moved. There was little sound then save that marked by the sliding passage of the two runners, and the pressing of the snowshoes into the snow, other than, after a time, in the far distance, the baying of wolves.