3

Knowing well that the tower must already be under observation by those hiding in the wood which lay in the opposite direction from the way she herself had taken, Brixia crouched in the last bit of cover considering her next move. It was plain she must come into the open in order to reach that shadowed door. If she were only Uta now—

Uta! A furry head nudged against her arm and she glanced at the cat who eyed her intently in return. Then Uta moved to the right, melting in her own way into the tangle of brush. Perforce Brixia went on hands and knees after her, struggling to force a path through that mat of vegetation.

Stone broke the wall of brush—the foot of the wall which had once been the outer defense of the keep. It was roughly laid, one unsmoothed block placed upon another. Uta used it as a ladder, climbing from one pawhold to the next on her way to the top.

Brixia ran her hands over the same space. There were cracks and crevices enough to provide her with a means of ascent. She hesitated, her hands planted firmly against the stone. Folly! She could still turn back—reach the upper slopes of the dale unseen. Why was she doing this?

She had no answer save that some compulsion deep within kept her to it. Slinging her spear across her shoulder by the thong which held it during her travels, the girl put her fingers and toes to searching out a ladder way of her own.

Uta flattened her furry body on the top of the wall, peering down as if she wished to know whether Brixia followed her or not before she went on. As Brixia did start to climb, the cat, with a flirt of her tail, vanished.

Would the ruins of the manor cloak her passing over the wall from those in the copse? Brixia had no idea, she could only hope so. Listening, she could still hear the clamor of the disturbed birds, and she judged from that the skulkers were yet under cover.

On the other side of the wall stretched the paved courtyard which fronted both the fortified, and now half razed, house, and the tower at its side. Brixia dropped, having chosen to land in some rankly growing vegetation rooted below in a patch of wind gathered soil.

From that she made a dash to the shattered side of the house, moving beside it until there remained only a last crossing of the open to reach the tower door. Uta was before her, just disappearing into that opening. Brixia took a deep breath, and unslung her spear. She had no intention of entering there without her weapon to hand. It might be that she would not be judged a friend—or at least an ally.

A sprint took her to the door, she dodged inside before any sound she had made could act as warning. The dusk within was only partly dispelled by a hearth fire. Near that sat the man, watching the flames, Uta beside him. But the boy was on his feet, facing her, bared steel in hand.

Brixia hastened to speak before he could move. She wanted no struggle with him.

“There are lurkers in the wood. Your fire smoke drew them perhaps—” She waved one hand to the hearth, the spear ready held in the other. “Or you might even have been trailed here. You have a horse, there’s his mail,” now she gestured to the man, “those alone would be lures for any outlaw.”

“What’s it to you?” the boy demanded.

“Nothing. Save that I am no wolfhead.” Brixia retreated a step. Her thoughts were confused. Why had she allied herself with these two who indeed meant nothing to her?

The boy watched her even as he moved in turn to stand before the man as a shield.

“You stand alone,” Brixia continued, “as far as any fight is concerned. They’ll lick you up as easily as Uta takes a mouse, and far more speedily, for they do not hunt for sport.”

His expression of wariness did not change. “And if I do not believe you?”

She shurugged. “Have it your way then. I do not put iron at your back to urge you into battle.” She glanced around the chamber in which they had taken refuge. Against the wall to her right was a steep flight of stairs leading up to the next story. This room had a bench against one wall, a stool on which the man sat, a pair of saddle bags. Two cloaks had been used on top of hacked branches and grass to form a pair of beds. That was all.

Her eyes came back to the bench. That offered a forlorn chance, but it was all they had. She did not believe that they could dare to retreat now—the boy might be able to move under cover, but burdened by the man—no—

“That,” she pointed with the spear to the bench, “can go across the door—if you had not the fire you might have hidden up there,” she nodded to the stair. “That’s if they did not trail you in and know just how few they face.”

He thrust his sword back in its scabbard and was already heading toward the bench. Brixia slung her spear and went to the other end of that. The boy looked up at her as he bent over to take a hold.

“Let be! We do not need you! I stand by Lord Marbon—”

“Do so. However, though I have no lord to fight for, I still have my own life.” She caught the other end of the bench and heaved. Shuffling together they brought it to form a low barrier when placed across the doorway—a nearly useless one the girl privately thought.

“If only—” The boy glanced to the man by the fire. It appeared to Brixia that he was not speaking to her, rather voicing some thought. Then his attention returned to her and there was an open scowl on his face. He laced his fingers together, cracking his knuckles.

He spoke again—as if the words were pulled out of him by forceful extraction, and he hated the fact that he must say this:

“There might be a way out—he would know.”

Brixia, remembering how she herself had long ago won out of just such a place, knew a sudden leap of hope, as quickly vanquished. If the Lord of Eggarsdale had had any emergency exit from his domain it was either destroyed in the taking of the keep, or else’its secret was so lost in the mazes of a disturbed mind that it could never be known now.

“He will not remember.” Then she added, because any one will cling to hope, “Will he?”

The boy shrugged. “Sometimes he can a little—” He went to kneel by his charge.

Once again Uta had raised to her hind legs, was resting her forepaws on the man’s knee. His hand caressed her head, though he still stared into the flames.

“Lord,” the boy put out his hand, “Lord Marbon—”

Brixia took up a position by the door, dividing her attention between what was happening in the room and listening for any sound from without which might mean those others were moving in. There came the whinny of a horse—and she grew tense, bringing up her spear.

“Lord Marbon—” the boy’s voice was sharper, more insistent. “Lord Jartar has sent a message—”

“Jartar? He is coming at last?”

“Lord, he would meet with you. He waits by the far end of the inner ways.”

“The inner ways? Why does he not come openly?”

“Lord, the enemy holds about us. He dares not try to ride openly. Is it not always Lord Jartar’s way to come and go unseen?”

“True. The inner ways then.” The man stood up, Uta now rubbing against his legs. He surveyed the cat and there was life and animation in his face. “Ha, furred one. It is good to have one of your house again allied with us, as in the days that were. The inner ways—then.”

He walked with a free stride quite unlike the aimless shuffle, to the end of that cavern within the thick keep wall which housed the hearth and their small fire. With his hands he stroked the stone there even as he had stroked Uta.

His fingers, which had moved so confidently as if he knew exactly what he must do, slowed. One hand dropped to his side, he raised the other to rub along his forehead as he looked to the boy over his shoulder.

“What—” all assertive life was gone from his voice. “What—”

Uta stood up on her hind legs, her paws dangling before her lighter underbody fur. She mewed softly, authoritatively. Lord Marbon looked to her. His attitude was one of listening, he might well have understood the sounds the cat made.

“Lord,” the boy moved in upon his other side. “Remember—Lord Jartar is waiting!”

The man looked about. He had not lost all the look of intelligence, though that apathy seemed to be sliding back over his face once again.

“This—this is not—not—right—” His glance took in the walls, the bareness of the chamber.

Brixia could have gnawed her fingers in her impatience. Her imagination, which seemed to have been suddenly aroused, pictured for her what might be creeping up outside. That they could hold the tower room was impossible. Also that she had allowed herself to be caught in this trap for some foolish and not understood reason aroused her anger against herself. But caught they were—even if the boy spoke the truth and this Lord Marbon had a hidden bolt hole—that such might lead from this very room was yet to be proven. Or that the cracked brain could remember—

“Jartar—yes!” Once more the use of that name appeared to pull together the man’s scattered thoughts—just as the strings set on the doll by a puppet showman (such as she had seen once long ago) brought to life carved wood and leather.

Once more Lord Marbon put out his hands to the wall. Brixia heard what she had feared from outside—a sound which could only have been the scrap of a boot against stone. She readied her spear and then looked to the stairway. Why had she not seen before the possibility of that? The two of them—with sword and spear, might have held the top of that stair—at least buying a few more moments of life. The knife in her belt—that would be her last key out, better than any fate she would be offered—

The sound from outside was not repeated. But she did not doubt she had heard it. Only a louder grating snapped her head around for a moment. Beside the fireplace a gap in the wall had appeared. Into that the boy pushed, suddenly and with full force, his lord. Uta sprang, vanished in the darkness, and, as the boy stepped within, giving no warning to her, Brixia sped in turn. The gap was closing but she braced the spear as a lever and fought her way in. As she pulled out the shaft again, the wall swung totally closed leaving her in deep darkness, so thick it was like a tangible cloak about her.

Brixia heard sounds from her right, and she put out her hand slowly. The space in which she stood was very small, with a wall to her left and another directly before her. With an idea of either a climb or a descent in her mind, Brixia used the spear to sound a way to the right.

Tapping before her she went some five steps until the floor vanished. Still using the spear as a guide the girl discovered there the first of what might be steps. At that point she paused to listen again. Sounds were continuing from that direction. So, if she was ever to find her way out, she must follow.

Brixia tapped her way with the spear, testing each step before she took it. Her left hand slipped along a wall which was dry at first, and then grew slimed with moisture the farther she descended. Now there was the smell of stagnant water and other foul things. Twice her hand burst a fungi growth making her cough from the acrid stench that loosed.

She counted twenty steps in that stairway then her spear cane warned her of level space ahead. The sounds made by those she trailed were muted. Brixia wondered how they could have drawn so far ahead. Unless they went without taking the precautions that she thought it prudent to exercise.

There was a complete absence of light and the dark weighing on her spirit, gave easy rise to that fear with which her species had ever regarded night and what might crawl in it. She loathed the slimy feel of the wall, but at the same time she needed to touch that as an additional guide through this place. How long these “inner ways” might run was an unknown factor. Such escape passages were usually set up so that the exit would be well beyond any besieging force. That in Moorachdale had been twice the length of the village street—or so she had always heard it said.

Now she felt a breath of air moving against her cheek. It was not strong nor fresh enough to banish the stench of slime and the unseen wall growths, but it did signify that there was some ventilation here. Brixia pushed forward, her calloused feet encountering the same moisture and slime as cloaked the wall. Once the girl was nearly shocked out of her iron control when something she trod upon wriggled. She leaped away, her feet slipping, until only a quick twist of her body kept her from falling full length into the noisome mess on the floor.

Brixia discovered a turn in the passage by running full face into the right hand wall. At her left now showed a very faint gray which was shut out twice and then revealed once again—a change which must signify the passage of the others.

The way sloped up and she drew a deeper breath of relief, believing that she was nearing its end. Only to know disappointment when she reached the source of the light. For that filtered through a crack in the rock and proved to be far too narrow to do more than allow something as slender as her spear to penetrate. However, the very small portion of light did show another turn, this time to the right.

Brixia was about five strides along that when there came a burst of real light, the red-orange of flame, ahead, and toward that she hurried. The glow showed her that the passage she followed ended on an edge of a ledge. She looked down into what had been a natural cave without the sign of any tampering by man.

Against the wall, holding a torch, was Lord Marbon. She could see only the back of the boy who was on his knees crawling into a hole at the other side of the cave. Of Uta there was no sign. Although he held the torch, Lord Marbon had lost that return of reason which had brought them into this underground way. He stared vacantly ahead, his eyes wide and unblinking in the shine of the flames. But, as Brixia slipped down beside him, ready to pass by and attempt the new passage on her own, he turned his head slowly to look at her.

Something stirred deep in his eyes, his lips moved—

“Star blazed, grim and bright,

Darkness triumphed over right—”

The girl was startled. Then she recognized the lines he had sung—the song of Zarsthor’s Bane.

“Find it—must find it—” He spoke hurriedly, slurring his words together. Marbon caught at her arm, showing surprising strength, for he held her quiet so, and she knew that, short of using force, she could not break free. “Nothing’s right—it is because of Zarsthor’s Bane.” He lowered his head a little, thrusting his face closer to hers. “Must find—” The recognition of a sort made his eyes fully alive.

“Not—Jartar! Who are you?” His voice was sharp, held a ring of command.

“I am Brixia,” she returned, wondering just how much his wandering sense had returned.

“Where is Jartar? Did he send you then?” His grip on her was tight and steady enough so that when he shook her, her whole body moved.

“I do not know where Jartar is,” she tried to find some words which would satisfy this lord who, by the evidence of the boy, called on a dead man. “Perhaps—” she used the same excuse his attendant had, “he is waiting outside.”

Lord Marbon considered that. “He knows, from the ancient runes—only he—I must have it! He promised that it was mine to use. I am the last of Zarsthor’s line. I must have it!” He shook her again as if he would force what he wanted out of her by such rough mishandling. Now her hand closed about the hilt of her belt knife. If it were necessary to use that for protection against a mad man—why, then she would.

But it was not only his visible madness which aroused her fears—it was something inside herself. Her head—she wanted to cry out—to wrench free of this Marbon and run and run—Because—deep in her she stood in front of a door and if that door would open—!

This was not the shrinking that the sane sometimes feel when confronted by the abnormal among their own species. Her new emotion was totally alien. She could not turn her head, break the tie between their eyes. There was a need rising in her—something she must do—and nothing else in all the world mattered but that need which compelled, which made her its prisoner. She found herself whispering:

“Zarsthor’s Bane.” That was it! What she must find—what would give true life—bring again into order all which had gone awry since the Bane came to life.

Brixia blinked once, again. The feeling was gone—the need was gone! For a moment he had ensorcelled her with his madness! Now she jerked and twisted, breaking his hold, inching away from him along the wall.

But Marbon did not try to seize upon her once more. It was rather as if, when she had broken free, she had also released him to slide back once more into that place of no knowledge. For his face suddenly smoothed, became entirely vacant. He stared at the wall, not at her. While the hand with which he had held her fell to his side.

The hole which might lead to the open beckoned her, but Brixia was afraid to go to hands and knees, leaving her back unprotected, lest he pounce upon her again. So they stood against opposite sides of the cave as she tried to determine a way of quick escape.

“Lord—” the boy’s head suddenly appeared in the hole, “all is clear without.”

Brixia burst forth, eager to share her knowledge of what might be a danger.

“Your lord is crazed.”

The boy’s face contracted with rage as he scrambled to his feet.

“You lie! He took a bad hurt at the Pass of Ungo—the same time as his foster brother was slain. His hurt and his sorrow has upset for a time his knowledge of what we do and where we go. He is not crazed!”

His lips twisted into a snarl. Brixia thought that inwardly he must agree with her, but some emotion would not let him admit it.

“He is back here—in his home,” the boy continued. “The healer said that were he in a place he knew well, his memory could return to him. He—he thinks he is on a quest. It is an old tale of his House—the story of Zarsthor’s Bane. He would gain the Bane and put all right again. It is that belief which has kept him alive.”

“It is an old legend of his line—of how Zarsthor who came to Eggarsdale crossed the brother of his lady-she was of the Old Ones—and Elder in his pride and rage made a pact with some dark power, laying upon Zarsthor and his blood after him, even onto the land he then held, a curse so that when they gained aught, they lost the more.”

“When the fighting went against him so grievously this past year, my lord came to think more and more of the Bane. And Lord Jartar, who had ever an interest in ancient stories, more so if they dealt with the Old Ones, spoke with him often. So it became fixed in my lord’s mind there was perhaps after all a true meaning in this story out of the past. Thus my lord made a pact with the Lord Jartar—who swore that he had chanced upon some secrets which might lead to the unraveling of this story of the Bane—that they would indeed search out the truth of Zarsthor and what might lie hidden in the past—

“But how does one find secrets out of the past?” In spite of herself Brixia was caught by a faint excitement. For the first time in a long march of days she was drawn to an idea which was not strictly a part of her fight to keep on living from one day’s dawn to sunset, from sunset to the next dawn.

The boy shrugged, his face held a bitter twist of mouth, a frowning pull of eyebrow toward eyebrow.

“Ask that of the Lord Jartar—or rather of his shade! He is dead, but the Bane lives in my lord’s mind. And maybe it possesses him now past the point whereby he can believe in aught else!”

Brixia bit her lip. The boy had already turned away from her. Perhaps Marbon had ensorcelled him, too after the fashion which had worked on her for those few moments when they were alone here. It could well be that in truth it was the lord’s delusion which had led them both to this ruined valley, rather than any advice from a healer.

She watched the boy take the torch from his companion, lead the man to the hole and gently force him to hands and knees, then push him towards that exit. Once set in motion Lord Marbon did not resist, but crawled on into the dark. When he had vanished the boy thrust the torch into a crack in the rock and dropped to follow.

Brixia, having no mind to remain underground if there was a way out, crept in herself, on the other’s heels.

The narrow passage was a short one, and they came out into a deeper twilight where several trees and some brush formed a curtain before the break in the ground through which they had come. They were well up on the northern slope of the dale’s guarding hills. As they squatted there, under the cover of the brush, Brixia surveyed the keep below. Faint light played in one of the tower’s slit windows—there must still be fire within. Also she was able to count five shaggy, ill-kempt ponies, the like of which outlaws rode, if they were lucky enough to be mounted at all.

“Five—” she heard the boy half whisper beside her. He, too, had wriggled forward until his shoulder nudged against hers.

“Perhaps more,” she told him with some satisfaction. “Some bands number more men than mounts.”

“We shall have to take to the hills again,” he commented bleakly. “That or into the Waste.”

In spite of herself Brixia felt something of his discouragement. She was resentful of having to think of anyone but herself, but if these two wandered on without any supplies, or any more knowledge of woodcraft than she guessed they had, they might already be counted dead men. It irked her that she was not allowed by that strange nagging, new born within her, to leave them to the fate they courted by their folly.

“Has your lord no kin to shelter him?” she asked.

“None. He—he was not always accepted among those soft-handed, lower dales people. He—has, as I said, other blood—from THEM—” Among the Dalesmen “them” so accented meant only one thing—those alien peoples who had once held all this land. “He—that was what made him what he was—what he is. You wouldn’t understand—you’ve only seen him now,” the boy’s voice was a passionate whisper, as if he feared he might not be able to keep his self control. “He was a great warrior—and he was learned, too. He knew things other Dale lords never dreamed of understanding. He could call birds to him and talk to them—I have seen him do that! And there wasn’t a horse what wouldn’t come and let him ride. He could sing a sleep spell for a wounded man. I have even seen him lay hands on a wound which was black with poison and order the flesh to heal—it did! But there was no one who could so heal him, no one!”

The boy’s head sunk forward until his face was hidden in the crook of his arm. He lay quietly but Brixia stirred as there spread from him into her an almost overpowering sense of pain and loss.

“You were his squire?”

“After Jartar died I carried his shield, yes. But I was not rightfully a squire. Though I might have been some day if all had gone well. My Lord took me by choice from among his mother’s distant kin. I—had no great possessions to hope for—we held but a border watch tower and there were two more brothers—so there was no favor right for me. It’s all gone now anyway—all but my lord—all but my lord!”

His voice was thick, and he hunched his shoulder in her direction. Brixia knew that he hated her knowing these feelings. She must let him alone and ask no more.

Turning, she edged away from that vantage point. But—where they had left Lord Marbon—there was no one! She looked around quickly—there was no sign of him—

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