Larry’s skin prickled, in a strange mixture of excitement and fear. Within the last three days his peaceful life had suddenly plunged into a maelstrom of violence and danger. It was new to him, but, somehow, not unpleasant.
They were halfway down the little valley when Larry heard, through the hoofbeats, a curious sound from deep within the bushes. He stiffened in the saddle; Valdir, alert, saw the move and reined in, looking warily around. Then, from the shelter of the trees came a harsh and raucous cry—and then mounted men were all sweeping down on them.
Valdir cried out a warning. Larry, in that first instant of petrified shock, saw the riders, tall men in long furred cloaks, long-haired and bearded, mounted on huge rangy horses of a strange breed, racing down on them at incredible speed. There was no time to flee, no time to think. Suddenly he was in the middle of the attackers, saw the Darkovans had drawn their swords; Kennard, his face very white, had his dagger in his hand and was fighting to control his horse with the other.
He had a bare moment to see all this—and a strange, uprushing sense of panic that he, of all his party, was unarmed and knew nothing of fighting—before it all melted into a mad confusion of horses pushing against horses, cries in a strange tongue, the dull clash of steel on steel.
Larry’s horse reared upright and plunged forward. He gripped wildly at the reins, felt them slide through his fingers, burning his blistered hands with a brief stab of pain. Then he felt himself losing his balance and slid to the ground, legs crumpling beneath him. Half stunned, he had just sense enough to roll from beneath the pawing hooves of his frantic horse. Someone tripped over his prostrate body, stumbled, fell forward on the grass; roused up with a hoarse cry of rage, and a moment later came at Larry with a knife. Larry rolled over on his back, balling up, kicking with one booted foot at the descending knife. With a split-second sense of weird unreality—This isn’t real, it can’t be!—he saw the knife spin away in a high arc and fall ten feet away. The man, knocked off balance, reeled and staggered back; recovered himself and dived at Larry, getting hold of him with both hands. Larry drew his elbows up, pushed with all his might and freed himself momentarily. He struggled up to his knees, but his attacker was on him again and the man’s face—rough, bearded, with evil yellow eyes—came close and menacing. His breath stank hot in Larry’s face; his hands sought for Larry’s throat. Larry, frightened and yet suddenly cool-headed, found himself thinking, He hasn’t got a knife, and he’s fat and out of condition.
He went limp, relaxing and falling backward, dragging the man with him, before his attacker could recover his balance, Larry drew up his feet to his chest in an almost convulsive movement: thrust out with all his strength. The kick landed in the man’s stomach. The bandit gave a yell of agony and crumpled, howling, his hands gripping his belly in oblivious anguish.
Larry pulled himself up to his knees again, braced himself, and put the whole weight of his body into one punch, which struck the man fairly in the nose.
The man dropped, out cold, and lay still.
And as Larry straightened, recovering his balance, finding a moment to feel fright again, something struck him hard on the back of the head.
The clashing of swords and knives became a thunder, an explosion—then slid into a deathly, unreal silence. He felt himself falling. But he never felt himself strike the ground.
It was dark. He was sore and cramped; his whole body ached, and there was a throbbing jolting pain in his head. He tried to move, made a hoarse sound, and opened his eyes.
He could see nothing. He knew a split-second of panic; then he began to see, dimly, through the coarse weave of cloth over his face. He tried to move his hands and felt that they were bound with cords at his side. The jolting pain went on. It felt like hoofbeats. It was hoofbeats. He was lying on his stomach, bent in the middle, and against his hands was the hairy warmth of a horse’s body.
He realized, fuzzily, that he was blindfolded and flung doubled over the saddle of a horse. With the realization, he panicked and struggled to move his arms, and then felt a sharp steel point, pricking through his clothes, against his ribs.
“Lie still,” said a harsh voice, in so barbarous a dialect that Larry could barely understand the words. “I know that orders are not to kill you, but you’d be none the worse for a little bloodletting—and much easier to carry! Lie still!”
Larry subsided, his head spinning. Where was he? What had happened? Where were Valdir, Kennard? Memory of the fight came rushing back. They had been outnumbered. Had the others, too, been taken prisoner? How long had he been unconscious? Where were they taking him? Cold fear gripped the boy; he was in the hands of Darkovan bandits, and he was alone and far from his own people, on a strange world whose people were hostile to Terra.
What would they do to him?
The jolting hoofbeats went on for what seemed hours before they slowed, stopped, and Larry was pulled roughly to the ground.
“A good prize,” said a voice, speaking the same harsh and barbarous dialect, “and earnest for good behavior from those sons of Zandru. The heir of Alton, no less—see the colors he wears?”
“I thought Alton’s son was older than this,” said another voice.
“He’s small for his years,” said the first voice, contemptuously, “but he bears the mark of the Comyn—hair of flame, and no commoner ever wore such clothes, or rode one of the Alton-bred horses.”
“Except when we come back from a raid,” guffawed another voice.
Larry went cold with fright. Was Kennard a prisoner too?
Rough hands pulled Larry forward again; the folds of muffling cloth were jerked away from his face, and someone pushed him forward. It was twilight, and it was raining a little, thin fine cold drops that made him shiver. He blinked, wishing he could get his bound hands to his head, and looked around.
They stood in the shadow of an ancient, ruined building, sharp-edged stones rising high around them. An icy wind was blowing. Larry’s captor shoved him forward.
There were a good dozen of the roughnecks in the lee of the ruin, but he saw no sign of Kennard, Valdir, or of any of his companions.
Before him stood a tall, strong man, cloaked in a soiled crimson mantle, much cut and torn. Under it was a dark leather vest and breeches which had once been finely cut and embroidered. The hood of the mantle was pushed back but the man’s face was invisible; a soft leather mask, cut to lie close to nose and cheeks, concealed all his features to the thin, cruel lips. He had six fingers on each hand. His voice was rough and husky, but he spoke the city dialect without the barbarous accent of the others.
“You are Kennard Alton-Comyn, son of Valdir?”
Larry looked around, in dismay, but no one else was visible, and suddenly his mind flashed across the mistake they had made.
They thought he was Kennard Alton—they had taken him as a hostage—and he dared not even tell them they had made a mistake! What would they do to one of the alien Terrans?
The man’s words returned to him—An earnest of good behavior ... the heir to Alton! That sounded as if they didn’t want to kill him—not right away, at least. But how could he keep them from discovering his Terran identity? What would Kennard do?
The masked man repeated his question, harshly. Larry let out his breath, slowly and tensely. What would Kennard do—or say?
He thought of Kennard’s arrogance, facing the street roughnecks a few weeks ago. He drew himself to his full height and said, clearly, slowly because he was searching for the right words and colloquial phrases, but it gave an effect of dignity, “Is it not courtesy in your land to declare the host’s name before asking the name of a—a guest?”
He knew he was playing for his life. He had watched the arrogance of the Darkovan aristocrats, and he sensed that their contempt for these bandits was as great as their hatred for them. He shrugged his cloak around his shoulders—thank God he had been wearing Darkovan clothes!—and stood unflinching before the man’s masked stare.
�
�As you wish,” the masked man said, his lips curling, “yet build no hope on courtesy, son of the Hali-imyn. I am called Cyrillon of the Forest Roads—and you are Kennard N’Caldir Alton-Comyn.”
Larry said, “Would it profit anything to deny it?”
“Very little.” Behind the mask, Larry felt Cyrillon’s eyes sharp on him.
“What do you want with me?”
“Not your death, unless”—the cruel lips hardened—“you make it necessary. A pawn you are, son of Alton, and of value to us, but a time could come—never doubt it—where your death would be wiser than your life in our hands. So don’t build too heavily on your safety, chiyu, or think that you can make whatever move you please and that we won’t dare to kill you for it.”
He regarded Larry for a moment, with eyes so grim that Larry flinched. He was cold with terror; he felt like breaking down, shrieking out the mistake they were making.
At last Cyrillon released his eyes. “We have a long way to ride, in rough country. You will come with us, or be carried like a bundle of blankets. But on the roads we will travel, men need their limbs, their wits, and the use of their eyes. The passes are not easy even for free men. If I leave you free, and give you the use of all three, will you pledge me your honor as comyn to make no attempt to escape?”
It occurred to Larry that a promise made under threats was no honorable promise, and involved nothing. He would, doubtless, save himself a lot of trouble by giving his parole. He wavered a moment; then, clearly as sight, he seemed to see the face of Kennard—stern, with boyish pride and the severe Darkovan concept of honor. Could a Terran do anything less? That pride stiffened his voice as he resolved to play his part.
“A pledge of honor to a thief and an outlaw? A man who”—again his thoughts raced, remembering stories Valdir had told about the codes of battle—“a man who carries away his enemy’s son muffled in a cloak, rather than cutting him down openly in fair fight?”
He hesitated, then the words came to him, almost as if he heard Valdir’s self speak them. “You who break laws of the road and the laws of war have no right to exchange words of honor with honorable men. I will speak to you as an equal only with the sword. Since you are without honor, I will not soil even my bare word. If you want me to go anywhere, you will have to take me by force, because I will not willingly go one step in the company of renegades and outlaws!”
Breathless, he fell silent. Cyrillon regarded him in deadly silence, his lips set and menacing, for so long that Larry quailed, and it was all he could do to keep his face impassive. Why had he burst out like that? What nonsensical impulse to play the part of an Alton had impelled those words? They had rushed out without his conscious control; without even a second thought! It might have been wiser not to enrage the outlaw.
And enrage him he had; Cyrillon’s odd hands were clenched on his knife-hilt till the knuckles stood out, white and round; but he spoke quietly.
“Fine words, my boy. See, then, that you do not whimper at their results. Tie him, Kyro, and make a good job of it this time,” he said to someone behind Larry.
The man cut the cords on Larry’s wrists, then pulled his hands forward. He tied them together with a thick wool scarf which he took from his own throat; then the wool padding was crossed with tight leather thongs which, without the padding, would have bitten deep into his flesh. They left his feet free, but passed a rope about his waist, securing it by a long loop to the saddle of his captor. Then the man took water and wet the leather knots. Cyrillon watched these proceedings grimly and, at last, said, “I speak these orders in your presence, Alton, so that you will know what to expect. I do not want you killed; you are more useful to me alive. Just the same, Kyro, if he tries to run from the path, cut the sinew in one of his legs. If he tries to drag and hamper our climbing, once we get on the mountain, cut his throat right away. And if he makes any disturbance whatsoever as we go along the Devil’s Shelf, cut the rope and let him drop into the abyss, and good riddance to him.”
Larry felt his heart suck and turn over; but although his cheeks blanched, his eyes did not falter, and, at last, Cyrillon said, “Good. We understand one another.” He turned to mount, and Larry, somehow, sensed that he was disappointed.
He wanted me to be frightened and plead with him. He would get some kind of satisfaction out of seeing an Alton pleading—with him! How did I know that?
The man who had him captive lifted Larry to the back of his horse.
“For the moment we can ride,” he said, grimly. He looked ill-pleased. “Don’t give me any trouble, lad; I have no stomach for torturing even a whelp of the Hali-imyn. Never doubt he means what he says, either.”
The other bandits were mounting. Larry, stiff and cold and frightened, looked up at the high wall of mountains that rose ahead.
And yet, for all his fear, a curious and unquenchable pulse of excitement and curiosity beat within him. He had wanted to see the strange and exciting life of the alien world—and here at the foot of the strange mountains, under a strange sun, he was seeing it undiluted. Even with Kennard, there had been the sense that somehow everything was a little different, because he was Terran, because he was alien.
He realized that he had really no grounds for even the slight optimism he felt. For all he knew, Valdir and Kennard, and all their companions, might be lying dead in the valley where they had been ambushed. He was being taken—alone, unarmed, a prisoner, an alien—into some of the wildest and most dangerous and impassable country on Darkover.
Yet the indefinite lift of optimism remained. He was alive and unhurt—and almost anything could happen next.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Larry was dreaming.
In his dream he was back on Earth, and Darkover was still a faraway, romantic dream. He was on a camping trip, sleeping out in an old forest (or why would he be so cold, with the cold dampness of rain in all his bones?).
Then, through the dream, there was a faint blue glimmer, and an urgent voice speaking. Where are you? Where are you? We’ve been close enough for a long enough time, that if I can pick you up I can follow you and find you. But don’t let them know you’re Terran. ...
Half impatiently he tried to shut the urgent voice away, to recapture the peaceful dream. He was back in the Terran Zone; in a little while his father would come in and waken him. ... Someone had left the air-conditioning turned up to maximum; it was cold in here, colder than even the Darkovan night ... and what was the matter with his arm? Why was his bed so cold, had he fallen asleep on the floor? With a little groan, he rolled over, his eyes blinked open and he was back in the terrible present. He squeezed his eyes shut again, with a spasm of despair. He was in the mountain fort of the bandits, and he was very helplessly a captive and alone, and although during the day he could keep up some hope, just now he was only a frightened boy, frightened in a strange world.
His left arm had been cruelly forced backward and strapped behind his back, the left hand at the shoulderblade, in a sort of leather harness. The fingers had long ago gone numb. The first night of his capture, the man who had carried him along the mountain trail had lifted him—numb and helpless—from the saddle, and brought him to their fire; he had, half pityingly, thrown a blanket across him, and cut the thongs on his wrist so that he could eat. Then the masked man had given orders, and two of the men had brought the leather harness. They had begun to tie his right hand behind his back when Cyrillon, whose cold eyes seemed to be everywhere at once, said harshly, “Are you blind? The little bre’suin is left-handed.”
They had not been gentle, but he had not tried to fight or struggle; the fear was still on him, but he would not give them the satisfaction of pleading. Only once, in despair, had he thought of the last resort—telling them he was not their coveted hostage—
But then what? They probably wouldn’t even bother with a prisoner of no importance; they might even kill him out of hand. And he did not want to die; although now, cold, wretched and in pain, he thought it might be rather n
ice to be dead.
He turned over, painfully, and looked about his prison.
A grim, pale light was sneaking its way through windows curtained roughly with threadbare tapestry, and shuttered with nailed boards. The room was spacious, with worm-eaten paneling, the hangings musty with age. The bed on which he lay was large and elaborate, but there were neither bedcoverings nor sheets; only an old horsehair mattress and a couple of fur rugs. The other furniture in the chamber was rickety and depressing, but he supposed he was lucky that he wasn’t in a dirty dungeon somewhere; his brief glimpse of the outside of the fort looked as if there were dungeons aplenty beneath the grim stone walls.
He had not, so far, been harmed. He had, such as it was, the freedom of this room. He could feed himself after a fashion with his right hand, but he had never realized how helpless anyone was with only one arm; he could not even balance properly when he walked. Morning and night they brought him food; a sort of coarse bread stuffed with nuts, a rough porridge of some unknown cereal, strips of rather good meat, some anonymous soapy-tasting stuff that he supposed was a form of cheese.
Now he sat up, hearing steps in the hall. It might have been someone with his breakfast, but he recognized the heavy, uneven tread of Cyrillon des Trailles. Cyrillon had visited him only once before, to inspect, briefly, the contents of his pockets.
“No weapons,” the man Kyro had told him, holding up the things Larry had carried. Cyrillon turned them over. At the Terran medical kit he frowned curiously, then tossed it into a corner; Larry’s mechanical pencil he tested with a fingertip, thrust into his own pocket. The other items he looked at briefly and dumped beside the Terran boy; a few small coins, a crumpled handkerchief, a small notebook. Larry’s folded pocketknife he looked at curiously, asked, “What’s this?”
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