A sound came into the quiet air. Sanghalain looked upward, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
The sunset sky roared and thundered and bloomed pale fire. The ground trembled. The limber trees were shaken by a sudden wind.
Penkawr-Che's ship came down onto the plain.
When the first of the Three Ladies rose, Stark was in a throaty-voiced planet-hopper on his way to pick up Tuchvar and the hounds.
26
There was something to be said for modern technology. Stark was glad enough to sit and watch the miles roll away far below him in the cluster light. He had toiled over a sufficient number of those miles in less comfortable ways.
The hopper was far from new, and apparently Penkawr-Che did not go in for spit and polish; nothing shone, not even the laser cannon on its forward mount. But the engines made a healthy rumble, and the rotors chewed a workmanlike path through old Skaith's relatively virgin sky. Hoppers had been banned by the Wandsmen almost from the first, partly to keep the off-worlders from spreading too wide, partly because two or three parties had been lost through unlucky landings. The Little Sisters of the Sun had caught one group on their mountain and sacrificed the lot, singing the Hymn of Life. Wild bands had eaten another group, and a third, going down to investigate some promising ruins on an island sixty miles southwest of Skeg, had been shared by the Children of the Sea. Most off-worlders were content to do their trafficking at Skeg.
The pilot was a tough-looking, stringy-muscled man with the blue-tinted skin and elongated features of a star-race with which Stark was not familiar. He wore a gold stud shaped like an insect in his right nostril. He was a good pilot. He spoke Universal, the lingua franca, very badly and very little, which was all right. Stark was never in a chatty mood. The fellow kept glancing at him now and again, as though he thought that Stark, unshaven and still wearing the rumpled tunic he had borrowed at Tregad, was a pretty poor sort of hero.
Stark thought the blue man's skipper was a pretty poor sort of merchant captain. He had not fallen in love at first sight with Penkawr-Che, who had too much the capable look of a shark, especially when he smiled, which was too often and with his teeth only. He would not have chosen Penkawr-Che to bear shield beside him in any fight where the odds were doubtful. The man's motives were plainly mercenary, and that Stark did not hold against him as long as he kept faith. But Penkawr—the Che part only meant Captain—gave him the impression of a man whose first and only consideration would always be himself.
From these things and from his ship, the Arkeshti, and some of her arrangements, Stark guessed that Penkawr was one of those traders whose ventures are often indistinguishable from piracy. Still, he was Pedrallon's contact and the best there was. Like Pedrallon, Stark would have to make do.
The hopper covered the distance in a surprisingly short time. Stark saw the pilgrim roads, almost deserted this night, and the glow of Ged Darod far off in the midst of the plain. He pointed, and the pilot swung away to make a long curve over the wooded hills to the west, dropping down almost to treetop level.
There were tracks through the woods. Some led to the mountain passes, and Stark could make out straggling bands of Farers still on them, heading for Irnan. They were going to be late for the battle. Whenever the hopper went over, they rushed frantically for the imagined shelter of the trees. The hopper swept out over an edge of low cliff and turned to hover, dancing like a dragonfly. The blue man said, "Where?"
Stark studied the cliff, turning repeatedly to look off toward Ged Darod and the roads. The shining of the Three Ladies was soft and beautiful, and deceptive. "Farther on."
The blue man nudged the craft on a quarter of a mile.
"Farther."
The pilgrims on the nearest road, tiny scattered figures, were stopping, drawn by the unfamiliar sound of thrumming motors. Stark said, "There." The hopper settled down.
"Take it up again," said Stark. "Keep the area clear any way you have to."
He pushed the hatch open and jumped, running through a pounding downwash as the craft rose above him.
It was a few minutes before he located the path by which he had come down the cliff. He went up along it, reckoning that the hollow where he had left Tuchvar was a couple of hundred yards off to his right. The insistent sound of the motors stayed with him, an intrusion on the silence. At the top of the cliff the dappled shadows lay thick under the trees.
Gerd's voice shouted in Stark's mind. Danger, N'Chaka!
Under the motor noise he heard a sound, felt movement, quick and purposeful. He gave a great leap sideways.
The screaming began almost at once. But the dagger had already flown.
Stark felt the blow and the numbing pain in his right shoulder. So much he had accomplished, that it struck there instead of at his heart or his throat. He saw the jeweled haft glinting dully, grasped it and pulled it free. Blood came welling after it, a hot wetness under his sleeve. There was a great amount of noise, bodies thrashing, sobs, cries, crashings in the undergrowth, the baying of hounds. He went back onto the path, holding the dagger in his left hand.
There were two men, groveling in the extremity of terror. They wore black cloaks, and when Stark pulled the hoods back, the white unhuman faces of Fenn and Ferdic stared up at him, their night-seeing eyes stretched and agonized with fear.
Not kill! said Stark to the hounds. And aloud, "You will die if you move."
The proud white courtiers lay in the dust. They did not move except to breathe.
The hounds came crashing out into the path. Tuchvar followed, a long way behind.
"Take their weapons," Stark said. Blood dripped slowly from his fingers onto the ground. Gerd sniffed at it and growled, and the hair went up stiffly along his spine.
"The flying thing frightened the hounds," Tuchvar said, bending over the two. "Then they said you were there, and we started, and then—" He looked at Gerd, and then up at Stark, and forgot what he was doing.
"Take their weapons!"
He took them.
"Get up," Stark said.
Fenn and Ferdic rose, still trembling, staring at the thronging houndshapes in the gloom.
"Were you alone?"
"No. We had hired six assassins to help us, when we had made certain you were not among the men taken at Ged Darod. It was said that you would be found at Irnan or on the way there. We left Ged Darod, in the hope—" Fenn's breath caught raggedly in his throat. "When the flying thing went over the woods, our men fled, but we stayed to see. It is an off-world thing—yet we were told that all the ships had gone from Skaith."
"Not quite all," Stark said. He was in a fever to be rid of them. "Tell Kell à Marg that I gave you two your lives to pay for the two I was forced to take at the north gate. Tell her I will not do it another time. Now go, before I set the hounds on you."
They turned and rushed away. The dark wood swallowed them quickly.
Tuchvar said uncertainly, "Stark . . ."
Grith thrust her shoulder against the boy, forcing him back. The hounds padded restlessly, forming a fluid circle, whining in a curiously savage way. Gerd's growling rose and fell and never stopped. His eyes burned in the patches of light from the Three Ladies.
Without looking away from Gerd, Stark said to Tuchvar, "Go down to the plain."
"But I can help—"
"No one can help me. Go."
Tuchvar knew that that was true, and he went, his feet dragging.
Stark stood with his weight forward over his bent knees, his feet wide apart, the dagger in his left hand. He cared no more than a tiger which paw he used. The blood dripped steadily from his fingers. He did not dare to try and staunch it; Gerd would not give him time.
His eyes had become fully adjusted to the dim light, eyes almost as good as those of the Children. He could see the circling hounds, their jaws open, hot and eager, ready to tear him as the wounded Flay had been torn on the Plain of Worldheart. "Your flesh is vulnerable," Gelmar had said. "One day it will bleed . . . ."<
br />
It was bleeding now. The hounds had accepted him as one of themselves, not as an overlord like the Houndmaster, and he must face the inevitable consequence of his position. The pack followed the strongest, and according to law and custom, when a leader showed weakness, the next in line would try to pull him down. Stark had known from the beginning that this day would come, and he bore the hounds no ill-will because of it. It was their nature.
He could see Gerd in the pathway, huge and pale, and he thought an alien wind blew across him, bringing the chill breath of snow.
He spoke a warning. N'Chaka still the strongest. But that would not be true for very long.
Gerd's thoughts were incoherent. The smell of blood had roused an immense and blind excitement in him. Whatever dim affection he might have conceived for Stark was drowned in that hot redness. He ripped at the ground with his claws, shifting his hindquarters back and forth with dainty movements, going through the whole ritual of challenge.
Stark, feeling weakness beginning to creep along his veins, said, All the hounds of Yurunna not kill N'Chaka. How can Gerd?
The bolt of fear hit Stark. The charge would follow.
Stark threw the dagger.
The blade pierced Gerd's nigh forepaw. It went on into the ground, pinning it.
The hound screamed. He tried to wrench the blade loose and screamed the more.
Stark managed to unsheathe his sword. Wild sendings of terror battered him. He forced himself to think of nothing but Gerd; Gerd's head tossing, Gerd's mouth agape, horrible with fangs. He forced himself to go forward with all the strength and quickness he could muster and touch the swordpoint to Gerd's throat, where it swelled with corded muscle above his breast.
He thrust the sharp point in, through tough hide into yielding flesh, and Gerd stiffened and looked up at him. The hound stood very still.
Stark held the blade rigid. And now Gerd's blood ran and puddled the dry dust, mingling with Stark's.
The hellhound gaze wavered, slid aside. The huge head dropped. The hindquarters sank in submission.
N'Chaka . . . strongest.
Stark withdrew the sword and sheathed it. Leaning down, he plucked the dagger from Gerd's paw. Gerd cried.
A wave of giddiness went over Stark. He put his hand on Gerd's shoulder to steady himself.
Come on, old dog, he said. We both want our hurts tended.
He went along the path, and Gerd came on three legs beside him. The rest of the pack slunk after.
Tuchvar, who had not gone all the way, ran to meet them, busily tearing strips from his smock.
The blue man had had no trouble keeping the area clear. He had made one lazy circle toward the road and the pilgrims had fled. When he saw Stark and the boy and the pack of hounds coming down the path, he landed to take them aboard.
He did not enjoy the flight from that point on.
27
The valley of Irnan was a desolation in what should have been the fullness of approaching harvest. Besieging armies had ruined and devoured, trampled and destroyed. Not one blade of grass remained. The fields were dust, the orchards long vanished into the smoke of campfires. Only the city remained outwardly unchanged, gray and old upon its height, the walls battered by siege engines but still unbreached. Above the gate the mythic beast still reared its time-worn head, jaws open to bite the world.
Inside the walls the people of Irnan were starving. Each day voices grew more insistent, calling for surrender. Jerann and his council of elders knew that they could not hold out much longer against those voices. People died. There was no more room to bury them within the walls. There was no more wood wherewith to burn them. The bodies were thrown over the walls now for the carrion birds, and Jerann was afraid of pestilence.
On a dark still morning, between the setting of the Three Ladies and the rising of Old Sun, a wind came out of the east. It struck the encampments of the besiegers with sudden violence, scattering the bivouac fires, tearing down tents. Flames sprang up. A herd of cattle stampeded through the outlying rabble of Farers. Dust whirled in choking clouds.
Behind their stone walls the people of Irnan watched and wondered. It was a strange wind, and there was no other sign of storm under the clear stars.
For three hours the wind screamed and battered, striking now here, now there. At times it subsided entirely, as though it rested and gathered strength to strike again. When Old Sun rose, the encampments were a shambles of wrecked tents, of clothing and equipment tossed about and trampled. Men coughed and shielded their eyes from the dust. And then those in the farthest lines, looking toward the sunrise, cried out and reached for the war-horns.
A legion was there, poised and ready. They saw the leather-clad troops with their heavy spears, and the banner of Tregad leading them. They saw a company of villagers armed with bills and reaping hooks. They saw hooded men in cloaks of dusty purple, red and brown, green and white and yellow, with their lances and their many-colored pennants, and their strange long-legged beasts. They saw, off to one side, an assembly of small dark winged folk all glittering with glints of gold, their wings outstretched. All about them, standing guard, were ranks of unhuman shapes striped in green and gold and armed with tall four-handed swords.
The hollow-eyed watchers on the wall saw all this, too, though they did not at first believe it.
The small folk folded their wings, and a sound they had made, as of chanting, stopped.
The wind fell. The dust cleared. War-horns sounded, deep and snarling.
The legion charged.
The Farers, always disorganized, ran away. The mercenaries, taken as they were by surprise, were not so easily overrun. Horns and shrill-voiced pipes mustered them. Officers shouted them into line. They caught up what weapons they could find and ran through the rubbish of their encampments to meet the attackers.
Foremost among the mercenaries was a company of Izvandians, tall lint-haired warriors from the Inner Barrens with the faces of wolves. They had been quartered at Irnan at the time of the revolt, in the service of the Wandsmen, and their leader was the same Kazimni who had taken Stark and his party north.
Kazimni recognized the two who rode at the forefront of the Tregadians, beside the fierce old man who captained them, and he laughed. The man, what was his name, something short and aggressive . . . Halk. Halk was shouting the war cry that had been born that day at Irnan.
"Yarrod! Yarrod! Yarrod!"
The watchers on the city walls heard it. They too recognized the big man with the long sword. They knew the woman who rode by him armed for battle, her hair falling loose from under her cap, the color of bronze new from the forges.
"Gerrith! The wise woman has returned! Gerrith and Halk!"
Jerann, not alone, wondered about the Dark Man.
Men and women took up that war cry. Irnan became, in a matter of moments, a city of the hopeful instead of the doomed. "Yarrod! Yarrod!" they cried, and the mustering horns began to call.
The two forces joined battle.
The first charge bore the mercenaries back and scattered them. But they greatly outnumbered their attackers; and they were tough, seasoned fighting men. They rallied. A force of them drove against the left of the Tregadian line, to put a wedge between it and the tribesmen. The Fallarin, idling in reserve, shot a whirlwind against them, and in its wake the century of Tarf loosed a storm of arrows and followed that with swinging steel. The mercenaries were thrown back.
They formed again. This time they went against the Tregadians, feeling that the alien troops would desert the battle if they were beaten. The men from Tregad reeled and gave back. Old Delvor roared at them, cursing them in a voice like a trumpet. They fought furiously, but still they were borne back by superior numbers.
Sabak rallied the tribesmen and came down at a run on the Izvandian flank. The Izvandians wheeled to meet them, forming a square bristling with lancepoints, archers in the rear ranks firing steadily. The charge of the Hooded Men faltered in a tumbling of men and mounts
like a wave shattered on a sudden reef.
For the first time in months, the gates of Irnan opened and every man and woman who could still bear arms issued out to fall upon the mercenaries' rear.
To the south and east, a ragged multitude had come swarming out of the passes from the direction of Ged Darod. Old Sun knew how many thousand had left the temple city to pour across the mountains. Probably no more than half of those had finished the journey, driven by an all-consuming fever of holiness to accomplish the downfall of Irnan and the traitors who had come to her assistance. The Wandsmen who were scattered throughout the mass judged that twenty thousand would hardly tell their sum.
When Stark saw them from the air, they looked like one of the moving carpets one sees when an ant colony is on the move. Disorganized, untrained, slatternly, they were still a formidable weight of flesh to be dumped on the wrong side of the balance.
He nodded to the blue man and spoke into the microphone, to the pilots of the three hoppers flying with him.
"Let's build them a fence."
Out of the naked sky, four shapes came rushing toward the mob of Farers. Swift as dragonflies, they roared back and forth across the astounded and terrified front of the mob, striking the ground with lightnings that blinded the eye and deafened the ear, and each crack shattered rocks and trees and made the ground smoke.
A god's voice spoke from the leading shape.
"Turn back! Turn back or you will all die!"
The flying shapes began to quarter across the depth and width of the mob. God-voices spoke from all of them in huge tones. "Turn back. Turn back." At the edges of the mob the ground was tortured by more lightnings.
A frenzy of cries went up. Farers knelt and lay on the ground. They milled and swirled. Even the Wandsmen did not know what to say to them in the face of this stunning power.
The Hounds of Skaith-Volume II of The Book of Skaith Page 17