by Jeffrey Lord
Taleen made a scornful sound in her throat. "We will be the ones to be eaten, Blade. You will see."
All his life he had been a hunter, first of animals and then of men, and now he moved easily through the forest. It was not as dense as it appeared from the brookside, and the moonlight grew steadily. They made their way around the great trees festooned with vines and creepers. The ground beneath them, thickly padded with leaf mold, muffled their footsteps. Overhanging tendrils brushed their faces like tiny dank snakes.
Blade soon discovered that the forest, so formidable from afar, was really a series of interconnecting clearings. He made his way skillfully through the maze, pausing now and again to let the sullen and fearful girl catch up. Taleen, trying to follow exactly in his footsteps, did not always succeed. She caught her dress on the edge of a bramble thicket and Blade, impatiently, went back to free her. There was a long glistening red scratch on the inside of one tender thigh. He tore a small piece from her linen frock and wiped the blood away and felt her tremble. His own brawny naked body was scratched in a score of places.
For a moment they halted by the brambles, silent and unmoving. The chanting was very near now, a high pitched litany that was not melodic and yet bore a kernel of some dark and fearful tune. There was hand clapping, and a hint of contrapuntal values, and Blade began to make out individual voices. The fire it must be huge blazed through the black tree stalks like an ominous beacon.
The challenge, because it was spoken softly and without intonation, an arid voice devoid of color, was more frightening than if it had been screeched.
"Who comes? Who dares to defile the Mysteries, to invade the Sacred Grove? Speak!"
The voice came from behind a tree. It was ascetic, neuter, betraying no sex. Taleen gasped in terror and clung to Blade. He pushed her away, whispered "stay" and stalked toward the tree. He saw a glimmer of white in the gloom. He held the sword in readiness.
The voice, steady and dry and without fear, said: "Stop! Do not approach me. I am a Dru, of the Drus of Alb, and whoever disobeys me will suffer the abiding curse of all the Gods for all time. He will know eternal darkness and peace will elude him forever. Stop! I command it."
It was a formidable curse. Blade kept going. The voice, suddenly pitching up into panic, squealed, and the white thing moved around the bole of the huge tree to confront Blade.
"Die, then! You who will not listen to wisdom. Die!"
There was a flutter of white robes in the moonlight. A glint of golden dagger. The weapon struck at Blade, a powerful and well aimed blow. Hollow, fanatic eyes gleamed at him from the shadows of a deep cowl. "Die then. Die die die!" It was the larger chant made small and scored for one voice.
Blade parried the blow and finished matters with a vicious backhand stroke that bit into the Dru's throat just below the chin. Arterial blood, bright in the moonlight, spurted to drench the white robe. The Dru went to his knees, staring in astonishment at his bloody hands, words and blood burbling from the hole in his throat in a scarlet froth. Blade, afraid that the Dru would yet manage a cry of warning, struck again with the sword, this time from the side and below the ear. It was a near decapitating stroke. The Dru sank into the blood and twitched and died.
Blade stooped and pulled away the cowl, curious to see what manner of men these Drus were.
The head was long and closely shaven, the stubble showing gray. I have killed an old man, thought Blade. Regrettable, but not cause for too much concern. The man had attacked him. The golden dagger was shining now at Blade's feet and he saw that only the hilt and flange were of gold the point and cutting edge were of bronze and would have killed him easily enough.
Old man? Something about the dead face gave Blade pause. He did not pick up the dagger, but instead reached to rip open the front of the white robe, where a scarlet circle was emblazoned over the heart. Inside the circle, still visible through the blood, was an emblem of an oak tree worked in golden thread.
The cloth came away in his hand. Blade stared down at the withered breasts. An old woman!
Behind him Taleen said: "Frigga protect us now. You have killed her. You have murdered a Dru! We will both be cursed forever after we are killed and eaten."
Blade did not allow either his face or voice to betray the slight nausea he felt. He did not like killing women even old women who were trying to kill him.
His tone sharp, he said: "Stop talking nonsense, princess. Nothing is going to happen to you. I wish it had not happened, but it has and we must make the best of it.
Why did you not warn me that some of the Drus were women I would have been more careful." He stroked his black stubbled chin and stared at the body. "Not that it would have made a lot of difference that I can see. She did try to kill me. What would you have me do wear that trinket in my heart?" He kicked the golden dagger to one side.
Taleen did not look at him, nor at the corpse. But she picked up the dagger and wiped it clean on a clump of grass. "I need a weapon now. So that when we are taken I can kill myself before the torture begins."
She tugged at his hand. "Come, Blade. If we run for our lives now, at once, there may still be a chance. Only hurry! There will be other sentries about."
Blade shook her hand away. He gazed moodily at the corpse, brooding. His jaw was set. J would have recognized the look, and have accepted it with resignation.
Blade gazed toward the fire and the chanting. "I have come this far, Princess Taleen. I will go on. I must know about these Drus and their Mysteries. And you have not yet answered my question how many of them are women?"
"All of them," said Taleen quietly. "I did not mention it because I did not think it was important. You are not only a stranger, Blade, you are strange. How did I know that you would be fool enough to spy on the Drus? No one else in all of Alb is that much of a fool but then I keep forgetting that you are not of Alb."
Blade ignored that. "You say all the Drus are women? No men at all? It is an order of priestesses then?"
Not, then, so formidable after all. He should be able to handle a gaggle of women, probably all of them elderly, who ran about in white robes and chanted weird songs. And yet he glanced at the golden dagger now tucked into Taleen's girdle. The old crone had come at him in a very businesslike manner.
The girl, cajoling now, said, "You are very interested in the Drus, Blade. I will tell you all about them if only you will come away with me. Now. While there is yet time. For me, at least. You will never be safe now. You have killed a Dru. They never forget and they will look for you always. You are going to have to trust me a great deal, Blade."
Taleen did not try to conceal the malice in her tones. She gave him a sly smile. "I said before that I would have you whipped, Blade. I did not really mean it. But now I have your very life in my power and I do mean that. One word from me and you are a dead man."
Blade did not look at her. He plunged the sword into the earth to clean it. Only then did he glance from the sword to Taleen and back at the sword again.
She narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin high. "Do not try to frighten me, Blade. It will not work. I know you well enough already to know that you will not kill me."
His grin mocked her. "Yes, I admit it. You know me that well. But you forget something you are also involved. You are here now. Who will believe it was not all your idea, your doing, this spying and the killing of a Dru? I am a very credible liar when I want to be."
Taleen glared at him, then fell into a pout. She muttered something he did not understand and again signed across her breasts with her right hand. "Frigga save me from the Drus and you. I begin to wish I had never met you."
It was a sentiment that Blade was beginning to share. Yet he needed her, badly needed her, as a guide and mentor in this strange land of Alb curse Lord Leighton and his confounded computer but he was beginning to see the Princess Taleen for what she was. Beautiful, desirable, and absolutely not to be trusted. A wild child, capricious as the wind, a lovely little barbarian Princess
whose only guide was her own wilfulness. Blade had spoken boldly just now, had blunted her spleen for the moment, but he knew that he must watch her constantly from this moment on. She was unpredictable.
So he scowled at her and spoke more harshly than he felt. She was not to blame for what she was.
"I go to have a look at these Drus," he said. "Come with me or stay. It is all one to me."
He began to move cautiously toward the red eye of the fire. He did not look back. Presently he heard her stumble over a root and mutter something to Frigga that was more a curse than a prayer. When he sank to his belly in a thicket, with the fire and the chanting and dancing Drus in plain view, she was beside him. Strangely enough, once the thing was done, she whispered, her soft mouth close against his ear, and again he caught the wanton scent of chypre so oddly out of place.
"You see the one who stands aside, who does not dance or sing, she who carries the great golden sword?"
Blade nodded. There were perhaps fifty of the robed and cowled Drus, their faces hidden in shadow, dancing slowly about the huge fire. They were all clapping hands and singing as they went through the convolutions of the dance, an antic movement that yet was somehow measured, stately; the natural merriment of the swirling tropes being smothered by the weight and gravity of matters yet to come.
The Dru pointed out by Taleen stood well off to one side. She was thin and straight as a birch, her face hidden by a cowl, her hands crossed over the hilt of a golden sword so long that, with its point in the earth, the hilt came to the scarlet cord that girdled her waist.
Taleen whispered again. "That is Nubis, the High Priestess. My cousin Lycanto is terrified of her. So am I. So would you be if you were not a fool. Look yonder, Blade, in the shadows beyond the dancers and then tell me if I am a liar."
Blade looked and did not like what he saw. A naked young girl, bound and gagged, lay on a crude hurdle to which leathern pulling straps were attached.
The big man, straining to see, made out a glimmer of white as the girl rolled her eyes at the dancers criss-crossing around the fire. Blade knew stark terror when he saw it, and he was seeing it now. She was not a pretty girl, and she was fat and dumpy, her too large breasts already broken and sagging. Her legs were fat, her ankles thick and peasant was written all over the dull white nakedness of her. Blade, watching her strain against her bonds, moving a little on the hurdle, all the while rolling her eyes in fear, felt a tinge of pity. It was not a familiar emotion and was probably misplaced. He did not really believe in Taleen's wild stories.
The chanting stopped suddenly. The dancers broke ranks and began to scurry about in apparent confusion, but after a moment Blade saw that a pattern was emerging. Until now he had been feeling the night chill; now sweat began to bead and roll on his forehead.
The Drus were well disciplined. They worked fast and in perfect harmony. Forked sticks were driven into the earth on either side of the fire and a long pointed spit of bronze was laid over the fiercely glowing coals. One of the Drus, carrying heavy bags of charcoal, began to bank and build the fire into an even bed of white hot flame.
Taleen hissed softly in his ear. "See. Over there. The big oak stump. I have heard of it. They call it the King Oak."
The High Priestess, carrying the long golden sword, was walking to the stump now. The oak stump, a massive flat table some eight feet across, was capped by a wheel of thin stone that was darkly splotched.
Four of the Drus seized the leather straps of the hurdle and pulled it toward the stump. Blade could see the girl's mouth contorting under the gag as she tried to scream. His hand closed hard around the hilt of his sword. Sweat ran into his eyes. It was crazy, impossible, insane but he would have the element of surprise. He just might
Princess Taleen sank her sharp nails into his bare arm. She was reading his thoughts.
"No, Blade! Do not even think it. Do not think that because they are women it will be easy. They are monsters, all of them, and they fight like men. Even if you could save the girl, even if we escaped, that would not be an end to it. They will go to Lycanto and demand our lives. Our bodies. He will give us to them. He is terrified of them. At the very least he will turn us away from Sarum Vil and we will be without food, or shelter, or protection. Listen to me, Blade! For once do not be a fool!"
He forced his great muscles to uncoil. For a moment there he had been on the verge but this time Taleen was right. If he meant to survive in Alb, and he did, then he must suppress the rage, the shock, and the sickness that was moving in his belly. Richard Blade was rock hard, but it has been said that even stones can weep.
So he watched, and with a great effort kept from retching. And noted that the slim barbarian by his side was not nearly as sickened as he. Her sole concern was for herself.
All the preliminaries had been concluded before their arrival and now matters went swiftly. The bound girl was tossed roughly onto the stone-capped oak stump. She lay writhing and contorting in a frenzy, sliding and rolling to the edge of the stump in a mindless effort to escape. The Drus, ringing the stump now, pushed her roughly back to the center.
They were chanting again, a soft, nearly whispered chant that held the sound of death. The Drus locked hands and began to move slowly around the stump in counter-clockwise movement.
"Mother of Frigga," said Taleen beside him. "I think I know that girl. I am sure of it. It is one of Lycanto's serving maids. More than a serving maid, if the gossip be true.
Frigga preserve me there is more here than I can understand."
The moving circle of Drus parted for a moment and the High Priestess came through. She carried the golden sword in both hands as she slowly approached the stump. She moved with great dignity and poise, her face concealed by the cowl, and she carried the great sword as easily as she would a toy. Blade could not deny his fascination; this was a nightmare from which there was no waking.
The High Priestess leaped agilely atop the stump. The movement was graceful, flowing, and not that of an old woman. The cowl, unsecured by the sudden movement, fluttered back and away from the woman's face. Blade caught his breath.
"By Frigga's breasts," said Taleen at his side. "That is not Nubis. She is a stranger. I do not know her."
The High Priestess did not bother to replace her cowl. She threw back her head and raised the golden sword in both hands, holding it high, imploring benediction from the black dome of sky. She began to intone a prayer softly, her lips barely moving.
Blade felt as if the golden sword had been driven into his own heart. He had never seen anything like this woman. With the masking cowl removed it was like seeing beauty emerge from a dungeon, and he guessed that the white robe also lied about the body beneath it. Her hair was a cloud of silver, the face a perfect heart with a thick cream skin. Her mouth was wide, moist and tender, and superbly drawn in scarlet, the nose beautifully straight and haughty, the eyes wide set and narrowed now as she lowered the sword and gazed down at the writhing victim.
Taleen was right, Blade thought. He was a fool. Otherwise he would not be thinking what he was thinking that any woman so lovely could not be a murderess in cold blood. Fool indeed. He knew better. He had not been born yesterday. He still retained enough of his memory to recall what his former world had been like, and certainly nothing had changed in Alb. Quite the contrary.
And yet he did not believe it, really believe it, until he saw it done.
The High Priestess raised the sword high above the cringing girl. She held it with both hands on the golden hilt, point down, and she smiled around at the Drus. There was total silence now, but for the muffled sounds of the terrified girl. The High Priestess smiled again. Her teeth sparkled like nacre against blood. Sweat stung Blade's eyes.
She brought the sword down with tremendous force and drove it into the girl's heart. Blade would not have attributed the strength to that slim body. The point drove on through the flesh and beating heart and grated against the stone capping of the stump. The naked victim, impale
d on the golden blade, writhed and heaved in death agonies. Blood covered the heavy breasts and crept across the stone. The body stopped jerking and was still.
For a moment the High Priestess remained standing astride her victim. Her head was bowed now, her arms hung at her sides, and her manner was listless and depleted. She swayed and for a moment Blade thought she would fall, then she straightened and looked about her. Her eyes swept the silent circle of Drus and, for a long moment, lingered on the thicket where Blade and Taleen were concealed. He could not discern their color, and it was impossible that she knew of their presence, yet Blade felt the intensity of those eyes and something rippled cold along his spine.
Then it was over. She replaced her cowl, could once more have been a spry old woman, and leaped down from the stump. Without a word or gesture she stalked away from the crowd of Drus and disappeared into the trees on the far side of the glade.
The rest was mere butcher's work. Blade felt his sickness grow as he watched and listened to Taleen's whispered taunts.
"So I lie? So I am a credulous fool? I listen to foolish tales and repeat them, do I? It is a lie, then, that the Drus eat human flesh?"
She nudged him with her elbow. "Why, then, are they gutting that poor slave girl like a capon?"
They were stuffing the body now with small leaves of some kind. Blade felt that he had seen enough. He might even have conceded that he had seen too much. He did not care to linger and watch them spit the body and place it over the coals. It was past time to go.
Taleen whispered the same thought bred by a different concern. She was again fearful for her own tawny hide.
"In the name of Frigga, Blade, let us go! We have been lucky but it will not last forever. By some miracle we are still alive, no one has seen us, and no tales will be carried. If we go now it is just possible that "
She was interrupted by a loud cry from the glade. Then another cry. Then a series of muted screams followed by a great hubbub.