"We move north, regardless. But there may be truth in what you say."
"You need allies. Numbers. Weapons. As the spearhead of an army, you would be formidable. Iubar, too, moves north. You need her, she needs you. Make alliance. You will be serving only yourselves."
The warm wind blew. Streams of water blurred the faces of the ice-eyed kings who kept their long vigil in the cliffs of the berg. No one spoke.
Aud began suddenly to rant again, pounding his fists on his chest.
Delbane silenced him and asked Stark, "Do you promise us ships?"
"Somewhere along the way, surely."
Delbane nodded. "We will take counsel, the four of us."
22
As Gerrith had prophesied, Irnan was a dead city. Because of the siege, her fields had yielded no crops that year but corpses, and her people were dispersed among the other city-states to wait out the winter. The great gate hung open, and there was no one to oppose the Farers when they came.
These numbered fewer than a hundred, mostly stragglers from the great rout of the Farer army, and who because of fear or injuries had hidden in the hills instead of returning to Ged Darod with the bulk of the mob after the alien lightnings had barred their way to Irnan. There had been more of them. These were the survivors.
The cold had come upon them like a furtive enemy, long before its time. They suffered from hunger and the attacks of the Wild Bands. They shivered in their nakedness, in their faded body paint, in their inventive rags and tatters. The chill wind urged them south. They paused at Irnan only to see what pickings might be left there.
They passed along the tunnel through the thickness of the wall and came into the great square beyond. And they found that the city was not quite deserted.
A girl sat cross-legged on the platform that rose above the center of the square. It had been used for public executions, as was the custom, but the posts where once the victims were bound had been chopped away. The girl's dark hair covered her like a cloak, except where the wind lifted it to show her body painted in half-obliterated whorls of pink and silver, marred by time and rain and bramble scratches. Her eyes were closed, as it she slept.
A thin trickle of smoke rose from one of the buildings.
A man came out into the square, a muscular fellow clad in some burgher's cast-off robe. He had an indolent mouth, and clever mocking eyes, and he carried a drinking cup in his hand.
"Never mind her," he said to the newcomers. "She got kicked in the head at Tregad and she's daft ever since. My name is Wendor. Welcome to our city, and get your arses in out of the cold."
But the girl on the platform opened her eyes.
"It began here in Irnan," she said, and her voice echoed eerily from the walls. "They were the first traitors, these Irnanese. They wanted the ships to take them away. Because of them it all happened. Their wise woman made the prophecy about the Dark Man from the stars who would destroy the Lords Protector."
Her voice strengthened, ringing away along the narrow streets that opened into the square.
"I was here," she cried. "Here in this square. I saw the Dark Man bound on this platform, with the traitor Yarrod and the traitor Halk. I saw Yarrod die. How we tore his flesh when they threw him to us! I saw Gerrith, the daughter of Gerrith, stripped and bound in his place. I saw the elders of Irnan in chains. And then the arrows flew."
She stood up, flinging wide her arms. Wendor leaned himself in the doorway and sipped from his cup. The Farers shivered together but could not quite tear themselves away.
"From those windows the arrows flew. There, and there! They struck the Wandsman Mordach. Wandsmen and soldiers they slaughtered, and Farers—Farers! Us, the children of the Lords Protector. The arrows sang, and the cobbles were slippery with blood. They killed us and set the Dark Man free, to bring down the Citadel."
Her voice had risen to a harsh screaming, like the cries of a predatory bird.
From among the Farers, as she paused for breath, another voice spoke. "The Irnanese are beaten and the Dark Man most likely dead. Let us all go inside, girl, away from this wind."
She looked at them with mad eyes. "The Dark Man routed us at Tregad—"
"He had some help," Wendor said cynically, "from Delvor's army." He turned to the Farers. "Baya has this special feeling for the Dark Man, you see. At Skeg she betrayed him to the Wandsmen, but he survived. She tried to betray him again, but he caught her and carried her, a prisoner, almost to Irnan." He laughed. "I think she's in love with him."
"Give me a stone," screamed Baya. "Just one stone, that I may kill that vermin!"
"Come away in," said Wendor. "She'll be quiet when there's no one to listen."
The Farers flapped and shuffled across the square and through the doorway.
Wendor shouted at Baya. "Vermin, you call me, when I kept you alive all that time after Tregad, and you wandering in a daze? Vermin yourself! I don't care what you do. Burn the bloody city and yourself with it, if you want to, I've sat here long enough. I leave tomorrow." He went inside.
Baya looked at the city and smiled, and said aloud, "Of course, burn it. That's why I came here."
She climbed down the steps from the platform, hugging herself. She felt the wind now.
It was warmer in the hall, where Wendor had made a fire of broken furniture. A cask of wine sat with its top stove in and Farers fighting to dip into it. Others were pulling down hangings wherewith to wrap themselves.
"The pigs left everything they couldn't carry," Wendor said. "All their old clothes, and the wine. Make yourselves free." He moved abruptly to haul Baya away from the fire, where she was setting an improvised torch alight. "Leave it! We're not quite finished with the city yet,"
He cuffed her until he was sure she understood.
Baya wandered off. She found odds and ends of clothing and put them on, taking pleasure in the chill emptiness of rooms and passages, desolate places that had once been homes. She shouted defiant obscenities to the hollow spaces, in which Stark's name was prominently echoed. "Beaten, beaten, beaten!" she cried. "And where is your strength now, Dark Man? Mother Skaith was too strong for you. We were too strong for you!"
She ran out of breath at last, and began to search for food. The Irnanese had left little enough of that behind them. Still, she found a smoked joint forgotten in a cupboard, and only partly gnawed by the small creatures who had found it first; and after that a cheese. She filled her mouth and went on her way, munching, carrying the food in her looped-up skirt.
In one kitchen she found a flint-and-steel, and, in a dark stores room, lamp oil. Smiling, she gathered together a heap of debris, of hangings and furniture, and splashed oil over it; then she set herself industriously to make sparks.
For a while Baya warmed herself, watching the flames lick up and catch in the wooden ceiling. When hot ash began to fall on her, she went away into the narrow street. Back in the square she climbed up on the platform again and sat herself down. She ate some more while the smoke rose above the roofs, thinly at first, then more sturdily until it was a black and ever-widening pillar against the sky.
The wind helped.
When night came on, she could see the flames. She was still sitting there, watching, when Wendor and the others, roused from wine-heavy sleep by each other's coughing, staggered out of the smoky hall. By now the square was illumined by a red glare. Flames danced, roaring, over the rooftops.
Wendor climbed the platform. He picked up what was left of the joint and the cheese and threw them to the others, then he picked up Baya and carried her down the steps and through the gate. He beat her all the way, but she only watched the flames and smiled.
Irnan burned for seven days.
It made a great smoke; but Kazimni of Izvand, riding at the head of a troop of two hundred warriors, was too far away to see it, though it would have brought him pleasure. He and his mercenaries had twice suffered defeat there, first as garrison at the time of the revolt, and then as assault troops at the siege, all
in the service of the Wandsmen. He knew Stark well. He had given the off-worlder safe-conduct as far as Izvand and then sold him to Amnir of Komrey for a good sum, to be resold to the Lords Protector. He had been amazed and respectful when Stark turned up alive to raise the siege of Irnan. Now surely the Dark Man was dead, and more pressing matters occupied Kazimni. Matters such as starvation and survival.
They had come east from Izvand across the Barrens, plundering where they could, with scant profit. They crossed the Border in frost and hail and came down on Tregad. But Tregad's walls were thick and her home bands well-trained. Kazimni poked and prodded, hoping for a weak spot. He found none and took his men off toward Ged Darod.
"In these times," he said, "the Wandsmen will likely have need of us. And in any case, we won't go hungry."
Folk would go hungry in Izvand that winter. He thought of his beloved city beside the frozen Sea of Skorva, and his hard jaw tightened. If what the wise men said was true, and the Goddess had set her hand on Izvand, then that city's day was done. He remembered Stark and his talk of better worlds beyond the sky, and he remembered his own answer. "The land shapes us. If we were in another place, we would be another people." The Izvandians had chosen, at the time of the Wandering, to remain on the edge of winter, in a climate similar to that of their original home farther north. Now it seemed that they might well be forced to move again, and the thought was a black one to Kazimni.
Yet he did not shirk it. If it were so, other folk would likewise be forced south, and much blood was bound to flow as they fought each other for land. It was better to be in the vanguard, to take first and hold on.
He thought of Ged Darod and its temples crammed with treasure, and he wondered secretly if the Wandsmen had not outlived their usefulness.
To the north, other men moved down along the Wandsmen's Road. There had been a drawing of lots at Yurunna, based upon the amount of food available. Those who drew the black pebbles were now upon their way, with their families and possessions, hooded tribesmen in dusty cloaks of the six colors, fierce blue eyes showing above their veils and weapons at their belts. Behind them came the Tarf, enclosing within their green-gold ranks the hundreds of the Fallarin with folded wings, perched on tall desert beasts and looking forward savagely to a future in an unknown land.
Far behind, ignored in their orange cloaks, came the remnants of the once-proud Ochar, First-Come of Kheb, who had broken their might upon their own ambition.
The army marched on its way. In the low desert, frost had dimmed the reptilian colors of sand and rock, and in the debatable lands beyond the trees were hung with funeral draperies of dead leaves, which dropped steadily before a keening wind. Every pond was frozen.
Foraging parties found no food. Packs of starving wanderers attacked them for their own flesh. Wild Bands, subhuman creatures who knew no law but hunger, leaped at their throats from ambush. The men from the north pulled their girdles tighter and hastened south, keeping to the road because it was easy and well-marked.
The stations of the Keepers of the Middle Road were abandoned. Since the fall of Yurunna, the Wandsmen had had no occasion to travel this far. Their boundaries were drawing in, around the warm plain of Ged Darod.
23
The Kings of the White Islands found their ships at last, and not a day too soon.
Progress had been rapid enough earlier, but not easy. The Islanders, tireless on their ice floes, were unused to hill-climbing. They became sore-footed and irritable. There were quarrels and killings, and only the cruel hands of the Four Kings held them from tribal warfare.
Several hundred of the people of Iubar had been forced to march by land as well, because there was not room for them in their ships. They, too, were sore-footed and irritable, and they suffered from the steady diet of fish, which they insisted on cooking. Nothing was available from the land, and scurvy plagued them, as did the dysentery common to camps. Daily halts were made for burial parties. The Islanders ate everything raw, and throve. They became increasingly impatient with the Iubarians, threatening to go on alone and leave them to their misery.
Stark and Halk spent much time trying to hold the ill-mated force together. Stark was a grim and silent man these days, and even Halk walked wide of him. Gerd and Grith were ever at his heels, and the whole pack followed when he went among the ranks.
Morn was Stark's liaison with the ships of Iubar, and the situation there was worsening with each rising of Old Sun. Over-crowded and deep-laden as they were, the ships could still outdistance the marchers on land, and must needs heave to and wait, lest they lose touch entirely.
There is sickness aboard, said Morn one day. It costs my people much effort to find food for so many. Water becomes a problem. There is fear, and much discontent. The Lady Sanghalain is told by her advisers to forget the promise of star-ships and sail on to seek new land for her people, abandoning those on shore. They care nothing for the Islanders.
They will, said Stark, when they need them to fight. And what about the Iubarians here, Sanghalain's own folk?
There are those who say that they must be sacrificed for the good of the rest. One day, she will have to listen.
Stark did not need to be told how near this shaky alliance was to breaking up. He could feel it, as a man feels quicksand beneath his feet.
So, when Morn brought word of a fortified town ahead, and a harbor filled with ships, he took the news at once to the Four Kings where they marched beneath the gold-bright Head of Gengan.
Aud showed his large, strong teeth. "Now," he said, "we shall see how the Dark Man fights." It was a simple operation, swiftly done. The Irnanese had chosen to march by land, with Halk. All the rest were in the boat, which did not sail in company with the ships of Iubar but stayed closer inshore, in constant touch with Stark. Now the tribesmen and the Fallarin and Tarf, except those necessary to crew the boat, joined the land forces, glad of something to do.
Leaving Halk in charge, Stark and Tuchvar ranged ahead with the hounds in two separate parties, to locate any landward guardposts. The Northhounds found and silenced them before the watchers were aware of any force approaching through the thick woods with their curtain of frost-blighted leaves.
From a ridge of high ground, Stark looked down at the town.
It seemed cramped within a ditch and palisade. Probably it had grown too rapidly, as lost and landless people accreted around the strong leader whose crude banner hung above the gate—a tanned hide with a splash of color on it, indistinguishable at this distance. Some of the buildings were old. Others were new or still in the making, and many were rough shelters of boughs and skins.
In the small, crowded harbor were craft much like the one Stark's people used, designed alike for fishing and for battle. A number of these had been stripped and supplied with mechanisms that had nothing to do with fishing. Most of the half-dozen coasting traders moored along the outer quay at the far side of the harbor were probably prizes captured by the refitted boats. The quay itself, like the houses of the original village, was old, a rough construction of logs and stones.
People moved in the streets of the town. There was a market. The hammers of builders rang. Along the harbor front fishermen mended nets, and among the boats a scattering of men repaired rigging or banged away at carpentry.
On a small island, little more than a hump of rock beside the harbor mouth stood a tumbledown tower with a mangonel on top and some armed men lounging about. A narrow causeway led from the tower to the end of the quay, and people were fishing from it with hand lines. Some sort of ordered life had found a footing here and was resuming its normal patterns. It seemed a pity to break them up again, but there was no help for it and the damage ought not to be irreparable, no more than a severe shaking-up.
Stark looked at the sky. Then he went back down from the ridge to where the army waited. By the sea's edge he conferred with the Four Kings and with his own leaders, and with Morn, and presently Morn slipped into the tideless water and disappeared, headin
g for Sanghalain's ships, which lay out of sight beyond a headland.
Stark said to the Four Kings, "Pick your men." He turned to Aud. "You and I will march together."
Aud smiled. "Where are your very powerful weapons, Dark Man?"
"They're not needed here," Stark said. "Unless you would feel safer?"
Aud snarled, and went to collect his force. They set off through the woods, making a long circle around the town. The hounds ran ahead as before, to clear the way. They were excited, impatient for battle. They growled and whimpered, and their minds were filled with sparks of fire.
Stark's mind, like his heart, was filled with blackness. He needed the release of battle even more than the hounds, before that which was inside him should overwhelm him. He led the long line of Islanders—Aud's and Astrane's—among the blighted trees, going fast, with a morose and savage face that made Aud think better of his taunts.
Old Sun dropped over the edge of the world before they had completed their circuit.
In darkness, Stark led the way down toward the harbor side. They waited among the trees, where scrub woods covered a slope above the water. Gerd and Grith pressed close to Stark, panting, and he laid his hands on them as the first of the Three Ladies rose in the northern sky. Stark's eyes caught the light and shone like ice, whereas the eyes of the hounds were hot and yellow.
The palisade gate was shut. The town was remarkably quiet, showing few lights. The sentries the hounds had slain must have been found by now. Stark wondered what the leaders had made of them, being dead with no mark on them except the look of fear, and whether they knew about the army so close at hand. Certainly they would be alert and on guard. The only surprises would be in the method of attack and the size of the forces involved—which would not include the Iubarian marchers, who were far behind. The second of the Three Ladies rose. The harbor water gleamed pure silver, the dark hulls and masts in sharp silhouette against it. The only lamps were in the island tower at the end of the quay, a few vagrant yellow rays showing through arrow-slits and cracks in the masonry.
The Reavers of Skaith-Volume III of The Book of Skaith Page 15