Within twenty-four hours, the situation on the plain had been stabilized. Most of the able-bodied had fled south, where they had at least a chance of finding food. Those who could not run were gathered into camps under Sanghalain's care. Large bodies of Iubarians and Ssussminh started back for Skeg. Eventually all would return there, to hold the fisheries and control what would once again become a star-port.
The tribesmen and the Fallarin proposed to follow, but Alderyk himself would now lead his delegation to Pax. Morn and the Lady of Jubar would go, as before, with Pedrallon and Sabak and other leaders of the Hooded Men, including one of the last of the Ochar. The Ironmaster, having touched and felt and tasted of the soil of Ged Darod, which was barren of ore, announced that he, too, would look for a new forge-place among the stars.
Reluctantly, Kazimni also volunteered for the ship. Somewhere there might be another Sea of Skorva, where his people could build another Izvand in the clean coldness that kept a man strong.
Tuchvar stroked his hounds. He had grown older and leaner since Stark first found him in the kennels at Yurunna, but he could still weep, and he wept now. "I would go with you, Stark. But I am Houndmaster now. I can't leave them. I'll find a place somewhere, an island, where they can do no harm to anyone, and where they can live out their lives in peace. Perhaps then I can follow you to the stars."
"Of course," said Stark, and knew that he would not. Gerd and Grith pressed close against him. "These two I will take with me, Tuchvar. They would not consent to stay behind." He paused. "Only keep them for me now. I have one more thing to do."
And he left them, protesting, to join Ashton in the Palace of the Twelve, which was now the Palace of the Four Kings.
Ashton was speaking again to the captain of the star-ship. "You may land at your convenience."
"You're on the dark side now. We'll land at dawn."
"We'd appreciate any rations you can spare."
"I've already checked on that. It won't be much, but it may help. Oh, by the way . . . I think you and Stark will be pleased to know that Penkawr-Che and his raiders were intercepted by GU cruisers off the Hercules Cluster. They put up quite a running fight, but the cruisers had the weight. Penkawr-Che was among the casualties."
"Thank you," said Ashton.
Stark was glad, but in a remote way. The weariness of all the long months on Skaith were superimposed now on the briefer but more acute weariness of battle and sleepless hours. The joy of victory was shadowed by the pain which had never left him since the flames on Iubar's tower top rose up to warm Old Sun.
He turned to one of the Irnanese who stood guard over the transceiver.
"Find Halk," he said. "I will wait for Mm in the quadrangle."
Lamps burned in the cloisters and the Three Ladies shone above. There was light enough. The night was warm. The city was quiet, the air tainted heavily with smoke from the fires that smoldered below the wall.
Halk came. The hilt of the great sword stood up over his left shoulder, gleaming.
"I don't see your guardians, Dark Man."
"They're with Tuchvar. They've been ordered not to harm you, if you kill me."
Halk reached up and stroked the smooth, worn metal of the hilt. "But what if you kill me, Dark Man? Who will gather the people of Irnan together to wait for the ships?" He brought the blade up out of the sheath, then thrust it back again with a ringing clash. "I have much to do. Too much to be risked for the pleasure of cleaving your head from your body. Besides, I think you have taken a deeper wound than any I could give you. I leave you with it."
He turned and strode away across the quadrangle, into the dark.
The last of the Three Ladies sank in the west. It was the moonless time when sleep came heaviest, but Hargoth the Corn-King could not sleep. His people were camped in the hills above a wide plain whereon a city was burning. He did not wish to go near the city, having a distaste for that kind of violence. But when he cast the finger-bones, the Spring Child pointed inexorably toward the smoke.
Hargoth felt at once afraid and excited. The blood quivered within his meager flesh. He stood quite still, waiting, without knowing what he was waiting for, knowing only that when it came, much would be changed forever.
The dark time passed. Old Sun poured forth his libation of molten brass over the eastern horizon. The folk of the Towers began to stir, and Hargoth motioned them to silence. His eyes were fixed upon the sky, pale and bright behind his mask.
There was first a sound, terrifying, heart-stopping, magnificent. The brazen sky was torn apart with sound, and a great shape came dropping down, riding a pillar of fire with majestic ease. Hammers beat against Hargoth's ears and the ground shook beneath his feet. Then flame and thunder died and the ship stood tall upon the plain of Ged Darod, looking even in that moment of rest as though it merely gathered itself to leap again toward the stars.
"Up," said Hargoth to his people. "Up and march. The long wait is over, and the star-roads lie before us."
He led his people down from the hills, singing the Hymn of Deliverance.
Stark heard the chanting. He looked toward the long gray line, and sent word swiftly that there was to be no attack. While stores were unloaded from the ship and the passengers began to embark—the willing and the unwilling, with Gelmar among the red robes that went to serve the white—Stark went with his two hounds to meet the Corn-King.
"You see?" he said. "I was the true Deliverer, after all. Will you come into the ship?"
"No," said Hargoth. "Until all my people can go, I stay with them. But I will send two of my priests to speak for us." He gestured, and two of the lean, gray men stepped forward. Then he glanced again at Stark. "What of the sun-haired woman?"
"The prophecy you made at Thyra was a true one," Stark said.
He walked back to the ship with the priests beside him and the two hounds at his heels.
Ashton was waiting for him in the airlock. They went together into the ship and the outer hatch clanged shut. In a little while, the flame and thunder shook the air again and set the ground a-tremble. The shining hull sprang upward into the sky.
Old Sun watched it with a dull, uncomprehending eye until it disappeared.
Appendix
THE BACKGROUND
SKAITH,
dying planet of a dying star far out in the Orion Spur. Knowledge of the inevitable demise of their world has colored every facet of life for the people of Skaith, giving rise to many strange religions and customs. Over the centuries, different groups have sought salvation in different ways.
Some preferred, through controlled genetic mutation—a science now long lost—to worship a chosen deity with their whole being, as:
THE CHILDREN OF THE SEA-OUR-MOTHER,
who have returned to the primal womb whence all life sprang, losing their humanity in the process, and with it their understanding of the coming doom;
THE CHILDREN OF SKAITH-OUR-MOTHER,
who worship their equivalent of the Earth-Mother, dwelling deep within her warm, protective body, safe from the creeping death Outside;
THE FALLARIN,
who wanted wings, the better to adore their dying lord, the Sun. In them, however, the mutation was imperfect—they have wings but cannot really fly. In compensation, they have become brothers to the winds, with power to call upon the currents of the air to do their bidding. They are served by
THE TARF,
who are genetic mutations from non-human stock. The above are relatively small groups. Most of the other survivors of the Wandering—that time of chaos when the great cities of the north were abandoned to the cold—have adapted to existing conditions and lead not-uncomfortable lives in the Fertile Belt, though strange survivals still exist in the Barrens and in the Darklands of the north (such as the Harsenyi, a tribe of northern nomads, message-bearers between various groups, and the Outdwellers, a strange far-northern people given to cannibalism). The productive section of the population has been harnessed to the support of the la
rgest body of doom-worshipers.
THE FARERS,
who, feeling that all effort is useless because there is no future for Skaith, spend their lives in faring from place to place as the mood takes them, filling their hours with the gratifications of the moment, secure in the knowledge that they will be fed, housed, clothed, and cared for by the authority of
THE WANDSMEN,
whose rule brought stability out of chaos after the Wandering, but who, after two thousand years or so, have become onerous to many, as their original plan, which was to protect the weak from the strong, to feed the hungry, and to shelter the homeless, has become warped by time and the necessities of power into a serfdom under which the providers labor. The Wandsmen enforce their laws by the use of mercenary troops. The Wandsmen's superiors, or "officers," are
THE LORDS PROTECTOR,
a council of seven old men drawn from the highest ranks of the Wandsmen, chosen for their wisdom and ability. These are regarded almost as deities by the Farers, and since their rule has been unbroken and their individual personalities always hidden from the vulgar gaze, they are thought to be immortal.
THE NORTHHOUNDS
are genetically mutated animals bred as guardians of the Citadel. They are telepaths, and kill by destroying human minds with fear. Stark became their leader at the Citadel.
Skaith, in her heyday, despite advanced technology, scientific knowledge, and industrial might, never developed spaceflight, so that when she began her long dying, depleted of resources and her people slipping back into barbarism, there was no chance of escape for anyone—until the starships came. Then the poison of hope began to work, and the lines of battle were drawn between the entrenched power of the Wandsmen and the rebels who have demanded freedom to emigrate to a better world.
THE PLACES
THE CITADEL,
a half-legendary retreat of the Lords Protector, in the High North. Destroyed by the off-worlder Stark.
GED DAROD,
holy city of the Wandsmen, a place of pilgrimage, seat of their temporal power.
IRNAN,
a city-state in the north temperate zone. Here Gerrith, the wise woman, made her prophecy of the Dark Man from the stars who would destroy the Lords Protector and set her people free. For this she was slain by the Wandsmen. The Irnanese were prime movers in the fight for emigration.
TREGAD,
a similar city-state, sometime ally of Irnan.
SKEG,
a seaport and formerly the location of the only star-port, until that was burned by order of the Wandsmen and the starships banished forever from Skaith.
YURUNNA,
a northern base of the Wandsmen, where the Northhounds were bred. Captured by Stark with a coalition of desert tribesmen and Fallarin.
THYRA,
a place south of and near the Witchfires, where a race of smiths reclaim iron from the rusting bones of a great ruined city.
THE TOWERS,
another ruin, where the People of the Towers dwell in the northern cold and darkness, awaiting the coming of the star-ships.
IZVAND,
a city by the Sea of Skorva in the Barrens. It is inhabited by a hardy people: fisher-folk and mercenary soldiers.
PAX,
the hopefully named administrative center of the Galactic Union, a vast and far-flung confederation of worlds totally unknown to Skaith before the starships came. Pax is both a world and a city—a city so vast that it covers an entire planet. Pax contains closed-environment quarters to suit the needs of delegates, human and otherwise, from all the federated worlds; and it is to Pax that delegates must come from those unfederated worlds, such as Skaith, which seek to join the Union.
THE PLACE OF WINDS,
home of the Fallarin, isolated in the northern desert.
THE WITCHFIRES,
a mountain range in the north, beneath which the Children of Skaith dwell in the House of the Mother.
THE THERMAL PITS,
spoutings of underground hot water, south of the Bleak Mountains.
THE BLEAK MOUNTAINS,
in the High North, location of the Wandsmen's Citadel.
THE PLAIN OF WORLDHEART,
flat region south of the Thermal Pits and north of the Witch-fires.
THE DARKLANDS,
a danger-filled area north of Izvand and the Sea of Skorva and south of the Witchfires.
THE PEOPLE
ERIC JOHN STARK,
called also N'Chaka, Man-Without-a-Tribe. A feral child reared by half-human aborigines in a cruel environment on the planet Mercury; in his mature years, a wanderer and mercenary specializing in the small wars of remote peoples fighting for survival against stronger opponents.
SIMON ASHTON,
Stark's foster-father and friend, an official in the Ministry of Planetary Affairs at Pax. When Ashton disappeared on Skaith, Stark came to search for him.
YARROD,
a martyr of Irnan, slain by the Wandsmen.
GERRITH,
daughter of the slain Gerrith, who succeeded her as wise woman of Irnan.
HALK,
Yarrod's companion-in-arms, an unwilling ally of Stark.
BRECA,
Halk's shield-mate, slain at Thyra.
ALDERYK,
King of the Fallarin, companion of Stark.
KLATLEKT,
a Tarf, loyal servant-in-arms to Alderyk.
SABAK,
leader of the desert tribesmen who followed Stark south.
TUCHVAR,
former apprentice to the Houndmaster of Yurunna, follower of Stark, devoted to his hounds.
GERD and GRITH,
Northhounds.
BAYA,
a Farer girl who betrayed Stark and then was captured by him. Freed by the Wandsmen, she again sought to destroy Stark at Tregad.
FERDIAS,
chief of the Lords Protector, Stark's bitter enemy.
GELMAR,
Chief Wandsman of Skeg, a bitter enemy also.
PEDRALLON,
a Wandsman of high rank and prince of Andapell, in the tropics. A champion of emigration, he was punished as a traitor by his peers.
KELL à MARG,
Skaith-Daughter, ruler of the Children of Skaith-Our-Mother.
THE IRONMASTER,
ruler of the smiths of Thyra.
HARGOTH THE CORN-KING,
ruler, with his sorcerer-priests, of the People of the Towers.
SANGHALAIN,
Lady of Iubar, a principality in the White South.
MORN,
leader of the Ssussminh, an amphibian race closely allied to the House of Iubar.
KAZIMNI OF IZVAND,
a mercenary captain.
PENKAWR-CHE,
a star-captain who made arrangements with Pedrallon and Stark to transport a delegation from Skaith to Pax in order to plead for membership in the Galactic Union. Penkawr-Che then betrayed his trust, held his passengers to ransom, and in company with two other ships has seized the opportunity to loot Skaith.
THE END
For more great books visit
http://www.webscription.net
The Reavers of Skaith-Volume III of The Book of Skaith Page 19