Shardik

  The march was resumed, the army following the road through the wood and down the hillside beyond. Ta-Kominion took up a place in the middle of the column, knowing that if he remained in the rear he would not be able to keep up. For a time he leaned on Numiss's arm until, perceiving that the wretched man was exhausted, he sent for Kavass to take his place.

  They went on through the darkening, sultry afternoon. Ta-Kominion tried to estimate how far ahead the vanguard might be. The distance down to the plain could not now be more than a few miles. He had better send a runner to tell them to halt when they reached it. Just as he was about to call the nearest man he slipped, jolted his arm and almost fell down with the pain. Kavass helped him to the side of the track.

  "I'll never get there, Kavass," he whispered.

  "Don't worry, sir," replied Kavass. "After what you told the lads, they'd fight just as well, even if you did have to sit out, like. That's got round, you know, sir, what you said back there. Most of them never actually saw Lord Shardik when he came ashore on Ortelga, you see, and they're keen to fight just to be there when he shows up again. They know he's coming. So even if you was to have to lay down for a bit--"

  Suddenly there reached Ta-Kominion's ears a confused, distant clamor, echoing up from the steep woods below--the familiar, guttural cries of the Ortelgans and, clearly distinguishable at rhythmic intervals, a higher, lighter sound of other voices, shouting together. Underneath all was the thudding, trampling noise of a tumultuous crowd.

  Ta-Kominion knew now that he must be delirious, for evidently he could no longer tell reality from hallucination. Yet Kavass seemed to be listening too.

  "Can you hear it, Kavass?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir. Sounds like trouble. Part of that noise isn't our lads, sir."

  Commotion was working back along the column like flood water flowing up a creek from the main river. Men were running past them down the hill, looking back to point and shout to those behind. Ta-Kominion tried to call out to them but none regarded him. Kavass flung himself at a running man, stopped him by main force, held him as he gabbled and pointed, flung him aside and returned to Ta-Kominion.

  "Can't make it out altogether, sir, but there's some sort of fighting down there, or at least that's what he said."

  "Fighting?" repeated Ta-Kominion. For a few moments he could not remember what the word meant. His vision had blurred and with this came the curious sensation that his eyes had melted and were running down his face, while still retaining, though in a splintered manner, the power of sight. He raised his hand to wipe away the streaming liquid. Sure enough, he could no longer see. Kavass was shouting beside him.

  "The rain, sir, the rain!"

  It was indeed rain that was covering his hands, blurring his eyes and filling the woods with a leafy sibilance that he had supposed to be coming from inside his own head. He stepped into the middle of the track and tried to make out for himself what was going on at the foot of the hill.

  "Help me to get down there, Kavass!" he cried.

  "Steady, sir, steady," replied the fletcher, taking his arm once more.

  "Steady be damned!" shouted Ta-Kominion. "Those are Beklans down there--Beklans--and our fools are fighting them piecemeal, before they've even deployed! Where's Kelderek? The rains--it's that bitch of a priestess--she's cursed us, damn her!--help me down there!"

  "Steady, sir," repeated the man, holding him up. Hobbling, hopping, stumbling, Ta-Kominion plunged down the steep track, the clamor growing louder in his ears until he could plainly discern the clashing of arms and distinguish the cries of warriors and the screams of the wounded. The woodland, he saw, ended at the foot of the hill and the fighting, which he still could not make out clearly, had been joined in the open, beyond. Men with drawn weapons were running back among the trees. He saw a great, fair-haired fellow pitch to the ground, blood oozing from a wound in his back.

  Suddenly Zelda appeared through the leaves, calling to the men about him and pointing back into the open with his sword. Ta-Kominion shouted and tried to run toward him. As he did so, he felt a sharp, clutching sensation pass through his body, followed by a cold rushing, a crumbling and inward flow. He blundered into a tree trunk and fell his length in the road. As he rolled over he knew that he could not get up--that he would never get up again. The flood gates of his body had broken and very soon the flood would cover hearing, sight and tongue forever.

  Zelda's face appeared above him, looking down, dripping rain on his own.

  "What's happened?" asked Ta-Kominion.

  "Beklans," answered Zelda. "Fewer than we, but they're taking no chances. The ground's in their favor and they're simply standing and blocking the road."

  "The bastards--how did they get up here? Listen--everyone must attack at the same time," whispered Ta-Kominion.

  "If only they would! There's no order--they're going for them all anyhow, just as they happen to come up. There's some have had enough already, but others are still out there. It'll be dark in less than an hour--and now the rain--"

  "Get them--all back--under the trees--re-form attack again," gasped Ta-Kominion, contriving to utter the words with an enormous effort. His mind was drifting into a mist. It did not surprise him to find that Zelda had gone and that he was once more facing the Tuginda on the road to Gelt. She said nothing, only standing submissively, her wrists tied together with a soaked and filthy bandage. Her eyes were gazing past him at the hills and at first he thought that she must be unaware of his presence. Then, with a conclusive and skeptical glance, like that of some shrewd peasant woman in the market, she looked into his face and raised her eyebrows, as much as to say, "And have you finished now, my child?"

  "You bitch!" cried Ta-Kominion. "I'll strangle you!" He wrenched at the bandage and the deep, suppurating wound along his sword arm, which for more than two days had been pouring poison into his body, burst open upon the rain-pitted dust of the track where he lay. For a moment he jerked his head up, then fell back and opened his eyes, crying, "Zelda!"

  But it was Kelderek whom he saw bending over him.

  22 The Cage

  THROUGHOUT THE LATTER PART of the night and on into the dawn that appeared at last, gray and muffled, behind the clouds piled in the east, Baltis and his men slowly hauled the cage above the forests of the Telthearna. Behind and below them the miles of treetops--that secluded, shining haunt of the great butterflies--appeared, like waves seen from a cliff-top, to be creeping stealthily downwind. Far off, the line of the river shone in the cloudy light with a glint dull as a sword's, the blackened north bank dim in the horizon haze.

  The bear lay inert as though dead. Its eyes remained closed, the dry tongue protruded, and with the jolting of the boards the head shook as a block of stone vibrates on the quarry floor at the thudding of rock masses falling about it. Some of the dusty, footsore girls clung to the ramshackle structure to steady it as it went, while others walked ahead, removing stones from the track or filling ruts and holes before the wheels reached them. Behind the cage plodded Sencred, the wheelwright, watching for the beginnings of play in the wheels or sagging in the axletrees, and from time to time calling up the rope-lines for a halt while he checked the pins.

  Kelderek took his turn at the ropes with the others, but when at length they stopped to rest--the girls pushing heavy stones for blocks behind the wheels--he and Baltis left the men and walked back to where Sencred and Zilthe stood leaning against the cage. Zilthe had thrust her arm through the bars and was caressing one of the bear's forepaws, with its curved sheaf of claws longer than her own hand.

  "Waken, waken to destroy Bekla,

  "Waken, Lord Shardik, na kora, na ro," she sang softly, rubbing her sweating forehead against the cool iron.

  Full of sudden misgiving, Kelderek stared at the bear's corpselike stillness. There seemed not the least swell of breathing in the flank and the flies were settling about the ears and muzzle.

  "What is this drug? Are you sure it has not killed him?"

&nb
sp; "He is not dead, my lord," said Zilthe, smiling. "See!" She drew her knife, bent forward and held it under Shardik's nostrils. The blade clouded very slightly and cleared, clouded and cleared once more; she drew it back and held the flat, warm and moist, against Kelderek's wrist.

  "Theltocarna is powerful, my lord, but she who is dead knew--none better--how it should be used. He will not die."

  "When will he wake?"

  "Perhaps this evening, or during the night. I cannot tell. For many creatures we know the dose and the effect, but his body is like that of no other creature and we can only guess."

  "Will he eat then? Drink?"

  "Creatures that wake from theltocarna are always dangerous. Often there is a frenzy more violent than that before the trance, and then the creature will attack anything that it encounters. I have seen a stag break a rope as thick as one of these bars, and then kill two oxen."

  "When?" asked Kelderek wonderingly.

  She began to tell him of Quiso and the sacred rites of the spring equinox, but Baltis interrupted her.

  "If what you're saying's true, then those bars won't hold him."

  "The roof's not stout enough to hold him either," said Sencred. "He's only got to stand upright and it'll smash like a pie crust."

  "We've been wasting our time," said Baltis, spitting in the dust. "He might as well not be the other side of those bars at all. He'll get up and go when he wants. But I'll tell you this, I'll go first."

  "We shall have to drug him again, then," said Kelderek.

  "That would certainly kill him, my lord," put in Sheldra. "Theltocarna is a poison. It cannot be used twice--no, not twice in ten days."

  There was a murmur of agreement from the other girls.

  "Where is the Tuginda?" asked Nito. "Is she with Lord Ta-Kominion? She would know what to do."

  Kelderek made no answer but, walking back up the track, began getting the men to their feet again.

  An hour later the going became easier as the ascent flattened off and the road grew less steep. As near as he could judge from the confused, murky sky, it was about noon when at last they came into Gelt. The square was littered as though after a riot. There was scarcely a living creature to be seen, but a smoldering reek hung in the air and a smell of garbage and ordure. A solitary ragged urchin loitered, watching them from a safe distance.

  "Smells like a herd of bloody apes," muttered Baltis.

  "Tell your men to eat and rest," said Kelderek. "I'll try to find out how long the army's been gone."

  He crossed the square and stood looking about him in perplexity at the shut doors and empty alleys beyond. Suddenly he felt a sharp, momentary pain, like the sting of an insect, in the lobe of his left ear. He put his hand to the place and drew it away with blood between finger and thumb and in the same instant realized that the arrow that had grazed him was sticking in the door post across the way. He spun around quickly but saw only another deserted lane running between closed doors and shuttered windows. Without turning his head, he stepped slowly backward into the square and remained watching the blank, silent hovels for any sign of movement.

  "What's up?" asked Baltis, coming up behind him. Kelderek touched his ear again and held out his fingers. Baltis whistled.

  "That's nasty," he said. "Throwing stones, eh?"

  "An arrow," said Kelderek, nodding at the door post. Baltis whistled again.

  At that moment, with a grating sound upon the threshold, a nearby door opened and a bleary, dirty old woman appeared. She was hobbling and staggering beneath the weight of a child in her arms. As she came nearer Kelderek saw with a start that it was dead. The old woman tottered up to him and laid the child on the ground at his feet. It was a girl, about eight years old, blood matted in her hair and a conjunctive yellow discharge around the open eyes. The old woman, bent and muttering, remained standing before him.

  "What do you want, grandmother?" asked Kelderek. "What's happened?"

  The old woman looked up at him from eyes bloodshot with years of crouching over wood fires.

  "Think no one sees. They think no one sees," she whispered. "But God sees. God sees everything."

  "What happened?" asked Kelderek again, stepping over the child's body and grasping the stick-thin wrist beneath the rags.

  "Ay, that's right, better ask them--ask them what happened," said the old woman. "You'll catch 'em if you're quick. They're not gone far--they're not gone long."

  At this moment two men came striding side by side around the corner. They kept their eyes fixed before them and their faces bore the tense, resolute expression of those who knowingly run a risk. Without speaking to Kelderek they grasped the old woman's arms and began leading her away between them. For a moment she struggled, protesting shrilly.

  "It's the governor-man from Bekla! The governor-man! I'm telling him--"

  "Now just you come along, mother," said one of the men. "Just come along with us now. You don't want to be standing about here. Come along now--"

  They shut the door behind them and a moment later came the sound of a heavy bar falling into place.

  Kelderek and Baltis left the child's body on the ground and returned across the square. The men had formed a ring around the girls and were looking nervously about.

  "I don't think we ought to stop here," said Sencred, pointing. "There's not enough of us to make it safe."

  A crowd of men had gathered at the far end of a lane leading off the square, talking and gesticulating among themselves. A few were carrying weapons.

  Kelderek took off his belt, laid his bow and quiver on the ground and walked toward them.

  "Careful," called Baltis after him. Kelderek ignored him and walked on until he was thirty paces from the men. Holding his hands open on either side of him, he called,

  "We don't want to hurt you. We're your friends."

  There was a burst of jeering laughter and then a big man with gray hair and a broken nose stepped forward and answered,

  "You've done enough. Let us alone or we'll kill you."

  Kelderek felt less afraid than exasperated.

  "Try and kill us, then, you fools!" he shouted. "Try it!"

  "Ah, and have his friends come back," said another man. "Why don't you go and catch your friends up? They've not been gone an hour."

  "I'd say take his advice," said Baltis, who had approached and was standing at Kelderek's shoulder. "No point in waiting till they work themselves up to rush us."

  "But our people are tired," answered Kelderek angrily.

  "They'll be worse than that, my boy, if we don't get out of here," said Baltis. "Come now--I'm no coward and neither are those lads of mine, but there's nothing to be gained by staying." Then, as Kelderek still hesitated, he called out to the men, "Show us the way, then, and we'll go."

  At this, like a pack of pie-dogs, they all took a few wary steps forward, and then began shouting and pointing southward. As soon as he was sure of the way, Kelderek drew a line in the dust with his foot and warned them not to cross it until the Ortelgans were gone.

  "Ay, we can leave Gelt without any help from you," shouted Baltis, laying hold of the ropes once more to encourage his weary men.

  They plodded slowly away, the townspeople staring after them, chattering together and pointing at the huge brown body stretched behind the bars.

  Outside the town the road fell away downhill. Soon it became so steep that their task was no longer to drag the cage after them but rather to control its downward course. Coming to a broad, level place above a long slope, they turned it about and took the strain on the ropes from behind. At least the ground, dry and gritty, gave good foothold and for a time they made better speed than during the morning. A mile or two below, however, the road narrowed and began to wind along the rocky side of a ravine, and here they were forced to let the cage down foot by foot, straining backward while Sencred and two or three of his men used poles to lever the front wheels this way and that. At one place, where the bend was too sharp, they had to set to wo
rk to broaden the track, prising out the rocks with hammers, iron bars and whatever came to hand, until at last they were able to shift an entire boulder and send it plummeting over the edge into long seconds of silence. Farther on, two of the men slipped and the rest, cursing and terrified, were jerked forward and nearly pulled off their feet.

  Not long after this, Kelderek saw that play had increased in the wheels and that the whole structure had shifted and was no longer true on the frame. He consulted Baltis.

  "It's not worth trying to right it," answered the smith. "The truth is, another hour or two of this is going to shake the whole damned thing to pieces. The frame's being ground like corn, d'ye see, between the road below and the weight of the bear above. Even careful work couldn't stand up to that forever, and this lot had to be done quick--like the loose girl's wedding. So what d'ye want, young fellow--are we going on?"

  "What else?" replied Kelderek. And indeed for all their hardship and near exhaustion, not one of the men had complained or tried to argue against their going on to overtake the army. But when at last they had done with the precipices and the steep pitches and were resting at a place where the road broadened and entered an open wood, he allowed himself for the first time to wonder how the business would end. Apart from the girls, who were initiates of a mystery and in any case would never question anything he told them to do, no one with him had any experience of the strength and savagery that Shardik could put forth. If he were to waken in the midst of the Ortelgan army and burst, raging, out of the flimsy cage, how many would be slaughtered? And how many more, through this, would become convinced of his anger and disfavor toward Ortelga? Yet if Baltis and the rest, for their own safety, were told to abandon Shardik now, what could he himself say to Ta-Kominion, who had sent word that Shardik must be brought at all costs?

  He decided to press on until they were close behind the army. Then, if Shardik were still unconscious, he would go forward, report to Ta-Kominion and obtain further orders.

  But now it became a matter of finding men with enough strength left to pull on the ropes. After the past twelve hours some were scarcely able to put one foot before the other. Yet even in this extremity, their passionate belief in the destiny of Shardik drove them to stumble, to stagger, to hobble on. Others, in the very act of pulling, fell down, rolling out of the track of the wheels and gasping to their companions to give them a hand. Some set themselves to push behind the cage but as soon as it gathered a little speed, fell forward and measured their length on the road. Sencred cut himself a forked crutch and limped on beside his splayed wheels. Their pace was that of an old man creeping the street, yet still they moved--as a thaw moves up a valley, or flood water mounts in minute jerks to burst its banks at last and pour over the land. Many, like Zilthe, put their arms through the bars to touch Lord Shardik, believing and feeling themselves strengthened by his incarnate power.