Two or three times they came within sight of cattle grazing. Far-off though they were, Kelderek could make out how the beasts turned and raised their heads all together, uneasy and suspicious of whatever unknown creature it might be that was coming. He hoped for the chance to call to one of the herd boys and send him with a message, but always Shardik passed very wide of the herds and Kelderek, considering whether to leave him, would decide to await a better opportunity.
Late in the afternoon he saw by the sun that Shardik was no longer moving northeast but north. They had wandered deep into the plain--how far he could not tell--perhaps ten miles east of the road that ran from Bekla to the Gelt foothills. The bear showed no sign of stopping or turning back. Kelderek, who had expected that he would wander until he found food and then sleep, had not foreseen this steady journeying, without pause either to eat or rest, by a creature recently wounded and confined for so long. He now realized that Shardik must be impelled by an overwhelming determination to escape from Bekla--to stop for nothing until he had left it far behind, and to avoid on his way all haunts of man. Instinct had turned him toward the mountains and these, if it were his intention to do so, he might well reach in two to three days. Once in that terrain he would be hard to recapture--last time it had cost lives and the burning of a tract of partly inhabited country. Yet if enough men could only be mustered in time he might be turned and then, dangerous though it would be, perhaps driven with noise and torches into a stockade or some other secure place. It would indeed be a desperate business but whatever the outcome, the first need was to check him in his course. A message must be sent and helpers must come.
As the sun began to sink, the greens and browns of the long, gentle slopes changed first to lavender and then to mauve and gray. A cool, damp smell came from the grass and scrub. The lizards disappeared and small, furry animals--coneys, mice and some kind of long-tailed, leaping rat--began to come from their holes. The hard shadows softened and a thin, light dusk rose, as though out of the grounds, in the lower parts of the shallow combes. Kelderek was now very tired and nagged by pain from the stab wound in his hip. Concentrating on remaining alert to Shardik, he became aware only gradually, like a man awakening, of distant human voices and the lowing of cattle. Looking about him, he saw in a hollow, a long way to his left, a village--huts, trees and the gray-shining dot of a pond. He could easily have overlooked it altogether, for the low, inconspicuous dwellings, irregular in outline and haphazard as trees or rocks, seemed, with their mixture of dun, gray and earth-brown colors, almost a natural part of the landscape. All that obtruded upon his weary sight and hearing were a little smoke, the movement of cattle and the far-off cries of the children who were driving them home.
At this moment Shardik, a quarter of a mile ahead, stopped and lay down in his tracks, as though too tired to go farther. Kelderek waited, watching the faint shadow of a blade of grass beside a pebble. The shadow reached and crossed the pebble, but still Shardik did not get up. At length Kelderek set off for the village, looking behind him continually to be sure of the way back.
Before long he came to a track, and this led him to the cattle pens on the village outskirts. Here all was in turmoil, the herd boys chattering excitedly, rebuking one another, raising sudden cries, whacking, poking and running here and there as though cattle had never before been driven into a stockade since the world began. The thin beasts rolled their eyes white, slavered, lowed, jostled and thrust their heads over each other's backs as they crowded into the pens. There was a flopping and smell of fresh dung, and a haze of dust floated glittering in the light of the sunset. No one noticed Kelderek, who stood still to watch for a few moments and to take comfort and encouragement from the age-old, homely scene.
Suddenly one of the boys, catching sight of him, screamed aloud, pointed, burst into tears and began jabbering in a voice distraught with fear. The others, following his gaze, stared wide-eyed, two or three backing away, knuckles pressed to open mouths. The cattle, left to themselves, continued to enter the pens of their own accord. Kelderek smiled and walked forward, holding out both hands.
"Don't be afraid," he said to the nearest child, "I'm a traveler, and I--"
The boy turned and ran from him; and thereupon the whole little crowd took to their heels, dashing away among the sheds until not one was to be seen. Kelderek, bewildered, walked on until he found himself fairly among the dusty houses. There was still nobody to be seen. He stopped and called out, "I'm a traveler from Bekla. I need to see the elder. Where is his house?" No one answered and, walking to the nearest door, he beat on the timbers with the flat of his hand. It was opened by a scowling man carrying a heavy club.
"I am an Ortelgan and a captain of Bekla," said Kelderek quickly. "Hurt me and this village shall burn to the ground."
Somewhere within, a woman began to weep. The man answered, "The quota's been taken. What do you want?"
"Where is the elder?"
The man pointed silently toward a larger house a little way off, nodded and shut the door.
The elder was gray, shrewd and dignified, a taker of his time, a user of convention and propriety to size up his man and gain opportunity to think. With impenetrable courtesy he greeted the stranger, gave orders to his women and, while they brought first water and a thin towel, and then food and drink (which Kelderek would not have refused if they had tasted twice as sour), talked carefully of the prospects for the summer grazing, the price of cattle, the wisdom and invincible strength of the present rulers of Bekla and the prosperity which they had undoubtedly brought upon the land. As he did so, his eyes missed nothing of the stranger's Ortelgan looks, his dress, his hunger and the bound wounds on his leg and forearm. At last, when he evidently felt that he had found out as much as he could and that no further advantage was to be gained from avoiding the point (whatever it might be), he paused, looked down at his folded hands and waited in silence.
"Could you spare a couple of lads for a trip to Bekla?" asked Kelderek. "I'll pay you well."
The elder continued silent for a little, weighing his words. At last he replied, "I have the tally-stick, sir, given to me by the provincial governor when we provided our quota last autumn. I will show you."
"I don't understand. What do you mean?"
"This is not a large village. The quota is two girls and four boys every three years. Of course, we give the governor a present of cattle, to show our gratitude to him for not fixing it higher. We are not due again for two and a half years. Have you a warrant?"
"Warrant? There's some mistake--"
The elder looked up quickly, smelling a rat and not slow to be after it.
"May I ask if you are a licensed dealer? If so, surely it is your business to know what arrangements are in force for this village?"
"I'm not a dealer at all. I--"
"Forgive me, sir," said the elder crisply, his manner becoming somewhat less deferential, "I cannot help finding that a trifle hard to believe. You are young, yet you assume an air of authority. You are wearing the ill-fitting and therefore probably--acquired clothes of a soldier. You have clearly walked far, probably by some lonely way, for you were very hungry: you have been recently wounded in several places--the wounds suggest to me a scuffle rather than battle--and if I am not wrong, you are an Ortelgan. You asked me for two boys for what you called a trip to Bekla and said you would pay me well. Perhaps, when you say that, there are some elders who reply, "How much?" For my part, I hope to retain my people's respect and to die in my bed, but setting that aside, I don't care for your kind of business. We are all poor men here, but nevertheless these people are my people. The Ortelgans' law we are forced to obey, but as I told you, we are quit for two autumns to come. You cannot compel me to deal with you."
Kelderek sprang to his feet.
"I tell you I'm no slave trader! You've completely misunderstood me! If I'm an unlicensed slave trader, where's my gang?"
"That is what I would very much like to know--where and how many. But I
warn you that my men are alert and we will resist you to the death."
Kelderek sat down again.
"Sir, you must believe me--I am no slave trader--I am a lord of Bekla. If we--"
The deep twilight outside was suddenly filled with clamor--men shouting, trampling hooves and the bellowing of terrified cattle. Women began to scream, doors banged and feet ran past on the track. The elder stood up as a man burst into the room.
"A beast, my lord! Like nothing ever seen--a gigantic beast that stands erect--three times the height of a man--smashed the bars of the big cattle pen like sticks--the cattle have gone mad--they've stampeded into the plain! Oh, my lord, the devil--the devil's upon us!"
Without a word and without hesitation, the elder walked past him and out through the door. Kelderek could hear him calling his men by name, his voice growing fainter as he made his way toward the cattle pens on the edge of the village.
34 The Streels of Urtah
FROM THE DARKNESS OF THE PLAIN beyond the village, Kelderek watched the turmoil as a man in a tree might look down upon a fight below. The example set by the elder had had little effect upon his peasants and no concerted action had been organized against Shardik. Some had barred their doors and plainly did not mean to stir out of them. Others had set out--or at least had shouted in loud voices that they were setting out--in an attempt to recover, by moonlight, as many of the cattle as they could find. A crowd of men with torches were jabbering around the well in the center of the village, but showed no sign of moving away from it. A few had accompanied the elder to the pens and were doing what they could to repair the bars and prevent the remaining cattle from breaking down the walls. Once or twice, momentarily, Kelderek had seen the enormous outline of Shardik moving against the flickering torchlight as he wandered on the village outskirts. Evidently he had little fear of these flames, so similar to those to which he must have become accustomed during his long captivity. There seemed no likelihood whatever of the villagers attacking him.
When at last the half-moon emerged from behind clouds, not so much enabling him to see for any distance as restoring his awareness of the great expanse of the misty plain, Kelderek realized that Shardik was gone. Drawing Kavass's short sword and limping forward to an empty, broken pen, he came first upon the body of the beast which the bear had been devouring and then upon a trembling, abandoned calf, trapped by the hoof in a split post. During the past hour this helpless little creature had been closer to Shardik than any living being, human or animal. Kelderek freed the hoof, carried the calf bodily as far as the next pen and set it down near a man who, with his back turned, was leaning over the rails. No one took any notice of him and he stood for a few moments with one arm around the calf, which licked his hand as he steadied it on its feet. Then it ran from him and he turned away.
A confused shouting broke out in the distance and he made toward it. Where there was fear and clamor, the likelihood was that Shardik would not be far away. Soon three or four men passed him, running back toward the village. One was whimpering in panic and none stopped or spoke to him. They were hardly gone before he made out, in the moonlight, the shaggy blackness of Shardik. Possibly he had been pursuing them--perhaps they had come upon him unexpectedly--but Kelderek, sensing his mood and temper with the familiarity of long years, knew by nothing he could have named that the bear had been disturbed rather than roused to rage by these hinds. Despite the danger, his pride revolted against joining their flight. Was he not lord of Bekla, the Eye of God, the priest-king of Shardik? As the bear loomed closer in the moon-dim solitude, he lay down prone, eyes closed, head buried in his arms, and waited.
Shardik came down upon him like a cart and oxen upon a dog asleep in the road. One paw touched him; he felt the claws and heard them rattle. The bear's breath was moist upon his neck and shoulders. Once more he felt the old elation and terror, a giddy transport as of one balanced above a huge drop on a mountain summit. This was the priest-king's mystery. Not Zelda, not Ged-la-Dan nor Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid, could have lain thus and put their lives in the power of the Lord Shardik. But now there was none to see and none to know. This was an act of devotion more truly between himself and Shardik than any which he had performed either on Ortelga or in the King's House at Bekla. "Accept my life, Lord Shardik," he prayed silently. "Accept my life, for it is yours." Then, suddenly, the thought occurred to him, "What if it were to come now, the great disclosure which I sought so long in Bekla, Lord Shardik's revelation of the truth?" Might it not well be now, when he and Shardik were alone as never since that day when he had lain helpless before the leopard?
But how was he to recognize the secret and what was he to expect? How would it be imparted--as an inspiration to his inward mind, or by some outward sign? And would he then die, or be spared to make it known to mankind? If the price were his life, he thought, then so be it.
The huge head was bent low, sniffing at his side, the breeze was shut off, the air was still as under the leeward wall of a house. "Let me die if it must be so," he prayed. "Let me die--the pain will be nothing--I shall step out into all knowledge, all truth."
Then Shardik was moving away. Desperately, he prayed once more. "A sign, Lord Shardik--O my lord, at the least vouchsafe some sign, some clue to the nature of your sacred truth!" The sound of the bear's low, growling breath became inaudible before its tread ceased to shake the ground beneath him. Then, as he still lay half-rapt in his trance of worship and supplication, there came to his ear the weeping of a child.
He got to his feet. A boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, was standing a short distance off, evidently lost and beside himself with fear. Perhaps he had been with the men until they ran from Shardik, leaving him alone to save himself as best he could. Kelderek, trembling and confused now with the passing of the ecstatic fit, stumbled across the ground toward him. Bending down, he put an arm around the boy's shoulder and pointed to the distant flames of the torches round the cattle pens. The boy could hardly speak for his tears, but at last Kelderek made out the words, "The devil-creature!"
"It's gone--gone," said Kelderek. "Go on, don't be frightened, you'll be safe enough! Run home as quick as you can! That's the way, over there!"
Then, like one picking up once more a heavy burden, he set out to follow Shardik by night across the plain.
Still northward the bear went--north and somewhat to the west, as Kelderek could see by the stars. They moved across the sky all night, but nothing else moved or changed in that loneliness. There was only the light, steady wind, the thrip, thrip of the dry stalks round his ankles, and here and there a faintly shining pool, at which he would kneel to drink. By first light, which crept into the sky as gradually and surely as illness steals upon the body, he was tired to exhaustion. When he crossed a slow-moving brook and then found his feet resting upon smooth, level stones, the meaning did not at first pierce his cloud of fatigue. He stopped and looked about him. The flat stones stretched away to right and left. He had just waded the conduit that ran from the Kabin reservoir to Bekla, and was now standing on the paved road to the Gelt foothills.
Early as it was, he looked into the distance in the faint hope of seeing some traveler--a merchant, perhaps, bound for the Caravan Market and the scales of Fleitil; an army contractor from a province; or an Ortelgan messenger returning from the country beyond Gelt--anyone who could carry word to Bekla. But in each direction there was no one to be seen; nor could he make out even a hut or the distant smoke of a wayfarers' encampment. For much of its length, as he knew, the road ran through frequented country; might he, perhaps, be near one of the camping stations for drovers and caravans--a few huts, a well and a tumbledown shelter for cattle? No, he could see nothing of the kind. It was bad luck to have reached the road at such an hour and to have struck so lonely a stretch. Bad luck--or was it the cunning of Shardik to have kept away from the road until he sensed that he could cross it unseen? Already he was some distance beyond it and climbing the opposite slope. Soon he would be across th
e ridge and out of sight. Yet still Kelderek lingered, hobbling and peering one way and the other in his disappointment and frustration. Long after he had realized that even if someone were now to appear in the distance, he could not hope both to speak with him and to recover the trail of the bear, he still remained upon the road, as though there were some part of his mind that knew well that never again would he set eyes upon this great artifact of the empire which he had conquered and ruled. At last, with a long, sighing groan, like one who, having looked for help in vain, cannot tell what will now befall, he set off for the point where Shardik had disappeared over the crest.
An hour later, having limped painfully to the top of yet another ridge, nearly two miles to the northwest, he stood looking down upon a startlingly different land. This was no lonely plain of sparse herbage, but a great, natural enclosure, tended and frequented. Far off, round hillocks marked its farther edge and between himself and these lay a rich, green vale several miles across. This, he realized, was nothing less than a single, enormous meadow or grazing ground upon which, distant one from another, three or four herds were already at pasture in the sunrise. He could make out two villages, while on the horizon traces of smoke suggested others that drew their substance from this verdurous place.
Not far below him, in a lowlying dip, the ground was broken--riven, indeed--in a most curious manner, so that he stared at it in wonder, as a man might stare at a sheer cliff or chain of waterfalls, or again, perhaps, at some rock to which chance and the weather of centuries have given an uncanny likeness--a crouching beast, say, or a skull. It was as though, ages gone, a giant had scored and scratched the surface of the plain with a pronged fork. Three clefts or ravines, roughly parallel and of almost equal length, lay side by side within the space of half a mile. So abrupt and narrow were these strange gorges that in each, the branches of the trees extending from either steep slope almost touched one another and closed the opening. Thus roofed over, the depths of the ravines could not be perceived. The sun, shining from behind the ridge on which he was standing, intensified the shadows which, he supposed, must lie perpetually within those almost subterranean groves. All about their edges the grass grew taller and no path seemed to approach them from any direction. As he stood gazing, the breeze stiffened for a moment, the cloud shadows on the plain rippled in long undulations and in the ravines the leaves of the topmost branches, barely rising above the surrounding grass, shook all together and were still.