Maia

  For three hours and more they drifted on with the stream. The river made many bends, and towards the end of the afternoon she realized that they must have travelled a considerably greater distance than the breadth of the forest. Never once had there been any break in the gloomy tangle of trees and creepers, and she supposed that after all there was no remedy but they would have to pass another night in Purn.

  At that rate it was time to be looking out for a place to come to shore and get a fire going before sunset.

  Just as she was about to put this to her companions, Meris laid a hand on her arm.

  "Maia, listen! What's that noise?"

  Maia pinched her nose and blew her ears. The sound, still distant but clearly audible between the trees, called to mind instantly her childhood; then, hard upon, a swift rush of fear. Who should recognize that sound if not she? It was the pouring of a fairly heavy waterfall.

  91: THE SARKIDIAN CAMP

  There was no time to be lost. Already she could feel the current growing swifter and, looking ahead, see the banks narrowing. In one way this was an advantage, for she could hope to get the rafts inshore more quickly. Which bank? she wondered. The left; yes, it must be the left, for they were a little nearer that side and even seconds might be vital. It looked nasty, though. At this time of year, with the river at its lowest, the bank was steep and high; four or five feet of dried-up earth and stones falling more-or-less sheer to the water, and nothing that she could see-- no overhanging bushes or branches--to catch hold of. That seemed strange: why weren't there any? Throughout the afternoon they had come down many reaches with similarly steep banks, but all, as far as she could remember, had been to some extent overgrown.

  Anyway, there was no time to be thinking about it. The lip of the falls was only about a hundred yards away now, and since she couldn't see the river beyond, they must be high enough to be dangerous. She called back to Bayub-Otal.

  "Anda-Nokomis, I'm going to drag this other raft over to the bank. Try to come in to the left. I'll only be a minute!"

  In fact it took her something less than a minute to push Zen-Kurel and Meris into the slacker water under the bank, but already the second raft had drifted past her.

  "I'll have to leave you!" she cried to Zen-Kurel. "Find something to hold on to--anything!"

  He nodded with assumed unconcern. "We'll be all right: you get on."

  Now she was swimming in a frenzy, desperately trying to overtake Zirek and Anda-Nokomis as they were swept on towards the lip of the falls. She could see the mist of spray and hear from the further side the ceaseless, plunging boom. The current had grown headlong: she felt as though she were falling. Gasping, she reached the stern of the raft, clutched it and swung it over to the left. As she did so she saw that the lashings at the forward end had at last worked loose. The raft was not responding as a single whole. Any strain and it would come to pieces.

  If I was to swim for the bank on my own now, she thought, I'd get there in time. If I was to swim for the basting bank--

  She swam to the front of the raft, pressed the logs together as hard as she could and then, turning on her back, began pulling it inshore behind her.

  Everything was tumult, everything was spray and thunder and an appalling sensation of swift, uncontrollable gliding. The eyes of Anda-Nokomis and Zirek were staring into hers as she still struggled, throwing all her weight sideways against the current. She went under, swallowed water, came up and and kicked out once more.

  Something jabbed her right shoulder: she was pivoting on it, pivoting to the left; something bending, pliant and rough, not so thick as her arm. She snatched at it, clutching, holding on.

  "Grab it, Zirek!"

  The stern of the raft was rotating. Her left arm was round Anda-Nokomis's neck and shoulder. She was looking down into seething water and white spume fifteen feet below. What was it she'd got hold of? She looked round and back at her right hand: something gray and gnarled, like a stiffened rope. It was the exposed root of a tree projecting from the earth of the bank; bending with their weight, yet enough to hold them as long as she herself could hold on. Then the raft broke up and spun away, turned back into two logs that hung a moment on the lip of the falls and toppled, gone, lost in the roaring smother below.

  Anda-Nokomis was shouting in her ear. "It's too much for you! Let go!"

  "No."

  "Yes! Never mind me! Let go!"

  "No!"

  "--'bove you!"

  Was it " 'bove you!" he had said? She could see almost nothing now. Her ears and nostrils were blocked with spray. She was hanging in a howling, spray-clouded trance. Her arm--her arm was giving way. She couldn't hold on any longer. Tharrin, Sphelthon, Randronoth--she could hear their voices, men's voices, calling, shouting to her, the dead.

  Rough, dry hands caught her under the arms, heaving her upward.

  "Let go of him, lass! Let go! We've got him!"

  Her left arm was strengthless, numb. She let go of Anda-Nokomis. She was being dragged upward, earth and stones grating against her sodden tunic, pulled backward, heels slithering over grass, coming to rest on her back, looking up at leaves and the sky.

  After a few moments of choking bewilderment she struggled to her knees. "Anda-Nokomis!"

  "I'm here," his voice answered.

  She looked about her. She was on the bank of the river, immediately above the falls. Anda-Nokomis, water streaming from his hair, shoulders and arms, was standing near-by. Further off, to her right, Zirek, on his hands and knees, was vomiting water. Something out in the stream caught her eye. It was the second raft, floating past and over the brink.

  There were men all round her: forty, fifty, it looked like. She stared at them in amazement. Had Lespa sent them, or what? Some were armed. Others had axes, saws, scythes, heavy hacking knives. One of them spat on the ground. They were human, then: she was alive.

  These were soldiers; they had pulled her and Zirek and Anda-Nokomis out of the river. And--and--?

  Quickly she looked upstream. Meris and Zen-Kurel, also surrounded by soldiers, were limping towards her along the bank.

  One of the men had spoken to her. She realized he had spoken, but had not caught what he said. She turned and looked at him.

  He was perhaps twenty-five, of middle height, with a shock of short, brown hair and bushy eyebrows.

  His gray eyes were rather small, his nose rather broad, and he had a strong chin. He looked a rugged, practical sort of man; resourceful if not clever; one not to be trifled with or turned aside. He was holding a drawn sword, and as he spoke again he leaned forward, pointing it upstream to emphasize his words.

  "Who's up there? How many?"

  "What? I don't--"

  "Come on, no time to waste, that's it! Who's up there? How far off?"

  Another, younger man laid a hand on his arm. "Steady, captain. We've only just got the poor lass out of the water, for Cran's sake!"

  "No time to waste, Tolis," retorted the captain. He laid one hand on Maia's shoulder. "Come on now, you tell me--"

  A gasping voice said "Just a moment." It was Zen-Kurel, with Meris hanging on his arm. He looked badly shaken, trying not to show it but unable to help himself. He hesitated a moment, closing his eyes and clenching one hand impatiently as he pulled himself together. Then he said, "Thank you for saving us. Lucky you were here. May I ask who you are?"

  "No, you answer me," replied the shock-headed man peremptorily. "I've no time to waste."

  "If you just listen to me for a moment--" began Zen-Kurel.

  "There are more of us than you, that's it," said the captain. "So you just sit down and answer my questions."

  Zen-Kurel shrugged his shoulders and sat down. Maia sat beside him. His sacking smock was ripped across and beneath it she saw a bleeding gash along his right thigh. She pointed to it.

  "That ought to be seen to."

  Zen-Kurel looked at it with surprise. "I never even felt it!"

  "You wouldn't," she said. "It's the water--
softens your flesh. You can get badly cut in warm water and never feel it at all. That ought to be seen to!" she said to the captain.

  He made an impatient gesture to one of his men, who went away, came back with a cloth and began binding up the wound with intent detachment, like a servant waiting at table.

  "Where have you come from and who's upstream?" said the captain. "How many?"

  "I'll answer you," replied Zen-Kurel firmly, "when you've told me who you are. Are you for Erketlis or the Leopards, or neither?"

  "Look, if necessary we can torture you--"

  "I know that. But you say you're in a hurry, so it'll be quicker to answer me. Are you for Erketlis or Kembri?"

  "Why, they're from Sarkid!" said Meris suddenly. "Look at their corn sheaves!" She pointed.

  The soldiers' clothes were rough, torn and anything but uniform. Several, however, were wearing the corn-sheaves emblem of Sarkid.

  "We're with Elleroth of Sarkid," said the captain shortly. "Will that satisfy you?"

  "Indeed it will," said Bayub-Otal, speaking for the first time. "In that case, you will be glad to know that my name is--"

  "I'm not interested in your names," interrupted the captain. "I want to know who's upstream? How many and how close?"

  "There's no armed force at all upstream," replied Zen-Kurel. "The forest's empty and as far as I know there's nothing between you and Bekla."

  This plainly had a considerable effect on the soldiers standing round. There was a buzz of talk and some of the men began calling to others further off.

  "Well, at that rate what were you trying to get away from? Must've been something pretty bad to make you risk that." He jerked his thumb towards the falls.

  "I was about to tell you who I am." Bayub-Otal spoke with icy dignity. "I am Anda-Nokomis, son of the High Baron of Urtah, and Ban of Suba."

  "Anda-Nokomis? Are you sure?"

  Maia could not restrain a slightly hysterical gurgle of laughter. The captain looked round at her angrily, then turned back to Bayub-Otal.

  "I heard you were dead."

  "Then you heard wrong."

  By this time both Bayub-Otal and Zen-Kurel, soaking wet and dressed in torn sacking, had evidently begun to strike the captain as people of rather more weight than he had originally supposed.

  "Well, I'm sorry, my lord; only the times are every which way just now, that's it, and you must admit you don't look like the Ban of Suba, now do you? Put yourself in my position. We're the pioneer group of Lord Elleroth's company, across the Zhairgen on our own. We don't know the first thing about the forest ahead, the whereabouts of the Leopard army or anything else. We're just clearing the bank when suddenly you come floating down like a lot of blasted turtles. What am I supposed to do--guess who you are or just salute you on sight?"

  Maia laughed again. She was beginning to like this man.

  "For all I know you could be reconnoitring, couldn't you?"

  "Do people generally go reconnoitring unarmed," said Zen-Kurel, "and take a couple of girls with them?"

  "Leopards? They never go anywhere without girls, I'm told. Shearnas on the blasted battlefield, that's it--"

  "We're not Leopards, curse you!" cried Zirek suddenly. "I'm the chap as killed Sencho--me and this girl here. Santil knows me well enough."

  At this there was another buzz of excitement among the soldiers. They were crowding round so closely now that Maia, still sitting on the ground at their feet, was beginning to feel shut in and oppressed.

  "Captain," she said, "could we go somewhere less crowded? This is making me feel btd."

  He stared at her, apparently surprised at a girl speaking up for herself at all. After a moment he looked at Bayub-Otal, who nodded.

  "Everyone back to work!" shouted the captain. "Go and get on with what you were doing! You'd better stay here with us," he added to Tolis.

  The men dispersed. Maia now saw that what they were engaged in doing was felling the saplings and undergrowth along the bank. Downstream of the falls a narrow, recently-cleared track wound away out of sight.

  "You were lucky," said the captain to Bayub-Otal. "If you'd come down an hour earlier you wouldn't have found us above the falls."

  "But how is it we didn't see your men on the bank?" he asked.

  "The men were taking a break under the trees. We heard you shouting. Now look," he went on, "Elleroth will certainly want to see you and I shall have to make a report to him. Tell me how you come to be here."

  Bayub-Otal proceeded to do so. Mollo and Tolis listened attentively.

  "Well, you'd better take them back to camp, Tolis," said Mollo at length. "Tell Elleroth I'll be back myself before sunset." And thereupon he walked away to where the men had resumed work.

  "Is it far?" asked Maia apprehensively, as Tolis began conducting them downstream. She felt almost too tired to take a step.

  He shook his head. "Less than a mile: just across the Zhairgen. We've got a raft on ropes. It'll carry away in the rains, of course, but it's all right for now."

  The path Mollo's men had cleared was narrow, but the job had been done very thoroughly and it was easy walking. As they went on in single file, the sound of the falls gradually receding behind them, Tolis asked over his shoulder, "Have any of you met Elleroth before?" As no one answered, he said "No?"

  "What's he like, then?" asked Zirek.

  "Well, obviously we all like him," answered Tolis, "or we wouldn't be here. But he may not be quite what you're expecting." He laughed. "You'll be all right, though."

  With this enigmatic remark he continued on their way.

  Maia noticed a flask attached to his belt. She touched his shoulder.

  "Can I ask you what's in that?"

  "Djebbah," he answered. "D'you want some?"

  "No, but that cut on Captain Zen-Kurel's leg ought to be cleaned. Could turn nasty else."

  Zen-Kurel tried to demur, but Bayub-Otal was emphatic in supporting Maia. "Of course it must be cleaned. River water at this time of year. Any Suban could tell you that."

  It was not lost upon Maia that that included her--and that he must have meant it to.

  Tolis gave her the flask. Taking out the stopper, she turned to Zen-Kurel.

  "It'll sting."

  He nodded indifferently. She gripped his thigh with one hand, untied the cloth and began cleaning the wound with one corner, remembering as she did so the last time she had touched his body. Looking up, she met his eye for an instant and felt herself coloring. Was he thinking the same?

  "I'm going to tie it a little tighter."

  "Thank you. That feels much more comfortable."

  They went on. Evening was beginning to fall, but in the forest the air remained humid and close. After a little she smelt wood-smoke and could hear through the trees a distant, multiform hum and murmur. A few minutes later they came out on the north bank of the Zhairgen at its confluence with the Daub's.

  Now, at low water before the rains, the two rivers mingled with scarcely a ripple, shrunken between their banks; the Zhairgen, perhaps forty yards wide, flowing darkly here under the trees, but on the opposite side--the open bank beyond the forest--tinged with the light of the westering sun.

  It was at this open bank that Maia stared. She remembered the soldiers' camps at Melvda-Rain. What she was looking at now appeared less like a camp than a sort of village. She could see women tending fires, girls carrying water-jars and children running about shouting and playing. Over an area of perhaps three or four acres the scrub bordering the bank had been cut down and the ground cleared. Shelters of poles and straw thatch stood in neat rows. Stacks of wood had been piled at intervals and near these, away from the huts, cooking fires were burning un-der pots hung over dug-out trenches. From a tall mast in the center of the camp a banner--three corn-sheaves on a blue ground--hung drooping in the still air.

  The others, like Maia, stopped short, gazing at the scene in surprise.

  "You say the Leopards never go anywhere without women?" said Zir
ek at length.

  Tolis laughed. "Captain Mollo said that; I didn't. Those are the women and children we brought from the slave-farm at Orthid."

  "What are you going to do with them?" asked Maia.

  "I've no idea; you'd better ask Lord Elleroth. Most of them'll be coming with us to Bekla, I dare say."

  "But do you seriously mean to march to Bekla through the forest?" asked Zen-Kurel.

  "Oh, we'll march to Zeray if we have to. You don't know Elleroth."

  The raft ran on a rope fixed to stout posts driven into either bank. It looked solid and well-constructed, and Zen-Kurel admired it.

  "Oh, we're first-class pioneers all right," said Tolis. "By Shakkarn! we ought to be by now, too, the work we've put in these last few weeks. We cleared the ground for those huts, and now we're chopping down Purn!"

  "Well, if you're going to take those women and children through the forest," said Zirek, "all I can say is I hope the rains don't start while you're still at it."

  "I'm with you there," said Tolis, as they stepped out on the further bank. "I'll take you straight up to Elleroth now. You don't mind waiting, do you, while I go in and tell him who you are? I'm sure he won't keep you hanging about long."

  He led the way to a larger hut in the center of the camp. No one they passed paid them any particular attention and Maia guessed that among this motley community on the move the sight of strangers had not the same effect as in an ordinary village. Probably no one thought in terms of strangers at all.

  There were no guards outside the hut. Tolis left them and went in. They were glad enough to sit on the ground in the evening sunshine. To Maia it was a conscious pleasure simply to be still, to close her eyes and know that they were not going to spend the night in the forests She hoped this Elleroth would give them a good meal. Beyond that and sleep she had not the least wish to think for the moment.

  She was roused by a child's voice beside her.

  "You're new, aren't you? Have you just come?"

  She raised her head. A little girl, perhaps six or seven years old, was standing on the grass near-by, looking them over with a self-possessed air. She herself certainly merited a glance. She was slim, dark-eyed and dark-haired, with a long, straight, intelligent nose and something strikingly graceful and vivacious in her manner, as though, like a warbler in the spring trees, she could not keep still, but must be constantly moving in response to everything round her. She was barefooted and dressed in a makeshift, gray tunic, on the skirt of which some colored beads had been stitched--by herself, it looked like. She was carrying a length of old cord and, in the few moments while she waited for Maia to answer her, swung it two or three times, skipping first on one foot and then the other. Indeed, she seemed so full of vitality that Maia half-expected her to go bouncing away without waiting for a reply. As suddenly as she had begun, however, she stopped skipping and stood looking down with a pert air which suggested that she thought it was about time she was answered.