Part 22 (1/2)

”Then Tarth thanks you,” Bram Forest told the Golden Ape Byla.n.u.s.

”a.s.semble your fighters. We're going back up the River of Ice.”

”To Nadia City?” Ylia asked.

Bram Forest nodded grimly. ”To Nadia City--and Retoc.”

Bontarc, King of Nadia, asked his royal guest, ”You like the Games so far?”

They sat, with Princess Volna, in the box of honor at the Amphitheater of Nadia. ”Aye, I like them,” Retoc said slowly. ”But sire, I would like them much better if they were not to commemorate the pa.s.sing of your n.o.ble brother, the Prince Jlomec.”

Bontarc nodded his head in grat.i.tude. ”That was well-spoken, Retoc,”

he said.

Retoc went on: ”Have you any idea who killed him so treacherously?

Jlomec was not a fighting man.”

”None,” Bontarc admitted. He missed entirely the smile which pa.s.sed between Retoc and Princess Volna.

”Well,” Bontarc said after a while, ”if you will excuse me, I must go down below to prepare for the dueling. Under the circ.u.mstances I'm hardly inclined to partic.i.p.ate in the Games, but my people expect it of me.”

”Yes, brother,” Volna said softly. ”They do. Oh, they do.”

And Bontarc went. Retoc looked at Volna. ”I'd best get ready myself,”

he said. Volna nodded her lovely head.

A blood-l.u.s.ting animal cry welled up from a hundred thousand throats as the gladiators of Nadia marched out across the sands of the amphitheater to do battle with the fierce snow-sloths of the Plains of Ice.

While several jeks from the Gates of Ice, Retoc's legions waited....

”Wait here,” Bram Forest told Byla.n.u.s, who had led them safely, along with the vanguard of the Golden Apes, back up the River of Ice.

”What will you do, Bram Forest?”

”According to Ylia, we can trust Bontarc of Nadia. He's a fighting man, but he craves peace for all Tarth.”

”I'm sure of it,” Ylia said. ”Bontarc didn't send us to the Place of the Dead. Princess Volna did. And long ago, according to the stories the Wayfarers of Ofrid tell, Bontarc and your mother, Queen Evalla, were allies striving to establish universal peace throughout Tarth.

Besides, despite his civility and fairness, Bontarc losses no love on Retoc of Abaria.”

”And if you need us?” Byla.n.u.s asked.

”We'll get a signal through to you,” Bram Forest said. With Ylia he climbed into a skiff and poled it out into the river.

Now the riverbanks were deserted, except for the solitary stilt-birds, tall as men, wading out into the frigid water, their low-pitched calls all but swallowed by the sound the cold wind made rustling through the river rushes.

After a while the skiff came to a bend in the river. It was the last turn before the Gates of Ice--and Nadia City. Here the wind blew more strongly, and there was a section of rushes which had been cleared, cut probably by an Ice Fields nomad who had used the tall rushes as fuel.