Part 4 (1/2)

The meadow was wide, wide and naked in the sunlight, and now a flight of arrows came from the tower and stuck quivering in the ground around them.

Yarrod stopped. He looked from side to side, but there was no hiding place, no hope. Men were coming out of the grove behind them, arrows nocked. More men came out of the tower, kicking the bodies aside. A small rufous man led them. He wore a dark red tunic and carried no weapon but his wand of office. Halk said one word, a name, and he said it like a curse.

”Mordach!”

Stark had made his own decision. Those arrows were long and sharp, and he was sure that he could not outrun them. So he, too, stood and waited, having no wish to die in this meaningless place under the ginger star.

”Who is Mordach?” he asked.

”Chief Wandsman of Irnan,” said Yarrod, his voice breaking with rage and despair. ”Someone talked; someone betrayed us.”

The men formed a wall around them, and Mordach came through that wall to stand smiling up at the tall Irnanese.

”The hunting party,” he said. ”In strange attire, and without weapons. Yet I see that you did find game of a sort.” His gaze fastened on Stark, and Stark thought that perhaps he ought to have chanced the arrows after all.

”An off-worlder,” said Mordach, ”where off-worlders are forbidden to be. And traveling with a company of lawbreakers. Was this what you went to find? Someone who could pretend to fulfill your prophecy?”

”Perhaps he does fulfill it, Mordach,” said Halk wickedly. ”Gelmar thought so. He tried to kill him, and could not.”

Thank you, friend, thought Stark, and felt his guts tighten in antic.i.p.ation.

Two men came up supporting Baya between them. ”We found her in the grove. She doesn't look to be one of them.”

”I'm a Farer,” said Baya, and went on her knees to Mordach. ”In the name of the Lords Protector-” She held out the end of the halter and shook it. ”He took me by force, away from Skeg.”

”He?”

”That man. The off-worlder. Eric John Stark.”

”Why?”

”Because he lived when he ought to have died.” She looked up at Stark, trembling with malevolence. ”He escaped from us, into the sea. You know what that means, but he lived. He killed a Child of the Sea, and lived. And I saw him.” If she had had strength and breath left she would have screamed, ”He is the Dark Man of the prophecy! Kill him! Kill him now!”

”There,” said Mordach absently, and caressed her tangled hair. He considered Stark, his eyes hooded and cold. ”So. And perhaps even Gelmar could be mistaken. Either way-”

”Kill him,” Baya whimpered. ”Please. Now.”

”Killing is a solemn matter,” Mordach said, ”and salutary. It ought not to be wasted.” He motioned to some of his men. ”Bind them. Securely, very securely, and especially the off-worlder.” He lifted Baya to her feet. ”Come, child, you're safe now.”

”Mordach,” said Yarrod. ”Who betrayed us?”

”You did,” said Mordach. ”Yourselves. All your preparations took time and effort, and some of them were observed. You and Halk are known to be among the most active of the Emigration Party; the others were known to be a.s.sociates. When you all went off together to hunt, we were curious to know what the quarry might be. So we followed. After we came here to the tower, we only had to wait.” His gaze wandered again to Stark. ”You were bringing him back to Gerrith's daughter, weren't you?”

Yarrod did not answer, but Mordach nodded. ”Of course you were. And of course they must meet, and I promise you they shall-openly, where all can see.”

He went off with Baya, who looked back once over her shoulder as the men-at-arms moved in with leather thongs and began to bind the captives. They were neither rough nor gentle, merely very efficient. They were of a type Stark had not seen before, having lint-white hair and sharply slanted cheekbones and slitted yellow eyes that gave them the look of wolves. They were certainly not Farers.

”Farers are only a mob, for trampling and tearing,” Yarrod said. ”Wandsmen in the city-states like to have a small force of mercenaries for the serious work, and they recruit them along the Border. These are from Izvand, in the Inner Barrens.” His head hung down in shame and misery, but he lifted it fiercely when one of the mercenaries brought a halter for his neck, so that he might take the rope easily and with a semblance of pride. ”I'm sorry,” he said, and would not meet Stark's eye.

And now it was Stark's turn to wear a halter round his own neck, and to walk behind in the dust while Baya rode.

So at length the Dark Man came to Irnan.

7.

It was a gray city, walled in stone and set on a height roughly in the center of a broad valley that was green with spring. Mordach and his prisoners and his mercenaries had journeyed a long way north, and a long way up over rainy mountains, and they had left the tropical summer far behind. All around Irnan were tilled fields and pastures and orchards in blossom, a froth of pink and white oddly tarnished by the light of the ginger star.

A road led to the city. There was much traffic on it: farm carts, people going to and from their work in the fields or driving beasts before them, traders and long strings of pack-animals jingling with bells, a troop of mountebanks, a caravan of traveling wh.o.r.es of both s.e.xes with bright banners advertising their wares, and the motley a.s.sortment of wanderers that seemed to be omnipresent on Skaith. Mordach's party went down the middle of the road, four men-at-arms riding in front and clas.h.i.+ng short stabbing spears rhythmically against their s.h.i.+elds. A clear way was made for them, and behind them the people stood along the roadside ditches and stared and pointed and whispered, and then began to follow.

Two Wandsmen, in green tunics that indicated their lesser rank, came out of the gate to meet Mordach, with a rabble of Farers at their heels. And within minutes, the word was running ahead like wildfire.

”The Dark Man! They've taken the Dark Man! They've taken the traitors!”

More Wandsmen appeared as though from between the paving stones. A crowd gathered, clotting round Mordach's party like swarming bees. The mercenaries drew their ranks tighter, until their mounts all but trod upon the captives, and their spears pointed outward, forming a barrier against the press of bodies.

”Keep up, keep up,” said the captain of the Izvandians. ”If you fall, we can't help you.”

They pa.s.sed beneath the arch of the great gate. Stark saw that the stone was stained and weathered, the carvings grown dim with time. A winged creature with a sword in its claws crouched on the capstone, fierce jaws open to bite the world. The halves of the gate were very strong, sheathed in cured hides almost as hard as metal. There was a pa.s.sage through the thickness of the wall, a sort of dark tunnel where every sound was caught and compressed and the din of voices was stunning. Then they were in the square beyond and forcing their way between market stalls, toward a central platform built stoutly of wood and higher than the jostling heads of the mob. Some of the mercenaries stood guard while others dismounted and hurried the captives up a flight of steps. Stark guessed that the square was the only open s.p.a.ce of any size within the walls and that the platform was used for all public occasions such as executions and other edifying entertainments.

There were standing posts, permanently placed and black with use. Within moments Stark and Yarrod and the others were bound to them.The mercenaries took up stations at the edges of the platform, facing outward. The two Wandsmen in green went away; apparently Mordach had sent them on some errand. Mordach himself addressed the crowd. Much of what he said was drowned in an animal howling, but there was little doubt about the burden of his speech. Irnan had sinned, and those who were guilty were about to pay.

Stark flexed himself against the hide ropes. They cut his flesh but did not give. The post was firm as a tree. He leaned back against it, easing himself as much as possible, and looked at this place where presumably he was about to die.

”What do you think now, Dark Man?” asked Halk.

He was bound to the post on Stark's left, Yarrod on his right.

”I think,” said Stark, ”that we'll soon know whether Gerrith had the true sight.”

And once more he cursed the name of Gerrith, but this time he kept it to himself.

The crowd was still growing. People came until it seemed that the s.p.a.ce could not hold any more, and still they came. Around the inner sides of the square there were buildings of stone, narrow and high, shouldering together, slate roofs peaked and s.h.i.+ning in the sun. The upper windows were filled with people looking down. After a while folk were straddling the rooftrees and perching on the gutters, and the tops of the outer walls were packed.

Two distinct elements were in the crowd, and they seemed not to mingle. Foremost round the platform, doing all the screaming, were the Farers and the other flotsam. Beyond them, and quite quiet, were the people of Irnan.

”Any hope from them?” asked Stark.

Yarrod tried to shrug. ”Not all of them are with us. Our people have lived in this place a long time, and the roots go deep. And Skaith, with all its faults, is the only world we know. Some folk find the idea of leaving it frightening to the point of blasphemy, and they won't lift a hand to help us. About the others, I'm not making any bets.”

Mordach was urging the mob to be patient; more things were to come. Still they pushed and clamored for blood. A band of women forced their way to the steps and began to climb. They wore black bags over their heads, covering their faces. Otherwise they were naked and their skin was like tree-bark from long exposure.

”Give us the Dark Man, Mordach!” they cried. ”Let us take him to the mountain top and feed his strength to Old Sun!”

Mordach held up his staff to halt them. He spoke to them gently, and Stark asked, ”What are they?”