Part 11 (1/2)
”They're nomads, it's their way of life. They're strong enough to fight off the brainless attackers, the hungry mouths, and the rest of us thank them. They're the only link we have with the outer world. They bring things we haven't got and can't make, and most of all they bring news. Being nomads, they don't compete with us for food and shelter. Besides, we're used to them.”
”And they cross the Witchfires.”
”And more. It is said that they even trade with the Hooded Men on the far side of the Bleak Mountains.” He paused, considering. ”It is said that they trade with the Children of Skaith.”
Stark kept his voice free of irritation, though with an effort. ”And what do the Ha.r.s.enyi say of the Children?”
”That they are monsters, and greater magicians than we. That they have power over stones and all things belonging to the ground, which they can cause to shake whenever they wish. They say-”
”They say. The Ha.r.s.enyi are doubtless the fount of all wisdom, except that traders have been known to lie before now in order to keep their markets secret. Does anybody know?”
”If you mean, can I give you firm knowledge of the Children-no, I cannot.”
”You're trying to talk them away, Dark Man,” said Halk. ”They will not go so easily.”
Stark glanced at him, but did not bother to reply. He wondered if he looked as trail-worn and hollow-eyed as did Halk and the others. The st.u.r.dy furs bought at Izvand had turned mangy with use, showing bare spots where the thongs had rubbed. The men had stopped shaving, perforce, since Amnir had allowed them nothing in the way of knives or razors. Since their release they had been content to enjoy beards and longer hair as a protection against the cold. The women covered their faces with wrappings against the cold. Breca walked steadily beside Halk. Gerrith, now, walked beside Stark, and her eyes smiled. She alone seemed alive, here and now. The rest were like automatons, waiting for someone to press the b.u.t.tons.
Stark felt much the same way himself. Land and sky lay upon him like a burden: cold, empty, without promise.
And no one knew what had happened in the south.
The shadows lengthened. The wind blew down from the high north, skirling dry snow.
They came to a place, and Kintoth caught Stark's arm. ”There! See there? In the sky, Stark. Look up!”
Stark looked, and saw a glitter and dazzle of pale gold.
”Those are the Witchfires.”
The peaks disappeared again as the road bent.
Two of Kintoth's men who had gone ahead as scouts came racing back down the road, loping like greyhounds.
”A party, coming from Thyra.”
”How large?” asked Kintoth.
”Large. We saw them only from a distance.”
In a few moments they were off the road, settling themselves among the rocks and hollows. Stark left it to Kintoth to make sure there were no betraying marks. He found himself a vantage point where he could overlook the road. Halk lay down beside him. A short distance away Hargoth watched and waited, and presently Kintoth joined him.
The Thyrans were audible a long way off. Drums beat a steady marching pace, accompanied by the intermittent squealing of some shrill-voiced instrument and the clas.h.i.+ng of metal on metal. After a while the party came round a bend in the road.
Stark estimated the Thyrans at half a hundred men, including pipers and drummers and cymbal-dashers. All were armed with iron weapons. All wore iron caps, and iron-studded back- and breast-plates over their furs. Iron-bound targes were slung behind the left shoulder. Banners and pennons lashed in the wind above them, barred scarlet and black, with the device of a hammer. They were short broad men who had a look of power about them, and they marched with a driving purposefulness that had in it something chilling, like the march of army ants. They were not, one felt, accustomed to defeat.
Behind the soldiers came a party of unarmed men hauling iron-framed carts loaded with supplies.
”They'll be going to meet the trader,” said Halk, low-voiced even though the drumming and clas.h.i.+ng would have drowned any other sound. ”I wish them joy when they find him.”
Stark waited until the last clanking cart had vanished along the road, and then he went to Hargoth.
”Do the Thyrans send out an escort every year for the trader?”
”No. We keep watch for large parties of armed men.”
”That is so,” said Kintoth. ”Once or twice we've watched the trader almost to the gates of Thyra, and they've had no more than the usual lookouts. There's no way of telling just when the wagons may come, and anyway, Amnir had a force sufficient for his safety.”
”Nevertheless,” said Stark, ”Halk thinks that's where they're going.” He pondered. ”Could they be going to attack, say, the Towers?”
”Not with fifty men. I'd say Halk's right.”
”Yet as you say, Amnir had a force sufficient for his safety. This force is large enough to overcome, or at least overawe, Amnir's force. It looks as if they have a very special interest in the trader this year, perhaps connected with something he might have that the Thyrans might want to take away from him-something of unusual value. I wonder if the Thyrans have had some late word from the Citadel about us.”
”We were undoubtedly followed to Izvand,” said Gerrith. ”Fast messengers could have taken word up the Wandsmen's road that Amnir left there in search of us.”
”Fast or slow, it makes no difference,” said Halk. ”We'll never get past Thyra anyway unless we can make ourselves a new road.”
”We start on that right now,” said Stark. The old road had suddenly become menacing. There might be any number of patrols and lookout posts. Stark tried to calculate how long it would take the armed escort to find whatever was left of Amnir and his wagon-train, and get word of the disaster back to Thyra. Presumably they would send a runner. And then what? Would the Thyrans start scouring the hills?
He reckoned they had better be through the Witch-fires as quickly as possible.
They struck away from the old track. It was not difficult to keep direction. Old Sun smeared the southwestern sky with dull red-ochre, and when that had faded the green star shone hugely, almost as bright as a little moon, in the northeast. Stark depended on Kintoth to tell, him where Thyra ought to be. The going was by turns fairly easy, and very rough, and often the way was barred completely by a sheer cliff or an impa.s.sable gorge. This made for weary backtracking. Progress was discouragingly slow.
There was no love-making that night. They did not stop at all except when weariness forced them to, and then only until enough strength returned to let them go on again. There was no complaint, even from Halk. They all seemed to feel that the hills were dangerous, too dangerous for peaceful rest, and they were anxious to be out of them.
The Lamp of the North climbed higher. The aurora, brilliant in the sky, flared white and rose-pink and ice-green. And there was a new presence in the night.
The peaks of the Witchfires stood tall in the north. They caught these delicate colors on their ice-sheathed flanks and sent them gleaming and glimmering back in flashes of many-faceted light, a wonder born of the cold.
”The Witchfires are sacred to the G.o.ddess,” said Hargoth, ”though we see them seldom.”
Along toward midnight, Stark found a trail.
18.
It was a furtive, cunning sort of trail, such as animals make, and it was only because Stark had lived his life in the wild places that he saw it at all. The trail was going the way he wanted to go and so he decided to follow it for the time being. It was very narrow, sliding up and down the slopes, twisting cleverly to avoid the cliffs and canyons. After a while he realized that it was not a single trail but one of a network of footways through the hills.
He asked who might have made them, and Hargoth said, ”Outdwellers, probably, though other beings may use it. Cities attract them, as I told you. There is always the hope of food.”
It was impossible to tell if the trail had been recently used. The bare ground was frozen too hard, and where the snow lay there was no sign of prints. If there had been any, the wind or some other agency had wiped them out.
Stark went ahead of the party, trusting to no one but himself.
He caught a taint of smoke in the clean air. Going more cautiously, he saw a ridge ahead. Sounds came from beyond the ridge. Unbelievable sounds.
He went back to warn the others, then crept on his belly up to the top of the ridge.