Part 12 (1/2)

The trail led straight on, straight to the walls of a Thyran guardpost. There were streaks of light from slitted windows. There were men on the walls and on the squat watchtower. The post filled all the s.p.a.ce between the hills and the ravine.

Stark turned back.

Tattered shadows came streaking down the hillside, to leap with outstretched talons onto the marchers. The Outdwellers had decided not to spend the night dancing in the hollow. There was an eruption of noise and violent motion.

Almost at once the harsh bellowing of iron horns sounded from the guardpost.

19.

The Outdwellers, inferior in numbers and armament, were relying on their speed and agility. They skittered back and forth and up the hillside out of reach. Kintoth's slingers and javelin-throwers were hampered by the close quarters. They were forced to use the javelins as stabbing weapons, forming a bristling circle around Hargoth and the priests. Kintoth rallied his rear-guard. The Irnanese closed ranks, more dangerous with their swords and spears. The attackers avoided them.

Some few of the Outdwellers fell or were wounded in that first rush, some few of the gray men of the Towers were slashed or forced over the edge of the ravine. That was all. The Outdwellers were fighting a nuisance action, to disrupt the column and hold them for the Thyrans.

Stark joined the Irnanese.

”What's ahead?” asked Halt.

Stark told him.

”How many men?”

”I don't know. But we're in a trap here, we've got to run one way or the other.”

”What's behind us but more traps?” said Halk.

”Move, then,” said Stark, and ran back along the line, shouting to Kintoth. The men began to move, slowly at first, then more and more rapidly. By the time Stark got back to the head of the column they were going at a run.

They swept around the shoulder of rock and charged headlong into the Thyran soldiers who were coming from the guardpost.

The impact scattered the Thyrans, a dozen or so squat, thick-armed warriors. Stark and the tall Irnanese hewed with the strength of desperation, blades ringing on iron. Kintoth's light-armed troop had a bit more room to work in here and javelins were finding unprotected legs and throats. If this dozen, ten soldiers and their officers, had been the whole of it, the guardpost would have fallen.

Stark and the Irnanese were almost at the gate when the second ten came through, a solid wedge of leather and metal. This would be the off-s.h.i.+ft, the delay just long enough for them to turn out and get their gear on.

Weight of s.h.i.+eld and armored bodies bore the swords-men back. Short blades stabbed, cutting through thick furs. The first lot of Thyrans rallied, the seven or eight who could still fight. They concentrated on the tall Southrons, beating them back into the lines of the gray men.

The brothers fell, almost in the same moment. Halk went to one knee, his hand at his side where blood poured out through a rent in his tunic. Heavy boots kicked him down and trampled over him. Breca screamed like an eagle. Her long blade took the head clean from a Thyran's shoulders and then she went down beneath a wall of s.h.i.+elds.

Stark had lost sight of Gerrith. He was among the gray warriors now, the ones who had formed a guard around the Corn King and his priests. These were pressed back against the cliff, standing quietly with folded arms. Stark, running sweat and blood, beating aside the short stabbing swords that forced him ever backward, shouted furiously to Hargoth, ”Where is your magic, Corn King?”

Hargoth answered, ”Where are your stars?” And his eyes shone like bitter ice through the holes of his mask.

The gray men fell, or were driven into the claws of the Outdwellers, who slashed them from behind, or pushed them over the edge into the ravine. Their slings were useless, their javelins spent or broken against the Thyran armor. Stark caught a glimpse of the twin lightning strokes being separated by a blow that split Kintoth's narrow skull to the jawbone. He felt rock against his back. The wall of s.h.i.+elds came in against him. He struck up and under, felt the blade go home, and lost it as the man fell, taking the sword with him. The s.h.i.+eld-wall battered him with iron bosses, drove the breath from his lungs. He snarled and clawed and bit, all humanness lost in pain and a growing dark. The Thyrans came on, as merciless as time. And at last, the darkness was all.

When light returned to him, it was the light of Old Sun, running rusty on the stones of a square courtyard enclosed by thick walls. He was inside the guardpost. He was cold and he hurt, and he had bled somewhat onto the stones where he lay. He was not dead, and he thought after a while that he was not dying. A name came into his head.

Gerrith.

A stab of fear contracted his belly. He tried to sit up, and found that his hands were bound. He wondered if a man could learn to live his whole life with his hands bound.

He did not sit up, but he achieved a wider view.

Halk leaned against the wall nearby. His eyes were shut and he breathed through his mouth, shallow careful breaths. His face had a gray pallor; it seemed to have fallen in around the bones. His tunic was open, showing a rough wad of bandage. Beyond him, Hargoth and his priests sat in a group. They appeared soiled and bruised but not wounded, and their masks had been left on them. A guard stood over them, watchful against sorceries. In another place were such of their warriors as had survived, only seven and most of them wounded. All were bound.

He did not see Gerrith.

He called her name, and she spoke from behind him.

”I'm here, Stark.” He floundered about, pus.h.i.+ng his back up against the wall, and she tried to help him. Her hands were tied. She did not seem to be hurt, except for bruises, and her hair hung loose around her face.

”Why,” he asked her, ”in the name of all the starry h.e.l.ls of s.p.a.ce did you insist on coming?”

He was furious with her.

There was much activity in the courtyard, almost a holiday air. Thyran soldiers went about various sorts of business. Their dead and wounded were laid out on litters. A cl.u.s.ter of Outdwellers, like ragged crows, stood by a doorway and grabbed for bundles of provisions being handed out to them. Their payment, no doubt, for betrayal.

One of them saw that Stark was conscious. He came over and looked down with malevolent pleasure. It was the piper. Stark could see the instrument peeping out from his untidy wrappings.

”Why?” asked Stark.

”They told us to watch for you. They told us how you looked. They promised to pay us. But we would have done it for nothing.”

The pupils of his eyes had contracted. They reflected nothing now but hate.

Again Stark asked, ”Why?”

”The stars are sacred,” said the piper. ”They are the eyes of the G.o.ddess. When our souls take flight the bright eyes see them, and the arms of the G.o.ddess reach out to gather them in. You wish to defile the stars and rob us of all bliss.”

Stark said wearily, ”I don't think you understand.” Normally he was tolerant of tribal fancies, but he felt no great tenderness for the Outdwellers. ”The stars are already defiled. They're only suns, like that one over your head. They have worlds around them, like this one under your feet. People live on those worlds, people who never heard of Outdwellers or their footling G.o.ddess. And the stars.h.i.+ps fly between them. It's all going on out there, this second as you stand here, and nothing you can do will stop it.”

The piper carried his peculiar weapons, along with his pipe. He thrust one hand in and out of his garments so swiftly that Stark could barely follow the motion. Sharp claws flashed upward, ready for the death-stroke, and Stark had just time enough to consider the wisdom of his remarks. Then a hairy fist closed on the piper's broomstick arm, and a Thyran officer with an iron torque around his neck said cheerfully, ”Do you drop it, or do I break your wrist?”

The piper wriggled his fingers and let the claws go clacking onto the stones.

”This one's worth more alive,” said the Thyran, and let go. He wiped his hand on his breeches. ”Go along with you, filth.”

The piper gathered up his armament and went. The Outdwellers began to file out through the gate, glancing back as they did so with hateful leers at the captives. Stark suddenly sat up straighter and looked again around the courtyard.

”I see your dead,” he said to the Thyran. ”I do not see ours.”

”Don't worry, friend. The Outdwellers will give them useful burial.” The Thyran examined him with interest. ”You put us to some pains to keep from killing you.”

”Why did you?”

”That was the order. Dead if necessary, alive if possible and double the reward. Same for the woman, and for this man. The others-” He shrugged. ”Dead was good enough.”