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Black Amazon of Mars

<h2>IV</h2> He stood in a large square, lined about with huckster's stalls and the booths of wine-sellers. Beyond were buildings, streets, a city. Stark got a blurred impression of a grand and brooding darkness, bulking huge against the mountains, as bleak and proud as they, and quite as ancient, with many ruins and deserted quarters. He was not sure how he had come there, but he was standing on his own feet, and someone was pouring sour wine into his mouth. He drank it greedily. There were people around him, jostling, chattering, demanding answers to their questions. A girl's voice said sharply, "Let him be! Can't you see he's hurt?" Stark looked down. She was slim and ragged, with black hair and large eyes yellow as a cat's. She held a leather bottle in her hands. She smiled at him and said, "I'm Thanis. Will you drink more wine?" "I will," said Stark, and did, and then said, "Thank you, Thanis." He put his hand on her shoulder, to steady himself. It was a supple shoulder, surprisingly strong. He liked the feel of it. The crowd was still churning around him, growing larger, and now he heard the tramp of military feet. A small detachment of men in light armor pushed their way through. A very young officer whose breastplate hurt the eye with brightness demanded to be told at once who Stark was and why he had come there. "No one crosses the moors in winter," he said, as though that in itself were a sign of evil intent. "The clans of Mekh are crossing them," Stark answered. "An army, to take Kushat—one, two days behind me." The crowd picked that up. Excited voices tossed it back and forth, and clamored for more news. Stark spoke to the officer. "I will see your captain, and at once." "You'll see the inside of a prison, more likely!" snapped the young man. "What's this nonsense about the clans of Mekh?" Stark regarded him. He looked so long and so curiously that the crowd began to snicker and the officer's beardless face flushed pink to the ears. "I have fought in many wars," said Stark gently. "And long ago I learned to listen, when someone came to warn me of attack." "Better take him to the captain, Lugh," cried Thanis. "It's our skins too, you know, if there is war." The crowd began to shout. They were all poor folk, wrapped in threadbare cloaks or tattered leather. They had no love for the guards. And whether there was war or not, their winter had been long and dull, and they were going to make the most of this excitement. "Take him, Lugh! Let him warn the nobles. Let them think how they'll defend Kushat and the Gates of Death, now that the talisman is gone!" "That is a lie!" Lugh shouted. "And you know the penalty for telling it. Hold your tongues, or I'll have you all whipped." He gestured angrily at Stark. "See if he is armed." One of the soldiers stepped forward, but Stark was quicker. He slipped the thong and let the cloak fall, baring his upper body. "The clansmen have already taken everything I owned," he said. "But they gave me something, in return." The crowd stared at the half healed stripes that scarred him, and there was a drawing in of breath. The soldier picked up the cloak and laid it over the Earthman's shoulders. And Lugh said sullenly, "Come, then." Stark's fingers tightened on Thanis' shoulder. "Come with me, little one," he whispered. "Otherwise, I must crawl." She smiled at him and came. The crowd followed. The captain of the guards was a fleshy man with a smell of wine about him and a face already crumbling apart though his hair was not yet grey. He sat in a squat tower above the square, and he observed Stark with no particular interest. "You had something to tell," said Lugh. "Tell it." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Stark told them, leaving out all mention of Camar and the talisman. This was neither the time nor the man to hear that story. The captain listened to all he had to say about the gathering of the clans of Mekh, and then sat studying him with a bleary shrewdness. "You have proof of all this?" "These stripes. Their leader Ciaran ordered them laid on himself." The captain sighed, and leaned back. "Any wandering band of hunters could have scourged you," he said. "A nameless vagabond from the gods know where, and a lawless one at that, if I'm any judge of men—you probably deserved it." He reached for wine, and smiled. "Look you, stranger. In the Norlands, no one makes war in the winter. And no one ever heard of Ciaran. If you hoped for a reward from the city, you overshot badly." "The Lord Ciaran," said Stark, grimly controlling his anger, "will be battering at your gates within two days. And you will hear of him then." "Perhaps. You can wait for him—in a cell. And you can leave Kushat with the first caravan after the thaw. We have enough rabble here without taking in more." Thanis caught Stark by the cloak and held him back. "Sir," she said, as though it were an unclean word. "I will vouch for the stranger." The captain glanced at her. "You?" "Sir, I am a free citizen of Kushat. According to law, I may vouch for him." "If you scum of the Thieves' Quarter would practice the law as well as you prate it, we would have less trouble," growled the captain. "Very well, take the creature, if you want him. I don't suppose you've anything to lose." Lugh laughed. "Name and dwelling place," said the captain, and wrote them down. "Remember, he is not to leave the Quarter." Thanis nodded. "Come," she said to Stark. He did not move, and she looked up at him. He was staring at the captain. His beard had grown in these last days, and his face was still scarred by Thord's blows and made wolfish with pain and fever. And now, out of this evil mask, his eyes were peering with a chill and terrible intensity at the soft-bellied man who sat and mocked him. Thanis laid her hand on his rough cheek. "Come," she said. "Come and rest." Gently she turned his head. He blinked and swayed, and she took him around the waist and led him unprotesting to the door. There she paused, looking back. "Sir," she said, very meekly, "news of this attack is being shouted through the Quarter now. If it should come, and it were known that you had the warning and did not pass it on...." She made an expressive gesture, and went out. Lugh glanced uneasily at the captain. "She's right, sir. If by chance the man did tell the truth...." The captain swore. "Rot. A rogue's tale. And yet...." He scowled indecisively, and then reached for parchment. "After all, it's a simple thing. Write it up, pass it on, and let the nobles do the worrying." His pen began to scratch. Thanis took Stark by steep and narrow ways, darkling now in the afterglow, where the city climbed and fell again over the uneven rock. Stark was aware of the heavy smells of spices and unfamiliar foods, and the musky undertones of a million generations swarmed together to spawn and die in these crowded catacombs of slate and stone. There was a house, blending into other houses, close under the loom of the great Wall. There was a flight of steps, hollowed deep with use, twisting crazily around outer corners. There was a low room, and a slender man named Balin, vaguely glimpsed, who said he was Thanis' brother. There was a bed of skins and woven cloths. Stark slept. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Hands and voices called him back. Strong hands shaking him, urgent voices. He started up growling, like an animal suddenly awaked, still lost in the dark mists of exhaustion. Balin swore, and caught his fingers away. "What is this you have brought home, Thanis? By the gods, it snapped at me!" Thanis ignored him. "Stark," she said. "Stark! Listen. Men are coming. Soldiers. They will question you. Do you hear me?" Stark said heavily, "I hear." "Do not speak of Camar!" Stark got to his feet, and Balin said hastily, "Peace! The thing is safe. I would not steal a death warrant!" His voice had a ring of truth. Stark sat down again. It was an effort to keep awake. There was clamor in the street below. It was still night. Balin said carefully, "Tell them what you told the captain, nothing more. They will kill you if they know." A rough hand thundered at the door, and a voice cried, "Open up!" Balin sauntered over to lift the bar. Thanis sat beside Stark, her hand touching his. Stark rubbed his face. He had been shaved and washed, his wounds rubbed with salve. The belt was gone, and his blood-stained clothing. He realized only then that he was naked, and drew a cloth around him. Thanis whispered, "The belt is there on that peg, under your cloak." Balin opened the door, and the room was full of men. Stark recognized the captain. There were others, four of them, young, old, intermediate, annoyed at being hauled away from their beds and their gaming tables at this hour. The sixth man wore the jewelled cuirass of a noble. He had a nice, a kind face. Grey hair, mild eyes, soft cheeks. A fine man, but ludicrous in the trappings of a soldier. "Is this the man?" he asked, and the captain nodded. "Yes." It was his turn to say Sir. Balin brought a chair. He had a fine flourish about him. He wore a crimson jewel in his left ear, and every line of him was quick and sensitive, instinct with mockery. His eyes were brightly cynical, in a face worn lean with years of merry sinning. Stark liked him. He was a civilized man. They all were—the noble, the captain, the lot of them. So civilized that the origins of their culture were forgotten half an age before the first clay brick was laid in Babylon. Too civilized, Stark thought. Peace had drawn their fangs and cut their claws. He thought of the wild clansmen coming fast across the snow, and felt a certain pity for the men of Kushat. The noble sat down. "This is a strange tale you bring, wanderer. I would hear it from your own lips." Stark told it. He spoke slowly, watching every word, cursing the weariness that fogged his brain. The noble, who was called Rogain, asked him questions. Where was the camp? How many men? What were the exact words of the Lord Ciaran, and who was he? Stark answered, with meticulous care. Rogain sat for some time lost in thought. He seemed worried and upset, one hand playing aimlessly with the hilt of his sword. A scholar's hand, without a callous on it. "There is one thing more," said Rogain. "What business had you on the moors in winter?" Stark smiled. "I am a wanderer by profession." "Outlaw?" asked the captain, and Stark shrugged. "Mercenary is a kinder word." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Rogain studied the pattern of stripes on the Earthman's dark skin. "Why did the Lord Ciaran, so-called, order you scourged?" "I had thrashed one of his chieftains." Rogain sighed and rose. He stood regarding Stark from under brooding brows, and at length he said, "It is a wild tale. I can't believe it—and yet, why should you lie?" He paused, as though hoping that Stark would answer that and relieve him of worry. Stark yawned. "The tale is easily proved. Wait a day or two." "I will arm the city," said Rogain. "I dare not do otherwise. But I will tell you this." An astonishing unpleasant look came into his eyes. "If the attack does not come—if you have set a whole city by the ears for nothing—I will have you flayed alive and your body tumbled over the Wall for the carrion birds to feed on." He strode out, taking his retinue with him. Balin smiled. "He will do it, too," he said, and dropped the bar. Stark did not answer. He stared at Balin, and then at Thanis, and then at the belt hanging on the peg, in a curiously blank and yet penetrating fashion, like an animal that thinks its own thoughts. He took a deep breath. Then, as though he found the air clean of danger, he rolled over and went instantly to sleep. Balin lifted his shoulders expressively. He grinned at Thanis. "Are you positive it's human?" "He's beautiful," said Thanis, and tucked the cloths around him. "Hold your tongue." She continued to sit there, watching Stark's face as the slow dreams moved across it. Balin laughed. It was evening again when Stark awoke. He sat up, stretching lazily. Thanis crouched by the hearthstone, stirring something savory in a blackened pot. She wore a red kirtle and a necklet of beaten gold, and her hair was combed out smooth and shining. She smiled at him and rose, bringing him his own boots and trousers, carefully cleaned, and a tunic of leather tanned fine and soft as silk. Stark asked her where she got it. "Balin stole it—from the baths where the nobles go. He said you might as well have the best." She laughed. "He had a devil of a time finding one big enough to fit you." She watched with unashamed interest while he dressed. Stark said, "Don't burn the soup." She put her tongue out at him. "Better be proud of that fine hide while you have it," she said. "There's no sign of attack." Stark was aware of sounds that had not been there before—the pacing of men on the Wall above the house, the calling of the watch. Kushat was armed and ready—and his time was running out. He hoped that Ciaran had not been delayed on the moors. Thanis said, "I should explain about the belt. When Balin undressed you, he saw Camar's name scratched on the inside of the boss. And, he can open a lizard's egg without harming the shell." "What about you?" asked Stark. She flexed her supple fingers. "I do well enough." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Balin came in. He had been seeking news, but there was little to be had. "The soldiers are grumbling about a false alarm," he said. "The people are excited, but more as though they were playing a game. Kushat has not fought a war for centuries." He sighed. "The pity of it is, Stark, I believe your story. And I'm afraid." Thanis handed him a steaming bowl. "Here—employ your tongue with this. Afraid, indeed! Have you forgotten the Wall? No one has carried it since the city was built. Let them attack!" Stark was amused. "For a child, you know much concerning war." "I knew enough to save your skin!" she flared, and Balin smiled. "She has you there, Stark. And speaking of skins...." He glanced up at the belt. "Or better, speaking of talismans, which we were not. How did you come by it?" Stark told him. "He had a sin on his soul, did Camar. And—he was my friend." Balin looked at him with deep respect. "You were a fool," he said. "Look you. The thing is returned to Kushat. Your promise is kept. There is nothing for you here but danger, and were I you I would not wait to be flayed, or slain, or taken in a quarrel that is not yours." "Ah," said Stark softly, "but it is mine. The Lord Ciaran made it so." He, too, glanced at the belt. "What of the talisman?" "Return it where it came from," Thanis said. "My brother is a better thief than Camar. He can certainly do that." "No!" said Balin, with surprising force. "We will keep it, Stark and I. Whether it has power, I do not know. But if it has—I think Kushat will need it, and in strong hands." Stark said somberly, "It has power, the Talisman. Whether for good or evil, I don't know." They looked at him, startled. But a touch of awe seemed to repress their curiosity. He could not tell them. He was, somehow, reluctant to tell anyone of that dark vision of what lay beyond the Gates of Death, which the talisman of Ban Cruach had lent him. Balin stood up. "Well, for good or evil, at least the sacred relic of Ban Cruach has come home." He yawned. "I am going to bed. Will you come, Thanis, or will you stay and quarrel with our guest?" "I will stay," she said, "and quarrel." "Ah, well." Balin sighed puckishly. "Good night." He vanished into an inner room. Stark looked at Thanis. She had a warm mouth, and her eyes were beautiful, and full of light. He smiled, holding out his hand. The night wore on, and Stark lay drowsing. Thanis had opened the curtains. Wind and moonlight swept together into the room, and she stood leaning upon the sill, above the slumbering city. The smile that lingered in the corners of her mouth was sad and far-away, and very tender. Stark stirred uneasily, making small sounds in his throat. His motions grew violent. Thanis crossed the room and touched him. Instantly he was awake. "Animal," she said softly. "You dream." Stark shook his head. His eyes were still clouded, though not with sleep. "Blood," he said, "heavy in the wind." "I smell nothing but the dawn," she said, and laughed. Stark rose. "Get Balin. I'm going up on the Wall." She did not know him now. "What is it, Stark? What's wrong?" "Get Balin." Suddenly it seemed that the room stifled him. He caught up his cloak and Camar's belt and flung open the door, standing on the narrow steps outside. The moonlight caught in his eyes, pale as frost-fire. Thanis shivered. Balin joined her without being called. He, too, had slept but lightly. Together they followed Stark up the rough-cut stair that led to the top of the Wall. He looked southward, where the plain ran down from the mountains and spread away below Kushat. Nothing moved out there. Nothing marred the empty whiteness. But Stark said, "They will attack at dawn." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>V</h2> They waited. Some distance away a guard leaned against the parapet, huddled in his cloak. He glanced at them incuriously. It was bitterly cold. The wind came whistling down through the Gates of Death, and below in the streets the watchfires shuddered and flared. They waited, and still there was nothing. Balin said impatiently, "How can you know they're coming?" Stark shivered, a shallow rippling of the flesh that had nothing to do with cold, and every muscle of his body came alive. Phobos plunged downward. The moonlight dimmed and changed, and the plain was very empty, very still. "They will wait for darkness. They will have an hour or so, between moonset and dawn." Thanis muttered, "Dreams! Besides, I'm cold." She hesitated, and then crept in under Balin's cloak. Stark had gone away from her. She watched him sulkily where he leaned upon the stone. He might have been part of it, as dark and unstirring. Deimos sank low toward the west. Stark turned his head, drawn inevitably to look toward the cliffs above Kushat, soaring upward to blot out half the sky. Here, close under them, they seemed to tower outward in a curving mass, like the last wave of eternity rolling down, crested white with the ash of shattered worlds. I have stood beneath those cliffs before. I have felt them leaning down to crush me, and I have been afraid. He was still afraid. The mind that had poured its memories into that crystal lens had been dead a million years, but neither time nor death had dulled the terror that beset Ban Cruach in his journey through that nightmare pass. He looked into the black and narrow mouth of the Gates of Death, cleaving the scarp like a wound, and the primitive ape-thing within him cringed and moaned, oppressed with a sudden sense of fate. He had come painfully across half a world, to crouch before the Gates of Death. Some evil magic had let him see forbidden things, had linked his mind in an unholy bond with the long-dead mind of one who had been half a god. These evil miracles had not been for nothing. He would not be allowed to go unscathed. He drew himself up sharply then, and swore. He had left N'Chaka behind, a naked boy running in a place of rocks and sun on Mercury. He had become Eric John Stark, a man, and civilized. He thrust the senseless premonition from him, and turned his back upon the mountains. Deimos touched the horizon. A last gleam of reddish light tinged the snow, and then was gone. Thanis, who was half asleep, said with sudden irritation, "I do not believe in your barbarians. I'm going home." She thrust Balin aside and went away, down the steps. The plain was now in utter darkness, under the faint, far Northern stars. Stark settled himself against the parapet. There was a sort of timeless patience about him. Balin envied it. He would have liked to go with Thanis. He was cold and doubtful, but he stayed. Time passed, endless minutes of it, lengthening into what seemed hours. Stark said, "Can you hear them?" "No." "They come." His hearing, far keener than Balin's, picked up the little sounds, the vast inchoate rustling of an army on the move in stealth and darkness. Light-armed men, hunters, used to stalking wild beasts in the show. They could move softly, very softly. "I hear nothing," Balin said, and again they waited. The westering stars moved toward the horizon, and at length in the east a dim pallor crept across the sky. The plain was still shrouded in night, but now Stark could make out the high towers of the King City of Kushat, ghostly and indistinct—the ancient, proud high towers of the rulers and their nobles, set above the crowded Quarters of merchants and artisans and thieves. He wondered who would be king in Kushat by the time this unrisen sun had set. "You were wrong," said Balin, peering. "There is nothing on the plain." Stark said, "Wait." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Swiftly now, in the thin air of Mars, the dawn came with a rush and a leap, flooding the world with harsh light. It flashed in cruel brilliance from sword-blades, from spearheads, from helmets and burnished mail, from the war-harness of beasts, glistened on bare russet heads and coats of leather, set the banners of the clans to burning, crimson and gold and green, bright against the snow. There was no sound, not a whisper, in all the land. Somewhere a hunting horn sent forth one deep cry to split the morning. Then burst out the wild skirling of the mountain pipes and the broken thunder of drums, and a wordless scream of exultation that rang back from the Wall of Kushat like the very voice of battle. The men of Mekh began to move. Raggedly, slowly at first, then more swiftly as the press of warriors broke and flowed, the barbarians swept toward the city as water sweeps over a broken dam. Knots and clumps of men, tall men running like deer, leaping, shouting, swinging their great brands. Riders, spurring their mounts until they fled belly down. Spears, axes, sword-blades tossing, a sea of men and beasts, rushing, trampling, shaking the ground with the thunder of their going. And ahead of them all came a solitary figure in black mail, riding a raking beast trapped all in black, and bearing a sable axe. Kushat came to life. There was a swarming and a yelling in the streets, and soldiers began to pour up onto the Wall. A thin company, Stark thought, and shook his head. Mobs of citizens choked the alleys, and every rooftop was full. A troop of nobles went by, brave in their bright mail, to take up their post in the square by the great gate. Balin said nothing, and Stark did not disturb his thoughts. From the look of him, they were dark indeed. Soldiers came and ordered them off the Wall. They went back to their own roof, where they were joined by Thanis. She was in a high state of excitement, but unafraid. "Let them attack!" she said. "Let them break their spears against the Wall. They will crawl away again." Stark began to grow restless. Up in their high emplacements, the big ballistas creaked and thrummed. The muted song of the bows became a wailing hum. Men fell, and were kicked off the ledges by their fellows. The blood-howl of the clans rang unceasing on the frosty air, and Stark heard the rap of scaling ladders against stone. Thanis said abruptly, "What is that—that sound like thunder?" "Rams," he answered. "They are battering the gate." She listened, and Stark saw in her face the beginning of fear. It was a long fight. Stark watched it hungrily from the roof all that morning. The soldiers of Kushat did bravely and well, but they were as folded sheep against the tall killers of the mountains. By noon the officers were beating the Quarters for men to replace the slain. Stark and Balin went up again, onto the Wall. The clans had suffered. Their dead lay in windrows under the Wall, amid the broken ladders. But Stark knew his barbarians. They had sat restless and chafing in the valley for many days, and now the battle-madness was on them and they were not going to be stopped. Wave after wave of them rolled up, and was cast back, and came on again relentlessly. The intermittent thunder boomed still from the gates, where sweating giants swung the rams under cover of their own bowmen. And everywhere, up and down through the forefront of the fighting, rode the man in black armor, and wild cheering followed him. Balin said heavily, "It is the end of Kushat." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> A ladder banged against the stones a few feet away. Men swarmed up the rungs, fierce-eyed clansmen with laughter in their mouths. Stark was first at the head. They had given him a spear. He spitted two men through with it and lost it, and a third man came leaping over the parapet. Stark received him into his arms. Balin watched. He saw the warrior go crashing back, sweeping his fellows off the ladder. He saw Stark's face. He heard the sounds and smelled the blood and sweat of war, and he was sick to the marrow of his bones, and his hatred of the barbarians was a terrible thing. Stark caught up a dead man's blade, and within ten minutes his arm was as red as a butcher's. And ever he watched the winged helm that went back and forth below, a standard to the clans. By mid-afternoon the barbarians had gained the Wall in three places. They spread inward along the ledges, pouring up in a resistless tide, and the defenders broke. The rout became a panic. "It's all over now," Stark said. "Find Thanis, and hide her." Balin let fall his sword. "Give me the talisman," he whispered, and Stark saw that he was weeping. "Give it me, and I will go beyond the Gates of Death and rouse Ban Cruach from his sleep. And if he has forgotten Kushat, I will take his power into my own hands. I will fling wide the Gates of Death and loose destruction on the men of Mekh—or if the legends are all lies, then I will die." He was like a man crazed. "Give me the talisman!" Stark slapped him, carefully and without heat, across the face. "Get your sister, Balin. Hide her, unless you would be uncle to a red-haired brat." He went then, like a man who has been stunned. Screaming women with their children clogged the ways that led inward from the Wall, and there was bloody work afoot on the rooftops and in the narrow alleys. The gate was holding, still. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Stark forced his way toward the square. The booths of the hucksters were overthrown, the wine-jars broken and the red wine spilled. Beasts squealed and stamped, tired of their chafing harness, driven wild by the shouting and the smell of blood. The dead were heaped high where they had fallen from above. They were all soldiers here, clinging grimly to their last foothold. The deep song of the rams shook the very stones. The iron-sheathed timbers of the gate gave back an answering scream, and toward the end all other sounds grew hushed. The nobles came down slowly from the Wall and mounted, and sat waiting. There were fewer of them now. Their bright armor was dented and stained, and their faces had a pallor on them. One last hammer-stroke of the rams. With a bitter shriek the weakened bolts tore out, and the great gate was broken through. The nobles of Kushat made their first, and final charge. As soldiers they went up against the riders of Mekh, and as soldiers they held them until they died. Those that were left were borne back into the square, caught as in the crest of an avalanche. And first through the gates came the winged battle-mask of the Lord Ciaran, and the sable axe that drank men's lives where it hewed. There was a beast with no rider to claim it, tugging at its headrope. Stark swung onto the saddle pad and cut it free. Where the press was thickest, a welter of struggling brutes and men fighting knee to knee, there was the man in black armor, riding like a god, magnificent, born to war. Stark's eyes shone with a strange, cold light. He struck his heels hard into the scaly flanks. The beast plunged forward. In and over and through, making the long sword sing. The beast was strong, and frightened beyond fear. It bit and trampled, and Stark cut a path for them, and presently he shouted above the din, "Ho, there! Ciaran!" The black mask turned toward him, and the remembered voice spoke from behind the barred slot, joyously. "The wanderer. The wild man!" Their two mounts shocked together. The axe came down in a whistling curve, and a red sword-blade flashed to meet it. Swift, swift, a ringing clash of steel, and the blade was shattered and the axe fallen to the ground. Stark pressed in. Ciaran reached for his sword, but his hand was numbed by the force of that blow and he was slow, a split second. The hilt of Stark's weapon, still clutched in his own numbed grip, fetched him a stunning blow on the helm, so that the metal rang like a flawed bell. The Lord Ciaran reeled back, only for a moment, but long enough. Stark grasped the war-mask and ripped it off, and got his hands around the naked throat. He did not break that neck, as he had planned. And the Clansmen who had started in to save their leader stopped and did not move. Stark knew now why the Lord Ciaran had never shown his face. The throat he held was white and strong, and his hands around it were buried in a mane of red-gold hair that fell down over the shirt of mail. A red mouth passionate with fury, wonderful curving bone under sculptured flesh, eyes fierce and proud and tameless as the eyes of a young eagle, fire-blue, defying him, hating him.... "By the gods," said Stark, very softly. "By the eternal gods!" <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>VI</h2> A woman! And in that moment of amazement, she was quicker than he. There was nothing to warn him, no least flicker of expression. Her two fists came up together between his outstretched arms and caught him under the jaw with a force that nearly snapped his neck. He went over backward, clean out of the saddle, and lay sprawled on the bloody stones, half stunned, the wind knocked out of him. The woman wheeled her mount. Bending low, she took up the axe from where it had fallen, and faced her warriors, who were as dazed as Stark. "I have led you well," she said. "I have taken you Kushat. Will any man dispute me?" They knew the axe, if they did not know her. They looked from side to side uneasily, completely at a loss, and Stark, still gasping on the ground, thought that he had never seen anything as proud and beautiful as she was then in her black mail, with her bright hair blowing and her glance like blue lightning. The nobles of Kushat chose that moment to charge. This strange unmasking of the Mekhish lord had given them time to rally, and now they thought that the Gods had wrought a miracle to help them. They found hope, where they had lost everything but courage. "A wench!" they cried. "A strumpet of the camps. A woman!" They howled it like an epithet, and tore into the barbarians. She who had been the Lord Ciaran drove the spurs in deep, so that the beast leaped forward screaming. She went, and did not look to see if any had followed, in among the men of Kushat. And the great axe rose and fell, and rose again. She killed three, and left two others bleeding on the stones, and not once did she look back. The clansmen found their tongues. "Ciaran! Ciaran!" The crashing shout drowned out the sound of battle. As one man, they turned and followed her. Stark, scrambling for his life underfoot, could not forbear smiling. Their childlike minds could see only two alternatives—to slay her out of hand, or to worship her. They had chosen to worship. He thought the bards would be singing of the Lord Ciaran of Mekh as long as there were men to listen. He managed to take cover behind a wrecked booth, and presently make his way out of the square. They had forgotten him, for the moment. He did not wish to wait, just then, until they—or she—remembered. She. He still did not believe it, quite. He touched the bruise under his jaw where she had struck him, and thought of the lithe, swift strength of her, and the way she had ridden alone into battle. He remembered the death of Thord, and how she had kept her red wolves tamed, and he was filled with wonder, and a deep excitement. He remembered what she had said to him once—We are of one blood, though we be strangers. He laughed, silently, and his eyes were very bright. The tide of war had rolled on toward the King City, where from the sound of it there was hot fighting around the castle. Eddies of the main struggle swept shrieking through the streets, but the rat-runs under the Wall were clear. Everyone had stampeded inward, the victims with the victors close on their heels. The short northern day was almost gone. He found a hiding place that offered reasonable safety, and settled himself to wait. Night came, but he did not move. From the sounds that reached him, the sacking of Kushat was in full swing. They were looting the richer streets first. Their upraised voices were thick with wine, and mingled with the cries of women. The reflection of many fires tinged the sky. By midnight the sounds began to slacken, and by the second hour after the city slept, drugged with wine and blood and the weariness of battle. Stark went silently out into the streets, toward the King City. According to the immemorial pattern of Martian city-states, the castles of the king and the noble families were clustered together in solitary grandeur. Many of the towers were fallen now, the great halls open to the sky. Time had crushed the grandeur that had been Kushat, more fatally than the boots of any conqueror. In the house of the king, the flamboys guttered low and the chieftains of Mekh slept with their weary pipers among the benches of the banquet hall. In the niches of the tall, carved portal, the guards nodded over their spears. They, too, had fought that day. Even so, Stark did not go near them. Shivering slightly in the bitter wind, he followed the bulk of the massive walls until he found a postern door, half open as some kitchen knave had left it in his flight. Stark entered, moving like a shadow. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> The passageway was empty, dimly lighted by a single torch. A stairway branched off from it, and he climbed that, picking his way by guess and his memories of similar castles he had seen in the past. He emerged into a narrow hall, obviously for the use of servants. A tapestry closed the end, stirring in the chill draught that blew along the floor. He peered around it, and saw a massive, vaulted corridor, the stone walls panelled in wood much split and blackened by time, but still showing forth the wonderful carvings of beasts and men, larger than life and overlaid with gold and bright enamel. From the corridor a single doorway opened—and Otar slept before it, curled on a pallet like a dog. Stark went back down the narrow hall. He was sure that there must be a back entrance to the king's chambers, and he found the little door he was looking for. From there on was darkness. He felt his way, stepping with infinite caution, and presently there was a faint gleam of light filtering around the edges of another curtain of heavy tapestry. He crept toward it, and heard a man's slow breathing on the other side. He drew the curtain back, a careful inch. The man was sprawled on a bench athwart the door. He slept the honest sleep of exhaustion, his sword in his hand, the stains of his day's work still upon him. He was alone in the small room. A door in the farther wall was closed. Stark hit him, and caught the sword before it fell. The man grunted once and became utterly relaxed. Stark bound him with his own harness and shoved a gag in his mouth, and went on, through the door in the opposite wall. The room beyond was large and high and full of shadows. A fire burned low on the hearth, and the uncertain light showed dimly the hangings and the rich stuffs that carpeted the floor, and the dark, sparse shapes of furniture. Stark made out the lattice-work of a covered bed, let into the wall after the northern fashion. She was there, sleeping, her red-gold hair the colour of the flames. He stood a moment, watching her, and then, as though she sensed his presence, she stirred and opened her eyes. She did not cry out. He had known that she would not. There was no fear in her. She said, with a kind of wry humor, "I will have a word with my guards about this." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> She flung aside the covering and rose. She was almost as tall as he, white-skinned and very straight. He noted the long thighs, the narrow loins and magnificent shoulders, the small virginal breasts. She moved as a man moves, without coquetry. A long furred gown, that Stark guessed had lately graced the shoulders of the king, lay over a chair. She put it on. "Well, wild man?" "I have come to warn you." He hesitated over her name, and she said, "My mother named me Ciara, if that seems better to you." She gave him her falcon's glance. "I could have slain you in the square, but now I think you did me a service. The truth would have come out sometime—better then, when they had no time to think about it." She laughed. "They will follow me now, over the edge of the world, if I ask them." Stark said slowly, "Even beyond the Gates of Death?" "Certainly, there. Above all, there!" She turned to one of the tall windows and looked out at the cliffs and the high notch of the pass, touched with greenish silver by the little moons. "Ban Cruach was a great king. He came out of nowhere to rule the Norlands with a rod of iron, and men speak of him still as half a god. Where did he get his power, if not from beyond the Gates of Death? Why did he go back there at the end of his days, if not to hide away his secret? Why did he build Kushat to guard the pass forever, if not to hoard that power out of reach of all the other nations of Mars? "Yes, Stark. My men will follow me. And if they do not, I will go alone." "You are not Ban Cruach. Nor am I." He took her by the shoulders. "Listen, Ciara. You're already king in the Norlands, and half a legend as you stand. Be content." "Content!" Her face was close to his, and he saw the blaze of it, the white intensity of ambition and an iron pride. "Are you content?" she asked him. "Have you ever been content?" He smiled. "For strangers, we do know each other well. No. But the spurs are not so deep in me." "The wind and the fire. One spends its strength in wandering, the other devours. But one can help the other. I made you an offer once, and you said you would not bargain unless you could look into my eyes. Look now!" He did, and his hands upon her shoulders trembled. "No," he said harshly. "You're a fool, Ciara. Would you be as Otar, mad with what you have seen?" "Otar is an old man, and likely crazed before he crossed the mountains. Besides—I am not Otar." Stark said somberly, "Even the bravest may break. Ban Cruach himself...." She must have seen the shadow of that horror in his eyes, for he felt her body tense. "What of Ban Cruach? What do you know, Stark? Tell me!" He was silent, and she went from him angrily. "You have the talisman," she said. "That I am sure of. And if need be, I will flay you alive to get it!" She faced him across the room. "But whether I get it or not, I will go through the Gates of Death. I must wait, now, until after the thaw. The warm wind will blow soon, and the gorges will be running full. But afterward, I will go, and no talk of fears and demons will stop me." She began to pace the room with long strides, and the full skirts of the gown made a subtle whispering about her. "You do not know," she said, in a low and bitter voice. "I was a girl-child, without a name. By the time I could walk, I was a servant in the house of my grandfather. The two things that kept me living were pride and hate. I left my scrubbing of floors to practice arms with the young boys. I was beaten for it every day, but every day I went. I knew even then that only force would free me. And my father was a king's son, a good man of his hands. His blood was strong in me. I learned." She held her head very high. She had earned the right to hold it so. She finished quietly, "I have come a long way. I will not turn back now." "Ciara." Stark came and stood before her. "I am talking to you as a fighting man, an equal. There may be power behind the Gates of Death, I do not know. But this I have seen—madness, horror, an evil that is beyond our understanding. "I think you will not accuse me of cowardice. And yet I would not go into that pass for all the power of all the kings of Mars!" Once started, he could not stop. The full force of that dark vision of the talisman swept over him again in memory. He came closer to her, driven by the need to make her understand. "Yes, I have the talisman! And I have had a taste of its purpose. I think Ban Cruach left it as a warning, so that none would follow him. I have seen the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have seen the Gates of Death—not with my own eyes, Ciara, but with his. With the eyes and the memories of Ban Cruach!" He had caught her again, his hands strong on her strong arms. "Will you believe me, or must you see for yourself—the dreadful things that walk those buried streets, the shapes that rise from nowhere in the mists of the pass?" Her gaze burned into his. Her breath was hot and sweet upon his lips, and she was like a sword between his hands, shining and unafraid. "Give me the talisman. Let me see!" He answered furiously, "You are mad. As mad as Otar." And he kissed her, in a rage, in a panic lest all that beauty be destroyed—a kiss as brutal as a blow, that left him shaken. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> She backed away slowly, one step, and he thought she would have killed him. He said heavily: "If you will see, you will. The thing is here." He opened the boss and laid the crystal in her outstretched hand. He did not meet her eyes. "Sit down. Hold the flat side against your brow." She sat, in a great chair of carven wood. Stark noticed that her hand was unsteady, her face the colour of white ash. He was glad she did not have the axe where she could reach it. She did not play at anger. For a long moment she studied the intricate lens, the incredible depository of a man's mind. Then she raised it slowly to her forehead. He saw her grow rigid in the chair. How long he watched beside her he never knew. Seconds, an eternity. He saw her eyes turn blank and strange, and a shadow came into her face, changing it subtly, altering the lines, so that it seemed almost a stranger was peering through her flesh. All at once, in a voice that was not her own, she cried out terribly, "Oh gods of Mars!" The talisman dropped rolling to the floor, and Ciara fell forward into Stark's arms. He thought at first that she was dead. He carried her to the bed, in an agony of fear that surprised him with its violence, and laid her down, and put his hand over her heart. It was beating strongly. Relief that was almost a sickness swept over him. He turned, searching vaguely for wine, and saw the talisman. He picked it up and put it back inside the boss. A jewelled flagon stood on a table across the room. He took it and started back, and then, abruptly, there was a wild clamor in the hall outside and Otar was shouting Ciara's name, pounding on the door. It was not barred. In another moment they would burst through, and he knew that they would not stop to enquire what he was doing there. He dropped the flagon and went out swiftly, the way he had come. The guard was still unconscious. In the narrow hall beyond, Stark hesitated. A woman's voice was rising high above the tumult in the main corridor, and he thought he recognized it. He went to the tapestry curtain and looked for the second time around its edge. The lofty space was full of men, newly wakened from their heavy sleep and as nervous as so many bears. Thanis struggled in the grip of two of them. Her scarlet kirtle was torn, her hair flying in wild elf-locks, and her face was the face of a mad thing. The whole story of the doom of Kushat was written large upon it. She screamed again and again, and would not be silenced. "Tell her, the witch that leads you! Tell her that she is already doomed to death, with all her army!" Otar opened up the door of Ciara's room. Thanis surged forward. She must have fled through all that castle before she was caught, and Stark's heart ached for her. "You!" she shrieked through the doorway, and poured out all the filth of the quarter upon Ciara's name. "Balin has gone to bring doom upon you! He will open wide the Gates of Death, and then you will die!—die!—die!" Stark felt the shock of a terrible dread, as he let the curtain fall. Mad with hatred against conquerors, Balin had fulfilled his raging promise and had gone to fling open the Gates of Death. Remembering his nightmare vision of the shining, evil ones whom Ban Cruach had long ago prisoned beyond those gates, Stark felt a sickness grow within him as he went down the stair and out the postern door. It was almost dawn. He looked up at the brooding cliffs, and it seemed to him that the wind in the pass had a sound of laughter that mocked his growing dread. He knew what he must do, if an ancient, mysterious horror was not to be released upon Kushat. I may still catch Balin before he has gone too far! If I don't— He dared not think of that. He began to walk very swiftly through the night streets, toward the distant, towering Gates of Death. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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