Shardik (26 page)

‘
Where is Lord Shardik? *

‘Close at hand, madam - not a bowshot away. He h
as been sleeping since moonrise
.’

‘Who is th
at?’ said Rantzay, peering. ‘She
ldra? I thought you were with Lord
Kelderek
. How do you come to be here? Where
are
we?’

‘We are a little higher up the valley that you left this morning, madam, and on
the
edge of the forest. Zilthe
came down to the camp to tell Lord
Kelderek
that Shardik had returned, but she was exhausted, so he sent me back instead of her. He says that Lord Shardik must be drugged tonight.’

‘Has any attempt been made to drug him?’

No one replied.

‘Well?’

‘We have done all we could, madam,’ said another of
the
girls. ‘We prepa
red two haunches of meat with te
ssik and placed them as close to him as we dared, but he would not touch them. There is no mor
e te
ssik. We can only wait until he wakes.’

‘Before I left Lord
Kelderek
, madam,’ said She
ldra, ‘a messenger arrived from Gelt, from Lord Ta-Kominion. He sent word that he expected to fight the day after tomorrow and that Shardik must come no matter what the cost. His words were, “The hours now are more precious than stars.” ‘

From the hills to southward the lightning flickered between
the
trees. Rantzay limped the few yards to the edge of the forest and looked out across
the
valley. The sound of
the
brook below wavered on the air. Away to her left she could see
the
fires of the camp where the Tuginda and
Kelderek
must at this moment be waiting for news. She thought of
the
black shape
that
had passed her in
the
noon-day night, through the watery shallows of
the
grass; and of Anthre
d smiling among the trees, her hands adorned with the plaited rings
that
she herself had burned by the shore. These signs were clear enough. The situation was, in fact, a simple one. All that was required was a priestess who knew her duty and was capable of carrying it out with resolution.

She returned to the girls. They drew back from her, staring sil
ently
in the dimness.

‘You say Lord Shardik is close at hand. Where?’

Someone pointed. ‘Go and make sure
that
he is still sleeping,* said Rantzay. ‘You should not have left him unwatched. You
are
all to blame.’

‘Madam -‘

‘Be silent!’ said Rantzay. ‘Nito, bring
me the box of theltocarna.’

She drew her knife and tested it. The sharp edge sliced lightly through a leaf held between her finger and thumb, while
the
point, with the least pressure upon it, almost pierced
the
skin of her wrist. Nito was standing before her with the wooden box. Rantzay stared coldly down at
the
girl’s trembling fingers and
then
at
the
knife held motionless in her own steady hand.

‘Come with me. You too, Sheldra.’ She took the box.

She remembered the last time that she and Anthre
d had walked through fire, in the courtyard of the Upper Temple, on the night when they had led Kelderek to the Bridge of
the
Suppliants. There was an unreality about
the
memory, as thoug
h it were not hers but some othe
r woman’s. The night-sounds seemed magnified about her. The dry forest echoed through caves of dripping water and her body felt like a mass of hot sand. These were symptoms she recognized. She would need to be quick. Her fear was somewhere behind her, searching for her, overtaking her among the trees.

The bear was stretched on its side in a thicket of
cenchulada
saplings, two of which he had pushed down and snapped in making a place to sleep. A few feet away lay one of
the
haunches of meat. Whoever had put it there had not lacked courage. The huge mass of the body was dappled with moonlight and leaf-shadows. The shaggy flank, rising and falling in sleep and overlaid
with
the
speckled, moving light, appeared like a dark plain of grass. Before the half-open, breathing mouth the leaves on one of the broken branches sdrred and glistened. The claws of one extended fore-paw were curved upward. Rantzay stood a few moments, gazing as though at a deep, swift river into which she must
now plunge and drown. Then, moti
oning
the
girls away, she stepped forward.

She was standing against
the
ridge of Shardik’s back, looking over his body, as though from
behind an earthwork, at the restl
ess, wind-moved forest. The thunder muttered in the hills and Shardik stirred, twitched one ear and then once more lay still.

Rantzay th
rust her left hand deep into
the
pelt. She could not
lay bare the skin and began cutti
ng away the oily hair, matted and full of parasites as a sheep’s fleece. Her own hands were trembling
now and she worked faster, lifti
ng each handful carefully, cutdng and then drawing it away from under the sharp knife.

Soon she had cut a wide, bristl
ing patch across the shoulder, almost baring the grey, salt-flaked skin. Two or three veins ran across it, one thick enough to reveal the slow beating of the pulse.

Rantzay turned and stooped for the box beside her. Taking out two of the
little
, oiled bladders, she placed them between the fingertips of her left hand. Then she drove the point of the knife into the
bear’s shoulder and drew
the
blade back towards her, opening a gash half as long as her own forearm. Smoothly, without a pause, she pushed the bladders into it, drew the edges of the incision over them, pressed downwards and felt them crush inside.

With a snarl, Shardik threw back his head and rose upon his hind legs. Rantzay, flung to the ground, got up and stood facing him. For a moment it seemed that he would strike her down. Then, lurching forward, he crushed her against his body. A few steps he carried her, hanging grotesquely in his grip. Then, letting her drop, limp as an old garment fallen from a line, he staggered out to the open slope beyond the trees. He rolled on the ground and froth flew from his mouth as he bit and tore at the grass.

Sheldra was the first to reach the priestess. Her left hand had been gashed by her own knife, her tongue protruded and her head lay grotesquely upon her shoulder, like that of a hanged man. When Sheldra put one arm beneath her and tried to raise her a terrible, crackling sound came from the broken body. The girl laid her back and for a moment she opened her eyes.

‘Tell the Tuginda - did what she said -‘

Blood gushed from her mouth and when it ceased her gaunt, bony body vibrated very lightly, like the surface of a pool fluttered by the wings of a trapped fly. The movement ceased and Sheldra, perceiving that she was dead, drew off her wooden rings, picked up the box of theltocarna and the fallen knife and made her way out to the slope where Shardik lay insensible.

19
Night Messengers

The cage had taken all day to complete - if complete it were. On hearing his orders Baltis, the master smith, had shrugged his shoulders, making light of
Kelderek
, whom he had heard of as a simple young fellow
with
neith
er family, wealth nor craft - for in his eyes hunters were not craftsmen. He and his men, being armed with excellent weapons of their own making, had supposed that they were about to play their part in
the
sack of Bekla - or at any rate the sack of Gelt - and took it ill to be called out of the march and put back on their accustomed work. Kelderek, having tried in vain to bring home to the great, lumbering fellow the vital importance of what he had to do, went back to Ta-Kominion,
catching him just as he was
about to set out with the advance guard. Ta-Kominion, cursing with impatience, summoned Baltis to him under the tree which bore the body of Fassel-Hasta and promised him that if the cage were not complete by nightfall he should hang like
the
baron. This was talk
that
Baltis could understand clearly enough, and he immediately asked for double the number of men he expected to get Ta-Kominion, being in too much haste to argue, allowed him fifty, including two rope-makers, three wheelwrights and five carpenters. As
the
army wound away up the valley in the thickening, sultry morning, Kelderek and Baltis fell to their work.

Messengers were sent back to
Ortelga
and before midday all the stored fuel on the island, much of its stock of sawn timber and every piece of forged iron had been carried up to the camp by women and boys. The iron was of different lengths and thicknesses, much of it too short to be of use except as pieces for welding. Baltis set his men to make three axles and as many iron bars as possible, t
he latter to be of equal length and th
ickness, pointed and pierced at both ends. Meanwhile the carpenters and wheelwrights, using seasoned wood, some of which had until that morning formed part of the walls, roofs and tables of Ortelga, built a heavy platform of strutted planks, which they raised with levers and mounted upon six spokeless wheels, solid wood to the rims.

By evening Baltis’ men had forged, welded or cut sixty bars -disparate, rough-edged things, yet serviceable enough to be driven point-first through the holes drilled round the edges of the platform and then secured with iron pins.

‘The roof will have to be wooden too,’ said Baltis, looking at the poles sticking up out of the planks and pointing this way and
that
like a bed of reeds. ‘There’s no more iron, young man, and none to be had, so no use to fret over it.’

‘A wooden roof will shake to pieces,’ said the master-carpenter. ‘It’ll not hold the bear, not if he goes to break it’

‘It’s not work to be done in a day,’ g
rowled Baltis. ‘No, not in three
days. A cage to hold a bear? I was the first to see Lord Shardik come ashore yesterday morning, barring that poor devil Lukon and his mate -‘

‘How’s the bear to be brought to the cage?’ interrupted the carpenter.

‘Ah, that’s more than we know

‘You are here to obey Lord Ta-Kominion,’ said
Kelderek
. ‘It is the will of God that Lord Shardik is to conquer Bekla; and that you will see with your own eyes. Make the roof of wood if it must be so, and bind the whole cage round with rope, twisted tight’

The work was finished at last by torchlight and
Kelderek
, when he had dismissed the men to cat, remained alone
with
Sheldra and Nee
lith, peering and probing, kicking at the wheels, fingering the axle-pins and finally testing each of
the
six bars set aside to close the
still
open end.

‘How is he to be released, my lord?’ asked Neelith. ‘Is there to be no door?’

‘The time is too short to make a door,’ answered
Kelderek
. ‘When the hour comes to release him, we shall be shown
the
way.’

‘He must be kept drugged, my lord, as long as pos
sible,’ said Sheldra, ‘for neith
er that nor any other cage will hold Lord Shardik if he is minded otherwise.’

‘I know it,’ said Kelderek. ‘We might as well have made a cart to put him in. If only we knew where he is -‘

He broke off as Zilthe
came limping into
the
torchlight, raised her palm to her forehead and at once sank to
the
ground.

‘Forgive me, lord,’ she said, drawing her bow from her shoulder and laying it beside her. ‘We have been following Lord Shardik all day and I am exhausted - with fear even more
than
with fatigue. He went far -‘

‘Where is he?’ interrupted
Kelderek
.

‘My lord, he is sleeping on the edge of
the
forest, not an hour from here.’