Shardik (34 page)

“E’s in despair
!
’
continued
the
joker. “E wouldn’t dare!
‘ ‘We’ll comb ‘is ‘a
ir!
’

‘They’re still in good spir
its, sir, you sec,’ said Shaltne
kan, ‘but all
the
same, there’s one or two good men have been cut up today by those river-frogs and the boys
are
going to take it very hard if they’re not allowed to have a cut at them before it gets too dark.’

‘And I say stand fast!
‘ snapped Gel-Ethlin. ‘Get back into line, that man!’ he shouted to the buffoon who was playing the part of
the
bear. ‘Dress the front rank - sword’s length between each man and the next!’

‘Stand and bloody shiver,’ muttered a voice.

Gel-Ethlin strode to the rear, feeling his wet clothes clammy against his body. The twilight was deepening and he was obliged to look about for some moment
s before he caught sight of Kree
t-Liss. He ran towards him and arrived just as
the
Dee
lguy went forward into their attack. Th
e concerted, rhythmic cry of ‘Bek-la Mowt!’

Bek-la-Mowt!’ was taken up along the whole line, but broke off in the centre as the Deelguy closed with the enemy. It was plain that
the
Ortelgans were ready to pay dearly to hold the gap they had made. Three times they repulsed the mercenaries, yelling as they stood astride
the
bodies of their fallen comrades. Many were brandishing swords and shields taken from the dead of the decimated Tonilda, and each time an enemy was cut down the Ortelgan opposing him would stoop quickly to snatch the foreign arms which he believed must be better
than
his own - though both, as like as not, had been forged from iron of Gelt.

Suddenly a fr
esh Beklan attack fell upon the
Ortelgan right and again the stea
dy, bearing cry of ‘Bek-la Mowt!
‘ rose above the surrounding clamour. Gel-
Ethlin
, who had been about to order Kreet-Liss to att
ack once more, was peering to It’
s left to make out what had happened, when someone plucked his sleeve. It was Shaltnekan.

‘Those are my boys attacking them now, sir,’ he said.

‘Against orders!
‘ cried Gel-Ethlin. ‘What do you mean by it? Get back-‘

‘They’re going to break in a moment, if I know anything about it, sir,’ said Shaltnekan. ‘Surely you won’t stop us pursuing them now?’

‘You’ll do no such
thin
g!’ replied Gel
-Ethlin.

‘Sir,’ said Shaltnekan, ‘if we let them off the field in any sort of order, what’s going to be said back in Bekla? We’ll never live it down. They’ve got to be routed - cut to bits. And now’s the time to do it, or they’ll be off in the dark.’

The Ortelgans were running back out of the gap as
Shaltnekan
‘s attack drove in their right flank. Kreet-Liss and his men followed them, stabbing the enemy’s wounded as they advanced. A few minutes later
the
original
Bekla
n line was restored and Gel-Ethlin, peering, could make out to his left the gap where Shaltnekan’s company had left their place. There could be no denying that it had been a fine stroke of initiative: and no denying, either,
that
there
was a good deal of force in the argument that the enemy’s escape, after the mauling they had suffered, would probably be ill-received in Bekla. To destroy them, on the other hand, would establish his reputation and silence any possible criticism on the part of
Santil-ke
-
Erketlis
.

The Beklan officers, obedient to orders, had halted their men on
the
original defensive line and the
Ortelga
ns were streaming down the slope unpursucd, several supporting their wounded or carrying lo
oted Beklan equipment As Gel-Ethl
in watched them, a voice spoke from
the
ground at his feet. He looked down. It was the tenant lad from Kapparah’s farm near Ikat He had raised himself on one elbow and was trying to staunch with his cloak a great gash in his neck and shoulder.

‘Go on, sir, go on!’ gasped the boy. ‘Finish them offl I’ll take a letter down to Ikat tomorrow, won’t I, just like old times? God bless
the
lady, she’ll give me a whole sackful of gold!’

He pitched forward on his face and two of Shaltnekan’s men dragged him back behind the line. Gel-Ethlin, his mind made up, turned to the trumpeter.

‘Well, Wolf,’ he said, addressing the man by his nickname, ‘no good you standing there doing nothing! Break ranks - general pursuit. And blow hard, so that everyone can hear it!’

The trumpet had hardly sounded before
the
various
Bekla
n companies began racing down the slopes, those on the wings scattering widely and trying to turn inwards towards the road. Every man hoped to beat his comrades to the plunder - such as it might be. This was what they had marched through the wind for, withstood the attacks for, shivered obedi
ently
for in the rain. True enough, there would be little or nothing to take from these barbarians except their fleas, but a couple of slaves would fetch a good price in
Bekla
and there was always the sporting chance of a baron with gold ornaments, or even a woman among the baggage behind.

Gel-Ethlin ran too, among the foremost, his pennant-bearer on one side of him and Shaltnekan on the other. As
they
reached the foot of the slope and came close to the edge of the wood, he could see, among the trees, the
Ortelga
ns once more forming line to meet them. Evid
ently
they meant to go down fighting. For the first time he drew his sword, tie might as well strike a blow or two on his own account before the business was done.

From close at hand, somewhere inside the wood,
there
came a loud grinding, rumbling sound which grew nearer and changed to a smashing and splintering of wood and a clashing of iron. Immediately after, there sounded above all the tumult a savage roaring, like that of some huge beast in pain. Then the boughs burst apart in front of him and Gel-Ethlin stood rigid with horror, bereft of every feeling but panic fear. The ordinary course of things seen and comprehended; the senses, that five-fold frame of the world; the unthinking, human certainty of what can and cannot reasonably happen, upon which all rational living is based - these dissolved in an instant. If a rag-draped skeleton had come stalking out of
the
trees on bare, bony feet, invisible to all but himself, and made towards him with wagging head and grinning jaws, he could not have been more stupefied, more deeply plunged into terror and mental chaos. Before
him
, no more than a few yards away, there stood, more than twice as tall as a man, a beast which could have no place in the mortal world. Most like a bear it looked, but a bear created in hell to torment
the
damned by its mere presence. The cars were flattened like a cat’s in rage, the eyes glimmered redly in the f
ailing light and streaked, ochre
ous foam came fro
thing from between teeth like De
elguy knives. Over one shoulder - and this drove him almost mad with fear, for it proved that this was no earthly creature - it carried a great, pointed stake, dripping
with
blood. Blood, too, covered the claws curving from the one paw raised above its head as though in some horrible greeting of death. Its eyes - the eyes of a mad creature, inhabiting a world of cruelt
y and pain - looked down upon Ge
l-
Ethlin
with a kind of dark intelligence all too sufficient for its single purpose. Meeting that gaze, he let his sword drop from his hand; and as he did so the beast struck him with a blow that crushed his skull and drove his head down through his shoulders.

A moment later Shaltnekan fell across his body, his chest broken in like a smashed drum. Kreet-Liss, stumbli
ng on the wet slope, made one th
rust with his sword before his neck was ripped open
in a fountain of blood. And th
is sword-thrust, wounding it, drove the creature to such a frenzy of murderous destruction that every man ran shrieking as it ploughed its way up the crowded slope, seeking whom to tear and destroy. The men on the wings, halted and crying out to learn what had happened, felt their bowels loosen at the news
that
the
bear-god, more dreadful than any imagined creature from the nether wastes of fever and nightmare, had indeed appeared, and had recognized and killed of intent
the
General and two commanders.

From the wavering Ortelgan line there rose a triumphant shout.
Kelderek
, limping and staggering with exhaustion, was the first man to emerge from the trees, shouting ‘Shardik! Shardik the Power of God
!’ Then, with yells of ‘Shardik!
Shardik!’, which
were the last sound in the e
ars of Ta-Kominion, the Ortelgans poured up the slope, hacking and thrusting anew through the broken
Bekla
n centre. A few minutes afterwards
Kelderek
, Baltis and a score of others reached the mouth of the gorge beyond the ridge and, heedless of their isolation, faced about to hold it against any who might try to force an escape. Of Shardik, vanished into the falling darkness, there remained neither sight nor sound.

Within half an hour, when night put an end to the bloodshed, all Beklan resistance had been quenched. The Ortelgans, following the terrible example which had redeemed them from defeat, showed no mercy, killing their enemies and stripping their bodies of weapons, shields and armour, until they were as well-found a force

as had ever swept down upon the Beklan plain. A few of Gel-Ethlin’s men succeeded in escaping towards Gelt. None found his way past
Kelderek
, to regain the plain by the road up which they had marched that afternoon.

With the clouded, rainy moon rose the white smoke of fires coaxed into life by the victors to cook the
plundered rati
ons of the enemy. But before midnight the army, urged forward by Zelda and
Kelderek
so ferv
ently
that they stayed not even to bury the dead, were limping on towards Bekla, outstripping all news of their victory and of the total destruction of Gel-Ethlin’s force.

Two days later, reduced to two-thirds of their strength by fatigue and the privations of their forced march, the
Ortelga
ns, advancing by the paved road across the plain, appeared before the walls of Bekla; smashed in the carved and gilded Tamarrik gate - that unique masterpi
ece created by the craftsman Fle
itil a century before - after storming it for four hours with an improvised ram at a cost of over five hundred men; overcame the garrison and the citizens, despite the courageous leadership of
the
sick Santil-ke-Erke
tlis; sacked and occupied the city and began at once to strengthen the fortifications against the risk of counter-attack as soon as the rains should end.

Thus, in what must surely have been one of the most extraordinary and unpredictable campaigns ever fought, fell Bekla, the capital of an empire of subject provinces
20,000
square miles in extent. Of
those
provinces, the furthest from the city seceded and became enemies to its new rulers. The nearer, rather than face the rapine and bloodshed of resistance, put themselves under the protection of the Ortelgans, of their generals Zelda and Ged-la-Dan and their mysterious priest-king
Kelderek
, styled Cre
ndrik - the Eye of God.

Book III

Bekla

24
Elleroth

Bekla, city of myth and conjecture, hidden in time as
Tiahuanaco in the Andes fastness, as P
etra in the hills of Edom, as Atl
antis beneath the waves!
Bekla
of enigma and secrets, more deeply enfolded in its religious mystery
than
Eleusis of the reaped corn, than the stone giants of
the
Pacific or the Kerait lands of Prester John. Its grey, broken walls - across whose parapets only the clouds come marching, in whose hollows the wind sounds and ceases like
the
trumpeter of Cracow or Me
mnon’s statue on the sands - the stars reflected in its waters, the flowers scenting its gardens, are become like words heard in a dream that cannot be recalled. Its very history lies buried, unresolved - coins, beads and gaming-boards, street below street, shards below shards, hearth beneath hearth, ash under ash. The earth has been dug away from Troy and Mycenae, the jungle cut from about Zimbabwe; and caged in maps and clocks
are
the terrible leagues about Urumchi and Ulan Bator. But who shall disperse the moon-dim darkness that covers Bekla, or draw it up to view from depths more lonely and remote than those where bassogigas and ethusa swim in black silence? Only sometimes through tales may it be guessed at, those tokens riddling as the carved woods from the Americas floating centuries ago to the shores of Portugal and Spain: or in dreams, perhaps, it may be glimpsed - from the decks of
that
unchanging navy of gods and images that sails by night, carrying its passengers still in no bottoms else than those which bore, in their little time, Pilate’s wife, Joseph of Canaan and the wise Penelope of Ithaca with her twenty geese.
Bekla
the incomparable, the lily of the plain, the garden of sculpted and dancing stone, appears from its mist and dusk, faint as the tracks of Shardik himself in forests long consumed.