Shardik (55 page)

The tangled grass and weeds grew almost to his waist. In summer, he thought, the place must become almost impassable, a veritable thicket He had gone only a few yards when he stumbled over some hard object, stooped and picked it up. It was a sword, rusted almost to pieces,
the
hilt inlaid
with
a pattern of flowers and leaves in long-blackened silver - the sword of a nobleman. He swung idly at the grass, wondering how it came to be there, and as he did so the blade tore across like an old crust and flew into the nettles. He tossed
the
hilt after it and turned away.

Now that he saw it at close quarters, the lip of the ravine looked even more sharp and precipitous than from a distance. There was indeed something sinister about this place, unhusbanded and yield-less in the midst of the abundant land all about There was something strange, too, about the sound of the breeze in the leaves - an intermittent, deep moaning, like that of a winter wind in a huge chimney, but faint, as though far off. And now, to his sleep-starved fancy, it seemed that the sides of the cleft lay apart like an open wound, like the edges of a deep gash inflicted by
a knife. He reached the edge an
d looked over.

The tops of the lower trees were spread beneath him. There was a hum and dart of insects and a glitter of leaves. Two great butter-
flies
, newly awakened from winter, were fanning
their
blood-red wings a yard below his eyes. Slowly his gaze travelled across the uneven expanse of the branches and back to the steep slope at his feet The wind blew, the boughs moved and suddenly - like a man who realizes that the smiling stranger with whom he is conversing is in fact a madman who means to attack and murder him -Kelderek started back, clutching at the bushes in fear.

Below
the
trees there
was nothing but darkness - the darkness of a cavern, a darkness of sluggish air and faint, hollow sounds. Beyond the lowest tree-trunks the ground, bare and stony, receded downwards into twilight and thence into blackness. The sounds that he could hear were echoes; like
those
in a well, but magnified in rising from some greater, unimaginable depth. The cold air upon his face carried a faint dreadful odour - not of decay, but rather of a place which had never known cither life or death, a bottomless gulf, unlit and unvisited since time began. In a fascination of horror, lying upon his stomach, he groped behind him for a stone and tossed it down among the boughs. As he did so, some dim memory came rising towards the surface of his mind — night, fear and the bringer of an unknown fate moving in the dark; but his present terror was too sharp, and the memory left him like a dream. The stone tore its way down through the leaves, knocked against a
branch and was gone. There was no other sound. Soft earth - dead leaves? He threw another, pitching it well out into the centre of the concave leaf-screen. There was no sound to tell when it struck the ground.

Shardik - where was he?
Kelderek
, the palms of his hands sw
eating, the soles of his feet ta
ngling with dread of the pit over which he lay, peered into the gloom for the least sign of any ledge or shelf. There was none.

Suddenly, half
in prayer, half in desperati
on, he cried aloud, ‘Shardik! Lord Shardik!’ And then it seemed as though every malignant ghost and night-walking phantom pent in that blackness were released to come rushing up at him. Their abominable cries were no longer echoes, they owed nothing to his voice. They were the voices of fever, of madness, of hell. At once deep and unbearably shrill, far-off and squealing into the nerves of his ear, pecking at his eyes and clustering in his lungs like a filthy dust to choke him, they spoke to him with vile glee of a damned eternity where the mere spectacle of themselves in the gloom would be torment unbearable. Sobbing, his forearms wrapped about his head, he crawled backwards, cowered down and covered his ears.
Little
by
little
the soun
ds died away, his normal percepti
ons returned and as he grew calmer he fell into a deep sleep.

For long hours he slept, feeling neither t
he spring sun nor the flies settl
ing upon his limbs. The amorphous forces active in sleep, profound and inexpressible, moving far below that higher, twilit level where their fragments, drifting upwards, attract to themselves earthly images and become released in the bubbles called dreams, caused in him not the least bodily movement as, without substance, form or mass
they
pursued their courses within the universe of the solitary skull. When at last he woke, it was to become aware first, of daylight - the light of late afternoon - and then of a confused blaring of human cries, which faintly resembled the terrible voices o
f the morning. Yet, whethe
r because he was no longer lying over the chasm or because it was not he himself who had cried out, these voices lacked the terror of those others. These, he knew, were t
he shouts of living men, togethe
r
with
their
natural echoes. He raised himself cautiously and looked about him. To his left, out of the southerly end of the ravine, where Shardik had disappeared that morning, three or four men w
ere clambering and running. Littl
e, shaggy men
they
were, carrying spears - one cast his spear away as he ran - and plainly
they
were in terror. As he watched,
another tripped, fell and rose again to his knees. Then the bushes along the lip were torn apart and Shardik appeared.

As, when villagers have taken away her calf from a strong cow, she bellows with rage, breaks the rails of the stockade and tramples her way through the village, afraid of none and filled only with distress and anger at the wrong she has suffered: the villagers fly before her and in her fury she smashes through the mud wall of a hut, so that her head and shoulders appear suddenly, to those within, as a grotesque, frightening source of destruction and fear; so Shardik burst through the tall weeds and bushes on the edge of the ravine and stood a moment, snarling, before he fell upon the kneeling man and killed him even as he cried out. Then, at once, he turned and began to make his way along the verge, coming on towards the place where Kelderek was lying.
Kelderek
lay prostrate in the long grass, holding his breath, and the bear passed not ten feet away. He heard its breathing - a liquid, choking sound like that made by a wounded man gasping for air. As soon as he dared, he looked up. Shardik was plodding away. In his neck was a fresh, deep wound, a jagged hole oozing blood.

Kelderek
ran back along the edge of the ravine to where the men were gathered about the body of their comrade. As he approached, they picked up their spears and faced him, speaking quickly to each other in a thick argot of Beklan.

‘What have you done?’ cried
Kelderek
. ‘By God’s breath, I’ll
have you burned alive for this!
‘ Sword in hand, he threatened the nearest man, who backed away, levelling his spear.

‘Stand back, sir!’ cried the man. ‘Else tha’ll force us -‘

‘Ah, kill him now, then!’ said another.

‘Nay,’ put in the third quickly. ‘He never went into the Streel. And after what’s come about-‘

‘Where’s your damned headman, priest, whatever he calls himself?’ cried
Kelderek
. ‘That old man in
the
blue cloak? He set you on to this. It was him I trusted, the treacherous liarl I tell you, every village on this cursed plain shall burn - Where is he?’

He broke off in surprise as the first man suddenly dropped his spear, went to
the
edge of the ravine and stood looking back at him, pointing downwards.

‘Stand away, then,’ said
Kelderek
. ‘No - right away - over there. I don’t trust you murderous dirt-eaters.’

Once more he knelt on the edge of the pit. But here, the first yards of
the
slope below him inclined g
ently
. Not far down, half-concealed among the trees, was a level, grassy ledge with a
little
pool. Shardik, lying there, had flattened and crushed the grass. Half in the pool, face downwards, lay a man’s body, wrapped about with a blue cloak. The back of the skull was smashed open to the brains and near by
lay the bloody head of a spear. The shaft was nowhere to be seen. It might, perhaps, have fallen into the abyss.

Hearing a movement behind him, Kelderek leapt about. But the man who had returned was
still
unarmed.

‘Now ye must go, sir,’ he whispered, staring at
Kelderek
and trembling as at
the
supernatural. ‘I never seen the like of this before, but I know what’s appointed if ever
they comes alive from the Stree
l. Now
that
ye’ve seen, ye’ll know
that
the creature’s passed beyond us and our power. It’s
the
will of God. Only, in His name, sir, spare us and go!’

Upon this all three fell to their knees, clasping their hands and looking at him wit
h such patent fear and supplicati
on
that
he could not tell what to make of it.

‘There’s none will touch ye now, sir,’ said the first man at last, ‘neither we nor any
others
. If ye wish, I’ll go with you, any way ye please, as far as the borders of Urtah. Only go!’

‘Very well,’ replied
Kelderek
, ‘you
shall
come with me, and if any more of you dung-bred bastards try to betray me, you’ll be the first to
di
e
. No - leave your spear and come.’

But after some
three
miles he turned loose his wretched, abject hostage, who seemed to fear him as he would a risen ghost; and once more went on alone, following warily the distant form of Shardik wandering northward across the vale.

3
5
Shardik’s
Prisoner

Little by little the knowledge grew upon
Kelderek
that
he was a vagabond in strange country,
without
friends, far from help, straitened by need and moving in danger. It was not until later still that he realized also that he had become the prisoner of Shardik.

It was plain
that
the
bear had been furthe
r weakened by its latest wound. Its pace was slower, and although it continued towards
the
hills - now clearly visible on
the
northe
rn horizon - with the same resolution, it stopped to rest more often and from time to time showed its distress by sudden wincings and unnatural, sharp movements.
Kelderek
, who now feared less the sudden onset of its swift, inescapable charge, followed it more closely, sometimes actually
calling, ‘Courage, Lord Shardik!
‘ or ‘Peace, Lord Shardik, your power is of God!’ Once or twice it seemed to him that Shardik recognized his voice and even took comfort from it.

The night came on sharp and although Shardik rested for several hours, lying in full view on the open ground,
Kelderek
for his part could not remain still, but paced about, watching from a distance until, when the night was nearly over, the bear suddenly got up, coughing pitifully, and set off once more, its laboured breadiing clearly audible across the silence.

Kelderek
‘s hunger grew desperate and later
that
morning, seeing in
the
distance two shepherds settl
ng a fold of hurdles, he ran half a mile
to them, intending to beg anyth
ing - a crust, a bone - while still keeping Shardik in sight. To his surprise they proved friendly, simple fellows, plainly pitying his want and fatigue and ready enough to help him when he told them that, although bound by a religious vow to follow the great creature which th
ey could see
in the distance, he had desperate need to send a message to Bekla. Encouraged by their goodwill, he went on to tell them of his escape the day before. As he finished he looked up to see
them
staring at one anoth
er in fear and consternation. ‘T
he Stree
ls! God have mercy!’ muttered one. The other put half a loaf and a
little
cheese on the ground and backed away, saying, ‘There’s food!’ and then, like the man with the spear, ‘Do us no harm, sir - only go!’ Yet here, indeed, they were more prompt than
Kelderek
, for thereupon both of
them
took to their heels, leaving their trimming-knives and mallets lying where they were among the hurdles.