Shardik Read online

  As Shardik came clambering over the pile of wreckage, fragments of iron and wood were scattered and it shifted and sank beneath his weight. He mounted on the tie beam and for a moment crouched there looking down into the hall, dire as a cat in a loft to the mice who run squeaking. Then, as the beam began to tilt under him, he leapt clumsily down, landing on the stones between the brazier and the execution bench. All about him men were clamoring and pushing, striking and tearing at one another in their effort to escape. Yet at first he went no further but remained ramping from side to side--a movement frighteningly expressive of fury and violence about to break forth. Then he rose on his hind legs, looking, above the heads of the fugitives, for a way out.

  It was at this terrible moment, before more than a few had succeeded in forcing their way through the doors and while Shardik still stood towering above the crowd like some atrid ogre, that Elleroth leapt to his feet. Snatching up the executioner's sword from the bench before him, he ran across the empty, deserted space around the bear, passing within a foot of it. A dozen men, pressed and jostling together, were blocking the northern entrance to the ambulatory and through these he cut his way, slashing and thrusting. Kelderek, still lying where he had flung himself to avoid the falling beam, saw his sword arm striking and the shriveled left hand hanging at his side. Then he was gone through the arch and the crowd closed behind him.

  Kelderek rose to his knees and was instantly knocked to the floor. His head struck the stone and he rolled over, dazed by the blow. When he looked up it was to see. Shardik clawing and cuffing his way toward that same door by which he himself, with the women, had entered the hall half an hour before. Already three or four bodies lay in the bear's wake, while on either side men clamored hysterically and trampled one another, some actually beating with their hands against the columns or trying to climb the sheer brickwork that closed the arcades.

  Shardik came to the doorway and peered around it, resembling grotesquely some hesitant wayfarer about to set out on a stormy night. At the same moment the figure of Elleroth appeared for an instant beyond him, running from left to right past the opening. Then Shardik's bulk closed the entire aperture, and as he passed through it there came from beyond a single, terrified scream.

  When Kelderek reached the door, the first object that met his eyes was the body of the young soldier who had stared up at him as he descended the staircase that morning. It was lying face down, and from the almost-severed neck a stream of blood was pouring across the floor. Through this the bear had trodden, and its bloody tracks led out to the terrace and across the grass. Following them into the gardens, Kelderek came almost face to face with Shardik as he emerged from the thick mist along the shore. The bear, running in a lumbering canter around the western end of the Barb, passed him and disappeared up the pasture slope beyond.

  BOOK IV

  Urtah, and Kabin

  32 The Postern

  THEY TELL--AH! they tell many things of Shardik's passing from Bekla, and of the manner of his setting out upon his dark journey to that unforeseeable destination appointed by God. Many things! For how long, then, was he at large within the walls of Bekla, under Crandor's summit? For as long, perhaps, as a cloud may take, in the eyes of a watcher, to pass across the sky? A cloud passes across the sky and one sees a dragon, another a lion, another a towered citadel or blue promontory with trees upon it. Some tell what they saw and then others tell what they were told--many things. They say that the sun was darkened as Lord Shardik departed, that the walls of Bekla opened of their own accord to let him pass, that the trepsis, once white, has bloomed red since that day when the prints of his feet bloodied its flowers in passing. They say that he wept tears, that a warrior raised from the dead went before him with a drawn sword, that he was made invisible to all but the king. They tell many, shining things. And of what value is the grain of sand at the heart of a pearl?

  Shardik, shouldering through the fog and scattering the terrified cattle as a seaward-running bramba disturbs lesser fish in crossing a pool, left the southern shore of the Barb and began to ascend the slope of the rough pasture beyond. Kelderek followed, hearing behind him the hubbub and clamor spreading across the city. To his right the Barons' Palace loomed indistinct and irregular, like an island of tall rocks at nightfall; and as he paused, uncertain of the direction taken by Shardik, a single bell began ringing, light and quick, from one of the towers. Coming upon the bear's tracks in a patch of soft ground, he was puzzled to see fresh blood beside them, though the prints themselves were no longer bloody. A few moments later, through a chance rift in the fog, he caught sight of Shardik again, almost a bowshot ahead on the slope, and glimpsed between his shoulders the red gash of the reopened wound.

  This was a piece of ill fortune that would make his task more difficult, and he considered it as he went cautiously on. Shardik's recapture could be only a matter of time, for the Peacock Gate and the Red Gate of the citadel were the only ways out of the upper city. Elleroth, too, wherever he might be, was unlikely to be able to climb the walls, lacking the use of one hand. It would be best now if he were found and killed without recapture. His guilt had appeared as manifestly as could well be. Had he not himself spoken of a deliberate act of war? As a fugitive within the walls he could not remain at large for long. No doubt Maltrit, that competent and reliable officer, was already searching for him. Kelderek looked around to see whether there was anyone within hail. The first person he fell in with could be sent to Maltrit with a message that Elleroth, when found, was to be killed at once. But what if those who were hunting for him were to encounter Shardik in the fog? In his frightened and confused state, and enraged by the pain of the wound Mollo had inflicted, the bear would be deadly dangerous--far too dangerous for any immediate attempt at recapture. The only possible way would be to remove all cattle from the upper city, together with anything else which might provide food, and then, leaving the Rock Pit open and baited, wait for hunger to compel Shardik to return. Yet the Power of God could not be left to wander alone, unwatched and unattended, while all his people took refuge from him. The priest-king must be seen to have the matter in hand. Besides, Shardik's condition might well grow worse before he came back to the pit. In this unaccustomed cold, wounded and unfed, he might even die on the lonely eastern heights of Crandor, for which he appeared to be making. He would have to be watched--by night as well as by day--a task with which scarcely anyone now remaining in the city could be reliably entrusted. If it were to be performed at all, the king would have to set an example. And his very knowledge of Shardik, of his cunning and ferocity and the ebb and flow of his savage anger, brought home to him the danger involved.

  Higher on the slope, where the pasture land merged into rough, rocky hillside, the air became somewhat clearer and Kelderek, looking back, could see the thicker mist white and level below him, blotting out the city save for the towers that rose through it here and there. Beneath it, with never a soul to be seen, the noises of alarm were spreading far and wide, and as he listened to them he realized that it was from this frightening tumult that the bear was climbing to escape.

  Almost a thousand feet above Bekla a shoulder ran eastward from the summit of Crandor. The line of the city wall, exploiting the crags and steep places along the mountain's flank, surmounted the eastern declivity of this ridge before turning westward toward the Red Gate of the citadel. It was a wild, overgrown place, revealing little to the eye of one approaching from below. Kelderek, sweating in the cold air and flinging back the heavy robe that encumbered him, halted below the ridge, listening and watching the thicket where he had seen Shardik disappear among the trees. A little way to his left ran the wall, twenty feet high, the cloudy sky showing white here and there through the narrow loopholes that overlooked the slope outside. On his right, a stream pattered down a rocky gully out of the thicket. It was the last place into which any man in his senses would follow a wounded bear.

  He could hear nothing beyond the natural sounds of the mountain
side. A buzzard, sailing sideways above him, gave its harsh, mewing cry and disappeared. A breeze rustled through the trees and died away. The unceasing water close by became at last the sound of the silence--that, and the noise still audible from the city below. Where was Shardik? He could not be far off, bounded as he was by the curve of the wall. Either he was already on the other side of the ridge and moving west toward the Red Gate or else, which seemed more likely, he had taken refuge among the trees. If he were there now, he could hardly move away without being heard. There was nothing to be done but wait. Sooner or later one of the soldiers, searching, would come within earshot and could be sent back with a message.

  Suddenly, from among the trees above came sounds of splintering wood and the grinding and knocking of falling stones. Kelderek started. As he listened, there followed the same cry that he had heard across the cypress gardens by night--a loud growling of pain, utterable by none but Shardik. At this, trembling with fear and moving as in a trance, he stumbled his way up the track which the bear had already broken through the bushes and creepers, and peered into the half-light among the trees.

  The grove was empty. At its eastern end, where the trees and bushes grew closely up to the sheer wall, was a ragged, irregular opening, bright with daylight. Approaching cautiously, he saw with astonishment that it was a broken doorway. Several lining-stones on both sides had been forced out of the jambs and lay tumbled about. The heavy wooden door, which opened outward, must have been left open by one who had passed through, for there seemed to be no latch and the bolts were drawn. The upper hinge had been dragged from its setting in the jamb and the splintered door sagged, its lower corner embedded in the ground outside. The stone arch, though damaged, was still in place, but the downward-pointing central cusp was covered with blood, like a weapon withdrawn from a wound.

  On the inner side of the doorway, just where a man might have stood to draw the bolts, Kelderek caught sight of something bright half-trodden into the ground. He stooped and picked it up. It was the golden stag emblem of Santil-ke-Erketlis, the pendant still threaded on the fine, snapped chain.

  He stepped through the doorway. Below him, the mist was lifting from the great expanse of the Beklan plain--a shaggy, half-wild country from which rose here and there the smoke of villages--stretching southward Lapan, east to Tonilda, northward to Kabin and the mountains of Gelt. A mile away, at the foot of the slope, plainly visible through the clearing air, ran the caravan road from Bekla to Ikat. Shardik, his back and shoulders covered with blood from the wound gored yet again by the cusp of the door, was descending the mountainside some two hundred feet below.

  As he followed once more, picking his way and steadying himself with his hands against the crags, Kelderek began to realize how unfit he was for any long or arduous undertaking. Mollo, before he died, had stabbed or gashed him in half a dozen places and these half-healed wounds, which had been bearable enough as long as he kept to his room, were now beginning to throb and to send sharp twinges of pain through his muscles. Once or twice he stumbled and almost lost his balance. Yet even when his uncertain feet sent dislodged stones rattling down the slope, Shardik, below him, never once looked back or paid him any attention, but having reached the eastern foot of Crandor continued in the same direction. For fear of robbers, the scrub on either side of the caravan road had been roughly cut back to the length of almost a bowshot. This open place the bear crossed without hesitation and so entered upon the wilderness of the plain itself.

  Kelderek, approaching the road, stopped and looked back at the eastern face he had descended. It puzzled him that, although so many traveled this road, he had never heard tell of the postern on the east ridge. The wall, he now perceived, ran by no means straight in its course and in the view from below was masked here and there by crags. The postern must lie--and had no doubt been deliberately sited--in some oblique angle of the wall, for he could not see it even now, when he knew whereabouts to look. As he turned to go on, wondering for what devious purpose it had been made and cursing the ill turn of fortune of which it had been the means, he caught sight of a man approaching up the road from the south. He waited: the man drew nearer and Kelderek saw that he was armed and carrying the red staff of an army courier. Here at last was the opportunity to send his news back to the city.

  He now recognized the man as an Ortelgan a good deal older than himself, a certain master fletcher formerly in the service of Ta-Kominion's family. That he should be on active service at his age was somewhat surprising, though in all probability it was at his own wish. In the old days on Ortelga the boys had altered his name, Kavass, to "Old Kiss-me-arse," on account of the marked deference and respect with which he always treated his superiors. An excellent craftsman and an irritatingly childlike, simple and honest man, he had appeared to take a positive delight in asserting that those above him (whatever their origins) must know better than he and that faith and loyalty were a man's first duties. Now, recognizing the king, disheveled and alone by the roadside, he at once raised his palm to his forehead and fell on one knee without the least show of surprise. He would no doubt have done so if he had come upon him festooned with trepsis and standing on his head.

  Kelderek took his hand and raised him to his feet. "You're old for a courier, Kavass," he said. "Wasn't there a younger man they could send?"

  "Oh, I volunteered, my lord," replied Kavass. "These young fellows nowadays aren't so reliable as an older man, and when I set out there was no telling whether a courier would be able to get through to Bekla at all."

  "Where have you come from, then?"

  "From Lapan, my lord. Our lot were detached on the right of General Ged-la-Dan's army, but it seems he had to march in a hurry and didn't stop to tell us where. So the captain, he says to me, 'Well Kavass,' he says, 'since we've lost touch with General Ged-la-Dan, and seem to have an open flank on the left as far as I can tell, you'd better go and get us some orders from Bekla. Ask whether we're to stay here, or fall back, or what.'"

  "Tell him from me to start marching toward Thettit-Tonilda. He should send another courier there at once to learn where General Ged-la-Dan is and get fresh orders. General Ged-la-Dan may have great need of him."

  "To Thettit-Tonilda? Very good, my lord."

  "Now listen, Kavass." As simply as he could, Kelderek explained that both Shardik and an escaped enemy of Bekla were at large on the plain, and that searchers must be summoned at once, both to look for the fugitive and to take over from himself the task of following the bear.

  "Very good, my lord," said Kavass again. "Where are they to come?"

  "I shall follow Lord Shardik as best I can until they find me. I don't think he'll go either fast or far. No doubt I shall be able to send another message from some village."

  "Very good, my lord."

  "One other thing, Kavass. I'm afraid I must borrow your sword and whatever money you have. I may very well need them. I shall have to exchange clothes with you, too, like an old tale, and put on that jerkin and those breeches of yours. These robes are no good for hunting."

  "I'll take them back to the city, my lord. My goodness, they're going to wonder what I've been up to until I tell 'em! But don't you worry--you'll follow Lord Shardik all right. If only there were more that would simply trust him, my lord, as you and I do, and ask no questions, then the world would go right enough."

  "Yes, of course. Well--tell them to make haste," said Kelderek, and at once set off into the plain. Already, he thought, he had delayed too long and might not easily recover sight of Shardik. Yet, thinking unconsciously in terms of the forest where he had learned his craft, he had forgotten that this was different country. Almost immediately he caught sight of the bear, a good half-mile to the northeast, moving as steadily as a traveler on a road. Except for the huts of a distant village, away to the right, the plain stretched empty as far as the eye could see.

  Kelderek was in no doubt that he must continue to follow. In Shardik lay the whole power of Ortelga. If he were left
to wander alone and unattended, it would be plain to the eyes of peasants--many no doubt still secretly hostile to their Ortelgan rulers--that something was wrong. News of his whereabouts might be falsified or concealed. Someone might wound him again or even, perhaps, succeed in killing him as he slept. It had been hard enough to trace him five years before, after the fall of Bekla and the retreat of Santil-ke-Erketlis. Despite his own pain and fatigue and the danger involved, it would in the long run be easier not to lose track of him now. Besides, Kavass was reliable and the searchers could hardly fail to find them both before nightfall. Weak though he was, he should be equal to that much.

  33 The Village

  ALL THAT DAY, while the sun moved round the sky at his back, Kelderek followed as Shardik plodded on. The bear's pace varied little. Sometimes he broke into a kind of heavy trot, but after a short distance would falter, throwing up his head repeatedly, as though trying to rid himself of irritant pain. Although the wound between his shoulders was no longer bleeding, it was clear from his uneasy, stumbling gait and his whole air of discomfort that it gave him no peace. Often he would rise on his hind legs and gaze about him over the plain; and Kelderek, afraid in that open place without cover, would either stand still or drop quickly to his knees and crouch down. But at least it was easy to keep him in sight from a distance; and for many hours, remaining a long bowshot or more away, Kelderek moved quietly on over the grass and scrub, holding himself ready to run if the bear should turn and make toward him. Shardik, however, seemed unaware of being followed. Once, coming to a pool, he stopped to drink and to roll in the water; and once he lay for a while in a grove of myrtle bushes, planted for a landmark around one of the lonely wells used time out of mind by the wandering herdsmen. But both these halts ended when he started suddenly up, as though impatient of further delay, and set off once more across the plain.