surprised at the identity of the man who came out of the clump of trees to the right of the trail.
Jarl would be imposing even in the simple garb of one of the least of the Eyrie. In the insignia of the Star Captain he had more majesty, thought Fors proudly, than Cantrul, for all the Plainschiefs feather helmet and collar of ceremony. As he walked toward them the sun glinted meteor bright on the Star at his throat and on the well- polished metal of belt, sword hilt and knife guard.
Arskane pulled his feet under him. He was like Lura ready to spring for the kill. Fors made a furious gesture at him. Jarl, in turn, showed no astonishment at the sight of the two who waited for him.
“So, kinsman.” He fingered his bow as if it were a councilor’s staff of office. “This is the trail you have found to follow?”
Fors saluted him. And when Jarl did not acknowledge that courtesy he bit down hard on the soft inner part of his lip. True, Jarl had never shown him any favor in the past, but neither had the Star Captain ever by word or deed betrayed belief that Fors was any different from the rest of the young of the Eyrie. And for that he had long ago won a place apart in the boy’s feelings.
“I travel with Arskane of the Dark Ones, my brother.” He snapped his fingers to bring the southerner out of the bush. “His people are in danger now, so we join them—”
“You realize that you are now outlawed?”
Fors tasted the flat sweetness of the blood from his lip. He could, in all fairness, have hoped for little less than that sentence after his manner of leaving the Eyrie. Nevertheless the calm mention of it now made him cringe a little. He hoped that he did not show his discomfiture to Jarl. The Eyrie had not been a happy home for him-he had never been welcome there since Langdon’s death. In truth they had outlawed him long since. But it had been the only shelter he knew.
“By the fire of Arskane is his brother always welcome!”
Jarl’s eyes, those eyes which held one on the balance scale, went from Fors to his companion.
“Soon the Dark Ones will not have fires or shelter to offer. You are late in your returning, clansman. The drums of recall have been still these many hours.”
“We were detained against our will,” returned Arskane almost absently. He was studying Jarl in his turn and, seemingly, the result was not altogether to his liking.
“And not detained in gentleness it would appear.” Jarl must have marked every cut and bruise the two before him boasted. “Well, fighting men are always welcome before a battle.”
“Have the Plainsmen—?” began Fors, truly startled. That Cantrul could have moved so quickly out of the wild confusion they had left him in was almost beyond belief. “Plainsmen?” He had shaken Jarl. “There are no Plainsmen in this. The Beast Things have forsaken their ways and are boiling out of their dens. Now they move in numbers to make war against all humankind!”
Arskane put his hand to his head. He was tired to exhaustion, his lips showing white under the swelling which made a lopsided lump of half his mouth. Without another word he started on doggedly but when Fors would have followed him the Star Captain put out a hand which brought him up short.
“What is this babble of Plainsmen attacking—?”
Fors found himself answering with the story of their capture and stay in the Plains camp and their escape from Cantrul’s tent city. By the time he had finished Arskane was already out of sight. But still Jarl made no move to let him go. Instead he was studying the patterns he traced in the dust with the tip of his long bow. Fors impatiently shifted weight from one foot to the other. But when the Star Captain spoke it was as if he followed his own thoughts.
“Now do I better understand the events of these past two days.”
He whistled high and shrill between his teeth, the sound carrying far as Fors knew.
And he was answered when out of the grass came two lithe furry bodies. Fors did not notice the black one that rubbed against Jarl-for he was rolling across the ground where the force of the other’s welcome had sent him, rolling and laughing a little hysterically as Lura’s rough tongue explored his face and her paws knocked him about with heavy tenderness.
“Yesterday Nag came back from hunting and brought her with him.” Jarl’s hand rubbed with steady strokes behind the ears of the huge cat whose black fur, long and silky and almost blue in the sun, twisted in his fingers. “There is a lump on her skull. During your fight she must have been knocked unconscious. And ever since Nag brought her in she has been trying to urge me into some task-doubtless the single-handed rescue of your person —”
Fors got to his feet while Lura wove about him, butting at him with her head and rubbing against his none too steady legs with the full force of her steel-tendoned body.
“Touching sight—”
Fors winced. He knew that tone from Jarl. It had the ability to deflate the most confident man and that speedily. With an unspoken suggestion to Lura he started down the trail after the vanished Arskane. Although he did not look back he knew that the Star Captain was following him at the easy, mile-eating pace his own feet had automatically dropped into.
Jarl did not speak again, remaining as silent as Nag, that black shadow which slipped across the land as if he were only in truth the projection of a bush in the sun. And Lura, purring loudly, kept close to Fors’ side as if she were afraid that should she return to her old outflanking ways he would disappear again.
They found Arskane’s people encamped in a meadow which was encircled on three sides by a river. The two-wheeled carts were a wooden wall around the outer edges and in the center showed the gray backs of sheep, the dun coats of ponies in rope corrals with the lines of family cooking fires running between low tents. There were only a few men there and those were fully armed. Fors suspected that he must have come through some picket line unchallenged because of the Star Captain’s companionship.
It was easy to find Arskane. A group of men and a large circle of women ringed him. It was a crowd so intent upon the scout’s report that not one of them noted the arrival of Fors and Jarl.
tall as the young warrior before her and her features were strongly marked. Two long braids of black hair swung down upon her shoulders and now and again she raised a hand to push at them impatiently with a gesture which had become habitual. Her long robe was dyed the same odd shade of dusky orange as the scrap of cotton they had found in the berry field and on her arms and about her neck was the gleam of stone-set silver.
As Arskane finished, she considered for a moment and then a stream of commands, spoken too rapidly in the slurred tongue of the south for Fors to follow, sent the circle about her apart, men and women both hurrying off on errands. When the last of these left she caught sight of Fors and her eyes widened. Arskane turned to see what had surprised her. Then his hand fell on the mountaineer’s shoulder and he pulled him forward.
“This is he of whom I have told you-he has saved my Me in the City of the Beast Things, and I have named him brother—”
There was almost a touch of pleading in his voice.
“We be the Dark People.” The woman’s tone was low but there was a lilt in it, almost as if she chanted. “We be the Dark People, my son. He is not of our breed—”
Arskane’s hands went out in a nervous gesture. “He is my brother,” he repeated stubbornly. “Were it not for him I would have long since died the death and my clan would never have known how or where that chanced.”
“In turn,” Fors spoke to this woman chief as equal to equal, “Arskane has stood between me and a worse passing-has he neglected to tell you that? But, Lady, you should know this-I am outlawed and so free meat to any man’s spear—”
“So? Well, the matter of outlawry is between you and your name clan-and not for the fingering of strangers. You have a white skin-but in the hour of danger what matters the color of a fighting man’s bone covering? The hour is coming when we shall need every bender of bow and wielder of sword we can lay orders upon.” She stooped and caught up a pinch of the sandy loam which ridged between her sandaled feet. And now she stretched out her hand palm up with that bit of earth lying on it.
Fors touched the tip of his forefinger to his lips and then to the soil. But he did not fall to his knees in the finish of that ritual. He gave allegiance but he did not beg entrance to a clan. The woman nodded approvingly.
“You think straight thoughts, young man. In the name of the Silver Wings and of Those Who Once Flew, I accept your fighting faith until the hour when we mutually agree to go our ways. Now are you satisfied, Arskane?”
Her clansman hesitated before he answered. There was an odd soberness on his face as he regarded Fors.
