He limped back. Radu was supporting the boy's head on one arm and splashing water over his face. It was the boy whom Bled had savaged the day before. His eyes were closed and Kelderek could not make out whether he was breathing or not.
'You walked over him,' said Radu. 'You walked over his body. Didn't you feel it?'
'Yes – no. I didn't know what I was doing,' answered Kelderek dully.
Shara touched the boy's forehead and tried to pull the rags together across his chest.
'Tumbled down, didn't he?' she said to Radu. 'He hasn't got a chain,' she went on, in a kind of song, 'He hasn't got a chain, To go to Leg-By-Lee -' Then, breaking off as she saw Genshed coming towards them, 'Radu, he's coming!'
Genshed stopped beside the boy, stirred him with his foot, dropped on one knee, rolled back one eyelid and felt the heart. Then he stood up, looked round at the other boys and jerked his head. They moved away and Genshed faced Kelderek and Radu across the body.
As fire is stopped by the bank of a river, as the growth of the vine's tendrils is halted by the onset of winter, so their compassion faltered and died before Genshed. He said nothing, his presence sufficient to focus, like a lens, in a single point, their sense of helplessness to aid or comfort the boy. How futile was their pity, for what could it effect? Genshed lay all about them: in their own exhaustion, in this forest wilderness lacking food or shelter, in the glittering river hemming them in, the empty sky. He said nothing, allowing his presence to lead them to their own conclusion – that they were merely wasting their tiny remaining store of energy. When he snapped his fingers their eyes fell and, with Shara beside them, they followed the boys: nor did they trouble to look back. They and Genshed were now entirely of one mind.
A short distance along the shore, Shouter had called a halt. They lay down among the children, but none questioned them. Genshed returned, washed his knife in the water and then, ordering Bled to remain in charge, took Shouter with him and disappeared upstream. Returning half an hour later, he at once led the way inland among the woods.
As evening began to fall they stumbled their way up a long, gradual slope, the forest round them growing more open as they went. Between the trees Kelderek could see a red, westering sun and this, he found, awoke in him a dull surprise. Pondering, he realized that since leaving Lak he had not once seen the sun after midday. They must now be upon the forest's northern edge.
At the top of the slope, Genshed waited until the last of the children had come up before beginning to push through the undergrowth on the forest outskirts. Suddenly he stopped, peering forward and shading his eyes against the sun. Kelderek and Radu, halting behind him, found themselves looking out across the northern extremity of the evil land which they had now traversed from end to end, from the Vrako's banks to the Gap of Linsho.
The air was full of a dazzling, golden light, slow-moving and honey-thick. Myriads of motes and specks floated here and there, their minute glitterings seeming to draw the light down from the sky to the ground, there to fragment and multiply. The evening beams glanced off leaves, off the wings of darting flies and the surface of the Telthearna flowing a mile away at the foot of the slope. Directly before them, to the north, the distant prospect was closed by the mountains – jagged, iron-blue heights, streaked with steep wedges of forest rising out of the virid foothills. Looking at this tremendous barrier, Kelderek called to mind that once – how long ago? – he had possessed the strength to follow Shardik into such mountains as these. Now, he could not have limped over the intervening ground to their foot.
Clouds half-hid the easternmost peak, which rose above the Telthearna like a tower, its precipitous face falling almost sheer to the river. Between the water and the wooded crags at the mountain's foot there extended a narrow strip of flat land little more than a bowshot across – the Gap of Linsho. Huts he could make out, and wisps of evening smoke drifting towards the wilds of Deelguy on the further shore. A track led out of the Gap, ran a short way beside the water, then turned inland to climb the slope, crossed their front less than half a mile away and disappeared south-westward beyond the extremity of the forest on their left. Goats were tcthercd on the open sward and a herd of cows were grazing – one had a flat-toned, cloppering bell at her neck – watched by a little boy, who sat fluting on a wooden pipe; and an old ox, at the full extent of his rope, pulled the greenest grass he could get.
But it was not at the golden light, at the cattle or the child playing his pipe that Genshed stood staring, his hanging face like a devil's sick with the pain of loss. Beside the track, a patch of ground had been enclosed with a wooden palisade and a fire was burning in a shallow trench. A soldier in a leather helmet was crouching, scouring pots, while another was chopping wood with a bill-hook. Beside the stockade a tall staff had been erected and from it hung a flag – three corn-sheaves on a blue ground. Near by, two more soldiers could be seen facing towards the forest, one sitting on the turf as he ate his supper, the other standing, leaning on a long spear. The situation was plain. The Gap had been occupied by a Sarkid detachment of the army of Santil-ke-Erketlis.
'Bloody God!' whispered Genshed, staring over the pastoral, flame-bright quiet of the hillside. Shouter, coming up from behind, drew in his breath and stood stock-still, gazing as a man might at the burning ruins of his own home. The children were silent, some uncomprehending in their sickness and exhaustion, others sensing with fear the rage and desperation of Genshed, who stood clenching and unclenching his hands without another word.
Suddenly Radu plunged forward. His rags fluttered about him and he flung both arms above his head, jerking like an idiot child in a fit,
'Ah! Ah!' croaked Radu. 'Sark -' He staggered, fell and got up knee by knee, like a cow. 'Sarkid!' he whispered, stretching out his hands; and then, barely louder, 'Sarkid! Sarkid!'
With deliberation, Genshed took his bow from the side of his pack, and laid an arrow on the string. Then, leaning against a tree, he waited as Radu again drew breath. The boy's cry, when it came, was like that of a sick infant, distorted and feeble. Once more he cried, bird-like, and then sank to his knees, sobbing and wringing his hands among the undergrowth. Genshed, pulling Shouter back by the shoulder, waited as a man might wait for a friend to finish speaking with a passer-by in the street. 'O God!' wept Radu. 'God, only help us! O God, please help usl'
On Kelderek's back Shara half-awoke, murmured 'Lcg-by-Lee! Gone to Leg-by-Lee!' and fell asleep again.
As a man led to judgment might halt to listen to the sound of a girl singing; as the eye of one just told of his own mortal illness might stray out of the window to dwell for an instant upon the flash of some bright-plumagcd bird among the trees; as some devil-may-care fellow might drain a glass and dance a spring on the scaffold – so, it seemed, not only Genshed's inclination but also his self-respect now impelled him in this, his own utter disaster, to pause a few moments to enjoy the rare and singular misery of Radu. He looked round among the children, as though inviting anyone else who might wish to try his luck to sec what voice he might have left for calling out to the soldiers. Watching him, Kelderek was seized by a deadly horror, like that of a child facing the twitching, glazed excitement of the rapist. His teeth chattered in his head and he felt his empty bowels loosen. He sank down, barely in sufficient command of himself to slide the little girl from his back and lay her beside him on the ground.
At this moment a hoarse voice was heard from among the bushes nearby. 'Gensh! Gensh, I say! Gensh!'
Genshed turned sharply, peering with sun-dazzled eyes into the dusky forest behind him. There was nothing to be seen, but a moment later the voice spoke again..
'Gensh! Don't be going out there, Gensh! For God's sake give us a hand!'
A faint wisp of smoke curled up from a patch of undergrowth, but otherwise all was stiller than the grassy slope outside. Genshed jerked his head to Shouter and the boy went slowly and reluctantly forward with the best courage he could summon. He disappeared among the bushes and a moment later they heard him exclaim, 'Mucking hell!'
Still Genshed said nothing, merely nodding to Bled to join Shouter. He himself continued to keep half his attention upon Radu and Kelderek. After some delay the two boys emerged from the bushes supporting a fleshy, thick-lipped man with small eyes, who grimaced with pain as he staggered between them, trailing a pack behind him along the ground. The left leg of his once-white breeches was soaked in blood and the hand which he held out to Genshed was red and sticky.
'Gensh!' he said. 'Gensh, you know me, don't you, you won't leave me here, you'll be gotting me away? Don't go out there, Gensh, they'll got you same as they did me; we can't stay here, either – they'll be coming, Gensh, coming!'
