arm and struck outward, uttering a harsh, excited cry. The flask hit the boulder and burst, leaving a dark trickle on the rock. He who had held it gave a hoarse grunt, tried to reach the fragments, then raised his head and looked about wildly as if hunting something in the wilderness about them to relieve his misery.
All this time the man who_sat had not moved. But now he shook his head slowly from side to side as if trying to clear it of some clouding mist. Then he pulled back to his feet, bracing himself against the rock. The moonlight fell now across his face, and I saw that he was the one who had guarded Osokun's rear when he and his companion had brought their wounded lord into the Thassa camp. I had not wondered about the identity of the three I had followed; somehow I had known from the first whom I would find here. Nor did it astonish me to see that I knew this one from an even earlier time, when he had done his lord's will in the narrow cell of the border fort.
Krip Vorlund—who was Krip Vorlund—what call had he on Jorth the barsk for vengeance? It did not matter. These were my kill—
So much did I consider them my prey that I came into the open without any more use of cunning, and gave a war cry in the deep-chested growl of my kind. He that lay upon the stretcher would be helpless. The other two—let them fight for their lives. It was better that way.
I sprang for the man now standing. I do not think his fatigue-dulled mind and ears had really carried the message of my presence before my weight struck him full in the chest, crashed him to the ground, my fangs aiming true.
Easy—easy prey!
I snapped and tore, then was up, facing the other. He had steel, bright and clear in the moonlight, waiting in his hand as he half crouched between me and the stretcher. He shouted—battle cries?Calls for assistance? What did it matter—they were not for my ears and would matter to no one.
But the blade did, and we wove a pattern between us like the intricate design of some formal dance. I made him ever turn and twist and in the end that was my advantage, since his fatigue deadened his limbs with chain weights. At last my jaws closed upon the wrist of his sword hand. And that was the beginning of a swift end.
Panting from that dance of death, I turned upon the stretcher. He who had been carried on it was sitting up. Perhaps fear had overridden his weakness of body for those seconds, giving him a return of energy. I saw his hand move, a flash of light spun through the air, then came a blow between neck and shoulder as the knife bit hard and deep. But since he had not killed me outright, he had not saved himself. Thus it was that I lay at last among my dead, and thought that here, too, died Jorth the barsk, who had once been partly a man. This was a good ending for one who had no hope of returning along the strange path leading to this time and place.
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MAELEN XV
Scales of Molaster. Days ago—nights and moons, days and suns, since I started on that strange path to adjust the scales of Molaster. But now they were as unbalanced as ever, and instead of doing good my efforts had wrought evil; I marveled dully that,so much ill could be rooted in hope of good. I thought that Molaster was gone from my life, and that I was one who was lost and drifting on a tide I could not breast. Perhaps I had believed too much in myself and my own powers, and this was my punishment. I stood in the camp among the dead, the enemy and my own little ones. And I looked about me, knowing that all this had sprung in part from my own acts, for which I must be the first to answer. Perhaps it is true, as some argue, that we are but the play pieces of great forces and are moved hither and thither for purpose not of our reckoning, certainly not of our desires. But, though such a belief is quieting to one's heart, putting aside guilt, yet it is not to be held by one who has known the discipline of a Singer. Thus did I refuse it now.
My spirit wept for my little people, and for Malec, though I knew that the White Road is not to be regretted for those we hold in close fellowship, It is sometimes far harder to remain in this life than to pass through the gate and into the way which leads elsewhere. We cannot allow ourselves to mourn for those who are gone; they have but discarded the old dress to put on a new.
So, too, for my little people. But those who still suffered, ah, for them did I also feel pain, fever, misery. And for another must I also bear the burden of life—he who had fled from the camp with such a threat riding him as to drive any man to death. Him I must find, if I could, for to him was I deeply in debt.
Also did I suspect that which was even worse, that my inner desires had willed just such an ending. And, if such powerful wishes be beamed, then they influence action to come. Although I had not sung this into being, could I be sure that I had not unconsciously twisted the future to serve my heart's longing? I knew that I had one escape to offer the man who had been Krip Vorlund from off-world, and, if he agreed, then—
I spoke to my little people soothingly, telling them what must be done. And I sang over my rod of office, though it was still day and not night, for I could not wait for dark. Then I set out food and drink for those who had been my companions for so long. Afterward I sat beside Simmle, telling her where I must go and why. The first streamers of sunset were in the sky when I went into the wilderness.
Had it not been for the power of my wand, I would not have kept to the trail. But when Krip Vorlund had entered into Jorth's body, the rod had wrought it, and it would seek him out for me as long as he walked the earth of Yiktor. I carried with me a shoulder sack of supplies, for I did not know how long I must journey, though a feeling in me said it could not be far.
Deliberately I refrained from trying to reach him by thought. Either he would shut his mind tight against me now, or else such a sending might distract him in a moment when he needed all his cunning for his own salvation. This much I knew—he had not run blindly away from the truth, but rather he had gone to seek battle. It might well be that he did not mean to survive such an encounter.
We have always known that when we take on the forms of the little people, we also take on a measure of their natures. And when a man was in the state of mind Krip Vorlund was, he would react to the most savage in his new form. Of all the animals the barsk was the most cunning, intelligent, and fierce, those three qualities having kept its species so long apart from all other life on Yiktor. Only because the beast had been so disordered by its treatment had I been able to work with it before the coming of Krip Vorlund to my upland camp.
Thus I could believe that the creature I now sought was for a time a savage hunter. And whomever it trailed must be some fugitive from Osokun's band. Osokun's body had not been found with the slain, perhaps he was the bait now. And with him, how many others? I had not known the number of raiders. While all we had surprised in camp were now dead, there could be more.
On toward the borders of Oskold's holding that trail led. Night came and with it the moon, which is ever
