The march was resumed, the army following the road through the wood and down the hillside beyond. Ta-Kominion took up a place in the middle of the column, knowing that if he remained in the rear he would not be able to keep up. For a time he leaned on Numiss's arm until, perceiving that the wretched man was exhausted, he sent for Kavass to take his place.
They went on through the darkening, sultry afternoon. Ta-Kominion tried to estimate how far ahead the vanguard might be. The distance down to the plain could not now be more than a few miles. He had better send a runner to tell them to halt when they reached it. Just as he was about to call the nearest man he slipped, jolted his arm and almost fell down with the pain. Kavass helped him to the side of the track.
"I'll never get there, Kavass," he whispered.
"Don't worry, sir," replied Kavass. "After what you told the lads, they'd fight just as well, even if you did have to sit out, like. That's got round, you know, sir, what you said back there. Most of them never actually saw Lord Shardik when he came ashore on Ortelga, you see, and they're keen to fight just to be there when he shows up again. They know he's coming. So even if you was to have to lay down for a bit--"
Suddenly there reached Ta-Kominion's ears a confused, distant clamor, echoing up from the steep woods below--the familiar, guttural cries of the Ortelgans and, clearly distinguishable at rhythmic intervals, a higher, lighter sound of other voices, shouting together. Underneath all was the thudding, trampling noise of a tumultuous crowd.
Ta-Kominion knew now that he must be delirious, for evidently he could no longer tell reality from hallucination. Yet Kavass seemed to be listening too.
"Can you hear it, Kavass?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. Sounds like trouble. Part of that noise isn't our lads, sir."
Commotion was working back along the column like flood water flowing up a creek from the main river. Men were running past them down the hill, looking back to point and shout to those behind. Ta-Kominion tried to call out to them but none regarded him. Kavass flung himself at a running man, stopped him by main force, held him as he gabbled and pointed, flung him aside and returned to Ta-Kominion.
"Can't make it out altogether, sir, but there's some sort of fighting down there, or at least that's what he said."
"Fighting?" repeated Ta-Kominion. For a few moments he could not remember what the word meant. His vision had blurred and with this came the curious sensation that his eyes had melted and were running down his face, while still retaining, though in a splintered manner, the power of sight. He raised his hand to wipe away the streaming liquid. Sure enough, he could no longer see. Kavass was shouting beside him.
"The rain, sir, the rain!"
It was indeed rain that was covering his hands, blurring his eyes and filling the woods with a leafy sibilance that he had supposed to be coming from inside his own head. He stepped into the middle of the track and tried to make out for himself what was going on at the foot of the hill.
"Help me to get down there, Kavass!" he cried.
"Steady, sir, steady," replied the fletcher, taking his arm once more.
"Steady be damned!" shouted Ta-Kominion. "Those are Beklans down there--Beklans--and our fools are fighting them piecemeal, before they've even deployed! Where's Kelderek? The rains--it's that bitch of a priestess--she's cursed us, damn her!--help me down there!"
"Steady, sir," repeated the man, holding him up. Hobbling, hopping, stumbling, Ta-Kominion plunged down the steep track, the clamor growing louder in his ears until he could plainly discern the clashing of arms and distinguish the cries of warriors and the screams of the wounded. The woodland, he saw, ended at the foot of the hill and the fighting, which he still could not make out clearly, had been joined in the open, beyond. Men with drawn weapons were running back among the trees. He saw a great, fair-haired fellow pitch to the ground, blood oozing from a wound in his back.
Suddenly Zelda appeared through the leaves, calling to the men about him and pointing back into the open with his sword. Ta-Kominion shouted and tried to run toward him. As he did so, he felt a sharp, clutching sensation pass through his body, followed by a cold rushing, a crumbling and inward flow. He blundered into a tree trunk and fell his length in the road. As he rolled over he knew that he could not get up--that he would never get up again. The flood gates of his body had broken and very soon the flood would cover hearing, sight and tongue forever.
Zelda's face appeared above him, looking down, dripping rain on his own.
"What's happened?" asked Ta-Kominion.
"Beklans," answered Zelda. "Fewer than we, but they're taking no chances. The ground's in their favor and they're simply standing and blocking the road."
"The bastards--how did they get up here? Listen--everyone must attack at the same time," whispered Ta-Kominion.
"If only they would! There's no order--they're going for them all anyhow, just as they happen to come up. There's some have had enough already, but others are still out there. It'll be dark in less than an hour--and now the rain--"
"Get them--all back--under the trees--re-form attack again," gasped Ta-Kominion, contriving to utter the words with an enormous effort. His mind was drifting into a mist. It did not surprise him to find that Zelda had gone and that he was once more facing the Tuginda on the road to Gelt. She said nothing, only standing submissively, her wrists tied together with a soaked and filthy bandage. Her eyes were gazing past him at the hills and at first he thought that she must be unaware of his presence. Then, with a conclusive and skeptical glance, like that of some shrewd peasant woman in the market, she looked into his face and raised her eyebrows, as much as to say, "And have you finished now, my child?"
"You bitch!" cried Ta-Kominion. "I'll strangle you!" He wrenched at the bandage and the deep, suppurating wound along his sword arm, which for more than two days had been pouring poison into his body, burst open upon the rain-pitted dust of the track where he lay. For a moment he jerked his head up, then fell back and opened his eyes, crying, "Zelda!"
But it was Kelderek whom he saw bending over him.
22 The Cage
THROUGHOUT THE LATTER PART of the night and on into the dawn that appeared at last, gray and muffled, behind the clouds piled in the east, Baltis and his men slowly hauled the cage above the forests of the Telthearna. Behind and below them the miles of treetops--that secluded, shining haunt of the great butterflies--appeared, like waves seen from a cliff-top, to be creeping stealthily downwind. Far off, the line of the river shone in the cloudy light with a glint dull as a sword's, the blackened north bank dim in the horizon haze.
The bear lay inert as though dead. Its eyes remained closed, the dry tongue protruded, and with the jolting of the boards the head shook as a block of stone vibrates on the quarry floor at the thudding of rock masses falling about it. Some of the dusty, footsore girls clung to the ramshackle structure to steady it as it went, while others walked ahead, removing stones from the track or filling ruts and holes before the wheels reached them. Behind the cage plodded Sencred, the wheelwright, watching for the beginnings of play in the wheels or sagging in the axletrees, and from time to time calling up the rope-lines for a halt while he checked the pins.
Kelderek took his turn at the ropes with the others, but when at length they stopped to rest--the girls pushing heavy stones for blocks behind the wheels--he and Baltis left the men and walked back to where Sencred and Zilthe stood leaning against the cage. Zilthe had thrust her arm through the bars and was caressing one of the bear's forepaws, with its curved sheaf of claws longer than her own hand.
"Waken, waken to destroy Bekla,
"Waken, Lord Shardik, na kora, na ro," she sang softly, rubbing her sweating forehead against the cool iron.
Full of sudden misgiving, Kelderek stared at the bear's corpselike stillness. There seemed not the least swell of breathing in the flank and the flies were settling about the ears and muzzle.
"What is this drug? Are you sure it has not killed him?"
&nb
sp; "He is not dead, my lord," said Zilthe, smiling. "See!" She drew her knife, bent forward and held it under Shardik's nostrils. The blade clouded very slightly and cleared, clouded and cleared once more; she drew it back and held the flat, warm and moist, against Kelderek's wrist.
"Theltocarna is powerful, my lord, but she who is dead knew--none better--how it should be used. He will not die."
"When will he wake?"
"Perhaps this evening, or during the night. I cannot tell. For many creatures we know the dose and the effect, but his body is like that of no other creature and we can only guess."
"Will he eat then? Drink?"
"Creatures that wake from theltocarna are always dangerous. Often there is a frenzy more violent than that before the trance, and then the creature will attack anything that it encounters. I have seen a stag break a rope as thick as one of these bars, and then kill two oxen."
"When?" asked Kelderek wonderingly.
She began to tell him of Quiso and the sacred rites of the spring equinox, but Baltis interrupted her.
"If what you're saying's true, then those bars won't hold him."
"The roof's not stout enough to hold him either," said Sencred. "He's only got to stand upright and it'll smash like a pie crust."
"We've been wasting our time," said Baltis, spitting in the dust. "He might as well not be the other side of those bars at all. He'll get up and go when he wants. But I'll tell you this, I'll go first."
"We shall have to drug him again, then," said Kelderek.