Shouter looked up from fastening the last shackle, nodded and stepped back. Genshed, fingering the point of his knife, stood smiling in the broadening daylight.
"Well," said Shouter at length, "aren't we getting out now?"
"Fetch Radu," answered Genshed, pointing.
About them the sounds of the forest were increasing, cries of birds and humming of insects. One of the children swayed on his feet, clutched at the next and then fell, dragging two others with him. Genshed ignored them and the children remained on the ground.
Radu was standing beside Kelderek. Glancing sideways, Kelderek could see expressed in his whole posture the dread of which he had spoken on the previous day. His shoulders were bowed, his hands clenched at his sides and his lips pressed tightly together.
"Good morning, Radu," said Genshed courteously.
The common hangman, to whom has been delivered some once-fine gentleman, now pallid with fear, broken and condemned, cannot reasonably be expected to exclude from his work all personal relish and natural inclination for sport. Into his hands has fallen a rarity, a helpless but still-sentient specimen of those whom he serves, envies, fears, flatters and cheats when he can. The occasion is an exhilarating one, and to do it justice calls for both deliberation and mockery, including, of course, a little sardonic mimicry of the affected manners of the gentry.
"Please go with Shouter, Radu," said Genshed. "Oblige me by putting that body out of sight."
"Mucking hell, how much longer--" Shouter cried, met Genshed's eye and broke off. Kelderek, turning his head by Genshed's unspoken permission, watched the two boys struggling to lift the gross, blood-soaked corpse and half-carry, half-drag it back across the threshold over which Lalloc had fallen before he died. As they returned, Genshed stepped forward and took Radu gently by the shoulders. "Now, Radu," he said, with a kind of serene joy, "go and bring Shara here. Be quick, now!"
Radu stared back from between his hands.
"She can't be moved! She's ill! She may be dying!" He paused a moment, and then cried, "You know that!"
"Quiet, now," said Genshed, "quiet. Go and get her, Radu."
In the clouded stupor of Kelderek's mind there were no sounds of morning, no stone hovels, no surrounding forest. A ruined, desolate country lay under deluge. The last light was failing, the rain falling into the brown, all-obliterating water; and as he gazed across that hopeless landscape the little island that was Radu crumbled and vanished under lapping, yellow foam.
"Go and fetch her, Radu," repeated Genshed, very quietly.
Kelderek heard the sound of Shara's weeping before he caught sight of Radu bringing her in his arms. She was struggling and the boy could scarcely carry her. His voice, as he tried to soothe and comfort her, was barely audible above her half-delirious, frightened crying.
"Radu, Radu, don't, let me alone, Radu, I don't want to go to Leg-by-Lee!"
"Hush, dear, hush," said Radu, clutching at her clumsily as he tried to hold her still. "We're going home. I promised you, remember?"
"Hurts," wept the child. "Go away, Radu, it hurts."
She stared at Genshed without recognition, her own filth covering her as debris covers the streets of a fallen town. Dirty saliva ran down her chin and she picked weakly at the flaking crust around her nostrils. Suddenly she cried out again, evidently in pain, and passed a thin stream of urine, cloudy and white as milk, over the boy's arms.
"Come along; give her to me, Radu," said Genshed, holding out his hands.
Looking up, Kelderek saw his eyes, bright and voracious as a giant eel's, staring on either side of his open mouth.
"She makes too much noise," whispered Genshed, licking his lips. "Give her to me, Radu."
In the moment that Kelderek tried to step forward, he realized that Radu had refused to obey Genshed. He felt the sharp jerk of the chain at his wrist and heard the cursing of the boy to whom he was fastened. Simultaneously Radu turned and, with Shara's head rolling limply on his shoulder, began to stumble away.
"No, no, Radu," said Genshed in the same quiet tone. "Come back here."
Radu ignored him, moving slowly on, his head bowed over his burden.
With a sudden snarl, Genshed drew his knife and threw it at the boy. It missed, and he rushed upon him, snatched the child out of his arms and struck him to the ground. For a moment he stood motionless, holding Shara before him in his two hands. Then he sank his teeth in her arm and, before she could shriek, flung her into the pool. Shouter, running forward, was pushed aside as Genshed leaped after her into the water.
Shara's body fell upon the surface of the pool with a sharp, slapping sound. She sank but then, lifting her head clear, raised herself and knelt in the shallow water. Kelderek saw her throw up her clenched hands and, like a baby, draw breath to scream. As she did so Genshed, wading across the pool, pulled her backward and trampled her under the surface. Planting one foot on her neck, he stood looking about him and scratching his shoulders as the commotion, first of waves and then of ripples, subsided. Before the water had settled Shara, pressed down among the gravel and colored pebbles on the bottom, had ceased to struggle.
Genshed stepped out of the pool and the body, face-upward, rose to the surface, the hair, darkened by the water, floating about the head. Genshed walked quickly across to where Radu still lay on the ground, jerked him to his feet, picked up the knife and then, snapping his fingers to Shouter, pointed downhill toward the river. Kelderek heard the boy panting as he hurried to the head of the line.
"Come on, come on," muttered Shouter, "before he kills the mucking lot of us. Move, that's all, move."
Of themselves, the children could not have walked a hundred paces, could not have sat upright on a bench or stripped themselves of their verminous rags. Lame, sick, famished, barely conscious of their surroundings, they yet knew well enough that they were in the hands of Genshed.
He it was who had the power to make the lame walk, the sick rise up and the hungry to overcome their faintness. They had not chosen him, but he had chosen them. Without him they could do nothing, but now he abode in them and they in him. He had overcome the world, so that life became a simple matter, without distraction, of moving by his will to the end which he had appointed. The will of Genshed, animating to the extent necessary to its purpose, excluded hope and fear of anything but itself, together with all import from other sights and sounds--from recollections of the previous day, from the evident terror of Shouter, the curious absence of Bled and the body of the little girl floating among the trepsis at the edge of the pool. The children were hardly more aware of these things than were the flies already clustering upon the blood of Lalloc soaking the ground. It was not for them to know the times or the seasons which Genshed had put in his own power. It was enough for them to do his will.
Kelderek, shuffling downhill among the trees, could feel no more than the rest. "The child is dead," he thought. "Genshed killed her. Well, such things have become commonplace among us; and by that I can be certain that my own wickedness has completed its work in me. If I had any heart left, would I not cry out at this? But I want nothing, except to avoid more pain."
The body of Bled was lying half-concealed in the undergrowth. It was surrounded by signs of violence--trampled earth and broken branches. The eyes were open, but in death the manic glare had left them, just as the limbs no longer retained their feral, crouching posture. It was these which had increased Bled's apparent size, as a live spider is magnified, in the eyes of those who fear it, by its vigilant tension and the possibility that it will run, suddenly and very fast, on its arched legs. Now Bled looked like a spider dead--small, ugly and harmless; yes, and messy too, for one side of his head had been smashed in and his body was limp and crumpled, as though crushed in the grip of a giant. Along the left side, his jerkin was torn open and the exposed flesh was lacerated by five great, parallel scratches, wide apart and deep.
Had he been even more feverish and weak, Kelderek, of all men, could not have failed to recognize the tracks about the corpse. Faint they were, for the ground was covered with moss and creeper, but had they been fainter still he would have known them. The boy's death, he realized, must have been recent, not more than two hours ago, and in this knowledge he motioned the children to silence and himself stood listening intently.