Koshmar said angrily, “Hold your temper, Sachkor. And you, Harruel, put down your spear or I’ll have it taken from you.”
Sachkor remained determined. From his crouch he said, “What is the truth of this, Harruel? Did you indeed force Kreun?”
“I did nothing to her.”
“He’s lying!” Kreun cried.
Grimly Koshmar said, “Enough of this! We have guests among us. This calls for judgment at another time. Kreun, back to the settlement. Orbin, Konya, take Harruel aside until he’s calm. We will hold an inquiry this evening into these matters.”
“I will have the truth of this,” Sachkor said, “and I will have it now.”
Harruel, staring in astonishment, felt the sudden force of Sachkor’s second sight trained upon him. That was a surprising thing, a forbidden thing, this shameful probing of his soul. Harruel felt stripped naked, down to the bone and muscle. Desperately he attempted to put up shields across the doorway of his mind to hold Sachkor back, striving to conceal any memory of that time with Kreun. But there was no hiding anything. The more he tried to hide it, the more vividly it all blazed within him: Kreun’s firm body squirming beneath him, the feel of her smooth rump against his thighs, the sudden hot delight of the thrust, the pulsing pleasure as he poured his man-fire into her.
Sachkor, roaring, rose up and sprang at Harruel in a wild frenzied lunge.
Koshmar cried out and attempted to step between them, but she was too late. Harruel, still shivering in shock from the invasion of his mind by Sachkor’s, acted instinctively, putting out his spear and allowing Sachkor to run right onto it.
Everyone shouted at once. Then there was a dreadful moment of utter quiet. Sachkor looked at the haft of the spear that jutted from his chest as though its presence puzzled him. He made a soft chuttering sound. Harruel let go of the weapon, giving it a slight push as he released it. Tottering, Sachkor glanced around, still amazed, and dropped sideways to the ground. Kreun rushed forward and fell like a discarded cloak beside him. Torlyri, kneeling, attempted to pull her away from Sachkor, but she would not be moved.
The Helmet Men, seemingly astounded by what had taken place, exchanged quiet comments in their strange barking speech, and began to draw back behind the safety of their gigantic animals.
Koshmar went to Sachkor, touched his cheeks and his chest, put her hand to the spear and tried to move it, looked for a long while into his fixed, staring eyes. Then she rose.
“He’s dead,” she said, as if wonderstruck. “Harruel, what have you done?”
Yes, Harruel thought. What have I done?
To Hresh this day was like a dream that would not end, the kind of terrible dream from which one awoke exhausted, as if one had not slept at all. A dream that began with a journey to the Great World, and then his first twining, and then his dreadful clumsy bunglings with Taniane, and the entry into Vengiboneeza of the Helmet People with their astonishing giant red beasts, and the return of Sachkor, and now this — and now this—
No. No. No. No. It was all too much, much too much.
Sachkor lay on his side, not moving at all, with Harruel’s spear running right through him. Harruel stood above him with his arms folded, enormous, icy-faced. Torlyri held the sobbing Kreun. The Helmet Men had withdrawn fifty paces toward the gateway and were staring as though they had begun to think they had marched into a den of rat-wolves.
Koshmar said, “This has never happened before, has it, Hresh? That one tribesman should take the life of another?”
Hresh shook his head. “Never. I have seen nothing in the chronicles concerning such a thing, not ever.”
“What have you done, Harruel?” said Koshmar again. “You have killed Sachkor, who was one of us. Who was a part of yourself.”
“He ran into the spear,” Harruel said numbly. “You saw it. All of you did. He cried out like a madman and ran at me. I put up my spear from habit’s sake. I’m a warrior. When I’m attacked, I defend myself. He ran into the spear. You saw it, Koshmar.”
“But you provoked him,” said Koshmar. “Kreun says that you forced her, that day when Sachkor first went away. They were to be mated. It is against custom to force a woman, Harruel. Surely you would not deny that.”
Harruel was silent. Hresh felt wave upon wave of anger, confusion, fear, defiance coming from him. He seemed almost pitiful, Hresh thought. But dangerous nevertheless.
He couldn’t have meant to kill Sachkor, Hresh decided. All the same, Sachkor was dead.
“These things must be punished,” Koshmar said.
“He ran into the spear himself,” said Harruel obstinately. “I simply defended myself.”
“And the forcing of Kreun?” asked Koshmar.
“He denies that too!” Kreun cried. “But he lies! Just as he lies when he says he didn’t mean to kill Sachkor. He hated Sachkor. He always did. Sachkor told me that, before he went away, and he told me many another thing about Harruel. He said Harruel wants to overthrow Koshmar. Harruel wants to rule the tribe. Harruel says he will be king, which is a kind of man-chieftain. Harruel—”
“Hush,” Koshmar said. “Harruel, do you deny the forcing?”
Harruel was silent.
“We have to reach the bottom of this,” said Koshmar. “Hresh, fetch the shinestones, and we will do a divination. No, better yet, fetch your Wonderstone instead. We’ll examine Harruel with that. We will find out what took place between him and Kreun, if indeed anything did, and we will—”
“No,” Harruel said suddenly. “There’s no need for this examination. I won’t allow it. As for what Kreun says, there was no forcing.”
“Liar!” Kreun wailed.
“There was no forcing,” Harruel went on, “but I will not deny coupling with her. I was on the mountain, guarding the tribe against its enemies, these enemies who now have come riding right into our midst. I sat there all night in the rain, guarding the tribe. And in the morning I descended, and I encountered Kreun, and Kreun looked pleasing to me, and the scent of her was pleasing in my nostrils, and I reached for her and took her and coupled with her, and that is the truth of it, Koshmar.”
“And you did this with her consent?” Koshmar asked.
“No!” cried Kreun. “I gave no consent! I was looking for Sachkor, and asked Harruel if he had seen him, and instead he grabbed hold of me — he was crazy, he called me Thalippa, he thought I was my own mother — he seized me, he threw me down on the grounds—”
“I am addressing Harruel,” Koshmar said. “Was there consent, Harruel? Did you ask her to couple with you as a man will ask a woman, or a woman will ask a man?”
Harruel was silent again.
“Your silence condemns you,” said Koshmar. “Even without examination by the Barak Dayir you stand condemned and accursed, for doing things hitherto unknown to this tribe, for taking Kreun without her consent and for striking down Sach—”
“Her consent wasn’t necessary,” Harruel said abruptly.
“Not necessary? Not necessary?”
“I took her because I was in need, having spent a hard and lonely night guarding the tribe. And because I desired her, since she seemed beautiful to me. And because it was my right, Koshmar.”
“Your right ? To force her?”
“My right, yes, Koshmar. Because I am king, and may do as I please.”
Gods save us, thought Hresh in horror.
Koshmar’s eyes widened until it seemed they could widen no more. They were bulging with amazement.
But she appeared to be making an effort to keep tight control over her feelings. To Hresh she said in a strained, rigid tone, “What is this word ‘king’ that I keep hearing so often these days? Will you tell me that, chronicler?”