I heard shouting around me, heard and dimly saw milling of the horses. The clutching fingers of my left hand touched my girdle—closed on something there—something like the shaft of a javelin—
Tibur's hell–forged dart!
Suddenly I went limp in Tibur's grip. His laughter bellowed, hoarse with triumph. And for a split–second his grip relaxed.
That split–second was enough. I summoned all my strength and broke his grip. Before he could clench me again, my hand had swept down into the girdle and clutched the dart.
I brought it up and drove it into Tibur's throat just beneath his jaw. I jerked the haft. The opened, razor–edged flanges sliced through arteries and muscles. The bellowing laughter of Tibur changed to a hideous gurgling. His hands sought the haft, dragged at it—tore it out—And the blood spurted from Tibur's mangled throat; Tibur's knees buckled beneath him, and he lurched and fell at my feet…choking…his hands still feebly groping to clutch me…
I stood there, dazed, gasping for breath, the pulse roaring in my ears.
"Drink this, Lord!"
I looked up at Dara. She was holding a wine–skin to me. I took it with trembling hands, and drank deep. The good wine whipped through me. Suddenly I took it from my lips.
"The dark girl of the Rrrllya—Evalie. She is not with you."
"There she is. I set her on another horse. There was fighting, Lord."
I stared into Evalie's face. She looked back at me, brown eyes cold, implacable.
"Better use the rest of the wine to wash your face, Lord. You are no sight for any tender maid."
I passed my hand over my face, drew it away wet with blood.
"Tibur's blood, Dwayanu, thank the gods!"
She brought my horse forward. I felt better when I was in its saddle. I glanced down at Tibur. His fingers were still faintly twitching. I looked about me. There was a shattered company of Karak's archers at the bridge–end. They raised their bows in salute.
"Dwayanu! Live Dwayanu!"
My troop seemed strangely shrunken. I called—"Naral!"
"Dead, Dwayanu. I told you there had been fighting."
"Who killed her?"
"Never mind. I slew him. And those left of Tibur's escort have fled. And now what. Lord?"
"We wait for Lur."
"Not long shall we have to linger then, for here she comes."
There was the blast of a horn. I turned to see the Witch–woman come galloping over the square. Her red braids were loose, her sword was red, and she was nigh as battle–stained as I. With her rode a scant dozen of her women, half as many of her nobles.
I awaited her. She reined up before me, searching me with wild bright eyes.
I should have killed her as I had Tibur. I should have been hating her. But I found I was not hating her at all. All of hate I had held seemed to have poured out upon Tibur. No, I was not hating her.
She smiled faintly:
"You are hard to kill, Yellow–hair!"
"Dwayanu—Witch."
She glanced at me, half–contemptuously.
"You are no longer Dwayanu!"
"Try to convince these soldiers of that, Lur.”
"Oh, I know," she said, and stared down at Tibur. "So you killed the Smith. Well, at least you are still a man."
"Killed him for you, Lur!" I jeered. "Did I not promise you?"
She did not answer, only asked, as Dara had before her:
"And now what?"
"We wait here until Sirk is emptied. Then we ride to Karak, you beside me. I do not like you at my back, Witch–woman."
She spoke quietly to her women, then sat, head bent, thinking, with never another word for me.
I whispered to Dara:
"Can we trust the archers?"
She nodded.
"Bid them wait and march with us. Let them drag the body of Tibur into some corner."
For half an hour the soldiers came by, with prisoners, with horses, with cattle and other booty. Small troops of the nobles and their supporters galloped up, halted, and spoke, but, at my word and Lur's nod, passed on over the bridge. Most of the nobles showed dismayed astonishment at my resurrection; the soldiers gave me glad salute.
The last skeleton company came through the gap. I had been watching for Sri, but he was not with them, and I concluded that he had been taken to Karak with the earliest prisoners or had been killed.
"Come," I said to the Witch–woman. "Let your women go before us."
I rode over to Evalie, lifted her from her saddle and set her on my pommel. She made no resistance, but I felt her shrink from me. I knew she was thinking that she had but exchanged Tibur for another master, that to me she was only spoil of war. If my mind had not been so weary I suppose that would have hurt. But my mind was too weary to care.
We passed over the bridge, through the curling mists of steam. We were halfway to the forest when the Witch–woman threw back her head and sent forth a long, wailing call. The white wolves burst from the ferns. I gave command to the archers to set arrows. Lur shook her head.
"No need to harm them. They go to Sirk. They have earned their pay."
The white wolves coursed over the barren to the bridge–end, streamed over it, vanished. I heard them howling among the dead.
"I, too, keep my promises," said the Witch–woman.
We rode on, into the forest, back to Karak.
Chapter XXII
Gate of Khalk'ru
We were close to Karak when the drums of the Little People began beating.
The leaden weariness pressed down upon me increasingly. I struggled to keep awake. Tibur's stroke on my head had something to do with that, but I had taken other blows and eaten nothing since long before dawn. I could not think, much less plan what I was going to do after I had got back to Karak.
The drums of the Little People drove away my lethargy, brought me up wide–awake. They crashed out at first like a thunderburst across the white river. After that they settled down into a slow, measured rhythm filled with implacable menace. It was like Death standing on hollow graves and stamping on them before he marched.
At the first crash Evalie straightened, then sat listening with every nerve. I reined up my horse, and saw that the Witch–woman had also halted and was listening with all of Evalie's intentness. There was something inexplicably disturbing in that monotonous drumming. Something that reached beyond and outside of human experience—or reached before it. It was like thousands of bared hearts beating in unison, in one unalterable rhythm, not to be still till the hearts themselves stopped…inexorable…and increasing in steadily widening area…spreading, spreading…until they beat from all the land across white Nanbu.
I spoke to Lur.
"I am thinking that here is the last of my promises, Witch–woman. I killed Yodin, gave you Sirk, I slew Tibur—and here is your war with the Rrrllya."
I had not thought of how that might sound to Evalie! She turned and gave me one long level look of scorn; she said to the Witch–woman, coldly, in halting Uighur:
"It is war. Was that not what you expected when you dared to take me? It will be war until my people have me again. Best be careful how you use me."
The Witch–woman's control broke at that, all the long pent–up fires of her wrath bursting forth.
"Good! Now we shall wipe out your yellow dogs for once and all. And you shall be flayed, or bathed in the cauldron—or given to Khalk'ru. Win or lose—there will be little of you for your dogs to fight over. You shall be used as I choose."
"No," I said, "as I choose, Lur."
The blue eyes flamed on me at that. And the brown eyes met mine as scornfully as before.
"Give me a horse to ride. I do not like the touch of you—Dwayanu.''