Sarus, angrily, violently, thrust her aside.
“Surrender your weapon,” I told him.
“Nom” he said. “No,”
“You have failed,” said I, “Sarus.”
He looked at me wildly.
His tunic was torn.
He stood unsteadily. In the very Ahn he had lost his victory, his certain triumph.
All that he had come to the northern forests to accomplish he had failed to do so.
He had failed his Ubar, Chenbar of Tyros, called the Sea Sleen.
“No!” cried he suddenly.
“Stop!” I cried.
He spun wildly and ran to Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars, sword high.
He stood before the Ubar, his sword raised to strike. But between Sarus and Marlenus of Ar, there stood another, Verna, the crossbow she carried leveled at the heart of Sarus.
He could not strike for she stood in his way, and did his arm over, her finger, even were she struck, would jerk on the trigger of the weapon, flinging its iron-headed quarrel through his body, perhaps even to the palings behind. I removed the sword from Sarus’ uplifted hand.
Thurnock took him and thrust him, stumbling, and weeping, to stand by his men. “Well done, Slave!” congratulated Marlenus of Ar.
Verna did not respond to him.
Instead she turned, and faced him. There was a gasp, and silence.
The crossbow, now, stood leveled at the heart of Marlenus of Ar.
The Ubar faced her. He was helpless in his chains.
I heard the fire of the torches crackling.
Marlenus did not flinch. “Fire,” he said.
She did not speak to him.
“I do not grant you freedom,” he said. “I am Marlenus of Ar.”
Verna handed the crossbow to a man who stood nearby. He took it, quickly. She turned to face Marlenus of Ar. “I have no wish to kill you,” she said. Then she walked to one side.
Marlenus stood for a moment in the light of the torches, and then he threw back his head, with his long hair, and laughed. His head had not had the stripe of degradation shaven in it, as had my head, and those of my men. He would leave the forest as he had entered it, with his glory. He had lost nothing. Are you always victorious, Marlenus of Ar, I asked myself. I had freed him, he whom I envied, he who had denied me bread, and fire and salt in Ar. He whom in some respects I hated I had risked my life to liberate.
He would leave the forest as he had entered it, in glory. I wore in my head the stripe of degradation. In my venture into the forest I had failed.
Both Sarus and I had failed. Only Marlenus of Ar would be victorious. But he and his men might be mine. They stood in chains. I had ships at my disposal. I might, rather than Sarus, take them as prizes to Tyros. I might thus have my vengeance.
“Unchain me!” roared Marlenus of Ar, laughing.
I hated him, he, always victorious.
“Sarus,” said I,” the key to the chains of the Ubar and the others. Sarus reached to his wallet, slung to his belt. “It is gone,” he said. He seemed stunned.
“I have it,” said Tina. There was much laughter in the stockade. We recalled how she had, for a brief moment, before being thrust away, clung to the dazed Sarus. She had, in that instant, taken the key. She brought it to me.
“Similarly,” said Thurnock, “took she the key from the mate of the Rhoda and, when the ships were tied together, and the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone were drunk with her body and the vessels of paga she poured them, she brought it to us. We freed ourselves, and put those who had been our captors in chains.” “Well done,” said I, “Thurnock.” “We put them in the hold of the Rhoda,” grinned Thurnock. “In the morning doubtless they will be surprised to find themselves in chains. Their heads, too, sore from the paga, will most likely cause them some displeasure.” There was again much laughter. Marlenus, too, joined in the laughter. I was furious.
“Unchain me,” said Marlenus.
Our eyes met.
I handed the key to Sheera, who knelt beside me. She rose to her feet, to unchain the Ubar.
“No,” said Marlenus. His voice was quiet, and very hard.
Frightened Sheera stepped back. I took the key from her.
I handed the key to Thurnock.:Unchain the Ubar,” I said to him.
Thurnock hastened to unlock the manacles and heavy throat collar which bound the great Ubar.
Marlenus did not take his eyes from me. He was not pleased.
I took the key from Thurnock, and, with it, unlocked the steel which confined Rim and Arn.
I then gave the key to Arn, that he might free the men of Marlenus. The eyes of Marlenus and I met again. “Do not come to Ar,” he said. “I shall come to Ar if it pleases me,” said I.
“Bring clothing for the Ubar,” cried one of his men, as swiftly as he was released.
Another of the men of Marlenus went to the belongings of the men of Tyros, to seize garments.
“The women!” suddenly cried a man. “They flee!”
Hura and her women, and Mira, too, who had, supreptitiously, the attention of those within the stockade being distracted, been nearing the gate of the stockade, suddenly had broken into flight, like a bevy of tabuk, rushing into the darkness.
“After them!” cried Thurnock.
But scarcely had the peasant giant cried out than, from the darkness about the stockade, and toward the forest, we heard the surprised cries, and screams, of startled, unexpectedly caught females. We heard, too, the laughter of me. “Weapons ready!” cried Marlenus.
I placed my blade in its sheath.
We heard the sound of scuffling outside and more laughter.
In a moment, men, those of Marlenus’ men and mine, who had been chained in the forest, appeared at the gate of the stockade. Several held, by the arms, or hair, a stripped, squirming panther girl.
The girls, attempting to escape, had run into their arms.
The men threw their catches, terrified, before the fire. There they huddled, kneeling, holding one another.
“Bind them hand and foot,” I told my men.
They leaped to secure the now-unresisting panther women.
Cara slipped past me to plunge herself, in her sweetness, weeping into the arms of Rim, who crushed her to him.
“I love you, Rim!” she cried.
“I, too, love you,” he cried.
Cara had carried the tools I had stolen from the Rhoda, a heavy hammer and a chisel, into the forest. She had followed the backtrail of the men of Tyros. She had, in a matter of Ahn, found the place where Sarus had left several men of Marlenus, and some of my men, chained. At that point she had, too, encountered Vinca, the two paga slaves, Ilene, and my own slave chain of panther women. Vinca and her cohorts had built fires about the men, protecting them from animals, and had been feeding them and bringing them water. With the hammer and chisel, and rocks, Vinca and the paga slaves, perhaps aided by Cara, would have managed to break or open the hand chains of one of the men of Marlenus, or one of my men. Then he, with his man’s strength, could strike away other chains, and free his fellows. It would have takes Ahns, but once a single man was freed and the tools lay ready, it was but a matter of time until all were freed. As soon as the men of Marlenus, sixty-seven of them, and the balance of my men, eight, had been freed, they had trekked to the beach followed by the women, with the slave chain. As they had come they had broken themselves clubs. They had come prepared, though naked, to make war, though it be with but the branches of trees and stones of the forest. About the wrists of many, though separated, still clung iron manacles; about the throats of many, too, still clung collars of iron, some with dangling, broken lengths of chain.
Their leader lifted his arm to Marlenus, in the salute of Ar.
Marlenus returned the gesture.
Cara, in Rim’s arms, looked at me, and then looked quickly away. She had wished to carry the tools into the forest, but in her own way, free. I had instead, however, tied them about her neck, and bound her wrists securely behind her body. She would, accordingly, if she did not find Vinca and the chained men, perish in the forest. I had given her no choice but, if she would live, to deliver the tools.