After a long while it seemed to Morgain that her lungs could again draw breath enough to stop the pounding ache in her chest. Groping about the floor of the passage where she sprawled, the girl at length caught up a sharp-edged chunk of flint. Clumsily sawing the fist-sized flint shard against the leather thongs, Morgain was soon able to free her wrists from their bonds.
Again agony needled through her hands, as full circulation was at last restored. The girl’s body was one vast ache, so that the Iancinations of her hands only drew a dispirited curse.
The fact that she was utterly lost was so obvious that it did not greatly concern her-no more than the survivor of a shipwreck is concerned that he has gotten wet, or that the beach he swims toward with his last strength might be the country of his enemies.
It did seem strange to Morgain upon reflection, that so far she had encountered none of the serpent-folk in her blind flight. Perhaps it was day in the world above, she mused, and the Children of the Night remained nocturnal in their habits even in their realm of perpetual night. Then again, she might have blundered into some disused section of these limitless caverns and passages. She was certain she had stumbled past any number of branchings and turnings in her panic-stricken rush.
There was another reason for these caverns to be so little frequented by the serpent-folk, as Morgain might soon learn.
Anything was better than hanging helplessly in that awful cage, or so Morgain believed. Retaining the shard of flint until some better weapon presented, she again set out through the darkness. An upward passage must eventually return to the surface, she reasoned. There remained the matter of determining which of the unseen and labyrinthine tunnels led upward.
This last proved impossible in the darkness. Time and again Morgain wearily plodded into what proved to be a cul-de-sac, forcing her to retrace her aimless steps as best she could. Vaguely the girl realized her course must instead be taking her deeper into the burrows beneath the earth. Desperation drove her doggedly onward, although gradually fatigue, hunger and thirst began to wear away the last stores of her strength. That the Pictish woman walked at all after a flogging that would have killed most girls of Rome’s marble cities was a measure of the savage strength of her race.
Weakness relentlessly gnawed at her aching body. Her long stride became an agonized shuffle, and, for all a lifetime of running barefoot more often than shod, her stone-gouged feet left unseen patches of blood. Her hands and arms were nerveless and bruised from fending off sudden obstructions, breaking her headlong falls that now came one after another.
Her belly cramped from hunger. How long since she had eaten? At least two days, perhaps longer. The hunger pains would gradually lessen, then the weakness would come in an inexorable rush. Her Ups and throat were cracked and dry, choked with the dust of the caverns. Somewhere there must surely be a pool of water. If she kept moving. If she did not only wander in blind circles, as at times she suspected.
Something turned beneath her stumbling feet, sent her sprawling through a heap of clattering debris. Morgain lay where she fell, fighting back unconsciousness with her last dregs of strength. Three abrupt recognitions brought the girl back from the edge of oblivion.
The dull roaring in her ears was not from her waning senses; it came from an underground river somewhere in the darkness beyond.
The objects she sprawled upon were bones-a skeleton neither animal, nor so cleanly picked as she might have liked.
And closer at hand, a rattle of dry bones as something stirred toward her.
16
AN END OF GAMES
Ssrhythssaa regarded the empty cage with no discernible change in his demon’s-mask features, yet Bran Mak Morn sensed that the creature seethed with inhuman rage. The ophidian stare shifted to Ada, and the witch cringed as if from the touch of a white-hot lash.
“It is a sad proof of the degeneracy to which my race has sunk, that I am compelled to choose my chief servants from such witness fools as these,” Ssrhythssaa commented, letting them both grovel at his malignant contempt.
His own senses still in turmoil from the sorceror’s phantasmagoria of lost eons, Bran was vaguely aware that Ssrhythssaa’s anger was not over Morgain’s escape-rather that Atla’s improvident outcry had wrenched the Pictish king from the insidious spell of the mirage. For a moment Bran Mak Morn had given thought to surrendering to some damning part with the serpent-folk.
“Our races have both fallen into abject decline,” Ssrhythssaa insinuated to the Pict. “We are alike, you and I-men of a distant age, who dream to restore ancient glories from ashes and decay. We are the last of the peoples of Earth’s Dawn, Bran Mak Morn. Ancient enemies, it is true-but in this dismal age all hands are raised against us. We must put away the old hates and join together now.”
“There can be no joining together, hellspawn!” Bran growled with undiminished resolution. “Were you another of the ancient tribes of man, your reasoning would hold true. But you he when you presume we two are alike! For you are serpent and I am man, and the only alliance Pictdom shall offer the Worms of the Earth remains that of fire and sword! What matters it that every hand is raised against Pictdom? That is the way of man and of man’s wars. Against serpents a man only stamps down his heel!”
The wrath in Ssrhythssaa’s yellow eyes met the primitive rage in the Pict’s smouldering gaze. Ssrhythssaa it was who turned away from the encounter.
“It grieves me to acknowledge that you are right, Claudius Nero,” Ssrhythssaa hissed. “The Pict cannot be trusted to cooperate with us. I think there is a madness in his soul that no temptation nor threat can overcome.”
“What is your will?” Nero’s voice was exultant. “I, too, have grown tired of this Pict’s arrogance. Shall I have him to crawl for us before death?”
“Fool!” Ssrhythssaa sneered. “Bran Mak Morn must not die. I need him to lead the army of Pictdom. No other man can serve as catspaw for me.”
“But I fail to understand…” Nero began in vexation.
“You fail to understand many things, my legate! Which is why I only order you to recapture Morgain before she strays too far. You can manage that, can’t you? Her value as hostage is ended, but I think the Great Old One will not refuse her.”
A rustle of devil’s laughter as Ssrhythssaa contemplated the Pict’s helpless fury. “Atla, you will remain with me. There may be some minor piece of assistance you can render me.
“As for you, Bran Mak Morn-you will see that not all of our ancient powers of elder sorcery have perished. Since I cannot break your will, be certain that I shall slay your soul. The warriors of Pictdom shall follow their king-but their king shall not be the man they believe to be Bran Mak Morn!”
“There is no sorcery foul enough to enslave Bran Mak Morn to the will of the Worms of the Earth!” the Pict roared his defiance. “Before you kill my soul, hellspawn, my body shall be mutilated carrion, and my ghost shall curse you in hell!”
Atla’s voice was sharp with an edge that puzzled Bran. “Remember Titus Sulla, Wolf of the Heather!” The words were as a taunt, but there was strange pleading in her eyes. “I’m not a soft Roman coward to shrink in mewling madness from the visions of hell!” Bran swore fiercely.