"I have been waiting for you," he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five: THE ROOF OF THE PALACE
The war cries of Tharna and Ko-ro-ba mingled as Thorn hurled himself down the stairs toward me and I raced toward him. Both of us cast our spears at the same instant and the two weapons passed one another like tawny blurs of lightning. Both of us had in casting our weapon inclined our shields in such a way as to lessen the impact of a direct hit. Both of us cast well and the jolt of the massive missile thundering on my shield spun me half about.
The bronze head of the spear had cut through the brass loops on the shield and pierced the seven hardened concentric layers of bosk hide which formed it. The shield, so encumbered, was useless. Hardly had my shield been penetrated when my sword leaped from its sheath and slashed through the shoulder straps of the shield, cutting it from my arm.
Only an instant after myself Thorn" s shield too was flung to the stones of the chamber floor. My spear had been driven a yard through it and the head had passed over his left shoulder as he crouched behind it.
His sword too was free of its sheath and we rushed on one another like larls in the Voltai, our weapons meeting with a sharp, free clash of sound, the trembling brilliant ring of well-tempered blades, each tone ringing in the clear, glittering music of swordplay.
Seemingly almost impassive, the golden-robed figure on the throne watched the two warriors moving backward and forward before her, one clad in the blue helmet and grey tunic of Tharna, the other in the universal scarlet of the Gorean Caste of Warriors.
Our reflections fought one another in the shimmering surface of the great golden mask behind the throne.
Our wild shadows like misformed giants locked in combat against the lofty walls of the torchlit chamber.
Then there was but one reflection and but one gigantic, grotesque shadow cast upon the walls of the Chamber of the Golden Mask.
Thorn lay at my feet.
I kicked the sword from the hand and turned over the body with my foot. Its chest shook under the stained tunic; its mouth bit at the air as if trying to catch it as it escaped its throat. The head rolled sideways on the stones.
"You fought well," I said.
"I have won," he said, the words spit out in a sort of whisper, a contorted grin on his face.
I wondered what he might mean.
I stepped back from the body and looked to the woman upon the throne. Slowly, numbly, she descended the throne, step by step, and then to my amazement she fell to her knees beside Thorn and lowered her head to his bloody chest weeping.
I wiped the blade on my tunic and replaced it in the sheath.
"I am sorry," I said.
The figure seemed not to hear me.
I stepped back, to leave her with her grief. I could hear the sounds of approaching men in the corridors. It was the soldiers and rebels, and the halls of the palace echoed the anthem of the ploughing song.
The girl lifted her head and the golden mask faced me.
I had not known that a woman such as Dorna the Proud could have cared for a man.
The voice, for the first time, spoke through the mask.
"Thorn," she said, "has defeated you."
"I think not," I said, wondering, "and you Dorna the Proud are now my prisoner."
A mirthless laugh sounded through the mask and the hands in their gloves of gold took the mask and, to my astonishment, removed it.
At the side of Thorn knelt not Dorna the Proud, but the girl Vera of Ko-ro-ba, who had been his slave.
"You see," she said, "my master has defeated you, as he knew he could, not by the sword but by the purchase of time. Dorna the Proud has made good her eascape."
"Why have you done this!" I challenged. She smiled. "Thorn was kind to me," she said.
"You are now free," I said.
Once again her head fell to the stained chest of the Captain of Tharna and her body shook with sobs.
At that moment into the room burst the soldiers and rebels, Kron and Lara in the lead.
I pointed to the girl on the floor. "Do not harm her!" I commanded. "This is not Dorna the Proud but Vera of Ko-ro- ba, who was the slave of Thorn." "Where is Dorna?" demanded Kron.
"Escaped," I said glumly.
Lara looked at me. "But the palace is surrounded," she said.
"The roof!" I cried, remembering the tarns. "Quick!"
Lara raced ahead of me and I followed as she led the way to the roof of the palace. Through the darkened hallways she sped with the familiarity of long acquaintance. At last we reached a spiral stairwell.
"Here!" she cried.
I thrust her behind me and, my hand on the wall, climbed the dark stairs as rapidly as I could. At the top of the stairs I pressed against a trap and flung it open. Outside I could see the bright blue rectangle of the open sky. The light blinded me for a moment.
I caught the scent of a large furred animal and the odour of tarn spoor. I emerged onto the roof, my eyes half shut against the intense light. There were three men on the roof, two guardsmen and the man with the wrist straps, who had served as the master of the dungeons of Tharna. He held, leashed, the large, sleek white urt which I had encountered in the pit inside the palace door.
The two guardsmen were fixing a carrying basket to the harness of a large brown-plumaged tarn. The reins of the tarn were fixed to a ring in the front of the basket. Inside the basket was a woman whose carriage and figure I knew to be that of Dorna the Proud, though she now wore only a simple silver mask of Tharna.
"Stop!" I cried, rushing forward.
"Kill!" cried the man in wrist straps, pointing the whip in my direction, and unleashing the urt, which charged viciously toward me.
Its ratlike scamper was incomprehensibly swift and almost before I could set myself for its charge it had crossed the cylinder roof in two or three bounds and pounced to seize me in its bared fangs.
My blade enetered the roof of its mouth pushing its head up and away from my throat. The squeal must have carried to the walls of Tharna. Its neck twisted and the blade was wrenched from my grasp. My arms encircled its neck and my face was pressed into its glossy white fur. The blade was shaken from its mouth and clattered on the roof. I clung to the neck to avoid the snapping jaws, those three rows of sharp, frenzied white lacerating teeth that sought to bury themselves in my flesh.
It rolled on the roof trying to tear me from its neck; it leaped and bounded, and twisted and shook itself. The man with wrist straps had picked up the sword and with this, and his whip, circled us, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
I tried to turn the animal as well as I could to keep its scrambling body between myself and the man with wrist straps. Blood from the animal" s mouth ran down its fur and my arm. I could feel it splattered on the side of my face and in my hair.
Then I turned so that it was my body that was exposed to the blow of the sword carried by the man in wrist straps. I heard his grunt of satisfaction as he rushed forward. An instant before I knew the blade must fall I released my grip on the animal" s neck and slipped under its belly. It reached for me with a whiplike motion of its furred neck and I felt the long sharp white teeth rake my arm but at the same time I heard another squeal of pain and the grunt of horror from the man in wrist straps. I rolled from under the animal and turned to see it facing the man with wrist straps. One ear had been slashed away from its head and the fur on its left side was soaked with spurting blood. It now had its eyes fixed on the man with the sword, he who had struck this new blow.
I heard his terrified command, the feeble cracking of that whip held in an arm almost paralysed with fear, his abrupt almost noiseless scream. The urt was over him, its haunches high, its shoulders almost level with the roof, gnawing.