The men made way for him a bit uneasily. Priests are respected on Mars, but not exactly loved. Few even of the devout feel comfortable in their presence. Perhaps they stand too close to the eternal mysteries of creation and judgment and doom, and the gates of life and death, for ordinary men to enjoy their company.
“The Death of the Slow Fire, lord Prince,” the old priest said in a thin, quavering sing-song voice. And his rheumy, lusterless eyes brightened as he said this.
The men stood silent, glancing at each other. It was a slow, agonizing death the priest had named. The green, flaming chemical that lights the demon-frighting lamps falls drop by searing drop upon the writhing naked body of the condemned. These were rough, hard men, and they loathed Valarda’s kind with an ancient loathing. But more than a few turned pale or looked away.
Houm, however, smiled and licked his thick lips.
And then the world changed with a crash.
From nowhere a needle of incandescence flared. It sizzled before the very booted toes of Prince Zarouk, searing a black, smoking line between the desert chieftain and his captives. Almost before the fire-needle vanished, a voice from above rang out, hard and sharp as the crack of a whip.
“Nobody moves!”
A hundred eyes searched the upper works of the citadel and found him on the ledge.
Ryker with his guns out and ready, and the deadly fury of hell naked in his cold, ice-colored eyes.
They put a league of dust-desert between them and the dead city before Ryker dared let them slow their stride.
The lopers they had taken were their own, but were well rested from Houm’s delay in the city, where he had evidently arrived earlier than convenient for Zarouk to meet him at their prearranged rendezvous. There were doubtless faster slidars to be found among the caravan beasts, but they were accustomed to these brutes.
They had ridden fast and hard and almost without words, not even words of thanks for the rescue Ryker had so brilliantly pulled off. But as they had mounted into the saddles back there in the courtyard, ringed about by silent men with eyes that spoke their hatred for them, Valarda had lifted her golden eyes to those of the Earthling for one long, searching look. Tears glistened in her silky lashes, and her soft red mouth had been tender, vulnerable, trembling with emotion.
He had grinned, saying nothing. Sometimes words can be unspoken, and yet heard clearly, and maybe this was one of those times.
For a bit of extra life insurance, Ryker suggested they lake the long-legged desert prince with them, and also his pet priest, whose name turned out to be Dmu Dran. These two he had commanded bound with the same leathern thongs as had bound the wrists of the girl, the boy, and the old man.
The boy Kiki did the tying. And he did it with a vengeance, pulling the tough thongs tight and tighter still, even as Zarouk’s henchmen had pulled them tight.
The old priest, sunk in apathy, his withered mask of a face dull eyed and vacant, did not wince—perhaps the lad had gone easy on his bonds. But Kiki had tied the desert prince tight indeed. Zarouk had not winced, either, and the tight-lipped silence and the curious dignity—even a sort of majesty—with which the maurauder accepted this sudden and unexpected reversal of fate won him Ryker’s grudging but unspoken respect.
But if his tongue was silent, his eyes were eloquent and spoke volumes. They burned with hellfire, those amber eyes, and were as quick and alert and deadly as a snake’s.
This is a bad man to have for your enemy, thought Ryker to himself, sourly, cursing the day he had ever gotten himself mixed up in this stinking mess. But if he hadn’t, he would never have found Valarda … never have seen her dance … never have gazed deep into those unforgettable eyes of fluid gold ….
Still, Zarouk would make a deadly foe, he knew. The man was all fire and pride and ambition, stretched tight as a trigger and thirsty for blood. An unsettling, explosive amalgam of religious fanatic and something of the megalomaniac, he decided. Ryker didn’t know just how he knew it, but he hadn’t kept alive this long without being able to read men at a glance.
And he was seldom wrong. Not about men like Zarouk.
This was the sort of man who would follow you across the wide world, if you earned his hate. He would track you to the very doorstep of hell, to have his revenge.
So maybe it was best to have him at your side, Ryker had decided. Then, if his men break their sworn oath, and follow, or lay ambush, or attack, you can at least have the pleasure of taking him down to hell with you, with a yard of sword steel through his guts before you get the same through yours.
He hadn’t thought to bring Houm along as well. He judged that the shrewd, greedy little merchant could be tempted and hired to flirt with danger for gold, but probably didn’t give a damn for vengeance or religion or much of anything else, except perhaps the fat, giggling boy he kept as a pet.
And there is where Ryker made the worst mistake of his life.
They got a league and a little more into the northern parts of the Merope before the lopers died beneath them. They had been given a slow-acting poison, probably the night before. Maybe Houm figured that Ryker might have his wind up, and would spook easy, or be wary enough to try to make a break for freedom during the night. Or maybe one of his men had fed the poisoned food to the slidars when it became obvious, back in the courtyard, what his plans were.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were afoot now in the Dustlands and would have to walk all the way to wherever it was they were going, with a hundred desert warriors behind them, armed and mounted and hungry for revenge.
So they started walking. There wasn’t anything else to do.
10. The Betrayal
They trudged through the Dustlands of the northern Merope all the rest of that day, putting as much distance between themselves and Zarouk’s desert hawks as could humanly be done.
It was hard going.
The dust was as fine and as soft as talcum powder, and in the light gravity of this world, where an Earthling weighs about one third what he would weigh back home, they raised the dust with every step. It clung to their robes, their furs, it coated their faces and worked its way into eyes and nostrils and the inside of their mouths. And there was nothing they could do about it but endure it.
The desert dust was so soft that men sank to their ankles in it, and, after a time, walking became sheer torture. It was like wading through foot-deep molasses. Every step of the way, the dust dragged against the pull of your muscles, until they ached as if hot needles were thrust into them.
There was no cure for this discomfort, either.
When after a time the old man, Melandron, fell to his knees and could go no further, Ryker knew that he had assumed the leadership of this unlucky expedition, and that from here on all of the hard decisions were up to him.
The old man feebly begged them to leave him and go on without him. Valarda said nothing; she bit her lip and veiled her gold eyes behind shadowy lashes. The boy Kiki was downcast and silent. His mischievous pranks and merry jests were a thing of the past now, for even his youthful ebullience and supple strength were worn and wearied.
Ryker gruffly bade the old man be silent, ignored his weak struggles, and picked him up in his arms. A flicker came and went swiftly in the eyes of Zarouk. Almost too swiftly for notice, the desert prince resumed his imperturbable, bland expression. But Ryker had seen that flicker, and realized that if he must carry Melandron his hands would not be free to go for his guns, if go for them he must.