"Indeed," I said, "she is a singularly fortunate young person. What else do you think she will inherit from you?"
"I have nothing," he said proudly, "but what you see."
"Shall you leave her your maggots?"
For the first time, now, he caught my irony. He frowned, lost for an answer.
I grew impatient with him. "Well, Sir Hermit, what's your answer?"
"You jest with me," he said. "I cannot believe…"
"I think it is time you received your reward," I told him, and I drew my sword. "It is not just that you should wait any longer."
The girl gasped. She ran forward, guessing my intention. I pushed her back with my free hand, shouting out for Sedenko's assistance. I advanced upon the hermit.
Sedenko appeared beside me, grinning. Plainly, he approved of my intention. He seized the girl in both arms and bore her from the cave as I raised my blade.
"Go with my friend, girl. There is no need for you to witness this."
"Kill me, too," she said.
"That would be unseemly," said I. "Should you die, too, it would be a veritable surfeit of sacrifice. I doubt if God Himself could contemplate so much at once. But if you wish to sacrifice something, do not make it your soul. I am sure that Sedenko here can think of some pleasurable alternative."
She had begun to sob as I turned my back on them and looked down on the holy man. He showed no fear.
He said: "You must do what you have to, brother. It is God's work."
"What?" I said. "Shall you and I take no responsibility at all for your murder?"
"It is God's work," he repeated.
I smiled. "Lucifer's my Master." I found his heart with my steel and began to push slowly. "And I suspect that He is yours, also."
The hermit died with only the smallest groan. I walked out of the cave. Sedenko was already carrying the girl down. He was grinning at her and saying something in his own language.
That night, while I tried to sleep, Sedenko took his pleasure with the girl. She became noisy at one point, but then grew quiet. In the morning she was gone.
"I think she will try to get to Ammendorf," he said.
I was not in a talkative mood.
For the next few days we travelled through the mountains while Sedenko sang all his songs several times over and I contemplated the mysteries of an existence I had come increasingly to consider arbitrary at best.
Chapter IX
I HAD FALLEN into the habit of deriving a kind of joy from the irony of my position, from the paradoxes and contrasts of my Quest. It led me to contemplate the most horrible crimes which could be committed by me in the name of the Grail Search. Was I strong enough, I wondered, to commit them? What kind of self-discipline was involved in forcing oneself, against one's own nature, towards vice? My inner debates became increasingly complex and unreal, but perhaps they served to take my mind off unwelcome actualities.
A hard week saw us through the heart of the mountains. We had experienced landslides, a couple of poorly organised attacks from local brigands, two or three near-falls on the higher passes and, of course, the ordinary vicissitudes of the climate. Sedenko's spirits had not declined a jot and my own gloom had begun to lift when we halted our horses on a high promontory and looked down into what we assumed must be our destination.
All we could see was glowing, golden mist, filling the wide basin of a valley, whose cliffs were snow-capped and whose sides were almost sheer.
"There's where Philander Groot dwells, captain," said Sedenko, leaning on his pommel, "but how do we reach it?"
"We must keep looking," I said, "until we find the way in. It must surely exist, if Groot has come and gone from there."
We began, by means of a narrow trail, to descend. There would be about four hours left until twilight, when we should of necessity camp. These mountains were too dangerous for night travelling.
The first intimation we had of the valley's guardians was a whistling in the air. When we looked back and up towards the clear blue of the sky we saw two of them, sharply outlined. Then- intentions were clear. They meant to kill us.
I had never seen eagles so huge or so resplendent. Their bodies were pretty near as big as those of a small pony and their wings were, each one, about twice the length of their main bulk. They were predominantly white and gold and scarlet, with a certain amount of deep blue around the heads. The beaks shone like grey steel and were matched in appearance by their wide-stretched claws. As they came down on us, they shrieked their intention, celebrating their anticipated triumph.
Our horses began to rear and cry out. I pulled one pistol free, cocked it, aimed and fired. The ball struck the first eagle in the shoulder and it veered off silently, blood streaming from the wound. Sedenko's sabre cut at the second and caused it to stay its attack, Buttering over his head and making such a wind as to threaten to blow us down into the valley. My other pistol was produced and fired. This was a better shot, to the head. With a terrible wail the eagle tried to regain height, failed and fell heavily into the chasm. I watched its body pass through the mist and vanish. Its companion (perhaps its mate) sailed over the spot for some little while before its attention returned to us and, glaring and screaming, it resumed its attack. I had no time to reload. We had only our swords, now, for defence. The creature dived and snatched and, had not Sedenko ducked his head, the young Kazak would have been carried off for certain. As it was his sabre sliced several tail-feathers from the gigantic bird. These Sedenko grabbed from the air and brandished with a grin as a prize.
The bird came to me next. Those claws could easily impale me as readily as any pike. My horse was bucking and trying to flee and half my attention was on him, but I struck back with my sword and drew blood, though nothing worth the trouble.
The eagle was flying erratically, thanks to its wounded shoulder and lack of tail-feathers. Sedenko got in another blow which removed the better part of one claw and now the bird was weakening, though it had no thought of giving up its attack.
With every fresh dive it was driven off, having sustained another small wound or two.
And that was how we fought it. Slowly but surely we cut the great creature to pieces until all of its lower body and limbs, its neck and head, were a mass of blood and ruined feathers.
On the bird's final attack, Sedenko leapt onto his saddle and, standing on tiptoe, sliced so that a wing-joint was severed. The eagle fell to one side in the air, desperately trying to regain its balance, then smashed down into the snow which immediately became flecked with blood and feathers of white, gold and scarlet. It screamed in outrage at what we had done to it and neither of us had the stomach to watch it die or the courage to descend the slope and put it out of its misery. We looked at it in silence for a few minutes before sheathing our blades and riding on. Neither of us believed that we had won any kind of honourable victory.
Slowly the trail led down through the glowing, golden mist, until we could hardly see a couple of feet on any side. Again we dismounted and went with considerable caution, until night fell and we were forced to find a relatively flat stretch of ground where we might tether our horses and camp until morning.
Before he slept, Sedenko said: "Those birds were supernatural creatures, eh, captain?"
"I have never heard of natural creatures like them," I said. "I am certain of that, Sedenko."