The Reavers of Skaith-Volume III of The Book of Skaith Read online

  Gelmar, Chief Wandsman of Skeg, looked at him with a dark glitter in his eyes. "I am grateful, my lord. I shall make thank-offerings to all the gods that the man Stark is taken." He paused, and then added with savage anger, "It does not change the fact that it was my task to take him, and I failed."

  "We all failed, Gelmar. Remember that it was by my order that Simon Ashton was made captive and brought to me at the Citadel. But for that, Stark would never have come to Skaith to find him; there would have been no prophecy of Irnan; there probably would have been no revolt; and the Citadel would not have been destroyed." Ferdias dropped a hand on Gelmar's arm. "It is over now. Even these last ships will soon be gone. Nothing has occurred that cannot be undone. We must begin to think now of rebuilding."

  Gelmar nodded. "True, my lord. But I will not be satisfied until I know that Stark is dead."

  3

  N'Chaka was in a cage.

  Cliffs rose up on either side of the narrow valley, stretching into black pinnacles that pierced the sky. The green place where the water bubbled was close by. His mouth was parched and his tongue a dry twig.

  He could see the dark bodies on the green. The fresh red brightness of blood was turning black and ugly. Old One was dead, with all his tribe. The hammering echoes of killing still rang in N'Chaka's ears.

  He howled and tore at the bars in rage and grief.

  Someone spoke. "N'Chaka."

  Man-Without-a-Tribe. His name. He had another one, he thought, but that was his true name.

  "N'Chaka."

  Father voice. Not Old One father. Simon father.

  N'Chaka held the bars and remained still. His eyes were open, but darkness still poured across them, flickering with terrible pictures that were of a glaring brilliance. Heat and hairy corpses, the smell of blood on furnace air, snouted muzzles hideously smiling, He thought, But my people never smiled.

  "Eric," said the father voice. "Eric John Stark. Look at me."

  He tried. He could see nothing but the flickering of dark-bright images.

  "Eric. N'Chaka. See."

  Slowly, far away at the end of a long, hollow blackness, something took form. It began to come closer. It rushed toward N'Chaka, or perhaps he fell toward it, with a cold tearing sound that was felt rather than heard, or heard with the raw nerves rather than the ears. The darkness fell away, hissing like baffled surf, and Simon Ashton was there on the other side of the bars.

  N'Chaka shivered. The images had gone. He no longer saw the valley, the bubbling spring, the scattered bodies of his foster-folk. The men with the sharp things had gone, too; they were no longer tormenting him. But the bars had not gone. "Take them," he said.

  Simon Ashton shook his head. "I can't, Eric. I did before, but that was a long time ago. You've been drugged. Be patient. Wait till it clears."

  N'Chaka fought the bars for a little while. Then he was quiet. And gradually he saw that Simon Ashton was bound, hand and foot, to a simple metal framework in the shape of an X, suspended by a rope from the limb of a tall tree, and that he was quite naked. So was the tree, devoid of leaves and bark, the exposed wood smooth and white as bone. The end of the rope was belayed around the trunk.

  Stark did not understand, but he sensed that understanding would come if he waited. Ashton's framework swung slowly in the breeze, so that sometimes he was facing Stark and sometimes he was not.

  Beyond the tree stretched a great emptiness, a blasted heath set with clumps of twisted thorn and here and there a flayed trunk with skeletal branches, and in between them a coarse growth of stunted grass starred with little flowers. The flowers were white with round, dark centers. They resembled watching eyes, countless thousands of eyes, peering from side to side as the breeze moved them.

  It was late. Old Sun hung low in the west and the shadows were long.

  Stark turned and looked the other way.

  A ship stood on the level plain, a tall needle shape raking the sky. Stark knew that ship.

  Arkeshti.

  Penkawr-Che.

  The last of the drug-mist lifted from Stark's mind.

  Just so had Arkeshti stood before Irnan.

  The blow had fallen so swiftly out of the dim sky. One moment all was well; and in the next moment—a shattering thunderbolt of sound and flame and fountaining dust—Arkeshti landed and the full extent of Penkawr-Che's betrayal became known.

  Stark had remained at Irnan, of his own choice, to help protect the city against any threats from the Wandsmen that might arise before the Galactic Union representatives came. Faced with Arkeshti and her three armed hoppers, there had been nothing he could do. His own planet-hopper, obtained from Penkawr-Che when they were allies at the rescue of Irnan, and identical with the other three, possessed a laser cannon, powerful armament against the primitive weaponry of a planet long lost to the uses of advanced technology but worthless against adversaries such as these. Arkeshti's impervious skin would shed the beam of the light cannon as it shed dust, and he could not hope to shoot down three skilled pilots before he himself was downed.

  Even if he had wished to try, he had the hostages to think of.

  There was Ashton. There was Jerann and the rest of Irnan's council of elders, and two of Alderyk's winged Fallarin, who had chosen to go to Pax as observers, all in Penkawr-Che's hands.

  Only the radio in Stark's hopper had been used, to relay messages back and forth between the ship and the acting council of Irnan. For most of the time, the hostages had been held in full view of the city, in the open, under threat of death. Ashton had been with them, to ensure Stark's cooperation; Penkawr-Che had learned all he needed to know about that relationship.

  Penkawr-Che also knew the exact sum that remained in Irnan's coffers.

  Irnan paid. And part of the ransom demanded was Stark himself.

  He had done his best to bargain for Ashton's freedom, but to no avail. Irnan's mood of savage anger and despair had given him no help.

  He did not blame them. The Irnanese had endured months of siege by the mercenary troops of the Wandsmen. They had endured starvation and pestilence and the destruction of their rich valley. They had endured because they had hope—hope that all the suffering would lead to a better life on a new world, free of the oppressive rule of the Wandsmen and the burden of their army of Farer dependents, which grew larger with each generation. Now that hope was gone, shattered in a few brief moments by the treachery of an off-worlder. It would not come again in their lifetime. Perhaps it would never come again.

  Meglin, who had headed the acting council in Jerann's absence, had looked at Stark bleakly and said, "The Wandsmen will come back now, and the Farers, and we shall be punished. Whether or not it was a crime, we were foolish indeed to put our trust in off-world men and foreign ways. We will have no more of them here." She had nodded toward the ship. "They are your people. Go."

  He went. There was nothing else to do. Penkawr-Che had made it clear to him what would happen if he attempted to escape. Since not only Ashton but the elders were involved, the people of Irnan were making sure that he did not.

  He had walked out alone to the starship. The Northhounds were of no use to him now. His comrades were of no use. He left them behind, all those who had come south with him to help raise the siege of Irnan: the boy Tuchvar, with the hounds; the company of Hooded Men from the northern deserts; the dark-winged, dark-furred Fallarin, brothers to the wind, who had stripped themselves of their golden torques and girdles to pay the ransom for their fellows. He left Irnan behind. It was like walking away from the corpse of someone who has been for a time vitally important in one's life, and who has suddenly died. He also left behind the wise woman Gerrith, and that was like leaving a part of himself. They had had so little time to talk. "You must not be here when the Wandsmen come," he told her, because that thought was most urgent in his mind. "They'll do to you as they did to your mother."

  Halk, the tall swordsman who had fought beside them both across half of Skaith, said cruelly, "We can al
l find safety somewhere, Dark Man, so don't concern yourself with us. Worry about yourself. You know your people better than I do, but I think Penkawr-Che means you no good."

  Gerrith touched him, once, with the tips of her fingers. "I'm sorry, Stark. I did not foresee. If I had only been able to give you warning—"

  "It would have made no difference," Stark said. "He has Ashton."

  And they had parted, without even a moment alone to say goodbye.

  Stark had passed the hostage elders, who looked at him with cold, stunned hatred—not because he himself had committed any wrong, but because they had built such hopes upon him, the Dark Man of the prophecy, who would bring them freedom. Only old Jerann spoke to him.

  "We set our feet on this road together," he said. "It has been an ill road for both of us."

  Stark had not answered him. He walked on to where Ashton stood between his guards, and they entered the ship together.

  That had been . . . when? He could not remember. He looked again at Ashton, hanged man on a dangling frame.

  "How long?"

  "You were taken yesterday."

  "Where are we? How far from Irnan?"

  "Very far. West and south. Too far to think of going back, even if you were free. Your friends will all be gone from there before another sun."

  "Yes," said Stark, and wondered if the chance would ever come to him to kill Penkawr-Che.

  The cage was not tall enough to allow Stark to stand up. He went round it on all fours, as naked as Ashton. He had nothing he could use as a weapon, not so much as a pebble. The cage had no door. He had been put into it drugged, and the remaining bars had been welded in place afterward. He tested each bar in turn. They seemed stout enough to hold him. He fought down a surge of claustrophobia and spoke once more to Ashton.

  "I remember Penkawr-Che questioning me, and I remember the needles. Did I tell him what he wanted to know?"

  "You told him. But you told him in your natal tongue. He made me translate for him—only the hairy abos hadn't any words to express the things he wanted to know. So he decided that drugging you was a waste of time."

  "I see," said Stark. "He's going to use you, instead. Has he hurt you?"

  "Not yet."

  Two hoppers came drumming in on their sturdy rotors and settled down by the ship, near two others that must have come in earlier. Men got out and began unloading cylindrical packages wrapped in coarse fiber: tlun, a mind-expanding drug, immensely valuable in foreign markets.

  "They've begun raiding into the jungle," Ashton said. "The day seems to have been profitable."

  Stark was thinking of other things. "At least we have another chance."

  Ashton's metal frame revolved at the end of the rope. "I don't think he's going to let us live, in any case. If, by some remote and impossible chance, one of us should get back to civilization, it would mean the end of him."

  "I know," said Stark. "It wasn't love of the Children of Skaith-Our-Mother that kept me from talking."

  He tested the bars again.

  A yellow bird had appeared, walking through the coarse grass. The eye-flowers watched it. It came and stood beneath the tree where Ashton hung. It looked up at him, moving its head back and forth as the frame moved. It was a largish bird, about two feet high, with very strong legs. It appeared to be flightless. Presently it began to climb the trunk of the tree, striking its claws into the dead wood with a clearly audible clicking.

  Both men watched it. It climbed steadily to the branch from which Ashton was suspended. It walked out along the branch to a position above Ashton's head and stood peering earnestly down at him. Its beak was black, polished and shiny, and sharply curved and pointed.

  Ashton's head was bent back. He stared upward, at the bird.

  It gave a happy gurgling cry and dropped from the branch.

  Stark and Ashton both shouted at the same instant Ashton made a convulsive movement that set the frame swinging. The bird clutched at him, missed its grip, and continued to drop, thrashing its small wings and squawking angrily. It struck the ground with a thump and sat there.

  Ashton looked at the red lines where the claws had raked him. Stark was concentrating with single-minded purpose on one of the bars, trying to force it.

  The bird picked itself up, settled its feathers, and began once more to climb the trunk of the tree.

  Someone threw a stone at it. It squawked again and jumped away into the grass, where it scuttled off. Penkawr-Che walked up and stood, smiling, between Ashton and the cage.

  4

  The Antarean was tall, and he moved with a jaunty, loose-limbed stride like a lion carelessly at ease. His skin was a clear golden color, drawn smoothly over strong, high-arching bones. His eyes were a darker gold, and the pupils were slitted. His close-curled hair was like a cap, snug against his broad skull. He wore a very rich tunic of smoke-gray silken stuff over tight black trousers. In his right hand he carried a whip with a long, thin lash. At the end of the lash, jingling lightly together, were several small metallic objects like the jointed tails of scorpions.

  "In spite of its unpleasant appearance," said Penkawr-Che, "this upland does support something of a population. The tenacity of life is always amazing. One wonders. What does the yellow bird live on, apart from odd finds like Ashton? Why does it want to live at all, in these surroundings? I can't tell you. But it will be back, probably with its mate. In the meantime, you two have other problems."

  He looked from Stark to Ashton, and back again to Stark.

  "You will answer my questions this time, unless for some reason you are more attached to the Children of Skaith, who tried to kill you, than you are to this man, who fostered you."

  Almost without looking, he flicked the scorpion-tail lash of the whip at Ashton's body. There came a short sharp cry, quickly silenced.

  "Ashton is more communicative than you are under drugs. I already know enough from him to find the Witchfires, since he actually saw them when he was a prisoner in the north. But he was never inside the House of the Mother and so was only able to repeat to me what you had told him. Now, is it true that this vast complex of caverns under the Witchfires is a storehouse for artifacts from the past of this planet?"

  "That is true," said Stark. "The Children have a passion for history. I suppose it has kept them from going completely mad since they left the outer world behind them." He looked at Penkawr-Che through the bars, then at Ashton's bleeding body pendant from the tree. "You could fill the holds of three ships, and three again, with the things in those caverns; and each piece would be worth a fortune in the collectors' market."

  "So I thought," said Penkawr-Che. "Describe to me the entrance to the caverns from the pass of the Witchfires, and the defenses there. Describe the North Gate, by which you escaped. Tell me how many men this Kell à Marg, Skaith-Daughter, can set against me, how they're armed, what kind of fighters they are."

  Stark said, "Something for nothing is no bargain, Penkawr-Che. And I don't talk well in cages."

  Again the lash flicked out.

  "Do you wish to torture Ashton, or do you wish to get the information?" Stark asked.

  Penkawr-Che considered, drawing the long, thin lash through his fingers. "Supposing I let you out of the cage. What then?"

  "Ashton comes down from there."

  "Then what?"

  "Let us go that far," said Stark, "and then see."

  Penkawr-Che laughed. He clapped his hands. Four men emerged from the litter of the semi-camp which had sprouted overnight beside the base of the ship. At Penkawr-Che's order, they tailed onto the rope and lowered Ashton to the ground, unbinding him and helping him to stand.

  "There is half your bargain," said Penkawr-Che.

  Each of the four men had a stunner bolstered at his belt. Two of them, in addition, carried long-range weapons slung across their backs.

  Old Sun slid wearily toward the horizon. Shadows flowed together across the heath.

  Stark shrugged. "The northern gate ope
ns onto the Plain of Worldheart. There is a guardroom immediately inside, and beyond that a corridor protected by slabs of stone which can be let down to form a series of barriers. The gate itself is a slab of stone which moves on pivots. You might search for a hundred years along that face of the Witchfires and never find it." He smiled at Penkawr-Che. "There is a third of your bargain."

  Penkawr-Che said, "Continue."

  "Not till I'm free of these bars."

  The lash flicked. Ashton's eyes filled with tears, but he did not cry out.

  Stark said brutally, "Flay him if you will. Until I'm free of this cage, you get nothing more."

  In a stiff, flat voice Ashton said, "If you push him too far, Penkawr-Che, you will get nothing at any time. He reverts easily."

  Penkawr-Che studied Stark. He saw a man, big and dark and powerful, scarred with old battles. A mercenary, with a life spent in the small primitive wars of small peoples on remote worlds. A dangerous man. This, Penkawr-Che knew and understood. But there was something about the eyes, disconcertingly light and clear. They had a kind of blaze in them, something at once innocent and deadly—a beast's eyes, startling to see in a human face.

  Ashton added, "He cannot endure being caged."

  Penkawr-Che spoke to one of the men, who went away and presently returned with a cutting torch. Removing one bar, he created a gap through which Stark might leave the cage but not in any swift dramatic leap. As he levered himself out, the men stood with their stunners in their hands, watching.

  "Very well," said Penkawr-Che. "Now you are free."

  Stark drew a long breath and shivered slightly, as an animal twitches its skin. He stood straight beside the cage.

  "In the pass of the Witchfires," he said, "just below the crest, there is a rock formation called the Leaning Man. A gateway into the caverns lies close beneath him. It, too, is a pivoted slab of stone. Inside is a large cavern where the Harsenyi nomads come to trade with the Children. A second door leads into the House of the Mother. Beyond this door is a long corridor, guarded by barriers as the North Gate is guarded, but by more of them—and stronger. No invader has ever breached those defenses."