So they drew lots for the post of lookout, and the rest went back to the shelter of the cave. Kincar, having the first watch, amused himself with the laying out of an ambush plan, such as Regen might have done. This was a proper place for such armed as they were with the bows. For man-to-man combat after the old fashion it would not have served so well. Here on the ledge one could stand and pick off all lead men in a first surprise, leaving any force below without an officer to rally about.

The snow deadened sound, and a cortege came into view with a sudden appearance, which shamed Kincar out of his notion of himself as a seasoned warrior. His warning hiss brought out the others to creep across the ledge.

Kincar, used to traders' caravans with their lumbering goods wains, or the quick trot of mounted warriors, watched the present party amazed. There were men mounted on larngs to be sure, Gorthians-though there were differences in arms and clothing to be observed. Yet behind that first clot of riders came something else. Two burden larngs clumped along about ten feet apart, and linking the first to the second was a chain of metal. From this issued at s.p.a.ced intervals-in pairs-other chains, smaller. And each of those- there were four pair of them-ended in collars, the collars clamped about the throats of stumbling, reeling, moaning figures.

A second pair of larngs so linked, towing more prisoners, came into view. One of the captives fell, was dragged along the ground. A rider trotted up, and a whip swung with the intention of maximum pain to the fallen. But, in spite of the blows rained upon him, the fallen one did not stir. There was a shout, and the larngs halted while the riders held a conference.

"Who are those?" Lord Frans demanded hotly of Ospik.

The mountain dweller regarded them slyly from the corners of his eyes.

"Outlaws or slaves-ones who fled from the plains and are not being returned to their homes. The lucky ones die before they reach there."

The rider who had used the whip now slid from his pad and unhooked the collar of the captive. Her jerked the body aside, then kicked, and the limp form rolled into a ditch.

There was no need for spoken agreement, for any order, among the four on the ledge. Bow strings came back in unison, tw.a.n.ged as four hands reached for the second arrow, eyes already on a new mark.

A scream, a hoa.r.s.e, startled cry, the clash of metal against metal as a sword was drawn. But four of the slave guards were down, and one of the chained captives had seized upon the whip, using its stout b.u.t.t to twist at his prisoning bonds.

It was a slaughter rather than a battle. And the archers proved the worth of their weapons over and over again, shooting larngs so that the riders could not flee. Ospik leaned perilously close to the rim of the ledge watching the deaths below with glistening, hungry eyes.

Twice the guards turned on their captives to kill. And both times they died before their blows went home. In the end only those chained to the dead burden larngs were still alive. Ospik spoke first.

"Now that was a mighty killing, Lords-a mord feeding as shall be remembered long. But it will also bring boiling out those to hunt us down in turn."

Lord Bardon shrugged. "Is there a path down from this sky perch of yours, Ospik? We needs must see what can be done for those wretches below."

"If your head is clear, you can take it!" The mountaineer dropped over the lip of the ledge, hung for a moment by his hands, and then went from one hold to another as if he were a wall insect. The others followed him, much more slowly, and with-at least on Kincar's part-some misgivings.

IX.

VOLUNTEER.

THEY CAME OUT of the brush into the open s.p.a.ce bordering the road.

"When the prisoners are loose," ordered Lord Bardon, "collect what arrows you can."

"Now that is, indeed wisdom, Lord." Ospik gave tribute. "Let the wild beasts feast here, and no one can say clearly what was the manner of these men's death."

Jonathal had plunged ahead and was prowling about among the todies of the guards, examining their belts. Now he called and held up a locking rod. But, as they all started toward the chained ones, the man who had worked vainly with whip b.u.t.t to break his way free gave a wailing cry and crouched, his eyes wild with hate. The whip lash sang out, striking Lord Frans's arm. Lord Bardon jerked his companion out of lash range.

"We should have thought. Take cover, Frans! To these we are the devils they fear the most!"

Jonathal used the lock-rod on the chain, freeing it first from the dead larngs. The half-dazed captives went into action, pulling it back between them, slipping their collar chains out of its hold. They were still paired by the collars, but they were no longer fastened between the slain animals.

For the most part they hunched in the snow, blinking stupidly, their spurt of energy exhausted in that one act, save for the whip wielder who got to his feet and faced his Gorthian rescuers with a spark of spirit. His face was swollen, with angry cuts under smears of dried blood. He might have been of any age, but he handled himself as might a trained warrior, and his head was up. Broken and bruised he was in body, perhaps, but not in spirit.

"What do you?" the words came haltingly, mumbled, as puffed and torn lips moved over broken teeth.

Jonathal wrenched a cloak from one of the dead guards and threw it around a shivering woman before he answered.

"We make you free."

The man turned his battered face so that his one open eye went from Jonathal to Kincar. Apparently all intelligence and curiosity had not been ground out of him by ill treatment. But neither was he willing or able to accept them readily as friends. Kincar gave the best proof of peaceful intentions he could think of, pulling a sword from the scabbard of the nearest guard and holding it out, hilt foremost.

That one unswollen eye widened in disbelief, and then a hand shot out, clawed about the hilt, and spun it out of Kincar's lax hold. The man panted as if he raced up the mountain.

"That is the way of it," Jonathal approved. "Get free, get a blade in your hands. And it is up swords and out at them!"

But Kincar believed that the captive did not hea'r that at all. He was too busy using the hard k.n.o.b on the sword hilt to pry at his chains. Most of the others were apathetic, and all bore such marks of ill usage, men and women alike, that Kincar fought a rising nausea as he worked at the stubborn collars. Then Jonathal chanced upon some trick of their locking, and after that they tossed them aside. A few of the released made for, the bodies of the guards, raiding for provision bags. And Kincar and Jonathal, much as they disliked the task, had to struggle with the weak creatures to see a fair sharing out of the food.

Kincar was on his knees beside a woman, trying to coax her to taste the coa.r.s.e meal bread she held in her hand and stared at with a pitiful blankness as if she could not connect it with food, when the man to whom he had given the sword came up. He now wore a guard's armor jerkin and a helmet, and he was sucking a strip of dried meat, unable to attack it with his teeth. But he carried the sword, unsheathed in his other hand. And he watched Kincar warily.

"Who are you?" he mumbled, but in that m.u.f.fled voice there was the snap of command. "Why did you do this?" The bare blade gestured at the littered road, where the dead were being stripped for the advantage of the living.

"We are those who are enemies to any rule which sets men in chains." Kincar chose his words carefully. "If you would know more, come to our leader-"

"With the point of this resting between your shoulders will I come." The blade caught the light of the rising sun.

"Well enough." Kincar pulled a robe about the woman and stood up. "My hands are open, hold captain." He gave the man the t.i.tle that seemed to match his manner.

Without looking to see if he did follow, Kincar walked to the screen of bushes were the Star Lords had taken cover. But another had sought that same way before him. As Kincar thrust aside leafless limbs, he saw Lord Bardon and Lord Frans with Ospik, who was pa.s.sing across arrows he had collected. Only, the three intent upon that reckoning were not alone there. One of the guards had survived the attack, not only survived it but had traced the source of that sudden death.

Perhaps the surprise of seeing who had led it-Star Lords-had kept him quiet at first. But now he crouched behind Lord Bardon, concentrated fury plain to read on his sleek face, a slender needle-knife ready in his hand. And Kincar, knowing very well how that murderous weapon was used by an expert, threw himself forward.

He struck the lurking guard waist high, but he did not carry him to the ground as he had planned. The fellow wriggled in his grasp, loose enough to strike down at Kincar with the knife intended for Lord Bardon's throat. Kincar's hand closed about that swooping wrist just in time, halting the blow when the point was almost into his flesh, kicking out to upset the other's balance. Fire scored down the side of his underchin; then the blade caught in the top of his scale coat and snapped. Before the jagged end of the blade could reach his eyes as the other struck, they were torn apart by a grip neither could hope to break. The hands that had pulled Kincar loose released their hold.

"He got you, boy!"

Blood dripped on Kincar's chest, trickling down over his surcoat. Then Lord Bardon's fingers under his chin forced his head up and to one side as the other a.s.sessed the damage.

"A scratch only, thanks be!" the Star Lord exploded a moment later. "We'll get a pack on that to stop bleeding and you'll live, youngling-" There was relief close to laughter in his voice. But when he spoke again, his voice was ice hard. "Put that one in storage, Frans. He can answer some useful questions. And"-engaged in pushing Kincar back against the face of the cliff so he could get at his wound, Lord Bardon sighted the ex-slave who had followed the younger man-"where did you spring from?"

"He was one of the prisoners." Kincar got out that much of an explanation before Lord Bardon's fingers, busy with a dressing, pressed him into silence.

"And he would like to see the color of our blood," suggested Lord Frans. He had trussed the guard efficiently, leaving him lying at the foot of the rise. Now he stood empty-handed facing the newcomer.

But if the man had come with swift death for his overlords in his mind, he did not move to attack now. To read any expression on his torn and battered face was impossible, but he stood watching Lord Bardon's hasty work with bandage pack, his eye flitting now and again to the cursing prisoner, his late guard. When he spoke, it was to ask the same question he had earlier made to Kincar.

"Who are you?" Then he made his bewilderment clear in a rush of words. "You wear the guise of the Black Ones, yet you have slain their loyal men, released us who are condemned slaves. Now you tend the wound of a lowlander as if he were a kinsman. And the guard, who is one of your followers, dealing death and torment at your command, lies in bonds. I ask again, who are you?"

"Let us say that we are those who have been sent to put an end to trouble in this land. Though we bear the outward seeming of your rulers, we are not of their kind. Can you believe that?"

"Lord, I have witnessed three great marvels this day. I have seen the despoiling of a slave train; I have seen men of my race and Dark Ones move with a common purpose as kinsmen, with a care for one another as true battle comrades have. And I have seen one set in rule over us laid in bonds by you. Can one who has seen such deeds as these not-believe? And now that I have looked upon you fairly, I can testify that you are not as the Dark Ones-though you wear their bodies. By Lor, Loi, and Lys-" he went to one knee and held out his sword, hilt extended to Lord Bardon-"I am your man-I who swore by the Forest Altars never to render service to any outland lord."

Lord Bardon touched the sword hilt, but he did not take it into his hand, and the other's eye shone. He was accepted by fealty and not as a bondsman, and Lord Bardon's knowledge of that ceremony impressed him still more deeply.

He was on his feet once more, the sword slammed smartly into sheath.

"I await orders, Lord-"

That reminded Lord Frans of the problem to hand. "We can't just turn these people loose on the countryside. They would die or be scooped up by another patrol."

"What about it, Ospik," Lord Bardon asked the mountaineer. "Will your chief suffer us to take such a party through the ways?"

Ospik plucked at his lower lip. "You have struck a smart blow at the 'G.o.ds,' outlander. But, suppose those are taken again, they will blat out all they know and speedily. All men talk when the 'G.o.ds' will it. We have kept our land because its secrets were not known-"

"Once they are in the valley of the hold, Ospik, I do not think they will fall prey again."

Ospik nodded. "There is that to consider. But I have not the final word; I can but be a messenger. Come you with me and speak to our chief yourself."

"And in the meantime? What if there is another body of guards along this way?" asked Lord Bardon.

"As to that-get these back into the shelter of a side gulch here. It is a place you can easily defend if the need arises, and it is out of sight."

So they brought the released prisoners, the possessions of the guards, anything that might be of use to the captives, into a small side valley Ospik showed them. Archers on the heights above might well hold that camp against a strong attack. And they remained there as Bardon went back with Ospik into the mountain ways.

The shock of the captives' sudden change in fortune was beginning to wear away, and a handful of the men bestirred themselves, under the command of the man Lord Bardon had enlisted, to shepherd the less alert of their fellows and arm themselves from the spoil of battle. Seeing that their leader appeared to have matters well in hand, the three from the hold remained aloof, save when physical help was needed. But when the temporary camp was in some sort of order, the leader came to them, saluting Lord Frans with upheld palm.

"We are at your command, Lord. Though perhaps you do well not to walk among us until those know you better for what you are. For their fear and hate for those you resemble-in outward form-runs high, and it is seldom that we have a chance to approach a Dark One within sword distance. Someone, with dulled wits and a good reason, might well attempt to try your deathlessness with metal-"

"But you do not think as do they?"

"Nay, Lord. I am Kapal, once Band-leader to free men of the wastes-until I was trapped and collar-tamed (or so they thought) by the Hands of the Dark Ones. We have fought, and hid, and fought again ever since the Dark Ones sent to enforce their rule upon the fringes of the Barren Lands. Mostly we die, our blades in hand, cut down in battle. We are very few now. When they took Quaar, they left but a handful of posts, and these can be overrun one by one, as they will do. We die, but we die free! Only"- his eye flickered from Lord Frans to the tall bow the Star man carried- "mayhap with weapons such as * these to kill silently and at good distance, men need not die so hopelessly any more."

"It may be so. We shall see-"

Kapal manifestly took that as a promise of a brighter future. "Let me out into the Barren Lands, Lord, with such a hope to voice, and I shall bring you a hundred hands of good men to ride beneath your bannerl I can be gone within the hour if you wish."

"Not so. It is not given to me to have the ordering of this matter, Kapal. And what of these?" Lord Frans pointed to the late captives. "Are any among them minded to raise blade against their late masters?"

"Perhaps they are so minded," Kapal admitted. "But most of them are broken in spirit. Two, mayhap three of them could rally to a battle call. The rest-" He shrugged. "They have worn the collar chain too long."

"So do I think also. But what if they are given a measure of safety, a stretch of land where they may rest without fear, will they sow seed and reap, hunt meat, and work thus for a community that does not ask sword service in return?"

"That they might well do, Lord. If you know of such a place- safe from the Dark Ones' raids. But then you must have come from . there!" He glanced from Lord Frans to Kincar and Jonathal. "It is plain to see that these, your guardsmen, have never known the bite of chain or whip, and yet they wear not a Hand's brand upon them-"

"A Hand's brand-?"

"Aye, lord. Those who are one in spirit with the Dark Ones bear their seal for all men's seeing. Look you!"

He crossed to the prisoner. The former guard spat filth, but Kapal stooped to fasten fingers in the other's hair, holding 'up his head and pointing to a mark just above and between the other's brows. Set deep in the skin was the brand left by hot metal, a small, threefold figure familiar to Kincar, Jonathal-but reversed And at that blasphemy both of the half-bloods raised fingers in the blessed sign to repudiate such vileness. Kapal saw their gesture, and when Lord Frans echoed it, he burst forth: "The Three-you give service to the Forest Ones, Lord?"

"I give service to a belief of my own, of which the Three are another manifestation, Kapal. Good thoughts and beliefs have the respect of any man, whether they be his own by birth, or native to his friends and kinsman. But here, I think, a certain symbol has been deliberately used vilely-"

"That is true, Lord. For those who serve the Dark Ones with their full will allow themselves to be marked thus, and take pride in it-so that all others may see it and fear them. But there are those who do not fear, rather do they hate!" He loosened his hold, and the prisoner's head fell back to the ground.

"It follows a very old pattern." Lord Frans spoke more to himself than to those about him. "Sneer at and degrade what might be a banner of hope to the slave. Aye, an old, old pattern. It is a ripe time for the breaking of such patterns!"

They were never to know what argument Lord Bardon used successfully with the ruler of the inner mountain in behalf of the rescued slaves. But in the late afternoon he returned with the message that they might use the pa.s.sages to take the company to the hold valley. It was a long, slow trip. And they had left two heaped piles of stones to mark graves in the gulch. The woman Kincar had tried to coax into eating was gone, and with her an old man whose wits wandered so that none of his companions in misfortune knew his name or where he had been taken.

More than a day was spent on that journey, for they had to rest many times, the larngs carrying the weakest when the pa.s.sages permitted riding. The men Kapal had indicated as being worth recruiting for spear-festing formed a unit under the wasteland leader, accepting his commands readily, and they alone of the rescued were interested in their strange surroundings.

The prisoner stayed in the hands of the hold party, his safety was only a.s.sured with them. But, as they penetrated deeper into the winding ways undergrond, his defiance seeped out of him and he was willing enough to stay very close to his captors, tagging either Kincar or Jonathal as if he were a battle comrade.

At the fifth rest period Lord Bardon called Kincar to him. "By Ospik's reckoning we are now not too far from the entrance in the hold valley. Tosi will go with you as a guide; take your larng and ride for aid. Many of these are close to collapse and we cannot carry them to the hold. Get extra mounts and more food-"

So it was that they brought the weary party into the fortress where the freed slaves, their wounds dressed, their hunger eased, sat for the most part in dumb surprise at the life about them. But the Lord Dillan called a council of war in the upper chamber he had taken for his own-and to this Kapal alone of the rescued was summoned.

"The guard is wide open to probe," Lord Dillan said of their prisoner. "Doubtless that is used regularly upon him by his masters. The man he was-he might have been-was destroyed when they set that brand upon him. By that act he surrendered his will and they can use him as they wish. It is a horrible thing!"

"So we agree. But we cannot concern ourselves too deeply now with what has been done in the past. We must think of what lies before us. The question is, dare we, with our few numbers, make any move against the entrenched strength of these tyrants?" asked Lord Bardon.

Lord Jon broke the long moment of silence. He was the -youngest of the Star Lords, perhaps by their reckoning as youthful and as inexperienced as Kincar had been in the company of Wurd and Regen. Now he asked a simple question.

"Dare we not?"

Lord Dillan sighed. "There it is. Being what we are, striving toward the goal we have set for ourselves, we must interfere."

"Aye. But not foolishly, throwing away any advantage we may have," Lord Bardon cut in. "We must make our few count as well as an army. And we must know more of the lowlands before we venture there. Wring that guard dry of all he knows, Dillan. And let us set a post on that road, take what toll we can from other slave trains pa.s.sing. Then-send a scout into the lowlands-Kapal!"

Soothing dressings about the outlaw's head covered all but one eye and his mouth, but he arose limberly.

"Kapal, what are the chances of a scout into the lowlands?"

"Few and ill, Lord. They have control posts along every road, and all travelers must account for themselves. To one who knows not the land it is impossible."

Lord Bardon corrected him. "Nothing is impossible. It is merely that the right way is not clear at first. Supposing a Dark One was to travel, would any dare question him?"

Kapal shook his head. "Lord, the Dark Ones never travel. Death comes not to them through age, but metal enters their flesh as easily as it does ours. They live well protected and only go forth from their hold in air-flying wains, the magic of which they alone know. Just one sort of man would dare such a scout-" "And that?"

"One bearing the mark of evil-he could pretend to be a messenger."

Kincar's hand sought what he wore secretly. His eyes went from man to man about that circle, studying each in turn. Already he knew the answer. Of all the hold party he was the only one showing no trace of alien blood. The scout could only be his. "I will go-"

He did not realize that he had said that aloud until he saw Lord Dillan look at him, caught the grim approval in Lord Bardon's appraisal. His hand was at his lips; but it was too late.

X.

STORM, NIGHT, AND THE SHRINE.