The knocking continued. "It is regretted that we must disturb him, but
a slave of the household has escaped. We must search for him."
"Would you disturb the Warlord of Valkyr's repose for a slave,
barbarians?" demanded the warrior at the door in a hurt tone of voice.
"Go away."
The officer in the hallway was beginning to lose patience.
"Open, I say! Or we'll break in!"
"Do," offered the Valkyr pleasantly. "I have a sword that has been too
long dry."
How Landor must be sweating in that back room, Kieron thought wryly,
thinking that the Valkyrs would rather kill him than let his message
reach Freka. But Landor's death would serve no useful purpose now.
Time! Time was needed. Time enough to let Nevitta get Alys out of
danger!
Kieron stepped to the door, hoping that some warriors of the Outer
Marches might possibly be within earshot and catch the implication
of his words. "Kieron of Valkyr speaks!" he cried. "We have Landor of
Earth here! Landor, the First Lord--is _that_ the slave you seek?"
But the only response was the sudden crash of a ram against the panels
of the wooden door. Kieron prepared to fight. Still, no sound of a
spaceship rising....
The door collapsed, and a flood of Kalgan warriors poured into the
room, weapons flashing.
Savagely, the Valkyrs closed with them, and the air rang with the
metallic clash of steel. No mercy was asked and none was given. Kieron
cut a circle of death with his long, outworld weapon, the fighting
blood of a hundred generations of warriors singing in his ears. The
savage chant of the Edge rose above the confused sounds of battle. A
man screamed in agony as his arm was severed by a blow from a Valkyr
blade, and he waved the stump desperately, spattering the milling men
with dark blood. A Valkyr warrior went down, locked in a death-embrace
with a Kalgan warrior, driving his dagger into his enemy again and
again even as he died. Kieron crossed swords with a guardsman, forcing
him backward until the Kalgan slipped on the flagstones made slippery
with blood and went down with a sword-cut from throat to groin.
The Valkyrs were cutting down their opponents, but numbers were
beginning to tell. Two Valkyrs went down before fresh onslaughts.
Another, and another, and still another. Kieron felt the burning touch
of a dagger wound. He looked down and saw that a thrust from someone in
the _melee_ had slashed him to the bone. His side was slick with blood
and the white ribs showed along the ten inch gash.
Now, Kieron stood back to back with his two remaining companions. The
other Valkyrs were down, lying still on the bloody floor. Kieron caught
a glimpse of Freka's tall figure behind his guardsman and he lunged
for him, suddenly blind with fury. Two Kalgan guards engaged him and
he lost sight of Freka. A Valkyr went down with a thrust in the belly.
Kieron took another wound in the arm. He could not tell how badly hurt
he was, but faintness from the loss of blood was telling on him. It was
getting hard to see clearly. Darkness seemed to be flickering like a
black flame just beyond his range of vision. He saw Freka again and
tried to reach him. Again he failed, blocked by a Kalgan soldier. A
thrown sword whistled past him and imbedded itself in the last Valkyr's
chest. The man sank to the floor in silence, and Kieron fought alone.
He saw the blade of an officer descending, but he could not ward it
off. And as it fell, a great hissing roar sounded beyond the open
window. Kieron almost smiled. Alys was safe....
He lifted his sword to parry the descending stroke. Weakened, the best
he could do was deflect it slightly. The blade caught him a glancing
blow on the side of the head and he staggered to his knees. He tried
to raise his weapon again ... tried to fight on ... but he could not.
Slowly, reluctantly, he sank to the floor as darkness welled up out of
the bloody flagstones to engulf him....
V
Kieron stirred, the pulsing ache in his side piercing the reddish veil
of unconsciousness. Under him, he could feel wet stones that stank
of death and filth. He moved painfully, and the throbbing agony grew
worse, making him teeter precariously between consciousness and the
dark.
He was stiff and cold. Hurt badly, too, he thought vaguely. His wounds
had not been tended. Very carefully, he opened his eyes. They told him
what he had already known. He was in a dark cell, filthy and damp. A
sick chill shook him. Teeth chattering, huddled on the stone floor,
Kieron sank again into unconsciousness.
When he awoke again, he was burning with fever and a cold bowl of
solidified, greasy gruel lay beside him. His tongue felt thick and
swollen, but the sharp agony of his wounded side had subsided to a dull
hurt. With a great effort, he dragged himself into a corner of the
dungeon and propped himself up facing the iron-bound door.
His searching hands found that he had been stripped of his harness
and weapons. He was naked, smeared with filth and dried blood. As he
moved he felt a renewed flow of warmth flooding down from his torn
flank. The wound had reopened. Sweat was streaking the caked blood on
his cheek. His mind wandered in a feverish delirium--a nightmare dream
in which the tall, coldly arrogant figure of Freka seemed to fill all
space and all time. Kieron's over-bright eyes glittered with animal
hate....
Somehow, he felt that the hated Kalgan was nearby. He tried to keep his
eyes open, but the lids seemed weighted. His head sagged and the fever
took him again into the ebony darkness of some fantastic intergalactic
night where weird shapes danced and whirled in hideous joyousness....
The rattling of the door-lock woke him. It might have been minutes
later or days. Kieron had no way of knowing. He felt light-headed
and giddy. He watched the door open with fever-bright eyes. A jailer
carrying a flambeau entered and the light blinded Kieron. He shielded
his face with his hand. There was a voice speaking to him. A voice he
knew ... and hated. With a shuddering effort, he took a grip on his
staggering mind, his hate sustaining him now. Moving his hands away
from his face, he looked up--into the icy eyes of Freka the Unknown.
"So you're awake at last," the Kalgan said.
Kieron made no reply. He could feel the fury burning deep inside him.
Freka held a jewelled dagger in his hands, toying with it idly. Kieron
watched the shards of light leaping from the faceted gems in the liquid
torchlight. The slender blade shimmered, blue and silvery in the
Kalgan's hands.
"I have been told that the Lady Alys was with you--here on Kalgan. Is
this true?"
Alys ... Kieron thought vaguely of her for a moment, but somehow the
picture brought sadness. He put her out of his mind and squinted up
at Freka's gemmed dagger, unable to take his eyes from the glittering
weapon.
"Can you speak?" demanded Freka. "Was Toran's sister with you?"
Kieron watched the weapon, a feral brilliance growing like a flame in
his dark eyes.
Freka shrugged. "Very well, Kieron. It makes no difference. Does it
interest you to know that the armies are gathering? Earth will be ours
within four weeks." His voice was cold, unemotional. "You realize, of
course, that you cannot be allowed to live."
Kieron said nothing. Very carefully he gathered his strength. The
dagger ... the dagger...!
"I will not risk war with Valkyr by killing you now. But you will be
tried by a council of star-kings on Earth when we have done what we
must do...."
Kieron stared hard at the slender weapon, his hate pounding in his
fevered mind. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. Freka spun the blade
idly, setting the jewels afire.
"We should have taken you the moment Landor was missed," mused the
Kalgan. "But ... it really doesn't matter now...."
Kieron's taut muscles uncoiled in a snakelike, lashing movement. He
hit Freka below the knees with all his fevered strength and the Kalgan
went down without a sound, the slim dagger clattering on the slimy
floor of the cell. The guard leaped forward. Kieron's searching hand
closed about the hilt of the dagger. With a sound of pure animal rage
in his throat he drove it into Freka's unprotected chest. Twice again
his hand rose and fell, and then the guard caught him full in the face
with a booted foot and the light of the torch faded again into inky
blackness....
* * * * *
In the darkness, time lost its meaning. Kieron woke a dozen times,
feeling the dull throbbing ache of his wounds and then fading again
into unconsciousness. He ate--or was fed--enough to keep him alive,
but he had no memory of it. He floated in a red-tinged sea of black,
unreal, frightening. He screamed or sobbed as the phantasms of his
sick dreams dictated, but through it all ran a single thread of
elation. Freka, the hated one, was dead. No horror of nightmare or
delirium could strip him of that one grip on life. Freka was dead. He
remembered vaguely the feel of the dagger plunging again and again
into his tormentor's breast. Sometimes he even forgot why he had hated
Freka, but he clung to the knowledge that he had killed him the way a
drowning man clings to the last suffocating breath.
Sounds filtered into Kieron's dungeon. Sounds that were familiar.
The hissing roar of spaceships. Then later the awful susurration of
mob sounds. Kieron lay sprawled on the stones of his cell-floor, not
hearing, lost in the fantasmagoric stupor of delirium. His wounds still
untended, only the magnificent body of a warrior helped him cling to
the thread of life.
Other sounds came. The crash of rams and the clatter of falling
masonry. The shrieks of men and women dying. The ringing cacophony of
weapons and the curses of fighting men. Hours passed and the din grew
louder, closer, in the heart of the Citadel of Neg itself. The torches
on the outer cellblocks guttered out and were left untended. The sounds
of fighting rose to a wild pitch, interlaced with the inhuman, animal
sounds of a mob gone mad.
At last Kieron stirred, some of the familiar sounds of battle striking
buried chords in his fevered mind. He listened to the advancing clash
of weapons until it rang just beyond his dungeon door.
He dragged himself into his corner again and crouched there, the feral
light in his eyes brilliant now. His hands itched for killing. He
flexed the fingers painfully and waited.
The silence was sudden and as complete as the hush of the tomb.
Kieron waited.
The door was flung wide, and men bearing torches rushed into the cell.
Kieron lunged savagely for the first one, hands seeking a throat.
"_Kieron!_" Nevitta threw himself backward violently. Kieron clung to
him, his face a fevered mask of hate. "Kieron! It is I ... Nevitta!"
Kieron's hands fell away from the old warrior and he stood swaying,
squinting against the light of the torches. "Nevitta ... Nevitta?"
A wild laugh came from the prisoner's cracked lips. He looked about
him, into the strained faces of his own fighting men.
He took one step and pitched forward into the arms of Nevitta, who
carried him like a child up into the light, tears streaking his
grizzled cheeks....
* * * * *
For three weeks Alys and Nevitta nursed Kieron, sucking the poison of
his untended wounds with their mouths and bathing him to break the
fiery grip of the fever. At last they won. Kieron opened his eyes--and
they were sane and clear.
"How long?" Kieron asked faintly.
"We were gone from Kalgan twenty days ... you have lain here
twenty-one," Alys said thankfully.
"Why did you come back here?" Kieron demanded bitterly. "You have lost
an Empire!"
"We came for you, Kieron," Nevitta said. "For our king."
"But ... Alys ..." Kieron protested.
"I would not have the Great Throne, Kieron," said Alys, "if it meant
leaving you to rot in a cell!"
Kieron turned his face to the wall. Because of him, the star-kings
fought Ivane's battle. And by now they would have won. The only thing
that had been done was the killing of the treacherous Freka. He held
Kalgan now, for the Valkyrs had returned seeking their Warlord after
Freka's plan had stripped the planet of fighting men--and the mobs had
done the Valkyr's work for them. But two worlds were not an Empire of
stars. Alys had been cheated. Because of him.
No! thought Kieron, by the Seven Hells, no! They could not be defeated
so easily. There were five thousand warriors with him now. If need be,
he would fight the Imperium's massed forces to win Alys' rightful place
on the throne of Gilmer of Kaidor!
"Let me up," Kieron demanded. "If we hit them on Earth before they have
a chance to consolidate, there's still a chance!"
"There is no hurry, Kieron," said Nevitta holding him in the bed with a
great hand. "Freka and the star-kings have already...."
"_Freka!_" Kieron sat bolt upright.
"Why, yes ..." murmured Nevitta in perplexity. "Freka."
"That's impossible!"
"We have had information from the Imperial City, Kieron. Freka is
there," said Alys.
Kieron sank back on the pillows. Had he dreamed killing the Kalgan? No!
It wasn't possible! He had driven the blade into his chest three
times ... driven it deep.