Solemnly, Si'Wren dipped out her portion from the pot over the fire,
pointedly ignoring the Emperor's personal bodyguards and everyone else
around her. She retired to her personal tent to eat, and immediately
remembered that she must first tie something over the entrance to
replace the missing tent flap, or risk another complaint of
coquettishness from a certain one of the Captains of Fifty. In mute
observance of this she soon had a coarse-woven wool blanket tied up
over the entrance. Later, she could get another animal hide from one of
the camp skinners.
The brave and fearless souls of the camp, mighty men of old, fearsome
warriors all, must not have their valiant spirits inflamed with
uncontrollable lust at the carnal sight of a mere maid consuming her
food.
* * *
The next morning, she arose and stepped out of her tent, ducking past
the makeshift blanket. Still as much asleep as awake, she squinted and
blinked uncertainly in the morning light. Merely going through the
motions, she made tea, and cleansed her eyes and face with it's clear
amber fluid. Then she made gruel and mixed it with some fruit pulp and
goat's milk.
After this, she surveyed her surroundings, struck by the uncultivated
beauty and wild appearance of the land.
Somewhere in the dense nearby forest, she heard the scream of some
fierce monster. The ferocity and bestiality of the sound chilled her
blood and sent shivers up and down her spine even as a host of lesser
animals took up a warning cry, broadcasting an alarm of the unseen
predator's passage through their midst.
She could not identify the repeatedly screaming animal with anything
from her memory, for she had never in her life heard such a terrible
sound. Eventually, it began to move farther away from the camp, as it's
terrible cries gradually diminished into the distance. For a long time,
she could still occasionally hear it's banshee screams as it prowled
somewhere beneath the high canopy of deep forest. Many of the soldiers,
she noticed, seemed greatly discomfited by the savagery of the sound,
clutching their weapons tightly as they looked anxiously in its
direction.
Si'Wren could not help shivering again when she chanced to hear it one
last time, far in the distance, through some quirk of the gentle wind
across the uneven land. In spite of the undulations of the terrain, it
had continued -day after day- to slope progressively upwards ahead of
the expedition as the royal procession had made more or less steady
progress to the northwest, marching ever deeper into the wilds.
Blocked by a series of steep ridges looming ever before them, the
entire royal expedition had been encamped in the same place these past
few days, while the scouts searched for a way to go on.
Hunting parties went out daily for provisions to restock their marching
fare. Others found honey, and gathered fruits, berries, nuts, and
roots, with armed guards always standing at the ready.
In camp, those assigned to the Chief Cook worked at preparing, drying,
preserving, and packing away the food for the next portion of their
long and uncertain journey.
* * *
"Today, we march," said Borla, watching her closely as Si'Wren emerged
from her tent with her empty wooden porridge bowl and set it down.
Si'Wren was unaware of the way he watched her, and she had not bothered
to braid her hair in the usual manner as was her custom, in accession
to her Emperor's wishes of the night just past. Momentarily, Borla
stared at her as if he had never seen a woman before in his entire life
and could no longer control the direction of his eyes.
To this remark, Si'Wren nodded with a thoughtlessly off-handed look of
such distraction and unconcern that she must have somehow greatly vexed
Borla, for he suddenly rounded on her in what must have been a
masterfully concealed fit of anger as he regarded her expressionlessly.
"Highness," Borla bit off tersely, "of what can this doctrine of the
Invisible God of our Junior Scribe consist of--but nothing; like
himself! If her beliefs were to become adopted by others, it is
possible that eventually all idols would be destroyed, much gain from
the lucre of their sale lost, and their hearts turned to such nonsense
as I cannot possibly imagine!"
Borla had his lips drawn back into a sneer now as his brow also became
fretted into a terrible frown and he paused to await an answer.
When Emperor Euphrates made no immediately reply, Borla turned to
survey Si'Wren boldly, and went on in an even more irritable and
sarcastic vein;
"To follow such blind madness is tantamount to treason! Why, it would
serve as well if we were to cast out all law and reason and let the
people decide for themselves what laws to follow. Come to think of it,
they do that enough already. Thou alone art law, oh mighty Emperor.
Would thou give thy glory to another?"
He waited, and finally Emperor Euphrates shrugged.
"The girl is sworn to silence," Emperor Euphrates replied. "How many
can she possibly convert anyways, if she be thus bound by her own word
to this god?"
Borla seemed to mull this over, but somehow failed to find enough honey
in his Emperor's words to nullify the bitterness of his mounting
irritation with Si'Wren's beliefs.
Si'Wren watched him implacably, but gave no sign of a response. Neither
did she volunteer to hand over any of her writing tablets used earlier
to explain the Invisible God to her Emperor.
"What are we to make of this Invisible God," Borla went on in a biting,
petulant tone of voice, "who permits himself to be worshiped, and
preached to others, by a single, silent disciple sworn never to speak
in a world deafened by the ceaseless praise of idols?"
This much was true, Si'Wren reflected. Silent was she, and silent would
she remain.
As Borla went on, ranting over the stupidity of worshiping that which
could only be seen through the eye of inner reasoning, Si'Wren thought
of the Patriarch Noah, whom they were seeking, who apparently shared
her beliefs in some measure, and in light of the fact that she must not
speak, Si'Wren found herself reflecting upon the interesting truth
which Borla had proposed and it's apparent absurdity.
How did one worship the unseeable? Sometimes the surest way Si'Wren had
of knowing the Invisible God to be the true God was by reflecting upon
how foolish it was to think of worshiping dumb idols. But perhaps there
was another way to show Borla the truth.
Si'Wren reached for her water skin, poured out a little water into her
cupped palm, and being mindful of Nelatha's long-ago remonstrance that
the reflection of water held a suggestion of how one might manage to
'see' the unseeable Invisible God, she held it out to Borla, moving her
arm until one of her eyes met his in the tiny reflection of cupped
water in her hand.
The very moment their two eyes met in the mirrored bit of out-held
water, Borla's reflected eye flashed in alarm as he realized what she
had done, and he started with an astonished grunt as if he had been
cursed to within an inch of his life, and jerked his head back as if
kicked by a horse.
"Agh!" he cried out. "What vile sorcery?!..."
Si'Wren quickly raised the cupped water to her lips as if she had only
been drinking it, so as to avoid the risk of offending Emperor
Euphrates with the possible idea that she had been casting an evil eye.
Emperor Euphrates seemed to be staring at Borla as if he had suddenly
got a burr in his sandal or something, and Borla, unwilling to stoop so
low as to risk being mocked over some empty accusation, said nothing.
Then, as if thinking better of it, he negligently spat in the dirt at
Si'Wren's feet as if she were not the deliberate but only the
unintentional target, trading water for water and giving reply to her
in such manner as befitted the imagined curse.
Si'Wren stepped back, afraid of political ruin should Borla find the
right words to vent his anger upon her. One might as easily have
glimpsed the reflection of the sun in any common lily pond, or even a
mud puddle. It would only have shown forth all the more clearly, the
beautiful symbolism of an Invisible God who created all things, and was
above all things. Even the wind, which could be seen in the motion of
the clouds and trees and in the waving fields of grain and prairie
grass, was of a truth not seen at all. And when the wind blew, did not
fire burn so much the more greatly?
Oh, that this supreme, Invisible God, who must be so like water, and
fire, and even the wind itself, and who surely hated all stupid idols,
might once show himself in all of His eternal glory!
Still Borla paused, no doubt bent upon her destruction for the imagined
curse, or at least very real insult, which she had apparently inflicted
upon him with a mere handful of water, but it was pointless for him to
persecute her merely for so mundane an act as slaking her thirst.
Gaining no satisfaction in any of this, he said to her, "Scribe, thy
services are needed. Hand me a tablet."
Obediently, Si'Wren turned to her kit, and fetched out and handed over
one of the requested objects to Borla.
Borla took the tablet, which consisted of smooth clay within a
split-bamboo frame, and turned it this way and that as he examined it
as if cherishing some holy relic in an almost reverent manner.
Then, with a look of perplexity, he turned it face-down and began
shaking it vigorously. With a dull series of wet plops, the clay shook
loose in a series of irregular pieces and tumbled out onto the ground.
He continued shaking it and turning it this way and that and slapping
it with his other hand, his dark locks and beard moving rhythmically
with the effort until all of the clay had fallen out onto the ground.
Borla observed the empty frame in his hands.
"That's better," said Borla. "No, better yet--" he gripped the frame
with it's intact backing tightly in one hand.
He made a fist with his other hand, and with a series of crude punches
began knocking out the split-bamboo backing which normally supported
the backside of the soft clay in it's sturdy frame.
When all of the pieces of split-bamboo backing were broken loose and
had fallen to the ground, he smiled at last, with a dry, irritated look
in his eyes which only served to accentuate the haggard fierceness of
his deeply lined face, and held up the empty frame to the light.
"Behold, the Invisible God!" declared Borla, as Emperor Euphrates
looked on most interestedly, but without comment.
Emboldened by his Emperor's look of curiosity, Borla observed dryly,
"Rather looks like an open door. Odd. Most such doors are located in
temples, wherein idols are to be found."
Then with a vengeful, jerking motion of his arms, Borla broke the empty
frame into pieces, and handed them back to a silent Si'Wren with a curt
but formal bow, as he eyed her contemptuously.
Si'Wren took the pieces in her hand, and stood looking back at him
without expression.
"Well?" said Borla to her. "I see no thunderbolt."
But Si'Wren made no reply. She was still grief-struck from the events
of yesterday, and in spite of all, had never intended the slightest
harm to Borla, even after what he had done. Perhaps the Invisible God
was more wise than even she suspected, in permitting her to be
subjected to such a vow of silence.
After all, what could she possibly have said to Borla? There was no
fitting reply; not to him at least.
"I trust, Highness," Borla said, "that the Invisible God can defend us
in battle as fittingly as he is able to bury another in the grave. I am
told by one of my Captains of Fifty that she brought down neigh unto
half the hillside of yonder hillock, to the glory of her Invisible God
no doubt, and all for the sake of merely giving an honorable burial to
an avowed enemy of thy throne."
Borla paused to look significantly over at Si'Wren, who had frozen with
the pieces of her ruined clay frame still in one hand.
"Battle?" said Emperor Euphrates, his interest suddenly piqued.
"Aye, Highness," said Borla. "I am told that campfires were spotted in
the distance last night, down in the lowlands whence we came," said
Borla. "We are being followed. I regret to be the bearer of bad
tidings, but wise counsel must bear in mind the possibility that it
could be Kadrug."
Si'Wren's ears pricked at this.
"Kadrug!" exclaimed Emperor Euphrates, looking greatly alarmed.
"Following me?"
"Aye, and perhaps also--Conabar. It was rumored, you will recall,
Highness, that they had sought to join forces."
"A pact made in hell!" said Emperor Euphrates, as if it were a
slanderous oath. "I gave orders that their entrails should be brought
to me, that I might read of them."
"...to their eternal regret," suffixed Borla decorously, as he stood
looking contemplatively across the vista of the lowlands they had
already traversed so laboriously.
"Highness," Borla went on, tugging thoughtfully at the fringes of his
beard, "if we should run across them before eventide, it might very
well become the expedient thing to do that one of my foot soldiers
should inspect their entrails with a common sword, ere the day is done."
Borla always kept his beard carefully trimmed a fraction shorter than
Emperor Euphrates', out of a canny sense of deference. By this, and
other, equally subtle devices, he was left free to maximize his own
powers to the fullest possible extent, while at the same time seeming
always, ever to be the scrupulously faithful servant and minutely
lesser intellect. This flattered Emperor Euphrates in no small wise, a
fact of which Borla was well aware, although he took utmost pains not
to touch upon it in any false light or pretense.
"Aye!" Emperor Euphrates laughed harshly. "Quite enough ceremony for
the occasion, I will grant!"
Emperor Euphrates turned then to Si'Wren, and said, "Scribe, you will
study further, to show yourself approved, for I would hear more of this
Invisible God."
Si'Wren, marveling at the open-handedness of her powerful rival,
Borla, merely bowed to Emperor Euphrates in formal acknowledgment.
Then, in a more engaging tone of voice, Emperor Euphrates went on and
said, "Almost, little Si'Wren..." he paused, looking at her wistfully,
"...almost, you persuade me to believe in your remarkable Invisible
God. Your arguments are--most entertaining."
Si'Wren blinked, and hid her disappointment as she bowed again even
lower this time.
As Emperor Euphrates turned away to discuss other matters with Borla
and the Captains, Si'Wren looked down at the sticks of her ruined clay
frame. The frame was, she could see, beyond saving. She dropped the
pieces, and they fell in an irregular criss-cross upon the uneven pile
of moist clay lumps, which she regarded for a long, silent moment.
She turned away without a word.
The whole camp was taking down equipment and packing it away as they
broke camp for the day's journey. Borla's scouts had finally found a
way ahead, through the thick foliage interspersed by broad grasslands,
that led up into the mountains, and hopefully down through them again
into the distant land of Noah.
Si'Wren inspected her horse's hooves one by one, cleaning and caring
for them as she had been taught, while several men took down her tent
and camp gear for her and stowed it away on a pack animal.
She always saw personally to the packing of her writing kit. She had a
small stack of thin clay tablets in their bamboo frames, three of which
went in a durable bamboo box in a saddle bag strapped on her mount, in
order to have them ready for use on a moment's notice. Being Scribe was
not a responsibility to be taken lightly.
While men and horses formed up into long columns, Si'Wren finished her
own preparations and prepared to mount up. She had managed so far to be
always ready before the others, lest they complain.
Borla was standing with several of his captains, as they discussed with
him the anticipated route and possible obstacles that might be
encountered today.
Emperor Euphrates sat on a pile of cushions in front of his tent,
before which stood his royal camel bedecked and festooned with all the
tassels and ornamentation of it's kingly station.
It was unbecoming that an Emperor should sit on his camel and wait
while the common soldiers went about their occasionally lengthy
preparations for the march. More fitting, rather, was it that they
should all make ready, and then wait on their Emperor until he should
mount and give the command to Borla for the day's march to commence.
Borla, as was customary, would then loudly pass the word on down the
chain-of-command through his Captains of Fifty, and the march would
commence.
The order to begin the long grueling day's march should be coming
through any time now.
Suddenly, above the general background noise of many voices
coordinating their preparations to march, Si'Wren heard from across the
camp a distant cry;
"Kaaaadruuuug!"
An icy chill coursed through her body as Si'Wren looked up anxiously,
and Borla jerked up his hand savagely to cut off one of his Captains in
mid-sentence.
"What was that?!" Borla asked sharply.
Everyone, including Emperor Euphrates, seemed to suddenly be listening,
and the entire camp seemed to fall silent, their very ears itching to
hear the more clearly that dread outcry again.
"Eeeeeahhhhgh!"
Si'Wren's ears informed her of the shocking indication that someone
must have just been brutally murdered, out a little past the screen of
trees beyond the far end of camp. All the camp seemed bewildered.
Then the awful cry came again;
"Kadrug!" came the yell of a distant sentry, "and giants!"
Suddenly everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Si'Wren looked around
and saw men falling back from the nearest line of trees, their ordered
lines breaking up as men and horses fled under a flight of incoming
arrows.
Si'Wren took a hesitant step backwards, and froze at the sound of much
hoarse shouting from the other end of camp. She turned her head and
searched the field, heart pounding, and through the tall grass appeared
first speartips, then helmets, and then the heads and shoulders of
hostile men advancing in line-abreast formation, swinging flashing
bronze swords in ragged unison and driving back Borla's surprised
soldiers in a staggering, disorderly retreat.
There came the unfamiliar call of a horn trumpet from yet another
direction, and suddenly a troop of horse soldiers came thundering up
the path whence Emperor Euphrates's expedition had come, the ground
vibrating under uncountable hooves and cutting off their retreat as the
invaders plowed recklessly through Borla's shouting and screaming
rear-guard.
In mere seconds, all hope of organizing the men was lost, as they were
left in a shambles by the concerted charge of the attackers. The clash
of steel filled the dust-laden air, together with the desperate cries
of the Emperor's men as they tried to rally themselves together against
the ruthless attack.
"I see Conabar himself!" declared one of Borla's captains.
"Where?" demanded Borla.
"There, on a horse!" said the captain.
"Give me a spear!" said Borla.
The captain turned and yanked one out of the hands of the nearest guard
and handed it over.
Seizing hold of the spear, Borla mounted his horse and began waving it
over their heads as he sought to round up the Emperor's men and muster
them into some kind of manageable defensive formation.
But it was too late.
"YAAAAAAAAAAA!!!--" The challenging war cry rang out from a thousand
throats as Kadrug's forces suddenly charged as one and drove the
Emperor's forces backwards across the camp perimeter, mercilessly
cutting down everyone and everything that stood in their path.
Si'Wren watched helplessly, cringing as she retreated step by step
until she was abruptly brought up short against the heaving flanks of
her black stallion. He stamped his hooves and neighed, for the thunder
of hooves from the invader's horses was shaking the very earth itself.
Si'Wren had never been in any battle before and never expected to be
caught in one, but she had worried about something like this happening
ever since their departure for the land of Noah. Breathlessly she
looked around, trying to make some sense out of the situation and
decide upon the best move to make.
Abruptly she froze in stark terror as a giant fully twice the height of
a normal man came striding out of the tall grass behind the Emperor's
tent. He carried a shield the size of a cartwheel on one arm, and a
spear like a well-pole in his other hand. No one else seemed to even
notice him yet.
He walked forward as if in slow-motion, covering fully one-half of the
intervening distance between himself and a terrified Si'Wren in two
huge strides with his great spear and shield raised to the attack, and
stood staring down at her as if trying to make up his mind whether to
kill or capture her.
Si'Wren took a step back from her horse, and became paralyzed with fear.
All at once several of Emperor Euphrates' archers looked around, and
reacted with blinding speed. One quickly nocked and loosed an arrow
from close range, hitting the giant in the right thigh just above the
plank-sized metal shin plate on his lower right leg.
"YAAAAAAWWWW!" he howled in a deep ox-bellow of a voice as he staggered
in anger and pain.
Swiftly another archer drew and fired, hitting him in the neck.
Finally, two more shots hit him in the chest when he let his guard down
momentarily, and he let out another outraged yell.
Emperor Euphrates' personal guards finally turned and saw the giant
then, and quickly fired their powerful bows, transfixing the staggering
giant with several more arrows.
Seeing he had lost all hope of scattering them, the giant came forward
in a berserk charge, ignoring his many injuries as he rushed the guards.
Behind his royal bodyguard cowered a fearful Emperor Euphrates with a
useless curved and jeweled little dagger in one hand.
The charging giant's spear went through one of the guards, and the
other was killed by a single blow of the giant's huge fist.
A brawny archer nocked an arrow, stepped forward, aimed, and fired from
point-blank range at full draw, straight into the side of the giant's
torso.
At this he let go of his victim and howled as he turned in a demonic
rage, pivoting with huge arms outstretched while Si'Wren stood rooted
to the spot. The giant stomped forward, towering over Si'Wren as he
drew near and began reaching down for her, and as she stepped back
involuntarily out of his reach he simply kept on falling headlong until
he hit the ground with an earthshaking slam at Si'Wren's feet and lay
still, his stubby fingers twitching several times. His great yellowed
teeth gnashed reflexively and after a final wheeze he lay utterly
motionless.
Si'Wren stood as one frozen, staring down at the dead giant, until she
heard several of the archers yell in unison and she turned her head
just in time to see a final charge upon the Emperor's tent. Across the
camp, Si'Wren gasped at the sight of Borla's crumpled black form being
trampled under the hooves of the enemy's rampaging horse soldiers.
Emperor Euphrates' foot soldiers were fleeing for their lives as the
mounted foe chased them down and shot them in their backs or cut them
mercilessly to ribbons with their bronze swords.
The archer standing beside Si'Wren nocked another arrow, drew, and
fired high. Si'Wren watched his arrow sail forth and come down in the
midst of the enemy, to penetrate the face of an upraised wicker shield
and embed itself in the chest of a raider. The enemy soldier staggered
backwards, fighting to maintain his balance with the arrow in his gut.
But too much else was happening for Si'Wren to watch the enemy soldier
any further, and she searched wildly for any sign of resistance in the
Emperor's men but could not find such.
Suddenly her upturned eyes spied an incoming flight of arrows, and she
had barely time to blink before they began raining down. The arrows'
whistling sounds filled the air, followed by the sounds of impacts and
screams of the fallen all around her.
Thunk! Si'Wren staggered, and stared disbelievingly at the long
feathered end of an arrow sticking out of her right shoulder.
Numb with shock, she half-turned, and saw Emperor Euphrates staring
sightlessly at her from where he lay fallen, his fat body bristling
with arrows. Her blood pounding in her ears, Si'Wren turned and
staggered to her horse. Neighing loudly, the stallion reared up, and
dropped down again, shaking his mane. He had, she saw, two arrows in
his deeply corded neck muscles.
Si'Wren reached out for him as she stumbled forward and almost tumbled
beneath his hooves, but fell against his forequarters instead and
reached up to seize hold of the coarse black hair of his mane, and
tried to pull herself up.
Lacking the necessary strength and coordination, she hung on, not
daring to let go for any reason. Turning her head, she saw running
enemy soldiers advancing through the camp, with none remaining to
oppose them as the Emperor's archers broke ranks and fell back under
the flashing bronze swords of the enemy.
Si'Wren reached up and slapped hard with the flat of one hand on the
flank of her horse. At this, he finally bolted, jerking her bodily off
her feet as she clutched desperately onto the lunging stallion's mane
with the fingers of both hands.
She felt nothing when she heard the arrow in her shoulder snap off
against the stallion's heaving flank. Her feet bounced once on the
ground as the stallion lunged forward, and she dropped and bounced her
feet again in a coordinated leap and sailed upwards with a sharp
two-fisted pull on his black flowing mane, and she twisted her torso
and legs upwards with the benefit of the transferred momentum and
leverage.
Suddenly she was up and riding, with the black stallion's hooves
pounding the earth in a thundering tempo as he carried her swiftly away
and left all behind. Si'Wren was so small and light that her horse ran
virtually unimpeded, whereas her pursuers were large men equipped with
heavy weapons and armor, all of which was a respectable burden for
their mounts.
Ignoring the stub-end of the arrow in her numbed shoulder, Si'Wren
ducked her head down and dropped her eyes to the neck of her steed,
hearing the steady blast of breath from his muzzle as the shafts of two
embedded arrows vibrated in a rhythmic blur to the thunder of his
galloping hooves.
Small rivulets of blood pulsed redly from the arrows as he maintained
his breakneck gallop, and Si'Wren wondered at his unrelenting power in
the face of such injuries as his hooves pounded, pounded, pounded the
ground tirelessly with the wind whipping his black mane into her bowed
face and stinging her eyes to wind tears.
He might be wounded, but her beautiful black was a fearless meteor. A
horse could run itself to death for it's master, but Si'Wren only
wished to escape her pursuers. But what of the black's injuries?
Knowing she must soon stop or risk his death by overexertion, Si'Wren
turned her head to look back and saw many attackers separating
themselves from the battle to ride after her, and cold fear filled her
soul. She looked ahead again just in time to avoid getting knocked off
by a low-lying bough as she entered a copse of trees and quickly became
hidden in their depths. There had been many men riding after her. Could
she possibly outrun them all?
She had been ready to mount up when the attack came, and she could hear
the sound of something slapping lightly and rhythmically on the back
flanks of the black stallion, and remembered the pair of leather saddle
bags containing her writing kit together with the clay tablets in their
sturdy bamboo frames. Little good they would do her now, for no longer
could she fight the Evil One with mere clay words, and the Emperor
himself was past all saving.
She burst out of the far side of the trees and began to ride up a
grassy knoll. The black stallion pounded up the rise and she drew back
on the reins at the crest, slowing him to a halt at the top and looking
back as she paused and listened to the distant pounding of hooves.
She watched with anxious eyes as they appeared out of the far line of
trees below, and as they burst out into the open, the pursuit spied her
almost immediately, and shouting wildly they swerved in unison,
whipping their mounts in merciless pursuit of her.
She turned and cantered the black stallion down a momentary dip in the
land, then urged him up the steeper ground to the next higher rise.
For a brief, fearful moment, she almost fell off her horse as he
lurched up the opposite slope, but she clutched his shaggy black mane
as she toppled suddenly forward against the back of his neck and hung
on with all of her failing strength, slowly righting herself.
Momentarily out of their line of sight, she could hear their distant
shouts. Triumphant shouts, urging each other on.
Si'Wren raised her eyes and looked beyond to the vista of the distant
lowlands, whence she had come so far with her Emperor. Then she dropped
her eyes, and noticed for the first time that her dark mantle of hair,
left unbraided, had been woven by the wind into a knotted mass of
tangles like a black flame.
Seeing that her stallion was also wounded, she doubted if he could
carry her for very much longer, and dreaded the prospect of falling
into the hands of such men. But which way to turn? Then, despairing of
what to do next, she seemed to hear a distant roaring.
A waterfall.
The black stallion's muzzle and forequarters were flecked white with
foam, and his neck was streaked with blood. His flanks were heaving
from his exertions and injuries. Loathe to go on like this, she turned
him and rode down another little dip and then up again to the next
higher rise. She was ascending a rising series of gently rolling grassy
steppes, interspersed by long wide strips of gently sloping meadows and
successive narrow courses of green trees.
Then she came to the last rise, and slowed her horse again.
The muted, distant sound of the waterfall became an open roar as she
pulled her horse abruptly to a dead halt barely in time, before she
would have plunged over a steep drop-off.
The waterfall upstream descended in a streak of white from the crest
above, arcing and fanning out majestically from a high ridge. At the
waterfall's base shimmered a wide pool, whence emerged the continuation
of the deep fast-flowing stream before her. The undercurrent sucked and
churned violently as it passed immediately below her position.
After much hesitation, Si'Wren pulled gently on one of her reins,
turning her steed upstream towards the waterfall, as she brought in her
heels and pressed lightly against the black's heaving flanks, urging
him forward along the edge of the bank, seeking some way to get safely
down and across. But the closer she came to the waterfall, the higher
and steeper became the bank along which she rode, and the more her
mount labored. Already suffering from the arrows in his neck, he was
drawing near to a state of total exhaustion.
Then behind her she heard the fresh shouts of her pursuers as they
topped the final rise and began to fan out, cutting her off while they
surrounded her in a half-circle.
They lusted upon her with evil stares, until the stub-end of the arrow
in her chest was seen by several of them and indicated to the others
with much arm-pointing. Then their looks were transformed to insolent,
harsh contempt. What was her life to them anyways? The sight of her
suffering engendered nothing but contempt in their looks. Loftily, they
all kept back from her by a distance of several rods, with newcomers
doing the same as they arrived, and forming a great semi-circle around
her with both ends close to the river banks, effectively cutting off
her escape.
Then their leader finally came cantering up into their midst on his
speckled gray steed and lurched through their enclosing line to get a
good look at her.
He paraded back and forth on his nervously prancing steed, displaying
an aura of wickedness. One look into his heavily lidded, toadlike eyes,
so lifeless and sickeningly dead, utterly convinced Si'Wren that this
man's soul must surely have already died a long time ago while his body
was yet alive.
Then she realized when he pulled at his reins, that he had six fingers
on each hand. Surely this must be Kadrug, because if it were Conabar he
would have had only five like his dead relation, the late Master
Rababull.
It occurred to Si'Wren without even questioning it that Kadrug must be
possessed, and she realized that in looking at the six-fingered one,
she was looking also upon a combination of the personality of the
possessor, a demon, and of the outward man, a vain soul, and she sensed
that this great 'free' warrior was but a proud and unknowing slave,
indwelt by hideous evil.
Now more than ever, Si'Wren found in this, even in the face of evil, a
proof of the righteous, Invisible God. For she could easily see an
unmistakable spiritual side to life, wherein evil and good, and all
men's souls, truly dwelt. All life within the visible world, like a
finger-drawing in the sand, could show only a muted portrayal of that
spiritual side. Like sand, or dust, it must eventually be blown away at
death, and give place to the true inner self, the spiritual identity,
and there would be found in the hearts of mens' souls, either the good
and true bedrock, or just so much foul and polluted slippery sand.
Looking into the man's lizard eyes, Si'Wren perceived all of this in a
flash, and shuddered. Surely, as Nelatha had said, it must be that all
men must die and see the Invisible God someday when they finally came
face-to-face with Him.
These were wicked men, lost souls living in sin. Men who forced their
evil lusts upon all around themselves. But they would not have their
way with her!
Feeling light-headed and drastically weak, she swayed slightly in the
saddle as she turned her head and looked out fearfully over the steep
drop-off. There was only swift water directly below her, at the outside
shoulder of a natural crook in the river's meander.
Directly below, the current ran fast and deep past the near-vertical
base of the high bank where it descended almost straight down into the
dark water. Just upstream from this was the beginning of the wide clear
pool, into which the waterfall thundered in a continuous roar.
She was having considerable difficulty remaining upright in her saddle
as she turned her mount away from the edge, and felt her head nod from
an involuntary heaviness as she turned to look this way and that.
She realized that she must be quite a sight to them in her present
condition, for her horse and her attire were all black, with the slick
glistening red of a coating of blood upon the black stallion's
muscular, corded neck beneath where the two arrows were embedded, and
much blood also upon the front of her tunic where the stub-end of a
broken arrow also protruded from her shoulder.
Scores of swords, bows, and spears were to be seen raised on every
hand, but no arrows were nocked and no spearheads aimed her way, for
she held no weapon herself and represented no threat to them or their
leader Kadrug. Indeed, she could only regard herself as a natural
target to them. Si'Wren resolved that she must not allow herself to be
treated as just another conquest by this lunatic mob and their leader,
Kadrug.
What if these, mad with lust, intended to take her?