At midnight, in the great square of the slave market, Kynon's caravan
formed again and went out of Valkis with thundering drums and skirling
pipes. Delgaun was there to see them go, and the cheering of the people
rang after them on the desert wind.
Stark rode alone. He was in a brooding mood and wanted no company,
least of all that of the Lady Berild. She was beautiful, she was
dangerous, and she belonged to Kynon, or to Delgaun, or perhaps to both
of them. In Stark's experience, women like that were sudden death, and
he wanted no part of her. At any rate, not yet.
Luhar rode ahead with Kynon. He had come dragging into the square at
the mounting, his face battered and swollen, an ugly look is his eyes.
Kynon gave one quick look from him to Stark, who had his own scars, and
said harshly,
"Delgaun tells me there's a blood feud between you two. I want no more
of it, understand? After you're paid off you can kill each other and
welcome, but not until then. Is that clear?"
Stark nodded, keeping his mouth shut. Luhar muttered assent, and they
had not looked at each other since.
Freka rode in his customary place by Kynon, which put him near to
Luhar. It seemed to Stark that their beasts swung close together more
often than was necessary from the roughness of the track.
The big barbarian captain sat rigidly erect in his saddle, but Stark
had seen his face in the torchlight, sick and sweating, with the brute
look still clouding his eyes. There was a purple mark on his temple,
but Stark was quite sure that Berild had spoken the truth--Freka would
not forgive him either the indignity or the hangover of his unfinished
wallow under the lamps of Shanga.
The dead sea bottom widened away under the black sky. As they left the
lights of Valkis behind, winding their way over the sand and the ribs
of coral, dropping lower with every mile into the vast basin, it was
hard to believe that there could be life anywhere on a world that could
produce such cosmic desolation.
The little moons fled away, trailing their eerie shadows over rock
formations tortured into impossible shapes by wind and water, peering
into clefts that seemed to have no bottom, turning the sand white as
bone. The iron stars blazed, so close that the wind seemed edged with
their frosty light. And in all that endless space nothing moved, and
the silence was so deep that the coughing howl of a sand-cat far away
to the east made Stark jump with its loudness.
Yet Stark was not oppressed by the wilderness. Born and bred to the
wild and barren places, this desert was more kin to him than the cities
of men.
After a while there was a jangling of brazen bangles behind him and
Fianna came up. He smiled at her, and she said rather sullenly,
"The Lady Berild sent me, to remind you of her wish."
Stark glanced to where the scarlet-curtained litter rocked along, and
his eyes glinted.
"She's not one to let go of a thing, is she?"
"No." Fianna saw that no one was within earshot, and then said quietly,
"Was it as I said, at Kala's?"
Stark nodded. "I think, little one, that I owe you my life. Luhar would
have killed me as soon as I tackled Freka."
He reached over and touched her hand where it lay on the bridle. She
smiled, a young girl's smile that seemed very sweet in the moonlight,
honest and comradely.
It was odd to be talking of death with a pretty girl in the moonlight.