He went with Berild to Kynon's quarters in the palace. He sat among
Kynon's possessions, clothed in Kynon's flesh, and learned how Kynon's
mind had planned to loose a red tide upon the peaceful cities of the
Border.
Only a small part of his mind was attentive to this. The rest of it was
concerned with the redness of Berild's hair and the warmth of her lips,
and with the heady knowledge that it was possible to be alive and young
forever.
Never to lose the pride of strength, never to know the dimming
sight and failing mind of age. To go on, like a child in an endless
playground, with no fear of tomorrow.
It was nearly dawn.
Berild rose. She had told him much, but not the things Fianna had told
him, of the secret treachery she had planned with Delgaun. She helped
Stark to clothe Kynon's body in the harness of war, with the longsword
and the shield and the shining spear. Then she set her lips to his so
that his borrowed heart threatened to choke him with its pounding, and
her eyes were wondrously bright and beautiful.
"It is time," she whispered.
She walked beside him, as he had seen her beside Kynon in Valkis,
stepping like a queen.
They came out of the palace, onto the steps where Luhar had died. There
were beasts waiting, trapped for war, and an escort of tall chiefs,
with pipers and drummers and link-boys to light the way.
Stark mounted Kynon's beast. It sensed the wrongness in him, hissing
and rearing, but he held it down, and imperiously raised his hand.
Throbbing drums and skirling pipes, tossing flames where the link-boys
ran with the torches, a clash of metal and a cheer, and Kynon of Shun
rode down through the streets of Sinharat to the coral cliffs, with the
red-haired woman at his side.
They were waiting.
* * * * *
The men of Kesh and the men of Shun were gathered below the cliffs,
waiting. Stark led the way, as Berild had told him to, onto a ledge of
coral above them. Delgaun was there, with the outlanders and a handful
of Valkisians. He looked tired and ill-tempered. Stark knew that he had
been busy for hours with last-minute preparations.
The first pale rays of dawn broke across the desert. A vast ringing cry
went up from the gathered armies. After that there was silence, a taut
expectant hush.
There was no fear in Stark now. He was past that. Fear was too small an
emotion for what was about to be.
He saw Delgaun's golden eyes, hot with a cruel excitement. He saw
Berild's secret triumph in her smile. He looked down upon the warriors,
and let the magnificent voice of Kynon ring out across the soundless
air.
"There will be no war," he said. "You have been betrayed."
In the moment that was left to him, he confessed the lie of the Rama
crowns. And then Berild, who was behind him now, had moved like a
red-haired fury to drive her dagger into his heart.
In his own body, Stark might have escaped the blow. But the reflexes of
Kynon were not as his. They were swift enough to postpone death--the
blade bit deep, but not where Berild had wished it. He turned and
caught her by the wrists, and said to Delgaun,
"She has betrayed you, too. Freka lies in a coral pit--and I am not
Kynon."
Berild tore away from him. She spurred her beast toward the Valkisian.
She would have broken past him, through the escort, and up the cliffs
to safety in the tunnels under Sinharat. But Delgaun was too quick.
[Illustration: _She would have broken past him, but Delgaun was too
quick._]
One hand caught in the masses of her hair. She was dragged screaming
from the saddle, and even then her screams were not of fear, but of
fury. She clawed at Delgaun, and he fell with her to the ground.
The tall chieftains of the escort came forward, but they were dazed,
and confused by the anger that was rising in them. Delgaun's wiry body
arched. He flung the woman over the ledge, and what happened to her
after that Stark did not see, nor wish to see.
He was shouting again to the barbarians, the tale of Delgaun's
treachery.
Behind him on the ledge there was turmoil where Delgaun ran on foot
between the beasts, and the outlanders made their try for safety. Below
him in the desert, where there had been silence, a great deep muttering
was growing, like the first growling of a storm, and the ranks of
spears rippled like wheat before the wind.
And Stark felt the slow running out of Kynon's blood inside him, where
Berild's dagger stood out from his back.
They had headed Delgaun away from the path up the cliff. The two loose
mounts had been caught and held. They had tried to catch Delgaun, but
he was light and fast and slipped away from them. Now he broke back,
toward Kynon's great beast.
Knock the dying man from the saddle, charge through the milling
chieftains, who were hampered by their own numbers in that narrow
space....
He leaped. And the arms of Kynon, driven by the will of Eric John
Stark, encircled him and held him and would not let him go.
The two men crashed to the ledge. Stark let out one harsh cry of agony,
and then was still, his hands locked around the Valkisian's throat, his
eyes intent and strange.
Men came up, and he gasped, "He is mine," and they let him be.
Delgaun did not die easily. He managed to get his dagger out, and
gashed the other's side until the naked ribs showed through. But once
again Stark's mind was free in some dark immensity of its own. He was
living again the dream he had in Valkis, and this was the end of the
dream. N'Chaka had a grip at last on the demon with yellow eyes that
hungered for his life, and he would not let go.
The yellow eyes widened. They blazed, and then they slowly dimmed until
the last flicker of life was gone. The strength went out of N'Chaka's
hands. He fell forward, over his prey.
Below, on the sand, Berild lay, and her outspread hair was as red as
blood in the fiery dawn.
The men of Kesh and the men of Shun flowed in a resistless tide up
over the coral cliffs. The chieftains and the pipers and the link-boys
joined them, hunting the outlanders and the wolves of Valkis through
the streets of Sinharat.
Unnoticed, a dark-haired girl ran down the path to the ledge. She bent
over the body of Kynon, pressing her hand to its heart. Tears ran down
and mingled with the blood.
A low, faint moan came from the man's lips. Weeping like a child,
Fianna drew a tiny vial from her girdle and poured three drops of pale
liquid on the unresponsive tongue.