BEL-AR HEARS THE DRUMS
In the early brightness of the morning, the king of Ruthar rode up the
southern stretch of the slope toward the wall. With him came old Zenas
and Oleric the Red.
Bedight in chain mail rode the king, a shield of shining steel on his
arm, his two-handed sword at his back, dagger in belt, and spear and
battle-ax at saddle-bow. Behind him clattered a company of zinds. Back
of them, down the long road as far as the eye could see, marched rank
on rank of men-at-arms. These were to pass the wall at once, and push
on along the isthmus to meet and hold any force which the captains of
Bel-Ar might throw against them.
In the camp in the forest, ready to ride when the way should be
cleared, were thousands of the wild horsemen of the hills. As soon as
they might pass the breach, they would outstrip the heavy-marching
infantry, spread and harry the country, and dash into the mountain
passes at the northern end of the isthmus, which must be taken and held
before any considerable force could come up from Maeronica and occupy
them.
Behind, the horsemen would push on the footmen and the chariots which
made up the main host of Ruthar. Such was the plan which had been laid
by Everson, Polaris, and Oleric.
As they neared the top of the rise, Polaris and those with him met a
little clump of downcast men plodding along the road and carrying a
burden. Then Mazoe saw the riders and ran to meet them, holding his
arms above his head and weeping.
"What says he? Everson--"
Polaris sprang down from his horse and pushed through the tramping men.
Behind him an army halted while he stood and looked into the still face
of Everson. In the heart of the son of the snows there entered a pang
as keen as that which had stabbed it when he had heard of the passing
of the Sardanian King Minos and his lady.
But Zenas Wright, who had bent over the lieutenant, and bared his
breast and listened to his heart, spoke up:
"This boy has been hard hit; but he's still alive. With good care--and
he's going to get it--I think he has a chance. This jab over the
shoulder isn't so bad as it looks."
"Look at him, Father Zenas," said Polaris. "Let no effort that this
land can produce be spared to make him whole again; for he is a gallant
gentleman, and deserves no such death. His reward from Ruthar for what
he has done shall be great."
Mazoe told all his story, and Polaris bent and took the earth-stained
hand of the unconscious man in his own.
"Fare you well for a time, Everson," he said softly. "I shall not
forget. And I shall find the way you made."
Mazoe and the engineers bore Everson to the camp, and Zenas Wright went
with them.
Polaris touched the red captain on the shoulder.
"Captain Oleric, bide you here at the wall until the path is prepared.
I make you general-in-chief of the army. Carry out the work which
our friend has so well begun. Father Zenas will give you of his good
counsel. Build the road as Everson and you have planned it."
"But you--where are you going?" Oleric asked.
Polaris pointed northward to the breach in the Kimbrian Wall.
"I am going to tread the way he made for me," he answered. "When all is
well, come on and find me on the other side."
Giving the reins of his horse to a servant, Polaris reached his spear
from the saddle and placed himself in the first rank of the footmen,
under the great, blood-red banner of Ruthar. A mighty cheer swept down
the ranks as he joined them. The horsemen drew out to the side of the
roadway; a blare of trumpets sounded the advance; the crimson standard
dipped and went forward. Over the seamed and broken hill, past the
masses of fallen ruin, across the melinite-blasted trench, and through
the breach in the wall flowed the iron stream.
As far as they could see it, the little group on the hilltop watched
the tall form that strode under the tossing banner.
"This king of ours has a will of his own," muttered Oleric. "Now to do
the work he bade us."
But first of all the red captain sent for old Jastla of the hills. When
the white-bearded chieftain stood before him, Oleric said:
"The king has gone yonder through the wall, Jastla. Take a hundred of
your best men--men who know how to die as well as fight. Find the king.
Ring him round with a band of steel. Guard him with your lives." Oleric
grinned as he added, "'Twill be a task to your liking, old bear. Ever
you loved fighting, and this man will lead you to where it is thicker
than earth-berries. I have seen him at the game. But watch him well,
Jastla; he is of a reckless temper when his blood is stirred, and
caution is not his watchword."
Lifting his arm in salute, Jastla replied:
"When harm comes to the king, it shall have set its foot on Jastla's
corpse." The chief drew a deep breath of pride and satisfaction. "I
thank you, Oleric the Learned, for this task. I have trained the lad,
and I love him."
Jastla hurried into the forest to the camp. Presently he, too, was gone
through the wall on his mission.
When the last of the armed force had passed the gap, another army took
its place--an army of pick and shovel men, with chains and ropes and
tugging, sweating horses. Speedily the last of the screen of trees was
down and the stumps torn out. On a foundation of crushed rock Oleric
built up his roadway, and brought it through to the shadow of the
Kimbrian Wall; and there he met trouble.
* * * * *
All of the day on which Everson was stricken, and through the night and
the forenoon following, the builders wrought at the road. Wherever was
room for a pair of hands to labor, the hands were not lacking. Still
the work was not completed, nor was the ditch filled in.
And the reason for the delay was--Atlo.
From the turrets along the wall to the east the captain had collected
a force of nearly five hundred fighting men, and led them in person.
Leaving their horses behind them, these warriors marched to the lip of
the breach and harassed the workmen of Oleric. Nor could the Rutharian
bowmen and slingers come at them with their weapons to do them much
scathe. The edge of the wall had a coping which was nearly breast-high.
Behind that the defenders were sheltered, and might creep, which they
did, to the very brink of the gap, whence they showered the men in the
trench with arrows and javelins.
Following the example of Atlo, the under captains of the towers on the
western stretch of the wall gathered another half a thousand men and
came to the end of the breach on their side. Between the activities
of these two parties, the task of the besiegers was made heavy and
perilous.
Time and again the red captain was forced to withdraw his laborers
from the cross-fire of deadly missiles which the warriors on the wall
rained into the ditch. His losses were appalling. Still his men did not
falter. When the order was given, they swarmed into the gaping trench,
and those who died there were content if they but cast one shovel of
earth before the spirit fled.
Oleric groaned in spirit as he watched this havoc, which he had little
power to hinder. The distance to the top of the wall was too great to
allow of effective javelin-casting, and such weapons as did reach the
summit were seized upon by the enemy and turned back on the attackers.
Having the advantage of the sheltered height from which to cast and
shoot, one of Atlo's soldiers was worth in efficiency a hundred of
those on the ground.
"Swords and axes on the top of the wall, and that only, will clear out
that nest," said Oleric to Zenas, when the geologist had come back from
the camp, where for hours he had labored over Everson, and of whose
condition he now had high hopes.
"Where are our ladder-men tarrying?" snarled Oleric, and the captain
ground his teeth as he saw his workmen decimated and driven back again.
"We have not the time to spare to starve these birds from their perch.
Yet if I fill that hole now it will be with the bodies of brave men
dead and not with earth and stone."
Bethinking himself of another plan, the captain ordered three companies
of heavy-armed foot-soldiers up from the camp and sent them into the
working to shelter the laborers under their shields. By that means a
little progress was made; but the work was slow and cumbersome and the
toll in lives was still heavy.
Long-delayed relief came in the shape of the fighting men whom Everson
had sent out along the wall with ladders. These had lain in the forests
until they saw the turrets depleted of their garrisons. Then they
had crept up to the wall and erected their scaling ladders, choosing
points a number of miles from the breach. That attack was not without
its perils and losses. Scant in numbers, but desperate, the defenders
sallied out on the wall to turn the storming parties. Many warriors
died under the javelins and arrows from above. Comrades took their
places as they fell, and at length, by dint of hard fighting, gained
footing on the crest of the wall.
Guessing how matters must stand at the breach, the Rutharian swordsmen
paid no further attention to the turrets which lay between them and the
sea, but set themselves to the taking of those toward the gap. As soon
as they carried one of these they were able to augment their numbers
from the forces which earlier had passed the wall through the breach,
and which now were besieging the towers from the north side, where the
sloping pathways were defended by gates and doors of bronze.
By the time the men at the east had taken the last of the watchtowers
which intervened between them and the battle at the roadway, their
brothers on the western stretch of the wall had passed the ruins of
the toppled turret there and fallen furiously on the rear of the
Maeronicans who were baiting the trenchmen of Oleric.
From across the chasm where he fought, Atlo saw the new turn of the
battle and bethought him of his own flank. Too late! The shouts of
dismay from his rear were mingled with the thunder of galloping hoofs.
At the eastern tower the men of Ruthar had found the horses which the
defenders had left behind. While the stubborn conflict of swordsmen
was waging on the western wall, these warriors mounted the Maeronican
steeds and charged down the stone road between the copings, sweeping
everything before them.
Brave men, these of the King of Adlaz. Cut off from behind and with
the yawning chasm before, they arose from their crouching and turned
to meet the new foe. Then a grim and pitiless struggle began on
the ancient wall, in which the clangor and clash of arms and the
cursing of death-locked foeman was commingled with the screaming of
pain-maddened horses.
To the rear, which had become the front, went Atlo. He rallied his men
and charged into the teeth of the oncoming horsemen, and kept charging
until he died. Neither side asked quarter or gave it. The last of the
Maeronican fighting men were pushed over the brink of the gap by the
rushing horsemen and died under the merciless blades in the trench.
At the west the fighting was more prolonged and bitter; but the
superior numbers of the Rutharians prevailed, and the end was the same.
The Kimbrian Wall was taken at a fearful cost. But Ruthar paid the toll
smiling. Now Oleric might push through with his wall speedily and in
peace.
* * * * *
When the night of the passing of Minos had worn into morning and
disclosed the extent of the destruction which the Sardanian had wrought
in the harbor of Adlaz, Vedor, the port captain, Nealdo, head of the
harbor guardsmen, and such captains of the fademes as had escaped with
their lives met in council in one of the offices at the wharves. Fear
sat heavy at the hearts of all; for there was not one of them that
dared go up to the city and make a report to the king of the loss of
his fademes.
"Not I," Vedor said hastily, when it was suggested that he, as captain
of the port, was the logical bearer of the news. "It were worth a man's
life to tell the king that a slave has shattered his fleet. Besides, my
duties here do not allow me to absent myself. Choose ye some other to
carry the tidings to Bel-Ar."
Listening to the discussion was a rough old soldier of the guard.
Brenak was his name, and he was a brave man. When it seemed that none
of the gilded captains had heart for the task, Brenak stepped forward.
"I will carry the news," he volunteered. "Lend me a horse, and give me
a few dekkars to buy wine at the wine-shops in the Street of Sherne,
and I will go. It may be my last drinking, though I think not. I fought
with the king in the wars, and I am known to him. I think he will spare
me."
So Brenak rode up to the city and bought his wine. From the wine-shops
he went to the palace and gained admittance to the king and told the
tidings, which already were flying from mouth to mouth through the
streets.
"Fool! You are crazed!" Bel-Ar exclaimed when Brenak had made a short
tale of it. But in the eyes of the soldier the king saw the truth, and
his pallid face turned a shade more pale. In his fury, scarce knowing
what he did, he struck Brenak with his closed fist so that the soldier
died from it.
For days thereafter the temper of the king was such that those who
must come near him did so with fear and trembling. Even his queen, the
petulant, flower-faced Raissa, who dared him more than most, avoided
him and kept to her own apartments.
Weeks before, when it became known that the captives had escaped,
little heed had been paid to their going. They were only slaves, and
who cared what became of a slave! Interest in them had been swallowed
up in the general indignation at the defection of Oleric the Red and
the supposed treachery of Mordo. Only Bel-Ar and Rhaen, the arch-priest
of Shamar, had chafed, and that because of the escape of the man whom
they had doomed for the slaying of the sacred bull. The king had sent
fademes to scour the sea, and one to go up the coast to Ruthar to head
the fugitives, should they have gone that way. That fademe had never
returned.
These happenings had irked the pride of the king, who, like all
despots, was of a wild and ungovernable temper that flared to madness
when he was crossed.
Came then the blow of Minos--a calamity which shook the nation and
struck the foundation of Bel-Ar's dearest ambition. Without his
fademes, his dreams of world-conquest vanished. Small wonder that his
lords and ladies feared him and quaked at his approach.
But the king was of a courage and perseverance equal to his temper.
When the first shock of the catastrophe had worn away, he took stock of
the damage and set about to repair so much of it as might be. At the
bottom of the harbor his divers labored among the sunken fademes. Some
few of the vessels were raised and rehabilitated. By far the most of
them were useless, save for the metal in their hulks. Minos had done
his work thoroughly, and the priceless engines, the living power of
which was mined from the depths of the earth only by great labor, were
nearly all ruined.
Increasing his forces, both underground and in his workshops, Bel-Ar
drove his miners and his builders ceaselessly to the replacement of
what he had lost.
Some weeks after the destruction of the fademes, rumor came down from
the south--fleeting words in the mouths of the people, of which no man
could trace the source--that a great host was gathering in Ruthar to
assail the Kimbrian Wall. That report the king laughed at and did not
believe, or if he did believe, it fretted him not at all. The Kimbrian
Wall had stood an unshakable barrier since it had been completed,
nearly thirty centuries before. It would go on standing to the end of
time. It was well garrisoned, and Atlo was a good captain and vigilant.
Ruthar must be mad if it thought to march against the wall.
Rumor, again traceless, spoke further and told that Oleric the Red had
appeared in Ruthar, and with him the slaves who had gone with him from
Adlaz, and that they had hands in this matter of the wall-storming.
Bel-Ar heard that also, and smiled grimly. Let Oleric and the slaves,
if they were indeed in Ruthar, keep well within its boundaries, if they
set any store by life.
Progress was being made with the reconstruction of his fleet, and the
king's poise was returning. Once more his court, that had been silent
and almost deserted, echoed to the laughter of the gay courtiers, and
Raissa sat upon her throne and toyed with the pearls that she loved.
Then one afternoon a wan and haggard-faced man, spurring a weary horse
to its utmost speed, rode in through the southern gates of Adlaz and
clattered up the broad avenue to the palace. From the mountain town of
Barme he had come, riding two days and a night by relays of horses and
leaving some of his hard-ridden beasts dead along the road. So nearly
dead was the rider himself from the rack of that journey that he fell
from his horse at the palace gates, and men of the guard carried him
before the king.
From the floor of the audience-chamber where they laid him, the soldier
raised his arm in salute and cried weakly:
"The Kimbrian Wall is sundered, O king. She whom they name the Goddess
Glorian of Ruthar cracked the wall in twain with thunders and green
lightning that shook the land like a hammer." (So the messenger
described the melinite mines of Everson.) "Through the wall poured a
great host, which is rolling down upon Barme. Atlo is dead at the break
in the wall. From the center to the sea-wall, the towers are held by
Ruthar. Men say that the dreadful beasts of the forest are coming to
make war on the children of Ad. Ruthar has crowned a king--a giant
with hair of gold, who came up from the sea with Oleric the Red, who
was your captain--and he leads the armies against Barme."
Ending his tidings, the man lost grip of his wits. His head fell on his
arm, and he slept. Nor could he be roused for many hours.
"Now, here is a message with meat and spirit," said the king. Bel-Ar,
who went near to madness when he heard of the loss of his fademes,
could laugh when he heard that an army was marching against him. Of all
the news only one thing galled him, and that was that the yellow-haired
slave from the hated world to the north was kinging it in Ruthar.
* * * * *
Summoning his captains, the king banished his court of fluttering
butterflies and filled his audience-chamber with the clash of golden
armor. No sluggard was Bel-Ar when his foe was on the march, but a
wise and resourceful leader. When his mind was not clouded by the
rages which at times came upon him, he could plan with the best of his
generals.
Bel-Ar in his early youth had been a soldier, and he, too, had fought
Ruthar at the Kimbrian Wall. Since coming to the throne of Maeronica he
had put down two rebellions, leading his armies in person and waging
with a strong and ruthless hand a warfare that had entailed the taking
of cities.
First move of the king was to despatch his messengers south and north
to raise all the levies of Maeronica and the garrisons of the cities
which were tributary to Adlaz. These he directed should be assembled
at the crook of the river Thebascu, as the birds fly, ninety miles to
the south of Adlaz. He sent Fanaer, one of his most trusted captains,
in hot haste into the south to gather what forces he might and stem the
tide of invasion until the main host could be mustered and brought up.
Before nightfall the war-drums were beating in every city and hamlet of
Maeronica.
"If these rash forest wolves and their slave-king win through Barme and
the mountain passes and overwhelm Fanaer, which I doubt, then we will
meet them beyond the Thebascu, on the plains of Nor," said Bel-Ar to
his councilors.
"How they have broken through the wall, I know not; but warrant that it
is some trick of the strangers.
"As for the great beasts whereof the soldier spoke, I believe that they
were all dead many years ago. Surely no man of Ad can say with truth
that he ever has set eyes on one. They are but a myth wherewith Ruthar
would affright us. And if they be alive, and as terrible as tradition
tells, I am not afeared of them. We will drive them back with fire, as
once before our ancestors drove them, in the days before the wall.
"Friends, I welcome this war that has come to seek me, for I was
growing dull and rusty with inaction.
"If the wall be truly down, then will we drive Ruthar speedily to
the other side of it--and having so done, we will follow on and bend
the necks of these stubborn mountain boors to the yoke that has long
awaited them."
So he dreamed; so he spoke and heartened his captains.
Two days later the trumpets blew at the southern gates, and with a
rumbling of drums and a tossing of banners overhead, the first division
of the garrison and the levies of the city of Adlaz, thirty thousand
strong, marched out the Mazanion Road for the plains of Nor. At their
head, under the rustling folds of his war-standard of gold and blue,
rode Bel-Ar, the king.
* * * * *
To Rose Emer, grown pale with waiting, Brunar brought these tidings in
the prison of Bel-Tisam.
When she heard that the wall was down, and that Polaris had set his
face toward Adlaz, her joy, which she strove to conceal from the
captain, knew no bounds. After Brunar was gone, the girl bent over the
cradle of the little Patrymion, now a thriving youngster.
"Ah, little mischief," said Rose, and shook her finger at him, "not
much longer in this prison for you and me. Friends are coming,
Patrymion; friends who will set us free."
Patrymion, who had small care for what destiny had in store for him, so
that his immediate requirements in goats' milk were satisfied, sucked a
pink thumb and blinked up at her out of sleepy eyes.
* * * * *
In the meantime, telling off companies of men to east and west to aid
in the fight at the wall by laying siege to the towers, Polaris pushed
straight ahead through the forests toward the town of Barme. Counting
in the forces of light-armed soldiery who had preceded him through the
wall, the son of the snows had in command a division of nearly seven
thousand men. Of these there were a thousand archers, fifteen hundred
slingers, two thousand and a half of javelin men, and nearly two
thousand more of heavy armored footmen with swords and spears.
Two hours along the way, Jastla and his picked hundred passed swiftly
up the lines and joined the vanguard. Tall and stately men of the hills
were these, led by the old chieftain, scarcely a one of the company
under six feet, and splendidly armed after the fashion of their land.
"Here be a few lads of the rocks who would have a tale to tell to their
sweet-hearts when they go home again," said Jastla as he fell in beside
Polaris.
With small scouting parties thrown out ahead of him, Polaris hastened
on. It was his plan to meet and intercept any expedition which might be
sent from Barme to the relief of Atlo at the wall, and so to prevent
interference with Oleric's work at the breach. In this fortune favored.
For the javelin men ambushed and cut down no less than three riders
sent from the wall to rouse the garrison at Barme; so that the first
news that reached the town and the Captain Broddok, who commanded
there, was brought in by the peasantry of the hills who fled through
the forests before the advance of Polaris.
Mightily disturbed, and not knowing the strength of the force which was
marching against him, Broddok held his men under arms in indecision
until it was too late for him to go to the wall. In the evening of the
day after the breaching of the wall a battered soldier who had escaped
from one of the turrets and slipped through the Rutharian cordons
brought word to Broddok of the end of the Kimbrian fighting and the
fall of Atlo. Then the Maeronican commander dispatched a relay-rider to
Adlaz and made ready to defend his own gates, around which the jaws of
Ruthar were closing.
From the lower end of the isthmus a number of passes led through the
mountains into the forests, beyond which were the plains of Nor.
Through only one of these defiles lay a direct road, broad and suitable
to the speedy passage of an army with its impedimenta and provision
trains. That path was bestridden by the town of Barme.
Midway of the pass and near the foot of its western precipice was a
low, bald hill, over which the road lay. Around the lower slopes of
the hill straggled the town, and at its summit was the walled citadel.
It was a strong place, made so both by nature and by man. So closely
did it nestle to the towering face of the defile's acclivity, and so
rounding was the bulge of the mountain wall, that if one climbed to the
top and looked down the precipice, he would see only the houses of the
lower town and the citadel would be entirely hidden from him by the
rock. At each side of the hill was rocky, wooded land, cut through by
many gullies and the ravines of mountain streams.
A hard place to come at, Polaris thought, as he stood in the gorge and
looked at the hill by the dim light of the stars--for he came to Barme
in the night. Yet it must be taken, and that speedily. The swiftest
road into Maeronica lay over the hill, and the citadel's gates were the
gates of the road also.
An hour before the dawn he occupied the town, from which most of the
people had fled, and attacked the fortress furiously, thereby losing
many men. Though the walls of the place were not high, they were ably
defended. Broddok was a skilled general, and his garrison was superior
in numbers to the force which laid siege to his stronghold. Still
Polaris, counting on the speedy arrival to his support of the van of
his main army, kept up the assault until well into the day, trying in
turn every point of the fortress--and failing at every turn.
Finding that attempts against the wall availed them nothing, for they
were without siege machinery, and Broddok's swordsmen clustered so
thickly on the parapets that no footing could be gained thereon with
ladders, the Rutharians boldly assailed the main gate to the citadel.
Cutting a tree from the forest, threescore stout men bore it to the
gate. While the archers and slingers from the tops of the nearest
houses of the town swept the citadel walls with clouds of missiles,
the men in the street swung their battering-ram until their arms were
weary. But Broddok's doors were strongly built of oak, reinforced with
bars of steel and set well within the arch of the gateway. Beyond the
snapping of a few chains, the ram did them little damage.
Maeronicans on the battlements mocked the men of Polaris with sharp
words and sharper weapons, and through mortises in the vault of the
arch poured down streams of boiling water. The Rutharians lost fifty
men-at-arms before they desisted from the assault.
"Smoke them out," was the counsel of Jastla.
Fagots were fetched up from the town and drenched with oil, and men set
fire to them and ran and cast them blazing into the archway.
This means might have succeeded in burning away the stubborn oak. But
the Maeronican captain, tiring of the din at his gates, mounted five
hundred horsemen, opened his portals, and charged so fiercely through
the fire that he cleared the street, and for a time his doors were
unmolested.
* * * * *
Through the defile a chill wind swept from the north, carrying with it
a light drift of snow, and Polaris's men found it cold work roosting
without the walls. They had left their camp carrying food for only a
two days' march. The country through which they had come was wild and
sparsely settled, and offered little opportunity for foraging. When
they began to feel the pinch of hunger, Polaris ordered his men to go
among such of the townsmen of Barme as had not been frightened from
their homes, and gather provisions, paying for all that they took with
gold, for he would have no looting.
And those orders were in part, at least, obeyed.
Smoke was curling from the chimney of a small house in a side street
near where they stood, and Jastla said to the king:
"While these fellows are filling their bellies, let us look to our own.
I could eat the wolf for which I am named, I am that hungered. See;
here is a house and fire. Let us go and seek food."
When they had struck upon the door, it was opened by a little lad, who
stared at them, round-eyed, and then fled screaming across the room.
"Ai! Raula!" he cried. "Here be two giants from the forests. Will they
eat us, think you, as Darno said they would?"
"Not so, small man," called Polaris gently, who had learned somewhat
of the Maeronican tongue from Oleric. "We are two hungry men, indeed;
but we would not harm little boys; and Darno, whoever he may be, should
not affright you with such tales."
At his words, a lean and fierce-eyed girl stood up from the fireplace
where she had been crouched and came to the door. She clutched a baby
to her breast. While she eyed the two men sourly, there was no fear in
her regard.
"Now who may you be, who wear the arms of a forest raider, yet who know
our tongue and bespeak a child so fairly?" she asked of Polaris.
"I am a soldier of Ruthar, lady," Polaris said, bowing to her. "My
comrade here and myself are cold and hungry. May we be warmed at your
fire and eat a little of the bread and meat yonder on the table? We
have had no food for many hours. We will pay you well."
The girl pressed closer and peered up at him.
"Ah! I know who you are now," she said triumphantly. "You are no robber
of the hills, though belike your comrade is," and she shot a glance of
no favor at Jastla. "You are neither of Maeronica or Ruthar. You are
the mighty man who came up from the sea to lead the south against the
north and take Adlaz." She laughed discordantly. "Well, you have made a
good beginning, they say; but you have a man's task ahead of you.
"Come in and eat and be warmed. I care not. All the menfolks have fled
the house to the hills in fear of you. I stayed, I and little Telo,
here. I fear no soldiers. Nay, close that door behind you, old man; I
would not that winter came in with you and sat at meat."
Laughing grimly into his beard, Jastla made fast the door. While the
two men sat and ate, the girl resumed her crouching by the fire, where
she crooned over the babe, at times staring furtively at Polaris. Telo
soon conquered his fear of the strangers and climbed to the knees of
Polaris, where he fingered the big man's chain armor curiously and
prattled many childish questions.
When the hungry men had finished their meal, the girl spoke up again:
"Say, man from the sea, I have heard that there is a beautiful lady who
waits for you in a prison in Adlaz town. Is that true?"
"Yes, lady, it is true," Polaris said; and he sighed.
"And you lead a great host thither to set her free?" the girl persisted.
"Yes, if I may."
"But to get on the way to Adlaz, you must take this fortress of Barme;
and you find it a hard nut to crack. Is that not so?"
"That is true, also, lady."
"Well, hark you, man." The girl stood up and came to the table. "You
who are true to a woman as few men are ever true; perhaps the poor,
despised, cast-off Raula may aid you somewhat in this undertaking."
While Polaris stared at her and Jastla grunted, she went on:
"Oh, for your wars, and for who is king, I care not. Still, I would
see that lady in Adlaz town go free--if you are strong enough to pass
Bel-Ar and his army. Those matters you must look after later. But
listen. Other men are not so true as you are. There is one in the
fortress yonder who once thought Raula fair. Now she is a deserted
wife, while he seeks other maids to listen to his lies. Oh! how I hate
him!" She spat the words and stamped fiercely on the floor.
"I would see that man humbled and cast down. I would see his red blood
on the stones at my feet.
"There is a way into the fort, a hidden way, which is known to none but
me and Telo.
"Now, Telo here shall show you that way. There is a spring on the hill.
'Tis back of the stables, in a grove of stunted trees. It flows down
through the rock under the wall and escapes on the hillside. Years ago,
when I tended cows on the hill, I found the entrance. The water has so
worn the stone that one may climb its course from the old cowpath to
the brow of the hill. If a girl can clamber there, surely active men
will not find it at all hard to do.
"When night is fallen, bid your men to storm the gate again. Then, if
your force is strong enough to make the venture, take a part of it and
gain the hill. While those of Broddok's men who do not watch the walls
are sleeping, you may fall upon them and open the gates."
Polaris and Jastla looked on the girl, amazed.
"Stare not at me," she said. "I am an outcast and reckless woman--and I
would be revenged. Besides, we poor folk care little what the fate of
Bel-Ar may be, who does oppress us so that life is a great weariness."
* * * * *
It was arranged that they should come back at nightfall for the boy,
and Polaris and Jastla left the house. When the chieftain fingered his
pouch and would have paid her for the entertainment, Raula would have
none of his gold.
"This night's work will be pay enough for Raula," she said.
After they had gone, Jastla set a soldier to watch the house and report
to him if any left it; for Jastla trusted no woman and feared a trap.
His fears proved to be unfounded. No one left or visited the house
through the afternoon.
For the remainder of the day Polaris rested his soldiers, and kept
up only the semblance of an attack on the walls of Barme citadel. He
wondered much at the delay of the army of Ruthar, having as yet learned
nothing of the fighting at the Kimbrian breach; but he was resolved to
delay not himself, but make the attempt on the fortress as the girl
Raula had suggested.
With the fall of night he brought the bulk of his force up into the
cross-streets near the gate and posted sentries to see that none passed
from the town to the fort. Then he went to the house of Raula and
fetched the lad. Telo was afraid of the night and the many armed men,
and would go only if Polaris, whom he trusted, would carry him.
"Show him the spring at the head of the old cowpath, Telo," said
Raula, and to Polaris, "Bend down the clump of evergreen bushes above
the spring, and you will find the way through the rock. Beware of the
sentries at the stables. Once one of them nearly slew me when I came
suddenly on him out of the dark." She bent nearer and whispered:
"Perchance you will meet and slay Broddok, the captain. I pray you do.
And ere you smite, tell him that Raula, daughter of Hecar, sent you to
him."
As Polaris went out to the street, with the lad on his shoulder, he
heard the girl's shrill laughter within the house--laughter that made
him shiver.
Followed by a thousand of his swordsmen, including the hundred men
of Jastla, Polaris marched silently around rough devious streets
to the side of the hill, and then into the rough ground where the
boy directed. It was a dark night, for the stars were dimmed by
storm-clouds, and the going was slow. Raula had said it would take at
least an hour and the half of another to gain the crest of the hill,
and Polaris had ordered his men in the town to hold their hands until
they should hear his trumpets, and then to attack the gates of the
citadel with trees and fire.
At the spring the clump of bush was found easily, and behind it in the
face of the hill was a hole in the rock, so low that a man must bend
nearly double to enter it. Here Polaris gave Telo into the arms of a
young Rutharian soldier, bidding him bear the lad safely back to his
sister.
Bending down, the son of the snows entered the hole. Jastla, who never
let his charge beyond arm's reach, crowded in at his heels. For six
feet or more they walked with their knees nearly to their chins, and
then were able to stand upright. The girl had told them that a light
in the passage could not be seen from above because of the trees, and
one of the soldiers had nursed a smouldering torch under his cloak.
That was brought in and whirled into flame, and they proceeded along a
narrow gully, over the floor of which the water trickled.
"Oof! That maid must have been very love-sick, or she has the courage
of a fighting man, to have climbed this place in the dark," muttered
Jastla, as he surveyed the gloomy cavern.
For nearly three hundred yards the party followed the subterranean
ravine, the floor of which sloped upward sharply. It ended in a shaft
that was nearly perpendicular, which the men must climb by the aid of
jagged rocks where the course of the stream had been worn for centuries.
The torchbearer was posted at the angle, so that the light might be
shed both down the passage and through the shaft. Wrapping his sword
and spear in his cloak to prevent them from clanging against the
stones, Janess, insisting that he should be first, went silently up
through the rock, and Jastla followed close behind. They came out at
the top through thick bushes into a basin or pool, where the water was
ankle-deep. They were inside the wall of the fortress on the western
side of the hill-crest. Around the pool was a grove of stunted trees,
to the east of which lay the low, wooden stable buildings. South of the
stables were the stone barracks of the garrison.
* * * * *
Man by man, the Rutharians came up through the darksome hole and took
cover among the trees, until the grove bristled with swords. Polaris
and Jastla worked their way to the edge of the wood nearest the stables.
The chieftain pointed to the wooden buildings.
"We will fire them," he whispered, "and have a light to fight by."
As he spoke, a sentry paced out from the shadow of the stables and
passed along the edge of the grove to the wall. So near he passed
to the hidden men that they might have reached out and touched his
shoulder.
"Now that man must be disposed of," muttered Polaris, "and I like it
not, this smiting of men from behind."
No such niceties of warfare ruled Jastla. When the man came back, the
chieftain stepped noiselessly from the trees behind him. For a pace
or two the big mountaineer trod in the tracks of the unsuspecting
sentry. Then Jastla sprang, and a brief and wordless struggle under the
trees followed. A dagger flashed. Arising, Jastla took the cloak of
the fallen man and stepped calmly into his beat. At the corner of the
stable the chieftain met and slew the second sentry.
At the side of the stable the Rutharian swordsmen formed for battle.
A man with a torch ran from point to point along the rear of the
buildings and set fire to the timbers. As they caught and the flames
leaped crackling up, the frightened horses began to pound and scream.
Polaris bade his trumpeter blow. The notes blared piercing clear. The
swordsmen broke cover with a roar and charged the stone barracks.
Lighting torches at the blazing barns, men ran with them to light
the way. Hardly were they half-way across the intervening space when
there was an answering flare from the streets below, and the thunder
of the battering-ram announced that the fight at the gates was on with
redoubled fury.
While half of his force entered the barracks and fell upon the
bewildered men there, Polaris, with the remainder, swept down the broad
roadway, past the dwelling of the officers. Cutting their way through
the defenders of the gate, the Rutharians tore out the bars, and their
comrades in the streets swarmed through and up the hillside.
In the midst of the wild mêlée that followed, Broddok did the only
thing that he could do to save his skin. He rallied such of his men
as were under arms, fought through to the stables, and released the
fear-maddened horses. All who could of the Maeronicans mounted in
haste. For a moment it seemed that the captain would give the order to
charge down the street into the fighting press, where the men of Ruthar
were putting his comrades to the sword. But Broddok thought better of
it.
With nearly four hundred men, the captain rode down the northern slope
of the hill, opened the road-gates there, and galloped off through the
pass, leaving his leaderless garrison to fend for itself.
When that became known, the Maeronican soldiers, beset on both sides
and confused and disheartened by the suddenness of the stroke, threw
down their arms and surrendered, on promise of their lives.
So fell the strong fortress of Barme, because its captain had broken
faith with a woman.
With the first light of morning, Polaris sent his prisoners south
toward Ruthar under a strong guard. Leaving a thousand men under one of
Jastla's hill-captains to hold the citadel, the son of the snows pushed
on through the pass with the remainder of his division.
That move of his came near to costing Ruthar a king.