They stood inside the vast echoing hall that stretched away into
darkness until it seemed there was no end to it. The cluster of silver
lamps burned as before, and within their circle of radiance the Lhari
started up from their places and stared at the strangers who had come
in through their private door.
Cond, and Arel with her hands idle in her lap. Bor, pummelling the
little dragon to make it hiss and snap, laughing at its impotence.
Varra, stroking the winged creature on her wrist, testing with her
white finger the sharpness of its beak. And the old woman, with a scrap
of fat meat halfway to her mouth.
They had stopped, frozen, in the midst of these actions. And Treon
walked slowly into the light.
"Do you know me?" he said.
A strange shivering ran through them. Now, as before, the old woman
spoke first, her eyes glittering with a look as rapacious as her
appetite.
"You are Treon," she said, and her whole vast body shook.
The name went crying and whispering off around the dark walls, _Treon!
Treon! Treon!_ Cond leaped forward, touching his cousin's straight
strong body with hands that trembled.
"You have found it," he said. "The secret."
"Yes." Treon lifted his silver head and laughed, a beautiful ringing
bell-note that sang from the echoing corners. "I found it, and it's
gone, smashed, beyond your reach forever. Egil is dead, and the day of
the Lhari is done."
There was a long, long silence, and then the old woman whispered, "_You
lie!_"
Treon turned to Stark.
"Ask him, the stranger who came bearing doom upon his forehead. Ask him
if I lie."
Cond's face became something less than human. He made a queer crazed
sound and flung himself at Treon's throat.
Bor screamed suddenly. He alone was not much concerned with the
finding or the losing of the secret, and he alone seemed to realize
the significance of Stark's presence. He screamed, looking at the big
dark man, and went rushing off down the hall, crying for the guard as
he went, and the echoes roared and racketed. He fought open the great
doors and ran out, and as he did so the sound of fighting came through
from the compound.
The slaves, with their swords and clubs, with their stones and shards
of rock, had come over the wall from the cliffs.
Stark had moved forward, but Treon did not need his help. He had got
his hands around Cond's throat, and he was smiling. Stark did not
disturb him.
The old woman was talking, cursing, commanding, choking on her own
apoplectic breath. Arel began to laugh. She did not move, and her hands
remained limp and open in her lap. She laughed and laughed, and Varra
looked at Stark and hated him.
"You're a fool, wild man," she said. "You would not take what I offered
you, so you shall have nothing--only death."
She slipped the hood from her creature and set it straight at Stark.
Then she drew a knife from her girdle and plunged it into Treon's side.
* * * * *
Treon reeled back. His grip loosened and Cond tore away, half
throttled, raging, his mouth flecked with foam. He drew his short sword
and staggered in upon Treon.
Furious wings beat and thundered around Stark's head, and talons were
clawing for his eyes. He reached up with his left hand and caught the
brute by one leg and held it. Not long, but long enough to get one
clear shot at Cond that dropped him in his tracks. Then he snapped the
falcon's neck.
He flung the creature at Varra's feet, and picked up the gun again. The
guards were rushing into the hall now at the lower end, and he began to
fire at them.
Treon was sitting on the floor. Blood was coming in a steady trickle
from his side, but he had the shock-weapon in his hands, and he was
still smiling.
There was a great boiling roar of noise from outside. Men were fighting
there, killing, dying, screaming their triumph or their pain. The
echoes raged within the hall, and the noise of Stark's gun was like a
hissing thunder. The guards, armed only with swords, went down like
ripe wheat before the sickle, but there were many of them, too many for
Stark and Treon to hold for long.
The old woman shrieked and shrieked, and was suddenly still.
Helvi burst in through the press, with a knot of collared slaves. The
fight dissolved into a whirling chaos. Stark threw his gun away. He was
afraid now of hitting his own men. He caught up a sword from a fallen
guard and began to hew his way to the barbarian.
Suddenly Treon cried his name. He leaped aside, away from the man he
was fighting, and saw Varra fall with the dagger still in her hand.
She had come up behind him to stab, and Treon had seen and pressed the
trigger stud just in time.
For the first time, there were tears in Treon's eyes.
A sort of sickness came over Stark. There was something horrible in
this spectacle of a family destroying itself. He was too much the
savage to be sentimental over Varra, but all the same he could not bear
to look at Treon for a while.
Presently he found himself back to back with Helvi, and as they swung
their swords--the shock-weapons had been discarded for the same reason
as Stark's gun--Helvi panted,
"It has been a good fight, my brother! We cannot win, but we can have a
good death, which is better than slavery!"
It looked as though Helvi was right. The slaves, unfortunately,
weakened by their long confinement, worn out by overwork, were being
beaten back. The tide turned, and Stark was swept with it out into the
compound, fighting stubbornly.
The great gate stood open. Beyond it stood the people of Shuruun,
watching, hanging back--as Treon had said, they would wait and see.
In the forefront, leaning on his stick, stood Larrabee the Earthman.
Stark cut his way free of the press. He leaped up onto the wall and
stood there, breathing hard, sweating, bloody, with a dripping sword in
his hand. He waved it, shouting down to the men of Shuruun.
"What are you waiting for, you scuts, you women? The Lhari are dead,
the Lost Ones are freed--must we of Earth do all your work for you?"
And he looked straight at Larrabee.
Larrabee stared back, his dark suffering eyes full of a bitter mirth.
"Oh, well," he said in English. "Why not?"
He threw back his head and laughed, and the bitterness was gone. He
voiced a high, shrill rebel yell and lifted his stick like a cudgel,
limping toward the gate, and the men of Shuruun gave tongue and
followed him.
After that, it was soon over.
* * * * *
They found Bor's body in the stable pens, where he had fled to hide
when the fighting started. The dragons, maddened by the smell of the
blood, had slain him very quickly.
Helvi had come through alive, and Larrabee, who had kept himself
carefully out of harm's way after he had started the men of Shuruun on
their attack. Nearly half the slaves were dead, and the rest wounded.
Of those who had served the Lhari, few were left.
Stark went back into the great hall. He walked slowly, for he was very
weary, and where he set his foot there was a bloody print, and his arms
were red to the elbows, and his breast was splashed with the redness.
Treon watched him come, and smiled, nodding.
"It is as I said. And I have outlived them all."
Arel had stopped laughing at last. She had made no move to run away,
and the tide of battle had rolled over her and drowned her unaware. The
old woman lay still, a mountain of inert flesh upon her bed. Her hand
still clutched a ripe fruit, clutched convulsively in the moment of
death, the red juice dripping through her fingers.
"Now I am going, too," said Treon, "and I am well content. With me goes
the last of our rotten blood, and Venus will be the cleaner for it.
Bury my body deep, stranger with the fierce eyes. I would not have it
looked on after this."
He sighed and fell forward.
Bor's little dragon crept whimpering out from its hiding place under
the old woman's bed and scurried away down the hall, trailing its
dragging rope.
* * * * *
Stark leaned on the taffrail, watching the dark mass of Shuruun recede
into the red mists.
The decks were crowded with the outland slaves, going home. The Lhari
were gone, the Lost Ones freed forever, and Shuruun was now only
another port on the Red Sea. Its people would still be wolf's-heads and
pirates, but that was natural and as it should be. The black evil was
gone.
Stark was glad to see the last of it. He would be glad also to see the
last of the Red Sea.
The off-shore wind set the ship briskly down the gulf. Stark thought of
Larrabee, left behind with his dreams of winter snows and city streets
and women with dainty feet. It seemed that he had lived too long in
Shuruun, and had lost the courage to leave it.
"Poor Larrabee," he said to Helvi, who was standing near him. "He'll
die in the mud, still cursing it."
Someone laughed behind him. He heard a limping step on the deck and
turned to see Larrabee coming toward him.
"Changed my mind at the last minute," Larrabee said. "I've been below,
lest I should see my muddy brats and be tempted to change it again."
He leaned beside Stark, shaking his head. "Ah, well, they'll do nicely
without me. I'm an old man, and I've a right to choose my own place to
die in. I'm going back to Earth, with you."