"Thord," said the Lord Ciaran, "search him."
Thord came smiling up to Stark and ripped his jacket open.
With uncanny swiftness, the Earthman moved. The edge of one broad hand
took Thord under the ear, and before the man's knees had time to sag
Stark had caught his arm. He turned, crouching forward, and pitched
Thord headlong through the door flap.
He straightened and turned again. His eyes held a feral glint. "The man
has robbed me once," he said. "It is enough."
He heard Thord's men coming. Three of them tried to jam through the
entrance at once, and he sprang at them. He made no sound. His fists did
the talking for him, and then his feet, as he kicked the stunned
barbarians back upon their leader.
"Now," he said to the Lord Ciaran, "will we talk as men?"
The man in armor laughed, a sound of pure enjoyment. It seemed that the
gaze behind the mask studied Stark's savage face, and then lifted to
greet the sullen Thord who came back into the shelter, his cheeks
flushed crimson with rage.
"Go," said the Lord Ciaran. "The stranger and I will talk."
"But Lord," he protested, glaring at Stark, "it is not safe...."
"My dark mistress looks after my safety," said Ciaran, stroking the axe
across his knees. "Go."
Thord went.
The man in armor was silent then, the blind mask turned to Stark, who
met that eyeless gaze and was silent also. And the bundle of rags in the
shadows straightened slowly and became a tall old man with rusty hair
and beard, through which peered craggy juts of bone and two bright,
small points of fire, as though some wicked flame burned within him.
He shuffled over and crouched at the feet of the Lord Ciaran, watching
the Earthman. And the man in armor leaned forward.
"I will tell you something, Eric John Stark. I am a bastard, but I come
of the blood of kings. My name and rank I must make with my own hands.
But I will set them high, and my name will ring in the Norlands!
"I will take Kushat. Who holds Kushat, holds Mars--and the power and the
riches that lie beyond the Gates of Death!"
"I have seen them," said the old man, and his eyes blazed. "I have seen
Ban Cruach the mighty. I have seen the temples and the palaces glitter
in the ice. I have seen _Them_, the shining ones. Oh, I have seen them,
the beautiful, hideous ones!"
He glanced sidelong at Stark, very cunning. "That is why Otar is mad,
stranger. _He has seen._"
A chill swept Stark. He too had seen, not with his own eyes but with the
mind and memories of Ban Cruach, of a million years ago.
Then it had been no illusion, the fantastic vision opened to him by the
talisman now hidden in his belt! If this old madman had seen....
"What beings lurk beyond the Gates of Death I do not know," said Ciaran.
"But my dark mistress will test their strength--and I think my red
wolves will hunt them down, once they get a smell of plunder."
"The beautiful, terrible ones," whispered Otar. "And oh, the temples and
the palaces, and the great towers of stone!"
"Ride with me, Stark," said the Lord Ciaran abruptly. "Yield up the
talisman, and be the shield at my back. I have offered no other man that
honor."