The harp gave out a sudden bitter chord. That was all.
Starke hardly noticed. His whole attention was drawn to the speaker.
His heart began to pound. His muscles coiled and lay ready. There was
a bitter taste in his mouth. He recognized it. It was hate.
He had never seen the man before, but his hands twitched with the urge
to kill.
He was big, nearly seven feet, and muscled like a draft horse. But his
body, naked above a gold-bossed leather kilt, was lithe and quick as a
greyhound in spite of its weight. His face was square, strong-boned,
weathered, and still young. It was a face that had laughed a lot once,
and liked wine and pretty girls. It had forgotten those things now,
except maybe the wine. It was drawn and cruel with pain, a look as of
something in a cage. Starke had seen that look before, in the Luna
blocks. There was a thick white scar across the man's forehead. Under
it his blue eyes were sunken and dark behind half-closed lids. The man
was blind.
Outside, in the distance, men screamed and died.
Starke had been increasingly aware of a soreness and stricture around
his neck. He raised a hand, careful not to rustle the straw. His
fingers found a long tangled beard, felt under it, and touched a band
of metal.
Starke's new body wore a collar, like a vicious dog.
There was a chain attached to the collar. Starke couldn't find any
fastening. The business had been welded on for keeps. His body didn't
seem to have liked it much. The neck was galled and chafed.
The blood began to crawl up hot into Starke's head. He'd worn chains
before. He didn't like them. Especially around the neck.
A door opened suddenly at the far end of the hall. Fog and red daylight
spilled in across the black stone floor. A man came in. He was big,
half naked, blond, and bloody. His long blade trailed harshly on the
flags. His chest was laid open to the bone and he held the wound
together with his free hand.
"Word from Beudag," he said. "They've driven us back into the city, but
so far we're holding the Gate."
No one spoke. The little man nodded his white head. The man with the
slashed chest turned and went out again, closing the door.
A peculiar change came over Starke at the mention of the name Beudag.
He had never heard it before, but it hung in his mind like a spear
point, barbed with strange emotion. He couldn't identify the feeling,
but it brushed the blind man aside. The hot simple hatred cooled.
Starke relaxed in a sort of icy quiet, deceptively calm as a sleeping
cobra. He didn't question this. He waited, for Beudag.
The blind man struck his hands down suddenly on the table and stood up.
"Romna," he said, "give me my sword."
The little man looked at him. He had milk-blue eyes and a face like a
friendly bulldog. He said, "Don't be a fool, Faolan."