"It has to be goodbye."
"I'm leader now, in Faolan's place. Besides, these are my people."
Her fingers tightened on his wrists. "If you could...." Her eyes held
a brief blaze of hope. Then she dropped her head and said, "I keep
forgetting you're not one of us. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Beudag."
Starke put his arms around her. He found her mouth, almost cruelly. Her
arms were tight about him, her eyes half closed and dreaming. Starke's
hands slip upward, toward her throat, and locked on it.
She bent back, her body like a steel bow. Her eyes got fire in them,
looking into Starke's but only for a moment. His fingers pressed
expertly on the nerve centers. Beudag's head fell forward limply, and
then Romna was on Starke's back and his knife was pricking Starke's
throat.
Starke caught his wrist and turned the blade away. Blood ran onto his
chest, but the cut was not into the artery. He threw himself backward
onto the stone. Romna couldn't get clear in time. The breath went out
of him in a rushing gasp. He didn't let go of the knife. Starke rolled
over. The little man didn't have a chance with him. He was tough and
quick, but Starke's sheer size smothered him. Starke could remember
when Romna would not have seemed small to him. He hit the bard's jaw
with his fist. Romna's head cracked hard against the stone. He let go
of the knife. He seemed to be through fighting. Starke got up. He was
sweating, breathing heavily, not because of his exertion. His mouth was
glistening and eager, like a dog's. His muscles twitched, his belly was
hot and knotted with excitement. His yellow eyes had a strange look.
He went back to Beudag.
She lay on the black rock, on her back. Candlelight ran pale gold
across her brown skin, skirting the sharp strong hollows between her
breasts and under the arching rim of her rib-case. Starke knelt, across
her body, his weight pressed down against her harsh breathing. He
stared at her. Sweat stood out on his face. He took her throat between
his hands again.
He watched the blood grow dark in her checks. He watched the veins coil
on her forehead. He watched the redness blacken in her lips. She fought
a little, very vaguely, like someone moving in a dream. Starke breathed
hoarsely, animal-like, through an open mouth.
Then, gradually his body became rigid. His hands froze, not releasing
pressure, but not adding any. His yellow eyes widened. It was as though
he were trying to see Beudag's face and it was hidden in dense clouds.
Back of him, back in the tunnel, was the soft, faint whisper of sandals
on uneven rock. Sandals, walking slowly. Starke did not hear. Beudag's
face glimmered deep in a heavy mist below him, a blasphemy of a face,
distorted, blackened.
Starke's hands began to open.
They opened slowly. Muscles stood like coiled ropes in his arms and
shoulders, as though he moved them against heavy weights. His lips
peeled back from his teeth. He bent his neck, and sweat dropped from
his face and glittered on Beudag's breast.
Starke was now barely touching Beudag's neck. She began to breathe
again, painfully.
Starke began to laugh. It was not nice laughter. "Rann," he whispered.
"Rann, you she-devil." He half fell away from Beudag and stood up,
holding himself against the wall. He was shaking violently. "I wouldn't
use your hate for killing, so you tried to use my passion." He cursed
her in a flat sibilant whisper. He had never in his profane life really
cursed anyone before.
He heard an echo of laughter dancing in his brain.
Starke turned. Faolan of the Ships stood in the tunnel mouth. His head
was bent, listening, his blind dark eyes fixed on Starke as though he
saw him.
* * * * *
Faolan said softly "I hear you, Starke. I hear the other breathing, but
they don't speak."
"They're all right. I didn't mean to do...."
Faolan smiled. He stepped out on the narrow ledge. He knew where he was
going, and his smile was not pleasant.
"I heard your steps in the passage beyond my room. I knew Beudag was
leading you, and where, and why. I would have been here sooner, but
it's a slow way in the dark."
The candle lay in his path. He felt the heat of it close to his leg,
and stopped and felt for it, and ground it out. It was dark, then. Very
dark, except for a faint smudgy glow from the scrap of ocean that lay
along the cave floor.
"It doesn't matter," Faolan said, "as long as I came in time."