"How are you called?" Stark asked.
"Tuchvar," said the boy. And again, more clearly, "Tuchvar."
"Where from?"
"Tregad."
Tregad was a city-state, east of Irnan and north of Ged Darod.
Stark nodded and turned to the young hounds. They whined and glanced at him furtively with their hellhound eyes that had not yet come to their full evil brightness.
You know me.
They did.
I am N'Chaka. I lead you now. The hounds appealed to Tuchvar. Houndmaster? They knew that that mind had ceased to speak to them. They could not yet grasp the fact that it would never speak again.
Tuchvar said aloud, "This man is master now."
N'Chaka? Master?
Master, Stark said. These old ones mil teach you the law.
Gerd moved forward, stiff-legged and growling. The young hounds said, We will obey.
Stark spoke now to Gerd and Grith. Will you go with me below Yurunna?
It was their turn to be uneasy. Not know. Hound-kind never sent but to Citadel.
Stark said, You cannot stay here. Things with swords will kill you, things that do not feel fear. You must go with me.
Go with N'Chaka or die?
Yes.
Then we go.
Good.
He didn't know whether it was good or not. They were cold-weather beasts, and he had no idea how well they would adjust to warmer climates. Some animals managed very well. In any case what he told them was true. Neither the Fallarin nor the Lesser Hearths of Kheb would consent to having a pack of Northhounds loose and leaderless to prey on them and their cattle. The Tarf would see to that.
Gelmar and the Lords Protector had not counted on the Tarf.
He explained all this to Tuchvar. "Will you come with the hounds, as least as far as Tregad? Or do you serve the Wandsmen too loyally?"
"Not," said Tuchvar carefully, "so loyally that I want to die for them right here." He had been listening to the sounds outside and not liking them. He did not see what good it would do for him to die. It could not help the Wandsmen. It would certainly not help him.
The other apprentice spoke up from his corner, voice pitched high with fear and spite.
"He serves no one loyally but the hounds. Even at Ged Darod he was thinking all the time about star-ships and other worlds and listening to the heresies of Pedrallon."
Stark went over and yanked him to his feet.
"Stop shivering, boy. Nobody's going to kill you. What's your name?"
"Varik. From Ged Darod." Pride stirred in the lumpish face. "I was born there, at the Refuge."
"Farer's get," said Tuchvar. "They haven't any fathers."
"The Lords Protector are my fathers," said Varik, "and better than yours, sitting fat behind walls and trying to hide away food from the hungry."
"My father's dead," said Tuchvar bitterly, "but at least I know who he was, and he worked."
"All right," said Stark. "Now. Who is Pedrallon?"
"A red Wandsman," said Varik, "with the rank of Coordinator. The Twelve took away his rank and put him to doing penance for a year. It was supposed to be a secret, of course; they said Pedrallon had been relieved of his duties because of his health, but nothing stays a secret in our dormitories, not for very long."
Busy little apprentice Wandsmen, Stark thought, nibbling up crumbs of forbidden gossip like mice in a cupboard.
"What was his heresy?"
Tuchvar answered.
"He said the migrations were beginning again. He said that some of Skaith's people would have to go, to make room for others. He said it was wrong to stop the Irnanese."
17
There was a complex of buildings where the two score Wandsmen had lived, with such women as they might have from time to time. The quarters lacked nothing of comfort. Stark and his party and the Keepers of the six Hearths had lodged themselves here. The Fallarin, ever exclusive, had found themselves another place.
At the center of the complex was a wide hall furnished with handsome things brought up from the south. The Hearth-Keepers had managed to keep their men from looting here. Rich carpets were on the floor. Hangings brightened the dark stone of the walls. Many lamps lighted it, in a profligate squandering of oil. Braziers gave off warmth. Tarf and tribesmen mingled, carrying food and wine to the tables, where the conquerors of Yurunna were celebrating their victory.
The hall was crowded. Everyone who could possibly force his way in had done so. They stuffed themselves on the plenty of the Wandsmen's storerooms, washing it down with Southron wine and bitter beer. When the feasting was done, some of the men danced with flashing swords while drums thumped and pipes shrilled. Others rose and sang boasting songs. They began to drink to their leaders, each Hearth vying with the others in claims to bravery and prowess in battle.
They drank to the Fallarin.
They drank to the Dark Man.
Ildann put down his goblet and said, "Now Yurunna is taken, we remember your promise, Stark."
He spoke so that the words were a challenge, intended to be heard by all. He waited until the hall became quiet, with every head bent toward him, listening, and then he asked:
"What will you do now?"
Stark smiled. "Have no fear, Ildann. You have Yurunna. I leave to you and your fellows the task of sharing out the loot and the land, the placing of villages and the method of ruling them. You're at full liberty to kill each other if you choose. I've done my part."
"You go south, then?"
"To Tregad. To raise an army for Irnan. If we succeed, there will be war with the Wandsmen." He looked out over the hall, at all the masked faces. "War. Loot. High pay. And at the end, the starships. The freedom of the stars. That may mean nothing to you. If so, stay and make bricks for the villages. If any wish to come with me, you will be welcome."
Ildann had three sons. The youngest rose to his feet. His name was Sabak. He was slender as a reed and light as a roebuck in his movements, and he had fought well. He said:
"I will go with you, Dark Man."
Ildann crashed his fist on the table. "No!"
Sabak said, "I have a mind to see these ships, Father."
"Why? What do you want with other worlds? Have I not fought to bring you the best of this one? Yurunna, boy! We have taken Yurunna!"
"And that is well, Father. I too fought. Now I wish to see the ships."
"You're a child," said Ildann, suddenly quiet. "Men must feed and breed wherever they are. One world or another, feeding and breeding are the most of a man's life, along with the fighting that goes with them. No matter where you go, you'll find nothing better than what you have."
"That may be, Father. But I will see for myself."
Ildann turned on Stark, and Gerd, crouched by Stark's feet, sprang up snarling.
"I see now why the Wandsmen wish to kill you," Ildann said. "You bring a poison with you. You have poisoned my son with dreams."
A puff of wind made the lamps flicker. Alderyk had risen. The light gleamed gold at his throat and waist and in his falcon eyes.
"The boy has wisdom enough to understand that there is something beyond the walls of his sty, Ildann. Feeding and breeding are not enough for everyone. I too will go with the Dark Man. I am a king, and I have a duty to be as wise as Ildann's youngest son."
There was a clamor of voices. Ildann shouted furiously.
Again the lamps flickered and the cloaks of the men rustled as the small wind admonished them.
"The ships are there," Alderyk said. "The men are there, men from other worlds. We cannot pretend that things are still as they were before the landing, or ever will be again. We must know, we must learn." He paused. "There is another matter."
He spoke now to Stark, his eyes agleam with cruel mirth.
"I said you were like a black whirling wind, to break and shatter. It's our world you blow across, Dark Man, and when you fly away among the stars, we'll be left to deal with whatever wreckage you may have
devised. So it seems my duty to be with you."
A buffet of air slapped Stark about the head, tossing his hair, making him blink and turn aside.
"I control winds, you know," said Alderyk.
Stark nodded tranquilly. "Very well." He stood up. "Let the word be passed. I leave Yurunna tomorrow, when Old Sun is at his highest. Let every man who wishes to come south with me be in the square beside the gate at that time, mounted, armed and with three weeks' provisions."
He left the hall, with Ildann's angry voice raised again behind him. Ashton came, too, and Halk and Gerrith.
Halk said, "I think I'll go into the streets and drum up trade." In the quiet of the corridor, the sounds of celebration came clearly from outside. Through the windows Stark could see fires burning and men moving about them, dancing, chanting, drinking. Grith and the three rose stiffly from where they had lain on watch.
"Take Gerd with you to watch your back," Stark said. "The Hearth-Keepers may object to this stealing of their men."
"Keep your grimhound," Halk said, and touched his sword. "This is enough."
"Will you argue?" Stark asked, and Gerd swung his heavy head to stare at Halk.
Halk shrugged. He walked away. Gerd followed. Halk did not look back or notice him.
"What will you get?" Ashton asked.
"A few boys like Sabak, with stars in their eyes. Malcontents, troublemakers, the restless types who would rather fight than make bricks. Not too many, probably." He smiled briefly. "Alderyk I'll be glad to have, in spite of his thorns."
He said good night and went to his quarters. He sat for a time, brooding. He knew that Gerrith would be waiting for him. He did not go to her. Instead, he took a lamp and made his way quietly, with the hounds, along the chilly corridors and down several flights of steps until he reached the cellars, cut deep into the rock. The Wandsmen had had no need of prison cells and so there were none. Some of the smaller storage chambers had been pressed into service as dungeons, to hold the handful of Wandsmen who had survived the fall of Yurunna.
Half a dozen of the yellow-cloaked Qard were lounging on piles of grain sacks, by way of being guards. Two of them played a game with varicolored pebbles, tossing them into a space marked out with intricate patterns drawn in the dust of the floor. The others made bets.
One of them looked up. "Hey," he said. "The Hound-master!"
They all left off what they were doing and stood. Stark stared at them with displeasure.
"How long have you called me by that name?"
"Since we first heard it from the Hann, who first saw you with the Northhounds," said one of the men. "Didn't you know?"
"No. What else am I called?"
"Herder of Runners. Dark Man. Some even call you Starborn, but most of us don't believe that."
"Ah," said Stark. "You don't."
The man shrugged. "It may be. But it's easier to think that you came from the south."
"What do you know of the south?"
"There are great cities there, as high as mountains, and forests between them where there are all sorts of monsters and the trees eat men. Old Sun burns there with great heat, which is itself unnatural. I think anything might come from the south."
"Well," said Stark, "in a manner of speaking, I did come from there. What will you do now that you have Yurunna?"
"Build a village." The city was too large, too dark and cheerless for the tribesmen. They would build in the familiar pattern, at the edge of cultivation, close to their fields and herds. "We'll bring our women to tend the crops; men can't do that, you know. The land bears only for women. It is the same in the south?"
"I can name you a dozen places where it's so, and another dozen where it isn't." And not only in the south, friend, Stark thought. All over the galaxy.
The man shook his head. "You and your companions are the only strangers I've ever seen. There are different thoughts behind your eyes. I hadn't ever wondered about people living and thinking in other ways. Our way seems the only one, the only right one . . ."
One of the other men leaned forward. "Say truly, Dark Man. Are you from the south, or from another world?"
"From another world," said Stark. "Look up into the sky some night and see the stars; think of the ships going back and forth between them. Maybe someday you'll get tired of fighting the cold and the Runners and decide to go out there yourselves."
The men muttered and glanced at each other.
"We are Qard," said the first man. "We have a place in the tribe, we have a set of laws to live by. If we went to some other place . . ."
" 'The land shapes us,' " Stark said. " 'If we were in another place, we would be another people.'" He remembered Kazimni, the wolf-eyed Izvandian, captain of mercenaries at Irnan, who had said that. "And of course it's true. Yet there are those who have lived for centuries with the hope that someday the star-roads would be open."
He remembered the ruins of the towers away in the darklands, and the madness of Hargoth the Corn King, who had seen the ships in his Winter Dreaming, shining beside the sea. He and his people had been ready to migrate all the long way south to Skeg, singing the Hymn of Deliverance, to find those ships. They had hailed Stark as the savior come to lead them, until that black day at Thyra and Gelmar's cruel lie. The Corn King and his priests had left there stricken men, believing that the ships were already gone and that their endless waiting must continue.
"Anyway," said the tribesman, "the ships are far away, if they exist at all. The choice will not be made in my lifetime."
And perhaps not in mine either, Stark thought, and said, "I will speak to the red Wandsman."
There was only one of that rank among the survivors. His name was Clain, and he had been one of the administrators of the city. He was intelligent and well controlled; a rather cold and rigid man, too proud to show the rage and despair he must be feeling. Which was not true of the lesser Wandsmen. They were all to be kept alive with a view to ransom or as possible trade goods in future negotiations.
Clain was alone, at his own request, and not uncomfortable in his confinement. He stood when Stark entered, stiff with unwelcome, looking bitterly at the hounds. Stark left the three outside, taking only Grith with him into the cell. He shut the heavy door.
"Can you not leave me in peace?" the Wandsman asked, and Stark felt sorry for him in a way. Battered, exhausted and soiled, Clain was the model of painful defeat.
"I've already told you that Irnan still fights. I've told you all I know about what forces have been sent against her. I've told you there was talk among the Lords Protector, in their short visit here, concerning the starport at Skeg . . ."
"They spoke of closing the starport if Irnan should be relieved and the revolt widened."
"I told you that."
"They are guarding the starport closely, hoping that my friend and I may come there."
"I told you that, too."
Stark shrugged. "We knew it anyway. Now tell me about Pedrallon."
Cain sighed. "I have told you that I don't know Pedrallon."
"He's a red Wandsman. Surely there aren't so many of you at Ged Darod that you haven't at least heard of him."
"My place was not at Ged Darod, it was here . . ."
"One of your colleagues has told us that you went down to Ged Darod eight months ago, at about the time Pedrallon was disciplined by the Twelve."
"That's true. But I am not in the confidence of the Twelve."
"Really. Yet the gray apprentices knew all about it."
Gain's mouth made an icy pretense of a smile. "I suggest that you return to the kennels, then, for further information."
Stark frowned. "You have no idea of the basis of Pedrallon's heresy?"
"I am not concerned with such matters. I went to Ged Darod to see about increasing the supplies we send—did send—to the Ochar. Their crops have suffered . . ."
"You don't know why he was disciplined so severely?"
"I only heard that he was ill."
"And you don't know what his penance was?"
"I told you—"
"Yes," said Stark, "you did indeed. Grith . . ."
All this time Clain had been avoiding the sight of the Northhound, as though he knew what must happen because of her. Now his skin became even grayer than before.
"I beg you—"
"I believe you do," said Stark. "I'm sorry." Grith, touch. Not kill. Touch.
The massive head lifted. Stark could have sworn she smiled, pulling her dark lips back from gleaming fangs. Her bright eyes grew brighter still, smoky fires under heavy brows.
Clain went on his knees and wept. "They were our servants," he said between chattering jaws. "Ours. This is evil. Wrong."
Touch him, Grith.
In no more than five minutes Stark had everything he wanted.
He left Clain curled up, shivering on his pallet. He nodded to the Qard and went up the stairs again. He knocked at Ashton's door and went into the room.
Noises filtered through the shuttered windows from the streets of Yurunna. The tribesmen were still joyful. Ashton looked at Stark's face and sighed.
"What have you found out?"
"Pedrallon was sentenced to a year of menial duties at the Refuge as well as being stripped of his rank. They seem to have considered executing him, but didn't—Wandsmen are hardly ever sentenced to death. The small number of Wandsmen who openly supported his position were also punished, in lesser ways. There may have been others who were not open."
"Well?" said Ashton.
"Pedrallon was accused of being in secret communication with the star-captains at Skeg. He denied it. He was also accused of having a group of adherents on the outside. He denied that, too. If there was a conspiracy, it was a small one, and it may be out of business entirely. But from what Clain said, there is a possibility that Pedrallon had secured a transceiver from one of the captains and that some of his group had it hidden in or near Ged Darod. If so, it's still there. The Wandsmen never found it."
"A transceiver," Ashton said, and sighed again.
"If the Wandsmen send the ships away, as they promise to do, we'll be cutting our own throats if we succeed in raising men at Tregad. If we don't, if you and I just run for Skeg, our chances of getting through their cordon are about nil."
The Hounds of Skaith-Volume II of The Book of Skaith Page 11
