Upon Kelderek's inward eye flashed once more the figure of Melathys standing in the light of the sunset, she the once unattainable, who but two days before had held him in her arms and told him with tears that she loved him; she whose gay courage had made light of the foul danger and evil amidst which he had been compelled against his will to leave her to take her chance; she who in herself more than outweighed his lost kingdom and ruined fortunes. Hatred rose up in him against the mangy, decrepit brute on the rock, the very source and image of that superstition which had made of Melathys a brigands' whore and of Bel-ka-Trazet a fugitive; had brought the Tuginda close to death and now stood between him and his love. That this wretched creature should still have power to thwart him and drag him down together with itself! As he thought of all that he had lost and all that he still might lose – probably would lose – he shut his eyes and gnawed at his wrist in his angry frustration.
'Curse you!' he cried silently in his heart. 'Curse you, Shardik, and your supposed power of God! Why don't you save us from Zeray, we who've lost all we possessed for your sake, we whom you've ruined and deceived? No, you can't save us: you can't save even the women who've served you all their lives! Why don't you die and get out of the way? Die, Shardik, die, die!'
Suddenly there came to his ear what seemed like faint sounds of human speech from somewhere within the forest. Fear came upon him, for since the night on the battlefield there had remained with him a horror of the distant voices of persons unseen. Strange sounds were these, too, mysterious and hard to account for, resembling less the voices of men than of children – crying, it seemed, in pain or distress. He sprang up and as he did so heard, louder than the voices, a heavy splashing close at hand. Looking behind him, he recoiled in terror to see the bear wading ashore at the very foot of the bank below. It was glaring up at him, shaking the water from its pelt and snarling savagely. In panic he turned and began to force his way through the undergrowth, snatching and tearing at the bushes and creepers in his way. Whether the bear was pursuing him he could not tell. He dared not look back, but plunged on over the top of the hillock, scarcely feeling the grazes and scratches which covered his limbs. Suddenly, as he forced his way through a tangle of branches, he found no ground beneath his feet. He clutched at a branch which broke under his weight, lost his balance and pitched forward down the steep bank of the creek bounding the promontory on its landward side. His forehead struck a tree-root and he rolled over and lay unconscious, supine and half-submerged in mud and shallow water.
49 The Slave-Dealer
Pain, thirst, a green dazzle of light and a murmur of returning sound. Kelderek allowed his half-opened eyes to shut again and, frowning as he did so, felt something tight and rough pressed round his head. Raising one hand, he found his fingers rubbing against a band of coarse cloth and followed it round one temple, above the eyebrow. He pressed it, and pain blazed up like a flame behind his eyeballs. He moaned and let fall his hand.
Now he remembered the bear, yet felt no more fear of it. Something – what? – had already told him that the bear was gone. The daylight – what little he could endure beneath his eyelids – was older – it must be some time since he had fallen – but it was not this that had reassured him. His mind began to clear and as it did so he became aware once more of the roughness of the cloth upon his forehead. And as an ominous sound, heard first faintly at a distance and then more loudly near by, at the moment of repetition thrusts its startling meaning upon him who originally heard it with indifference, so, as Kelderek's returning senses grew keener, the significance of the cloth forced itself upon him.
He turned his head, shaded his eyes and opened them. He was lying on the bank of the creek, close to the muddy shallow into which he had fallen. The impression of his body was still plain in the mud, and the furrows evidently made by his feet as he was dragged to the spot where he now lay. On his other, shoreward side a man was sitting, watching him. As Kelderek's eyes met his the man neither spoke nor altered his gaze. He was ragged and dirty, with bristling, sandy hair and a rather darker beard, heavy eyelids and a white scar on one side of his chin. His mouth hung a little open, giving him an abstracted, pensive air and showing discoloured teeth. In one hand he was holding a knife, with the point of which he kept idly stroking and pressing the finger-tips of the other.
Kelderek smiled and, despite the stabbing pain behind his eyes, raised himself on his elbows. Spitting out mud and speaking with some difficulty, he said in Beklan,
'If it was you who pulled me out of there and put this bandage on my head, thank you. You must have saved my life.'
The other nodded twice, very slightly, but gave no other sign that he had heard. Although his eyes remained fixed on Kelderek, his attention seemed concentrated on pressing rhythmically with the knife-point the ball of each finger in mm.
'The bear's gone, then,' said Kelderek. 'What brought you here? Were you hunting or are you on a journey?'
Still the man made no reply and Kelderek, recalling that he was beyond the Vrako, cursed himself for being so foolish as to ask questions. He still felt weak and giddy, but it might pass off once he was on his feet. His best course now would be to get back to Lak before sunset and see what he was fit for after a meal and a night's sleep. He held out one hand and said, 'Will you help me up?'
After a few moments the man, without moving, said in broken but intelligible Ortelgan, 'You're a long way from your island, aren't you?' 'How did you know I'm an Ortelgan?' asked Kelderek. 'Long way,' repeated the man.
It now occurred to Kelderek to feel for the pouch in which he had been carrying the money he had brought from Zeray. It was gone and so were his food and his knife. This did not altogether surprise him, but certain other things did. Since he had robbed him, why had the man dragged him out of the creek and bound up his head? Why had he stayed to watch him and why, since he was clearly not an Ortelgan himself, had he spoken to him in Ortelgan? He said once more, tin's time in Ortelgan, 'Will you help me up?'
'Yes, get up,' said the man in Beklan, as though answering a different question. His previously half-abstracted interest seemed to have become more direct and he leaned forward alertly. Kelderek, supporting himself on one hand and beginning to draw up his left leg, felt a sudden tug at his right ankle. He looked down. Both ankles were shackled and between them ran a light chain about the length of his forearm. 'What's this?' he asked, with a sudden spurt of alarm.
'Get up,' repeated the man. He rose and took two or three steps towards Kelderek, knife in hand.
Kelderek got to his knees and then to his feet, but would have fallen if the man had not gripped him by the arm. Shorter than Kelderek, he looked up at him sharply, straddle-legged, knife held ready. After a few moments, without moving his eyes, he jerked his head to one side. 'That way,' he said in Ortelgan. 'Wait,' said Kelderek. 'Wait a moment. Tell me -'
As he spoke the man seized his left hand, jerked it forward and with the point of his knife pierced him beneath one finger-nail. Kelderek cried out and snatched his hand away.