Chapter 13: The Journey of No Return

Earlier that day, on the ice fields half a dozen jeks from Nadia City, B’ronth the Utalian had sprinted boldly across the snow toward the girl and her elderly male companion. This had taken considerable effort, because B’ronth the Utalian had not been endowed with an abundance of courage. But B’ronth was a poor man, as Utalia was a poor country; a bag of gold would be a veritable fortune to him. Like most cowards, B’ronth had one passion which could over-ride his timidity: that passion in B’ronth’s case was wealth.

The old man was fumbling clumsily for his whip-sword when B’ronth hurtled at them. The girl screamed:

“Look out, Father Hammeth! Look out!”

B’ronth smiled. They would not see the smile, of course. B’ronth, a chameleon man, was invisible. They would see his footprints in the snow, true. They would know him for a Utalian and understand his invisibility. But still the advantage of invisibility would be his. It had always been so when a Utalian fought. It would always be so.

B’ronth leaped upon the old man even as he prepared to strike out with the whip-sword. B’ronth was both naked and unarmed. The sword lashed whining at air a foot from his face. B’ronth wrenched its haft from the old man’s hand. Hammeth stumbled back.

B’ronth swung the whip-sword. He was no duelist. A duelist would lunge and thrust with the whip-sword, allowing its mobile point some degree of freedom by controlling it deftly. A non-duelist like B’ronth would hack and slash, the deadly sword-point whipping about, curling, slashing, striking.

Hammeth held up his hands to defend himself. The whip-sword whined in the cold air. The girl screamed. Hammeth’s right hand flew from his arm and blood jetted from the stump. Hammeth sank to the ground and lay there in a spreading pool of crimson. His eyes remained open. He was staring with hatred at B’ronth. In a matter of minutes, B’ronth knew, he would bleed to death. B’ronth turned on the girl.

She stood before him swaying. She had almost swooned, but as B’ronth approached her, she flung herself at him, crying Hammeth’s name, and they both fell down in the snow. B’ronth let the whip-sword fall from his fingers. Half a bag of gold for a dead girl, but the whole bag if she lived. She fought like a wild cat and for a few moments B’ronth regretted dropping the weapon and actually feared for his life. But soon, his courage returning and his whole being contemplating the bag of gold, he subdued the girl.

She lay back exhausted in the snow. “Please,” she said. “Please bind his arm. He’ll bleed to death. Please.”

B’ronth said nothing. Ylia staggered to her feet, then collapsed and crawled on her knees to Hammeth. The blood jetted from the stump of his arm. He was watching her. A little smile touched the corners of his mouth but pain made his eyes wild.

B’ronth licked his lips. He had earned his bag of gold and, earning it, thought of more wealth. He thought: why should I accept one bag of gold from a common Abarian soldier when there are millions of bags of gold in Nadia City? He could deliver the girl, who obviously knew something the Abarians did not wish the Nadians to know, to Nadia City. He could sell her to the Nadians. Or, if the Abarians outbid them, then the Abarians...

Bruised, her cloak in tatters, Ylia reached Hammeth. His eyes blinked. He smiled at her again, smiling this time with his whole face. Then he turned his head away and his eyes remained open and staring.

“You ... killed ... him,” Ylia said, sobbing.

B’ronth dragged her to her feet. “Lulukee!” he called. “Lulukee!” Where was the boy?

Lulukee did not answer. Cursing, B’ronth stripped the corpse and dressed in its warm clothing. The blood on the right sleeve was already stiff with cold. Where could Lulukee have gone off to? wondered B’ronth. Well, no matter. They were only a few jeks from Nadia City, where wealth awaited him...

“Come,” he said. He dragged the girl along. She looked back at the dead old man until a snow drift hid him from sight.

After the Utalian had dragged the beautiful girl beyond the ridges of snow, Lulukee the Nadian came down into the valley. He was a small boy of some sixty winters who, like many of the Nadians who did not come from their country’s single large city, had lived a hard life as an ice-field nomad. He had seen an opportunity to profit in the service of B’ronth the Utalian, but had not expected this service to include murder. Thus when the Utalian had called him, expecting the boy to drag his supply sled down into the snow-valley, Lulukee had remained hidden. Now, though, he made his way to the body of the dead man and, scavengerlike, went over it with the hope of turning a profit by B’ronth’s deed.

In that he was disappointed. B’ronth had taken the dead man’s snow cloak and his whip-sword: there was nothing left for Lulukee’s gleaning. He was about to turn and trudge back the way he had come, when he realized that if he did so, if he exposed himself on the higher wind-ridges, B’ronth might see him. Therefore he remained a long time with the frozen body of Father Hammeth, actually falling into a light slumber while he waited.

He awoke with a start. He blinked, then cowered away from the apparition which confronted him. It was a man, but such a man as Lulukee the Nadian had never seen before, a superbly muscled man a head taller than the tall Abarians themselves.

“Where’s the girl?” the man demanded.

“I--I don’t know, lord.”

“How did this happen?” The man looked down with compassion at Father Hammeth’s corpse.

“I only just arrived, l-lord.”

“You lie,” the big man said. “You were sleeping here. You’ll tell me, or--”

Lulukee blanched. He owed no loyalty to B’ronth the Utalian. If indeed he remained loyal he might be implicated in the murder of the old man. He said: “It was B’ronth the Utalian.”

“Where is he?”

“G-going to Nadia City, I think.”

“Alone?”

“No, lord. With his prisoner. A--a lovely woman.”

“Ylia!” the giant cried. “You! How are you called?”

“I am Lulukee of Nadia, lord.”

“Lead me to the city. Lead me after them.”

“But lord--”

“Lead me.” The giant did not shout. He did not menace of glower or threaten. Yet there was something in his bearing which made it impossible for the frightened Lulukee to do anything but obey. “Yes, lord,” he said.

“Tell me--” as they started out, the boy’s sled reluctantly left behind--”is this B’ronth the Utalian in Retoc’s pay?”

“No, I don’t think so. He works alone, lord. Reaping profit wherever he can.”

“And he took the girl unwillingly?”

“Yes, lord.”

“He won’t profit in this venture,” Bram vowed.

The wind howled behind them. Six jeks ahead of them was Nadia City.

“Can’t you see I’m busy? Can’t you see I have no time for the likes of you?” Prokliam the seneschal whined in self-pity.

“Then make time,” B’ronth said boldly, his cowardice obscured by dreams of avarice. “What I have brought through the Ice Gates is important to your ruler.”

“Bontarc of Nadia,” said the seneschal haughtily, “does not waste his time on every Utalian vagabond who reaches his court.”

“True. But I assume Bontarc of Nadia wishes to know exactly how his brother, the Prince Jlomec, died?”

Prokliam fought to keep his puckered old face impassive. But his mind was racing and his heart throbbed painfully. Could the Utalian know anything about that? If so, and if he, Prokliam, brought this B’ronth before the Princess Volna as she had ordered...

“Wait here,” Prokliam snapped arrogantly. “And keep your cloak on. We don’t want invisible Utalians floating about the palace.”

B’ronth offered a mock bow. Prokliam turned to go, then whirled about again. “If you’re lying, wasting my time--”

B’ronth smiled unctuously. “In the ante-room, being amused by your palace guards, is one who has been on the Plains of Ofrid quite recently.”

“So?”

“When the Prince Jlomec was there. She saw him slain.”

“Wait here,” said Prokliam a little breathlessly. He pushed the hanging aside and stalked down a corridor, and around a bend, and up a flight of stone stairs. He was busy, all right. That had been no lie. Preparations must be made for the funeral games of the Prince Jlomec, to which all the nobility of Tarth had been invited. But this, obviously, was more important. On this Prokliam’s life might depend...

“Are they checking way-passes, lord?” Lulukee asked the big, silent man at his side. Ahead of them, filing slowly through the Ice Gates, were hundreds of visitors entering Nadia City for the funeral games. A flat-bottomed air-car hovered overhead, peltasts leaning over its sides, ready. Guards flanked the Ice Gates with drawn whip-swords, as if admitting the superiority of Abarian weapons of war.

“We’ll get through,” Bram Forest vowed. “Tell me, Lulukee, if you brought a prisoner to the city who might be worth much to the Abarians but also to the Nadians, and if you were intent on getting the biggest profit, where would you take her?”

“If I had great courage, lord?”

“If you dreamed of reward.”

“I would take her to the royal palace, lord, to Bontarc the King or to his sister, Princess Volna the Beautiful, who, some say, is the real power behind the Nadian throne although Bontarc is a great soldier.”

They had reached the gate. “Way passes,” a bored guard said.

Lulukee mumbled something uncertainly. His heart beat painfully against his ribs. His brain refused to function. There was intrigue here, he could sense that. More intrigue than he cared to have a hand in. As a Nadian citizen, he owned a way pass, of course. But the giant? Obviously the giant did not. Lulukee was sorry he had ever agreed to go along with B’ronth the Utalian. Now he only wanted to get out of the entire situation as quickly--and safely--as possible.

He pointed an accusing finger at Bram Forest. “He has no way pass!” Lulukee cried.

The guards stiffened, their whip-swords ready. They looked at Bram Forest. Overhead, the air-car hovered, its peltasts stationed there in the event of trouble, their slings poised.

Ylia was in there somewhere, a prisoner. Bram Forest spurned violence for its own sake, but Ylia might need him. Ylia, who had nursed him back to health when Retoc had left him for dead on the parched Plains of Ofrid. Ylia, the lovely.

“I’m going through,” Bram Forest said softly. “Don’t try to stop me.”

For answer, the nearest guard let his left hand drop.

It had been a signal. Overhead, the peltasts drew back their slings. “Will you go in peace?” the guard asked, his eyes narrow slits now, his right arm tensed to bring the whip-sword around.

Bram Forest waited. Every muscle in his superbly-conditioned body cried for action, but he would not initiate it.

The guard pointed back along the path across the ice fields, where hundreds of visitors to the city were waiting impatiently. “Then go,” he said harshly, “before your flesh feeds the stilt-birds on the banks of the River of Ice.”

The guard raised his sword menacingly. Standing rigidly still and giving no warning, Bram Forest lashed out with his left fist, hitting the guard in the mouth. Lips split, teeth flew, blood covered the guard’s face. Someone screamed. The guard fell, but his companion lashed out with his own whip-sword. Bram Forest lunged to one side and grabbed the sword-arm, twisting it. The guard howled, dropping his weapon. Lulukee made a dive for it. But the guard, his legs still free, kicked Lulukee in the face. As he fell, his senses blurring, Lulukee wondered why he had made that desperate, foolish attempt to help the big, silent man. He could not answer the question in mere words. But there was something about him, something about Bram Forest, which drew loyalty from you even as the sun drew dew from the ground...