Andre Norton - Zarsthor's Bane

“Puss!” the boy pounded with his fist on top of part of the tumbled wall. “Puss! I—he knew , for a minute—by the Fangs of Oxtor, he knew!” He threw back his head and cried that last aloud like a battle shout. “Puss—he knew—you must come again—you must!”

Though he said that with all the intensity of a wise-woman evoking one of the Powers, he had no answer. Brixia realized what the boy wanted. That faint interest of the man in the curious cat must mean a great deal to his companion. Maybe it was the first response his lord had shown to anything since wound or illness had reduced him to this husk. So the boy wanted Uta to hand as a hope—

Brixia stirred a little. So engrossed was that other in his own web of hopes and fears, she felt that he might rise to her feet and walk away in the open, without his noting her. And she should withdraw—only now a curiosity perhaps akin to Uta’s kept her where she was. Though her wariness had eased a little—she saw in these two no immediate open threat to herself.

“Puss—” the boy’s voice died away almost despairingly.

The man shifted a little and, as the boy turned towards him, he raised his head. There was no change on his dead face, but he began to sing as a songsmith might voice a song for a hall feast.

The poor verse might limp, sounding little better than the untutored riddling of an unlettered landman, yet there was something in his singing which made Brixia shiver. Zarsthor’s Bane she had never heard of. However nearly every dale had its own legends and stories. Some never spread beyond the hills which encircled that particular holding. The boy halted. His incredulous expression once more became one of excited hope.

“Lord Marbon!”

Only his joyous hail had just the opposite effect. The man’s vacant face once more turned downward. However, now his hands moved restlessly, plucking at the breast of his mail shirt.

“Lord Marbon!” the boy repeated.

The man’s head turned a little to the right, as one who listened.

“Jartar—?”

“ NO! ” the boy’s hands clenched into fists. “Jartar is dead . He has been dead and rotting this twelfth month and more! He is dead, dead, dead—do you hear me! He is dead!”

The last word echoed bleakly through the ruins.

It was Uta who broke the silence following the dying away of that resounding and despairing word. The cat crouched to face that portion of the hedge behind which Brixia flattened in hiding. From her furred throat sounded what was near the scream of a a tormented woman. Brixia had heard such a shriek before—it was Uta’s challenge. But that it was aimed at her came as a shock.

The boy whirled, his hand slapping down on the hilt of his sword in instant reaction. There was no chance now for Brixia to slip away—she had waited far too long. While to continue to lie here only to be routed out of hiding like the cowardly skulker they might well deem her—No! That she would not wait for.

She arose, pushed through a thin place in that hedging, to advance into the open, her spear ready in her hand. Since there was no arrow on any bow string to provide menace, she believed her spear was fair answer to the other’s sword.

Uta had faced about after that betrayal, staring round-eyed at the boy. His face was taut, wary. Now his sword was out of the scabbard.

“Who are you?” There was wariness in his sharp demand also.

Her name would mean nothing to him. During the past months of solitary wandering it had come to mean little to her either. She was far from the dale of her birth, even from any territory where naming her House might have some proper identification. Since she had never heard of Eggarsdale it was logical to suppose that such an isolated western holding would never have heard in turn of Moorachdale or the House of Trogus which had ruled there before all ended in a day of blood and flame.

“A wanderer—” she began, then wondered if answering that demand at all would in a small way weaken her position.

“A woman!” He slapped his sword back into its sheath. “Are you of Shaver’s get—or Hamel’s—he had a daughter or two—”

Brixia stiffened. The tone of his voice—Pride she had forgotten made her stand straight. She might have the outward seeming of some field wench (which he had certainly deemed her by his manner) but she was herself—Brixia of Trogus’ House. And where was that now? There was a ruin as smoke blackened and desolate as this—nothing else.

“I have no tie with this land,” she said quietly, but her level return gaze was a challenge. “If you seek some field woman of your lord’s holding—look elsewhere.” She added no title of respect to that statement.

“Wolfhead wench!” The boy’s lip curled. He drew back a step, taking his stand before his lord in a gesture of defense. His eyes darted right, then left, striving to seek who else might lie in concealment.

“Those are your words,” she returned. It was as she had thought, he believed her one of an outlaw band. “Give not any name to another, youngling, until you are sure.” Brixia put into that all she could summon of the proper distance-speech she had once known. A Lady of the Holding would speak so in answer to such impertinence.

He stared at her. But before he could reply, his lord moved, got to his feet. Over the boy’s slightly hunched shoulder his dull eyes regarded the girl without interest, or perhaps even not seeing her at all.

“Jartar delays—” The man lifted one hand to his forehead. “Why does he not come? It is needful we be on the march before nooning—”

“Lord,” his eyes still on the girl, the boy backed another step, putting his left hand on his lord’s arm, “it is time to rest. You have been ill, later we shall ride—”

The man moved impatiently, shook off that touch.

“There will be no more resting—” a shadow of firmness deepened his voice. “There can be no resting until the deed is done, until we have the ancient power again. Jartar knows the way—where is he?”

“Lord, Jartar is—”

But though the boy once more grasped at the other’s arm, the man paid no attention to him. There was again a shadow of awareness on his face, a lifting of that cloud of dull unreason. Uta trotted toward the pair of them, come to stand before the lord. Now the cat uttered a soft sound.

“Yes—” Exerting himself, the man pushed aside the boy, went to one knee on the pavement and held out both hands to the cat. “By Jartar’s knowledge we can go, is it not so?” He asked that question, not of his human companion, but of the cat. His eyes met those of the animal with the same unblinking stare as Uta could focus for as long and steadily as she wished.

“You know also, furred one. Have you perhaps come as a sending?” The man nodded. “When Jartar is with us—then we shall go. Go—” The slight animation he had shown began to fail, knowledge slipped visibly away from him. He was like a man swiftly overcome by slumber he could not fight.