Richard Adams - Maia

"Go on, be off with you!" shouted Tolis. His voice, though clear and confident, was somewhat high in tone, and a mocking falsetto echoed, "Be off with you!" followed by jeering laughter.

"You'll get nothing here," cried Tolis again, "unless a few more of you fancy being killed."

At this the hubbub died down, and then a voice shouted, "All right, then; give us food and we'll go."

Tolis made no reply. A few stones came flying out of the darkness, together with a clumsily-made arrow which one of the soldiers turned aside with his shield.

"Kind of an awkward situation, sir," said the tryzatt.

"You'd better get the men back," said Tolis. "They're too exposed. The only reason I put them out there was because I hoped it might frighten the bastards away."

As the men, still maintaining line, came backing in among the trees, the same voice out of the darkness shouted, "If you won't give us food we'll have to come and get it. We've had nothing for two days."

"That's not our fault," called back one of the men. "Think we're going to waste our food on a pack of thieving swine like you?"

"We're not thieving swine," answered the voice. "We're respectable men, give us a chance. We're starving, that's what."

It was the soldiers' turn to jeer in reply to this; but suddenly above the clamor rose a new voice. "Where are you from?"

Maia started. It was Zen-Kurel, somewhere over to her left. Getting no answer, he repeated, "I asked where have you come from?"

After a short pause someone in the dark answered "Be-lishba."

"Why?" asked Zen-Kurel.

"You'd bin there you wouldn't ask why." Another voice added, "They're free men in Sarkid, aren't they?"

"Runaway slaves," said Tolis to the tryzatt. "I thought as much. I dare say they are desperate, poor bleeders."

"You say you're respectable men," called Zen-Kurel. "Well, now's your chance to show it, because I'm going to take you at your word."

Next moment he had stepped out from among the trees and was walking purposefully out into the dark scrubland. Anda-Nokomis's voice called, "Zenka, come back!"

Zen-Kurel turned for a moment and waved his hand; then he continued on his way.

"Silly basting bastard!" muttered one of the soldiers to his mate, a few yards away from Maia. "What's he reckon to do, then?"

She sprang forward, startling the two men, who had not known she was there. "No! No! Zenka, come back!"

She was running, shouting hysterically, when a soldier caught her round the waist and held her fast. She struggled, beating at him with her fists, then dropped her head on her chest, weeping. When Tolis and the tryzatt came up she had fainted and was lying on the ground with the soldier bending over her.

They splashed water in her face. After about half a minute she came to herself to find Tolis holding her by the shoulders.

"I beg you, saiyett, don't make a scene. The men are jumpy enough already."

"O Lespa!" she moaned. "Tolis, can't you stop him? Go and stop him!"

"Too late for that now, saiyett, I'm afraid. He didn't give me the chance. Get back, Dellior!" he called sharply to a man who had left the line, apparently to relieve himself. "No one said anything about standing down!"

There was silence all along the line now, and silence from out in the scrubland also. Maia felt as though she had become a string about to snap. This tension was unendurable, this mute waiting in the yellow elf-light of the setting moon; nothing to be heard but the frogs in the half-dry river pools; nothing to be seen but the! stillness of the arid fern. Once she allowed a low whimper to escape her. Tolis, on one knee close by, looked quickly round and shook his head.

She could not have told how long it was since Zen-Kurel had gone; only that the moon was lower and the suspense worse. She could hear the men whispering to one another, but caught no words.

"Should we give him a shout, sir?" asked Miarn.

"Not yet," answered Tolis.

She realized that Anda-Nokomis was standing behind them, hunched and watchful as a heron in shallows. After a time he murmured almost inaudibly, "Perhaps they've gone."

"With him?" said Tolis.

"Or without him: no telling."

Maia stood up. "I'm going to-"

"Saiyett, please don't compel me to stop you."

Just as she was wondering whether to draw her knife and make a dash for it, she caught sight of something moving out in the gray-yellow dimness. A shape;-one person or more-was approaching. In a low voice Tolis said, "Keep still! No one to speak!"

Within half a minute they could see that in fact three men were coming towards them.

"Is he there?" asked Tolis.

Maia passed her tongue over her dry lips. "Yes."

The men stopped some forty or fifty yards from the edge of the copse. Then Zen-Kurel's voice called, "Tolis, can you hear me?"

Tolis answered and was about to go forward to join them when Zen-Kurel spoke again. "They don't want you to

come any closer. I've just come to tell you what we're going to do."

"Cran's zard!" muttered one of the soldiers. "Basting man don't want to live!"

"These men aren't criminals," said Zen-Kurel. "They've escaped from slavery in Belishba and they've had a very bad time. They're quite ready to join Elleroth and I've assured them he'll be happy to take them on. So I'm going to guide them as far as the camp and act as surety for them. I expect to be back here by a couple of hours after dawn, but if I'm later than that, just go on to Nybril- don't wait for me." '

It was plain that none of this was to Tolis's liking. He appeared not only at a loss but flustered. "What the hell are we going to do?" he asked the tryzatt. "Damned Ka-trian! We're responsible to Elleroth for him!"

"Can't do nothing, sir," replied Miarn. "They've got him out there with them, haven't they?"

"Yes, but when Elleroth-" But before Tolis could say more, Bayub-Otal called out, "Zenka, can I come with you?"

There was a pause, apparently while Zen-Kurel conferred with his companions. Then he answered, "No, they say not."

"Very well," replied Bayub-Otal. "We'll keep you some breakfast."

"Elleroth's going to be glad a bunch of men like these weren't wasted," called Zen-Kurel.

With this he and the other two turned and disappeared once more into the gloom. The frog-croaking silence returned.

"Stand 'em down, sir?" asked Miarn after two or three minutes.

"Oh, yes, any damned thing you like!" replied Tolis petulantly. "You'd wonder who was in command here, wouldn't you?"

"D'you reckon he'll be back, sir?"

"Of course he won't!" said Tolis. "Men like that? They'll cut his throat as sure as the rains are coming! These blasted Katrians-they're all the same-throw their lives away and call it soldiering! Karnat's wildcats! I believe they'd set themselves on fire just to try and show they were braver than anyone else! Why the hell couldn't he do it some time when we weren't responsible for him? Lord Elleroth's going

to play hell! 'Why did we let it happen?' As if we could have had any idea what he was going to do!"

"Going to wait for him, then, sir, or not?"

"I haven't decided yet," said Tolis. "I'll tell you tomorrow."

He was walking away when Maia followed him.

"Can I speak to you?"

Tolis turned to her with the air of a young and harassed man retaining his self-control with difficulty.

"Saiyett, you're the last person to whom I'd want to be discourteous, but I've simply had enough for one night. Please go back to bed. We'll talk in the morning."

Within the hour Maia had become so much demented with fear that she could no longer keep up appearances or conceal her distress. Her thoughts-if thoughts they could be called, that succession of visions and sensations overwhelming her mind like some evil dream-were plunged into a kind of vortex, a vicious circle from which there was no escape save hysteria. It was as though she were running in terror from one room to another, only to find herself fleeing at last back into the first. This first was a sense of panic horror, much like the shock felt by one who suddenly finds herself falling from a height, or wakes to realize that the house is burning. Then followed the images-apprehensions, vivid as flashes of lightning: Zenka surrounded and fighting for his life, Zenka tortured by the fugitive slaves, Zenka's body flung into the river, Zenka bleeding, Zenka murdered. And flying from these she ran full-tilt, as against a wall, into her awareness- like that of one hearing herself sentenced to death-that this was no dream, but reality; and taking place not in the past or the future, but in, that present from which there is no escape. Thence to the weeping, the entreaties to the gods for reassurance-to the gods who could not give it. And so back to the panic, and the horror. The Serrelinda, who had made her way into Pokada's prison and into the Ortelgan camp by night, was not equal to this unremitting torment of inaction.