CHAPTER VIII
BEL-AR HEARS THE DRUMS
In the early brightness of the morning, the king of Ruthar rode up the southern stretch of the slope toward the wall. With him came old Zenas and Oleric the Red.
Bedight in chain mail rode the king, a shield of shining steel on his arm, his two-handed sword at his back, dagger in belt, and spear and battle-ax at saddle-bow. Behind him clattered a company of zinds. Back of them, down the long road as far as the eye could see, marched rank on rank of men-at-arms. These were to pass the wall at once, and push on along the isthmus to meet and hold any force which the captains of Bel-Ar might throw against them.
In the camp in the forest, ready to ride when the way should be cleared, were thousands of the wild horsemen of the hills. As soon as they might pass the breach, they would outstrip the heavy-marching infantry, spread and harry the country, and dash into the mountain passes at the northern end of the isthmus, which must be taken and held before any considerable force could come up from Maeronica and occupy them.
Behind, the horsemen would push on the footmen and the chariots which made up the main host of Ruthar. Such was the plan which had been laid by Everson, Polaris, and Oleric.
As they neared the top of the rise, Polaris and those with him met a little clump of downcast men plodding along the road and carrying a burden. Then Mazoe saw the riders and ran to meet them, holding his arms above his head and weeping.
"What says he? Everson—"
Polaris sprang down from his horse and pushed through the tramping men. Behind him an army halted while he stood and looked into the still face of Everson. In the heart of the son of the snows there entered a pang as keen as that which had stabbed it when he had heard of the passing of the Sardanian King Minos and his lady.
But Zenas Wright, who had bent over the lieutenant, and bared his breast and listened to his heart, spoke up:
"This boy has been hard hit; but he's still alive. With good care—and he's going to get it—I think he has a chance. This jab over the shoulder isn't so bad as it looks."
"Look at him, Father Zenas," said Polaris. "Let no effort that this land can produce be spared to make him whole again; for he is a gallant gentleman, and deserves no such death. His reward from Ruthar for what he has done shall be great."
Mazoe told all his story, and Polaris bent and took the earth-stained hand of the unconscious man in his own.
"Fare you well for a time, Everson," he said softly. "I shall not forget. And I shall find the way you made."
Mazoe and the engineers bore Everson to the camp, and Zenas Wright went with them.
Polaris touched the red captain on the shoulder.
"Captain Oleric, bide you here at the wall until the path is prepared. I make you general-in-chief of the army. Carry out the work which our friend has so well begun. Father Zenas will give you of his good counsel. Build the road as Everson and you have planned it."
"But you—where are you going?" Oleric asked.
Polaris pointed northward to the breach in the Kimbrian Wall.
"I am going to tread the way he made for me," he answered. "When all is well, come on and find me on the other side."
Giving the reins of his horse to a servant, Polaris reached his spear from the saddle and placed himself in the first rank of the footmen, under the great, blood-red banner of Ruthar. A mighty cheer swept down the ranks as he joined them. The horsemen drew out to the side of the roadway; a blare of trumpets sounded the advance; the crimson standard dipped and went forward. Over the seamed and broken hill, past the masses of fallen ruin, across the melinite-blasted trench, and through the breach in the wall flowed the iron stream.
As far as they could see it, the little group on the hilltop watched the tall form that strode under the tossing banner.
"This king of ours has a will of his own," muttered Oleric. "Now to do the work he bade us."
But first of all the red captain sent for old Jastla of the hills. When the white-bearded chieftain stood before him, Oleric said:
"The king has gone yonder through the wall, Jastla. Take a hundred of your best men—men who know how to die as well as fight. Find the king. Ring him round with a band of steel. Guard him with your lives." Oleric grinned as he added, "'Twill be a task to your liking, old bear. Ever you loved fighting, and this man will lead you to where it is thicker than earth-berries. I have seen him at the game. But watch him well, Jastla; he is of a reckless temper when his blood is stirred, and caution is not his watchword."
Lifting his arm in salute, Jastla replied:
"When harm comes to the king, it shall have set its foot on Jastla's corpse." The chief drew a deep breath of pride and satisfaction. "I thank you, Oleric the Learned, for this task. I have trained the lad, and I love him."
Jastla hurried into the forest to the camp. Presently he, too, was gone through the wall on his mission.
When the last of the armed force had passed the gap, another army took its place—an army of pick and shovel men, with chains and ropes and tugging, sweating horses. Speedily the last of the screen of trees was down and the stumps torn out. On a foundation of crushed rock Oleric built up his roadway, and brought it through to the shadow of the Kimbrian Wall; and there he met trouble.
All of the day on which Everson was stricken, and through the night and the forenoon following, the builders wrought at the road. Wherever was room for a pair of hands to labor, the hands were not lacking. Still the work was not completed, nor was the ditch filled in.
And the reason for the delay was—Atlo.
From the turrets along the wall to the east the captain had collected a force of nearly five hundred fighting men, and led them in person. Leaving their horses behind them, these warriors marched to the lip of the breach and harassed the workmen of Oleric. Nor could the Rutharian bowmen and slingers come at them with their weapons to do them much scathe. The edge of the wall had a coping which was nearly breast-high. Behind that the defenders were sheltered, and might creep, which they did, to the very brink of the gap, whence they showered the men in the trench with arrows and javelins.
Following the example of Atlo, the under captains of the towers on the western stretch of the wall gathered another half a thousand men and came to the end of the breach on their side. Between the activities of these two parties, the task of the besiegers was made heavy and perilous.
Time and again the red captain was forced to withdraw his laborers from the cross-fire of deadly missiles which the warriors on the wall rained into the ditch. His losses were appalling. Still his men did not falter. When the order was given, they swarmed into the gaping trench, and those who died there were content if they but cast one shovel of earth before the spirit fled.
Oleric groaned in spirit as he watched this havoc, which he had little power to hinder. The distance to the top of the wall was too great to allow of effective javelin-casting, and such weapons as did reach the summit were seized upon by the enemy and turned back on the attackers. Having the advantage of the sheltered height from which to cast and shoot, one of Atlo's soldiers was worth in efficiency a hundred of those on the ground.
"Swords and axes on the top of the wall, and that only, will clear out that nest," said Oleric to Zenas, when the geologist had come back from the camp, where for hours he had labored over Everson, and of whose condition he now had high hopes.
"Where are our ladder-men tarrying?" snarled Oleric, and the captain ground his teeth as he saw his workmen decimated and driven back again. "We have not the time to spare to starve these birds from their perch. Yet if I fill that hole now it will be with the bodies of brave men dead and not with earth and stone."
Bethinking himself of another plan, the captain ordered three companies of heavy-armed foot-soldiers up from the camp and sent them into the working to shelter the laborers under their shields. By that means a little progress was made; but the work was slow and cumbersome and the toll in lives was still heavy.
Long-delayed relief came in the shape of the fighting men whom Everson had sent out along the wall with ladders. These had lain in the forests until they saw the turrets depleted of their garrisons. Then they had crept up to the wall and erected their scaling ladders, choosing points a number of miles from the breach. That attack was not without its perils and losses. Scant in numbers, but desperate, the defenders sallied out on the wall to turn the storming parties. Many warriors died under the javelins and arrows from above. Comrades took their places as they fell, and at length, by dint of hard fighting, gained footing on the crest of the wall.
Guessing how matters must stand at the breach, the Rutharian swordsmen paid no further attention to the turrets which lay between them and the sea, but set themselves to the taking of those toward the gap. As soon as they carried one of these they were able to augment their numbers from the forces which earlier had passed the wall through the breach, and which now were besieging the towers from the north side, where the sloping pathways were defended by gates and doors of bronze.
By the time the men at the east had taken the last of the watchtowers which intervened between them and the battle at the roadway, their brothers on the western stretch of the wall had passed the ruins of the toppled turret there and fallen furiously on the rear of the Maeronicans who were baiting the trenchmen of Oleric.
From across the chasm where he fought, Atlo saw the new turn of the battle and bethought him of his own flank. Too late! The shouts of dismay from his rear were mingled with the thunder of galloping hoofs.
At the eastern tower the men of Ruthar had found the horses which the defenders had left behind. While the stubborn conflict of swordsmen was waging on the western wall, these warriors mounted the Maeronican steeds and charged down the stone road between the copings, sweeping everything before them.
Brave men, these of the King of Adlaz. Cut off from behind and with the yawning chasm before, they arose from their crouching and turned to meet the new foe. Then a grim and pitiless struggle began on the ancient wall, in which the clangor and clash of arms and the cursing of death-locked foeman was commingled with the screaming of pain-maddened horses.
To the rear, which had become the front, went Atlo. He rallied his men and charged into the teeth of the oncoming horsemen, and kept charging until he died. Neither side asked quarter or gave it. The last of the Maeronican fighting men were pushed over the brink of the gap by the rushing horsemen and died under the merciless blades in the trench.
At the west the fighting was more prolonged and bitter; but the superior numbers of the Rutharians prevailed, and the end was the same.
The Kimbrian Wall was taken at a fearful cost. But Ruthar paid the toll smiling. Now Oleric might push through with his wall speedily and in peace.
When the night of the passing of Minos had worn into morning and disclosed the extent of the destruction which the Sardanian had wrought in the harbor of Adlaz, Vedor, the port captain, Nealdo, head of the harbor guardsmen, and such captains of the fademes as had escaped with their lives met in council in one of the offices at the wharves. Fear sat heavy at the hearts of all; for there was not one of them that dared go up to the city and make a report to the king of the loss of his fademes.
"Not I," Vedor said hastily, when it was suggested that he, as captain of the port, was the logical bearer of the news. "It were worth a man's life to tell the king that a slave has shattered his fleet. Besides, my duties here do not allow me to absent myself. Choose ye some other to carry the tidings to Bel-Ar."
Listening to the discussion was a rough old soldier of the guard. Brenak was his name, and he was a brave man. When it seemed that none of the gilded captains had heart for the task, Brenak stepped forward.
"I will carry the news," he volunteered. "Lend me a horse, and give me a few dekkars to buy wine at the wine-shops in the Street of Sherne, and I will go. It may be my last drinking, though I think not. I fought with the king in the wars, and I am known to him. I think he will spare me."
So Brenak rode up to the city and bought his wine. From the wine-shops he went to the palace and gained admittance to the king and told the tidings, which already were flying from mouth to mouth through the streets.
"Fool! You are crazed!" Bel-Ar exclaimed when Brenak had made a short tale of it. But in the eyes of the soldier the king saw the truth, and his pallid face turned a shade more pale. In his fury, scarce knowing what he did, he struck Brenak with his closed fist so that the soldier died from it.
For days thereafter the temper of the king was such that those who must come near him did so with fear and trembling. Even his queen, the petulant, flower-faced Raissa, who dared him more than most, avoided him and kept to her own apartments.
Weeks before, when it became known that the captives had escaped, little heed had been paid to their going. They were only slaves, and who cared what became of a slave! Interest in them had been swallowed up in the general indignation at the defection of Oleric the Red and the supposed treachery of Mordo. Only Bel-Ar and Rhaen, the arch-priest of Shamar, had chafed, and that because of the escape of the man whom they had doomed for the slaying of the sacred bull. The king had sent fademes to scour the sea, and one to go up the coast to Ruthar to head the fugitives, should they have gone that way. That fademe had never returned.
These happenings had irked the pride of the king, who, like all despots, was of a wild and ungovernable temper that flared to madness when he was crossed.
Came then the blow of Minos—a calamity which shook the nation and struck the foundation of Bel-Ar's dearest ambition. Without his fademes, his dreams of world-conquest vanished. Small wonder that his lords and ladies feared him and quaked at his approach.
But the king was of a courage and perseverance equal to his temper. When the first shock of the catastrophe had worn away, he took stock of the damage and set about to repair so much of it as might be. At the bottom of the harbor his divers labored among the sunken fademes. Some few of the vessels were raised and rehabilitated. By far the most of them were useless, save for the metal in their hulks. Minos had done his work thoroughly, and the priceless engines, the living power of which was mined from the depths of the earth only by great labor, were nearly all ruined.
Increasing his forces, both underground and in his workshops, Bel-Ar drove his miners and his builders ceaselessly to the replacement of what he had lost.
Some weeks after the destruction of the fademes, rumor came down from the south—fleeting words in the mouths of the people, of which no man could trace the source—that a great host was gathering in Ruthar to assail the Kimbrian Wall. That report the king laughed at and did not believe, or if he did believe, it fretted him not at all. The Kimbrian Wall had stood an unshakable barrier since it had been completed, nearly thirty centuries before. It would go on standing to the end of time. It was well garrisoned, and Atlo was a good captain and vigilant. Ruthar must be mad if it thought to march against the wall.
Rumor, again traceless, spoke further and told that Oleric the Red had appeared in Ruthar, and with him the slaves who had gone with him from Adlaz, and that they had hands in this matter of the wall-storming. Bel-Ar heard that also, and smiled grimly. Let Oleric and the slaves, if they were indeed in Ruthar, keep well within its boundaries, if they set any store by life.
Progress was being made with the reconstruction of his fleet, and the king's poise was returning. Once more his court, that had been silent and almost deserted, echoed to the laughter of the gay courtiers, and Raissa sat upon her throne and toyed with the pearls that she loved.
Then one afternoon a wan and haggard-faced man, spurring a weary horse to its utmost speed, rode in through the southern gates of Adlaz and clattered up the broad avenue to the palace. From the mountain town of Barme he had come, riding two days and a night by relays of horses and leaving some of his hard-ridden beasts dead along the road. So nearly dead was the rider himself from the rack of that journey that he fell from his horse at the palace gates, and men of the guard carried him before the king.
From the floor of the audience-chamber where they laid him, the soldier raised his arm in salute and cried weakly:
"The Kimbrian Wall is sundered, O king. She whom they name the Goddess Glorian of Ruthar cracked the wall in twain with thunders and green lightning that shook the land like a hammer." (So the messenger described the melinite mines of Everson.) "Through the wall poured a great host, which is rolling down upon Barme. Atlo is dead at the break in the wall. From the center to the sea-wall, the towers are held by Ruthar. Men say that the dreadful beasts of the forest are coming to make war on the children of Ad. Ruthar has crowned a king—a giant with hair of gold, who came up from the sea with Oleric the Red, who was your captain—and he leads the armies against Barme."
Ending his tidings, the man lost grip of his wits. His head fell on his arm, and he slept. Nor could he be roused for many hours.
"Now, here is a message with meat and spirit," said the king. Bel-Ar, who went near to madness when he heard of the loss of his fademes, could laugh when he heard that an army was marching against him. Of all the news only one thing galled him, and that was that the yellow-haired slave from the hated world to the north was kinging it in Ruthar.
Summoning his captains, the king banished his court of fluttering butterflies and filled his audience-chamber with the clash of golden armor. No sluggard was Bel-Ar when his foe was on the march, but a wise and resourceful leader. When his mind was not clouded by the rages which at times came upon him, he could plan with the best of his generals.
Bel-Ar in his early youth had been a soldier, and he, too, had fought Ruthar at the Kimbrian Wall. Since coming to the throne of Maeronica he had put down two rebellions, leading his armies in person and waging with a strong and ruthless hand a warfare that had entailed the taking of cities.
First move of the king was to despatch his messengers south and north to raise all the levies of Maeronica and the garrisons of the cities which were tributary to Adlaz. These he directed should be assembled at the crook of the river Thebascu, as the birds fly, ninety miles to the south of Adlaz. He sent Fanaer, one of his most trusted captains, in hot haste into the south to gather what forces he might and stem the tide of invasion until the main host could be mustered and brought up. Before nightfall the war-drums were beating in every city and hamlet of Maeronica.
"If these rash forest wolves and their slave-king win through Barme and the mountain passes and overwhelm Fanaer, which I doubt, then we will meet them beyond the Thebascu, on the plains of Nor," said Bel-Ar to his councilors.
"How they have broken through the wall, I know not; but warrant that it is some trick of the strangers.
"As for the great beasts whereof the soldier spoke, I believe that they were all dead many years ago. Surely no man of Ad can say with truth that he ever has set eyes on one. They are but a myth wherewith Ruthar would affright us. And if they be alive, and as terrible as tradition tells, I am not afeared of them. We will drive them back with fire, as once before our ancestors drove them, in the days before the wall.
"Friends, I welcome this war that has come to seek me, for I was growing dull and rusty with inaction.
"If the wall be truly down, then will we drive Ruthar speedily to the other side of it—and having so done, we will follow on and bend the necks of these stubborn mountain boors to the yoke that has long awaited them."
So he dreamed; so he spoke and heartened his captains.
Two days later the trumpets blew at the southern gates, and with a rumbling of drums and a tossing of banners overhead, the first division of the garrison and the levies of the city of Adlaz, thirty thousand strong, marched out the Mazanion Road for the plains of Nor. At their head, under the rustling folds of his war-standard of gold and blue, rode Bel-Ar, the king.
To Rose Emer, grown pale with waiting, Brunar brought these tidings in the prison of Bel-Tisam.
When she heard that the wall was down, and that Polaris had set his face toward Adlaz, her joy, which she strove to conceal from the captain, knew no bounds. After Brunar was gone, the girl bent over the cradle of the little Patrymion, now a thriving youngster.
"Ah, little mischief," said Rose, and shook her finger at him, "not much longer in this prison for you and me. Friends are coming, Patrymion; friends who will set us free."
Patrymion, who had small care for what destiny had in store for him, so that his immediate requirements in goats' milk were satisfied, sucked a pink thumb and blinked up at her out of sleepy eyes.
In the meantime, telling off companies of men to east and west to aid in the fight at the wall by laying siege to the towers, Polaris pushed straight ahead through the forests toward the town of Barme. Counting in the forces of light-armed soldiery who had preceded him through the wall, the son of the snows had in command a division of nearly seven thousand men. Of these there were a thousand archers, fifteen hundred slingers, two thousand and a half of javelin men, and nearly two thousand more of heavy armored footmen with swords and spears.
Two hours along the way, Jastla and his picked hundred passed swiftly up the lines and joined the vanguard. Tall and stately men of the hills were these, led by the old chieftain, scarcely a one of the company under six feet, and splendidly armed after the fashion of their land.
"Here be a few lads of the rocks who would have a tale to tell to their sweet-hearts when they go home again," said Jastla as he fell in beside Polaris.
With small scouting parties thrown out ahead of him, Polaris hastened on. It was his plan to meet and intercept any expedition which might be sent from Barme to the relief of Atlo at the wall, and so to prevent interference with Oleric's work at the breach. In this fortune favored. For the javelin men ambushed and cut down no less than three riders sent from the wall to rouse the garrison at Barme; so that the first news that reached the town and the Captain Broddok, who commanded there, was brought in by the peasantry of the hills who fled through the forests before the advance of Polaris.
Mightily disturbed, and not knowing the strength of the force which was marching against him, Broddok held his men under arms in indecision until it was too late for him to go to the wall. In the evening of the day after the breaching of the wall a battered soldier who had escaped from one of the turrets and slipped through the Rutharian cordons brought word to Broddok of the end of the Kimbrian fighting and the fall of Atlo. Then the Maeronican commander dispatched a relay-rider to Adlaz and made ready to defend his own gates, around which the jaws of Ruthar were closing.
From the lower end of the isthmus a number of passes led through the mountains into the forests, beyond which were the plains of Nor. Through only one of these defiles lay a direct road, broad and suitable to the speedy passage of an army with its impedimenta and provision trains. That path was bestridden by the town of Barme.
Midway of the pass and near the foot of its western precipice was a low, bald hill, over which the road lay. Around the lower slopes of the hill straggled the town, and at its summit was the walled citadel. It was a strong place, made so both by nature and by man. So closely did it nestle to the towering face of the defile's acclivity, and so rounding was the bulge of the mountain wall, that if one climbed to the top and looked down the precipice, he would see only the houses of the lower town and the citadel would be entirely hidden from him by the rock. At each side of the hill was rocky, wooded land, cut through by many gullies and the ravines of mountain streams.
A hard place to come at, Polaris thought, as he stood in the gorge and looked at the hill by the dim light of the stars—for he came to Barme in the night. Yet it must be taken, and that speedily. The swiftest road into Maeronica lay over the hill, and the citadel's gates were the gates of the road also.
An hour before the dawn he occupied the town, from which most of the people had fled, and attacked the fortress furiously, thereby losing many men. Though the walls of the place were not high, they were ably defended. Broddok was a skilled general, and his garrison was superior in numbers to the force which laid siege to his stronghold. Still Polaris, counting on the speedy arrival to his support of the van of his main army, kept up the assault until well into the day, trying in turn every point of the fortress—and failing at every turn.
Finding that attempts against the wall availed them nothing, for they were without siege machinery, and Broddok's swordsmen clustered so thickly on the parapets that no footing could be gained thereon with ladders, the Rutharians boldly assailed the main gate to the citadel. Cutting a tree from the forest, threescore stout men bore it to the gate. While the archers and slingers from the tops of the nearest houses of the town swept the citadel walls with clouds of missiles, the men in the street swung their battering-ram until their arms were weary. But Broddok's doors were strongly built of oak, reinforced with bars of steel and set well within the arch of the gateway. Beyond the snapping of a few chains, the ram did them little damage.
Maeronicans on the battlements mocked the men of Polaris with sharp words and sharper weapons, and through mortises in the vault of the arch poured down streams of boiling water. The Rutharians lost fifty men-at-arms before they desisted from the assault.
"Smoke them out," was the counsel of Jastla.
Fagots were fetched up from the town and drenched with oil, and men set fire to them and ran and cast them blazing into the archway.
This means might have succeeded in burning away the stubborn oak. But the Maeronican captain, tiring of the din at his gates, mounted five hundred horsemen, opened his portals, and charged so fiercely through the fire that he cleared the street, and for a time his doors were unmolested.
Through the defile a chill wind swept from the north, carrying with it a light drift of snow, and Polaris's men found it cold work roosting without the walls. They had left their camp carrying food for only a two days' march. The country through which they had come was wild and sparsely settled, and offered little opportunity for foraging. When they began to feel the pinch of hunger, Polaris ordered his men to go among such of the townsmen of Barme as had not been frightened from their homes, and gather provisions, paying for all that they took with gold, for he would have no looting.
And those orders were in part, at least, obeyed.
Smoke was curling from the chimney of a small house in a side street near where they stood, and Jastla said to the king:
"While these fellows are filling their bellies, let us look to our own. I could eat the wolf for which I am named, I am that hungered. See; here is a house and fire. Let us go and seek food."
When they had struck upon the door, it was opened by a little lad, who stared at them, round-eyed, and then fled screaming across the room.
"Ai! Raula!" he cried. "Here be two giants from the forests. Will they eat us, think you, as Darno said they would?"
"Not so, small man," called Polaris gently, who had learned somewhat of the Maeronican tongue from Oleric. "We are two hungry men, indeed; but we would not harm little boys; and Darno, whoever he may be, should not affright you with such tales."
At his words, a lean and fierce-eyed girl stood up from the fireplace where she had been crouched and came to the door. She clutched a baby to her breast. While she eyed the two men sourly, there was no fear in her regard.
"Now who may you be, who wear the arms of a forest raider, yet who know our tongue and bespeak a child so fairly?" she asked of Polaris.
"I am a soldier of Ruthar, lady," Polaris said, bowing to her. "My comrade here and myself are cold and hungry. May we be warmed at your fire and eat a little of the bread and meat yonder on the table? We have had no food for many hours. We will pay you well."
The girl pressed closer and peered up at him.
"Ah! I know who you are now," she said triumphantly. "You are no robber of the hills, though belike your comrade is," and she shot a glance of no favor at Jastla. "You are neither of Maeronica or Ruthar. You are the mighty man who came up from the sea to lead the south against the north and take Adlaz." She laughed discordantly. "Well, you have made a good beginning, they say; but you have a man's task ahead of you.
"Come in and eat and be warmed. I care not. All the menfolks have fled the house to the hills in fear of you. I stayed, I and little Telo, here. I fear no soldiers. Nay, close that door behind you, old man; I would not that winter came in with you and sat at meat."
Laughing grimly into his beard, Jastla made fast the door. While the two men sat and ate, the girl resumed her crouching by the fire, where she crooned over the babe, at times staring furtively at Polaris. Telo soon conquered his fear of the strangers and climbed to the knees of Polaris, where he fingered the big man's chain armor curiously and prattled many childish questions.
When the hungry men had finished their meal, the girl spoke up again:
"Say, man from the sea, I have heard that there is a beautiful lady who waits for you in a prison in Adlaz town. Is that true?"
"Yes, lady, it is true," Polaris said; and he sighed.
"And you lead a great host thither to set her free?" the girl persisted.
"Yes, if I may."
"But to get on the way to Adlaz, you must take this fortress of Barme; and you find it a hard nut to crack. Is that not so?"
"That is true, also, lady."
"Well, hark you, man." The girl stood up and came to the table. "You who are true to a woman as few men are ever true; perhaps the poor, despised, cast-off Raula may aid you somewhat in this undertaking."
While Polaris stared at her and Jastla grunted, she went on:
"Oh, for your wars, and for who is king, I care not. Still, I would see that lady in Adlaz town go free—if you are strong enough to pass Bel-Ar and his army. Those matters you must look after later. But listen. Other men are not so true as you are. There is one in the fortress yonder who once thought Raula fair. Now she is a deserted wife, while he seeks other maids to listen to his lies. Oh! how I hate him!" She spat the words and stamped fiercely on the floor.
"I would see that man humbled and cast down. I would see his red blood on the stones at my feet.
"There is a way into the fort, a hidden way, which is known to none but me and Telo.
"Now, Telo here shall show you that way. There is a spring on the hill. 'Tis back of the stables, in a grove of stunted trees. It flows down through the rock under the wall and escapes on the hillside. Years ago, when I tended cows on the hill, I found the entrance. The water has so worn the stone that one may climb its course from the old cowpath to the brow of the hill. If a girl can clamber there, surely active men will not find it at all hard to do.
"When night is fallen, bid your men to storm the gate again. Then, if your force is strong enough to make the venture, take a part of it and gain the hill. While those of Broddok's men who do not watch the walls are sleeping, you may fall upon them and open the gates."
Polaris and Jastla looked on the girl, amazed.
"Stare not at me," she said. "I am an outcast and reckless woman—and I would be revenged. Besides, we poor folk care little what the fate of Bel-Ar may be, who does oppress us so that life is a great weariness."
It was arranged that they should come back at nightfall for the boy, and Polaris and Jastla left the house. When the chieftain fingered his pouch and would have paid her for the entertainment, Raula would have none of his gold.
"This night's work will be pay enough for Raula," she said.
After they had gone, Jastla set a soldier to watch the house and report to him if any left it; for Jastla trusted no woman and feared a trap. His fears proved to be unfounded. No one left or visited the house through the afternoon.
For the remainder of the day Polaris rested his soldiers, and kept up only the semblance of an attack on the walls of Barme citadel. He wondered much at the delay of the army of Ruthar, having as yet learned nothing of the fighting at the Kimbrian breach; but he was resolved to delay not himself, but make the attempt on the fortress as the girl Raula had suggested.
With the fall of night he brought the bulk of his force up into the cross-streets near the gate and posted sentries to see that none passed from the town to the fort. Then he went to the house of Raula and fetched the lad. Telo was afraid of the night and the many armed men, and would go only if Polaris, whom he trusted, would carry him.
"Show him the spring at the head of the old cowpath, Telo," said Raula, and to Polaris, "Bend down the clump of evergreen bushes above the spring, and you will find the way through the rock. Beware of the sentries at the stables. Once one of them nearly slew me when I came suddenly on him out of the dark." She bent nearer and whispered:
"Perchance you will meet and slay Broddok, the captain. I pray you do. And ere you smite, tell him that Raula, daughter of Hecar, sent you to him."
As Polaris went out to the street, with the lad on his shoulder, he heard the girl's shrill laughter within the house—laughter that made him shiver.
Followed by a thousand of his swordsmen, including the hundred men of Jastla, Polaris marched silently around rough devious streets to the side of the hill, and then into the rough ground where the boy directed. It was a dark night, for the stars were dimmed by storm-clouds, and the going was slow. Raula had said it would take at least an hour and the half of another to gain the crest of the hill, and Polaris had ordered his men in the town to hold their hands until they should hear his trumpets, and then to attack the gates of the citadel with trees and fire.
At the spring the clump of bush was found easily, and behind it in the face of the hill was a hole in the rock, so low that a man must bend nearly double to enter it. Here Polaris gave Telo into the arms of a young Rutharian soldier, bidding him bear the lad safely back to his sister.
Bending down, the son of the snows entered the hole. Jastla, who never let his charge beyond arm's reach, crowded in at his heels. For six feet or more they walked with their knees nearly to their chins, and then were able to stand upright. The girl had told them that a light in the passage could not be seen from above because of the trees, and one of the soldiers had nursed a smouldering torch under his cloak. That was brought in and whirled into flame, and they proceeded along a narrow gully, over the floor of which the water trickled.
"Oof! That maid must have been very love-sick, or she has the courage of a fighting man, to have climbed this place in the dark," muttered Jastla, as he surveyed the gloomy cavern.
For nearly three hundred yards the party followed the subterranean ravine, the floor of which sloped upward sharply. It ended in a shaft that was nearly perpendicular, which the men must climb by the aid of jagged rocks where the course of the stream had been worn for centuries.
The torchbearer was posted at the angle, so that the light might be shed both down the passage and through the shaft. Wrapping his sword and spear in his cloak to prevent them from clanging against the stones, Janess, insisting that he should be first, went silently up through the rock, and Jastla followed close behind. They came out at the top through thick bushes into a basin or pool, where the water was ankle-deep. They were inside the wall of the fortress on the western side of the hill-crest. Around the pool was a grove of stunted trees, to the east of which lay the low, wooden stable buildings. South of the stables were the stone barracks of the garrison.
Man by man, the Rutharians came up through the darksome hole and took cover among the trees, until the grove bristled with swords. Polaris and Jastla worked their way to the edge of the wood nearest the stables.
The chieftain pointed to the wooden buildings.
"We will fire them," he whispered, "and have a light to fight by."
As he spoke, a sentry paced out from the shadow of the stables and passed along the edge of the grove to the wall. So near he passed to the hidden men that they might have reached out and touched his shoulder.
"Now that man must be disposed of," muttered Polaris, "and I like it not, this smiting of men from behind."
No such niceties of warfare ruled Jastla. When the man came back, the chieftain stepped noiselessly from the trees behind him. For a pace or two the big mountaineer trod in the tracks of the unsuspecting sentry. Then Jastla sprang, and a brief and wordless struggle under the trees followed. A dagger flashed. Arising, Jastla took the cloak of the fallen man and stepped calmly into his beat. At the corner of the stable the chieftain met and slew the second sentry.
At the side of the stable the Rutharian swordsmen formed for battle. A man with a torch ran from point to point along the rear of the buildings and set fire to the timbers. As they caught and the flames leaped crackling up, the frightened horses began to pound and scream.
Polaris bade his trumpeter blow. The notes blared piercing clear. The swordsmen broke cover with a roar and charged the stone barracks. Lighting torches at the blazing barns, men ran with them to light the way. Hardly were they half-way across the intervening space when there was an answering flare from the streets below, and the thunder of the battering-ram announced that the fight at the gates was on with redoubled fury.
While half of his force entered the barracks and fell upon the bewildered men there, Polaris, with the remainder, swept down the broad roadway, past the dwelling of the officers. Cutting their way through the defenders of the gate, the Rutharians tore out the bars, and their comrades in the streets swarmed through and up the hillside.
In the midst of the wild mêlée that followed, Broddok did the only thing that he could do to save his skin. He rallied such of his men as were under arms, fought through to the stables, and released the fear-maddened horses. All who could of the Maeronicans mounted in haste. For a moment it seemed that the captain would give the order to charge down the street into the fighting press, where the men of Ruthar were putting his comrades to the sword. But Broddok thought better of it.
With nearly four hundred men, the captain rode down the northern slope of the hill, opened the road-gates there, and galloped off through the pass, leaving his leaderless garrison to fend for itself.
When that became known, the Maeronican soldiers, beset on both sides and confused and disheartened by the suddenness of the stroke, threw down their arms and surrendered, on promise of their lives.
So fell the strong fortress of Barme, because its captain had broken faith with a woman.
With the first light of morning, Polaris sent his prisoners south toward Ruthar under a strong guard. Leaving a thousand men under one of Jastla's hill-captains to hold the citadel, the son of the snows pushed on through the pass with the remainder of his division.
That move of his came near to costing Ruthar a king.