Then came the creaking protest of the gate’s hinges, whereupon a dozen or more shadowy, wraithlike figures poured from the entry passage and trotted across the deserted courtyard toward the hall. And Danes’ throat choked off that shout. Shakily, he stepped over the dead man and tiptoed through the tower, thence into the deathly still barrack.
What he found there imbued him with such panic that he only took time to arm himself with belt and dagger, bow and case of arrows, ere he stole back through the tower, dropped from the wall and ran for the forest like a bunted beast
CHAPTER VI
Sleep finally had claimed Mairee, but the throbbing of her feet made it a light slumber at best, and when the arms slipped under her body and the lips pressed down on hers, she instantly came to full, shuddering wakefulness. All that she could see of the face above her was as black as the hair. Then she became aware that those lips on hers were surrounded by a beard, a full beard! And she knew the feel of that beard . . . and those arms and those warm, tender lips. And she knew also that she was certainly dreaming. The knowledge that she could not live on and on forever in that blessed dreamworld, but must soon waken to the horror of her real existence, wrenched a groan from the depths of her being and flooded her eyes with hot, salt tears.
Beside her the snoring suddenly broke off, the bed shook to the lady’s ponderous movements. Then her strident voice shrilled, “A man\ A dirty man! What are you doing in my bedchamber, you pig? Get your filthy hands off my girl!”
Ehrik’s deep bass rumble answered her, his tone hard and cold as polished steel. “Komeesa Hehrah, I done come to fetch back my wife.”
Lumbering her bulk half off the bed, Lady Hehrah turned up the lamp and stared in utter disbelief at the visitor, clad in dark-brown tunic and breeches, face and hands smeared with soot, wide dagger and shortsword hanging from his belt
“May God damn those blunderers!” she shouted wrath-fully. “I told them to kill you! They swore you were dead! But you’ll not ejcape me this time!
“Klohee, Ahtheenal Call the guards at once! Do you hear me, you bitches?”
Ehrik did not move a muscle other than to treat the lady to a gap-toothed, derisive grin. “If it’s them two hussies in the antechamber you be callin’, you can save y’r wind. With crushed gullets and snapped necks, they’ll be bavin’ trouble answerin’.”
Black eyes widened in terror, the lady backed across the bedchamber, screaming. “Captain Danos! Guards, to me! Guarrds!”
Ehrik chuckled again. “We done sent all your bullyboys to Wind, too, komeesa. Lord Hari, he give us leave to butcher ever” boar an’ sow an’ shoat in this here hall, ‘ceptin’ you an* your damn priest”
Lady Hehrah started as if arrowpricked. “My … my husband is dead! He’s dead, I tell youl Myros promised Hari would be among the first to die!”
Ehrik’s bass laughter filled the chamber. “Well, 111 not gainsay you, komeesa, but Cousin Hari do make the livelies’ corpse I ever come to see. He be a-ridin’ “crost the wes’ pasture right now, him an’ near three hunnerd C’nfederashun kahtahfrahktoee. An’ I hopes to Wind he crucifies you, you unnatcherl thing, you!”
He stepped over to the bed, gathered his sobbing wife into his thick arms and would then have departed, but at the length of the chain she was almost jerked from his grasp and caught her breath in agony. It was as he gripped the chain to wrench it from the massive bedstead that his blue eyes lit upon Mairee’s feet and saw what had been done to them, and he roared his rage.
Setting his wife down gently, he slipped his forefingers between her lacerated ankle and the iron cuff circling it. Setting his jaw, he pulled once, and half the brass rivet sped through the air to clank against a wall and fall to the floor. Two more metal-rending efforts and he was holding a six-foot length of fine chain.