The white one turned and eyed me with the two blazing red wheels which passed for eyes, and clawed up the soil with alternate forefeet. I had told them not to hold him for me, and I hardly think in any case that they could. He swore at me, and stood back on his hind limbs in that impossible gesture of horses, and while he balanced there on the knife edge of his anger, I ran to him, and aside at the last instant before he could swing to me, and, as he dropped, I got his mane, and my foot on his icy side, and was up. He gave a leap, all four feet in the air, that seemed to shake every bone loose in my spine. I clung to his neck and hair, but my arms would not reach far enough around his huge neck to restrict the windpipe, in that old but necessary trick of breakers. The
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camp, the rocks, the sky broke up in small fragments, and began to whirl about our heads. It was a ghastly ride, and I thought more than once that now I had ruined my plans and would be tossed off, and probably eaten, for these wild herds from Eshkorek had a reputation for devouring men. Even so, I cannot deny there was a sort of panicky,pleasure in it-it was a real thing in the midst of experiences and troubles that seemed quite unreal.
The end came very suddenly. No slowing down, just an abrupt finish to all movement. I do not know how long the ordeal lasted, but quite a while I think. There were crowds of men around the pen, staring, cheering. Kazarl was masked and unreadable, yet he held up an arm in salute.
The horse stood under me, not shivering or seeming at a loss, only very quiet I thought at first the frenzy might start up again, but after a while I ventured to get down. I went to the great head and stared at the one smoldering eye I could see. The horse leaned and butted my shoulder. I reached up and smoothed the pale neck, slightly mottled this close with a half-invisible lovely network of bluish freckles that made it seem cast from marble.
“Mine,” I said.
I had made a point, but he caused some trouble, that white devil, for he would be quiet with me-and a groom or two, once he had been properly introduced-but with all others he was still man-eater and demon. Perhaps that is the best way, to restrict a horse only to one hand. At least I had not destroyed him, or his mad horse soul.
So we rode to Vazkor in the morning, a short journey of a day, and I went at the head of them on the white horse. It had not been difficult. I had told Kazarl I would lead the armies of White Desert to their overlord, and he had bowed and capitulated at once. Of the men who followed after me, I did not think many were aggrieved. I was a goddess, after all, and a warrior-goddess at that. Altogether, it was really a very small thing-lord for a day, in fact. But it meant a good deal by its implications. I was no longer fearful to meet Vazkor.
When the sun lay on the edge of the rock hills, we wound down the old track-made in the long past by travelers, perhaps-and arrived at the vast level plateau with its scattering of tents and horse pens. It was an enormous open place, and beyond, the rocks yawned in many narrow defiles, which looked as though they must pass straight through to the val-
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ley in summer but were closed now with the snow. At one point a break in the rock showed empty space below, obscured at present by white evening mist.
The armies of the south snaked downward after me and spread themselves across the plateau.
Torchlight leaped red behind me in the soldiers’ hands.
From the black pavilion a man came, wearing a wolf mask with scarlet eyes.
“Overlord,” I called. I saluted him. “I have brought your fighting force to you, as you commanded.”
He stood still a moment, then walked toward me. He stood by the horse, looking up.
“You are very welcome,” he said formally.
He extended a hand to help me down, and I used it because of the many eyes on us.
I lifted one arm, and Kazarl followed the direction, dismounted, and discharged the rest of the great column to its separate captains. Figures on horses wheeled away. It was very noisy as the many tents began to go up, and the men quartered themselves.
Vazkor nodded to me. “My pavilion.”
“No need,” I said. “My own is already going up-over there, do you see?”
A groom had come for my horse, and he was stamping and tossing his head. I turned to quiet him, and found Mazlek and ten others of my guard behind me, very stiff and still, turned to face Vazkor. It was a beautiful gesture, uniquely theatrical and yet, so effective.
Vazkor nodded again, and walked away. I went to the white horse and smoothed him into quietness.
I could not be still that night. I was elated at what I had achieved, too much so, probably. I sat in my pavilion, in the red glow of many braziers and lamps, twitching like an animal in sleep at my waking dreams of purpose and independence.
And then Kazarl Javhovor came to the flap, entered, bowed, and looked at me palely.
“I trust the goddess is well,” he said.
“Should she not be?”
“I have come to beg your pardon,” he said.
“Why?”
“You must understand,” he said nervously, “I was not aware of the goddess’ condition, at Lion’s Mouth.”
“My condition,” I said, and my thoughts congealed to flint.
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“Indeed, yes-I did not know. The Lord Vazkor has informed us all, and he is angry. I hope and pray your health has not been endangered-”
He broke off and took a step backward. For a moment I could not understand why, and then I realized I had risen, and I felt the fury and the frustration singing around me, electric and terrifying, an aura he could sense, perhaps even see. I looked away from him, and a piece of crystal on one of the side tables cracked open. I clenched my fists and tried to push the fury back into myself.
“Vazkor,” I hissed, “is mistaken. You may tell your army so. Now, get out.”
He turned at once and stumbled outside.
I stood in the center of the pavilion, my anger turned inward like a blazing, raging sea, stopped in a jar. I passed my hands over my belly, and I spoke to anything which might be in my womb.
“No, not of him. Out, out of me. Not of him.”
A sharp pain speared upward through my groin into my guts. It frightened and sobered me, and soon I grew very calm and cold. A thought stirred.
“No,” I said to it, and I smiled, a small tight smile, a joke between my brain and my body, with the intruder shut out, “I will not believe in you. I am very strong. If I do not give you credence, you cannot be.”
And I slammed an iron door shut on the thought, and turned my back.
5
For three days gangs of men worked ahead through the rock pass, clearing the snow as best they could. On the fourth day the great armies of the south packed up their gear and followed. I had already had a glimpse of what we were going to through the gap which overlooked the valley. A long basin of whiteness, far away a frozen lake, areas of evergreen trees, top-heavy with foliage, standing up like black birds on one leg. On the farthest horizon the unmistakable shape of a city, sloped walls, the defensive elevation of a platform, natural or otherwise, ringed apparently by woods.
The night of the third day, Vazkor and his captains sat In the black pavilion, and discussed the hill-crossing, and the march toward those walls. Orash she was called, this first fish of the catch. I, too, sat through this assembly. No one denied
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me my place. Vazkor did not speak to me at all, and neither did I speak to them, only listened. There seemed little plan, all in all, only the aggression of persistence, determination, and greed.
Though it was easier than they had anticipated, the riding was not good through the rocks. Snow falls came crashing down from the high places, dislodged by the reverberations of thousands of marching feet, hooves, rolling wagon wheels. It was a crossing of three days, and ten men died on the first. At night, camp fires made blood splotches on the ice walls above. On the third day the head of the army emerged on the rock shelves below, and the rest floundered after. Part of an old roadway guided us down the last steep miles to the valley floor. There are many roads in the valley. They seemed to come from nowhere and vanish again into the ground after a mile or so, like the trails of huge primeval slugs.