So wrapped in their cloaks they slept behind the stones until Elossa was jerked suddenly out of slumber by some inner warning triggered by the Yurth talent. Over her crouched the Raski hardly visible in the night’s darkness. Some trick of the small starlight from overhead touched upon what he held-a bared knife.
Elossa rolled to one side as the knife struck down into the earth where she had lain. But the blow intended to bury steel in her flesh, now slicing into the ground instead, threw Stans off balance. She rolled again, setting between them one of the stones. Getting to her feet now, her staff in hand, the girl waited, her heart beating with force enough to shake her body.
Ruthlessly she reached out with mind-touch. The wildness of thought she so found was near as upsetting as that attack had been. This was like tapping a mind gone insane. Horror and fear held the Raski in tight grip. And she had a glimpse of a distorted monster. He-he thought that was she!
“Stans!” She cried aloud his name, striving to so awaken him. For it seemed to Elossa that only a man in the hold of a compelling nightmare could be so disoriented.
She heard an answering cry, wild and beast-like. Then she saw him beyond the stones. He was running, on into the darkness of the night. And he went like a man pursued by an unbelievable source of terror.
Shaking, Elossa put out one hand to the stone behind which she had taken refuge. What had happened? All she could guess in answer was that uneasy fear which had been hers earlier- that these stones might generate illusion and one such had worked upon the Raski strongly because of his very heritage.
There was no use in running after him. If the stones were the source of his terror, then once he was out of range, his sanity should again be in control. She opened her mind wide, sent out a questing which lasted only an instant or two since she had no desire to attract any influences which might abide here.
Stans-he was still in flight. She had no desire to try to compel his return. Such an attempt might only heighten his distortion of mind at present.
Once more Elossa settled down in the lee of the stones. To all her cautious probing these remained only rock. It would seem that if they did exude some illusions such were a menace to Raski only.
Though she was uneasy and wanted to stay on guard, she drifted once more into sleep. Then, for a second time, she awoke into dire danger. For she opened her eyes, instantly awake, only to believe for a second or two that she was still caught in some particularly vivid dream.
This was not the plain where she had fallen asleep by the rocks. Instead she stood leaning on her staff in a narrow valley between two rises of hills. There was a season-killed and dry looking brush about. But in the middle of that, directly before her, crouched a sargon, its snarling echoed from the hill walls as a heavy menace.
The beast was a young one, perhaps of this season’s litter. But even so immature a sargon was more than a match for any human. While the creature seemed somehow to guess that she must be helpless prey.
Frantically Elossa summoned the authority of mind control. But it was as if her trained thought was over-slow. She could not hold this raving beast nor turn it! She was going to be torn by those claws. She was. . . .
Out of the air came a shrill singing sound. The sargon’s flanks quivered as it gathered strength to launch itself upon her. But now it yowled and in its throat showed the shaft end of a crossbow bolt.
Elossa came to life. She unleashed at the creature the full power of her talent. While, at the same time, she flung herself to one side even as she had moved to escape Stans’ attack.
The sargon squalled, clawed with one paw at the wound in its throat from which poured a flood of dark blood. Elossa flattened her body tight against the wall of the hill. Between her and the wounded beast there was only a thin growth of brush which the creature could easily break through. But with her thought she prodded as best she could.
As if it had not seen her part-escape moments earlier, the sargon charged forward, breaking down brush. Blood spouted, as its exertions speeded the flow. Again that wailing in the air and a second bolt drove into the body of frantic beast, placed behind one of its forelegs.
Sprinkling blood widely, the sargon whirled around. Once more it did see her. It was readying for another spring. She could not control this raging alien mind. No one could make a sargon do other than its own will-or. . . .
Perhaps it was the feeling that death was very close to her which speeded Elossa’s own thought processes. She dropped her vain attempt to somehow divert the attention of the beast. Instead, with a burst of energy which she rose to only under the lash of fear, she created an illusion. A second Elossa (not too carefully depicted, but at least in the animal’s sight enough like its intended prey to draw its attention) now stood before the sargon. The illusion turned and ran. The sargon squalling aloud in its pain and blood lust swung its heavy body around once more to pursue.
It must have so presented the unseen bowman with a better target. For with a third shrilling of flight a bolt found its target. The sargon flung up its head, opened its jaw for a great roar. But it was not sound alone which burst from the beast. Rather a second outpouring of blood fountained down to earth. The creature took one step and a second, and then toppled. Though it still fought to regain its feet and its cries sounded strongly, the end had come.
Elossa needed the support of the bank against which she had taken refuge. That last outpouring of her talent had weakened her as she had seldom been since the earliest days of her training. It would take much rest until she could once more summon even the lightest of mind-power to her service.
She lifted her head as pebbles and earth cascaded down the hillside across the narrow valley. Stans half slid down in their wake. She could not test his mood by her only defense, not in her present condition. Though if he meant her harm now he need only have allowed the sargon to have its way. Or was it that some touch of the ancient revenge bred in him still worked to the point that he must take Yurth life by his own hand?
She stood quietly. In fact she could not have fled, even if she so wished, all the energy having seeped out of her. He paused, watching her across the body of the sargon. Then, without word he knelt to work his bolts out of the still quivering carcass, deliberately cleansing each in a fashion by driving it point down into the earth and plucking it forth again.
He no longer looked at Elossa. It was as if she were invisible. Nor did he speak. What would happen now? Her distrust of the Raski had awakened once again. Perhaps there was too great a gulf between their two races for any amount of good will to bridge.
Restoring his bolts to their quiver Stans got to his feet again. Now he did face her. There was a shade of expression on his dark face but she could not read it.
“Life for life.” He spoke those three words as if they had been forced out of him against his will. What did he mean? That this was in payment of the succor she had given him when he had been clawed by a similar beast on the journey to Kal-Hath-Tan? Or had he saved her now because his attempt in the night had failed and he would be quit of the memory of that? She felt blind when she could not mind-probe for the truth.
“Why,” she said at last, “why would you take knife to me? Is your hate from the old days still so strong, Stans of the House of Philbur?”
He opened his mouth as if about to answer and then closed it firmly once more. There was about him an aura of wariness as if he were fronting a possible enemy.
“Why must you take my life, Stans?” she asked again.
He shook his head slowly. “I do not kill,” he began and then his head came up proudly and he met her in a fast locking of eyes.
“It was not I. This is a haunted land. It had secrets of things we Raski have long forgotten, which perhaps even you Yurth, with all your dark powers, never knew. There was another will taking over my body. When it did not win what it wished, it left me. I-” Again he frowned. “I think it is different-not Raski as I know, not Yurth. . . . It is very dangerous-perhaps to the both of us.”