Flight to Opar Read online

  In those few seconds of observation, Hadon had seen that the other two dogs had been dragged back down the slope. One dog was in sight now, out of the pass, baying as it sped after Hadon's scent. It would follow his track into the forest, then double back and eventually find him. Hadon had some time, however, before he had to deal with it.

  Suddenly the pass was loud with belling and growling. Hadon took a quick look over the edge. It was as he had thought. The rekokha or sergeant now in command had loosed the other dogs. Now he was shouting at the men, and they scrambled up on all fours. The noncom evidently hoped that the dogs would keep Hadon busy while they got through the pass. The sergeant was a good thinker; Hadon would have to eliminate him as soon as possible.

  Hadon whirled around, placed another missile and spun the sling. Four dogs shot out of the end of the pass, the two swifter tracehounds in the lead, the two wardogs close behind them. The stone struck the rear dog in the left rear leg, knocking him over. He got up, howling, his leg trailing, and tried to run after the others. He fell and could not get up again.

  Hadon went to the edge of the pass, back from the edge of the cliff, however. In that glance, he had seen six slingers standing up, though with some difficulty, whirling their slings. They would throw at him if he showed himself.

  Hadon pushed a boulder over the edge into the narrow pass. He dropped down after it, picked it up and staggered to the mouth of the slot. Easing it down to the ground, he waited, his sword in his hands.

  Presently he heard a puffing. He crouched down. He held the sword above his head. Suddenly the hands of a man gripped the shelf of the entrance. The head of the sergeant followed. His eyes opened, his flushed skin whitened. He started to cry out, and his hands released their hold. The tenu whipped downward. The sergeant fell back, leaving his two hands on the rock, spouting blood briefly.

  There were cries from below. Hadon stood up, heaved the boulder above his head, almost losing it because of its weight He took one step forward and cast it outward. It hit a soldier who was on all fours, staring at the body of the sergeant just before him. It crushed in his helmet and then rolled over his body and continued down the slope. A man screamed and tried to roll out of the way, but the boulder ran over an arm.

  Hadon ducked back as the slingers shot their lead at him. They struck the rocky walls above him, knocking off chips which cut his face and arms.

  He ran back up the pass. It was not likely that the soldiers would be trying again very soon. He would have time to take care of the dogs. He hoped he would, anyway.

  The animals were coming back. They burst out of the shadows of the oak forest just as he got to the exit. The tracehounds halted on seeing him. The wardog, growling, bounded toward him. Hadon dropped the sling. He waited and, as the wardog leaped toward his throat, swung the sword. The blade cut its head off, its impact driving the body to one side. He whirled and then stepped away, but the spouting blood covered his feet.

  At that the tracehounds moved in. Though primarily bred for tracking, they had been trained to attack too. One sped in directly toward him, then stopped just out of reach of his sword. The other circled around behind to dash in and nip at his legs. Hadon shifted the tenu to his left hand, pulled out his knife and threw it. The tracehound dodged to one side, too late. The knife drove into its body just before the right rear leg.

  Hadon whirled, shifting the tenu back to his right hand. The tracehound which had run in to bite his leg skidded to a halt. It bounced back and forth sidewise, baying. Hadon backed up, keeping his eyes on the beast. He shifted the sword to his left hand again, bent down, quickly pulled the knife out, wiped it on the grass and waited. The dog moved too quickly to be a reliable target for the knife. After a few seconds, Hadon moved toward the dog. It retreated, keeping a distance of about thirty feet, moving back and forth, in and out. Hadon kept walking toward the cliffs edge. Suddenly the dog realized what was happening. It was twenty feet from being backed off the top of the cliff.

  As it ran at an angle away from Hadon, Hadon ran toward it. It was no longer shifting around; now it ran in a straight line. Hadon threw the knife, and the blade sank into its neck.

  A moment later he peeped cautiously over the edge. Most of the group was gathered about thirty feet below the pass. Two men were almost at its mouth. They were on all fours but gripping spears. Evidently they planned to rise simultaneously just short of the mouth and cast their spears if Hadon was waiting for them.

  He ran to the dog, picked its body up and ran with it to the top of the pass. Just as the two soldiers rose to their feet, he threw the carcass down. It struck one and knocked him back down the slope, into the knot below him. The other looked startled and for a moment did not seem to know what happened.

  Hadon looked around. There were no stones handy for throwing, no boulders to drop. He rolled quickly over the edge and dropped to the floor of the pass. The soldier saw him then and scrambled upward, crawling into the pass. He rose as Hadon ran toward him, raising the spear to throw. Hadon's knife flew, plunged to the hilt in the man's mouth, and the man fell backward.

  His knife was gone, but the spear had fallen within his reach.

  3.

  An hour had passed. Hadon crouched near the mouth, waiting. The soldiers had retreated to a distance of fifty yards down and about forty feet to one side of the pass. They were sitting down, talking among themselves. They seemed to be in disagreement. No wonder. Their dogs were dead, which meant they would have to do any tracking without their indispensable aid. Three of them were disabled, out of action. Eight were dead. That still left twenty-nine, but these could only get into the pass one at a time and their antagonist was better armed now than when the attack had started.

  Hadon looked across the wide valley. To his right, far below, part of the road at the bottom was visible here and there among the trees. There were very tiny figures on it. Occasionally the sun flashed on a helmet, a spearpoint. Reinforcements were coming, with more dogs. It would take them until nightfall to get to the pass, but they would not wait for daylight, knowing that Hadon could slip away in the dark. Moreover, their main quarry, Awineth, would be getting further and further away.

  They would light their torches and release the dogs. This time they would have too many dogs for him to handle, and they would storm the pass while he was occupied with them.

  It seemed that the soldiers on the slope had not yet seen the men on the road. But they would. Then what would they do? Wait for the newcomers? Or continue the onslaught?

  Far to the right, beyond the shoulder of the mountain across the valley, rose the Khowot, the Voice of Kho, the Great Goddess, Mother of All. Just past it was a dark splotch, all he could see of the city of Khokarsa. The Voice of Kho had discharged great quantities of lava and poisonous gases while he and Lalila and the others were fleeing Minruth's underground prison. It was fortunate for them that the earthquake preceding the eruption had opened the way for them, and the shaking of the earth had tumbled down buildings and panicked the city. Afterward, mighty Khowot had belched white-hot lava and huge chunks of stone and lava. In the chaos of the flight of the citizens, Hadon's group had managed to escape into the countryside.

  Even then, Minruth's soldiers had been after them—and they might have caught up with them—but Kwasin, Hadon's herculean cousin, had leaped onto the boat full of soldiers. The last Hadon had seen of him, before the smoke veiled the battle, was Kwasin's tremendous ax rising and falling.

  Hadon was grateful for Kwasin's sacrifice, though it had been motivated more by egotism than anything else. Kwasin thought he was the strongest man in the world—and probably was. But he hated Hadon, and he had promised to find them later and take Lalila away.

  First, though, Kwasin would have to kill Hadon.

  Fearsome as Kwasin was, he was going to have a battle he would never forget—if he survived. Kwasin was much larger and stronger, but he was not as quick as Hadon. Nor was he the equal of his cousin in swordsmanship. Yet that
ax, that great ax made from a fallen star by Paga… it was so heavy that only a giant like Kwasin could wield it as if it were fashioned from papyrus.

  Hadon thought back to the time when he had left Opar for the Great Games at Khokarsa. Who could have foreseen the chain of events which would lead him to this mountain pass? Only Kho Herself, and She had let drop only a few hints through the mouth of Her speaker, the oracular priestess in the cave near the top of the volcano.

  Hadon had contested with the other ambitious athletic youths in the Lesser Games at Opar. Three had been chosen. Himself, his friend Taro and the surly, hateful Hewako. These and their substitutes had traveled on a galley through the Kemuwopar, the Southern Sea of Opar. They had gotten through the spooky Strait of Kethna and then had crossed the length of the Kemu, the Northern Sea, the Great Water.

  Awineth, Queen of Khokarsa and high priestess, daughter of Minruth, wanted a husband, a king her own age. Minruth had asked her to marry him, but she had refused him. It was rumored that Awineth had taken her father to bed before making up her mind and had found him wanting. Hadon doubted the story because it was evident to all that daughter and father had long been hostile to each other. Another rumor had it that Awineth suspected her father of poisoning her mother. Hadon doubted this too, though Minruth was not called the Mad without good cause. But even he would not have dared to murder his wife, the high priestess, supreme vicar of Kho. Surely he would have feared the wrath of the Goddess too much. But then perhaps he had done it and, finding that lightning did not strike him, the earth did not open up beneath him, he had lost much of his dread of Her. It may have been that he dared to think of overthrowing Her, of making Resu, the Flaming God, the supreme deity. And with that the dominance of the kings in all matters, spiritual and temporal. And with that, a revolution in the role of the male in Khokarsa.

  Minruth was not satisfied with being lord of the army and navy and in charge of the construction of roads and major buildings. He wanted to control the taxes, the postal system and the religious organizations. Above all, he wanted to finish the building of the Great Tower of Kho and Resu, that project begun five hundred years ago by King Klakor. The legend was that the king who completed it could ascend to the sky, to the blue palace of the Flaming God, and become immortal. It was half finished now, and Minruth was fifty-eight years old. He wanted to spend every cent possible, to draft an allout construction. But the priestesses had been interfering for half a millennium, slowing its construction. Times of troubles had also blocked its progress. The priestesses claimed that the Empire would be ruined if all efforts were directed to the tower's completion. That was obviously true. Additionally obvious was the fact that the structure could not take much more weight. The tower would have to be abandoned unless someone could invent a new type of very light-weight brick. Minruth had offered a reward equivalent to the annual taxes of the city of Bawaku to anyone who would come up with the desired construction material.

  Hadon had won the Great Games, though he had been grieved when his friend Taro was killed. The proud victor, he had marched to the palace expecting to be proclaimed the husband of Awineth and Emperor of Khokarsa. Instead he was given news that staggered and outraged him.

  The Voice of Kho, the oracle in the cave high on the volcano, had said that his honors must be deferred. First he must lead an expedition into the far north, to the shores of the Ringing Sea. There he must locate and bring back three people from beyond the Ringing Sea. These had been brought to the southern shores of the Ringing Sea by Sahhindar. But the exiled god of bronze, plants and time had left them there, sending Hinokly, a member of a previous expedition, to Khokarsa with his orders.

  Why? Only Kho Herself knew. Hadon had suspected in his fit of rage that Minruth had somehow contrived to bring about this unjust deferment. But, cooling off, he had realized that he had been guilty of blasphemous thoughts. No priestess of Kho would dare speak falsely. Not when the commands of Kho were involved. The retribution would be swift and awe-inspiring.

  Hadon had reluctantly led the expedition northward, past the Saasares Mountains and onto the vast savannas beyond. During the journey, he had run across his cousin Kwasin. The giant was fleeing from a tribe of wild men, and he had been saved only because Hadon's men fought the others off. Kwasin had been expelled from Khokarsa some years before because he had raped a priestess and killed some temple guards defending her. Ordinarily he would have been castrated and his body thrown to hogs.

  But the Voice of Kho spoke, and his punishment was exile for an indeterminate time.

  Kwasin accompanied them the rest of the way. The three strangers, Lalila, Paga and Abeth, had been located. Lalila claimed that Sahhindar had indeed brought them from across the Ringing Sea. For reasons known only to himself, he had then left them. They accompanied Hinokly's expedition back to Khokarsa, but savages had attacked them, killing all but the three and Hinokly. The three had been separated from him, so he had made his way back to his native land.

  Lalila, however, said that Sahhindar had disclaimed deityship. He was, he said, only a man. But he did admit that he had lived over two thousand years. And he had been born, he said, in a far distant future. Somehow, sailing in "a ship of time," he had traveled back to a period two thousand years before the present. And it was indeed he who had made the civilization of Khokarsa possible.

  On the return journey, Hadon had fallen in love with Lalila. He was not the only one. She seemed to project an aura which drew men to her as the scent of the female moth drew male moths. She was undeniably beautiful, but there were many women in Khokarsa as beautiful. Paga had said that she carried a curse. It maddened men and at the same time brought them to death.

  Hadon had not cared. He was in ecstasy when Lalila told him she loved him. She was ready to forget her grief for Wi, her dead lover.

  Arriving in Khokarsa, they were greeted with shocking news. Minruth had imprisoned Awineth in her apartment and declared himself supreme ruler. Hadon, with the men in his party, was taken prisoner and conducted to Khokarsa, the capital city of the Empire of Khokarsa. Kwasin had escaped, but he was later retaken.

  During the earthquake preceding the eruption, Hadon, Kwasin and Paga had escaped, rescued Lalila, her daughter and Awineth, and fled into the mountains northeast of the city.

  Awineth and the others might still get away. Lalila might also escape, though her chances of survival in these woods infested with outlaws and beasts were few. More likely she would starve to death.

  Still, he had done much better than he had expected. Now he permitted himself to hope, both for himself and Lalila.

  4.

  The sun was in its final quarter. By then Hadon had rolled a boulder from the edge of the forest to the edge of the cliff about forty feet outward from the inner pass. He pushed it over and watched while it bounded down the slope. The men below, hearing the crash as it struck the bottom of the cliff, looked up. They rolled to one side, hoping to be out of the way of the bounding death, or got to their feet and ran. Some lost their footing on the steepness and fell.

  The big rock struck a projection and leaped up, striking a dog handler full in the chest. He shot backward, sliding on his back for at least a hundred feet, then lay still. The boulder, only slightly checked by the impact, rolled and jumped the rest of the way down the mountain, lurching across a meadow at its foot and stopping when it struck the trunk of a tree.

  Hadon had hoped to kill more than one. He was not, however, too disappointed. His main purpose had been to assure the soldiers that he was still in the area. He wanted them to think that he intended to guard the pass until nightfall and perhaps after that.

  He was successful. The men went back down the slope to the meadow. Here they talked for a while, looking up at the pass now and then. They were evidently going to wait until the reinforcements arrived.

  No, he was wrong. Now they were moving along the meadow. As he watched, they began climbing, this time at an angle. The end of their path was about five
miles away, where the cliffs dwindled. They planned to ascend the climbable heights there and come back along the cliffs edge. At the rate they were going it would take them at least nine hours. Hadon went to the forest. He walked up the fallen tree supported by the two oaks. He called softly, "Lalila!" but got no answer. He climbed to a branch just above the broad limb on which she lay. She was on her side, sleeping, but she opened her eyes when he called again.

  He lowered himself from the branch, saying, "Don't be alarmed." He explained the situation to her.

  "What do you plan to do now?" she asked. Her violet eyes were wide, showing the redness of the eyeballs. She looked haggard; when she moved her foot without thinking, pain shot across her face.

  "We're going to leave," he said. "I'll carry you on my back for a while, then I'll support you while you hobble. Do you think you can make it?"

  "I have to," she said, trying to smile. "There isn't any choice, is there? But you were going to leave me here…"

  "I changed my mind because the situation has changed. I may have to abandon you again for a while, if they get too close. But the deeper I can get you into the woods, the less distance I'll have to travel to come back for you. Besides, there is the chance that we might lose them entirely. But…"

  "But you'll still have to leave me," she said. "You can't let them follow the trail of the others."

  "If they find it," he said. "We will have to trust to chance… and to Kho."

  He helped her down from the tree, no easy task. When they were on the ground, he shifted to his chest the pack of provisions he'd taken from a corpse. He bent down and Lalila, biting her lip to keep from groaning, got onto his back. He rose, placed his hands under her legs and started walking. They were soon under the branches of the oaks spreading above the trail. Hadon made no effort to go swiftly, since he must not spend his strength. He had a long, long way to go. Besides, the events of yesterday and today had weakened him. He had not gotten much sleep, and he had used up enough muscular effort and nervous tension for four warriors.