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"Who are you three, you three who come driving down upon Ruszark through the rocks? We have no quarrel with you?" "I seek a man and a maid," cried Norhala. "A maid and a sick man your thieves took from me. Bring him forth!" "Seek elsewhere for them then," he answered. "They are not here. Turn now and seek elsewhere. Go quickly, lest I loose our might upon you and you go never."
And their children grow like them or if they be gentle and with love for peace they are slain or die of heartbreak. All this my mother told me long ago. So no more children shall be born from them either to suffer or to grow evil." Again she paused, nor did we interrupt her musing. "My father ruled Ruszark," she said at last.
There came a time when my father, driven by his longing, ventured forth to Ruszark, seeking friends to help him regain that place for these who obey me obeyed not him as they obey me; nor would he have marched them as I shall upon Ruszark if they had obeyed him. "Cherkis caught him. And Cherkis waited, knowing well that my mother would follow.
I looked upon Ruszark a great city it is and populous, and a caldron of cruelty and of evil. "Not like me were my father and mother. They longed for their kind and sought ever for means to regain their place among them.
Norhala's hand that had gone from my wrist dropped down again; the other fell upon Drake's. Kulun loosed his hood, let it fall about his shoulders. He stepped forward, held out his arms to Norhala. "A strong man!" she cried approvingly. "Hail my bridegroom! But stay stand back a moment. Stand beside that man for whom I came to Ruszark. I would see you together!" Kulun's face darkened.
Yet mother and blossoming maid, youth and oldster, all the pageant of humanity within the great walls were now but lines within the stone. According to their different lights, it came to me, there had been in Ruszark no greater number of the wicked than one could find in any great city of our own civilization. From Norhala, of course, I looked for no perception of any of this. But from Ruth
A year passed and I am not like my mother and my father and I forgot dwelling here in the great tranquillities, barred from and having no thought for men and their way. "AIE, AIE!" she cried; "woe to me that I could forget! But now I shall take my vengeance I, Norhala, will stamp them flat Cherkis and his city of Ruszark and everything it holds!
How could Yuruk have made his way to the Persians so swiftly how could they so swiftly have returned? Amazingly she answered the spoken question and the unspoken. "They came long before dusk," she said. "By the night before Yuruk had won to Ruszark, the city of Cherkis; and long before dawn they were on their way hither. This the black dog I slew told me."
Upon them I could see hosts gathering; hosts of swarming little figures whose bodies glistened, from above whom came gleamings the light striking upon their helms, their spear and javelin tips. "Ruszark!" breathed Norhala, eyes wide, red lips cruelly smiling. "Lo I am before your gates. Lo I am here and was there ever joy like this!" The constellations in her eyes blazed.
"Rustum he was named, of the seed of Rustum the Hero even as was my mother. They were gentle and good, and it was their ancestors who built Ruszark when, fleeing from the might of Iskander, they were sealed in the hidden valley by the falling mountain. "Then there sprang from one of the families of the nobles Cherkis. Evil, evil was he, and as he grew he lusted for rule.
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