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"There is a way from here," he muttered. "Nor does it pass through Them. I can show it to you." I had not been blind to the flash of malice, of cunning, that had shot across the wrinkled face. "Where does that way lead?" I asked. "There were those who sought us; men clad in armor with javelins and arrows. Does your way lead to them, Yuruk?" For a time he hesitated, the lashless lids half closed.
Norhala waved a white hand; Yuruk sidled over to one of the curtained ovals and through it, reappearing almost instantly with a huge platter upon which were fruits, and a curdly white liquid in bowls of thick porcelain. "Eat," she said, as the gnarled black arms placed the platter at our feet. "Hungry?" asked Drake. Ruth shook her head violently. "I'm going out for the saddlebags," said Drake.
It matters nothing to me what YOU would do. Matters to me only what I will to do." She pointed to the dead. "Yuruk" the golden voice was cold "gather up these carrion and pile them together." The eunuch arose, stole out fearfully from between the two stars. He slithered to body after body, dragging them one after the other to the center of the chamber, lifting them and forming of them a heap.
The soldier's fevered eyes rolled toward her, saw and read aright the ruthlessness in the beautiful face. "Sorceress!" he groaned. "Cursed spawn of Ahriman!" He spat at her. The black talons of Yuruk stretched around his throat "Son of unclean dogs!" he whined. "You dare blaspheme the Goddess!" He snapped the soldier's neck as though it had been a rotten twig.
I knew no harm would come to you, and I went my ways and forgot you. Then I came here again and found Yuruk and these the maid had slain." The great eyes flashed. "Now do I honor the maid for the battle that she did," she said, "though how she slew so many strong men I do not know. My heart goes out to her. And therefore when I bring her back she shall no more be plaything to Norhala, but sister.
"We'll use our own stuff while it lasts. I'm taking no chances on what the Yuruk lad brings with all due respect to Norhala's good intentions." He started for the doorway; the eunuch blocked his way. "We have with us food of our own, Norhala," I explained. "He goes to get it." She nodded indifferently; clapped her hands. Yuruk shrank back, and out strode Drake. "I am weary," sighed Norhala.
Pain and wrath struggled on his face. "We go together or neither of us goes. Ruth will be all right here, Goodwin. The only thing she has any cause to fear is Yuruk and he's had his lesson. "Besides, she'll have the rifles and her pistols, and she knows how to use them. What d'ye mean by making such a proposition as that?" His indignation burst all bounds. Lamely I tried to justify myself.
"Yuruk," I whispered, "you love us as the wheat field loves the hail; we are as welcome to you as the death cord to the condemned. Lo, a door opened into a land of unpleasant dreams you thought sealed, and we came through. Answer my questions truthfully and it may be that we shall return through that door." Interest welled up in the depths of the black eyes.
'Yuruk, I told him, 'that's what you'll get, and worse, if you lay a finger on that girl inside there." "And then what happened?" I asked. "He beat it back there." He grinned, pointing toward the forest through which ran the path the eunuch had shown me. "Probably hiding back of a tree."
The cliffs Yuruk had pointed out to me as those through which the hidden way passed were, I had estimated then, at least twenty miles away. And how long was the pass, the tunnel, through them? And then how far this place of the armored men? It had been past dawn when Drake had frightened the black eunuch with his pistol. It was not yet dawn now.
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