And I am alone, that had formerly five hundred spearmen lodging in my halls to do my pleasure.”
“There’s need to do quickly that we do,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “How great start of him hadst thou?”
“He must be upon you in an hour or twain,” said Mivarsh, and fell a-weeping.
“To cope him in the open,” said Juss, “were great glory, and our certain death.”
“Give me to think, but a minute’s while,” said Brandoch Daha. And while they busked them he walked musing by the lip of that ravine, switching pebbles over the edge with his sword. Then he said, “This is without doubt that stream Athrashah spoken of by Gro. O Mivarsh, runneth not this flood of Athrashah south to the salt lakes of Ogo Morveo, and was there not thereabout a hold named Eshgrar Ogo?”
Mivarsh answered, “This is so. But never heard I of any so witless as go thither. Here where we stand is the land fearsome enough; but Eshgrar Ogo standeth at the very edge of the Moruna. No man hath harboured there these hundred years.”
“Standeth it yet?” said Brandoch Daha.
“For all I wot of,” answered Mivarsh.
“Is it strong?” he asked.
“In old times it was thought no place stronger,” answered Mivarsh. “But ye were as well die here by the hand of the devils ultramontane, as there be torn in pieces by bad spirits.”
Brandoch Daha turned him about to Juss. “It is resolved?” said he. Juss answered, “Yea;” and forthwith they started at a great pace south along the river. “Methought you should have been gotten clean away ere this,” said Mivarsh as they went. “This is but nine or ten days’ journey, and ’tis now the sixteenth day since ye did leave me on Salapanta Hills.”
Brandoch Daha laughed. “Sixteenth!” said he. “Thou’lt be rich, Mivarsh, if thou reckon gold pieces o’ this fashion thou dost days. This is but our ninth day’s journey.”
But Mivarsh stood stoutly to it, saying that was the seventh day after their departure when Corund first came to Salapanta, “And I fleeing now nine days before his face chanced on your tracks, and now out of all expectation on you.” Nor for all their mocking would he be turned from this. And when, as they still pressed through the desert southward, the sun declined and set in a clear sky, behold the moon a little past her full: and Juss saw that she was seven days older than on that night she was when they came to Ishnain Nemartra. So he showed this wonder to Brandoch Daha and Spitfire, and much they marvelled.
“You are much to thank me,” said Brandoch Daha, “that I kept you not a full year awaiting of me. Beshrew me, but that seven days’ space seemed to me but an hour! ”
“Likely enow, to thee,” said Spitfire somewhat greenly. “But all we slept the week out on the cold stones, and I am half lamed yet with the ache on’t.”
“Nay,” said Juss, laughing; “I will not have thee blame him.”
The moon was high when they came to the salt lakes that lay one a little above the other in rocky basins. Their waters were like rough silver, and the harsh face of the wilderness was black and silver in the moonlight; and it was as a country of dead bones, blind and sterile beneath the moon. Betwixt the lakes a rib of rock rose monstrous to an eminence crag-begirt on every side, with dark walls ringing it round above the cliffs. Thither they hastened, and as they climbed and stumbled among the crags a she-owl squeaked on the battlements and took wing ghost-like above their heads. The teeth of Mivarsh Faz chattered, but right glad were the Demons as they won up the rocks and entered at last into that deserted burg. Without, the night was still; but fires were burning in the desert eastward, and others as they watched were kindled in the west, and soon was the circle joined of twinkling points of red round about Eshgrar Ogo and the lakes.
Juss said, “By an hour have we forestalled them. And behold how he ringeth us about as men ring a scorpion in flame.”
So they made all sure, and set the guard, and slept until past dawn. But Mivarsh slept not, for terror of hob-thrushes from the Moruna.
XI. The Burg of Eshgrar Ogo
Of the Lord Corund’s Besieging of the Burg Above the Lakes of Ogo Morveo, and what Befell There Betwixt Him and the Demons; Wherein is Also an Example How the Subtle of Heart Standeth at Whiles in Great Danger of His Death.
WHEN the Lord Corund knew of a surety that he held them of Demonland shut up in Eshgrar Ogo, he let dight supper in his tent, and made a surfeit of venison pasties and heath-cocks and lobsters from the lakes. Therewith he drank nigh a skinful of sweet dark Thramnian wine, in such sort that an hour before midnight, becoming speechless, he was holpen by Gro to his couch and slept a great deep sleep till morning.
Gro watched in the tent, his right elbow propped on the table, his check resting on his hand, his left hand reaching forward with delicate fingers toying now with the sleek heavy perfumed masses of his beard, now with the goblet whence he sipped ever and anon pale wine of Permio. His thoughts inconstant as insects in a summer garden flitted ever round and round, resting now on the scene before him, the great form of his general wrapt in slumber, now on other scenes sundered by great gulfs of time or weary leagues of perilous ways. So that in one instant he saw in fancy that lady in Carcë welcoming her lord returned in triumph, and him, may be, crowned king of new-vanquished Impland; and in the next, swept from the future to the past, beheld again the great sending-off in Zajë Zaculo, Gaslark in his splendour on the golden stairs saying adieu to those three captains and their matchless armament foredoomed to dogs and crows on Salapanta Hills; and always, like a gloomy background darkening his mind, loomed the yawning void, featureless and vast, beyond the investing circle of Corund’s armies: the blind blasted emptiness of the Moruna.
With such fancies, melancholy like a great bird settled upon his soul. The lights flickered in their sockets, and for very weariness Gro’s eyelids closed at length over his large liquid eyes; and, too tired to stir from his seat to seek his couch, he sank forward on the table, his head pillowed on his arms. The red glow of the brazier slumbered ever dimmer and dimmer on the slender form and black shining curls of Gro, and on the mighty frame of Corund where he lay with one great spurred booted leg stretched along the couch, and the other flung out sideways resting its heel on the ground.
It wanted but two hours of noon when a sunbeam striking through an opening in the hangings of the tent shone upon Corund’s eyelids, and he awoke fresh and brisk as a youth on a hunting morn. He waked Gro, and giving him a clap on the shoulder, “Thou wrongest a fair morn,” he said. “The devil damn me black as buttermilk if it be not great shame in thee; and I, that was born this day six and forty years as the years come about, busy with mine affairs since sunrise.”
Gro yawned and smiled and stretched himself. “O Corund,” he said, “counterfeit a livelier wonder in thine eyes if thou wilt persuade me thou sawest the sunrise. For I think that were as new and unexampled a sight for thee as any I could produce to thee in Impland.”
Corund answered, “Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life burns weakest. Within there! bring me my morning draught.”
The boy brought two cups of white wine, and while they drank, “A thin ungracious drink is the well-spring,” said Corund: “a drink for queasy-stomached skipjacks: for
