Suldrun's Garden

Another hour they stalked on the stilts, up a gradual slope through a sparse forest of stunted pines where the thin red soil lay in pockets. The land had no utility for cultivation; the few peasants who at one time had collected resin for turpentine, or grazed pigs, had fled the Ska; the fugitives traveled an uninhabited wasteland, which suited them well.

At another stream they dismounted from the stilts and sat to rest on a ledge of rock. They drank water and ate bread and cheese from their packs. Listening, they heard no far-off belling of the hounds, but they had come a good distance and expected to hear nothing; probably their absence had not yet been noticed. The three congratulated themselves that they had possibly a full day's headstart over any pursuit.

They discarded the stilts and waded upstream in an easterly direction, and presently entered an upland of curious aspect, where ancient pi

A few miles beyond the land once again became wild and rose to a region of rolling moors. Rejoicing in the freedom of the high skies, the three set off into the hazy east.

They were not alone on the moor. Up from a swale a half-mile south, under four flapping black flags, rode a troop of Ska warriors. Galloping forward, they surrounded the fugitives.

The leader, a stern-faced baron in black armor, spared them only a single glance and no words whatever. Ropes were attached to the iron collars; the three Skalings were led away to the north.

Late in the day the troop met a wagon-train loaded with victual of various sorts. At the rear marched forty men linked neck to neck by ropes. To this column were joined Aillas, Yane and Cargus, and so, willy-nilly, forced to follow the wagon train north. In due course they entered the kingdom of Dahaut and arrived at Poelitetz, that immense fortress guarding the central buttress of the Teach tac Teach and overlooking the Plain of Shadows.

Chapter 24

WHERE DAHALT BORDERED ON NORTH ULFLAN'D a scarp eighty miles long, the front face of the Teach tac Teach, overlooked the Plain of Shadows. At a place named Poelitetz, the river Tamsour, flowing down from the snows of Mount Agon, cut a chasm which allowed relatively easy access from Dahaut to the moors of North Ulfland.

Poelitetz had been fortified as long as men had made war across the Elder Isles; whoever held Poelitetz controlled the peace of Far Dahaut. The Ska, upon seizing Poelitetz, began an enormous work, to guard the fortress from the west as well as the east, so that it might be totally impregnable. They had closed the defile with masonry walls thirty feet thick, leaving a passage twelve feet wide and ten feet high, controlled by three iron gates, one behind the other. Fortress and scarp showed a single impervious face to the Plain of Shadows.

The better to reco

Upon arrival at Poelitetz, Aillas, Yane and Cargus were subjected to a perfunctory inquisition. Then, instead of the maiming or mutilation which they had expected, they were taken to a special barracks, where a company of forty Skalings were held in isolation: the tu

With death clear and large before them, none of the Skalings worked in haste: a situation which the Ska found easier to accept than to alter. So long as reasonable progress was made, the work was allowed to go its own pace. The routine each day was identical. Each Skaling had his assigned duty. The tu

A bellows powered by oxen walking around a windlass blew air into a leather tube, which led to the tu

*The water-level comes in several forms. The Ska used a pair of wooden troughs twenty feet long with a section four inches square. Water in the troughs lay perfectly horizontal; floats at each end allowed the troughs themselves to be adjusted to the horizontal. By shifting the troughs in succession, the desired horizontal could be extended indefinitely, with an accuracy limited only by the patience of the engineer.

A Ska overseer directed the Skalings with a pair of soldiers to enforce discipline, should such control be needed. The overseer and the guards tended to remain at the open end of the tu

Two shifts worked the tu

Aillas, Cargus and Yane were assigned to the noon-midnight shift.

Immediately they began to consider escape. The prospects were even more discouraging than those at Castle Sank. Barred doors and suspicious guards confined them off-duty; they worked in a tube similarly sealed against exit.

After only two days of work, Aillas told Yane and Cargus: "We can escape. It is possible."

"You are more perceptive than I," said Yane.

"Or I," said Cargus.

"There is one single difficulty. We shall need the cooperation of the entire shift. The question becomes: are any so broken that they might betray us?"

"Where would be the motive? Everyone sees his own ghost dancing ahead of him."

"Some persons are traitors by nature; they take pleasure in treachery."

The three, squatting by the wall of the chamber in which they spent the off-hours, considered their fellows, one by one. Cargus said at last: "If we share together the prospect of escape, there will be no betrayal."

"We have to assume as much," said Yane. "We have no better choice."

Fourteen men worked the shift, with another six whose duties never took them into the tu

The tu