The Hedge Of Arrows

: The Doomsman

For the first few days following upon his arrival in the city, Constans

kept under rover, venturing forth only after nightfall. He wanted to

make sure of all his bearings before taking any long step in advance,

and the extent and strength of the enemy's defences particularly

interested him. Fortunately for his purpose the weather was growing

colder every day, autumn having given place to winter much earlier than

usual, and on these chilly nights the Doomsmen were not inclined to

wander far abroad. By keeping closely to the side streets he ran but

little risk of discovery through a chance encounter; at the same time he

must get inside the danger zone if he hoped to obtain any information of

value.



Constans found the solution of his problem by betaking himself to the

house-tops. Through the aid of a rope, furnished with cross-pieces

inserted in the strands at regular intervals and a grappling-hook at the

free end, he could pass easily from roof to roof of contiguous

buildings, and so gain points of observation that otherwise he would

never have dared to approach.



One of these aerial routes led from the side avenue on the east to a

moderate-sized building situated on the Citadel Square and directly

overlooking the fortress. Twice now he had ventured to spend the whole

of a day lying perdue in this convenient eyrie, his binoculars in

constant use, and what he saw and learned increased his thoughtfulness,

although he would not let it shake his resolution.



So far as he could judge, the Doomsmen could not be regarded as

formidable through mere weight of numbers. Their available fighting

force Constans estimated at two hundred, which would indicate a total

population of a round thousand. Now Croye alone was a city of full

fifteen hundred inhabitants, and the census of the West Inch should show

twice that number. In an open field, and man to man, the House-dwellers

were much more than a match for Dom Gillian's wolves.



On the other hand, the Doomsmen were all trained warriors, and to smoke

them out of their own nest--one would have to think twice about that.

Here was a half-ruined city, several square miles in actual area, and

surrounded by unfordable tidal rivers. Deep at its heart was the

citadel, strongly built and abundantly supplied with water and

provisions. Under these circumstances it was a simple matter for a small

force to maintain itself indefinitely; it would necessitate the

employment of an attacking army four or five times as large as the

defence to even up the chances. This, of course, on the presumption that

both sides were armed alike. Constans's thoughts reverted to the fire

artillery of the ancients; with that at his disposal he would hold the

balance of power. The possession of a single score of rifles should

enable him to demonstrate the feasibility of the attempt to his

sluggard kinsmen, the Stockaders, and to the even more reluctant

townsmen. He determined to take the first opportunity to make a careful

search of the city armories and ammunition depots; in the mean time, it

was his business to acquaint himself as thoroughly as possible with the

material situation.



The stronghold of the Doomsmen occupied the middle section of the

ancient city square. In shape it was an irregular oblong, the original

builders being apparently content to enclose sufficient space without

reference to architectural symmetry. Its perimeter might be roughly

estimated at eight hundred yards, respectable proportions, and

indicating a capacity to comfortably accommodate the whole population of

Doom should the necessity arise.



The barricade was constructed of stone, principally paving-blocks torn

up from the adjoining streets, and since the material was unlimited in

quantity the walls were of massive proportions, sixteen feet in height

and nearly six feet in thickness at the bottom course. At the several

corners stood towers elevated some ten feet above the wall veil and

properly loop-holed. Under the east and south walls and virtually built

into them were a series of huts, which served as storehouses and for

living quarters in time of siege. At present these huts--low,

uncomfortable-looking structures of stone and roofed with broad, flat

flags--were untenanted save for the two or three used by the small

garrison on duty. The western side of the enclosure was occupied almost

entirely by storehouses for grain and other provisions; here, too, were

pens for cattle on the hoof and immense cisterns for the storage of

drinking-water. Somewhat to the south of the centre of the square stood

what appeared to be the administration building, a round, tower-like

structure, three stories in height and with enormously thick walls. One

could fancy it the scene of a last stand in a lost cause.



Directly opposite, in the north wall, was the gateway. It opened on to

the Palace Road, one of the principal avenues of the ancient city, and

was in the form of a vaulted passageway defended by flanking towers and

superimposed battlements. A notable stronghold was this citadel of the

Doomsmen, wisely planned and well built, and Constans could hardly fall

into the error of under-estimating its resources. For all that, he would

not acknowledge that it was impregnable; stone walls cannot stand

forever against stout hearts.



Day by day went on and Constans kept adding steadily to his stock of

information. Most important of all, he had succeeded in definitely

locating the several positions of the enemy. It appeared that the

district actually inhabited by the Doomsmen included only the fortified

square and a few of the city blocks contiguous to it on the north. The

distance from the citadel to the library building and Dom Gillian's

house was about a mile, and it was some five miles further to the tidal

estuary which formed the northern boundary of the city proper. Of the

various structures that had formerly spanned the stream, but one, the

High Bridge, remained. Built of massive masonry, it had wonderfully

resisted the disintegrating processes of time, and stood to-day,

immovable as the granite hills of which it formed the connecting link.

Being the sole means of landward approach to Doom, it was guarded

carefully, and a detail from the general garrison was at all times on

duty there.



The final conclusion to which Constans arrived was that he had only to

avoid the immediate neighborhood of the Palace Road and the Citadel

Square to pursue his investigations with entire safety. Accordingly he

grew venturesome, and began to go out-of-doors at all hours of the day

or night. And then on the fourteenth day after his arrival in the city

his immunity came abruptly to an end.



It was early in the forenoon, and Constans was exploring a quarter of

the city that lay to the northeast of the Citadel Square. He became

interested in the curious, bridgelike structure which spanned the

street; enough of it remained standing to show him that it had been

designed for overhead traffic, a highway in the air. There were the

rails, the signal-boxes, and other mysterious adjuncts of the ancient

railways; he had read about them in his books and he recognized them at

once.



Now this particular section of the aerial railway must have been a

branch line, for it ended abruptly in front of a building of unusual

size and consequent importance. Beyond this again could be seen a

surface net-work of iron rails converging to the black mouth of a great

tunnel--a highway under the earth. Constans felt a lively impulse to

push his explorations further. This was evidently a terminal station of

the wonderful steel roads of the ancients; within the building itself he

might reasonably expect to find some of the old-time engines and wagons

with which the traffic had been carried on.



Passing through a central hall of fine proportions, Constans found

himself standing under an immense arched structure of stone and iron and

glass. The ancient car-shed, so Constans conjectured; then he paused

excitedly before a long platform, at which stood a complete train, made

up and ready to start.



Constans examined this new find with critical attention. The enormous

locomotive-engine, with its driving-wheels that stood higher than a

man's head, impressed him mightily, for all that the monster's burning

heart had grown cold and its stentor breathing had been hushed forever.

He climbed into the cab and wondered hugely at the multiplicity of

stopcocks and levers and cabalistically lettered dials. It seemed

incredible that the giant could have moved even his own weight, and yet

there was his appointed task strung out behind him, fifteen long and

heavy vehicles--it was amazing!



Behind the engine came the cars for luggage, piled high with bags and

boxes, and then the regular train equipment, a long line of coaches.

These last were of the most luxurious pattern--that was plain to see,

although the varnish had blistered on the panels and the silken curtains

at the windows hung in tatters. The last car of all had clearly been in

service as an eating apartment, and fortunately the doors of this coach

had been left closed and the windows remained intact. Constans entered

and looked about him, noting that the tables still bore their weight of

plate and china and napery. Most moving of all was the little nosegay

that stood in a tall glass at each cover. But even as he gazed,

delighted that the flowers still retained recognizable shape, they broke

and crumbled into nothingness.



It was difficult to understand why the train should have been abandoned,

it being evident that it had stood here, ready for immediate departure,

but the unquestionable fact may serve to emphasize again the suddenness

of the final catastrophe. People had simply dropped and forgotten

everything. In the extremity of terror civilized man had become a

savage, reverting to primeval instincts in preferring his legs to any

other means of escape. There was but one thing left for him--to run

away.



It was a depressing experience to be standing solitary and alone under

these vast arches that had echoed to the tramp of feet innumerable. A

sense of his loneliness pressed heavily upon Constans; then, suddenly,

he became aware of the presence of a man, who stood leaning against a

pillar a short distance away and watched him from under close-knit

brows.



The fair hair and frank, kindly face seemed dimly familiar to Constans;

and what thighs and breadth of shoulder! The stranger stood little short

of gianthood, and Constans would have run small chance against him as

man to man. Bitterly he regretted having left his bow behind; even his

double-edged hunting-knife was missing from his belt.



The man walked deliberately forward to meet him. Certainly his dress and

equipment proclaimed him a Doomsman, and by the same token he must have

recognized that Constans was an alien. Yet he smiled and held out his

hand as he came up.



"It is Constans, of course; for who else among the House People would

dare to cross the Gray Wolf's threshold. Do you not remember Ulick?"



The two young men shook hands heartily, albeit a certain constraint was

immediately to fall upon them. For Constans could not be unmindful of

his purpose, and Ulick was a true Doomsman, and hatred of the

House-dweller was the first article in his hereditary creed. The

inheritance of a naked sword lay between them. Was it not inevitable

that one or the other of them should be moved to take it up?



It was Constans who realized that only frankness could save the

situation, and as they walked along he told Ulick the full story of the

enmity between him and Quinton Edge, then of the years of his

apprenticeship to his Uncle Hugolin, and of the message in the bottle

that had served to crystallize desire into action. The purport of the

letter was still fresh in his mind, and he repeated it as nearly as he

could word for word.



"Esmay, did you say?" interrupted Ulick. "It was Esmay who helped me

trap you. Don't you remember her eyes, brown and with a flame in them

like to the carbuncles in the bracelet that I gave her? Elena was her

mother."



Constans assented, indifferently. In truth, he had entirely forgotten

about the girl.



"Ten days ago she disappeared," said Ulick, gloomily, "and not a trace

of her have I been able to discover. Yet I believe that your friend

Quinton Edge could tell me if he would."



"I don't understand."



"Nor does anybody else. For all that, I am sure that he does not want

her for himself; no woman has ever been able to boast that Master

Quinton Edge looked at her twice. Were it otherwise I think I should go

mad."



Constans shrugged his shoulders impatiently; then he looked up and saw

the pain in the big fellow's face. It touched him, although he could not

comprehend the weakness (for such it seemed to him), that had given it

birth.



"If you could see her, you would understand," continued Ulick, as though

divining his thought. Again they walked along in silence. Constans broke

it abruptly:



"And your grandsire, is he still living? I can see him yet, that

terrible old man who wanted to cut out my eyes and tongue so that you

could have a new toy."



Ulick smiled, and the current of his darker mood was diverted.



"Lucky for you that he fell asleep again before he could give the order

for the irons to be heated. And so we ran away trembling, and I brought

you to the vault underneath the sidewalk--do you remember?"



"I remember," said Constans, briefly.



"He is living still; think how old he must be! Nowadays he sleeps nearly

all the time; sometimes for a week on end he will not leave his couch in

the darkened room. Then again he will have himself apparelled and his

great sword girded upon him, and he will come down into the court-yard

and walk in the sun for hours. You should see those lazy rascals of

guardsmen scatter at the first sight of him--like mice running to their

holes when puss begins to yawn and stretch herself."



"You are still the heir?"



"Yes, unless the council sees fit to set my rights aside in favor of my

cousin Boris. To tell the truth, neither of us is fit to be chief in

Doom while Quinton Edge lives."



"Tell me."



"Why, you see, Boris is a brute whose brains, such as he has, are always

fuddled with ale. And I----" Ulick stopped and laughed a little

sheepishly.



"Well?"



"Frankly, then, I don't want to carry the weight of the wolf-skin; I

should feel like a man buried up to his neck in sand. I dreamed of that

the other night, and how a raven that had Quinton Edge's face came and

pecked at my eyes."



"Then you really don't care," commented Constans, shrewdly.



"No; except to have my fair share of the fighting and feasting--and, of

course, Esmay."



Constans laughed. "You always come back to the girl."



"How could it be otherwise, since I love her?" said Ulick, simply.



Constans grew sober again. "Strange that it should be the same man,

Quinton Edge, for whom we are both seeking. I can see, however, that my

arrow must not leave the string until first you have had speech with

him."



"But that is just what I cannot do," returned Ulick, with a frown. "It

is a week now that any one has seen him, and yet neither galley nor

troop has left the city since the new moon."



"He must show himself in time; we have only to wait."



"Waiting! it is the one thing----"



"Yet you must; the chance is certain to come. Only, if I help you in

this, then afterwards when you have learned what you want----"



Ulick nodded. "Do what you will, but until then it is Esmay who stands

first, and he lives under her shadow."



The young men had been walking in the direction of the Citadel Square,

and the time had come for Constans to decide whether or not he should

give Ulick his full confidence. Yesterday he had moved all his

belongings to a large building on the south side of the square

overlooking the fortress, and he was minded to establish himself there

permanently. It might seem foolhardy for him to take up his abode, not

under, indeed, but just above the noses of his enemies; in reality, he

was as safe in one place as in another. Here was an immense building,

containing literally hundreds of apartments; it was like being in a

rabbit-warren, a labyrinth of passages and rooms that it would take a

regiment to explore. He had only to observe reasonable prudence in

entering and leaving his lair to be assured against the ordinary risks

of discovery, and he depended, too, upon the obvious negligence of the

sentinels. It was a simple application of the principle that what is

nearest to the eye is oftenest overlooked.



For where he stood he could see the huge bulk of the sky-scraper

towering into the blue. The building had been constructed upon a narrow,

triangular plot of land, and its ground-plan bore a fanciful resemblance

to the shape of a flat-iron. Its acute angle was pointed towards them;

one compared it instinctively to the prow of some gigantic ship of stone

ploughing its way through billows of brick and mortar.



"Come," said Constans, and Ulick, understanding the confidence about to

be reposed in him, followed silently.



It was a small front-room on the third floor that Constans had fitted up

as his abode, and after Ulick had passed approving judgment upon his

friend's domestic arrangement they walked over to the window and stood

there looking down into the thoroughfare upon which the building faced.

Formerly this open space had been paved with small oblong blocks of

stone, but these had long since been incorporated with the walls of the

fortress, and in their stead was a stretch of thick, short turf. Pacing

slowly along, there came in sight the figure of a man, his head bent

down and his hands clasped behind his back. Constans recognized him

instantly, even before Ulick's eager whisper had reached his ear. It was

Quinton Edge.



Constans knew that he was doing a foolish thing, but the humor of the

moment gripped him, and he yielded to it. To make sport of this

insolent, and so wipe out, in some measure, the memory of his own

humiliation--the temptation was too great to be resisted, and the next

instant the bowstring twanged and an arrow plunged into the ground, a

scant yard in front of Quinton Edge, and stuck there quivering.

Involuntarily, the Doomsman stepped back and another arrow grazed his

heel; a half turn to the right and a third shaft sheared the curling

ostrich-plume from his hat. A fourth arrow to the left of him, and then

Quinton Edge understood. He drew himself up and stood still while a

dozen more skilfully directed bolts winged their way to complete the

barbed circle that hemmed him in. And each missile bore its individual

message to his memory--a tiny tuft of scarlet inserted in the

feathering.



Quinton Edge waited an instant or so, as though out of pure politeness,

then turned and faced the great building that towered mountainously

above his head. There were hundreds of window openings in the tremendous

facade of the "Flat-iron," and he had no means of guessing the precise

one in whose deep embrasure his enemy stood concealed; at any moment he

might expect the final shaft striking home to his heart and staining its

feathering all crimson in his life blood. Yet there was no hint of

perturbation in the affected languor of his voice; he bowed slightly and

spoke:



"What a sorry marksman! See! I will give you a final chance to hit the

gold. Make the most of it, for here in Doom no man's hair grows long

enough to hide a nicked ear."



He threw back his cloak of crimson cloth and unbuttoned the white,

ruffled shirt that he wore underneath, exposing his naked throat and

breast. And not an eyelash quivered, while he stood there for the space

in which one might count a score slowly.



"As you please, then," he continued, readjusting his garments with

punctilious care. "I must warn you, however, that standing so long in

this chilly air may mean the influenza for me. By the Shining One! if we

keep on like this the interest due on our little account is likely to

exceed in amount the original principal. That would be a pity as

happening between gentlemen, who know naturally nothing of what they

call business and have no desire to cheat each other."






Then he laughed heartily, unaffectedly. "What a comedy! and you and I

cast for the fools in it. Which is the bigger one neither of us should

be willing to say. And for the best of reasons, we don't know. My

compliments, brother imbecile, and so good-day."



Quinton Edge doffed his hat as though to intimate that the interview was

at an end, then stepped lightly across the hedge of arrows and proceeded

at an even pace to the eastern angle of the fortress, around which he

disappeared.



Ulick's eyes were sparkling as he turned to Constans.



"He is at least a man," he said, half proudly, half enviously.



But Constans only set his teeth the harder. "I could have gone out, met

him face to face and killed him," he said, sombrely, "only for you and

your Esmay."