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."