The Devil in Iron Read online

  3

  In the darkness before dawn an unaccustomed sound disturbed the solitudethat slumbered over the reedy marshes and the misty waters of the coast.It was not a drowsy water-fowl nor a waking beast. It was a human whostruggled through the thick reeds, which were taller than a man's head.

  It was a woman, had there been anyone to see, tall and yellow-haired,her splendid limbs molded by her draggled tunic. Octavia had escaped ingood earnest, every outraged fiber of her still tingling from herexperience in a captivity that had become unendurable.

  Jehungir's mastery of her had been bad enough; but with deliberatefiendishness Jehungir had given her to a nobleman whose name was abyword for degeneracy even in Khawarizm.

  Octavia's resilient flesh crawled and quivered at her memories.Desperation had nerved her climb from Jelal Khan's castle on a rope madeof strips from torn tapestries, and chance had led her to a picketedhorse. She had ridden all night, and dawn found her with a founderedsteed on the swampy shores of the sea. Quivering with the abhorrence ofbeing dragged back to the revolting destiny planned for her by JelalKhan, she plunged into the morass, seeking a hiding-place from thepursuit she expected. When the reeds grew thinner around her and thewater rose about her thighs, she saw the dim loom of an island ahead ofher. A broad span of water lay between, but she did not hesitate. Shewaded out until the low waves were lapping about her waist; then shestruck out strongly, swimming with a vigor that promised unusualendurance.

  As she neared the island, she saw that it rose sheer from the water incastle-like cliffs. She reached them at last, but found neither ledge tostand on below the water, not to cling to above. She swam on, followingthe curve of the cliffs, the strain of her long flight beginning toweight her limbs. Her hands fluttered along the sheer stone, andsuddenly they found a depression. With a sobbing gasp of relief, shepulled herself out of the water and clung there, a dripping whitegoddess in the dim starlight.

  She had come upon what seemed to be steps carved in the cliff. Up themshe went, flattening herself against the stone as she caught the faintclack of muffled oars. She strained her eyes and thought she made out avague bulk moving toward the reedy point she had just quitted. But itwas too far away for her to be sure, in the darkness, and presently thefaint sound ceased, and she continued her climb. If it were herpursuers, she knew of no better course than to hide on the island. Sheknew that most of the islands off that marshy coast were uninhabited.This might be a pirate's lair, but even pirates would be preferable tothe beast she had escaped.

  A vagrant thought crossed her mind as she climbed, in which she mentallycompared her former master with the _kozak_ chief with whom--bycompulsion--she had shamelessly flirted in the pavilions of the camp byFort Ghori, where the Hyrkanian lords had parleyed with the warriors ofthe steppes. His burning gaze had frightened and humiliated her, but hiscleanly elemental fierceness set him above Jelal Khan, a monster such asonly an overly opulent civilization can produce.

  She scrambled up over the cliff edge and looked timidly at the denseshadows which confronted her. The trees grew close to the cliffs,presenting a solid mass of blackness. Something whirred above her headand she cowered, even though realizing it was only a bat.

  She did not like the look of those ebony shadows, but she set her teethand went toward them, trying not to think of snakes. Her bare feet madeno sound in the spongy loam under the trees. Once among them, thedarkness closed frighteningly about her. She had not taken a dozen stepswhen she was no longer able to look back and see the cliffs and the seabeyond. A few steps more and she became hopelessly confused and lost hersense of direction. Through the tangled branches not even a star peered.She groped and floundered on, blindly, and then came to a sudden halt.

  Somewhere ahead there began the rhythmical booming of a drum. It was notsuch a sound as she would have expected to hear in that time and place.Then she forgot it as she was aware of a presence near her. She couldnot see, but she knew that something was standing beside her in thedarkness.

  With a stifled cry she shrank back, and as she did so, something thateven in her panic she recognized as a human arm curved about her waist.She screamed and threw all her supple young strength into a wild lungefor freedom, but her captor caught her up like a child, crushing herfrantic resistance with ease. The silence with which her frenzied pleasand protests were received added to her terror as she felt herself beingcarried through the darkness toward the distant drum which still pulsedand muttered.