Lin Carter - The City Outside the World by Lin Carter

accustomed to these brutes.
    They had ridden fast and hard and almost without words, not even words of thanks for the rescue Ryker had so brilliantly pulled off. But as they had mounted into the saddles back there in the courtyard, ringed about by silent men with eyes that spoke their hatred for them, Valarda had lifted her golden eyes to those of the Earthling for one long, searching look. Tears glistened in her silky lashes, and her soft red mouth had been tender, vulnerable, trembling with emotion.
    He had grinned, saying nothing. Sometimes words can be unspoken, and yet heard clearly, and maybe this was one of those times.
    For a bit of extra life insurance, Ryker suggested they lake the long-legged desert prince with them, and also his pet priest, whose name turned out to be Dmu Dran. These two he had commanded bound with the same leathern thongs as had bound the wrists of the girl, the boy, and the old man.
    The boy Kiki did the tying. And he did it with a vengeance, pulling the tough thongs tight and tighter still, even as Zarouk's henchmen had pulled them tight.
    The old priest, sunk in apathy, his withered mask of a face dull eyed and vacant, did not wince—perhaps the lad had gone easy on his bonds. But Kiki had tied the desert prince tight indeed. Zarouk had not winced, either, and the tight-lipped silence and the curious dignity—even a sort of majesty—with which the maurauder accepted this sudden and unexpected reversal of fate won him Ryker's grudging but unspoken respect.
    But if his tongue was silent, his eyes were eloquent and spoke volumes. They burned with hellfire, those amber eyes, and were as quick and alert and deadly as a snake's.
    This is a bad man to have for your enemy, thought Ryker to himself, sourly, cursing the day he had ever gotten himself mixed up in this stinking mess. But if he hadn't, he would never have found Valarda . . . never have seen her dance . . . never have gazed deep into those unforgettable eyes of fluid gold ....
    Still, Zarouk would make a deadly foe, he knew. The man was all fire and pride and ambition, stretched tight as a trigger and thirsty for blood. An unsettling, explosive amalgam of religious fanatic and something of the megalomaniac, he decided. Ryker didn't know just how he knew it, but he hadn't kept alive this long without being able to read men at a glance.
    And he was seldom wrong. Not about men like Zarouk.
    This was the sort of man who would follow you across the wide world, if you earned his hate. He would track you to the very doorstep of hell, to have his revenge.
    So maybe it was best to have him at your side, Ryker had decided. Then, if his men break their sworn oath, and follow, or lay ambush, or attack, you can at least have the pleasure of taking him down to hell with you, with a yard of sword steel through his guts before you get the same through yours.
    He hadn't thought to bring Houm along as well. He judged that the shrewd, greedy little merchant could be tempted and hired to flirt with danger for gold, but probably didn't give a damn for vengeance or religion or much of anything else, except perhaps the fat, giggling boy he kept as a pet.
    And there is where Ryker made the worst mistake of his life.
    They got a league and a little more into the northern parts of the Merope before the lopers died beneath them. They had been given a slow-acting poison, probably the night before. Maybe Houm figured that Ryker might have his wind up, and would spook easy, or be wary enough to try to make a break for freedom during the night. Or maybe one of his men had fed the poisoned food to the slidars when it became obvious, back in the courtyard, what his plans were.
    It didn't matter. What mattered was that they were afoot now in the Dustlands and would have to walk all the way to wherever it was they were going, with a hundred desert warriors behind them, armed and mounted and hungry for revenge.
    So they started walking. There wasn't anything else to