Young Thongor by Lin Carter Adrian Cole Page B

As for Ylala, she kept a demure silence, her eyes downcast, except when he was not looking at her: then she lifted her eyes to his face, which she thought very handsome. To her, he seemed much more manly and serious and responsible than a boy his age should have been.
    They slept for what remained of that night to either side of the fire pit, rolled in furs. But neither slept well or deeply; Thongor, because he was disturbed by the nearness of the girl, and by her loveliness; and Ylala, because she could not put out of her mind the thing they had found on the second floor of the castle.
    It was a man’s boot. With the foot still in it.
    4
    Barak Redwolf
    When the great golden sun of old Lemuria lifted up over the edges of the world to flood the land with its light and drive away the darkness, the youth and the girl also rose.
    They made their ablutions and breakfasted on a light meal, saving most of the meat against a future hour of need. Then they robed themselves in furs against the cold wind and the numbing snow of the heights, and fared forth into the mountain country.
    Thongor had decided that there was nothing else for him to do but escort Ylala home to the caves where her tribe dwelt. He could not very well abandon her in the empty castle; neither did he deem it proper that she should accompany him down the great Jomsgard Pass into the southern country. So he must take her home.
    They left at midmorning, and struck out for the plateau beside the White River glacier, where her people made their winter encampment. Besides a supply of food and drink, sleeping-furs and weapons, they bore with them a thick earthenware pot stuffed full of live coals, so that if need be on the way they could at least build a fire.
    But they carried off from the castle of Barak Redwolf neither gold nor gems from the robber baron’s treasure. Neither of them had any particular use for such loot, as there was nothing to buy in the waste; and Thongor, at least, had an uneasy suspicion that the wealth of Jomsgard Keep might somehow be tainted by the curse of invisible doom that had slain the baron’s warriors to the last man.
    Ylala, however, did not scruple to bear away with her a cruse of valuable lamp oil for her mother. Such civilized luxuries were hard to come by in the cave country.
    They struck overland, Thongor going ahead to test the snow banks carefully with the long spear he had borne away from Barak’s armory. It was well into Panchand, the second month of spring, and the thaws were eating into the thick-banked snow. Runnels of dirty water trickled down the cliff walls, and the footing underneath was loose and treacherous.
    All that day they kept moving, pausing only occasionally to rest and refresh themselves. Toward late afternoon they surprised an elphodon drinking from a stream, which Thongor brought down with a single arrow. That night they sought refuge in an empty cave, built a fire, and roasted fresh meat from the carcass of Thongor’s kill. They slept near together that night for warmth, achingly conscious of each other. With dawn they went forward.
    They found Barak Redwolf near midday. Or what was left of him.
    The baron must have left the castle at the height of the terror, creeping forth into the waste by a secret way. They had no way of telling where he might have been going, but he had not gotten far. Something had come upon him while he had rested, a little after dawn, by the ashes of a fire not long cold.
    He had been crushed as if by some titan’s hand. Only his lower parts were mangled; from the waist up he had not been touched.
    The expression upon his face was one of sheer, unbelieving terror. Thongor regarded the dead man’s face grimly. The baron had been a knave, a bully, and a tyrant. But he could not for long have held supremacy over his band of ruffians if he had not been a brave man, and a seasoned and veteran warrior. Hard-bitten men of such breeding do not die before the fangs of a beast or the