FOR THE ROSE OF AMERICA
"I tell thee, prince, it shall not be!" shouted Kard hoarsely. "He hath saved this day the life of Kard, and he shall not die thus. Look to thyself, thou man of the snows," he flung over his shoulder, "thy death waits!"
"Away, fool!" raged Morolas, and whirled the smith from his path with a sweep of his arm. He snatched a spear from one of the hunters, and would have repeated his cast.
That throw was never made.
All had happened in the space that a man might count ten. In one glance Polaris accepted the situation. His head shot forward, every muscle in his body flexed, his face hardened and under his white-furred frontlet his tawny eyes blazed like molten brass. He leaped from the side of the sledge with lightning swiftness, cleared the space intervening with a single bound, and tore the lifted spear from the hand of Morolas. He threw the weapon on the ground, and for an instant the two men faced each other, foot to foot and eye to eye.
Neither spoke. From his superior height the prince glared down at the son of the snows.
With a motion so quick that the eye could not follow the blow, Polaris struck, from the shoulder and with doubled fist. The tall prince crumpled and went down, hurled fully his own length by the fierceness of the blow.
He never moved again. The fist of Polaris, impelled by all the mighty strength stored in his muscles of steel, had struck Morolas full on the breast-bone. Such was the power of the stroke that the man's chest had caved in before it, and his heart had stopped.
He lay scarcely twitching, and the dark blood welled from his lips and stained the white snow.
Never before had Polaris struck a man in anger with his naked hand, and he was momentarily shaken by the result of his own blow. He hesitated but an instant, however, for his blood was up. A Sardanian hunter knelt in the snow by his dead master.
"Gone is Morolas, brother to Helicon the prince," he wailed, and sprang to his feet gnashing his teeth in fury. Kard cried aloud in horror, but he leaped to the side of Polaris, to confront the four hunters. But he struck no blow in defense of his friend; an ilium blade cast by one of the hunters pierced him as he raised spear; and he, too, fell in the snow.
Across Kard's writhing body and the still corpse of Morolas the Prince, leaped Polaris. The four hunters stood in a little group, he who had thrown the spear at Kard slightly in advance of the others.
That fact alone saved the life of Polaris. Before the unarmed hunter could spring aside and give his comrades space in which to throw, the man of the snows was upon them, a death-dealing fury. He caught the first man by the shoulders, and by sheer strength swung him from the ground and dashed him against his fellows. Head-on, he threw the hunter, and the skull of the flying man crashed against the head of the man next him with sickening force.
Only two antagonists were left to confront him.
An ilium spear swished past his head. He caught it out of the air, and the man who had cast it died with it in his heart. Those Sardanians were of fighting stock; the single remaining man gave back never a step. His spear had been shaken from his hand, but he carried an ilium ax in his belt, and this he whirled up to meet Polaris.
It fell upon thin air. The son of the wilds crouched under its swing like a trained boxer, came up with the Sardanian's guard, and struck once with his long-bladed knife.
The battle was finished. The trampled snow looked like a butcher's shambles.
Polaris stood with clenched hands, his face set like a stone. Under other circumstances he might have felt remorse; he certainly would have been moved to mercy. But he had been trapped like an animal, and he joyed in the fierceness of the conflict, and felt no sting of regret for the men he had slain.
A voice called his name weakly from behind. He turned and beheld Kard the Smith, not yet sped. He had dragged himself to his knees, and was clutching at the great spear that was set in his side.
"Polaris of the Snows," he gasped, "Kard dies for thee, who this day saved Kard from the beast. Kard dies a traitor—to Sardanes's prince. Haste thee—stranger—get thy strange snow-runners—get them—from Kalin! Methinks the priest loves thee. He will aid thee—to escape. Go—Helicon holds the Rose. Go—whilst thou mayest. Helicon planned—that thou—shouldst die—this day—but—one Kard—turned traitor. Farewell!"
Polaris knelt in the red snow and supported the body of the dying smith. Twice the Sardanian essayed to speak again and could not. His head rolled back, and he, too, was sped.
A strange sight was Polaris as he stood up from the corpse of Kard, his white fur surcoat besprinkled with the blood of men and beasts, his handsome face scarred by his terrible anger, his tawny eyes blazing and his broad chest rising and falling in gasps, as cold fear and hot wrath beset him together.
If he had ever doubted his love for the girl so strangely met, the griping fear that strangled his heart and choked his throat put all doubt to flight.
"Helicon holds the Rose," he muttered through his whitened lips. "What saidst thou, Kard? That I must escape? Nay, Kard; death shall find me in thy valley of Sardanes, or I shall find Helicon, thy prince, and the Rose. Yesterday, or was it many yesterdays agone?—it was all for the North. Now it is all for the Rose. I come, dear heart; I come, to win, or to die in the losing!"
He leaped to the sledge, tore away the thongs that bound the carcasses of the dead bears and rolled them into the snow alongside the dead men. He inspanned the four horses, sprang into the driver's seat, shook out the many-molded lash and drove back toward Sardanes, as though hell's door had opened and loosed its legion of furies along the Hunters' Road behind him.
Midway in his dash to the city, he halted the horses and sprang down. With nose well down to catch the scent from the trail, and with his plumed tail aflaunt as he galloped, a great gray dog toiled out through the snows to meet him.
"What, Marcus? You, too, have fought and bled!" he cried, as his loyal servant leaped upon him, whining for the joy of the meeting. The shoulder of the dog was gashed by a keen edge, so that his blood had run down and dried on his breast and legs. And on the throat and jowl of Marcus was other blood.
"Now, do you alone live of all your tribe, Marcus? Shame on you, Marcus, if you deserted to find your master while the fighting pack died for the Rose! Or did it fall some other way that you alone come to meet me?"
Wondering much and fearing more, he flung the dog onto the sledge and again lashed the ponies into a mad run. Snow fell, and they dashed on through the storm, the man ever plying the long lash, the dog riding behind him, reared, and with his paws on the man's shoulders, both looking ahead, where the smoke curled around the mighty mountain-tops.
When they came to the pass gashed in the foot-hills, where the snow waves broke at the lips of the warm slopes, Polaris outspanned the outworn ponies, and dismissed them with a parting crack of the long whip. Freed of their burdens, the tired little beasts scuttled away up the rocky hillsides, betaking themselves to soft pastures, to forget the voice of the lash and the galling harness.
Polaris and Marcus climbed the pass, and stood again at the brink of the ledge of rock that overlooked the valley. Below them in the sunshine lay Sardanes, never more peaceful. Men were working in the fields, women singing from the homes and children were at play in the meadows. Under its green bridges the little river rippled to the hill's foot, its waterfall murmuring from the distance.
Above it all, for an instant, Polaris stood gazing down, with no peace of spirit, his heart and brain a red and raging fury. Sardanes's evil genius was at her gates.
Through the forests to the left the man and dog skirted the meadows where none might see them, headed straight to the terraced declivity of the Gateway to the Future. None was there to meet them as they set foot on the last terrace and the house of the priest lay before them; but a welcome sound greeted the ears of Polaris. It was the howling of the dogs, which Marcus would have answered. A stern word silenced him.
At the very threshold of the house of Kalin, the priest met Polaris. His face was drawn and anxious and his right hand was bound in a white bandage. At sight of the son of the snows and his gray body-guard. Kalin started and a strange look passed athwart his melancholy features.
Without setting foot on the door-stone, Polaris called sternly: "Greeting to thee, Kalin the Priest. Tell me, and waste not thy words in the telling, where fares the Rose?"
Kalin threw forth his uninjured hand in a bitter gesture. "The Prince Helicon—" he answered hoarsely, but Polaris broke in:
"Ay, priest, Helicon holds the Rose. I learned as much but shortly. Now if there has been treachery here, I am minded that Marcus shall tear out a traitor's throat! Speak quickly. How falls it that the Rose is gone, that the prince breaks faith and that thou hast allowed it?"
Unmoved by the threat, Kalin bent his deep eyes on Polaris.
"No traitor dwells here," he answered. "Even now those faithful to me in the valley gather to the rescue of the lady, it may be, though it rend Sardanes with bitter strife. Ay, all that would Kalin attempt, even though he deemed that thou wert dead in the snows, as Helicon hinted. Helicon hath not had his will freely. A priest of Hephaistos lieth yonder in his dwelling with a broken shoulder, and this hand was injured in defense of the Rose. Kalin did but yield to force, that he might later win by craft. Thy words do Kalin small honor, thou who are as the brother of Kalin."
"Thy pardon, Kalin, my words were rash. Consider that the maid is dearer to me than aught I may hope to attain in the world, and this thing that hath been done hath brought upon me a rage like unto nothing I have ever known. Now tell me what thou mayest accomplish in my aid, for I go hence to find Helicon the Prince."
"Mine is half of the fault, brother," Kalin answered. "I should have foreseen, but I guessed not that Helicon was mad enough for this. Wide was the rift between us before; it hath passed all bridging now. As I have said, many of the people hold to the ancient sway of the priesthood of Hephaistos, and murmur at the changes which Helicon would have. Already my messengers are among them, calling them to my aid. Hadst thou not come, in a short space Kalin would have been on his way to the Judgement House. It was ordered that thou shouldst die this day on the Hunters' Road. How hast thou won free?"
"Kard the Smith owed me somewhat, and could not stomach my killing. He took a dead thrust for his hindrance. Yet did he warn in time, and Morolas and four hunters keep him company whither he traveleth," Polaris answered simply.
Then Kalin told him how Helicon the Prince had come to the gateway and taken Rose Emer thence by force. Kalin had made opposition, even to raising his hand against the prince. In a scuffle, wherein he was supported by one of his priests, he had been wounded in the hand by the dagger of the prince, and the priest had been hurled to the ground, so that his shoulder was cracked.
"Only we two were here to oppose him," said Kalin, "and he had others with him. Had I persisted, I had been slain by him in his fury. So I submitted that I might be left to befriend the Rose. And she, she loosed the great dog before she was taken, and set him forth on thy trail. One of Helicon's men gashed him with a spear, and he would have turned and given battle to all of them, but Rose urged him on."
"And how went the Rose—calmly, or struggling and crying?" asked Polaris, his jaws clinching at the thoughts called up by the words of Kalin.
"Nay, with head held high, tearless and saying nothing went the Rose," the priest answered him. "The lady hath greatness of spirit. She went in anger, but gave not way to fear."
"Now we go to visit this prince of thine," said Polaris. He called Marcus and shut the dog, protesting, with his fellows in the stable. "Well would you like the fight with me, if fight there is to be, I know, my Marcus, but I dare not risk you," he muttered.
He ran to his room in the house of the priest. When he came forth there swung from his waist his father's brace of heavy revolvers and the filled cartridge belt, and in his hand he bore the brown rifle. He had also an ilium-bladed spear, and in its sheath at his hip gleamed the long dagger of Kard the Smith, that he had taken from the corpse of the stout Sardanian.
He counted much on his firearms now. Here were weapons of which even Kalin knew not the secret.
Among the few books in the cabin of his father was one which Polaris had read and reread, and which, as boy and man, he had liked best of them all. It was the "Ivanhoe" of Sir Walter Scott. He had wondered much on its story of chivalry and battle in a far-off time. Unconsciously much of his own language was couched in its quaint terms.
Now, as he set forth, to fight, or to fall, if need be, for the lady of his heart, there came to him a strange conceit, born of the old romance.
Armed and ready, he stood at the top of the terrace, and while the priest wondered, he raised his voice in his own tongue, not loudly, but firmly and clearly, in the first battle cry ever heard in the valley of Sardanes:
"For the Rose of America! Polaris to the rescue!"
Together he and Kalin passed down the terraced slopes of the Gateway to the Future.