Increasing his forces, both underground and in his workshops, Bel-Ar drove his miners and his builders ceaselessly to the replacement of what he had lost.
Some weeks after the destruction of the fademes, rumor came down from the south—fleeting words in the mouths of the people, of which no man could trace the source—that a great host was gathering in Ruthar to assail the Kimbrian Wall. That report the king laughed at and did not believe, or if he did believe, it fretted him not at all. The Kimbrian Wall had stood an unshakable barrier since it had been completed, nearly thirty centuries before. It would go on standing to the end of time. It was well garrisoned, and Atlo was a good captain and vigilant. Ruthar must be mad if it thought to march against the wall.
Rumor, again traceless, spoke further and told that Oleric the Red had appeared in Ruthar, and with him the slaves who had gone with him from Adlaz, and that they had hands in this matter of the wall-storming. Bel-Ar heard that also, and smiled grimly. Let Oleric and the slaves, if they were indeed in Ruthar, keep well within its boundaries, if they set any store by life.
Progress was being made with the reconstruction of his fleet, and the king's poise was returning. Once more his court, that had been silent and almost deserted, echoed to the laughter of the gay courtiers, and Raissa sat upon her throne and toyed with the pearls that she loved.
Then one afternoon a wan and haggard-faced man, spurring a weary horse to its utmost speed, rode in through the southern gates of Adlaz and clattered up the broad avenue to the palace. From the mountain town of Barme he had come, riding two days and a night by relays of horses and leaving some of his hard-ridden beasts dead along the road. So nearly dead was the rider himself from the rack of that journey that he fell from his horse at the palace gates, and men of the guard carried him before the king.
From the floor of the audience-chamber where they laid him, the soldier raised his arm in salute and cried weakly:
"The Kimbrian Wall is sundered, O king. She whom they name the Goddess Glorian of Ruthar cracked the wall in twain with thunders and green lightning that shook the land like a hammer." (So the messenger described the melinite mines of Everson.) "Through the wall poured a great host, which is rolling down upon Barme. Atlo is dead at the break in the wall. From the center to the sea-wall, the towers are held by Ruthar. Men say that the dreadful beasts of the forest are coming to make war on the children of Ad. Ruthar has crowned a king—a giant with hair of gold, who came up from the sea with Oleric the Red, who was your captain—and he leads the armies against Barme."
Ending his tidings, the man lost grip of his wits. His head fell on his arm, and he slept. Nor could he be roused for many hours.
"Now, here is a message with meat and spirit," said the king. Bel-Ar, who went near to madness when he heard of the loss of his fademes, could laugh when he heard that an army was marching against him. Of all the news only one thing galled him, and that was that the yellow-haired slave from the hated world to the north was kinging it in Ruthar.