And she had been so close to freedom! From her place high in the tree she could see the stone walls of Rydob's dwelling, evil and grim in the sun. Behind those walls lay the dead body of Meltor, slain by his own knife.
She felt no regret for having killed him. It had been his life—or hers. When he had lunged across the table in an attempt to stab her, she, acting by instinct rather than thought, had thrust her weight against the table. Meltor, off balance, went over backwards, his head striking hard against the floor. Before he could regain his wits Dylara had torn the knife from his hand. He cried out once in mortal fear as the blade swung high, flung up a futile hand to ward off the blow, and died as polished flint pierced his heart.
No—she felt no regret for having killed him. What she did regret was the mad impulse that had sent her running blindly into the open air. So anxious had she been to flee that horrible place that she had no eyes for what lay in her path. As a result, one heel had trod full on the whitened skull of Rydob the hermit. Dylara's ankle had twisted beneath her, pitching her headlong into a tangle of vines at the base of the steps.
She was up at once; but the injured ankle buckled under her weight and she had fallen again, crying out in agony.
For a little while she had remained there, stroking the injured member, already swollen and turning blue. Finally she got to her hands and knees and, with many pauses, crawled toward the trees ringing the clearing.
How she managed to clamber into the branches of one giant tree and work her way a full fifty feet above the ground, Dylara was never to know. So awful was the pain that her mind seemed numbed; only an unflagging determination drove her on. She stopped at last, on a thick bough and lay there, completely exhausted.
It was comparatively cool there in the shelter of the foliage. Soft jungle breezes stirred the branch gently and she was soon asleep. A bird twittered and cooed close by, and the wind blew lightly across the troubled face, smoothing its tired lines....
And as the weary, pain-wracked girl lay sleeping, four heavily armed men stepped into the clearing and moved stealthily toward the house of Rydob. They entered; and after a few minutes, reappeared at the doorway, to be joined by three other warriors who had come up to the building from the rear.
"It seems hardly possible," Jotan was saying, "for a mere girl to kill a grown warrior. For all we know, another man may have slain Meltor and made off with Dylara."