One hand caught in the masses of her hair. She was dragged screaming from the saddle, and even then her screams were not of fear, but of fury. She clawed at Delgaun, and he fell with her to the ground.
The tall chieftains of the escort came forward, but they were dazed, and confused by the anger that was rising in them. Delgaun's wiry body arched. He flung the woman over the ledge, and what happened to her after that Stark did not see, nor wish to see.
He was shouting again to the barbarians, the tale of Delgaun's treachery.
Behind him on the ledge there was turmoil where Delgaun ran on foot between the beasts, and the outlanders made their try for safety. Below him in the desert, where there had been silence, a great deep muttering was growing, like the first growling of a storm, and the ranks of spears rippled like wheat before the wind.
And Stark felt the slow running out of Kynon's blood inside him, where Berild's dagger stood out from his back.
They had headed Delgaun away from the path up the cliff. The two loose mounts had been caught and held. They had tried to catch Delgaun, but he was light and fast and slipped away from them. Now he broke back, toward Kynon's great beast.
Knock the dying man from the saddle, charge through the milling chieftains, who were hampered by their own numbers in that narrow space....
He leaped. And the arms of Kynon, driven by the will of Eric John Stark, encircled him and held him and would not let him go.
The two men crashed to the ledge. Stark let out one harsh cry of agony, and then was still, his hands locked around the Valkisian's throat, his eyes intent and strange.
Men came up, and he gasped, "He is mine," and they let him be.