“But Aryenis, as you may have noticed, has a swift tongue and a swift brain, and she spoke to him as he deserved. He is deformed and hideous of person, and, among other things, she told him she would rather wed with a real vulture than with a misshapen one that called itself a man.
“For all his cunning he has an ungovernable temper with regard to his personal appearance. Being more cruel than lustful when beside himself with rage, he sent her down to the gate then and there chained to the old chief, who was to be slain at once. He told Aryenis that when she had lived with vultures awhile she could tell him how she liked it, and then perhaps he would be pitiful and give what the vultures left of her to his archers to play with.”
I could hear Stephnos’s teeth grit as he fingered his dagger-hilt. I hoped keenly to be there when he met the chief Shaman. At least, I did and I didn’t. I was somehow beginning to feel that no one should meet that beauty until I had interviewed him.
“And then you came and saved her. It was two days before I got the news, and, hastily gathering such men as I had ready, I rode straight into the Brown Sakae country where the hills begin—a maze of mountains ere you reach the Shamans’ hold. Being but few in number, we were driven back with loss, so that I had to return. My brother was raising his folk and the balance of mine to come and aid me when you appeared. We had intended to try and reach the Shamans’ fortress, and, if we could not save my daughter, at least avenge her or die in the effort.
“Now, however, there is no such need for haste since she is safe. But instead I feel, and my brother writes to me the same, that we must strike the enemy soon, or else allow them to destroy the whole country. Therefore, have I sent out to all my headmen to meet me at our chief town to discuss the question of making immediate war upon the Shamans once for all.
“The carrying-off of Aryenis has stirred the countryside, and the folk realize that the danger threatens all, and I have great hope that they will agree. If so we will raise our whole armed strength. War will come whether we make it or whether we wait for attack, and it is better that we should make it now rather than wait till our enemies are still stronger.
“But in this strife the foe will be two to one, maybe three to one, against us. And it will be such war as we have never had, for once the Shamans cease their pretence of peace, they will give us war such as the fiend conceives it.
“Now, say, knowing all, will you stay and fight with us, or will you take such things as you require for your journey, together with tokens of our gratitude, and return to your own land? I hide not from you that we shall be in a hard case, and that in the end we may be overrun, when such of us as are left alive will go through the gate, after the Shamans have played with us awhile in their fashion, which is not pleasant.
“Do you go or stay?”
He looked at us, his chin on his hand. I could see the boy nursing his dagger-hilt, his eyes on my face. My mind required no making up. The idea of Aryenis once more in the Shamans’ hands admitted of no compromise. I turned to the old man and said, and in saying it altered the whole course of my life: