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been waiting at the bottom.
Down, down.
Tossed and spinning, crashing, torn, out of all control, she rolled and twisted and plunged, cartwheeling
toward what was left of her beloved. . . .
From his position at the point of the Armada, Prince Humperdinck stared up at the Cliffs of Insanity.
This was just like any other hunt. He made himself think away the quarry. It did not matter if you were
after an antelope or a bride-to-be; the procedures held. You gathered evidence. Then you acted. You
studied, then you performed. If you studied too little, the chances were strong that your actions would
also be too late. You had to take time. And so, frozen in thought, he continued to stare up the sheer face
of the Cliffs.
Obviously, someone had recently climbed them. There were foot scratchings all the way up a straight
line, which meant, most certainly, a rope, an arm-over-arm climb up a thousand-foot rope with
occasional foot kicks for balance. To make such a climb required both strength and planning, so the
Prince made those marks in his brain: my enemy is strong; my enemy is not impulsive.
Now his eyes reached a point perhaps three hundred feet from the top. Here it began to get interesting.
Now the foot scratchings were deeper, more frequent, and they followed no direct ascending line. Either
someone left the rope three hundred feet from the top intentionally, which made no sense, or the rope
was cut while that someone was still three hundred feet from safety. For clearly, this last part of the climb
was made up the rock face itself. But who had such talent? And why had he been called to exercise it at
such a deadly time, seven hundred feet above disaster?
"I must examine the tops of the Cliffs of Insanity," the Prince said, without bothering to turn.
From behind him, Count Rugen only said, "Done," and awaited further instructions.
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"Send half the Armada south along the coastline, the other north. They should meet by twilight near the
Fire Swamp. Our ship will sail to the first landing possibility, and you will follow me with your soldiers.
Ready the whites."
Count Rugen signaled the cannoneer, and the Prince's instructions boomed along the Cliffs. Within
minutes, the Armada had begun to split, with only the Prince's giant ship sailing alone closest to the
coastline, looking for a landing possibility.
"There!" the Prince ordered, some time later, and his ship began maneuvering into the cove for a safe
place to anchor. That took time, but not much, because the Captain was skilled and, more than that, the
Prince was quick to lose patience and no one dared risk that.
Humperdinck jumped from ship to shore, a plank was lowered, and the whites were led to ground. Of
all his accomplishments, none pleased the Prince as did these horses. Someday he would have an army
of them, but getting the bloodlines perfect was a slow business. He now had four whites and they were
identical. Snowy, tireless giants. Twenty hands high. On flatland, nothing could catch them, and even on
hills and rocky terrain, there was nothing short of Araby close to their equal. The Prince, when rushed,
rode all four, bareback, the only way he ever rode, riding one, leading three, changing beasts in
mid-stride, so that no single animal had to bear his bulk to the tiring point.
Now he mounted and was gone.
It took him considerably less than an hour to reach the edge of the Cliffs of Insanity. He dismounted,
went to his knees, commenced his study of the terrain. There had been a rope tied around a giant oak.
The bark at the base was broken and scraped, so probably whoever first reached the top untied the rope
and whoever was on the rope at that moment was three hundred feet from the peak and somehow
survived the climb.
A great jumble of footprints caused him trouble. It was hard to ascertain what had gone on. Perhaps a
conference, because two sets of footprints seemed to lead off while one remained pacing the cliff edge.
Then there were two on the cliff edge. Humperdinck examined the prints until he was certain of two
things: (1) a fencing match had taken place, (2) the combatants were both masters. The stride length, the
quickness of the foot feints, all clearly revealed to his unfailing eye, made him reassess his second
conclusion. They were at least masters. Probably better.
Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on smelling out the blood. Surely, in a match of such ferocity,
blood must have been spilled. Now it was a matter of giving his entire body over to his sense of smell.
The Prince had worked at this for many years, ever since a wounded tigress had surprised him from a
tree limb while he was tracking her. He had let his eyes follow the blood hunt
then, and it had almost killed him. Now he trusted only his olfactories. If there was blood within a
hundred yards, he would find it.
He opened his eyes, moved without hesitation toward a group of large boulders until he found the blood
drops. There were few of them, and they were dry. But less than three hours old. Humperdinck smiled.
When you had the whites under you, three hours was a finger snap.
He retraced the duel then, for it confused him. It seemed to range from cliff edge and back, then return
to the cliff edge. And sometimes the left foot seemed to be leading, sometimes the right, which made no
logical sense at all. Clearly swordsmen were changing hands, but why would a master do that unless his
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good arm was wounded to the point of uselessness, and that clearly had not happened, because a wound
of that depth would have left blood spoors and there was simply not enough blood in the area to indicate
that.
Strange, strange. Humperdinck continued his wanderings. Stranger still, the battle could not have ended
in death. He knelt by the outline of a body. Clearly, a man had lain unconscious here. But again, no
blood.
"There was a mighty duel," Prince Humperdinck said, directing his comment toward Count Rugen, who
had finally caught up, together with a contingent of a hundred mounted men-at-arms. "My guess would
be . . ." And for a moment the Prince paused, following footsteps. "Would be that whoever fell here, ran
off there," and he pointed one way, "and that whoever was the victor ran off along the mountain path in
almost precisely the opposite direction. It is also my opinion that the victor was following the path taken
by the Princess."
"Shall we follow them both?" the Count asked.
"I think not," Prince Humperdinck replied. "Whoever is gone is of minimal importance, since whoever
has the Princess is the whoever we're after. And because we don't know the nature of the trap we might
be being led into, we need all the arms we have in one band. Clearly, this had been planned by
countrymen of Guilder, and nothing must ever be put past them."
"You think this is a trap, then?" the Count asked.
"I always think everything is a trap until proven otherwise," the Prince answered. "Which is why I'm still
alive."
And with that, he was back aboard a white and galloping.
When he reached the mountain path where the hand fight happened, the Prince did not even bother
dismounting. Everything that could be seen was quite visible from horseback.
"Someone has beaten a giant," he said, when the Count was close enough. "The giant has run away, do
you see?"
The Count, of course, saw nothing but rock and mountain path. "I would not think to doubt you."
"And look there!" cried the Prince, because now he saw, for the first time, in the rubble of the mountain
path, the footsteps of a woman. "The Princess is alive!"
And again the whites were thundering across the mountain.
When the Count caught up with him again, the Prince was kneeling over the still body of a hunchback.
The Count dismounted. "Smell this," the Prince said, and he handed up a goblet.
"Nothing," the Count said. "No odor at all." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]