up the
talisman, and be the shield at my back. I have offered no other man that
honor."

Stark asked slowly, "Why do you choose me?"

"We are of one blood, Stark, though we be strangers."

The Earthman's cold eyes narrowed. "What would your red wolves say to
that? And what would Otar say? Look at him, already stiff with jealousy,
and fear lest I answer, 'Yes'."

"I do not think you would be afraid of either of them."

"On the contrary," said Stark, "I am a prudent man." He paused. "There
is one other thing. I will bargain with no man until I have looked into
his eyes. Take off your helm, Ciaran--and then perhaps we will talk!"

Otar's breath made a snakelike hissing between his toothless gums, and
the hands of the Lord Ciaran tightened on the haft of the axe.

"No!" he whispered. "That I can never do."

Otar rose to his feet, and for the first time Stark felt the full
strength that lay in this strange old man.

"Would you look upon the face of destruction?" he thundered. "Do you ask
for death? Do you think a thing is hidden behind a mask of steel without
a reason, that you demand to see it?"

He turned. "My Lord," he said. "By tomorrow the last of the clans will
have joined us. After that, we must march. Give this Earthman to Thord,
for the time that remains--and you will have the talisman."

The blank, blind mask was unmoving, turned toward Stark, and the
Earthman thought that from behind it came a faint sound that might have
been a sigh.

Then....

"Thord!" cried the Lord Ciaran, and lifted up the axe.

III

The flames leaped high from the fire in the windless gorge. Men sat
around it in a great circle, the wild riders out of the mountain valleys
of Mekh. They sat with the curbed and shivering eagerness of wolves
around a dying quarry. Now and again their white teeth showed in a kind
of silent laughter, and their eyes watched.

"He is strong," they whispered, one to the other. "He will live the
night out, surely!"

On an outcrop of rock sat the Lord Ciaran, wrapped in a black cloak,
holding the great axe in the crook of his arm. Beside him, Otar huddled
in the snow.

Close by, the long spears had been driven deep and lashed together to
make a scaffolding, and upon this frame was hung a man. A big man,
iron-muscled and very lean, the bulk of his shoulders filling the space
between the bending shafts. Eric John Stark of Earth, out of Mercury.

He had already been scourged without mercy.