ently make his
way out of the square. They had forgotten him, for the moment. He did
not wish to wait, just then, until they--or she--remembered.

She.

He still did not believe it, quite. He touched the bruise under his jaw
where she had struck him, and thought of the lithe, swift strength of
her, and the way she had ridden alone into battle. He remembered the
death of Thord, and how she had kept her red wolves tamed, and he was
filled with wonder, and a deep excitement.

He remembered what she had said to him once--_We are of one blood,
though we be strangers._

He laughed, silently, and his eyes were very bright.

The tide of war had rolled on toward the King City, where from the sound
of it there was hot fighting around the castle. Eddies of the main
struggle swept shrieking through the streets, but the rat-runs under the
Wall were clear. Everyone had stampeded inward, the victims with the
victors close on their heels. The short northern day was almost gone.

He found a hiding place that offered reasonable safety, and settled
himself to wait.

Night came, but he did not move. From the sounds that reached him, the
sacking of Kushat was in full swing. They were looting the richer
streets first. Their upraised voices were thick with wine, and mingled
with the cries of women. The reflection of many fires tinged the sky.

By midnight the sounds began to slacken, and by the second hour after
the city slept, drugged with wine and blood and the weariness of battle.
Stark went silently out into the streets, toward the King City.

According to the immemorial pattern of Martian city-states, the castles
of the king and the noble families were clustered together in solitary
grandeur. Many of the towers were fallen now, the great halls open to
the sky. Time had crushed the grandeur that had been Kushat, more
fatally than the boots of any conqueror.

In the house of the king, the flamboys guttered low and the chieftains
of Mekh slept with their weary pipers among the benches of the banquet
hall. In the niches of the tall, carved portal, the guards nodded over
their spears. They, too, had fought that day. Even so, Stark did not go
near them.

Shivering slightly in the bitter wind, he followed the bulk of the
massive walls until he found a postern door, half open as some kitchen
knave had left it in his flight. Stark entered, moving like a shadow.

* * * * *

The passageway was empty, d