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Witches of Kregen [Dray Prescot #34]
by Alan Burt Akers
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Science Fiction/Fantasy

Mushroom eBooks
www.mushroom-ebooks.com

Copyright ©1985 by Kenneth Bulmer

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

Witches of Kregen

Alan Burt Akers

Mushroom eBooks

Copyright © 1985, Kenneth Bulmer

Alan Burt Akers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

First published in USA in 1985 by Daw Books, Inc..

This Edition published in 2007 by Mushroom eBooks, an imprint of Mushroom Publishing, Bath, BA1 4EB, United Kingdom www.mushroom-ebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

eISBN 1843196735

Witches of Kregen

The story of Dray Prescot on the fascinating world of Kregen four hundred light-years from Earth is arranged to be read in individual volumes. Taken to Kregen first by the Savanti, the mortal but superhuman people of the Swinging City of Aphrasöe, he was rejected by them as too unruly and rebellious a spirit. The Star Lords—the Everoinye—selected him to carry out their mysterious projects for Kregen and, in between these exploits, Prescot hurtled headlong into adventures on his own account. The people of the Empire of Vallia called him to be their emperor and bring them out of the Times of Troubles, and one of his tasks is to rebuild the empire and clean out the slavers, the reiving flutsmen and those who batten on misery.

The plan to re-unite all Vallia is now under threat from the obstructions caused by Csitra, a Witch of Loh, who has Pronounced the Nine Unspeakable Curses Against Vallia. A plague of werewolves has left many of the people who shouted for Dray Prescot as emperor suspicious and fearful for the future.

There are many foes still to be overcome on Kregen; but Prescot has many good comrades and his never-failing source of strength, the Empress Delia, to stand at his side. Now in the streaming mingled lights of the Suns of Scorpio, the jade and ruby fires of Antares, Dray Prescot must go forward to whatever of peril and headlong adventure his future may bring.

Alan Burt Akers

Chapter one

Frogs

The first frogs fell from the sky on the morning of the day selected for the decisive battle against Layco Jhansi's army of crazed fanatics. Kov Turko's Ninth Army, busy preparing the first breakfast, stopped as the sky filled with the tumbling bodies. Frogs fell everywhere, into cooking pots, sizzling in the fires, impaling themselves on spears, stampeding the riding animals, bearing down tents by the sheer weight of their numbers.

Frogs, roklos, toads and lizards blackened the brightness of Zim and Genodras, the twin Suns of Scorpio.

Some squashed as they hit the hard-packed earth here on the border between Vennar and Falinur. Most hopped about, their ribbiting filling the air with clamor. Everywhere the ground appeared an undulating sea of shining green backs.

“That dratted witch!” Seg's black hair swirled as he batted at the descending swarms.

Nath na Kochwold hoisted his red pikeman's shield aloft and the crimson flower rang and bucked with the rain of bodies buffeting it.

Turko ran to join me under the hard projecting edge of a fighting gallery of a ship of the air. His powerfully muscled body, that of a master of the arcane wrestler's arts, as much as his lofty rank of kov, eased him through the press of men sheltering under the gallery. He looked mad clean through.

“That Witch of Loh! That Csitra! This must be another of her Curses."

“Indubitably."

He glared at me, for a tiny moment unsure of my tone, and then: “Yes! And she's successfully spoiled our plans for today."

“It seems to me,” I said, and I spoke mildly, “she has made a grave mistake."

“By Morro the Muscle!How?"

“Why, if she'd waited until we were about to come to handstrokes with Layco Jhansi's poor deluded—"

“I see that. Those screaming idiots would have believed it was the doing of their own sorcerer, and—"

“Precisely,” said Seg, storming up, looking ugly. “But she's done enough damage as it is. Look at them!"

The Ninth Army had turned into a mob. Frantically the soldiers ran and yelled and flailed away at the falling frogs. The succulent early-morning odors of breakfast were replaced by the stink of roasting and charring amphibians. The uproar was prodigious. Any resemblance to a disciplined army was entirely lost.

“It'll take all day today and tomorrow just to get the animals back."

“And,” I said, “if Layco Jhansi attacks we'll be mincemeat."

I spoke with deliberate emphasis, expecting to be instantly contradicted.

I was not disappointed.

“If Jhansi dares to attack,” rapped out Turko. “By Vox! We'll have him. Have him whole and spit out the pips."

“He'll certainly break his rotten teeth on my lads,” promised Nath na Kochwold, as hard and intolerant of imperfection as ever, a true fighting leader of the Phalanx.

The uproar overturning the camp racketed on unabated. There seemed no end to the supply of falling toads and roklos. Frogs hopped everywhere, clambering over one another, tumbling off the heaped piles of squirming bodies, and their ribbiting croaked on and on.

“Where's Khe-Hi?” Seg buffeted a luckless toad who tried to hop into our refuge under the fighting gallery. The men with us pressed close to the wooden curve of the ship's lower hull. A few feet away the packed bodies were piling up breast high. We'd be drowned under frogs soon if the rain did not cease in a very short time.

“Like any sensible man, he's with his lady love.” Turko held a sensible respect for Wizards of Loh; but he was still Turko the Shield and therefore his respect was inevitably tinged with a quizzical amusement. “And even though she may be a Witch of Loh, Ling-Li-Lwingling is a remarkably attractive woman."

No one of my comrades offered to make some cuttingly amusing remark about Turko's qualifications for making that judgment. The situation here for all its unlikely bizarreness was damned serious. The piles of bodies continued to rise higher out there on the plain and most of the campfires had been unpleasantly extinguished.

“So,” said Seg, “he's likely to be occupied and not realize what's going on."

“Then,” I said, and in that familiar yet empty gesture that indicates determination, I hitched up my sword. “Then we'll have to bust our way through to him."

“Through that lot?” yelped Turko.

“Any other ideas?"

“No. But we'll have to move sharpish."

“Right.Wenda!"

“Wenda!” said Seg with enormous sarcasm. Wenda means “let's go!” “We'll be like men sludging through treacle."

Seg was right. There was another way, though its employment would give me little pleasure. But when it is a matter of your life versus a trifle of valuable property, there is no conflict of interests. None at all, by Krun!

A creak overhead snatched our attention.

The wooden fighting gallery projecting from the side of the sailing flier of the air groaned again, and a little spurt of wood-dust spouted from a joint. The gallery had been designed to carry archers in aerial combat, with spearmen to back then if boarding was in the offing. It was a slender construction; but it had been built to carry the weight of men in combat.

A plank of the flooring abruptly snapped and snagged downwards, disgorging a flood of green bodies upon our heads. The flopping green hoppers leaped about croaking.

“They must be piled up mast high!” yelled Turko.

“That lot'll collapse any second,” said Nath na Kochwold.

“It'll hold for a bit yet,” said Seg. “All the same, that gallery shouldn't break under the weight of a bunch of frogs—"

“So the confounded witch has increased their weight."

Seg's fey blue eyes regarded the gallery above us. Sometimes my blade comrade's powers startled even him. He said, repeating himself: “It'll hold for a bit yet,” and we all knew he spoke sooth.

The frogs were now coming down hammering like roundshot. Anyone hit on the head would be killed outright and probably decapitated into the bargain.

Now, on Kregen when you go to breakfast you naturally use cutlery, and some of the men had theirs still with them. But, as this was Kregen, you also take with you what you take just about everywhere you go—your weaponry.

Thus it was I was able to bellow at a couple of Hakkodin to use their axes and halberds on the hull of the ship. I will agree that the pikemen do not usually take their pikes to breakfast, for the brumbytes stack their pikes in a most neat and orderly prescribed fashion; they will have their swords with them. On Kregen you never know when the next emergency will spring on you.

The axemen soon bashed a way through the hull of the ship. This destruction displeased me, as I say; but needs must in this situation. We ripped the planks apart and dodged roklos and frogs toppling from the sagging gallery.

“Hurry! Get inside, all of you!"

We only just made it.

As I felt Seg and Turko grab my arms and haul me in through the hole, the gallery at last collapsed. It broke up with the sound of a twenty-one-gun salute. The lot smashed down onto the ground where we'd been standing scant moments before.

Nath na Kochwold was furiously angry.

“That's like him,” Seg said. “Stupid clean through."

“Aye,” amplified Turko. “Daft as they come."

“But—but—” Nath had known me in good times and bad, as had Seg and Turko. But Nath genuinely felt that things had changed. “You're the emperor!” he got out. “You should not have been the last man—"

The gloom of the tween decks before our eyes adjusted made it difficult to see the expressions on the hard faces of my comrades. But I knew for a certainty that Seg and Turko were enjoying themselves. Oh, yes, we were a mighty high-up lot these days, kings and kovs, emperors and nobles, yet my blade comrades still remembered the old days, days when we'd been slave, when we'd adventured over the hostile if beautiful face of Kregen, days when we'd not known where the next crust was coming from, although we were damned sure we knew where the next lot of grief was due to arrive.

Comrades in a fellow's life are precious—precious!—and worth all the tomfoolery of gold and jewels in the fabled Gardens of Hoi Parndole. Nath na Kochwold was a good comrade and had proved it on a score of occasions; yet still he was used to me as the emperor, as the man who had forged the Phalanx that was his pride, as the man to whom he looked as the savior of Vallia. He had not been slave with me.

So I bashed the dust from my face and clothes and bellowed out: “Get this ship aloft, famblys! Bratch!"

Seg and Turko took my meaning.

Men ran to the controls. A couple of Jikai Vuvushis ran past, the girls determined that they should stand at the controls and send the skyship into the air, and damn all onkerish men who got in their way.

The timbers of the ship groaned. The hull heaved beneath us. With the power conferred by the two silver boxes buried deep in her hull, the ship lifted into the air. She was not a voller. She did not have the power, conferred by the two silver boxes, of propelling herself through thin air. She could rise with that mystical power, derived from the mix of minerals in one box and the cayferm in the other; for forward propulsion she must use her magneto-etheric keel and the force of the wind in her sails.

If anyone was foolish enough to venture out on deck to try to set the canvas he'd have his skull driven in by a frog as hard as a cannonball.

The flying ship lifted. The vorlca drifted with the breeze, as we could tell by her movements. Oh, yes, I was the emperor all right. I spoke and men and women acted. But I was growing sick and tired of all the pomp and circumstance surrounding this emperor nonsense. The quicker my lad Drak took over the reins of empire the better I'd like it. I had given my word to be the emperor, and had sworn to liberate the people—my people—of Vallia from the slavers and aragorn, the flutsmen and all those who oppressed them. Once the island was reunited, why, then, you wouldn't see me for dust.

As for Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains, who was the Empress of Vallia, I knew she shared my thoughts, I knew she wished to be free of the burdens of empire and go with me once more aroaming the broad and beckoning lands of Kregen.

The vorlca lifted and moved and the breeze drove her downwind. From a porthole we could see the incredible sight of the frogs and their kindred dropping from heaven.

If Delia and I did take off for a life of adventuring, I was certain that Seg Segutorio would come with us. I had a shrewd suspicion that his new wife, Milsi, who was Queen Mab of Croxdrin, would not be averse to the picaresque life of adventure. And what a life that would be! By Zair, we'd live life to the full, then—although, by all the devils in a Herrelldrin Hell, didn't we live life to the full right now?

In this tiny breathing space as we waited for the vorlca to drift downwind and clear the rain of frogs, I had time for reflections of different kinds. Yes, we lived life to the full—but whose full? Yes, I wanted to see Vallia once more united and peaceful. Yes, I most certainly wanted to see all the lands of Paz unite in a great league, a grand alliance, against the reiving Shanks who raided our coasts and slew without mercy. Yes, this was true. But, also, sometimes the burdens crowded too close and too heavy. Sometimes I understood with horror that I might yet grow callous and uncaring of anyone else save myself and my friends and family. If the disease of empire took me, I was big-headed enough to guess that not only all Vallia and Paz would suffer; all of Kregen would suffer.

“Almost clear, Dray,” called Seg, peering out through the gash in the hull. “What a sight."

“That malignant witch.” Turko looked out at Seg's side. “My Ninth Army—"

I did not think of the frogs and Turko's fine Ninth Army; I thought that perhaps I might really and truly only care about Delia and my family and my comrades, and to hell with the rest of Kregen. That was how I had behaved and believed in my reckless past on this planet. I had changed. Now I tried to be the enlightened emperor.

Could I change? Could Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, really stop being the reiving tearaway rascally fellow he was?

Seg bellowed in a too-loud voice: “Cheer up, my old dom! You look as though you've lost a zorca and found a calsany."

“Aye, Seg, aye."

The overhead abruptly split, the wood shattering away in scything splinters, and a couple of frogs belted down. They hit the deck under our feet with almighty crashes and instantly were up and hopping about. Turko caught them easily enough. He whistled.

“You're right. They weigh like stone."

“The whole picture is different,” I said, forcing myself to return to the present and what was going on. “When Csitra dumped cartfuls of frogs onto our heads it was all a bit of an occult lark. She was plaguing us. But now, one of these damned frogs can knock down a fine soldier, between ‘em they'll destroy this ship if we don't drift clear in time. She can destroy the whole Ninth Army at this rate."

“Khe-Hi just has to wake up!” Seg, like the prudent man he is—sometimes—positioned himself under a thick beam. We all did likewise, crowding shoulder to shoulder. The frogs began to batter their heavy way through the upper decks and shred the planking away. Soon they were hopping and croaking about our feet.

No one was going to venture out from the thick beam's protection to shovel them outside. No, by Vox!

My comrades are, by and large, a harum-scarum lot. Clearly, and despite the eeriness of it, they'd been taking this infestation of frogs and roklos and toads in an off-hand manner, seeing the ludicrousness of the situation. A whole piling-up of frogs from the sky would inconvenience us, make the beginning of the battle delayed, perhaps cause one or two hearts to tremble a little more than they had. But it was an infuriating delay, that was all.

Now, with what amounted to stones from catapults hurtling down around our heads, the whole picture became potentially disastrous.

“I suppose the possibility exists,” said Nath with a casualness that totally failed in its object, “that Khe-Hiis unable to halt the infestation, that countering the thaumaturgy is beyond his art and strength."

“It exists but is unlikely—” Turko began.

Seg said brutally: “The better chance is that poor Khe-Hi has had his head bashed in."

So now it was in the open, the fact Nath had danced around, sounding querulous, which was a state very far from the fiery yet disciplined Krell Kapt of the Phalanx. If Khe-Hi had been killed, or even incapacitated, when would these damn frogs stop? Ever?

“Where's the woman getting ‘em all from?"

“If,” I said in that weirdly mild tone of mine, “they are real."

Seg shot me such a look of suspicion as to tell me I was overdoing the mildness bit. Seg had dragged the chief fear in our minds into the open. I just had to go back to being rough tough Dray Prescot again, hard corners and all.

We were able to speak in easy tones, and for just a queasy moment I couldn't grasp why that was strange. Then I realized that the incessant banging and crashing of frogs’ bodies against the decks had dwindled away so that now only the last outriders of the descending column struck us.

“Praise Opaz for that!” exclaimed Nath na Kochwold.

We climbed up past the splinters and the wreckage to the deck and found ourselves perches. Truly, the scene was fantastic. It was awesome too, in a shivery way, for the solid column of frogs falling from the blue sky spread a considerable area and thus by their very bulk oppressed the imagination. Individual bodies were impossible to see in the shining flanks of the mass; colors shifted and reflected, the bright green of a lizard, the orange of a roklo, the brown of a toad, and over all the liquid green glinting of the frogs.

I was just saying: “I don't care for all this sorcerous stuff,” when I felt a distinct thump, as it were, in the very air itself.

“What—?” said Turko, and, instinctively, the muscles along his arms rippled ready for instant action.

“Odd,” said Seg, and turned himself around and stared out over the land.

The flying sailer drifted with the breeze and we saw a few other ships that had broken free. But, always, we turned back to stare at that infernal, impressive, diabolical torrent of frogs falling from a clear sky.

But...

Seg, with that feyness of his race, was obviously the first to see and recognize what had happened.

He let out a yelp, and then: “By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! Khe-Hi's done it!"

“What—?"

“Look!"

We all stared narrowly at the shining frogfall.

“Yes—Khe-Hi's done it."

“I like it,” said Seg, cheerfully. “I like it!"

The column of frogs remained, as solid, as torrential, as impressively diabolical as it had been before. But now the frogs rained upwards.

Khe-Hi-Bjanching was sorcerously sending the damned frogs back whence they'd come, we hoped to fall out of the clear sky onto the head of the witch Csitra.

“Good old Khe-Hi!"

“And his lady love,” pointed out Turko. “Ling-Li will have had a hand in this."

“I do like it,” said Seg.

We stood to watch those damned frogs whirling back up into the sky and the relief was enormous, by Zair, I can tell you!

The experience through which we had just gone had been mind numbing. It had blunted out senses. At least, I felt that inner dizziness as though I had difficulty merely in keeping balance, in finding the right words, in carrying out even the simplest action. Sorcery sometimes plays a great part in the lives of people on Kregen; mostly it is just there, heard of but peripheral to busy lives.

There was little we could do until the frogs had all been returned from whence they came. A jury-rigged mast and a scrap of sail gave us control; but I felt it essential to return to the camp as fast as possible, so I bellowed out orders to land the ship. We'd go back on foot. There would be a tremendous amount of work to do back there sorting out the damage, caring for the wounded, preparing defenses, putting what regiments we could into shape for any possible attack from Layco Jhansi and his screaming fanatics.

The tall roof of the village barn glistened into view as the upward torrent of frogs continued. The cottages buried in the squiggling mass began to show a gable here, a twisted chimney there. This tiny village of Gordoholme, although within the area occupied by the Ninth Army, was generally out of bounds, off limits, to the swods in the ranks, and the officers, too, unless on duty. We had liberated the place from the clutches of Jhansi's offensive people; we did not wish to continue the crimes of which they were guilty.

This village of Gordoholme represented the farthest point we'd reached in our march into Vennar so far. Jhansi had refused the great and decisive battle we'd expected outside Gliderholme. We knew he was in trouble finding fresh mercenaries, for many of his paktuns had renounced their service and either returned home or joined the usurping King of North Vallia. This puzzled us, for the journey entailed shipping in order to circumvent the activities of the Racters who were at war with the King of North Vallia.

Whatever obscure motives prompted Jhansi and his sorcerous adviser, Rovard the Murvish, a highly aromatic Sorcerer of Murcroinim, into the various courses of action they had undertaken against us, one fact remained more than most probable—Jhansi would hurry to hire on more mercenaries, and his agents would be overseas now scouring the markets and barracks for tazll paktuns.

In the meantime he had the mobs of ordinary people driven into a state of fanatical frenzy by the thaumaturgical arts of Rovard to hurl against us in waves of screaming humanity. This disgusted us. As I watched the stream of ascending frogs I seriously considered the usefulness of sorcery to any world among the millions of worlds in space.

The people who had taken refuge with us in the ship—the vorlca was named Wincie Smolek II—gathered at the rails to watch. Among them I spotted a group of cavalrymen wearing pale-green uniforms, the dolmans well-frogged and the pelisses smothered in fur and gold wire. This habit of carrying a spare coat slung over the shoulder to put on when the weather turns chilly is well-known on this Earth, and is sensible enough for many fighting men of Kregen to adopt as a matter of course. These jutmen were from the Forty-Second Regiment of Zorcabows, raised and led by Strom Larghos Favana. The irony in the situation, which I savored as a man with toothache might savor a poultice, lay in their regimental name—Favana's Frogs.

“The damned things are nearly all gone,” I said. “If we're going, we'd better make a start."

Seg and Turko did not reply but just climbed down the shattered remnants of the ladder to the ground. Nath clipped out a command to the men clustered along the rails, and they began to go over the side. They were not all chattering away among themselves as one might have expected. They were very quiet. The enormity of what had happened affected them, affected all of us, deeply.

Soon we were marching off toward Gordoholme and the ruined camp of the Ninth Army.

Other vessels had lifted clear and no doubt the people aboard them would be doing just what we were doing. The flying saddle birds had mostly, fortunately for them and us, been dispersed on patrol duties.

“What a hell of a mess!” said Turko, highly disgusted.

“We'll soon have your army back in shape, Turko,” said Seg, striding on, his bow slanting up over his back.

I didn't say anything. The catastrophe might yet prove decisive. Certainly, it had put back our plans for this part of Vallia to what might be a disastrous degree.

In his decisive way, Nath na Kochwold said, “The discipline of the army will hold up, Turko. I'll see to that, by Vox."

Well, that was Nath for you, tough and uncompromising, dedicated to the ideals of order and discipline.

He glared upon the men trooping along from the stranded sailer. His fierce eyebrows drew down.

“Look at ‘em!” he exclaimed. “By the Blade of Kurin! A bunch of washerfolk with the laundry would look smarter."

With that, off he went, rounding up the soldiers, bellowing orders, cutting into them. He did not wave his arms about frantically. He did not even draw his sword and brandish that. He got in among the mob and his incisive personality and reputation very quickly sorted them out.

It made no matter who or what they were. Whether pikemen without pikes, cavalry without mounts, heavy infantry without shields, they jumped to his cracked-out commands.

Very soon they were in a column of march, three abreast, and striding along, heads up, chests out, swinging their arms. It wouldn't be beyond Nath na Kochwold to have them singing in a moment or two.

“You've got to admire—” began Turko.

“Aye,” said Seg. “What's that?"

His keen bowman's eye picked up the tiny black cloud in the distance before any of the others. We all swiveled to look.

Seg, Turko and a small group of the lads from my bodyguard, standing a little to the side of the marching column, watched that small cloud as Nath strode up to join us.

“That's got ‘em...” He stopped himself, swung about, shaded his eyes against the Suns.

Seg said: “Flyers."

“A returning patrol?” But Turko spoke the question without conviction as to the answer.

Glints of light speared off the aerial riders, armor and weapons flashing in the suns-light.

“Damned flutsmen,” I said.

“Aye,” someone at my back ground out. “May they rot in a Herrelldrin Hell."

We'd all had experience of flutsmen, unpleasant experiences, tending to result in sudden death if you were not the quicker.

Flutsmen, reiving bandits of the air, had preyed on Vallia during and after the Times of Troubles. They owed allegiance to no one apart from their own bands. They would hire out, serving as mercenaries, if the prospect of loot was good. They fought hard and viciously. They were not nice people, to use a phrase once coughed out concerning them. Loric the Wings had died after making that pronouncement. But he was right.

“Whatever they are,” Turko said, “they are enemies to us."

“And if they've been newly hired by Layco Jhansi,” amplified Seg, carefully taking his bow off his shoulder, “they've caught us at a remarkably inconvenient moment."

At this distance it was still only possible to make an estimate of the numbers of flutsmen. From the apparent thickness and extent of the flight, I judged more than a couple of hundred approached. Well, we'd find out their real strength soon enough.

Nath shot off to the marching column not wasting any time and instantly the soldiers began to fan out and take up the best defensive positions they could find.

“So much,” said Seg, stringing his longbow with that cunning application of flexing power that betrayed long experience and great strength. “So much for our friend Nath's neat marching orders."

Around us grew little vegetation to afford cover. There was no handy river. The ground puffed dust-hard underfoot. No, we'd have to stand and fight these reivers of the air where we were.

“I make it better than two hundred and fifty,” remarked Turko. He had no sword to draw and I noticed the way he flexed his arms, as if instinctively limbering up for a contest in which all his skills in unarmed combat could be negated. Yet that was a foolish thought. I'd rather have Turko the Shield with me, unarmed, than many and many a man lumbering in full armor and with a whole arsenal of edged and pointed weapons.

With a flash of the old quizzically mocking Turko, he turned to me, half-smiling.

“I do not see Korero the Shield, Dray."

“And I don't see a single shield, either."

“So your back—"

“My back will have to be the business of myself, and your back yours, if we are parted."

In that quiet way of his, Seg Segutorio glanced across as he reached out for the first shaft from his quiver, and said: “I'll fight alongside you, Turko."

I nodded. The arrangement was sensible.

Turko contented himself with: “Aye, Seg. It is a pity Nath didn't hang onto that shield."

Just that, a pity. We looked as though we might be entering on the last great fight. If we were, if we were all to die here, well, I couldn't hope to go down to the Ice Floes of Sicce in the company of finer comrades.

The oncoming flutsmen spread out into individual dots. The dots sprouted wings and became fluttrells, and the riders on their backs, brandishing their weapons, became men.

There were more nearly three hundred of them.

We set ourselves and grasped our own swords and spears. Seg lifted his bow.

Streaming their flying silks and furs, their standards fluttering in the breeze, their armor and weapons a blaze of glitter in the radiance of the Suns of Scorpio, the flutsmen swooped upon us.

Chapter two

Concerning feet caught in stirrups

Seg shot. As always, he shot superbly. Four shafts spat from his bow, rose-feathered slivers of death. Four flutsmen screeched and toppled to hang from their harness, the clerketers strapped about them, their weapons falling away beneath.

The birds’ wingbeats thrashed the air. Dust spumed. Some flutsmen circled, trying to shoot with their crossbows into the confusion. Some of my lads fell.

The majority of these aerial bandits, seeing the great preponderance of numbers on their side, just landed their fluttrells and jumped off ready to fight.

I, Dray Prescot, was not prepared to let any foeman, particularly not these unhanged rasts of the air, dictate the tactics of a fight. They might land and hop off their birds and prepare themselves to chop us up. Nath might very well have placed our lads in defensive positions, the proper course at the beginning when we expected to be shafted. Now, though, the situation was different...

There is something revolting about the easy, leisurely way some people prepare to kill others. This is nothing to do with the careful preparations that must be made, for killing is an arduous task, and not one to be undertaken lightly. No, I mean in these flutsmen you could almost see them licking their lips as they dismounted and drew their weapons for ground work and so, settling themselves, decided at last to advance and finish toying with us, ending their pleasurable anticipation for the real thing.

Well, they'd get no time allowed by me, no, by the stinking eyeballs and suppurating nostrils of Makki Grodno!

“Form!” I screeched it out, hard and high. Nath jerked as though I'd goosed him. “Form line, two ranks deep. Bratch!"

The lads here, many of my bodyguard corps, many from the Phalanx, were what one could call elite quality.

They bratched. They formed a two-deep line. I had no time to think of the panache of it, of the show-off I must appear. I leaped to front and center, yelling words like “Vallia! Charge! Get stuck into ‘em!"

With a whooping yell we simply rushed pell-mell on the bunch of flutsmen as they were in the process of dismounting and thinking pleasant thoughts about carving us up.

They had not expected this reaction.

They were not panicked. Oh, no, flutsmen were not riff-raff. They partitioned off the sky to their own nefarious ends, and whenever we came across them we put them down. But they would not run away just because we charged them.

They usually had the pickings of fine weapons. Their crossbows could have been deadly; but I had had long experience of flutsmen and knew that once the crossbow was discharged the fighting fever of the fellow astride his fluttrell wouldn't allow him time or patience to reload. This was a common tactic with them, as I knew. And here and now most of them had just landed to fight. Their weaponry would be the usual mix of sword and spear. Some would have shields. As you know, the shield was still, at this date, an innovation in Vallia. These flutsmen might hail from Havilfar—almost certainly—and so would know and use the shield, although many an aerial bandit couldn't be bothered with the flying discipline required to handle a shield aloft.

As for us, well, the new sword we had designed and built in Valka, called the drexer, had proved itself in battle. The drexer now equipped most of our regiments. As for me, well, it is true to say that almost anyone of Vallia who walks abroad without a rapier and main gauche feels naked. In this coming dust-up I'd use my drexer, like the lads.

And—the lack of shields would serve to remind them of earlier days, before a maniac called Dray Prescot had turned up in Vallia—to marry their princess!—and inter alia to foist upon them the coward's weapon—the shield.

The Suns of Scorpio shone upon the scene, a little breeze blew, the dust spumed up under the stomp of impatient feet, the smell of sweat and oiled leather, the sting of dust in eye, the slick of it along tongue and lip—well, well ... A fight is a fight...

“Don't bother about dressing!” I screeched the words back over my shoulder. “Fast! Get into ‘em!” And then, because I felt the occasion warranted the use of the great words, I bellowed out: “Hai Jikai!"

The lads responded. They rushed on, the beat of their boots loud upon the earth. They yelled.

“Hai Jikai! Vallia! The emperor! Dray Prescot! Hai Jikai!"

It was all a bedlam and rush and tumult. And then, the evil flicker and tinker-hammering of swords...

No, the flutsmen didn't run away when we so unexpectedly charged slap-bang into them as they dismounted. But they were caught, as it were, with one foot in the stirrup.

In that first mad rush I swear each one of our lads dispatched at least one of the thieving bastards to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

The fight spread out, for saddle birds take up a lot of space when they flutter their wings and land. This was where trouble could hit us. If some of us were caught out of formation, straggling, chasing after the foemen, they could be cut down before we could come up with them again. The birds did not like the uproar going on about them. Some incontinently flapped up into the air again. Those that had been quickly stalked down slashed their wings about and struck here and there with their beaks, so that we gave them all very wide berths. The fight settled down to a slogging match in which, I fancied, my lads would have the upper hand.

In a tiny segment in that scarlet rush of madness, Seg, hardly panting, his handsome face hard-set, brought his man down and then turned, panther-swift, for the next. Him, I dispatched. Seg nodded.

“They didn't know what hit ‘em. Dray."

We glared about between the birds, seeing the clumping as the fighting raged.

“They picked the wrong target today, that's for sure."

A flutsman flew through the air toward us.

Nothing unusual in that? Wrong. He was flying without his saddle bird. He turned over twice and came down on his back with such a thump as must have broken his spine into smithereens. Turko smiled.

“They are not enjoying themselves."

The implications were obvious.

Seg laughed and then started off, sword poised, to where two flutsmen were chasing one of our lads around a bird. Seg was brief and to the point. The soldier—he was a brumbyte—didn't bother to gasp out thanks but went charging off to where a group of his comrades battled equal numbers. Seg let him go and strolled back to Turko and me.

“Seen Nath?"

“No."

The area was now a maelstrom of dust, wings, the flicker of steel, and the phantom shapes of running bodies. Just how the day was going was, for the moment, impossible to tell. Seg and Turko were sublimely confident that the flutsmen would soon have had enough and would fly off.

“They don't like taking casualties,” I said. “That is true. They like easy pickings."

“May a green-fanged demon from Ledrik's Nether Hell take ‘emall.” Turko swung his arms and glared balefully about. Dust swirled about us and the fluttrell's noise and confusion gave the whole fight an unreal air, as though we fought in a nether bird-hell of our own.

Three more flutsmen ran at us and were summarily dispatched where they belonged. Although, to be honest, there are some flutsmen who aspire above the generality of their calling, some I have known I have even called friend. Sometimes a fellow is swept up by fate into a life not of his choosing. Well, by Zair, hadn't I been dragged up by the scruff of the neck from Earth, four hundred light years away, to be dumped down all naked and unarmed on Kregen to make my own way?

“That's interesting,” observed Seg.

Half a dozen of our men who by their neat and tightly fitting uniforms were flyers from Valka were busily at work. As it were, with one hand they fended off flutsmen and with the other made sure the fluttrells were securely chained down to their stakes.

“My lads of Valka,” I said, with what I admit to being a comfortable feeling, “are indeed great scallywags and rogues and terribly fierce fighting men; they also, thanks be, have an eye to turning an honest profit."

Mind you, no flyer of Valka, trained up by my Djangs to fly a flutduin, would change that superb saddle flyer for a fluttrell. Not in a million months of the Maiden with the Many Smiles!

Just how much longer the fight would have gone on must remain conjectural. Certainly, in the dust and confusion the flutsmen had lost all idea of thrashing us and taking the spoils. Our resistance—indeed, our sudden and overwhelming attack—had knocked them back on their heels with a surprise from which they did not recover. They fought; but increasingly they sought to escape.

Then our flutduins descended on them.

After that it was a mere matter of rounding up those who would be rounded up and seeing off those who would not. When that was going on strong, parties of my lads of 1ESW and 1EYJ ran up, more in anger than sorrow that they had missed most of the fight.

The men of the Emperor's Sword Watch and of the Emperor's Yellow Jackets, sworn to protect the life of the Emperor of Vallia and his family, do not take lightly the discharge of their duties. They were very thorough in their rounding up of flutsmen, severe in their chastisement.

One flutsman, green in the face and with an arm and a leg missing, from which he was dying, stared up with eyes that would soon glaze over. He saw us pass by.

“By Barflut the Razor Feathered,” he got out. “I wish I'd never taken the gold from Layco Jhansi."

I bent to him.

“Think of Layco Jhansi when the Grey Ones meet you and you wander through the mists of the Ice Floes of Sicce, dom."

“I'll remember, Hanitcha the Harrower take him. I'll remember and curse his name."

Seg glanced at me as I straightened up.

“A dratted Hamalese."

“A renegade, evidently."

Turko said, “There's more to this. I wonder if they were out on a scavenging expedition on their own account?"

“Or are they scouting for the main force?” Seg looked up at the sky at this, instinctively, and his sinewy fingers curved around his bowstave.

Then, of course, the lads of my bodyguard corps arrived, as I have said, highly incensed. Korero the Shield, magnificent and golden, a Kildoi with four arms and a tail hand, swung his two enormous shields about as though they were saucers. I wondered if he and Turko might exchange a few words.

In the event Turko, who was, after all, now the Kov of Falinur, contented himself with a very politely-spoken: “You are welcome, Korero the Shield."

And Korero contented himself with: “I am glad to see you, Kov Turko.” He put no heavy emphasis on the word kov. Of course, they could have been so fearfully polite just because I was there and in earshot. These two who had carried shields at my back in battle epitomized the way in which men and women strove to put their heroic bodies between men and the incoming shaft, the slashing blade. I sighed. I knew damn well I didn't deserve such devotion. But, also, I fancied these two had come to an arrangement, one with the other, and each saw his duty ahead.

“Secure all here,” Nath went past, shouting. He saw me.

“Time we returned to the camp, I think."

“You're right. And what we'll find does not amuse me."

“By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, we'll soon have the army to rights."

“Aye,” said Nath na Kochwold in his grimmest voice.

I was not so sure.

If these confounded flutsmen were the advance patrol of an army, that army would find ours in parlous case, that seemed certain. We had no time to shilly-shally about.

Layco Jhansi, who had once been the old emperor's chief pallan, virtually in charge of Vallia, had turned traitor. His schemes had backfired and he had been forced to flee to his estates in the northwest where he had set out on the road of conquest. He was ruthless. He'd had no hesitation in striking down Ashti Melekhi, one of his tools who had failed him.

Recently he had concluded a treaty of non-aggression with the Racters to the north of him so that he could concentrate all his efforts against Turko's Falinur. If he was recruiting fresh mercenaries, even low-grade ones, to give a hard core to his army of crazies, we'd need every man and animal, every bird, every engine, to hold him and beat him back.

So, as we returned to the shattered camp of the Ninth Army, I began to seek out ways in my mind to draw fresh forces into the field to counter Jhansi's schemes. The Empire of Vallia, of which I was hauled into being the emperor, was a rickety and ramshackle old construction these days. We ran on a knife edge. One mistake, one error of judgment, one lapse in our spirit of high resolve could let in the ravening monsters of destruction to tear down into ruin all that we strove for.

Chapter three

Of a few words to Kov Turko

The main beam of the catapult lay on the ground, the massive arm of laminated wood smashed through in two separate places. The rest of the engine looked as though a maddened giant had jumped up and down on it with hobnailed boots.

Seg brought across a bronze helmet. The crown was dented into a recurve in the shape of a frog. If any poor devil had been wearing that at the time...

Swords were shattered, spears splintered, shields torn to shreds.

Annoying though this destruction of equipment might be—annoying! It was downright infuriating!—it meant nothing beside the distress caused by the casualties.

Many of the men had saved themselves by simply running flat out. The swods near the circumference of the frog storm had raced away to safety. Many men fortunate enough to be close to their saddle animals had been able to gallop off. The vollers had all taken to the air and some of the vorlcas had drifted downwind as we had. The flutduins had not been touched, for which we gave thanks to Opaz.

There remained many men injured, maimed, many dead. The lads had used their shields cannily, sheltering under whatever of cover there was and slanting the shields to take the blows glancingly. As we walked about the camp amid these scenes of desolation, we saw many pitiful examples of the horror that had blackened the Suns, many men crouched and smashed presenting bizarre and ghastly tableaux of death.

If a frog falling from the sky could smash the great beam of a catapult, it would not be stopped by the flatbed of a cart, the angle of a shield.

No, I will not elaborate on what had happened to the Ninth Army or the scenes I saw.

Suffice it to say that we devoted all our resources to caring for the injured and burying the dead.

All Turko's usual quizzical mockery fled. As we carried out the necessary tasks he grew silent and cold. His mood remained somber. He was not dejected; both Nath and Seg were able to reassure him that his Ninth Army, although grievously wounded, was not irrevocably destroyed.

“Yes, we will rebuild the army.” Turko got the words out as though they ground between granite mills.

Seg looked over my shoulder just as I was about to make a remark I had pondered on and had, at last, decided to speak out.

“Here come Khe-Hi and Ling-Li-Lwingling."

Turning about slowly at Seg's words, I saw the Wizard and the Witch of Loh approaching, stepping carefully over debris and corpses. Men were hard at work clearing up; they could not be everywhere at once and I was helping in a particularly bad patch where the frogs had rained down like stone hail and the ground was windrowed with men and women.

Ling-Li wore a bandage around her head, the yellow cloth making the pallor of her face look sickly. She did not seem to notice the ghastly moil about her; I fancied she did and marked all.

“Majister,” said Khe-Hi.

I looked at him, seeing him as he usually appeared, wearing his white robe, his red hair neatly arranged, the handsomeness of his face a little, just a little, plumper than it had been in earlier days. His voice was the same metallic meticulous instrument of his will. But I felt a tiny tremor of anxiety. Khe-Hi in these days usually called me Dray. Very few people aspire or are granted that method of address. Now he used the full formal majister, not even the familiar majis of those close to me, and so I knew he wished to put this on a politico-formal basis. Well...

“Khe-Hi,” I said, refusing this opening gambit. I half-inclined my head to the Witch of Loh."Ling-Li. I trust you are not seriously injured."

“A scratch."

She did not use majister; I did not think she had as yet earned any right to call me Dray although she had materially assisted us in the matter of the werewolves. I have likened her small face with its piled mass of auburn hair to a superbly carved mask in the ivory of Chem, the smoothest and mellowest of ivories. Her skin clung tightly to her bone structure without hint of a sag; yet she was not gaunt, for her beauty, aided by the startling blue of her eyes and the scarlet of her mouth above a firmly rounded chin, seemed to me to be a trifle more than skin deep and was self-evident. All the same, it also seemed to me a deal of her force was absent, that the sickly pallor of that perfect skin was not all created by the yellow bandage.

“I trust you will soon be recovered.” I turned back to the Wizard of Loh. “Tell me, Khe-Hi."

Now Wizards and Witches of Loh enjoy deserved reputations upon Kregen. Their powers are immense and unknown and simple men believe anything of them. But I have known Wizards and Witches of Loh who were mediocre in their control of the thaumaturgical arts. Of course, they would be more powerful than most sorcerers of other disciplines; most, not all. These Wizards of Loh who are somewhat less than their fellows unashamedly use the reputation of any Wizard of Loh. They trade on the fear their fellows engender. In this wise they make a living.

Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling were both very highly powered mages. Khe-Hi, I fancied, would one day when he reached the prime of life, become perhaps more powerful than almost any other Wizard of Loh. Certainly, he had at the least caught up with Deb-Lu-Quienyin, who was many seasons older, if he had not surpassed him.

Csitra the Witch of Loh was also extraordinarily powerful, and the kharrna of the child, the uhu Phunik, would grow to match and surpass hers. I wondered—with horror—if Phunik would outgrow the kharrna of his father, Phu-Si-Yantong, who was dead and gone, the bastard.

As I, a layman, saw the situation, then, here we had a very powerful sorceress aided by her child of lesser mastery of the arts, versus two very powerful mages. There should in theory therefore have been a clear-cut advantage to our side.

There was not.

Naturally there was not, given the mazy, chancy mystery of thaumaturgy and its applications to the problems of life.

When Deb-Lu joined in, then we did have an advantage. But Deb-Lu at the moment was off on business of his own. That business, I shrewdly suspected, knowing Deb-Lu, had to do with the welfare of Vallia and, not least of all, of Delia and myself.

Khe-Hi motioned slowly with his right hand, for his left was held by Ling-Li's hand. “I grieve for the dead soldiers..."

In this I knew Khe-Hi spoke the truth. I do not care to associate with people who have no respect for human life. This too marks me as being an ordinary fellow without certain special qualifications for being an emperor, a ruler of men, a person whose will to the grand design discards lives without thought.

At my nod, Khe-Hi went on with his explanation.

“You are aware that Csitra can stab a pulse of great power through the defenses we have arranged, simply by virtue of the old military saw that concentrated force will smash through attenuated defenses.” Khe-Hi looked up at me, and added: “Some of our defenses are not attenuated."

What he was saying in this roundabout way was that a great deal of magical art had been put out by the Wizards of Loh in the past to safeguard certain people thought necessary to the well-being of the emperor. I had had to push aside all notions of guilt that I, and Delia, and my family and blade comrades were thus protected. If we went down, Vallia would go down with us. We had seen what that would entail during the Times of Troubles. No sane person wanted those times to recur.

This was not just a question of who would be master in the empire. Those flutsmen we had just seen off were a tiny representation of what the whole island had groaned under, would suffer from, if the evil days returned.

“Also, majister, you will understand that I had to fabricate a caul for Ling-Li and myself, for had a frog knocked our brains out, well, I need not go on."

“In this you judged right."

The two mages, Seg, Turko and Nath stood in a semicircle with me, removed from other folk. That suited the other folk. Wizards of any kind, and Wizards of Loh in particular, were held to be unpredictable to any casual wandering person chancing by. The swods got on with clearing up, and very few even raised their eyes to glance curiously at us.

Because of this isolation, I was able to say, “Now, Khe-Hi, we have been friends a long time. Why are you addressing me as majister all of a sudden?"

Ling-Li said: “I feared you would be displeased we had taken so long, would judge and condemn us—"

I almost said that she'd changed her tuneremarkably since she'd called me tikshim and told me to clear off to the benches beside the Jikaida board where they were playing Death Jikaida. I did not smile.

“If you believe yourself to be guilty of some crime, perhaps you would care to name it?"

Very quickly Khe-Hi shot out: “No, Dray, we are not guilty of any crime, and we know we are not. We did what we had to do as quickly as we could. It took time. Ling-Li believed that you—"

“You, Khe-Hi, ought to have known better."

“I do. But I could not convince—"

“Next time, Ling-Li,” I said in that old gravel-shifting voice, and I know my face must have held some of the old devil look, for the Witch of Loh flinched back. “Next time believe and trust in Khe-Hi's word."

She said nothing in reply; but those tell-tale mottlings of color seeped up across her cheekbones.

Seg with his laugh and apparently brash words cloaking subtle schemings, said, “I'll tell you, Khe-Hi, when those dratted frogs were tumbling out and bashing us about it seemed two seasons long."

“Yet,” added Nath na Kochwold with his military instincts at work: “The time was remarkably short. That it appeared long was natural."

That summed up this little minor crisis within the greater.

There was a great deal to do, most of it unpleasant, and so I will pass over the next few days with but one final word. Repugnance.

The crazed army of Layco Jhansi did not attack, and Kapt Erndor, the army commander who thankfully had survived, was positive this was because his advance patrol of flutsmen had not reported back. Every last one had been brought down by our flyers.

“All the same,” said Kapt Erndor as we sat around the campfire on the last evening. “All the same, he will attack, now. I feel confident he will have had news of our disaster."

I said: “I do not usually call councils of war. In this case I would be interested to know what you think should be our next course of action."

Erndor, one of my old Freedom Fighters of Valka, hard and gritty, lifted his goblet. He stared at me over the rim.

“Normally, strom, I'd counsel a swift attack on our part. Stick him before he sticks us."

“But."

Kapt Erndor heaved up a sigh, swallowed a mouthful, wiped his mouth.

“The army has taken a few hard knocks lately. We had the werewolves. Now the frogs. They've suffered casualties in a way that is foreign to a fighting man. I hate this, I hate myself for saying it; but I think a great deal of the heart has gone out of the army."

Nath na Kochwold burst out: “It is a terrible thing to have to say; but it is true. I have watched the lads. They are bewildered, fearful, not knowing when a fresh disaster out of their experience will fall on them."

“Dratted sorcery,” rumbled Seg.

In his latter mood of somberness, Turko said nothing.

“The Ninth Army,” I said. “A fine fighting force. Sorcery has ruined it."

“All we need is time—” began Erndor.

“Give us a month of She of the Veils,” said Nath.

“Will Layco Jhansi allow us that?” I stared at them, and I saw the answer in their faces.

The wine passed around. Above us the stars glittered. The night lay cool upon the land, and the scents wafted in fresh and clean, cleansed of the raw horror of the shambles of a few days ago. We talked around the question, and the problems remained. We were, in truth, a mightily despondent group.

At last I said: “Erndor."

At the tone of decision in my voice Erndor rapped out: “Strom?"

“You will have to go to Valka. Tell Tom Tomor the truth. Bring as many regiments as he can let you have. I won't ask for any specific number; I know he will do his utmost. Valka, after all, should be secure now."

“Quidang, strom!"

“Seg, if you'd like to fly down to Vondium and dig up what you can—"

“First thing, Dray. I'll wring some regiments out of Farris, somehow."

“Good. Now, Turko—"

Turko looked up. His eyes were heavy, his face gaunt.

“Turko, this is your province, this half of Vennar earmarked to go to your Falinur."

Now I said what I had determined to say earlier.

“In statecraft you have proved yourself. You are the kov of this province, of all Falinur. You'll have to stay here, with the lads, get their morale back. You'll have to start with—"

“Aye, Dray, aye. I know. I'll have to start with myself."

“Make it so."

Seg quaffed a good-sized slug. I've no idea what wine we were drinking that night. “And you, Dray?"

“Khe-Hi and Ling-Li will stay with you, Turko. They'll want to be married as soon as it's practicable. As for me—I'll nip across to Inch."

Instantly, Seg objected.

“A messenger will tell Farris. We can dredge up the regiments. I'm coming with you, my old dom, to see Inch."

Turko opened his mouth to protest in his turn.

Nath said: “You can't go alone, Dray!"

“And you're not coming with me, Nath, so get that idea out of your head. You're needed here, to help get the army to rights."

“But, Dray—!"

“But nothing. Of course I'll go alone. We can't spare anyone. I'll have to sneak off so my lads of the bodyguard corps don't know. By Vox! It'll be good to stretch my wings again."

“I don't know—"

“Well, I do!"

“One lone man, to fly across hostile territory, no, Dray, it won't do, by the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, it won't do at all!"

“All the same, each one of you has a more important job to do than nursemaid me. If I'm the emperor then I'll be the bloody emperor and dish out orders! Sink me!” I burst out at last. “I'm going across to see Inch on my own, so Queyd-Arn-Tung!"

Chapter four

A sick bird brings a task

Down south in the continent of Havilfar where saddle birds and animals are much more in evidence than here in Vallia or in Pandahem, they say that if the velvety green feathers of your fluttrell show a lemonish-yellow tinge around the edges—beware!

The beigey-white feathers of the fluttrell I had chosen glistened healthily. His eyes were bright. His talons sharp. That stupid head vane fluttrells have been cursed with—or blessed with, perhaps, if it materially assists their flying—was undamaged. His harness shone with saddle soap and leather polish, ministrations of his late dead owner.

I suppose, to be perfectly truthful, there was a faint tinge of yellow around his green feathers. I ought to have taken more care about that; but, then, I was saddling him and cutting him out from the rest by the light only of She of the Veils, dwindling into the west. Also, there was a tinge of apprehension in me that one of my hulking great lads would patrol along here and get stuck into this sneaking thief before I could yell.

The Emperor of Vallia, sneaking off so that his bodyguard corps should not fly with him!

This had happened before and would happen again. My guards understood that sometimes I had to go off by myself. They'd do their damnedest to go with me, and it had turned into a species of game between us. If they suspected I intended to go off alone they'd be on the qui vive and I'd be at shift to take great pains to outwit them.

This time they were not expecting me to fly off, as our night conference remained secret.

The fluttrell—I, of course, did not know his name—bore on through thin air as She of the Veils finally sank. The night pressed in, for the moment a pseudo night of Notor Zan, when no moons float in the sky and the star glitter cannot make up for the lost illumination.

Flutsmen habitually decorate their mounts and themselves with multitudes of feathers and silks and trailing cords and sashes. These are things I abhor. Oh, they look fine enough; I do not care to have a foreman grab a pretty shoulder cord or waist sash and reel me in to be spitted.

In addition, these decorations announce the allegiance of the flutsman. One band may tell another in the air. The protocol of aerial meeting is strict by virtue of the need to know if the flyers approaching are friend or enemy. I did not know if the flying silks I had with me would proclaim me a friend or an enemy to other bands of flutsmen. Certainly, there were no survivors of the band from whom this fluttrell and these silks had come.

By morning when Zim and Genodras rose to flood down their mingled streaming lights, the fluttrell had flown me a goodly distance on the journey. Now was time, I felt, to rest him, feed and water him, and, perhaps, myself catch forty winks.

We slanted down over open country, the fields large and quite unlike the intensive cultivations farther south. In fact, very little of the land looked as though it was being worked. A town—a straggling place of stone houses looking as though it humped itself out of the very ground—showed up ahead.

Now I was not intending to hide on this flight. I looked what in very truth I was—a paktun, a fighting man ready to hire out as a mercenary. This cover had stood me in good stead in the past. With Deb-Lu-Quienyin's skill, taught to me, of subtly altering the planes and lines of my face so that I could pass unrecognized through a crowd of friends, I should not be molested on the score of being that arch devil, Dray Prescot, the Emperor of Vallia.

So I circled the fluttrell and slanted down to the town. There were no regular perching poles for the birds; but a makeshift one had been erected outside a tavern.

The flight across Vennar to Inch's Black Mountains appeared to me at that time as a hiatus in my plans. I wanted the journey over as soon as possible; yet fluttrells are flesh and blood birds, they are not machines.

I decided to call this saddle bird Salvation because he had been brought out of bad company.

He went up onto the perching pole gladly enough, and flickered his wings proudly enough, for there were two other birds perching there. It was then I noticed how strong that betraying yellowish cast was to the fringes of his velvety green feathers.

“Poor old Salvation,” I said to him. “Looks as though you are in for a bad time."

There might be a vet in the town, which from its placing and my knowledge of the geography of Vallia, I knew to be Snarkter, an oddly un-Vallian name. There were mines nearby, from which was extracted the ore that yielded cryspals, so precious that I might have to rule harshly on who owned the mines when Inch and Turko took over. Maybe there would have to be a border line right through the middle, dividing up the crystal mines fairly. If there was a vet he might be able to doctor calsanys and plains asses and mytzers and quoffas, and the occasional zorca, but what would he know of fluttrells?

A few people were shuffling about, and, I admit without shame, they struck me as dull and lethargic. From people like this, then, was Layco Jhansi's Sorcerer of Murcroinim, Rovard the Murvish, creating the crazed mob of fanatics who opposed us?

Then I frowned.

Among the citizens of Snarkter, other people crept along, wearing gray slave breechclouts, bearing burdens, getting out of the way as the citizens passed.

If for no other reason—and there were plenty of others—this alone was cause enough for us to liberate all of Vallia.

The Quork Nightly looked to be typical of taverns in this part of the island, being built of stone from the local quarries, slate roofed, low pitched and with a washed-out peach-colored munstal growing over the door which, however, exuded a sweetly pleasant scent. I ducked my head and went inside, carefully observing the fantamyrrh as I did so. I courted no trouble here.

The innkeeper was apim, a member of Homo sapiens sapiens, like me, wearing a blue-striped apron, and with rounded red forearms bristling with brown hair. His nose, I recall, looked like a red cabbage.

He was prepared to serve a lone mercenary. Over in the corner sat a couple of hefty lads, with cudgels down by their chairs. No, the innkeeper, Loban the Nose, had no good reason to refuse to serve me.

I spread a silver stiver on the counter along with a couple of copper obs. Flashing gold here would not be prudent.

The ale was thin watery stuff; but it was wet and it went down along with a couple of rashers of bosk, a heel of bread and, afterwards, a pottery dish of palines. I savored the yellow berries, sovereign cures for hangovers and sundry other ills. It is extremely difficult to find palines that are not good anywhere on Kregen, although I have been to some places where the palines were a disgrace. That is rare, thankfully.

“Come far?” was the usual opening gambit.

I chewed.

“Nope."

“Going far?"

“Yep."

“Hiring out to the kov, are you?"

“Yep."

Wondering how long I could keep up this tight-lipped pose amused me. Overdoing it would make these local yokels hostile. So I said, “Have a drink with me, doms. Times are hard."

“Aye, dom, times are hard, we thank you."

There were no other patrons in The Quork Nightly at this time of the morning. I stood the landlord and his two bully boys a drink of their own weak ale, and we talked desultorily. I asked for a vet, and was directed to a house with a black front door over on the other side of town.

As I took my leave I said: “Thank you, Koter Loban. Do you do a good meal here at the hour of mid?"

“Aye, koter, that we do. Roast ponsho, ponsho pie, ponsho puddings—we do a very fine meal."

“Good. Remberee."

I took Salvation walking alongside me, the reins in my fist, as I crossed to the house with the back door. The sign read:

MASTER URBAN THE UNGUENT

The paint was cracked black, the lettering a wobbly attempt at the severe formal Kregish. Underneath in smaller letters was:

ALL ANIMALS TREATED LIKE LORDS

I went in.

Salvation had to wait outside, tied up to a post. No doubt there would be a treatment yard round at the back of the house.

One breath inside the house and, instantly, I was back in the house where I'd been born, long ago and far away on Earth. My father had been a horse doctor, and the house constantly witnessed a struggle between the smells of liniments and oils and those of freshly-baked bread and cabbage and furniture polish. I shook my head and went into the room where a crude picture of a human hand pointed the way.

“Yes, koter?"

Master Urban the Unguent was small, untidy, his hair a mop, and his clothes stained by the marks of his trade. He was in the act of dropping oils into a mixture in a brass pot upon a tiny brazier, and by his movements I saw that he knew, at least in this, what he was doing.

I told him the problem, and he pursed up his lips and shook his head, and looked serious.

“Since these troublous times I have had to learn about these marvelous birds that carry men through the sky. I have heard of this disease. It is called the Yellow Rot, or Strugmin's Rot, from the veterinary who first diagnosed it."

“Can you cure it?"

“I will try. My unguents are renowned throughout Vennar, and beyond, to Falinur and even to the Black Hills. I will do my best.” He glanced up quickly. “It will cost you—"

I showed him a golden talen.

He nodded, and took the coin.

“That will do nicely, koter."

“The bird is called Salvation and is outside. How long—"

He waved a hand. “Who can tell?"

This was infuriating.

The peaceful appearance and laziness of this town of Snarkter struck me. Here I was in the heartland of the enemies of my people. I had to get on to Inch in the Black Hills. Seg would raise regiments from the Lord Farris in Vondium; Kapt Erndor would bring regiments from Valka provided by Tom Tomor, Turko and Nath na Kochwold would build up the morale of the Ninth Army; all this was so. Yet the help that Inch might be able to provide could prove decisive. He might not be able to offer any help at all, for he fought Jhansi on this front and the damned Racters to his north. Up there they had a habit of changing the names of places and rivers to mark a special occasion. I wanted the names to reflect our success, not our defeat.

So my hurry was of my own making. All the same, if poor old Salvation was going to take time to mend I'd have to try something else. There'd been two other saddle birds perching outside The Quork Nightly...

My guess was they did not belong to Loban the Nose's two henchmen. Rather, they'd be the mounts of two paktuns who were still, at this early hour, snoring away in one of Loban's upstairs bedchambers.

The patter of bare feet heralded the entrance of a short, plump woman wearing a dingy black dress. Her face, round and shining, with a snub nose; her brown hair once neatly caught up in a bun now straggling over her shoulders; her eyes, all told of tragedy.

She was sobbing and crying, and trying to speak all at the same time. She staggered, and I put out a hand and caught her and so eased her to a chair.

Urban the Unguents looked alarmed.

“What is it, Kotera Minvila?"

Through her caterwauling she got out: “My Maisie! Have you seen her? I've been everywhere, all over, no one's seen her! My Maisie—"

“She has not been here.” Urban glanced up at me. “A mere child, but pretty. She likes to help with the animals—but she has not come here today."

“Where is she? She was not in her bed when I called her—Maisie! Maisie!"

“A little cordial, I think, Master Urban."

He reacted at once and went to a cabinet, returning with a glass containing colored liquid which Kotera Minvila spilled half over her dress, a third over her face, and managed to gulp down the remainder. She was in a distressing state over the disappearance of her daughter.

In a low voice, bending close, Urban said: “I do not like the sound of this, Koter Kadar.” That was the name I'd given him. “There have been a number of disappearances of young girls just recently."

In a slow and heavy voice, I said: “They were all young, about two to four, say, pretty, and from families of the poorer—"

“Yes. Mostly they are slaves, which isbad enough, Opaz knows. But three or four have been from the families of respectable citizens, like Kotera Minvila. Her husband was killed in the war."

Poor devil, no doubt he'd been swept up by Layco Jhansi's Deldars, thrust into the ranks with a spear, and then sorcerously inflamed by Rovard the Murvish. He'd been just one in that army of crazies.

I could feel the chill in me.

There was no certainty about what had happened. Salvation could have had the Yellow Rot for no other reason beyond the normal.

But I harbored the deepest conviction that no accident had caused me to choose a fluttrell that would delay me here.

No, oh no, by Zair!

Once more, in this fashion, I was convinced the Star Lords had set a task to my hands.

Chapter five

Two Paktuns

A theory formed itself in my head.

Now theories are tricky beasts and can land a fellow in all kinds of trouble if he's not careful.

Still, the probability of this particular theory being valid struck me as quite high. I wouldn't pitch it any stronger than that.

Among the flim-flammery of gaudy silks and sashes brought along from the flutsman's kit I drew out a scarf of green and blue eye-watering silkiness, with silver edgings. None of this stuff was being worn, for obvious reasons. I wanted these people to take me for a simple paktun and not a reiving flutsman.

The silver came away as the point of my dagger probed it free. I twisted up some of the strands into a special spiral arrangement, one I knew and loathed. Together with the snip of feather I'd taken from Salvation's darker parts, the brown and silver insignia would have to serve.

I pinned it to the reverse flap of the khiganer I'd selected to wear. This khiganer, shaped in the usual fashion with a wide flap caught up over the left side with a row of bronze buttons from belt to shoulder and from point of shoulder to collar, was tailored from a heavy brown material. The collar was not as stiff and high as usual. I valued comfort more than ostentation. Naturally I wore the old scarlet breechclout; but this was decently covered by bronze-studded pteruges. When I'd finished and pinned on the evil badge, I walked back to The Quork Nightly.

My assumption proved correct, for two hard characters were seated at table wolfing the second breakfast. They were dressed as soldiers of fortune, their weapons were scabbarded to them, and while one bore a scar from forehead to ear, the other bore a scar from nose to lip.

“Llahal, doms,” I said, cheerfully, as I went in.

One spat a bit of gristle onto the floor and grunted something. The other slugged back a mouthful of weak ale, belched, and said: “And what's so all-cheerful about it, then, rast?"

These greetings, you will perceive, were not those conducive to friendly relations.

I sat down.

“You called me rast, dom,” I said, still in that overly cheerful voice.

“Aye, cramph, yetch, rast you are."

I stared at them. Big, hard, muscled, hairy. Their iron helmets rested on the floor by their chairs. Their booted feet stuck out at arrogant angles. They made a mess when they ate. They wore thraxters, the cut and thrust sword of Havilfar. I wore a drexer, and if anyone questioned why I carried a Valkan sword, I'd simply say I'd won it in battle and taken it from a dead Vallian.

Also, I wore my rapier and main gauche. They did not have scabbarded to their belts the rapier and left hand dagger, the Jiktar and the Hikdar.

They did have axes, small and nimble, rather like tomahawks. Those, I'd have to watch.

I said, “I wonder why I have not thrust your teeth down your throats. By Hanitcha the Harrower, I marvel at my reticence!"

They jerked up at this and swiveled to stare more closely at me.

“Hamalese?"

“Are you? You speak and act like clums, like guls. Are you all that Hamal can find to dredge up out of the gutters and send forth as fighting men?"

They reared up, their hands groping for the hilts of their thraxters.

I waved them away as though I waved a fly away.

“I've no time to waste on you, by Lem, no!"

As I used that hateful word I watched them narrowly.

Their whole appearance changed.

They sat back, and their hands left their sword hilts and reached for the ale.

“Well, dom,” one said, and belched. “You could have said."

“Aye, we but tried your mettle,” said the other.

That was probably quite true. Fighting men like this became bored with frightening speed. Some excitement stirred up the blood. I could never stomach them or their like, for my idea of a fighting man is vastly different. Still, it takes all sorts to make the wonderful and terrible world of Kregen revolve about the twin star of Antares.

After that the necessary secret words of the initiate in the cult of Lem the Silver Leem were spoken. They were swods within the cult; I pitched myself a little higher, giving myself the ridiculous rank of Hikdar-majis-ponti. At least, they'd be polite from now on.

They told me much of what I already knew or suspected and a deal that was new.

Mercenaries were flooding into this northwestern part of Vallia again, coming via Racterland to the north, guaranteed passage by the Racters and payment by Princess Mira.

I nodded as they spoke as though I understood. But I'd no idea who this Princess Mira was, apart from the fact that as an enemy of Vallia she would have to be dealt with.

“There is much gold, dom,” said the one called Helvcin the Kaktu. “I saw the ships unloading. The string of calsanys stretched from ship out of sight through the port gate. By Kuerden the Merciless, if one of those beasts had stumbled and spilt his load...!"

“By Krun!” amplified his comrade, one hight Movang the Splitter. “In the riot I'd have made my fortune. Hanitcha take me else."

“Now Malahak is my witness you speak it aright, Movang!” And Helvcin put a gnarly finger into his mouth to free a scrap of food caught in his teeth.

“These great ones of the world,” I said. “If only Kaerlan the Merciful smiled on me..."

“Oh, we'll never smell any more of the gold than our pay. And that's fair, I grant you."

They completely took me for a Hamalese, for I had spent a long time there, and was able to tell them more than they knew about Ruathytu, the capital of Hamal. By chance I also knew Dovad, from which town hailed Helvcin the Kaktu. I'd spent a few days there with Avec Brand and Ilter Monicep before taking the boat down the River Mak. I'd never visited Mardinglee, where Movang the Splitter had been born.

I expect you can share some of my feelings at this resurrection of memories long ago, of times and places in Hamal. Then the empire had been ruled by poor mad Queen Thyllis, before she became the Empress, and Hamal was a deadly enemy to other nations beside Vallia. Now, with Prince Nedfar placed on the throne by me to become the new emperor, we were allies.

By their lack of rapiers and left hand daggers, these two betrayed the fact they'd never been Bladesmen, never ruffled it in the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu.

Carefully letting drop tidbits of information, I casually built up the image of me I required them to have. When we got onto the topic of Lem the Silver Leem, I did feel relief that neither belonged to the temple to which I'd been taken by Nath Tolfeyr, himself a man of mystery, and been inducted into the vile cult to save my life. They had heard of that temple, though, by the aqueduct in Ruathytu, and accorded me even more respect. Apparently that particular temple held a big reputation among these decadent and torturing murderers of the Brown and Silvers.

In due time they told me all they knew about Princess Mira. This was pathetically little. She was merely the name by which the paymasters knew who was providing the gold to pay the army against Vallia.

I ventured a shaft.

“It seems to me that perhaps Princess Mira will take what you win in Vallia for herself."

“If she does,” said Helvcin, spitting, “I shall not care, no by Krun, so long as I get my pay and a share of the loot."

Inch would have to wait.

Even as I dredged their shallow minds for more information, I found myself thinking how grand it would be if Pompino the Iarvin were here. By Vox! He was a tool of the Everoinye, the Star Lords, as was I. He and I had burned a few temples to Lem the Silver Leem. As Kregoinye we both felt that we would burn more, although I desperately sought another solution to this monstrous disease calling itself a religion.

They left to see to their fluttrells and we parted on the understanding that we'd meet in the evening. There was to be a ceremony this night. They'd be there to enjoy the sacrifice, the torture, the blood and the horror and the orgy that followed.

I'd be there, too, but I'd be there for a vastly different set of reasons...

They expected a good turnout for the ceremony. A camp lay only a few dwaburs off, containing a goodly number of adherents. The cult was being brought into my Vallia by mercenaries from Hamal.

This was a situation so intolerable that it could not be allowed to continue past this night...

Of course, once I'd got over that initial burst of anger, I saw that just burning the temple—as ever—wouldn't stop them. We must smash up this conspiracy, defeat Layco Jhansi and the Racters, unite all true Vallians. Then we could completely expunge all traces of Lem the Silver Leem.

For a weak moment I contemplated taking one of their fluttrells and continuing my flight to Inch. The war could be helped along if I did that, and that was my first concern.

Then I recalled the anguish of Kotera Minvila over her daughter Maisie.

That settled that, then.

Chapter six

The Chief Priest

Waiting for the night to arrive turned out to be a cruel business.

Numerous schemes flitted through my mind. The evil of Lem the Silver Leem was self-evident, at least to those who had witnessed its diabolical practices. If I worked myself into a feverish state, dwelling on the problems we faced and the hardness of the road that led to eventual success, I believe you will understand.

At last Zim and Genodras sank beneath the horizon and the Maiden with the Many Smiles shone among the stars, with the Twins, eternally orbiting each other as they orbit Kregen.

The dubious scheme I settled on at last did not call for me to walk out with either the two paktuns or the other people walking in from the camp. Back home in Vallia there were plenty of silver masks fashioned in the shape of the ugly faces of leems, trophies from successes of the past. There were also golden zhantil masks there...

So it was necessary for me to creep out alone and unobserved and waylay one of the people walking in from the camp. I'd have a look at that camp as well, on the morrow, I promised myself. If I was still in the land of the living by then, that was.

The fellow collapsed and I took his silver mask, his long brown cloak, and also his badge of brown and silver feathers. Mine had served its purpose, convincing Movang and Helvcin, but was clearly not as authentic as an original. Donning the cloak, arranging the longsword comfortably within the capacious brown folds, I strapped on the mask and set off for the temple.

This, I saw, was merely the entrance tunnel to an abandoned mine.

No chance, then, to set the place on fire. I might smoke a few of the rasts out.

The cloak, the mask, the badge, gained me entrance without question or trouble. The foul stink of incense affronted my nostrils. Many tapers burned, and torches, and the glinting tunnel walls and roof loomed semi-circularly above, a blasphemous temple indeed.

There stood the altar, a solid block of stone. They'd not carted that around with them but, most likely, had found it conveniently within the mine. The image of Lem, gleaming silver above, would be carried about, and I judged it to be fashioned from lightweight wood with a silver-gilt finish.

To one side rested the cage, of split timbers, and within the cage, clad in a white dress and decked with flowers—Maisie.

She was quite happy.

Oh, yes, they knew how to handle their sacrifices, the damned Brown and Silvers.

The new white dress.The flowers.The doll, the sweets and candies. She would burble happily to herself until the sacrificial knife descended. Her heart would still beat after it had been wrenched from her body; but before that she would have suffered tortures that could only make her death a release.

Well, the bastards were going to be disappointed on that score, at least, this night.

If this fragile scheme I had concocted was going to work I'd have to make my way through the throng gathering before the altar and the image, ease along to the rear, and then sort out whatever and whoever lay beyond.

The tunnel held a dank, stale smell which the incense worsened. The place struck me as eerie and unhealthy. The altar had been set up where a side passage led off into darkness. The opening, half blocked by a rotting wooden gate, held no interest for me, and I eased around the other side where the opposite tunnel, forming a cross, showed lights. Voices came from beyond hanging curtains. Three guards stood there, clad in brown and white, bearing spears, and they looked at me keenly.

I used the formula words on them, letting them understand I was a visiting adherent of high rank. I wished to speak with the chief priest on a matter of the utmost urgency, and if they wished to retain their privates they'd better let me through at once. Bratch!

They bratched and saluted, and I passed through the opening in the curtain into the antechamber beyond.

More curtains concealed what lay to the left hand side; but the sound of voices and the clink of equipment told me the acolytes and the butchers were in there preparing themselves for the night's tortures. To the right the curtain was half drawn and I caught a glimpse of men and women with the grander masks of the under-priests. Straight ahead lay my goal.

The two guards here, both apims, did not wish to let me pass, so I had to put them to sleep standing up. I caught them left and right handed and eased them to the ground, which here was covered by a silver-patterned carpet. I did this not to break their falls but to prevent their noise alarming the occupant within.

When I pushed through he looked up, the mask in his fingers, his robes already flowing about him.

“What—?"

His face was fleshy from good living, veinous, vinous, too, I daresay. He wore many rings, a habit I detest. He was firmly built and around my height, and I cut him down without a word. I caught the mask as it toppled from his nerveless fingers, and he fell on his face onto the carpet and his blood stained out across the bright silver threads.

His robes fitted well enough. The rings were a nuisance; but they had to be slid on as part of the full regalia. His own sacrificial knife, sharp, curved, I picked up with great distaste and slid into the sheath ready for it. Then I strapped on his mask in place of the one I'd worn. When I was ready I took a breath, picked up his staff with its head fashioned like a leaping silver leem, all wedge-shaped head and eight legs, snarling and vicious and well-designed to impress the gullible.

I shoved the curtains aside and hauled the two guards in by their ankles. I hit ‘em again, just to keep ‘em quiet a little longer, and then stalked out to stand at the far curtains. In only a few moments the acolytes and under-priests trooped out and the procession was formed and ready to go.

The closeness of the stink from incense, the heat of tapers and torches, the brazier fire burning with its ghastly implements heating up, all this discomfort had to be pushed away. There was a job to be done. I'd chosen this hair-brained way of going about it, so there was just the thing to do.

I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, Krozair of Zy, dressed as a chief priest in the debased Cult of Lem the Silver Leem, led out the procession of abominations.

Marching out front and center I raised both arms. Imposing, these debauched chief priests, no doubt about that ... The noise of the congregation quieted. I addressed them. Oh, yes, I knew their stupid fancy rigmarole ranks and titles, and could work them up as I'd seen high priests do before, until they were ready for the Great Word. But, this time, and, too, of course because I probably was not performing in exactly the way a chief priest would go about conducting the ceremony, the Great Word was understood by the congregation to be different.

It would be different, too, by Krun!

After the introduction I hurried the next part, although speaking with the sonorous and, if the truth be told, deadly dull intonations of some of the priests.

“Your own chief priest has been stricken down by Lem!” Well, it was obvious that by now many of the people out there clustered listening to me would have recognized I was not the man they knew. I went on: “He has blasphemed. He is stricken in his own quarters and lies in his own blood. The Name that Must Not Be Spoken has wrought this justice, and has sent me to reveal unto you the truth."

The ensuing hubbub died away as, still with my arms raised to create that very necessary aura of power, I towered over them.

Then: “Listen, devotees! We serve Lem, the Silver Wonder. We have been betrayed by evil influences. We do not do well in this land of Vallia. Our deaths are written in the blood of Lem if we continue."

The whole atmosphere was conducive to making a person believe. The incense, the brazier, the tall unwavering flames of the torches, even the unspoken menace of the torturer's implements, the altar, and the sacrifice herself, all exerted a powerful mesmeric spell. I claim no credit for the deed. What skill at oratory I have—apart from hailing the foretop in a gale—has been used, and I do grasp at the essentials of the art. I bore down on them.

“I come to you at the first temple in this strange land of Vallia, to reveal the thinking of the Name that Must Not Be Spoken. We shall be destroyed here. We shall be betrayed. This is written. Return to your homelands. Return to the warm embrace of your friends, your lovers."

Thus I harangued them, building up a picture of disloyalty, of greed and of vengeance, seeding their minds with the belief that they had been betrayed into hiring on here in Vallia.

Slowly, I lowered my arms.

They stood, silent, attentive, yet half-hypnotized.

With a firm and steady tread I crossed to the cage. The door was unlocked, ready for the ceremony. I opened the cage door, bent and, in a low voice, said: “Lahal, Maisie. Your mother has a special treat for you, and nicer sweets than these,” and with that I took her up into my arms.

If I fouled it up now, we'd both be chopped...

The sea of silver masks below moved, glinting in the torchlight. If Helvcin the Kaktu or Movang the Splitter stood there, as, indeed, they must, they might recognize in me the person they had spoken to in The Quork Nightly. But they would be held by the attitude of reverence for authority ingrained in them in Hamal, in Hamal of the Laws. They would reason that I had simply told them I was a Hikdar-majis-ponti so as not to reveal the true altitude of my lofty rank. For, I must be an important chief priest within the hierarchy to be doing what I was doing. Anything else was impossible, was beyond belief.

Sheer bluff carried me through. Slowly and with enormous dignity I walked through the throng, carrying Maisie, and she just put her head on my shoulder and sucked a sticky sweet on a stick. One false move, one question, one slip ... I walked on and I felt the sweat trickling down under that infernal silver mask. On I strode, calm, giving the impression of a figure full of authority. On to the exit from the mine tunnel.On and out into the sweet night air away from the stinks of that blasphemous place.

When to start to run like hell?

I had to hold on, to continue that calm and steady progress. Then a thought occurred to me. I stopped.

I turned about. I lifted my free arm, and the silver-masked throng who'd followed me out halted, silent and waiting.

In a strong clear voice, I shouted back: “Do not be deceived, fellow adherents. Lem is not deceived. The gold—the gold is false. The Princess Mira gives gold freely with one hand, and her sorcery will take it away with the other when you have done her work for her and she has no further use for you. Be warned! Vallia is no place for you."

With that, about I turned and walked off. And this time, by Zair, I walked a trifle faster.

They did not follow. Some way down the back trail I could still hear their voices raised in argument. Once I was well away I just picked up the hem of the brown robe and ran—ran like a zorca pursued by a leem.

Chapter seven

Inch—and squishes...

When I walked into the great hall of the palace of Makolo, situated on a cliff overlooking Makanriel, the capital city of the kovnate province of the Black Mountains, they had just finished the evening meal. I was followed by a great crowd of retainers and guards and servants, all amazed and agog that the Emperor of Vallia had arrived.

The sweet and luscious smell of squishes hung in the hall.

I sighed.

I knew what to expect when I walked into the small room at the back of the hall where folk would retire after the meal to drink wine and talk and relax after the day's exertions.

I was not disappointed.

Squishes are, indeed, flavorsome morsels on the tongue, tiny fruits that melt and create incredible delights on their way. The dish had probably been squish pie, I guessed, and I felt the old juices starting up in my mouth. I'd flown hard and long on the stolen fluttrell, and poor old Salvation had perforce been left with master Urban the Unguent. The new fluttrell was a fine flyer, with a wicked eye, so I'd called him Salvation the Second.

Maisie had been restored to her mother Minvila amid many tears and protestations of gratitude. I'd been able to press a little gold into her unwilling hand. Good folk, cruelly brought down by the evil times that had fallen on their province, they would, I felt sure, welcome a return to more settled and prosperous days when at last the Emperor of Vallia liberated the whole island.

So, now, here I was, in the palace of Makolo in Makanriel in the Black Mountains.

The colors of the Black Mountains, Black and Purple, shone from tapestry and streamer. The schturval, the emblem of the province, emblazoned in panoply about the hall and the retiring room, was an axe. At one time this axe had been of a common variety, double-bitted and not particularly well-crafted as to haft. Now that axe was of the Saxon pattern, small of head, long of haft and with that cunning curve and recurve to the wood that transferred such power and accuracy into the blow.

I noticed, too, in the banded sleeves of the men and the draperies of the walls, that the black and purple did not meet but were separated by two narrow lines of yellow enclosing a narrow line of red. I smiled. That was also new.

The sweet smell of squishes remained strong as I entered the room. There was even a scrap of pie crust on the floor and a pretty young serving girl was in the act of sweeping it up with a brush and dustpan. She was neatly dressed in a yellow tunic, her sleeves bearing the schturval, and in her combed hair a glitter showed where she wore a vimshu, a kind of small tiara set with brilliants much favored even by girls who were not considered vain.

She missed her sweep with the brush, for her head was cocked up and to the side and she was looking over at the far corner of the room. She might have seen that sight many and many a time, and yet I could well understand her bright interest and amusement.

In the corner—where I spotted another scrap of squish piecrust—I could see a man. He was inordinately tall and thin. He wore a scarlet tunic and a golden belt. His long yellow hair was tightly wound into a red bandage-cap somewhat like a turban. He was a strange and powerful figure, well, enough.

The trouble was, he was standing on his head.

I could feel my harsh old lips stretching into the broadest of smiles.

He saw me.

Now I give him his due. He did not fall over.

To one side stood another fellow almost as tall wearing a proper decent Vallian evening robe of midnight blue. To him I said:

“Tell me, Brince, how long?"

“Majister!” This tall streak recovered himself. “But a couple of murs more, majister. And lahal, I am overjoyed to see you. As is my cousin—"

With that the tall man standing on his head flung himself in an amazing contortion around so that he landed on those spider-long legs. He towered in the room. He advanced on me, hand outstretched, beaming away like a searchlight.

I grasped his hand as he grasped mine.

“Dray!"

“Inch!"

Seven foot he stood in his socks, and not an inch shorter. I looked up and I laughed, and I gripped his hand as he gripped mine.

Good old Inch!

As he had said on an occasion before, so, now, he said, “As a rascally comrade of ours would say, Dray—Lahal, my old dom!"

“Aye,” I said, “and he is well and I've sent him back to Vondium for reinforcements. And that is why I'm here."

“You do not surprise me.” He lifted his voice, as gangling and bubbling with life as ever, and yet with the marks of his responsibilities upon him in the line of lip and jaw, the crinkle around the eyes. “Wine! Wine for the emperor! The best we have—Jholaix! By Ngrozyan the Axe! Break out that crate of Jholaix hidden behind the racks of Stuvan! And hurry!"

Men ran off to do the kov's bidding, and he rubbed his hands at the ends of those long thin arms where the bunched muscles showed strongly. “I've waited a long time for something worthwhile to celebrate."

“Maybe celebrations are a trifle premature, particularly when I wish to deprive you of some fine fellows of your best regiments."

“We have had a turn of fortune up here, recently, Dray. The Racters are quiet. Brince says they're so quiet they're up to something fiendish. Isn't that so, Brince, you lathe of stubborn willpower?"

Inch's second cousin, who'd come over from their native Ng'groga to help out with five hundred axemen, nodded.

“I've grown to love Vallia. When all these troubles are over, majister, we'd like to settle down here, if that falls within your will and permission—"

“Falls within my gratitude, Brince. You are all most welcome."

“I thank you, majister. But what my long streak of a cousin says is true. I believe the Racters merely withdraw a little to regroup and so strike us with full force."

“That is a sensible reading of the situation. I think, however, that the true picture is even more dire."

Then I told them, as the Jholaix hoarded against a special day was brought in and opened and we drank, savoring the superb vintage, told them of the schemes of Layco Jhansi and the Racters. Jhansi concentrated against Turko in Falinur. The Racters turned their attentions to the King of North Vallia, upstart and usurper though he was. When, if not before, they had accomplished those tasks, they would crush Inch in the Black Mountains between them.

Inch quaffed the wine.

“Very well. We strike first. It can be done."

“Agreed. But I still need regiments to assist Turko.” Then I spoke of the disaster that had sorcerously overtaken the Ninth Army.

The moment I had finished speaking Inch burst out: “Anything Turko requires from me he can have, and at once. We'll get started first thing. By Ngrangi! I can't abandon Turko—and, anyway, we can keep the Racters in play and then, when we've won, we'll be the ones to crush them in a vise!"

Many and many a time I thank Zair for good comrades. And, more, I thank all the gods and spirits that my blade comrades are blade comrades one with another. Not for me the system which sets subordinates at one another's throats, filled with petty jealousies, unwilling to act together, trying always to steal a march. That this system does work, after a fashion, has been proved. But its inefficiency puts it out of court to anyone with a heart and an eye to the main chance. If all my blade comrades ganged up together on me—well, then, by the disgusting diseased liver and lights of Makki Grodno, perhaps I would deserve that fate.

That I had not a single qualm that that could happen does not indicate I was a blind fool. I give trust seldom. When I do, I judge fairly that it is given in full.

Then Inch raised a point I had known he would, and had rather wished he wouldn't. Still, the ridicule would have to be faced.

“Tell me, Dray, the army with Turko that is so badly shaken. Did you say—Ninth Army?"

“Aye."

He looked down on me with a comical expression and said: “Well? You'd better tell me what's been going on."

“Yes, I suppose so. The Presidio have been doing very well running the country, and their council has been invaluable. Also, they handle the day-to-day affairs that are so time-consuming."

“That I well believe. But—"

“They decided that for the glory of Vallia and the better management of the army as a whole, each Kapt commanding an army should be given an army with a number. Turko's happened to be the Ninth."

“And the other eight?"

I made a face.

“Drak has the First down in the southwest. The Second was serving up in the northeast. The Eighth I had, and although that army no longer exists, its brigades being distributed among the others, I still hang onto the number. As for the others, they served in Hamal."

“I have heard somewhat of what went on down there. You must tell me of it over supper."

“I will. Also I will tell you about Tilda and Pando—"

“You have seen them again? Spoken to them?” He bent down, eager, concerned for our old friends who had turned out so different from what we had expected.

“Aye, I've seen ‘em and spoken to them. I'll tell you."

He frowned at my tone, and so I promised to tell him all over supper. At that, he had been very decent over this grandiloquent business of numbering the armies, and had not mocked the notion at all. He would, though, he would, when the time was ripe.

To scotch that plan, I said, “I think I shall ask the Presidio to allocate your forces an army number, Inch. How does that seize you?"

“My lads will laugh."

“So well they may. They'll still fight."

“Oh, aye, that is sooth."

Then we sat down at the tables to concentrate upon the wine, upon miscils and palines, and upon the forces Inch could spare to march to the east to assist our blade comrade Turko—who was never a blade comrade in the sense of wearing edged weapons. I found that Inch had, as I suspected, been waging his struggle to free the Black Mountains with very slender resources.

His own Black Mountain Men, bonny fighters all, were in truth fearsome irregulars. His main disciplined strength resided in the regiments sent over from Valka, and a handful from the Vallian forces who had been flown in from time to time. For a good few seasons no direct land link had existed between our sections of Vallia and the Black Mountains.

So we fomented our plans. I was sorry to have missed Sasha, for she had proved tremendously popular in Vondium and had worked damned hard at being a good kovneva alongside her husband the kov. The twins—and there was another boy child as well now—had gone with their mother back to Ng'groga. Inch said, “Don't ask me what my Sasha did to break that particular taboo. It meant she had to go to Ng'groga, and so we felt it good that the children should see the place. I hated losing one of my fliers, though."

Always, around Inch of Ng'groga, one had to watch for his own infringement of his taboos. Wonderful and fearful they were, too, and never understandable to anyone who wasn't seven foot tall and as muscular-thin as a tentacle. The way he exorcised his taboos was even more remarkable. Well, we talked and in the end agreed that Inch could spare two regiments of Valkan archers, a regiment of Vallian spearmen and a mixed regiment of totrix cavalry, lances and bows.

“There is no point in taking any of your Black Mountain Men,” I said. “They do best where they know the ground."

“Aye."

“Although soon you'll be breaking beyond the river to the north and attacking the Racters in their own lands."

Then I told him of the astonishing request received from Natyzha Famphreon, the dowager kovneva of Falkerdrin, that, owing to the unfortunate but inescapable fact that she was dying—or considered herself to be dying—she wanted me to ensure the legal inheritance of her son Nath, who was regarded as a weakling.

“But she's the chief biddy of the Racters!” exclaimed Inch.

“Certainly. But she seems to think I'll make sure Nath gets his dues."

“As a Racter,” put in Brince, “his dues come at the sharp end of a sword, or the edge of an axe."

“But,” said Inch, and he put his head on one side in a most comical-wise fashion, “if the Emperor of Vallia ensures his safe succession, he might renounce the Racters and join us. That would be a stroke!"

“My thoughts exactly."

“When—?"

“When Natyzha shuffles off to the Ice Floes of Sicce. By Krun! The gray ones had better look sharp when she gets there."

The laugh came easily. The future did hold a gleam of brightness through the gloom. I told Inch I'd make arrangements to transport his troops. He said he was sorry to see them go, for they were veteran fighting men.

“You'll get ‘em back the moment we've finished Jhansi. Then we hit north."

“Look after ‘em, Dray. And those two archer regiments, splendid, splendid. Endrass's Avengers, and Ernelltar's Neemus, they're dubbed. Fine fellows."

“We'll hit Jhansi from the east, you'll carve him up from the west, and when we meet in the middle, you'll have your regiments rejoin."

Making it sound casual, as though it had already happened instead of only being in the offing, I said, “I'm going to split Vennar down the middle, north to south. Turko will take his half into Falinur, and you your half into the Black Mountains."

Inch just said, after a pause: “I give you thanks, Dray."

“Now,” and I spoke briskly. “Where's Salvation the Second?"

“Do what?"

“My fluttrell.Is he ready?"

“He's been fed and watered, and no doubt perched for the night—"

“Then he'll have to be dug out."

“You mean you're off—"

“Of course! By the Black Chunkrah! An emperor can't spend his time lollygagging about when the empire is falling into wrack and ruin! You have to be up and about. I'm off to the Blue Mountains."

Inch opened his mouth, shut it, said: “Give the lahal to Korf Aighos for me.” Then he bellowed for his lads to ready the fluttrell.

Very soon, under the Moons of Kregen, I shouted down the remberees and took off, flying south.

“Remberee, Inch!"

“Remberee, Dray!"

The wind blustered into my face and the fuzzy pink moons light fell about me as Salvation the Second bore me on to the next stage in this venture.

Chapter eight

A flying visit to High Zorcady

Korf Aighos was pleased to see me. I flew into High Zorcady with the pangs of memory tingling, and made damned sure my portable possessions were firmly chained down.

Great rogues and bandits are the Blue Mountain Boys. The province of the Blue Mountains owes the utmost devotion and loyalty to Delia. They knew my mettle from of old. They worshipped Delia's children. Apart from those few, anybody else was fair game.

High Zorcady remains always for me a place apart, lofting high on its crags above the pass, eerie and awesome, cupped by mountains, shielded by clouds. High Zorcady frowns down from the mists. Yet it is a place of color and liveliness, where Delia and I have spent many happy times.

Korf Aighos, his eyes still that brilliant blue so unusual in a Vallian, still strutting with a swagger, and yet half cautious as well as half arrogant, not a tall man but possessing a massive chest and arms corded with muscle, made me welcome. I will not detail our transactions, for essentially they followed the pattern I had established with Inch.

The Blue Mountain Boys had cleared the mountains of our foemen, as their compatriots had cleared the Zorca Plains extending out to the south. Filbarrka was still away in Balintol. Now they planned an excursion to the large island of Womox, off their west coast.

“We merely hold the ring against Jhansi,” the Korf told me as we supped in the great hall of High Zorcady with the trophies upon the wall and the hunting dogs lolling upon the rugs. “Womox is our target. They are a full lot there; but we hear there is much treasure."

An itchy-fingered lot, Delia's Blue Mountain Boys.

I nodded. “That is probably best. We can take Jhansi out with what we have. I sent a mob of his paktuns packing by a stratagem.” Then, telling him of what had passed at the temple of Lem the Silver Leem, I solemnly warned him again of the danger of the cult.

“We have seen no sign of the rasts. If we do..."

The sign he made eloquently conveyed his intentions.

The time I spent with Korf Aighos was even less than the time with Inch.

Delia had long ago sent over from Djanduin, of which country in the far southwest of Havilfar she was queen, a stud stock of flutduins. These magnificent flyers, the best in all Havilfar for my money, had taken to the Blue Mountains and they throve. There had inevitably been a hiccup in the ecology of the region; but the flutduins were saddle flyers and partially domesticated, so that the wild life, after the first shattering alarm, survived albeit in somewhat altered food chains. Now the Blue Mountains boasted a formidable flutduin force of aerial cavalry.

The Korf insisted I exchange Salvation the Second for the finest flutduin he could provide, a saddle bird called Lightning. He was a marvel. I accepted.

So, ascending strapped to Lightning, I bellowed down the remberees and set course for Vondium.

My hopes of meeting up with Seg were dashed, for he'd shot in aboard a voller, brow-beaten everyone into instant action, and shot off again spurring the reinforcements, as it were, before him. Farris had responded with all the vollers and vorlcas he could spare. As ever, our resources were spread thin as butter over the crusts in the poor quarters of Ruathytu.

Delia was not in Vondium, so my side trip was entirely wasted.

Anxious though I was to get back north and finish off Layco Jhansi, I knew well enough the lads up there were in good hands. I indulged myself. I admit it.

The Half Moon, an old theater, now boasted a brand new roof. The seats had been freshly painted and their fleece-stuffed cushions were of high-quality ponsho. There were even a few gilded cornices to add a little glitter. The vision and acoustics remained first class.

Thither I took myself with a few of the pallans and high officials, a few of the officers of the garrison, for a new play was being offered and this night would see the first performance.

Master Belzur the Aphorist, renowned as a playwright in all Vallia, had produced another masterpiece. He'd called it The Thread of Life, and a deeply probing piece it was, making the audience take a fresh look at some of their actions, and the motives, and the results that were never the expected ones. The play was rapturously applauded.

During the interval, as usual, a frothy piece was staged, with much buffoonery and half-naked girls prancing about the stage, and a deal of four-armed tomfoolery.

Afterwards, not feeling in the least tired, I told Farris and the other nobles and pallans that I intended to fly now, right away, and leave for the front.

They set up such a clacking at this that I was persuaded at least to drop by a favorite tavern where we would not be disturbed.

“A flagon or two, majister! By Vox! Do we not deserve that?” So called Naghan Strandar, a trusted pallan.

“You and your colleagues most certainly do, Naghan,” I told him. “As for me, I am not so sure. I remain always itchy and irritable when there is work to be done and I cannot get on with it."

“Aye, majister!"

They wanted to troop off to The Risslaca Transfix'd but I bellowed out: “Oh, no! Oho no! If you insist on my company then I insist on the tavern."

They whooped at this, sensing my change of mood.

“Where, majis?Where?"

“Why, what better place is there than The Rose of Valka?"

That tavern and posting house was very dear to me. Situated on the eastern bank of the Great Northern Cut, the inn had witnessed important events in my life upon Kregen. The owner was Young Bargom, still, and he was overjoyed to see us. Not overwhelmed. As a Valkan making a good living in Vondium and running a respectable house, he was now himself an important member of the community.

We rollicked in and the wine came up and we sat and stretched our legs and talked, and, inevitably, we sang.

I forbade the great song “The Fetching of Drak na Valka” for that would take too long. There were plenty of Valkans there, naturally, and they all called me strom, much to the disapproval of the Vallians of Vondium. So we sang “Naghan the Wily", a Valkan ditty, and “King Naghan his Fall and Rise."

We sang relatively few soldiers’ songs, and this, too, was understandable given the company. We did, though, have a bash at “Have a care with my Poppy” and “The Brumbyte's Love Potion."

In an interlude I leaned over to Farris and spoke quietly. “I really must leave soon, Farris. I'll just ease out unobtrusively. You can calm ‘em down when I'm gone."

He knew me by now.

“If you must, Dray. Opaz knows the work never ceases."

“We must all come to the fluttrell's vane,” I said, and at the next opportunity to excuse myself did so and went outside. The night breathed sweet and still, and She of the Veils sailed golden above. In those moon-drenched shadows I started off, swinging my arms, feeling the lightness of freedom once again.

A shape at my side, a small hand clutching my arm, a girl's voice, whispering in alarm in my ear—

“Dray! Dray! Your face! What are you thinking of, you great fambly! Here—in here, bratch!"

With that she hauled me into a narrow slot of shadowed rose-colored radiance in which we were hidden from all sight from the inn windows.

The shadows fell across me, the shifting illumination across her face.

I did not know her.

She was clad, as best I could make out, in trim-fitting russet leathers, rapier and dagger scabbarded to a narrow waist. Her face was not beautiful. Rather, in its round perkiness it held a cheekiness that would infuriate and enchant. Her eyes—I thought—were Vallian brown. Her large floppy hat drooped about her ears.

I just managed to bite off an instinctive: “Who the hell are you?” No one I do not know and cherish calls me Dray. No one. But she had.

She stared at me anxiously. She made no move to draw her dagger to spit me.

“It seems you believe you know me, Kotera,” I said, and my growly old voice came out alarmingly small.

“Oh, you clown! What d'you think you're doing, parading around with your face?"

“It's mine—"

Now it happened that I'd swung a plum-colored flying cloak about me as I'd stepped out of The Rose of Valka. A furtive movement from the end of the little alley into which this remarkable lady had dragged me drew my instant attention.

My right hand crossed to fasten upon the hilt of my rapier.

A man enveloped in a cloak moved across the alley mouth. I could not see his face, turned away from me and shadowed. But he looked a nasty customer. Big and ugly, no doubt, strong and powerful, and ready to knock some poor innocent down and rob them as to quaff a stoup of ale. He moved not at a crouch but as though coiled and ready to spring savagely upon any who stood in his path. I must say he'd give anyone a queasy turn.

The girl saw him.

She turned that round cheeky face up to me and I saw it was transfixed with horror.

She choked out words, shattered.

“By Zim-Zair! It's—My Val!"

With that she fairly flew along the alley, burst out, grabbed this ugly customer by an arm as she'd grabbed me, and the last I saw of this unlikely and highly suspicious couple was their twinned shadows fleeting over the cobbles. Then they vanished.

I shook my head, “Now what in a Herrelldrin Hell was all that about?"

I did not shrug my shoulders; but I kept my fist wrapped about my rapier hilt as I went off to find Lightning.

There was, of course, no sign of either of them beyond the alley, not the lissom saucy girl or the big ugly fellow who looked as though he ate a whole chunkrah for breakfast.

At the last there, as she'd grasped his arm, he'd turned to her. I'd seen his face. As I say, he was a ferocious plug-ugly brute, with a strong nose and arrogant jut to his chin. He was a fellow I'd think twice about before dealing with. He forced me to think the unwelcome thought, the memory I sidestepped. He held in him something of Mefto the Kazzur, and that was a puzzlement indeed.

Lightning flapped his wings twice and then we were airborne. I shoved the silly incident from my mind and concentrated on what lay ahead.

As they say: “No man or woman born of Opaz knows all the Secrets of Imrien."

The flight under the Moons proved uneventful.

When, after the regulation number of halts along the way to refresh Lightning, he slanted down to the new camp of Turko's Ninth Army, I was feverish with the desire to get things moving.

This time we'd defeat Layco Jhansi, defeat the Racters, deal with the upstart King of North Vallia, and finish up with all this section of Vallia happily re-united.

The Ninth Army was well back to being once again a formidable fighting force. The reinforcements brought the strength up, Seg and Kapt Erndor had brought in regiments of fine fellows, the Phalanx was up to strength, and as soon as Farris brought in Inch's people from the west, we'd have as fine a fighting army under our hands as you could wish for.

On the morning of the next day, the very next morning after I'd joined the army, the air filled with millions of buzzing insects.

Wasps, bees, hornets, all stinging and buzzing, drove the camp into instant confusion, and sent the men of this fine fighting army running madly in every direction.

The Witch of Loh, Csitra, had struck again.

Chapter nine

Stung

Pandemonium! Utter confusion! Men ran and swiped and flapped and swatted everywhere I looked. The river fringing the camp splashed and spouted as men leaped bodily in. Soon the water was dotted with human heads, ducking and surfacing, like berries washed in a basin.

The wasps and bees and hornets—and other typically Kregish stinger horrors—swarmed so thickly in the air they appeared solid clouds, black and yellow, red and orange, bottle green.

Our poor saddle animals, of course, both of the ground and the air, went mad. They galloped or flew off and with a sinking heart I knew we'd not see them again for some good long time. Or, to be more accurate, some evil long time.

I was not stung once.

Everywhere I looked the swarms pirouetted and swooped. They were maddened and had no hesitation in stinging. They'd been goaded before being unleashed on us. Men with faces like pincushions ran past, screaming. I saw a couple of Jikai Vuvushis slapping and beating at each other, their slim bodies and pretty faces swelling grotesquely.

Still I was not stung.

As abruptly as they had appeared, the swarms vanished.

One moment the ground was darkened by their shadows, as if at the heart of a thundercloud, the next the morning lights of Zim and Genodras streamed apple green and rosy pink across the plain.

Once more I will pass over the scenes that followed.

Enough to say that we had injuries to throw back our calculations, men and women shaken by this fresh show of sorcerous power.

Khe-Hi and Ling-Li told me that while they had had no real problem in dispersing the swarms, and, indeed, their reactions had been swift, still it had taken time. Also, and this was far more serious, Khe-Hisaid: “We felt the power of the twinned kharrnas against us distinctly. The mastery of the arts of the uhu, Phunik, has grown alarmingly."

“Someone once speculated that Csitra and Phunik could never achieve the power of Phu-Si-Yantong or constitute a serious threat."

Khe-Hi's wry grimace told me what he thought of that theory.

“Who can say that? What knowledge do they have of the arts? Oh, no. Any Wizard of Loh may grow into the mastery his powers confer. Phunik could easily surpass his father. There is no one in the whole wide world who can guarantee he cannot or will not."

“Drawing a knife across his throat,” put in Nath na Kochwold, speaking through bloated lips, “might settle the issue."

No one commented on the pun, for it didn't exist in quite that form in Kregish. We did agree with Nath. All the same, although Csitra and Phunik quite evidently were a serious threat to us, I clung onto my feeling of confidence that our three mages would achieve the mastery.

As we broke up this small conference to see about the immediate tasks, a voice at the back piped up.

What that voice said—and I didn't recognize the speaker—was: “All these catastrophes fall on us when the emperor is here."

There was the sound of a scuffle and then people were moving off. I made no attempt to follow up an inquiry for there were still people here, loyal to me, who expected emperors to have off the heads of all those who spoke against them.

What that comment did make me do was understand that, indeed it was true, Csitra only struck when I was around.

She had left me alone when I'd been in the Black Mountains and in the Blue Mountains and in Vondium. Why? What was different? Surely a blow there would be even more damaging?

Only Seg and Turko commented on the fact that I'd not been stung, everyone else apparently conceiving it the divine right of rulers not to be stung when the swods were.

“I told you, Dray,” said Turko. “She really does fancy you."

“Right, my old dom. She doesn't want to spoil your pretty face."

I glared at them, comrades both. I didn't laugh; but they did, despite the gravity of it all. Then we went to work to bring the army back to its senses. The needlemen and puncture ladies ran out of ointment and unguents and we sent fast vollers for fresh supplies.

We were delayed; that was all.

Our two mages now kept a continuous vigil, turn by turn; but they reported no further sorcerous attacks.

My bodyguard corps had been stung more severely than most for the simple and warming reason that they conceived their duty lay in standing between me and danger. Targon the Tapster, hardly able to speak, his face a molten red lump, reported in, for he it was who commanded by rote 1ESW this day.

“I am very sorry to see you in this case, Targon. And the lads, too.Particularly when I am the only one who escaped."

Useless to attempt to reproduce the sounds Targon made when he spoke. What he said was: “We all volunteered to serve you, majis, and of what worth a man if he cannot stand by his word? And, anyway, you are wrong."

“Oh?"

“Aye. Wenerl the Lightfoot also was not stung."

I saw at once. My face must have registered the shock, for Targon croaked out: “Majis! You—"

“Call the lads,” I said, my words harsh and grating. “First Emperor's Sword Watch only. Somewhere off a little way across the plain where we can be alone and unobserved. I'll meet you all there in a single bur."

“Quidang!"

When I found Khe-Hi and Ling-Li—who were also not marked, but one did not expect wizards and witches to fail to protect themselves—with our small group we walked out to the plain where 1ESW formed impeccable lines. They all understood.

The jurukkers of the guards, splendid fighting men every one, many of them kampeons, stood in impeccable ranks; but they were fidgeting and trying not to scratch at themselves, and their faces and exposed portions of their bodies wafted the pungent fumes of unguents and liniments.

“One mur for scratching!” I bellowed. “Then attention."

Scabbarded at my waist and in addition to my usual armory, I wore a particular blade. That sword was forged from dudinter. The electrum did not gleam sharply, for the blade had been smeared with ganjid, the wizard's preparation that, in conjunction with the dudinter weapon, could drink the transformed life from a werewolf. I knew that many soldiers carried their dudinter blades in their kit—just in case.

The ranks quieted down as much as I could reasonably expect.

During that werewolf period, Csitra had controlled some of the warrior maidens in our army from her distant lair. When the girls kissed a man, they bit—and the man, at Csitra's pleasure, staring through his eyes, turned into a ganchark, a ravening werewolf.

Wenerl the Lightfoot had been on guard duty in the palace gardens in Vondium and he had been attacked by a werewolf which escaped. I remember how I'd wondered if his mind would recover as easily as his body. Now he wore four medals on his chest, when at the time of the werewolf attack he had worn three bobs. He stood there in the front rank, trim, hard, a fighting man from helmet to boots, his weapons sharp and clean. I felt the pain in my breast.

But he had not been stung.

Csitra, then, had made a mistake.

I shouted: “Wenerl the Lightfoot. Front and center."

He marched up with a clang and stood to attention. I guessed he'd been crowing over his comrades about his good luck in not being stung. Poor Wenerl! He didn't know, of course.

“Jurukker Wenerl! Tell me what you remember of the night you were attacked by the ganchark."

“Quidang, majister—but, majister, I recall nothing. I must have run after the beast—for I only remember waking up with a full clang of the Bells of Beng Kishi in my head, and a wounded shoulder—"

Although to read the expressions on the faces of those assembled here was well-nigh impossible, I guessed from the deep hush that fell upon the regiment and those gathered with me, that many grasped the hideous truth, as in all Opaz's truth, that truth was hideous.

I unlimbered the ganjid-smeared dudinter blade and held the point at Wenerl's throat. He did not flinch. Was I not the emperor whom he served loyally?

I looked deeply into his brown Vallian eyes. I could see the veins, and the little lights, and, in truth, just brown eyes.

I said, “Csitra. With this man you have failed. Is there need to claim his life?"

Wenerl said, “This man means nothing to me."

“But he does to me, Csitra."

“And you mean much to me, Dray Prescot, and yet you scorn me—"

“Wrong, witch. I do not scorn you. I feel sorrow for you—"

That was a mistake.

“You pity me! You dare to pity me!"

In my ear Khe-Hi whispered: “I have it now, Dray, if you wish to see..."

“Thank you, Khe-Hi; but no. My concern is with Wenerl and I will not be distracted—"

Wenerl's voice broke in, saying: “Who is it that stands at your shoulder, Dray Prescot, for there are shadows there—"

Casually, I said, “Just a shadow or two, Csitra, they are nothing.” Khe-hi had obviously wrought a little stroke of his own to avoid Csitra's observation of him through Wenerl's eyes. I went on: “This man is held in thrall to you, the poison in his veins will turn him into a werewolf when you desire. But instead of that you have used him to spy on us. If you do not agree to spare him, then I shall surely kill him—and with my own hand, not entrusting the task to another—so that, in either case, you will have no eyes in my camp."

“Why do you not travel to the Coup Blag and see me, Dray Prescot? You know I can offer you much—"

“Give me an answer, woman!"

“You swear to me that—"

“I promise you nothing, witch."

“I have Pronounced the Nine Unspeakable Curses against Vallia, and they cost me much pain and blood and life energy. They may not be drawn back so easily. Yet this I would do—"

“You know my answer. Spare me this man—"

“So much effort, so much concern, for one stupid tikshim, worth perhaps a few coins in the bagnios?"

Will against will. Stubbornness against Obstinacy.

Then, surprising me, she said: “You do not ask to see me, Dray Prescot. I am a woman not without attractions. Why do you not look upon me, instead of this worthless man? Or is it that you are afraid?"

“One last time, Csitra the Witch. Spare this man's life. There can be no other dealings between us."

“You would think well of me if I did?"

My face must have ricked up in some devilish way, for I swear I heard the voice in Wenerl's throat emit a noise very much like a gasp.

“Think well of you? How can I, after the damage you have wrought?” Then, and thinking primarily of poor old Wenerl the kampeon standing there like a straw dummy, I added with cunning: “But I should certainly think better of you."

So we stood, locked through the eyes of a man whose life trembled in the balance of greed and lust and cunning and contempt. Wenerl gave a great shudder.

His voice said: “Take him, Dray Prescot."

And Wenerl half-stumbled, snapped to immediate attention, and bellowed out: “Quidang, majister!"

I did not relax, and the dudinter blade did not tremble. It had brought a small spot of blood out on Wenerl's neck when he stumbled. Khe-Hi exclaimed at this.

“She has kept her word. Wenerl would be dead else."

“All the same, best keep him under observation for a time. Wenerl,” I barked at him. “You are excused normal duties for three days. Attend to your comrades."

So that was done, and the regiment marched off in good order, and each man there understood a little more of what being a dratted commander entailed.

At least, a commander on the magical and mysterious world of Kregen!

Before news circulated that the emperor had in some mysterious way prevented any further plagues from descending upon us, Nath reported in a way that was, in the circumstances, entirely inevitable.

We stood in under the flap of the HQ tent, a rather ornate affair used for the business of running the army, and Nath rubbed his chin, saying gloomily: “The rate is up to a marked degree. One in fifty and—"

“Not to be wondered at. The rate should go down once the men get to know they won't be plagued again.” Then I added in as somber a tone as Nath na Kochwold's: “Until that she-leem worms another pair of eyes into the camp."

“The worst is that one of Turko's Falinurese regiments has deserted entire."

“That isbad. Whose?"

“Jiktar Robahan Vending's Snarling Strigicaws, the Fifth of Spears."

The Fifth Spears were called Snarling Strigicaws for their shields, which were red and brown and striped above and double-spotted below. In the center they carried the schturval of Falinur. They had not been, in my estimation, a top-line outfit; but they were four hundred and eighty men less to us.

“A bad business. I'll only repeat the old saw; we're better off having the desertions now than later on when we're committed."

“That will not be long now—"

“Thank Opaz!"

So, the next day we broke camp and set off. We were a tidy bunch. One cannot, on Kregen, say we marched off Horse, Foot and Guns. One says we marched off Air and Ground Cavalry, Foot and Varters.

The swods in the ranks sang the moment their swollen lips allowed them that surcease.

We marched west, toward the perfidious Layco Jhansi's capital of Vendalume, and we marched looking for a fight.

Chapter ten

The Battle of Vendalume

The Battle inevitably came to be called the Battle of Vendalume.

Most, not all, battles are interesting. In an academic way they hold great fascination for the student not only of tactics but of human nature. The actuality of battles is disgusting.

I had grown in my seasons upon Kregen to dislike fighting and battles and violence exceedingly, as I am sure you will have perceived. Yet I was still the old intemperate Dray Prescot underneath all the acquired veneer of calm and rationality.

When your countrymen and women—as the peoples of Vallia certainly were by now—are enslaved and treated vilely, then if you are able to liberate them it seems a chivalrous notion to go out and do what you can to restore them to their former freedoms and dignity. I am very wary about this idea of chivalry, and although being called a chivalrous knight, much to my chagrin and inward amusement, I do subscribe to the idea that tasks to be done in this life must be done. If I can get out of the more awkward particulars, then I'll get out sharpish. I am an old paktun, an old leem-hunter, and I value my hide as dearly as the next fellow.

The folk of Vallia had demanded that I become their emperor and lead them out of the Times of Troubles. To be honest, not every citizen of Vallia had demanded this; the dissenters were universally to be found in the ranks of those who profited by the country's misery and who battened and fattened on slavery, confusion and strife.

As usual in my battles when he was present, Seg Segutorio would take the vaward.

These mainly consisted of those lithe and limber young lads, half-naked, armed with javelin, sling and bow, who formed the light infantry, the voltigeurs, the skirmishers. In general they were an unruly bunch. They were formed in regiments, bearing grandiose and pugnacious titles, and they served as a cloud before the storm.

The main of Seg's effort lay with the bowmen. Here his painstaking labors saw fruit in the perfection of our army's shooting. Our dustrectium could paralyze an opposing army.

Now I am aware that accounts of battles are not to everyone's taste. But they do form part of human history, and one can learn much of human nature from their mystery, their patterns, even, if you will, their mystique.

To clear away once and for all any misconceptions, as we marched out onto the wide and dusty plain where we saw the opposing masses forming against us, it would be appropriate to settle finally the business of nomenclature. The pikemen in the Phalanx were called brumbytes, this from the mythical animal, the brumby, all thrusting horn and massive onslaught, that furnished the symbol at the center of their crimson shields. The heavy infantry, equipped with metal armor, with sword and shield and often with a short-range throwing weapon, were called churgurs. The skirmishers, as I have said, were called kreutzin. These Kregish names do not seem to me to be too hard to recall even in the heat and dust of battle.

Any man who rides a ground saddle animal is known as a jutman, or, in the case of a lady, a jutwoman. A rider is a vakka. On Kregen they are not horsemen.

The shrill and tumultuous screeches of Jhansi's trumpets filled the air before us. His banners waved. The word for flag in Kregish is tresh. Our treshes waved back in defiance.

My people had advised me to wear the Mask of Recognition. This oversized mask of a thin gold plating over iron concealed my face, was damned hot and uncomfortable, gave some protection to my ugly old beakhead, I suppose, and marked me instantly to our men.

Our aerial reconnaissance told us the layout of Jhansi's host. Its composition was more conjectural. He had his hordes of sorcerously inflamed crazies, and I felt a pang at thought of the revolting necessity of fighting them. He still had many paktuns, for I'd seen off successfully only a relative few by my ruse in the temple of Lem the Silver Leem. They'd fight and earn their hire this day. I could hope that when, as was damned-well going to happen, the day went against them, they'd have the sense to slope off even if they didn't attempt to change sides.

I said to Seg and Kapt Erndor, standing by Turko and Nath na Kochwold: “The old barn door."

“Right you are,” said Seg. “I'll tickle ‘em up, by the Veiled Froyvil."

“The Phalanx,” said Nath, “will fight this day under its proper commander.” He indicated the Brumbytevax of the Fourth Phalanx, Brytevax Dekor.

I nodded, not speaking, waiting for my comrade to come out with what was clearly his own cunning scheme. Nath na Kochwold, the Krell-Kapt[i] of the entire Phalanx Force, all five Phalanxes of it, in theory had no real field command. Each half of a Phalanx, each Kerchuri, was commanded in action by its Kerchurivax, the men who did the work in battle. We already had the Sixth Kerchuri with the Ninth Army, and the losses from those damned frogs had been made up by Seg's reinforcements. Also, he had flown up the Tenth Kerchuri, half of the newly raised Fifth Phalanx. So we had four Kerchuris.

Nath na Kochwold gazed at me with rather the expression a young man might bestow upon a flagon of the best ale of Vondium suddenly chanced upon in the Ochre Limits.

“This is the position,” I said. I spoke largely, for, Zair forgive me, I relished the serious and disciplined Nath's anxious hanging-upon every word. This was a grievous sin on my part, and I own it, for I paid for it in the end, by Zair I paid, as you shall hear...

“We have the Seventh and Eighth Kerchuris of the Fourth Phalanx. These will be commanded by Brytevax Dekor. So well and good. We also have the veteran Sixth Kerchuri of the Third Phalanx, and they are superior lads in all senses.” I glanced at Nath and went on: “I'd rather thought I'd hold them in reserve."

Nath managed to croak out: “I see, majis."

I didn't miss that use of majis, either...

“As for the newly arrived Tenth Kerchuri, of the Fifth Phalanx, they are not as green as they may seem. They inherit not only the glory but also many of the lads of the old Tenth who fought so valiantly at the Battle of Ovalia."

“Also they inherit the insignia of the old Tenth,” pointed out Turko, “the Prychan grasping Thunderbolts. I was there. That was the Eighth Army. Oh, yes, we sprang the thorn ivy trap on them all right. Layco Jhansi ran off then with his tail between his legs, and he had some of the iron legions of Hamal to fight for him."

“We've come a long way since then.” I spoke in a way that conveyed more to listeners than idle boasting. “We've driven Jhansi back, Turko has secured his kovnate of Falinur, and now we have driven into Vennar and have him forced to turn and fight for his capital. Slow we may be; but we are re-uniting Vallia, even if to the outside world who knows little of what goes on in the islands we seem to be doing nothing."

Nath's face was a wonder to behold; I hoped he wouldn't blow up before he was put out of his misery.

To that charitable end, I said: “We have a few regiments of swarths, chief among them Jiktar Nath Roltran's unruly mob, who I am told call themselves the Trampling Green Scaled Regiment.” Swarths, reptile mounts with four legs and wedge-heads all, as it were, designed to lumber forward in a straight line, do have strength and power but their turn of speed leaves much to be desired. I went on: “Jhansi has received a sizeable reinforcement of swarthmen. It is probable that he has stopped running and turned to fight us because they do add considerably to his strength."

“There's Vendalume,” pointed out Turko. “That's making him fight, too, I expect.” He was as well aware as I what went forward with the suffering Nath.

Seg said: “Or he didn't relish running on and going slap-bang into old Inch. But, these swarthmen, now...” Seg, like Turko, had poor old Nath na Kochwold to rights.

Sharply, I said: “Nath! You will command the Sixth Kerchuri. In reserve. They are under your hand. You will have a flutduin reconnaissance flight. Those enemy swarths are yours. The moment you see their direction get the lads moving and chop ‘em up.” Almost, I finished with a cracked out: “Dernun?” which means savvy, do you understand, and is not particularly polite.

Nath braced himself. He looked so relieved as to make Seg and Turko look out across the open plain toward the distant city.

“We will hit those swarthmen, Dray,” he said, and his voice was level and sure.

No doubt with all these high-flown commanders and officers in their correct positions, he'd actually contemplated not having a command this day...

Then Turko put his oar in.

“Ah, Dray—Seg brought up from Vondium the Fifth Churgurs. They were with us at Ovalia. I'd rather like—"

“Certainly. What do they call themselves now?"

“The Prickly Thorns."

“Yes, well one or two regiments can play on that variety of name..."

So we sorted out what went where and who commanded whom. The regiments looked splendid under the suns, for not a cloud darkened the sky. The war had not so far ruined this part of Vennar and the grass sparkled, sweet-smelling and fresh. In the distance the walls and towers of Vendalume beckoned us on.

Already as the columns moved into position the swods were singing hymns, chants, paeans. The religious observances had been scrupulously performed with due solemnity and ceremony.

Now I have said that it was usual in my battles for Seg to take the vaward. But this battle rightfully belonged to Turko and Kapt Erndor.

Turko had matured into a first-class commander, and Kapt Erndor became more and more the Chief of Staff. I made a decision.

“I'll drift across to my lads,” I told Turko. “I rather fancy a little arm-swinging will be good for all of us. You and Kapt Erndor can run the battle."

“Well, now, Dray—"

“Good,” I said, briskly. “That's settled."

The standards of the Phalanx fluttered splendidly. Each Jodhri, six of which formed a Kerchuri, carried its own colors. The original Prescot flag, a plain yellow cross upon a scarlet field, specially presented to the Phalanx Force, was now variously identified by symbols for each formation. Also the colors carried battle honors. Bullion and golden threads weighted those colors ... A wreath of thorn ivy decorated each color within the Tenth Kerchuri. A similar wreath gleamed from the standards of the Fifth Churgurs. Other regiments carried that proud battle honor—not many, for the Eighth Army had been a force remarkably few in numbers.

When I joined 1ESW, no thorn ivy wreaths decorated their standards, for 2ESW had fought at Ovalia. The battle honor gleamed above the treshes of 1EYJ. My lads set up a racketing yell when I trotted up aboard a borrowed zorca, Tuftears. They flashed their swords aloft and yelled, and the Hai Jikai roared to the heavens.

Just across from us the Twenty-first Brigade of Zorcabows waited, fidgeting a trifle, proud zorca heads tossing so that the spiral horns glittered in the light. This brigade, commanded by Chuktar Travok Ramplon, was part of Seg's vaward, assigned the task of clearing away the enemy's forward forces. To beef up the brigade somewhat, a regiment of Zorca Lances had been assigned to Chuktar Ramplon as an extra unit.

Seg, with his personal bodyguard, trotted past, standards fluttering, suns light glinting from armor and weapons. By Vox! But he looked an impressive sight!

The units gave responding cheers, and then Seg was gone, gone out to his post of command in the vaward to face the perils and dangers of being first into action.

Well, not quite first, for the aerial squadrons were already aloft and snuffing about ready to throw back any aerial advance made by Jhansi. Once that necessary preliminary had been accomplished the fliers and the flyers would swarm over to the attack. The torments they were likely to inflict on Jhansi's forces could sway the course of the battle.

The Second Regiment of the Emperor's Sword Watch, not a little cocky with their thorn ivy wreaths of honor in presence of the First Regiment, with that very same 1ESW and First and Second EYJ, formed the guard brigade here today. They were not often thus collected together with the emperor. And, still, Drak had regiments of ESW and EYJ with him in the southwest. I anticipated using the brigade of jurukkers as the final all-out battle-winning hammer stroke.

With steady pace and as impeccable a drill as one could legitimately expect on such an occasion, the swods formed the battle line.

Over there, between us and the ramparts of Vendalume, the dark masses of the enemy could be seen forming their battle line. Aerial scouts reported every movement, and attempted to deny the enemy air any observation of our own maneuvers.

Over there, Layco Jhansi and his cronies, chief among whom I suspected was still Malervo Norgoth, if he wasn't already dead and gone down to the Ice Floes of you know where, would be anxiously preparing their people. The stinking sorcerer, Rovard the Murvish, would be inflaming the poor deluded dupes in the ranks. I'd spoken to Khe-Hi about this.

The Wizard of Loh had replied: “There is a limit to all things. Rovard will probably have drugged the wines, as well as using his brand of sorcerer's art upon the people. We have been fully tied up combating Csitra and Phunik.” He spoke with his usual metallic precision. “Rovard will operate on an individual basis. We would have to take far too much time to rectify his mischief."

“I understand.” Then I passed on to a more cheerful subject. “I suppose the moment the battle is won you and Ling-Li will wish to be married."

He smiled. “We shall marry here in Vallia, for we wish to make this our home. But, of course, we shall have to travel to Loh at some time to ratify the contracts."

“Oh, of course.” I knew there was a lot more sorcerous proceedings to be gone through in Loh to take them back there, and nothing much to do with ratifying contracts.

There is little I can tell you about the battle itself, for, as I have remarked, it is impossible for a single man to grasp at all that goes on during these absences of sanity from the world. Even the commander in chief can seize on only the salient points. To build up a picture of a battle one must patiently seek out many sources.

The aerial combats could be seen easily enough and our flutduins overmastered the enemy's fluttrells and mirvols. Our force of vollers smashed his. Seg did his usual competent job and cleared the front so that we had the main of it from the beginning. Then he went off to make sure his archers—I will not say beloved archers, for Seg was as intolerant of his bowmen's shooting as Nath was of his brumbytes in the files—added to the carnage.

Charges went in and were successful or were repulsed. The old barn door stratagem, by which one end of the line is firmly anchored and the whole then pivots about this fulcrum, smashing everything in the way, once again proved itself. Jhansi, at any rate, was caught by it. He no longer had the advantage of being counseled by experienced Hamalese Kapts.

Nath na Kochwold judged his particular moment to perfection and when the enemy swarths charged the Sixth Kerchuri received them and broke them as a wave is broken upon rocks.

When it came time for the guard brigade to charge, we went in with a whoop and a holler and slashed into the fleeing flanks of the mobs who were attempting to run away from the charge of the Fourth Phalanx.

Oh, well, the battle went our way and the poor crazed idiots fought well, and died, and then, suddenly they were all running. The paktuns employed by Jhansi fought redoubtably for some time and then, being professionals, and seeing the way of the day, they sought to make good their escape.

We let them go.

After it was all over and the gates of Vendalume shut in our faces, we imagined that a siege must follow.

“Look!” Seg pointed, tall in the stirrups.

The gates of the city opened. A party appeared with flags of truce. Among the flags were three tall poles with bundles at their tips.

Nath said: “I think we can judge what this portends."

“Aye."

All over the stricken field the wounded were being collected and cared for. Fundal the Pestle-Breaker, an experienced doctor, reported that the crazies were crazed no more. They had returned to their senses and were bewildered by their situation and what they could not remember doing. There was a deal of wailing and yelling, I can tell you, and not all from the wounded.

“There's your reason.” Turko indicated the bundles at the tips of the poles.

I suppose that of treacheries like these, empires are made.

Rovard the Murvish's head still stank, even stuck on top of a pole. Alongside him the head of an extremely ugly woman even in death half-turned away. She had been called, I believe, the obi-stromni Dafeena Norgoth. These two heads dribbled blood down the shafts of the poles. Alongside them the sightless eyes of Layco Jhansi showed pits of reddened black horror. Little blood dripped down his pole.

The fellow who had torn his clothes and smeared mud upon himself yet wore a silver and gilt chain about his neck. He was the mobiumim, the chief representative of the civil power, equivalent in many ways to the mayor. He went into the full incline, nose in the dirt, rump in the air.

I let him.

The three heads moved against the sky, their bearers trembling beneath, faces pinched, hardly daring to look at the emperor. The other dignitaries all flopped down, following the example of the mobiumim, so that I was presented with a sea of rumps.

This was too ridiculous.

“Get up, famblys! Stand on your own feet!"

They scrambled up as though red hot irons had tickled them up.

I said: “Where is Ralton Dwa-Erentor?"

He was the son of a minor noble, a great sleeth racer, and I knew he had been forced against his will to follow Layco Jhansi. With him, I would deal.

“He has been gone from Vennar for many seasons, majister,” spluttered out the mobiumim. “Gone overseas to be a paktun."

“Your name?” I was disappointed; but there would be god-fearing and good men to be found here.

“Larghos Nevanter the Lace merchant, majister, an it please you."

“I do not know this name of Vennar you use. Half of the city of Vendalume stands in Kov Turko's province of Falinur, and the other half in Kov Inch's province of the Black Mountains. I am sure you know that."

“Oh, yes, indeed, majister, oh, yes, I know!"

“Good. Now report to my people and do as you are told.” I urged Tuftears around and then turned to bellow over my shoulder: “And give those disgusting objects a decent burial, for the sweet sake of Opaz!"

Cantering off I wondered if Tarek Malervo Norgoth had already been dead or if he had escaped. Well, we'd soon find out. Khe-Hi and Ling-Li were just riding across to me, and as I saw them I felt a distinct glow of pleasure.

“Vondium!” I shouted to them. “We're off to Vondium first thing to see you two safely married!"

That activity was far more preferable than battles!

In this wise ended the Battle of Vendalume and the death of the traitor, Layco Jhansi.

Chapter eleven

An Occult Wedding

The first rats ran swarming between the legs of the people just as the wedding procession left the Temple of Opaz Unknown.

The edifice had not been damaged during the recent Times of Troubles, and folk whispered that this was because the temple was dedicated to the manifestation of Opaz in his guise as arbiter of all things magical and arcane—Unknown and therefore awful—and no sane man or woman brought that kind of trouble on themselves.

The temple glittered with gold and ornamentation beneath its jet-black dome, music soared, and the flagstoned square pent between canals flanking the temple's entrance stairway was carpeted with thousands of yelling citizens of Vondium cheering for the wedding of Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling.

The day, also, was the Day of Opaz Unknown.

Everybody was pleased for the wedding and that Khe-Hi and Ling-Li had found happiness together in their magical way. For, to be honest, no one was going to chance not cheering for them or wishing them well.

This lavish wedding ceremony should be the culmination in Vallia of the Occult Romance between these two mages. They both looked magnificent, gorgeously dressed, and no expense had been spared. Well, again, who was going to chance sparing an expense when a Witch and a Wizard of Loh got married...?

Between the hordes of rats ran leepitixes, wriggling on their twelve legs and unhappy at being out of water. Thousands of schrafters, millions of these creatures who infest dungeons and sharpen their teeth on the bones there, ran and chirruped through the throngs. And rasts—the six-legged animals dragged from their dung-heaps—ran crazily over the flagstones, leaping upon people's backs, clawing at them, fastening their claws into flesh and blood.

Rasts—running in their millions along the avenues and boulevards of Vondium!

For the wedding ceremony, Deb-Lu-Quienyin had put in an appearance. He'd been working his magics to defend Vallia. Now, standing in the position occupied by what on Earth would be called the Best Man, he looked furiously angry. He wore a brand new turban, and I'd insisted that it should be properly festooned with pearls and precious gems and gold bullion. Also, we had fixed it so that it wouldn't keep slipping off—or so we imagined.

“Just give me a mur, Khe-Hi,” he said. “I do not think you should be troubled on your wedding day."

Ling-Li stood there, calmly, very lovely in her wedding gown, and seemed to soar above the problems. She simply waited for Deb-Lu to fix the problem, as though he was looking for a dropped glove.

She had surprised me vastly by asking me to take the position which, again on the Earth, can best be described as Father of the Bride. I had given her away.

Delia had laughed fit to bust at this, and, the most perfectly beautiful and most perfectly devious woman in two worlds, had helped wholeheartedly. Now Delia said: “This is disgraceful. Poor Ling-Li—oh, Deb-Lu, dear, do hurry!"

“Of course, majestrix!"

Delia's rapier flashed into her hand and she twitched away a rat that tried to climb Ling-Li's wedding gown.

I was wearing a whole wardrobe of popinjay finery, and somewhere in there I had a rapier. I groped among all the folderols for the hilt. Come the day when Dray Prescot couldn't grip his rapier and draw in a twinkling!

The blade came free in time to slash a schrafter from Seg's shoulder where the thing was about to try to gnaw on Seg's skull. His own blade flickered in return and I felt the body on my shoulder flicked off. The tall collars we wore, highly ornate, called mazillas, gave us some protection; but if the rats started climbing up inside all our gorgeous clothing...!

Khe-Hi held Ling-Li's arm. But his eyeballs swiveled to regard Deb-Lu with great concern.

“Yes, yes,” said Deb-Lu. “I can manage, thank you."

Shortly thereafter the swarms of sewer-rats and schrafters and leepitixes and rasts vanished.

The square, a moment before a torrential mass of people running and slapping and shouting, slowly began to quiet down.

Contrary to popular opinion there had been no greatly unpleasant lot of stinks from this infestation.

By dint of a great deal of exertion we got the wedding procession formed and moving again. The happy couple proceeded to their waiting narrow boat, hugely freighted with flowers, and the volunteer crew sent the boat smoothly along the canal. The cheers were far more muted than I cared for; but they picked up as the boat glided along between the throngs clustered on balconies and jetties, throwing petals, singing, and generally realizing that the excitement of an unpleasant variety was over and the excitements far more to their taste could now begin.

The reception—to give an Earthly name to the wild party it truly was—was held in one of the better-preserved chambers of the palace. Some of the windows were still boarded up; but the carpets were new and the tapestries had been collected from here and there to hide the burn marks on the walls.

We seldom used this chamber—the Hall of Drak Exalted—because it was pretty big and draughty, preferring the more cozy rooms where we ate and worked. Still, on this wedding day it served admirably.

As for foods and wines—we fed all Vondium this day and never recked the cost. I, for one, and there were many like me, was glad to see the happiness in the faces of Khe-Hi and Ling-Li.

And that had nothing to do with the fact that they were mages, a Wizard and a Witch of Loh.

During a moment when the dancers were changing places and people were buzzing with joy at the way we had managed to extricate ourselves from a nasty situation, Khe-Hi came over to me. He was carrying a wine goblet. His bride was dancing away with Nath na Kochwold. Everyone had come to Vondium for the wedding.

Khe-Hi lifted the glass.

“To you, Dray. In thanks."

I smiled and replied in proper form, and then he went on: “If we have a child, or children, they will have to be born and raised in Loh if they are to be Wizards or Witches of Loh. There are certain arcane matters to be attended to."

“I can well believe."

“I would ask your permission and that of the empress to call our eldest son Dray and our eldest daughter Delia."

Seg laughed.

“I didn't ask permission. But, then, I thought my old dom was dead."

Inch, towering above us, and being the subject of the sternest admonitions from Sasha not to eat squish pie, said: “My eldest is Dray, too. I think there will be a plethora of Drays in Vallia before long."

Delia was out on the floor dancing with the Lord Farris.

I said: “I know I am delighted, Khe-Hi, and it is to me you do the honor. As for Delia, I am sure she will feel the same. Still, you'd better ask her."

As I spoke I saw Nath na Kochwold and the Lord Farris, in their dancing, glide closely alongside each other. The two women dancing with them, for a moment in the whirling gyrations to the beat of the music, paused.

Khe-Hi smiled and said: “Ling-Li is pleased, too, for there is no more gracious lady than the empress."

My Val! Here in the dilapidated although decked out Hall of Drak Exalted, in the palace in Vondium!

Sorcery at work, clearly, for Delia had given her acquiescence to the request.

I suppose we'd be the Earthly equivalent of God parents, too...

The music and the laughter and animated chatter enveloped everyone then and so, for a space, I was able to lean up against a curtain-shrouded pillar, in a trifle of shadows, and look out on the spectacle. Scents and perfumes were discreetly in evidence, for all the ladies were well aware of the empress's views on scents. Many and many a face I saw there, in that throng, I knew, and of them you have been introduced in my narrative to, what, ten percent? If that. A planet is a large place, inhabited by millions, and a thousand years is a long time.

Often at functions like this I had seen, perhaps, a scuttling red-brown scorpion, or a scarlet and golden raptor flying above my head, and I'd been whirled up by that enormous phantom blue Scorpion of the Everoinye to do their bidding. I now experienced a most weird sensation.

For I was seriously worrying over the lack of communications from the Star Lords. I had things on my mind, problems of which I was aware through what the Star Lords had revealed to me. I wanted to know more. When you have been snatched up by a phantom Scorpion, or indulged in slanging matches with a speaking bird, you tend to think of the immediate items first, you do stand in awe. My questions, wrong though they might be, were for quieter moments. And so, the weird sensation? Why I, Dray Prescot, seriously considered how I could get in touch with the Star Lords, how I could originate that fearful communication between us.

I actually, really and truly, wanted to see a scorpion, or the Gdoinye. I wanted to be snatched up by the phantom blue Scorpion of the Star Lords.

Thinking these surprising and, if the truth be known, fractious thoughts, I saw Marion walking up to me, half-smiling, with Strom Nango in tow. They were both, as befitted the occasion, resplendently dressed.

I roused myself.

“Not long now, Marion, before you and Strom Nango give us all this same pleasure."

“We look forward to the day, majister. I trust no unfortunate happening will upset our day."

“Marion!” said Nango, in that kind of whispering, half-chiding voice that denotes unease at what a lovedove says.

I brushed that away, seeing beyond these two the hall gyrating, as it were, around the dancers, the orchestras playing by rote, the scents of good wines and foods in the air. Marion—the Stromni Marion Frastel of Huvadu—and Strom Nango ham Hofnar were not just paying the required polite moment of conversation here. Marion got it out smartly enough—well, she would, seeing she was a Jiktar in the Jikai Vuvushis raised by the Sisters of the Sword.

“Majister! After this period of time, do you not think my unfortunate girls can return to the imperial bodyguard? I mean—” she gestured with a beringed hand, “—they were not to blame that they created werewolves. And that is all over. We missed the Battle of Vendalume. Many of the girls were most cross about that."

“Anybody who can show good reason to miss a battle should congratulate herself."

She looked uncertain at this; was this, it was clear both she and Nango were thinking, was this the way an emperor should speak?

Letting the conversation wander on a little after that without directing its course, I realized that Marion felt deeply that her new regiment of warrior maidens had not been in the fight. But more worrying was the way she kept inadvertently referring to “unfortunate” incidents, and “regrettable” occurrences. If she reflected the general feelings in Vondium—and she was representative enough to persuade me she did—then the folk here were damned uneasy about all these sorcerous goings on. As they would be, of course, and understandably so, to be sure. But it was the way in which these fears were expressed that depressed me.

What Marion seemed to be implying was that: “It's all your fault, majister, that we suffer so; but we don't really blame you for our misfortunes."

Was I to be an emperor on sufferance, then?

“As to your girls, Marion, Wendy and Mich are handling affairs commendably. The regiment comes along, I am told. I feel it correct that it should be composed of Jikai Vuvushis from various sororities."

“Yes, majister. Also, the regiment is called The Beckoning Leems. Everyone agreed on the name, and—"

She saw my face.

“Majister!” Her voice quavered. Strom Nango put a hand down onto her shoulder, and I wondered who was supporting whom.

This name was just another example of that weird warped Kregan sense of humor, that the girls would beckon their foes and then like leems devour them. The leem was very often the symbol for savage power, untamed and destructive, and in the normal course of events one saw leem-symbols along with chavonths and strigicaws and mortils and all the other wonderful varieties of Kregan wildlife. Marion did not know, I believed, of Lem the Silver Leem.

“As well call your girls a regiment of churmods, Marion. Malignant, malevolent, not to be trusted. You must think of another name."

“Yes, majister."

They went away after that, very subdued.

Regiments liked to give themselves high-flown and resounding names. For the lads of my guard corps the number and the initials could not be bettered. That thought made me call over Chuktar Emder Volanch. He was a much-decorated kampeon, a Freedom Fighter of Valka, and an old comrade whom I do not believe I have mentioned before although we had served together enough times, by Vox.

“Strom—the regiment prospers, thank Opaz."

He knew exactly why I'd beckoned him over. His face, hard as a nut, contrasted sharply with his casual evening robes. He told me that the new guard regiment had been superbly trained up and he was greatly desirous of seeing it in action. The regiment was the First Emperor's Foot Bows. As Chuktar Volanch said: “Even Kov Seg Segutorio has given 1EFB the accolade for their shooting."

“Excellent work, Emder,” I congratulated him. “You have done well. And, believe me, there will be work for you and your lads when we hit the Racters, Opaz rot ‘em."

“We are ready, strom."

“Chuk Loxan is not to be seen?"

Chuktar Emder smiled. “Balass the Hawk took his regiment off into the wilds for rigorous training. Loxan welcomed this. He and I, strom, well, there is a rivalry between his 1ELC and my 1EFB to become the first into action."

I could well believe it.

If my blade comrade Balass the Hawk was knocking sword and shield work into the First Regiment of the Emperor's Life Churgurs, then, by the Brass Sword and Glass Eye of Beng Thrax! they'd find out what rigorous training meant!

I said to Chuktar Emder, “This is a bet that will never be collected. 1EFB and 1ELC are likely to go into action together."

“As Opaz will, strom."

A tremendous racket burst up just then and everyone turned as the happy couple prepared to make their exit.

Khe-Hi and Ling-Li really did look happy, and this gladdened me. We needed all the happiness we could scrape up in Vallia. Many and scurrilous were the shouted remarks as they were sent royally off, remarks that in other circumstances no one in his right mind would shout at a Witch or Wizard of Loh. They were showered with flower petals. When, at last, their narrow boat glided off into the moons light, we all trooped back for a final round of dancing and drinking, of talking and singing.

I said to Delia: “One dance, my girl, and then I'm off."

Her gaze did marvelous things to my spine.

Later that night I said, “I really am going. Up to Falkerdrin—I'm not waiting for Natyzha Famphreon to die and then be called in."

“Dray!"

“Oh, yes, I know. I shan't slip a knife between her ribs or drop poison into her wine—although there are many and many who would say she deserves that quietus."

“So you're rushing off like a chunkrah—"

I kissed her and later said: “I'm going to have a little spying on my own account. We have to beat the Racters fast, because of this oaf the so-called King of North Vallia."

She turned over and stretched. “I wish I could come with you. It would prove interesting. But I am committed to—"

“The Sisters of the Rose."

I dearly wanted to know if she had been maneuvered into becoming the mistress of that secret Order. She would not tell, naturally. This, then, was another reason why I wanted so badly to contact the Star Lords. They'd know.

She made no direct answer, as I expected, but said, “If you are gone from Vondium that she-leem Csitra will search for you."

“Without dupes she will not find me. And I have perfect confidence in Deb-Lu."

“As have I, thank Opaz."

So, after due preparations and fully kitted out I slipped quietly out of Vondium, heading north, flying in the mingled radiance of Zim and Genodras, and set course for Falkerdrin.

Chapter twelve

Nalgre the Point

Oby, Dwaby and Sosie Fintle set me down safely into a small woodland some way inside the borders of Falkerdrin. Triplets are not all that common on Kregen, twins being far more common than they are on Earth, and the Fintle triplets provided an interesting study for the student of genetics. They were alike as three peas in a pod, except for the fact that Sosie was a girl.

They belonged to my secret group of agents, and they'd been trained by Naghan Raerdu, who was a spy par excellence. His attitude was either to go invisible, or to go big.

He, himself, habitually went big, and yet could become inconspicuous on the spot if needs be—when he laughed. These triplets were of the invisible variety; once seen never remembered. They handled the flier I'd prised out of Farris very well, and I was confident we had not been observed.

“If only you'd let us go with you, majis,” grumbled Oby.

Dwaby added, “We wouldn't get in your way, majis."

And Sosie finished: “Majis, please say yes."

I said, “Nope, and that's final. Get my gear off and then you can shove off. Farris needs this voller."

They didn't enjoy this; they obeyed and soon my zorca, preysany and piles of kit were overside and under the trees. I bid them the remberees in a most cheerful fashion; they replied in a way that suggested that they'd seen the last of me. The voller rose beyond the trees, turned and fled hugging the contours.

I said to Snagglejaws, my zorca: “Well, my lad, you and Swivelears here are in for it now."

He tossed his single spiral horn in reply, and stamped a hoof. That spiral horn was not particularly long. His hide was of a mangey grayish color, rather more hairy and tufty than smooth and sleek. He had a damned wicked eye. He looked a mess. Yet Snagglejaws was among the strongest, sturdiest, most willing of all the zorcas; he wasn't in Shadow's class; but then, what zorca was?

This reminded me of the time in Djanduin when I'd made the acquaintance of just such a zorca, Dust Pounder—although, to be fair, Snagglejaws looked a mess while Dust Pounder was a blood zorca.

The preysany, Swivelears, showed the whites of his eyes as I loaded the kit onto his back. It was perfectly clear he was saying in preysanish: “Why by all the gods do I carry the kit and Snagglejaws doesn't?"

Still, that was the way of it on Kregen, and when I swung up into the saddle on Snagglejaws’ back I fancied Swivelears gave a whinny of satisfied amusement.

So we set off along a trail toward Fakransmot, a town where, so our intelligence said, Natyzha Famphreon recruited paktuns.

For, of course, despite the zorca between my knees, following Naghan the Barrel's advice I'd chosen to go big. I'd be a hyrpaktun, one of the most renowned of all mercenaries. I'd wear the pakzhan at my throat, the silken cords looped up over my shoulder, and the golden dazzle of the Zhantil's head device would tell any onlooker that here was a free lance of formidable reputation.

Naturally, I'd shifted my features around a trifle and allowed my whiskers to grow so that they helped disguise me, and the multitude of bee stings on my face that was the price of too drastic changes could be substantially muted.

The small golden or silver rings that secure the golden or silver devices to the silk at a paktun's neck serve another purpose. If one paktun slays another in fair combat he takes the ring and threads it up on a trophy string called a pakai. I'd put on a whole hefty chingle of rings on my pakai. If I got into a fight I could secure it firmly so that no foeman could grab it and so catch me at a disadvantage. All the same, I didn't like the thing.

Very briefly, then, I will say that I was equipped as a Kregan would like to be equipped—a stout zorca between my knees, a tough preysany loaded with kit, and armed with a Lohvian longbow, a drexer, a rapier and main gauche, a few odd knives and terchicks about my person, and the great Krozair longsword scabbarded down my back under the plain black cape.

In addition, a tough shield of an oval shape and with a snarling neemu on its face lay athwart Swivelears’ rump. I had no lance. There was a reason for this. When I was employed by Natyzha Famphreon's officers, I intended to go for a swod as a bowman, not a lancer. The shield I would explain away. It was black, and the neemu of bright brass.

The forests up here in Falkerdrin extended for considerable areas over the kovnate. Some of them were infested with wild hatchevarus; but they were fierce enough to drag down a charcoal burner and not powerful enough seriously to challenge a soldier with a sword. I trotted on, easily, guiding Snagglejaws with my knees, although he followed the track and did not need guidance. Swivelears trotted along behind on the leading rope.

He was carrying the bits and pieces of armor I'd thought suitable. Reluctantly I'd discarded any idea of taking some of the superb supple mesh from the Dawn Lands. I had a kax, shoulder pieces, pauldrons, pteruges and greaves. Even then it was doubtful if I'd use the lot all at once. Wearing armor is a funny old business; you most devoutly need it in the heat of battle, yet you chafe under it and wish for the freedom of movement you'd have if you chucked the lot down.

Still, there it was if I needed it. Easing the zorca to a walk I let him amble along. The edge of the woods was soon reached and I debouched out into a long slanting valley, well-watered and lush with flowers, and with the sea distant and blue on the horizon.

We'd chosen to land here because the port of Roombidge on the north coast of the kovnate received the argosies from overseas bringing in the mercenaries hired by Natyzha Famphreon. The paktuns were streaming ashore at many ports along the coast, and at ports on the coasts of the Belains to the southwest and of Vekby to the west. The plan was for me unobtrusively to join up with a caravan journeying to Fakransmot.

To this end I reined in when a village showed up ahead. The suns were declining and I was lucky. A string of riders wended along the trail clearly intending to put up for the night in the village of Rernal, and as they dismounted by the single inn I eased in among them, as though seeking for a good position. I did not make a fuss over it. I was gambling that in the short distance from the coast everyone might not have come to know everyone else. From the conversations as the mercenaries spread out I realized they had traveled aboard ships different from their countries of origin. There were plenty of diffs among them.

I stayed with that bunch all the way to Fakransmot. The state of the kovnate impressed me. Natyzha was a damned hard overseer of labor; there were many slaves and the fields were in good heart. We had done as well down south; I doubt if we'd done better.

During the ride I spoke when spoken to, kept to myself and stayed out of trouble. This was the attitude of most of the paktuns; some of the youngsters—untried, green, coys—starting out on their first mercenary job skylarked around a little; the old hands kept clear of them.

Every day I rode for a considerable period with my eyeballs, as it were, out on stalks and scouring the skies. There was no sign of the Gdoinye, the scarlet and golden-feathered bird sent by the Everoinye to spy on me. Typical! Just when you wanted the flaming onkerish thing, it didn't show up!

“Duck your fool head, dom!” The voice purred level and habituated to command.

Without thought I ducked.

The tree branch went past over head and the leaves snatched off my fancy wide-brimmed hat with the maroon feather. Hauling up Snagglejaws I looked around. We'd been riding slowly through a field moments before, when I'd been apostrophizing the Star Lords; feeling down, I'd put my head down for a space, and an angle of the woods had nearly kinked it off.

“I thank you, dom.” I hopped off the zorca and fetched my hat. “My head is of little value; I wouldn't like to damage this hat."

“Ha!” he said. “A joker."

By the dripping mucous and yellow puss of Makki Grodno's left eyeball! What would folk say to that? A joker?

“One has to live,” I said, and climbed back into the saddle. He reined alongside and gave the lahal.

“I am Nalgre the Point—not, I hasten to add, a name of my own choosing and one of which lately I grow tired.” He was not apim like me. He was an olumai, and he looked like a panda; he wore a white tunic with a golden hem and he did not carry a rapier, instead he had a lynxter strapped to his waist. The lynxter instead of a rapier and main gauche, which many of the paktuns wore for travel, indicated Nalgre the Point's origin. He was from Loh. Also, like me, he concealed his pakzhan at his throat.

I said my name was Kadar the Silent. Kadar was a name used by me aforetime and happened to be the name inscribed on the reverse of the golden image of the zhantil on its silken cords at my throat. By Zair! That had all happened a long time ago! Now, I was a properly accredited and legal hyrpaktun—I was no fake.

We talked occasionally and I gathered Nalgre the Point hankered after something he kept secret. He did say: “I find myself feeling a strange emotion for the people of Vallia. I almost feel sorry for them. Yet troublous times give us our livelihood, brother. Who are we to complain?"

A trifle incautiously, I said: “When all Vallia is pacified we paktuns will find employment elsewhere."

“For one dubbed Silent, Kadar, when you speak you enlarge grandly upon the course of events."

Acting my part, I did not reply.

When we reached Fakransmot we discovered that mercenaries were being hired on there; but the dowager kovneva had shifted her headquarters northwards, almost to the Mountains of the North, often called the Snowy Mountains.

Nalgre the Point looked out from the tavern windows where they were signing men on to the yard, where the red and green suns smoked dusty ruby and jade across the waiting men, the saddle animals, the hurrying slaves. He put a powerful paw to his chin.

“I have been told that in Vallia it is not cold weather until you cross the Snowy Mountains."

“That is right, zhan[ii],” said the Hikdar at the table. “Now just sign on with us and—"

“My heart was set on joining the dowager kovneva."

Instantly, standing at Nalgre's side, I got out: “Mine too."

“That is, of course, your privilege.” The Hikdar, flamboyantly attired and smothered with the black and white favors, Racter colors, gave a grimace which indicated he was conveying a private confidence. “We fare better down here against the forces of the so-called Emperor of Vallia than they do up in the north against the King of North Vallia."

He made a further attempt to induce us to join his regiment, and when we refused, waved us pettishly away.

Outside, Nalgre said: “So we ride north?"

“Aye."

“Let us, for the sake of Beng Dikkane, find another tavern to refresh ourselves first."

Without wearying you with details of our ride north, I will content myself with saying that Nalgre the Point proved an agreeable companion. He nursed this secret hurt, something troubling him he wrestled with constantly; but he remained cheerful and alert. I made what inquiries I could and discovered that everyone believed the two wars, north and south, were being won handsomely. The dowager kovneva shuttled from front to front. There was not the slightest whisper that she considered herself to be dying. As for her son, Kov Nath, he was universally condemned as a weakling and of no account in statecraft.

If the old biddy really wasn't at death's door I could be wasting my time up here. There was comfort in the fact that Csitra couldn't spot me and therefore should not be bringing further plagues and curses upon my people.

In the end I decided to have a good look around, find out everything I could, and then get back home sharpish.

Ha!

Natyzha Famphreon could really be dying, could even already be dead, and for obvious reasons of state no one at her court would admit to that. This was the possibility that caused me to travel north with Nalgre the Point. I'd given a promise to Natyzha, enemy though she was, and I intended to keep it as best I could.

Nalgre came from Whonban in Loh and he told me somewhat of that mysterious place. I told him I came from Hamal, which seemed reasonable at the time.

Once he'd commanded his own group of mercenaries. Zhanpaktuns can attract followers with the promises of employment and loot. Lone zhanpaktuns usually have a colorful history. His band had been chopped in a disastrous battle and, from his demeanor and what he didn't say, I gathered he hadn't had the heart to create a fresh band of followers.

I simply said I'd been fighting in Hamal and preferred to be a loner.

Most wealthy fighting men when they travel and go by road ride one animal and have a few in the string to carry their belongings. I had Swivelears. Nalgre had three preysanys and a totrix. Naturally, being a sensible fellow, he rode a zorca. The very ride itself, wending through the country, proved delightful. Neither of us was in a hurry. The war would still be there when we arrived.

The Snowy Mountains appeared on the horizon ahead. The weather remained good, for Kregen's enormous temperate zone assures sensible weather from the equator north and south over a much wider series of parallels than on Earth. We put up at inns, ate and drank well, and got on famously.

The absence of bandits was welcome. Natyzha policed her kovnate with a hand not so much of iron as of carbon steel. We suffered only two assaults, and of these the first fracas was over in a twinkling with a few lopped heads and limbs, a few writhing bodies and the rest running on bandy legs as fast as they could get away.

The second fracas was of a more serious nature.

As Nalgre said, carefully wiping his sword on the tunic of a fellow with no face: “I do wish these fellows would think before they acted."

Casually, returning my sword to the scabbard, I said: “Oh, they mistook us for a couple of idiots, easy prey, I suppose."

The bandits had chosen a narrow trail between overhanging vegetation-clothed banks from which to make their attack, and these drikingers consisted of fellows to make your hair curl, all dripping furs and golden-ornaments and fierce eyes and bad breath.

“They might have profited from the wasted year I spent at school learning of the philosophic theories of Olaseph the Nik.” Nalgre mounted up, chik-chikking to his zorca, Goldenhooves. “I cleared out as soon as I could and went for a mercenary. That was a long time ago, by Hlo-Hli!"

We trotted on out of the shadowy trail into the twinned sunshine. There had been little of value to be liberated from the dead drikingers, although Nalgre found a nice ring, which I indicated I wanted nothing of.

He went on, as though ruminating: “I remember that fool teacher hammering at me that appearances are all. What one sees on the surface is all there is. Nothing of what lies beneath can be revealed by insight or self-analysis because there is nothing beneath the surface."

“Umm?” I said, letting Snagglejaws take me along, and thinking what a powerfully intellectual comment that Umm was. It takes all kinds to make a world, and all kinds of philosophies and theories to furnish that world with concepts to play with and, perhaps, to extend understanding.

“Those drikingers looked down and saw your execrable zorca, the string of pack animals, my Goldenhooves, who no doubt brought the light of avarice into their eyes, and they failed to observe the glitter of gold at our throats. They saw two men lumpily riding and talking, taking no notice of the world about them. They went by appearances, sensing nothing below the surface."

“You stretch the analogy a trifle, I feel. The surface did include the pakzhans at our throats. It was faulty observation, surely—"

“I grant you that.” His panda face showed intense pleasure, as a panda's face, diff or not, quite clearly could reveal an emotion understandable by an apim. “But my argument encompasses their reading of the gold as a mere ornament. They saw an appearance of a couple of ponshos ripe for the shearing, and they fell upon a couple of leems."

“They fell right enough. I grant you that."

“But you agree, also, that one cannot judge all there is to be judged by surface appearances alone? A person is more than his outward shell, more than his words?"

“Sometimes."

“Well, if you grant only one sometimes, the philosophy of Olaseph the Nik must fail."

“You have me there, Nalgre. Hip and thigh."

“Although the philosopher marshals vituperative arguments, suggesting for example that people prone to self-analysis have not grown to adulthood, he finally does not convince me. And, through your admission, you either."

Nalgre used Kregish words and language concepts, naturally, encompassing what I have rendered here, including “self-analysis.” It struck me that I was not, in this context, yet adult because I continually questioned what I did. Did this mean, therefore, that anyone who simply knew that they were always right was fully adult? The theory would seem to imply this.

Back in the real world, of Kregen or of Earth, anyone who always knew they were right usually trailed a whole string of catastrophes in their wake. Also, did I patter on too much about my problems? I could simply bash straight on, as I used to do, and hell take anyone else. That, to me in those days, seemed the immature approach to life. What I felt about Vallia, about all of Paz, about our coming confrontation with the Shanks who appeared to want only to raid and kill us, nerved me into taking decisions the enormity of which would appall me if I felt those decisions to be—not so much wrong as ineptly directed.

The real world impinged again as Nalgre lifted in the stirrups, pointing ahead: “There's the tower we were to look out for. And I can see the walls of Tali. Good! I'm for the very first tavern and a stoup of ale."

“And a dish of palines.” Now we were talking of the important things of life, by Krun!

There was no doubt that the philosophic theories of Olaseph the Nik were supremely correct about this city of Tali. The walls were tall and thick, the towers many and strong, the twinkle of weapons along the ramparts clear evidence of a powerful garrison. Stringing blue-white along the far horizon the Snowy Mountains floated against the sky. From there descended the perils Tali guarded against.

Up here past the northern boundary of Natyzha Famphreon's Falkerdrin we rode through the vadvarate province of Kavinstock. Kavinstock's ruler, its vad, had been Nalgre Sultant. He and I had had our run-ins before; he was a fanatic Racter, and a mad-dog in many people's eyes, certainly a man who hated my guts. I did not much care for him myself. He could easily be reported dead, and his heirs could now rule here in Kavinstock for all I knew.

As one of the inner circle who controlled the actions and plans of the Racters, Nalgre Sultant did what Natyzha bid him. If I ran into him the ending might be six inches of steel through his guts.

As Nalgre the Point and I rode toward the massive gate in those frowning walls I tried to imagine just what Natyzha wanted up here if she thought she was at death's door. That she held the most powerful voice in the councils of the Racters was without question. Equally the Racters, people like this Nalgre Sultant, and Ered Imlien, whose estates of Thengel were long since lost to him, fought to gain an ascendancy over her and one another.

We rode unmolested through the Thoth Gate of Tali.

Most of the walls surrounding the cities of Vallia are old, built in the long ago when the country was divided up into petty kingdoms. Some are kept up. The walls of Tali were thick through, for I measured off in my mind the paces and there were a full sixty of them. Against the predators from the Mountains of the North those walls had been reared. Now they served as a bulwark against raids from this King of North Vallia.

Thick walls and many regiments guarded against the perils from the north. Was it too arrogant of me to wonder how much peril I posed to this fortress city of the Racters?

Chapter thirteen

On the Day of Nojaz the Shriven

Thwack! slammed the rudis against the soldier's chest and then quite quickly Smash! against his head. The girl doing the smiting, naked save for a breechclout, panted with effort, her body shining, her hair bound into a fillet. The soldier was carapaced with straw-stuffed wooden armor. He jerked about like a marionette and the girl hit him cleanly about one in four.

Wearing a highly ornate uniform, a confection of ribbons and streamers, slashes and sashes, in a virulent greenish-yellow, Nalgre the Point stepped forward.

He thrust his sword against the girl's wooden sword and turned the rudis away.

“Not quite right yet, my lady. Look—"

Nalgre showed the girl the trick of turning the hand over between blows. His panda face expressed no impatience. He spoke normally. He taught this high-flown girl the rudiments of swordplay—or the art of the sword, as I prefer—matter of factly. The exercise yard smoked a little dust from the tramp of feet; but a cooling shadowed tree overhung the south wall and this far north in the temperate zone violent exercise could be indulged in without discomfort.

I stood in the shadows of the little porch by the entrance gateway and waited for Nalgre to finish up.

When at last he let her go, streaming sweat and panting as she was, he said: “Tell your father, my lady, I am only half-pleased with you."

“Oh, Nalgre! You'll spoil it all!"

She looked a willful thing, long of brown hair and finely formed, with a twisting pout to her lips a little suffering would help—not that I advocate suffering for anyone. More often than not it drags down rather than ennobling the ordinary sort of person.

“All the same, my lady, that is my word."

Nalgre said to the swod: “Thank you, Garnath. You performed well. Same time tomorrow."

“Quidang!” rapped the swod, and took himself off.

He was earning an extra silver piece or two. He dumped the wooden armor neatly onto its pole hanger as the girl threw her rudis at the two slave girls who hurried into the yard. She was a most hoity-toity young lady.

The scent of freshly baked bread wafted over the other wall from the bakeries. Nalgre Sultant—or, rather, his son Ornol—lived well on his estates of Kavinstock. Raids from the north might harry the folk here; their food and drink could be brought up from farther south, and in the good old Kregan way they liked their six or eight meals a day.

The slave girls wrapped the young mistress in a cloak and she hustled out without a backward glance for Nalgre, who looked across at me, gave his panda smile, and collected his kit. He walked across.

“Do you have time for a throat-moistener, Kadar?"

“I do, Nalgre, I most certainly do. Trouble, is she, that one?"

“For the fool who weds her, yes. She does what her father Ornol tells her to. I give thanks for that."

“The Open Hand?"

“I rather thought The Feathered Ponsho."

“As you wish."

The narrow streets of Tali thronged with folk come in from the country specially for the Day's celebrations. If you looked down on the Kyro of Asses, you had to imagine you looked upon a slice of bread running with ants. The people jammed in solidly, dressed in their best, causing a continuous bee-buzzing of excitement. The smells are best left unmentioned.

The followers of Nojas the Shriven, a decent religion of these parts, took full advantage of the license allowed them. That the day happened to be the Day of Opaz the Meek was not overlooked, and the priests of Opaz kept quietly to themselves on this day of Nojas the Shriven.

Nalgre and I squeezed along and eventually popped into the narrow door of The Feathered Ponsho. We were let in by the hefty guards stationed there because we were known, if new, patrons, soldiers, and not a couple of gawp-faced bumpkins from the country.

We were where we were owing to my insistence that I wished to join up with a regiment as close to the person of Natyzha Famphreon as possible. The closest I could manage, given the circumstances, was the bodyguard of Nalgre Sultant. He appeared seldom, and his son Ornol ran all.

No one had seen the dowager kovneva in a month of the Maiden with the Many Smiles; but her edicts came down with their usual frequency. Ornol, it was generally recognized, took more and more power into his young hands.

“When this Ornol hired us on as bodyguards, he was overjoyed to attach two upstanding zhanpaktuns to him,” said Nalgre, and sipped the first soothing slug. He wiped his mouth. “The opportunities are rare enough, Lingloh knows. But to employ me to teach his daughter the sword...!"

“A wise fellow, then.Who better than you?"

“You miss the point, my apim friend."

“I hadn't; I merely forebore to mention it."

Clearly, Ornol Sultant did not want any bright apim blades hanging around his daughter. As an olumai, Nalgre the Point was unlikely to fashion any sexual relationships with the lady Fanti Sultant.

The street outside resounded with brazen gongs, with plunklinglings, with trumpets. The masses swayed to and fro, surging as the tide surges between rocks into a cove. When the processions passed by they remained as still as the rocks themselves, making the secret signs, spraying stinking incense everywhere, and throwing petals with swift, almost furtive movements of their hands and arms only.

A sensible ruler lets people worship what gods or goddesses they prefer, and tries to see that the sects don't knock their skulls in instead of breaking one another's arguments with counter debating skills.

The stupidly fanciful uniform worn by Nalgre was of the same issue as the idiocy of feathers, bows and streamers I wore myself. We wore a trifle of armor beneath, to be sure. I'd made certain alterations to the confection so that if I got into a fight a couple of quick tugs at loose threads would enable me to discard the lot in a trice.

This uniform did confer some degree of respect for us. The vad's personal bodyguard would not be trifled with. And although a vad was the rank below a kov, it was still exceedingly exalted among the nobility.

We had another stoup, and then Nalgre sighed, finished his drink and stood up.

“We are on duty in a bur, Kadar."

Thinking I'd been running off at the mouth too much lately, and thus belying my sobriquet of the Silent, I said nothing but stood up, downed the last of the drink and started for the door.

Because of the congestion of the streets we only just made the palace in time.

Our Jiktar, Lomon the Jaws, was a Chulik. His yellow skin glistened. His pigtail hung down his back, plaited and threaded with gold and dyed a bright green. His jaw was exceedingly square and heavy, and the two four-inch tusks jutting upward from the corners of his mouth were banded in gold and gold tipped. His eyes regarded us intolerantly. As a hyrpaktun himself he ran the guard impeccably and was the guard captain, the cadade, and let everyone know it.

Nalgre and I had been given the provisional ranks of Deldar, and we each had four men under command. We had our areas to patrol, corridors and stairs and hallways. We had considerable authority.

Now I have stood guard before in palaces not too dissimilar to Nalgre Sultant's palace of Tali's Crown, and the duty is boring, dull, and unless livened up in some way, brain-rotting.

Nalgre used to play over in his head games of Jikaida. This does pass the time. I kept thinking of ways to get higher into the palace and seek out Natyzha. Nothing made sense and so I fumed away seeing my four paktuns stood their watch properly.

Tali's Crown was an imposing place, ancient, and built atop a crag that dominated the north face of the city.

If you stood on the ramparts of the north wall and looked back and up you could see the towers and walls and terraces of the palace crowning that crag. The cliff face lay in the shadows of the suns rays falling across the southern sections. The rock looked gray and sullen, striated, deeply fissured, a swine to climb.

The ornate buildings atop showed windows and terraces glowing with light in the evening, and many lights remained shining all night.

Well, the inner guards of Natyzha's personal juruk changed by rote and if I didn't catch that duty soon I'd have to essay the climb from outside.

During this period I was not unaware that I was taking time off from the problems besetting me. Natyzha had requested my help, and I'd given my promise. She might be an old biddy, the chief antagonist in the Racter Party; she could also prove the fulcrum by which my lever could topple the Racters’ power. This time was not wasted.

There was no hope of stealing an airboat.

For one thing, almost all the tiny aerial fleet here were on constant patrol duty against the Snowy Mountains, and for another the handful in the city were guarded as a maiden is guarded in some countries of Loh. Those guards were not provided by the juruk which Nalgre and I had joined.

I saw no sign of saddle birds or animals.

Ornol Sultant looked not unlike his father, Nalgre Sultant. They had the thin lips and arrogant eyes of your true noble. They knew their position in the world. Ornol, true, showed unmistakable signs of too good living, and he tended to rub his stomach with an irritating gesture which indicated there might be trouble brewing up in his intestinal tracts.

Now during this period there occurred a number of incidents which even to me, accustomed to the cunning interlocking designs of Kregen, seemed totally unconnected.

I should have known better. Experience has taught me that on Kregen events can vary wildly, appear to have not a shred of connection, be totally dissimilar; yet all the time there is a devious brain plotting in the background.

The very next time I assume causes and results are not fully integrated might very well be the last time I make such an elementary mistake. Effects appear to be at random, and often one cannot tease out the pattern. My dealings with the Star Lords and their apparent indifference to my personal plight blinded me to reason.

When we got off duty, Nalgre and I went down to a reserved space on a balcony to the side of the great Kyro of Kavin. The plaza, floored in octagonals of umber, ocher and green, the colors of Kavinstock, lies beneath the south face of the palace of Tali's Crown. The declining suns set deep shadows from column and tower against the brightness of the stonework. Toward the center of the building a long and wide balcony projected.

Here Natyzha Famphreon showed herself to the populace.

She had chosen well, for the city was crowded on this day when the devotees of Nojas the Shriven flooded in.

She did not speak, for her voice would not have carried. Instead a giant-voiced Stentor bellowed out her words. They were rote stuff, fustian, calculated to please the mobs. They added up to promises to see their futures secured, to prosecute the war against North Vallia and what they called South Vallia. The speech went down well. I noticed, however, that no donations of wine or food or money were on offer.

She made a point of emphasizing how the good citizens of Kavinstock and Falkerdrin, and the other Racter provinces, enjoyed the services of slaves.

“This privilege the foresworn so-called Emperor of Vallia would remove from you!” The massive voice bounced and echoed from the buildings, reverberating across the plaza. A few gawky birds fluttered about, startled at the volume of noise. The crowds shuffled their feet, and cheered, and perfumed the evening atmosphere.

I had no spyglass handy, which was a pity; but I'd see Natyzha soon, I promised myself. If she was the same, then her face was still like a nutcracker, walnut-brown and inscribed with a lifetime of intrigue, and her pampered body was still lush and voluptuous. What an old biddy she was!

She was all a glitter of gold, with black patches to set off the gleam, for black and gold are the colors of Falkerdrin's schturval, the symbol a chavonth.

She was carried back into the palace in her chair, hooded in brilliants, and the suns flicked a liquid gleam of flame reflecting from the gems as she vanished into the purple shadows within.

That night the city of Tali ran riot. Everyone, followers of Nojas the Shriven or not, celebrated. Torches illuminated the night and the raucous sounds vibrated up to the stars. So—this seemed my opportunity.

The necessity of wearing the stupid green uniform of ribbons and furbelows annoyed me; but that might give me a slender chance of sudden action if things went wrong. I bound up most of the dangling bits. Beneath I wore the old scarlet breechclout. I carried no bow; but I did take the Krozair longsword, suitably lashed across my back, to provide the ultimate argument if the drexer and rapier and main gauche at my belt failed. I could climb well enough in all this kit, being accustomed to such activity.

A goodly length of rope from the totrix stables was filched with ludicrous ease, the hostlers all being paralytic, and I went carefully around to that dark and hostile north face of the crag.

In all probability Nalgre the Point had given up looking for me to go on a debauch, thinking I'd found myself a sweet little shishi. Well, he was out of my hair.

The first section of the ascent proved easy enough, fallen rocks giving me the most trouble. The fissures were usable. I went up like a grundal of the rocks, and soon started on the more severe section of the climb.

The way I'd mapped out ahead of time turned out to be negotiable. I had one or two nasty turns as splinters broke under my fingers; but always I held on with at least two points of contact. Above my head lights bloomed into the night, and below the noise of the roisterers boomed up like surf.

Deepest shadows lay on the face of the crag.

Against a string of lighted windows above I could make out a frieze set against them. If that was a section of grating it would have to be avoided or broken in. Up I went, hauling steadily, testing each handhold and foothold. The angle of the cliff face steepened.

As far as I'd been able to make out there was no question of an overhang. Some of the terraces projected; that would be a bonus rather than otherwise.

Higher still and that puzzling frieze above began to look more ominous by the minute. There had been no sign of it during the day, of that I felt sure.

Closer still and I saw the truth.

By the disgusting diseased liver and lights of Makki Grodno! The situation was perfectly and horribly plain. During the night the guards slid out thick iron bars from slots in the rock. They were set close enough to one another to prevent a normal man from squeezing through. I have shoulders that are broader than most peoples'. Even on my side against the face I'd have a problem.

The shock of this discovery must have nerved my fool foot, for a chunk of rock broke away and clattered off.

For an instant I clung on, swinging, and then found a fresh purchase. I was plastered against the crag like a poultice on a chest.

A voice spoke from the black wall above my head.

“D'you hear that, Fardo?"

“A stupid bird. Roll your dice."

The second voice sounded tipsy.

I hung on, seeing blackness, sweating, trying to press myself into the living rock.

The first voice: “Better take a look."

“Do we have to? I'm winning and your silver is—"

“I'm the Deldar here, Fardo! Take a look!"

“Very well, Nath the Obdurate, by Vox, you hew to rules and regulations."

There followed the scraping sound of a stool on a stone floor. A metal clang resounded in the night.

Then a shaft of light sprang into being above my head, began to swing down to where I clung on with fingers and toes to that naked crag.

Chapter fourteen

The pakzhan opens a few doors

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said to myself. “This is an infernally unhealthy spot to be in."

There was not much of a breeze that night up in the city of Tali in Kavinstock, not even across the face of the crag; but I can promise you I felt a distinct draught across the back of my neck!

And then, to make my night, my left foot began to slip. There was no time at all to think. I acted at once and in the next instant found myself rearing up one-handed for the hard round spike jutting from the socket. My right fist clenched around the iron like the skeletal hand of Death.

Inevitably, I let rip a gasp of effort. That, together with the breaking tumble of the shard from under my foot, brought another growl from the opening above.

“Hear that, you fambly! Shine the light down."

An unhelmeted head poked out from the sheer wall above the spikes and a hand thrust forth at the end of a rigid arm. The lantern in that hand cast its light in a reflector-shaped beam and it swung down toward me.

My left hand grabbed for the spike. My right fist let go—and my right foot at the same time slipped. Dangling by my left arm I looked up as the lantern swiveled to shine downward.

The chances were that the fellow's eyes would not yet have adjusted to the gloom outside his lantern-lit guard chamber. I had perhaps half a dozen heartbeats. Then he'd poke a damn great spear down and twitch me off into space as he might dislodge an inconvenient bird's nest.

The rope coiled up into my fist. The crack of my muscles as I hurled I was convinced could be heard clear to the Snowy Mountains.

The rope snapped around his neck, looped down and around.

I hauled.

His terrified scream clanging in my ears, I held on like a limpet as his flailing body hurled past. He didn't stop yelling all the way down.

The rope unwound, swung free. I hauled it in, staring upward, and all the time my feet scrabbled around for a purchase.

Another head appeared.

The darkness smashed back with the fall of the lantern.

“Fardo?"

Fardo's dwindling yell was abruptly chopped off.

“Fardo, you intestinal disease of calsanys!"

The rope looped into my hand. It flew up again, coiled around that head outlined against the stars. I hauled and limpet-like clung on. Deldar Nath the Obdurate did not belie his sobriquet. He didn't come out cleanly. He was holding on with might and main and I heard an odd gargling sound. That was Nath the Obdurate trying to yell with a coil of rope around his neck and throat.

Impatiently, I yanked again.

This time he popped out like a cork from a bottle and, true to his nickname he took the rope with him. I had to let go, otherwise he'd have taken me too. Obdurate fellow indeed!

I whooped up a breath, felt sorrow for those two who had gone all unprepared down to the Ice Floes of Sicce, and then hauled myself up to sit astride the spike. I couldn't squeeze through; but by a neat trick of acrobatics an agile topman might have used in a frigate thrashing into a stiff northwesterly, I angled myself over. At that I took a triangular rip of cloth from the fancy green uniform.

After that and with no time wasted to get my breath back, a few moments more saw me jumping lightly down into the tiny guardroom. It had been hewn from the rock, and provided with the mechanism to run out the frieze of spikes. The place was gloomy and stank of dried fish fried up in oil. I padded to the door, listened, and then opened wide. If anyone was going to be standing there, he'd be more surprised than I.

The corridor stretched to right and left. No doubt there were more doors opening onto other spy holes in the cliff. Well, I have served my time traipsing up and down corridors in palaces on Kregen. I did not intend to shilly-shally about in this particular specimen.

There are techniques for finding your way around in a Kregan palace, and I knew and had employed a fair old number. But I am always willing to learn new tricks.

This time I marched briskly along to the end and turned inward toward the spiral stairway leading up. I wasn't going down to ground level just yet.

The next floor I assumed to be the basement of the palace sections built at the very apex. My guarding had all been at the lower levels. If I'd been assigned to guard duty up here, things might have been easier. Perhaps not. Climbing that cliff had been an experience; it still could have been easier than bluffing my way here. Now that I was up here, the bluff would be of a different order, for most of the hard work was done.

At any rate, as I penetrated upward people passed who took no notice of me. Most were slaves. That covered that. The palace flunkeys did not seem put out to pass a guardsman here. One jurukker with a uniform just like mine but wearing a flaunting favor in black and gold with a badge of a chavonth pinned to it stopped me.

“What are you doing up here—?"

He went to sleep standing up, far too quickly for him to feel surprise, and I dragged him into a closet and bound and gagged him with his own fancy folderols. I pinned up his gold and black schturval of Falkerdrin, and prowled on.

If any of the tame slaves witnessed this—and none did—I would not have been too perturbed. Slaves tend to enjoy fights between their so-called betters if the action does not discommode them.

I chose a charming little Fristle fifi, all pale gold fur and enticing shape, who glided along the carpeted corridor with a linen-covered tray in her hands. She wore the slave gray breechclout. She wore no ornaments.

“Where away, please, is the bedroom of the dowager kovneva?—for I am newly appointed to guard her."

I shouldn't have said please.

She did not drop the tray; but the linen quivered like canvas of a ship caught in irons.

“Master—"

“Just direct me to the dowager kovneva."

“She always sleeps in the Chamber of Solars Gratitude, master..."

I tried to smile and she flinched back; but she gave me coherent directions in the end. I did not say thank you. That single please had nearly scuppered me.

What a society it is that uses and abuses slaves!

A parcel of guards marching all in step along a cross corridor made me hide in the lee of a pillar. I did not think the Deldar in command would easily be bluffed.

When they'd swung off, I emerged and continued on through halls very sumptuous toward the Chamber of Solars Gratitude. I'd climbed up on the north side and it was quite clear that the Solars Gratitude apartments must lie on the southern side.

In one hall of considerable extent with the usual mix of night-duty slaves and guards about, a guard said to me as I passed his door: “Hai, zhan, what's afoot?"

I stared at him with the arrogance of a zhan-paktun addressing an inferior.

“Special duty, dom. Best keep your black-fanged winespout shut."

“Quidang!"

I marched on, and I put a fist onto my rapier hilt, and I gave it a little of a tilt, and swaggered more than a trifle.

Now completely without the shadow of a doubt there were secret passages by which ingress might have been made. I didn't know the architecture of them and had no time to discover their secret entrances. So, this bold and arrogant bluff would have to suffice.

It lasted until I reached a bronze-bound door of balass black as a night of Notor Zan. Here four Rapas stood guard, their vulturine heads beaked and fearsome, their feathers variously colored. I marched straight up and made as though to pass between them and so open the door. The handles were entwined risslacas.

“Llanitch!” cracked out the Hikdar in command.

Obediently, I halted. That militarily formal demand to “Halt!", that snapped out “Llanitch!", is not lightly to be disregarded. Their spears lined up.

“Your business, zhan, if you please."

Although a Hikdar, a rank usually to be found in people who command a company-sized group, he was polite addressing a hyrpaktun. I returned the compliment, and added to it.

“Why, Hik, you may well ask me. I was summoned from a nice little supper party to proceed at once—at once, mind!—to the Chamber of Solars Gratitude to wait upon the dowager kovneva.” I heaved up a soulful sigh. “I've served well since I joined. I pray Havil I have not offended in any way I wot not of."

“They are hard taskmasters here,” said the Hikdar. He eyed me with his beaky face on one side. His feathers were a tasteful shade of green, and he wore extra feathers in a lighter color. “But I have not been passed the word."

I put the butter thick and heavy upon the slice.

“That is indeed strange, Hik, for a man in your important position. Maybe the word went before you came on duty? I cannot understand it else."

“Yes, you must be right. There is no other explanation. I shall speak to Hikdar Morango about this, for he should have written it upon the slate."

“Indeed, Hik. Well, I dare not keep the dowager kovneva waiting..."

He waved his men aside and a couple actually opened the door for me. I gave a few last polite words and marched through. The stratagem would never have worked for a mere mercenary, possibly for a mortpaktun. Wearing the golden glitter of the pakzhan at your throat can work miracles—can open doors!

Once into the labyrinth of the Solar Gratitude apartments the bluff continued to work smoothly. No one walking about these luxurious halls could be other than he seemed, for no one was allowed in here by the guards unless he was entitled to be here, and since I was here, ergo, I was entitled to be. This would last just as long as it took me to reach the final bedchamber. After that...

Five Jikai Vuvushis stood before the last door. That door was all of beaten gold plate. These were the apartments reserved by the vad, Nalgre Sultant, for his most important guests. The old emperor would have stayed here during his tours of the northwest of his empire.

“Well?” demanded the Hikdar. She was a fine strapping wench, well-endowed, and with creaking armor. She held her spear in a grip that showed that she not only knew how to use it; but would do so if given the opportunity. I caught the impression in the thick lines of her jaw and the frown between her eyebrows that she'd been longing for the opportunity to stick someone for some time.

I tried the same story.

These girls would have none of it.

“That cannot be so. I have not heard.” She glared at her Deldar, ramrod stiff, almost as bulky. “Have you heard of this, Deldar?"

“No, Hikdar Saenci."

“Well, tikshim. Speak up!"

The story had to be adhered to now...

“Have you checked your order slate?"

“You insolent cramph! I know my duties better than you do, you apology for a hyrpaktun! I've had more than you for breakfast, aye, and spat out the pips."

I said, “I happen to know the dowager kovneva. If you do not immediately open this door and let me through, your pips will never be spat out, not even into the Ice Floes of Sicce."

She blanched up at this. But, give her her due; she stuck by her duties and her responsibilities. And, of course, she was absolutely right.

She said, “You may very well know the dowager kovneva; but you are a mere man and will not be allowed into her private chambers. You may not know her, as I believe. Therefore I shall hold you and make inquiries."

There were five of them, of an Order I could not know. They were not Sisters of the Rose or the Sword; that I could tell. I could not fight and slay them.

Once I saw Natyzha and she understood the position it would be all right. I might be a foeman, but she and I understood each other. She'd arrange a pass for me, and the Emperor of Vallia had never even visited Tali's Crown. Her concern for her son, Kov Nath, would dominate her actions.

So I took another tack.

“Very well, Hik Saenci. I respect your devotion to duty. I shall find the proper authority. And, believe me, I shall request Natyzha not to punish you too harshly."

With that I turned briskly, hitched up the rapier, and marched off along the side of the hall. The girls stared after me—I could sense that. But they did not follow. I guessed the Hikdar was only too glad to have me off her patch. All the same, being the officious girl she was, she'd put in a report. I had to finalize this escapade before that happened, get the thing done with sharpish.

The door at the end of the hall gave ingress onto a small connecting passageway. Here I was on the south of the palace and a faint luminosity through the windows told that the night was still dark, with only one of the smaller moons frantically flying past above. I took a breath, made sure the coast was clear, and then climbed out of the window onto the ledge. It was broad; but the stonework was treacherous. I inched along gingerly.

Just how many windows I would have to pass before I reached one opening onto Natyzha's inner rooms I didn't know. I found a line of three small windows, then a larger one, a round one with a fancy set of panes inset, and then came to the first of a group of three ornate casements.

This had to be the right set of windows...

Useless trying to see in, for thick drapes obscured all beyond. The window was closed and locked. I offered a few choice observations, and tried the next. This center window of the three was open on a latch to let the bedroom beyond breathe fresh air. Kregans are not too superstitious, at least in Vallia, about the bad effects of night air. I was able to turn sideways, adjust the Krozair brand, and so slide through. My feet hit thick carpet without a sound. I stood perfectly still, silent, listening.

A voice I was confident belonged to Nalgre Sultant was saying: “...should have arrested him! I'll come. Alert the palace. Search everywhere. And Bratch!"

“At once, jen!” in the voice of Hikdar Saenci.

The sound of a heavy door closing ... Silence...

This was it, then...

I eased the drapes aside and looked in. Samphron-oil lamps burned here and there in the bedchamber. An enormous canopied bed occupied one wall, tables and loungers were scattered about, you'd need a periscope to negotiate the thickness of the carpet. The scent of Moonblooms hung upon the air.

Just inside the door stood the carrying chair in which Natyzha had made her appearance this afternoon. That was odd. The solid mass of diamonds covering the hood of the gherimcal glittered hard and bright in the lamplight. The legs of the chair were fashioned like chavonths.

I stepped onto the carpet clear of the window.

A girl's voice, clear and hard, snapped out: “You rast! Die, then!"

She came at me from the side, very quick, very lithe. She had little skill. Well, Nalgre the Point had been kind with her. I parried her blow and the sword whispered past my ribs. I caught her as she fell and eased her to the carpet. She'd slumber peacefully for a time yet.

I crossed to the shadowed bed, immense among its hangings and looked down. The bed was empty.

The chair?

Softly I padded to the gherimcal, rounding the long and thick poles, leather-wrapped, padded, which might be carried by men or animals, and looked into the interior.

“Well, Natyzha, so I've found you at last!"

She sat there, upright, her wizened face as intent and cunning as ever, the lushness of her pampered body clear through the silks and sensils. She was smothered in gems, and the gold and black of her attire glittered. Her eyes glittered also, like glass.

She said nothing and her expression did not change.

“Well, Natyzha—have you no greeting for an adversary? And, anyway, what in a Herrelldrin Hell are you still sitting uncomfortably in your gherimcal for when..."

My voice trailed off.

With a movement like that of a striking risslaca I bent down and peered closely at her.

She was dead.

Dead as a doorbell. And, what is more, she'd been flayed and stuffed, her eyes of glass glaring fixedly and unseeingly at me, all that gorgeous body a mere covering of skin over straw.

Chapter fifteen

Of the Lady Fanti and Nath the Onker

If the giant blue Scorpion of the Star Lords had whisked me up right there and then I'd have been profoundly grateful—believe me.

Here I was, at the apex of a hostile palace where guards and dogs searched for me, and the one woman who could have saved my bacon was dead—dead and stuffed and on display as though she were still alive.

It was enough to make a fellow snatch off his hat and jump on it, by Vox!

The lady Fanti let a sigh ripple from her lips. She'd wake up in a moment or two, for I'd dealt gently with her, so that it became vitally necessary for me to put on a change of face, suffering as I did so, in the way taught me by Deb-Lu-Quienyin. With my craggy old physiognomy feeling as though a million bees swarmed all over it, I was able to snatch up a glass of water from beside the bed—an artful touch in the deception, that!—and cross to the girl. Putting my arm under her shoulders, I lifted her up to a sitting posture and then held the water under her nose.

“My lady!” I said in as high-pitched a voice as I could reasonably manage. “They have apprehended the monster who did this. Here, my lady, drink and give thanks you are unharmed!"

I rattled on and shoved the water at her and she, vicious, in the way of young nobility, smacked it out of my hand. The glass went smash and the water sprayed the priceless rugs.

“You clown! What—"

“Hush, my lady, please! You must rest—your handmaidens will be here very soon—"

“What is going on! I was attacked—"

“Yes, my lady. But that is over. And no one knows the kovneva is dead."

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing in this bedchamber—?"

“I helped apprehend that monster, my lady. I was left to care for you after the others went back and sent for your handmaidens. Please do not over-excite yourself."

“Why did not they leave a Jikai Vuvushi—oh, I expect I know why."

I didn't. But I hazarded a guess that the fighting maidens did not get on with this hoity-toity missy who was not one of them, who attempted with little success to emulate their martial prowess, and who was the vad's granddaughter. She was a handful, that was certain.

Through all this nonsensical chatter I still could not see a clear escape route for myself. I didn't want to put her to sleep again; but if the lady Fanti insisted on being her obnoxious self—despite the apparent situation and my explanations—then I'd have to keep her quiet long enough for me to climb out of the window and start the escape.

She glared up at me. She wore an evening lounge dress of a pale green color, with too many jewels, and her hair was caught up into looped pearls.

“Did anyone besides you see the kovneva was dead?"

“I do not know, my lady."

“If they did, then they must be killed, too."

I didn't miss, nor did I like, that little “too."

“Oh, my lady,” I said, putting braggadocio and confidence into the words. “I am quite confident the secret is safe. No one outside can possibly know the dowager kovneva is dead. Least of all her son Nath."

“Mind your tongue, rast! These matters are not yours!” She moved her hand pettishly, for I still supported her. “Where are my stupid girls? And you, cramph, what is your name?"

Her manners were deplorable.

“Nath the Onker, my lady."

And she laughed.

When she'd had her spiteful little laugh out, she said: “When Kov Nath and I are married I think I shall have you in my guard. You will amuse me."

“Yes, my lady."

“And I won't have my court with Nath in Falkerium. My father will bring Nath here, whether he wants to or not."

“Yes, my lady."

“And do you show no gratitude, you rast?"

“Certainly, my lady, I thank you."

“The Onker! I shall enjoy you!"

This was no damn good at all. I'd learned a very great deal, reached into the heart of the conspiracy. Now I had to get away. Sober common sense told me I'd not now make my way through the palace the way I'd come. No, it was the window for me.

I sat up so quickly that she fell back and I caught her just in time.

“You stupid onker—what—?"

“The window, my lady!” I whispered very dramatically. “A noise.Lie still, I beg you—I will investigate..."

Like a spider I scuttled across those priceless carpets and hoisted myself up to the windowsill. With a quick sideways movement I was through the opening of the central casement and so dropped to the ledge. Without waiting I shuffled as fast as I could along the way I'd been going, away from the corridor where I'd first taken to the outside wall. A deep column buttressed here and I only just made it to its shelter before that intolerant young voice was screaming into the night.

“Nath the Onker! Where are you?"

I made no reply but hurried along as fast as fingertips and toes would take me.

“Onker! Nath the Onker! Oh, when I have you in my guard you will see! You will see!"

Eventually that youthful, silly, hateful voice faded and I found a way down in the shadows. Even then it was nip and tuck; but by playing the old trick of joining the hunters I got clear. Being a hunter was easy. Was I not dressed and equipped like the hunters? Was I not one of them?

Nalgre the Point brushed up his whiskers and said: “A fine night for a shbilliding, and what happens? Some tomfoolery about an intruder. It spoiled my night."

“And mine. And it was all probably a scare, anyway. They found no one, so there probably was no one."

“Aye, by Lingloh.A great waste of time."

But I, Dray Prescot, had not wasted my time this night. By Zair! What a scheme! And what prizes for the winners!

Once you'd seen the scheme, of course, it was obvious, simple. But then, that is the nature of hindsight. You had to hand the palm to the Sultants, father and son. If they could only hang on long enough, without discovery, why—the prizes were fabulous!

They faced problems. Well, of course, they would in so parlous a gamble. From my previous experiences with the Racters I believed that Sultant did not get on with and hated his fellow Racter nobles, particularly Ered Imlien. I had a hunch that Imlien was involved in this.

Then I spent a moment mentally saluting the ib of Natyzha Famphreon. Her shade was on the long way down to the Ice Floes of Sicce. The Gray Ones would stalk through the mist to meet her. Would she find her way through to the sunny uplands beyond? Well, for all her enmity and deplorable way of life, I could not find it in my heart to wish her ill.

What now concerned me was my pledge to her.

I had to prevent the death of her son Nath and to ensure he came into his rightful inheritance.

A flashing memory of myself with feet dangling over emptiness, hanging onto that damned spike with one hand, and a fellow with a spear about to push me off for the long drop overwhelmed me. By Zair! I hadn't enjoyed that, and I gave a little shiver.

Nalgre the Point said: “What's up, Kadar?” Then he burbled on in his confident way: “You need a little stiffener, that's clear."

So we went to see what we could retrieve of his shbilliding, which is by way of being a riotous assembly of devotees of liquid refreshment, and spent a sizeable portion of our wages. Later we were sitting at a wine-stained table with the bottles mostly lying on their sides.

I said to Nalgre: “I am buying back my hire."

“Oh? What ails you, dom?"

“Naught ails me, dom. Look, I'm for an enterprise. I could do worse than have a fine fellow like you with me—"

“Is there loot in it?"

“Loot? Well—cash, certainly."

“I'm bored with guard duty. If you promise me loot and action, I'm your man."

“As to action, there may be a quantity of skull-bashing to be accomplished."

I did not add that I wanted to do the next part of my promise to Natyzha as quickly and cleanly as possible.

Nalgre looked at his empty glass.

“I swore off fighting—once. Like I swore off drinking—once. I'll go with you, Kadar the Silent. And if there is skull-bashing to be accomplished, then I shall do the same with alacrity."

Maybe that was the secret that ate at him, that he had grown tired of being a mercenary and wished to try something else, and was not fitted. Maybe that was why he'd accepted the tame job of being a guard to a noble. And he'd had his fill of that...

Next day and without explanation we bought back our hire, discharged ourselves from the service of the vad, and rode southwards.

There was no reason to suppose that Nalgre or Orlon Sultant would put two and two together. We had no connection with the intruder of the previous night. We were clearly bent on finding action down south against the hateful puppets of the Emperor of Vallia who were moving once more from the Black Mountains and from Falinur.

“First stop, Nalgre,” I said. “Falkerium."

“The capital is rich, I've heard. When you tell me the task ahead, I shall take more interest. Now, as to the philosophy of Naghan Deslayer the Fifth—"

Well, he talked and I listened and we jogged along. We took passage aboard a narrow boat with all our animals and kit and so sailed neatly into the basin of Falkerium on the day when news had broken that hordes of foes were marching north from the emperor's lands to invade Falkerdrin.

“If that is your task, to fight these fellows, then—” and he rubbed his hands “—let me get in among ‘em!"

“No, Nalgre. The dowager kovneva's son, Kov Nath, is here in Falkerium."

“I've heard the stories about him. A ninny."

“Maybe not."

“Oh?"

“Aye. There may yet be found somewhat to amaze the people about that young man."

“And your task—?"

“Is to free him, if he be prisoner.And to put him aright if he is free."

Nalgre the Point quizzed up that panda face.

“You speak of high matters here, dom. Hanging matters. Also, you speak in riddles."

“Not so. You and I are going to take young Kov Nath into our custody."

Chapter sixteen

In Falkerium

The efforts of Seg, Inch and Turko after our successes in Vennar—a province no longer—had clearly been rewarded by a rejuvenation of the armies. The work they had put in must have been prodigious. To mount a fresh offensive so soon after the conclusion of a victorious campaign indicated a sustained effort of will and determination.

For those whose understanding of the military extends to picturesque uniforms, or rightly bewailing the casualties, or merely blanket condemnations, the difficulties of putting armies into the field are probably unknown.

Once you have reluctantly decided that fighting is a lesser evil—sometimes it is not, of course—and you must provide for men and women actually to go out and do the fighting, the realities of armies strikes home cruelly. Armies are organisms. Organic, they have a life of their own, and a death, too, not infrequently. The sheer scope of organizing, running, supplying, is enough to run people ragged; the intense need to boost morale saps even more of the strengths of those in command.

Yes, it might appear to the onlooker, as I have said, that the reunification of Vallia dragged on and on; the truth was that with our limited resources we had done wonders. Most of the credit lay with people like Seg and Turko and the Kapts and logistics people of the army. If we were on what we hoped was the last leg of the course, no one would be more pleased than they.

Except myself.

I wanted the whole messy business over and done with, the slaves liberated and everyone knuckling down to the tasks ahead which we could not avoid.

There would be no evasion of the onslaught from the Shanks. That was very clear.

Nalgre the Point and I put up in a modest inn, The Queng and Scriver, and we kept our ears open.

I explained enough and no more. If I could do this thing quickly and cleanly, well and good. If I could not—well, that problem would be faced when it occurred.

The situation was crystal clear. I might not have all the pieces of information; I had enough to make a just reading.

Natyzha was dead. Her son, Kov Nath, a reputed weakling, was expected to be putty in the hands of whatever strong noble or group of ambitious people controlled him. The Sultants knew that Natyzha was dead. Ered Imlien, if it really was he who had Nath, did not know. So that gave rise to the interesting situation that each side had one piece, and neither could deal with the other. Clearly, if that hoity-toity young miss, the lady Fanti, wanted to marry Nath on the orders of her grandfather, Nath had to be got out of Imlien's hands. But the Sultants could not tell Imlien Natyzha was dead. And Imlien would never let Nath go. So Nalgre the Point and I, as it were, stood in the center of the web.

We made no attempt to join any of the regiments forming in the city. The capital of Falkerium was just such a proud provincial capital as may be found over the length and breadth of Vallia. Strong-walled, tall of tower, wide and deep of moat, powerful in artillery, the place with its population of citizens and much swollen military presence, could hold off a siege for a good long time.

If we brought Nath onto our side ... There would be no need for a long and costly war, a terrible siege. We could conclude the treaties and go home to our firesides.

Surely, that was a victory worth attempting?

Falkerium, then, would be the site of this final battle in this particular campaign. Nalgre told me somewhat of his history, and I made up a rigmarole that satisfied him as to mine. He'd left Loh and traveled extensively in the other countries of Paz. He'd fought some arduous campaigns in the ever-squabbling Dawn Lands of Havilfar, and had then migrated northwards to seek employment with Hamal.

“But the confounded war was over by the time I arrived. So I came on here. I met a fellow who told me what was afoot.” Here Nalgre's panda face expressed absolute distaste. “He wore the golden pakzhan at his throat and pretended he was a hyrpaktun. Only a few moments’ conversation unmasked him."

“You can always tell the fakes."

“Aye! By Hlo-Hli, but I berated him! I never did discover where he'd stolen the pakzhan from, but the name was never his, the nulsh."

When your peers in the mercenary trade confirm you as a hyrpaktun and you wear the pakzhan, there are certain secret words you learn, also. No, some rash young fellow who might by chance have the golden insignia fall into his hands would never pass off the deception.

We put up at the sign of The Hen Downwind and went out to look at the sights.

The front line forces down south on the provincial border were, we were told, holding the line. But everywhere in the city regiments marched, bugles blew, hooves trampled as Falkerdrin gathered its resources to strike back and this time bring the Racters to total victory against the emperor.

We were idly watching a group of coys growing weary trying to march in step and align their spears. Nalgre said: “Y'know, Kadar. From what I've heard of this new Emperor of Vallia, I'd sooner be fighting for him than against him. But, the strange fellow, he does not employ mercenaries.” Nalgre rubbed his squat nose. “Most odd."

“Aye."

Whether Nalgre the Point knew it or not, he was indeed going to be employed by the Emperor of Vallia!

That gave me pause. I'd had more than a few qualms lately, particularly over the casualty figures, about my avowed policy of having Vallians free, and be seen to free, their own country. If I employed men who fought for a living, would not that release from what could be a frightening bondage those young men of Vallia who had no wish to chance the battle, the outcome of war? I was not growing weak in my resolution; I was looking at the problem from a different angle.

Maybe, if I chose wisely, it might be possible once more for Vallia to pay gold for fighting men instead of paying with the blood of her sons...

I just hoped to Zair I had not been arrogantly blind in my so lofty pronouncements.

All during this time with Nalgre the Point in Falkerium as I listened and looked, made inquiries and put together a plan, I constantly watched for a sight of the messenger and spy of the Star Lords. But the Gdoinye made no appearance. That superb golden and scarlet bird of prey did not come flying down out of the suns, sent by the Everoinye, to squawk insultingly at me.

I missed the onker. By Krun! I missed him!

Came the day when I heard positive news of the whereabouts of the young Kov Nath.

A guardsman in his cups told us with many sniggers that the young Kov really thought he was running the war. This ran so strongly with the tide of general opinion about Kov Nath that it was easily believable. I harbored doubts. I knew Kov Nath possessed a quick courage. Of his mental attainments I had no readily accessible first-hand knowledge; but I supposed it was feasible that devious and cunning Kapts could persuade a not-too-bright noble that he was in command and running the war effort.

Nalgre, having agreed to abide by our contract that he would be told all that was necessary when the time for action came, busied himself finding out all he could of the Barange Fairshum, the central fortress palace from which Nath and his officers ran affairs of state. As befitted a proud provincial capital, Natyzha Famphreon's palace was, indeed, a marvel. I detected a fanciful resemblance to her in the building, for it possessed a hard granite carapace of towers and battlements and an architectural lushness of feature in the walls and buttresses.

“We could join this young kov's guard, Kadar,” suggested Nalgre.

“He's not so young these days; but the impression he gives makes people refer to him like that. As to joining the guard, well, I've had my fill of standing like a statue at the heads of staircases or against walls. There will be another way, you'll see."

So we ferreted about and snuffed into unlikely corners and slid surreptitious gold into dirty and clutching palms.

“It will not be easy, by Hlo-Hli! But we can take him. The ransom will make up for all our trouble."

“You've entirely glossed over your philosophical qualms."

“Not entirely. I'd sooner earn a dishonest crust this way than an honest one killing people."

I couldn't allow this to pass. I said, “I am not taking up the kov for ransom, Nalgre. I have said I will explain it all when the time comes.” I gave him a hard look. His panda face couldn't really flush up. “But I abhor kidnapping—"

“If, in our short acquaintance, Kadar the Silent, I had not formed a certain opinion of you, I would not be here with you on a harebrained escapade. Logical dialectic would indicate my own madness. I do admit I doubted your motives, and the talk of ransom was to test your reaction—d'you mind?” The last, Nalgre shot out like a bolt from a crossbow.

“Nope."

“Ha! There is the Kadar the Silent we all know and love!"

These olumai folk from mysterious Loh—there may not be many of them upon the gorgeous and terrifying world of Kregen, but they are a people to be reckoned with. The toppling towers and slaked walls of his own country of K'koza in Whonban in the continent of Loh might have been the cause of Nalgre the Point's traveler's itch; but they exerted a strong and mesmeric force upon him, that I knew.

The exotic names of faraway places attract with magnetic force the dreams and desires of the ordinary mortal man and woman. Zair knew I'd like to go off exploring into Loh, and Balintol and many many other strange countries of Kregen, yet my whole life was spent working away in the place where I found myself. There just had been no time that I could see in which I could just have upped sticks and departed for a little exploration without a reason for going. Every time I'd flown off into adventure I'd gone with something to be accomplished, and this was true of those occasions when the Star Lords dumped me down naked and unarmed to sort out a problem for them.

Now if I heard that a comrade was in trouble in far Balintol, or slaved in chains in Loh ... But, then, I'd brought back my comrades to Vallia, or Drak had done so, or they'd found their own way back. Vallia, the unity of Paz, and the fight against the reiving fish-headed Shanks took precedence, must take precedence, in my life.

On the following day, the cups of our guardsman friend being filled to overflowing, he told us between hiccups that Kov Nath was to inspect the Second Frant of Foot Spears. Nalgre sociably poured more wine.

“So the kov is to leave the palace. Mayhap the Suns will burn his pallid cheeks."

“You have the right of it, dom!” The guardsman, Orban the Stick, laughed. He delighted, as we could see, that he, a simple jurukker, was able to address two ferocious hyrpaktuns as dom. Of such petty prides are great treacheries made. “And they'll have a baby's leash tied to him as well, by Vox, I don't wonder!"

We laughed companionably at his jest.

His head slumped onto the wine-stained table when we left the tavern. His hair, of a paler than usual brown in Vallia, stained a deep vinous ruby around its curly edges.

“You'll never snatch him off a parade ground! It is madness, Kadar!” Nalgre twitched himself around in our upstairs room to stare at me over his shoulder. He threw his lynxter on his bed and repeated: “Utter madness!"

“Perhaps."

Well, it was a madness, in all truth. But Nath was being allowed out of the Barange Fairshum. He would dress in his pomp and finery and ride out to the parade ground outside the city walls. This had to be our chance, surely?

“We need two stratagems,” I said. I spoke firmly. But the plan was as shaky as a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old's legs. “One: we must block the Avenue of Grace. Two: we must enlist a gang of rascally cutthroats."

“And then?"

“Oh, it'll be a desperate affray. No doubt of that."

Nalgre the Point unlatched his tunic and then paused, the points between his fingers. “I'll undertake to block the Avenue of Grace. I can see that the escort with Nath will then have to pass through the Souk of Weavers to reach the palace by the quickest route."

“Exactly so."

“You may enlist your cutthroats. I have noticed that in Vallia you apims do not take altogether kindly to folk who are not apims. I think of the people of the world as divided up between olumai and diffs. It makes no difference to me. But in Vallia, apims and diffs are regarded in vastly different lights."

Useless for me to protest. What Nalgre said was depressingly true. This, as well as slavery, was a blot that would have to be removed.

“Done."

Then we refined the plan until we felt we had it as well-oiled as we could make it. On the morrow we would each do what was necessary, and in the afternoon see if the ramshackle plan would work.

Natyzha Famphreon's carbon-steel grip on the country had put down the bandits and so opened up the communications; the paradoxical effect had been to drive the drikingers into the cities where they festered. To recruit a gang of cutthroats was not easy; it was not difficult, either. These were men accustomed to robbery and murder as a way of life. Every day they ran the risk of apprehension. My plan struck some as too bold.

In one ill-favored tavern a black-bearded rascal with a gold ring in his only ear spat out: “We're with you! And you, Ortyg! Catch that stinking Lart before he runs out!"

The fellow Lart, whose effluvium did pervade the atmosphere, was hauled back by a dangling strap and sat on.

“He'd have warned the watch, as sure as my name's Mangarl the Mangler!” This Mangarl twisted the ring in his ear. “Don't you worry, Koter Nath, we'll see to him.” They knew Nath wasn't my name; but they accepted it readily enough.

Their weapons were mostly cudgels, or stout sticks, some had short swords, and all had knives. There were also five slingers, whose stones I fancied would materially assist in the plan.

I let them see the rapier and left-hand dagger, and, as well as knowing my name was not Koter Nath, they knew I'd use the rapier and spit them if they started anything untoward. I left them with:

“Three glasses after the hour of mid. As they go through the Souk of Weavers."

“Aye,” said Mangarl the Mangler. “I've a score or three to settle with the soldiers! They'll pay for what they did to my sister's sons."

These drikingers did not seem dismayed that with their cudgels they planned to go up against soldiers armed with spears and swords. If I read the picture right, they'd do all their fighting from hiding places. This was exactly what I wanted. It would take only a handful of the braver or more vicious among them to jump into the affray for the scheme to work as planned.

Nalgre the Point reported he had arranged a most beautiful furor concerning four quoffa carts. Once a quoffa—huge, shaggy, lumbering, patient—sits down, a great deal of encouragement is required to get him up again. When Nalgre added that he'd put in a string of calsanys also, I smiled.

“I shall give them a wide berth if they become upset, by Vox!"

Almost all the gold I'd brought from Vondium in the waist belt was now exhausted. Despite the unholy character of the ruffians the gold had brought into our employment, the money was spent in a good cause. And I'd stressed that I wanted no wanton killing, we were just out to make the biggest disturbance we could.

This, again, suited these desperadoes, for they also wished not to disturb overmuch or enrage the soldiers who administered the law in Falkerium.

Saddle animals, whether of the air or ground, are scarce and valuable in wartime. I had to pay out just about all the balance of the gold to secure a zorca. He was a lop-eared animal, whose horn was rather too thin and rather too long and not quite spirally coiled enough. But he was a zorca, and he'd run as best he could until he could run no longer. The zorca handler from whom I bought him in a disreputable market assured me his name was Greatheart; but Greatheart seemed never to have heard of his own name.

A patch of hide on his rump bore a nasty scar.

I asked no questions. I just hoped his real owner would not spot him before my use for him finished.

So, then, see me astride Snagglejaws and with Greatheart—or whatever his name was—following along on a leading rein, riding out to the parade ground beyond the walls of Falkerium. The day bloomed with color and scents and noise. Many folk had come to see a new regiment on parade. Out of professional curiosity I gave them a keen appraisement.

They were from Frant, a middle-sized island in the northwest, between the larger island of Ava to their northeast and the narrow strip of island of Yuhkvor to their southwest. Odd folk up there, of course—well, all folk are odd from one village to the next. They stood in their ranks well enough, wearing bronze helmets and leather jacks. Their spears slanted at more or less the same angle. They did not carry shields. Each one had a flamboyant favor of ribbons and bows pinned to his left shoulder, all black and white. Black and white were the Racter colors.

The mobs set up a caterwauling when the nobles rode onto the parade ground. They glittered in the lights of the Suns and looked splendid and important and they went through the inspection with sufficient enthusiasm as to fool one into believing they enjoyed it. All except Nath. He looked as I remembered him, for people age incredibly slowly upon Kregen over their better than two hundred years life spans. I looked closer. On each side of the slim, upright figure of Kov Nath rode two men I recognized.

One was short and squat in the saddle, beet-red of square face with deeply set eyes of Vallian brown. He wore a fancy uniform and armor, yet he still carried his riding crop, with which he belabored any and sundry impartially. Trylon Ered Imlien. Yes, I remembered his abrupt ways and consciousness of personal power and of the way he had spoken of Dayra. So the rast was in the conspiracy! At the heart of it, too, if you asked me.

The other man, the Trylon Vektor Ulanor, of Frant, was to be expected to be here when his Second regiment of Foot Spears marched on parade. Crimson-cheeked, pouchy eyed, impatient and intolerant of all—yes, he was a fit companion to Imlien, a pair of high-flown Racter nobles indeed. I'd met Vektor Ulanor far away when he was the ambassador to Xuntal. I'd treated him with a high hand myself, at the time. But, then, I'd just returned from a twenty-one-year exile on Earth, had been lost at sea in Kregen, and was in no mood for a petty official to stand in my way.[iii]

The band played, the people shouted, the dust puffed up, the swods marched and, at last, the parade was over and the two Racters, one each side of Kov Nath, led off to return to the city.

Unhurrying, I nudged Snagglejaws along to follow among the crowds.

I overheard a chance conversation between two upright citizens—stout, solid Vallian merchants.

“The people shout for them now, Markman. But I wonder if they will shout when the emperor arrives?"

“The Racters have always had my allegiance, Naghan; but now—” A tiny resigned grimace. “All this war isbad for business. The nobles grow too puffed up. The dowager kovneva should return and take command."

“By Beng Llamin! I grow weary of this continual struggle for power between the nobles—"

“Caution, my friend."A frightened glance from slanting eyes. “There are ears everywhere these evil days."

I rode on, taking no notice.

If only my plan encompassing the lever and fulcrum worked! Then these two solid merchants, Markman and Naghan, should have cause to rejoice.

The soldiers of the Second Frant of Foot spears marched off to their barracks, the procession of the nobles and their escorts trotted along through the city gate and began their ride to the palace. I spared a single glance for the graveyard away across the parade ground. In the natural course of life and death on Kregen, no less than on this Earth, burial customs varied from place to place. Here the dead were reverently placed to rest in graveyards outside the city walls. The markers showed gaunt limbs against the dusty ground, or marble slabs, or fabrications of branches bright with flowers and ribbons, or gray and hollow shells of gourds, gonging sonorously through the night.

With these unwelcome reflections on man's mortality, and woman's too, for although they may outlive men they too, in the end, must die, as witness Natyzha Famphreon, I chick-chicked Snagglejaws and with Greatheart following trotted after the procession of the nobles.

A cluttered side road paralleling the Avenue of Grace led me into the Souk of Weavers at a right angle some distance down from its junction with the avenue. If the plan was working, Nalgre was up there now organizing his catastrophe.

Here the weavers not only sold their products; they wove them. The Souk, originally a broad thoroughfare with shops and booths along the sides, had over the seasons been encroached upon, so that most of the space was covered by little awnings and shelters, crammed with people, and the noise battered away aloft. There was no communal roof as in many of the Souks of other parts. Congestion and turmoil, constant comings and goings as people forced their way along, marked the market. Flies upon a honey pot ... Well, humans have to earn a living somehow.

In the surf roar the added noise of the confusion at the mouth of the Souk passed practically unnoticed. The numbers in the crowds watching the soldiers parade made no appreciable difference in the numbers continuing their daily work here. Whatever mischief Nalgre had accomplished with his four quoffa carts and the added complication and undeniable panic the calsanys would cause when they did what calsanys always do when they are upset proved enough. No doubt Ered Imlien, bluffly impatient as ever, had bellowed angrily and turned his zorca and Nath's away from the muddle, seeing the mouth of the Souk so conveniently to hand. They'd just ride down there, knocking people out of their way in the comely fashion of that kind of noble, and make the journey back to the palace by a slightly more roundabout route.

As I expected, Trylon Ered Imlien came into sight first, striking out with his riding crop. His face was a black mask of anger, and while I couldn't hear what he was bellowing over the hubbub, it did not take a clever guess to sense that, by Vox!

His left hand dragged along Nath's zorca. Vektor Ulanor urged his mount along on the other side. The cadade of their guard followed on in the rear, and the soldiers of the escort followed him. People staggered out of the way of this proud group, and those laggards not quick enough to jump were clouted for their tardiness.

In any contest between nobles, as had been spoken of so bitterly by the merchants out on the parade ground, the ascendancy here of Imlien over Ulanor was undeniable.

A ferocious whiskery face peered down from a wickerbasket-hung balcony opposite. A stout pole protruded at an angle supporting an awning, and its mate supported the other end some ten paces along. Those poles were whole cedar trunks. The awning, I recall, was green and yellow. A second rascally face showed perched alongside the second awning support.

Mangarl the Mangler timed it perfectly.

This part of the scheme was mainly his in inspiration, and I guessed they'd done this kind of thing before. They detested the soldiers. They had no fear of being caught here in the seething squalor of their home ground. Also, these bandits knew that if they didn't kill a soldier the hunt for them would be entirely superficial. This, I had learned, was just another result of the absence of the kovneva.

The drikingers were doing this as much to revenge themselves on the soldiers as for my red gold. They'd bash a few heads, steal everything they could, and vanish.

The first cedar trunk fell just abaft Ulanor. He incontinently fell off his zorca. The second trunk and the swathing mass of the awning fell slap bang over the escort, swaddling them in green and yellow stripes. Bulges rose and sloughed away under the canvas. With fiendish whoops the rascals dropped from their vantage points, bludgeons raised.

My concern was with Kov Nath.

Now this might be the home of the weavers, and plentiful evidence of their handiwork everywhere decorated the Souk, but the folk of Kregen like their food and drink and were not stupid enough to fail to provide these necessary requisites conveniently to hand. Many little stalls selling food and drink were scattered among the other booths.

I kicked over the charcoal, all glowing red and splendid with fire, of the roasting nuts stall. The gold I'd given its owner cleaned me out. The flames sizzled under the hooves of the zorcas.

Absolute utter and glorious pandemonium!

Without a second's delay I urged Snagglejaws forward. Imlien's riding crop sliced down over the butter-golden skull of a Gon, who shrieked and tumbled over. Other people were running away and running in. I reached Nath's zorca. A fellow twisted under the hooves. The fire was taking hold of a booth filled with straw bundles, and the owners were screaming and carrying off their stock in trade.

In all this hullabaloo I reached for Nath.

My arm around his waist simply hauled him from the saddle. Imlien let his riding crop dangle by its loop. He snatched out his rapier. He still held Nath's zorca and he dragged the reins in cruelly. He saw Nath in my clutch as I turned.

“You rast! You are a dead man!"

“Come easily, Nath,” I said, hard and even.

Then that inconsiderate, ungrateful, selfish beast called Greatheart simply broke away, kicked over a fat man with a red nose, and bolted away down the alley. I was left with Nath dangling in my clutch and beginning to try to hit me.

Imlien gave a huge cry of triumph and urged his mount close. Nath caught me a glancing blow on the forehead. Ered Imlien poised his rapier, aimed for my ribs, and thrust.

Chapter seventeen

Nath Famphreon, Kov of Falkerdrin

With a frantic heave to swing Kov Nath out of line, I twitched desperately sideways on the saddle. The rapier ripped through my buff tunic and the damned skewer scored a bloody weal all along my ribs. This upset me.

Useless to hang so stupidly onto the leading rein so disgracefully chewed through by Greatheart. I dropped it. That left me one free hand, for being an apim I do not have the luxury and convenience of three or four arms like some of the folk of Kregen. I used that free arm to jab a rocky fist into Imlien's face as he bent forward with the ferocity of his thrust.

“Let me go! Let me go!” Nath was babbling away.

“Shut up,” I told him, with a growl.

He quieted a little. Imlien sprayed blood everywhere from a squashed nose. Some of the people who a moment or two before had been desperate to escape from the noble's riding crop had stopped and were turning back and taking an interest in what went forward.

For the second and last time I put out that arm and fist, and, this time, Ered Imlien fell off his zorca.

With that other half of my ration of arms I laid Nath flat on his stomach before me. Zorcas are extremely close-coupled so that riding two-up is uncomfortable. Nath flopped along belly down, face over one side, legs over the other, yelling blue bloody murder.

“Oh, do shut up, Nath,” I said, again, bending a little to bellow in his ear.

Snagglejaws was only too anxious to get away from all this riot. He moved smoothly enough along under the double weight and, with only one poor fellow shouldered out of the way—he'd been gawping so hard he appeared stapled to the spot like a poor damned levy—we started off along the parallel alley.

I heard Nath spraying words like: “You'll be sorry!” and: “I am the kov, you poor fambly!” and: “Take me back at once!"

Back there the soldiers might be sprawled insensible under the green and yellow awning, their portable possessions just about to pass from their ownership. Ulanor was probably also among the list of those rendered hors de combat. As for Ered Imlien—I cast a quick look back.

He was not following.

He was, in all probability, tenderly rubbing his nose.

I reflected that there would probably have been time to have snaffled one of the zorcas. The plan had envisaged what had happened, that Imlien would be holding Nath's zorca reins. Still, perhaps I ought to have attempted to grab a zorca in those fleeting moments. That was smoke blown with the wind, now...

The most important item on the agenda now was to quiet down the squirming, kicking, yelling Kov Nath.

I said in a harsh voice: “If you do not keep quiet I shall have to strike you. I do not wish to do this, Nath, but, by Vox, I shall if you don't shut up."

We were almost through the parallel alley—I believe they called it Splitter's Alley—and the open parade ground lay beyond the gate. I'd have to risk that small end section of the Avenue of Grace.

Nath spat up at me: “Strike, you rast! I shall cry out the more strongly, for my people will recognize me and rescue me—Help! Help!"

I hit him.

This grieved me.

Oh, yes, indeed, in a sinful work in a sinful world, Dray Prescot is right up there among the chief sinners.

The flap of a cloak about his dangling body, a rearrangement of myself in poor old Snagglejaws’ saddle so that we rode more easily, and I struck out across the last few paces of the avenue.

The guards lounging in the gate counted but two—the rest had gone hurrying officiously off to sort out the confusion wrought by Nalgre the Point. I put a semi-imbecilic look on my face, and wobbled a trifle, and let go with a bellowing croak of “The Maid with the Single Veil” which I finished on an enormous hiccough.

“Hai, doms!” I called in that bright bucolic voice. “The day is fast going and there are things I must do if I could remember them."

“Beng Dikkane has merited your praise,” said the swod, leaning on his spear, laughing. Of course, for all this banter, had he tried to stop me I'd have kicked him in that lean-jawed face of his, for sure.

I walked Snagglejaws out of the gate, and called back: “My comrade worshipped twice as fast as did I. To him the glory and to him the—ah—hic—praise."

Serenely, carefully, not quite as I had planned, I let Snagglejaws carry me away from the city. Past the cemetery with its pathetic reminders lay open fields and orchards, and white dusty roads. On I went, with an itching back. Once we were in among the trees I could relax and find a good spot to rest up.

Kov Nath groaned as I eased him to the grass under the shining green leaves and greenish yellow fruit of a postan tree. I tied him up, tightly enough to let him know he was restrained. I did not gag him. I picked off a postan and pushed it between his lips into his teeth.

His eyes, those Vallian brown eyes, fastened their gaze upon me. In their depths raged passion and fury and, of course, the deep sense of outrage he experienced.

I said: “Listen to me, Nath. I have a comrade due to arrive shortly and there are three things you must know before he comes up with us."

He managed to spit most of the fruit free and started in with a bitter vituperation. I put a hand across his mouth. “Just listen, Nath. One piece of information will surprise you, although it is not particularly important, and I would not have my friend know it. The second, I am sorry to have to tell you, and regret it, for, despite all it saddens me. The third is the future, in which lies your hope, the hope of Falkerdrin, and the hope of Vallia."

I made—and it was easy enough—the necessary rearrangements to my old beakhead and there, before the eyes of Kov Nath Famphreon of Falkerdrin, stood Dray Prescot, the Emperor of Vallia.

I lifted my hand.

He said nothing at first. He panted for air, and then he got out: “What time you have left to live, I do not know. I will do all I can to prevent them making your death unpleasant."

“You remember the chavonths in your mother's garden? I marked you then, Nath. You had my message from Strom Volgo?"

“I did. I failed to understand—"

“You do not ask me what other news I have for you?"

Well, of course I felt sorry for him. I wasn't sure just how he regarded his mother. She had ruled his life with controls that were stronger than bonded steel. But she was still his mother. That old scandal about the marriage of his father and mother had been put forward to explain Nath's apparent weakness and lack of character. I felt differently.

He stared up at me, flushed of face, not understanding what was going on, and yet, I know, remembering that time when he'd stepped forward lightly with his rapier to take on the chavonths who would have ripped off his head in a trice.

“Well, emperor?"

“Your mother, Nath. I am very sorry to have to tell you that she is dead."

He closed his eyes.

After a time of silence, he said an odd thing.

“So I was right. But she would not listen to me. I do grieve for her, although she would not believe it of me. Can you tell me...?"

“No. I know only that she is dead."

“So you cannot confirm who killed her?"

“Old age, I expect."

He looked shaken, now, the fact that he'd said he was right giving me an inkling that he'd been expecting this. He tried to move sideways and toppled over. Seeing no help for it I untied him, and he chafed his wrists slowly, deep in thought.

“I grieve—aye, despite what the world will say. But the Sultants killed her—yet you do not seek to profit by this, emperor—"

“There is no proof that I am aware of. What do you think of their daughter, the lady Fanti?"

“The less I see of that handful the better."

So I spelled out the plot for him, and he managed a tiny smile at its incongruity. One side dare not reveal that the dowager kovneva was dead, for the other side would instantly have proclaimed Nath as the new kov and controlled him even more harshly than had his mother.

Yet the kov and the lady Fanti had to be brought together somehow, and Imlien and his faction would never allow Nath out of their sight or keeping. It was an interesting moil, which, as Nath said in a voice abruptly husky: “You cut in twain, majister."

“You have not asked me about the future."

“Oh, you will seek to control me as they would have done."

“Not quite. I own to having invested in you, Nath. Nath Famphreon, as Kov of Falkerdrin, is a man I value as a friend.” Then I told him that his mother had asked me to help him. “I cannot do otherwise. All I wish to do is set you on your own feet, as the true kov. After that, you can go to hell in your own way—except that if you work against Vallia you will be answerable not just to me but to all of Vallia."

Then Nalgre the Point rode up with his string and Swivelears, and I cautioned Nath to circumspection.

After the pappattu was made, Nalgre said: “You may be a kov, jen. I ride Goldenhooves. You may ride my totrix, Slowback, if you wish."

That being settled we set off. Nalgre bubbled with the story of his doings, boasting that never had such a confusion been seen. As for calsanys, well...!

We rode carefully and we kept out of trouble. Nath was read the situation in no uncertain terms. The Racters fought against the Emperor of Vallia. They were proud and intolerant, jealous of their power and privileges. The Sultants in Kavinstock and Ered Imlien in Falkerdrin controlled the party. They would never allow Nath to be free as Kov.

“If you tell the people that as their Kov you will reform hated laws, administer justice, not seek to be too greedy in the matter of taxes, well—” I waved a hand. “Well, they might believe you."

“If they do not?"

“Rather, believe they will. For then we will bring Falkerdrin, at least, back into the empire where the province belongs. The day is now not too far off when all of Vallia will once more be reunited."

“With you as emperor!"

“Me? No. Oh, no—"

Nalgre reined around.

“Do what?"

I said, “By the disgusting diseased left nostril of Makki Grodno! Nath!"

“Why should I concern myself with your charades? Oh, everyone in Vallia knows that Dray Prescot flies around in a scarlet breechclout brandishing a monstrous sword. Schoolchildren lap up the stories. There are plays, and mimes, puppets and book after book. And it is all true, as I believe. After our meeting with the chavonths I studied the plays and books, and their philosophy is—"

“Philosophy?” said Nalgre. “Ha—apprise me!"

And then, to my unbounded astonishment, this pair started in on a long, involved, intellectual discussion about far more than merely the philosophical implications of the stories of Dray Prescot.

That evening when we pitched camp in the lee of a grassy bank, Nalgre the Point, in his panda-like olumai way, had the truth out of me.

He said, “I am a hyrpaktun. So are you. That means more to me than this emperor title. And your face has been knocked lopsided—for it is subtly different now."

“A trick of the light. But as to being the emperor, yes, I am, and will force my son Drak to take over as soon as Vallia is respectable again."

“Drak Prescot?” said Kov Nath Famphreon. He grimaced. “He and I have had words."

“Well, of course! You're a damned Racter."

“I was."

“Ah!"

Later still Nath managed to organize his thoughts well enough to convey the fact that he did feel thanks for my rescue of him. For he saw that it was a rescue in all truth.

“There must have been a difference between the way Ered Imlien imprisoned me and my mother's way. Yet both held me in chains."

I said the easy thing. “You're your own man now, Nath."

But I added, “And you'll get no mercy from me if you foul it up. Being a kov is a tough job."

“I look forward to it. By Vox, I do!"

I told him of my theory of the lever and fulcrum, and added: “I would like to reunite Vallia without bloodshed. I know that to be impossible. But, in Falkerdrin, at least, with the Racters overturned, the task is not impossible for determined men and women."

Simply, he answered: “I will play my part."

“Your borders march on the south with those of Kov Inch and Kov Turko."

“Comrades of yours."

“They have done the equivalent of facing chavonths with me before, yes, many times. You will find them good friends if you are a good friend.” And here I gave that small growly laugh that could be called a chuckle if there was aught of amusement in it anyone else could understand. “You will find them bad enemies."

He did not reply.

We rode south again on the next day, taking it gently, not wishing to attract attention. Ered Imlien would have the country roused against us. Now had we had a flier...

As we rode so I counseled Kov Nath. My own estimate of him was more and more proving true. If we could just get the people of Falkerdrin to renounce their Racter allegiance, join with us—I reiterated the immense menace the Shanks from over the curve of the world represented to us all in Paz, not just in Vallia. As the fulcrum supports the lever and the lever can move a world, so my plans must work for the good of us all. Facile—well, of course.But true, damned true.

One penetrating point Nath wanted cleared up echoed unmistakably in his words as he said: “And I suppose you will rule from the center, holding all power in your hands?"

“Fair representation to all regions,” I said. “I support the smallholders, the local merchants, the people who know their own area best. On larger matters a wider perspective is necessary. When nobles act responsibly, there is no reason at all why they should not control their own estates as they have always done. The Racters believe they hold the welfare of Vallia at heart; but I believe they are blinded by selfishness and self-pride. They do not see the world of Kregen about them clearly."

“Nevertheless they receive support from the common people."

I stared at him. “Common people. That is it. What makes a kov, a vad, a trylon, a strom, and all the rest, so uncommon? Can they eat two meals at once? Can they flap their wings and fly? Can they do two days’ work in one? Common people! Why, my young feller-me-lad, I'm one of the common people and I don't forget it!"

He saw my face and had the sense to change his tack. Eventually, wanting to get my head down for the night, for we'd camped in a pretty little dell by a stream, I said, “Look, when we get to the Black Mountains and you meet Inch and, if he's there, Turko, you'll find they won't stand for this nonsense. Also, you would do well to make your peace with Kov Seg Segutorio. He shares my views on the subject."

“I look forward to meeting them."

For a short time I lay on my back on a blanket spread on the sweet night-scented grass. I was feeling very pleased with myself. Usually I am at odds with myself, aware that what I had set out to accomplish has not been achieved, crossly conscious of my failings, filled with doubts about my actions and what I should be about on Kregen. You may well be amazed that these thoughts should trouble Dray Prescot; believe you me, trouble me they did. In this I feel I am like everybody else. Ups and downs. Sometimes I feel I am a complete failure, at others that, well, perhaps I may have achieved some few deeds in life.

So, like a veritable onker, I lay there with a palmful of palines munching on the appetizing berries and ready for sleep and these oafish thoughts that the future looked far more promising, now the lever and fulcrum were to come into play, filling my fool head with a pink glow.

I was wearing the old scarlet breechclout and, as was usual, the great Krozair longsword rested by my side. The scabbard had been made by Delia. I liked to touch that scabbard just before I dropped off to sleep.

Fuzzy pink moonlight from the Maiden with the Many Smiles turned the leaves into shadowed chips of rose overhead. The night scents wafted cool and refreshing. Against the radiant orb above a silhouette moved, and hovered, and spread wide wings. I lay there, looking up.

The black silhouette against the Moon remained, sharply outlined against all the streaming pink moonlight. The Gdoinye hovered up there, head bent, cruel talons extended, the powerful hunting bird, spy and messenger of the Star Lords, lowering upon me and watching me.

Instead of hurling up some genial insult as would be normal, I waited, hoping...

No voice, no sound, no warning. Quickly, the enormous phantom shape of the Scorpion, vast and blue and all-encompassing, closed off everything about me and snatched me away into the unseen gulfs.

Chapter eighteen

Wine from the Star Lords

Now I must put out all my willpower, all the force of which I was capable. Now I must test the theories that I could in some small measure stand against the superhuman authority of the Everoinye.

If the Star Lords were in the act of swirling me up from my night's sleep and intent on hurling me down all naked and unarmed into some fraught situation on some other part of Kregen, then I must do all I could to stop them. I needed to talk to them as I had, once or twice, done in the past. I was in no mood for more deeds of derring-do to further their mysterious purposes.

“Oh, no, Star Lords!” I bellowed up into the encompassing blueness that was the fantastic giant Scorpion. “Oh no! Not this time! Show yourselves—"

A wedge-shaped streak of viridian sprang into life along the lower edge of my vision. Stark, brilliant, acrid, the violent green color broadened and strengthened and coiled up into the zenith.

The dullness as of a wind from the frozen wastes of Forlorn Zinfross the Lost cut me, enveloped me, gripped me in fangs of ice.

Blueness—the giant Scorpion that whirled me away!

Crimson—the presence of the Everoinye!

And Green—acrid, bilious green—the domineering ambitious and impatient Star Lord known as Ahrinye!

If that unknowable entity seized me up and did as he had promised, my life hitherto on Kregen would appear a bed of roses. He wanted to drive me, to run me harder than any mortal man had been run.

“No!” I bellowed it up, but the bellow was more of a scream of desperate fear. “No. Star Lords! We have a compact! You cannot—"

Head over heels I went flying up—or down, or sideways, I couldn't tell. Stars sizzled like fireflies. I felt that harsh coldness as of the frozen wastes, and I felt the hot lick of flame as though I bathed in the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz.

Frantically in that chiaroscuro of colors as I swung this way and that in insubstantial emptiness, as the blue and crimson and green coiled and lapped about me, I looked for the welcome gleam of yellow. Yellow—the promise that Zena Iztar still favored me with her patronage.

My feet hit harsh grit. The colors continued to clash in my eyes and resonate soundlessly in my head. If I'd been dumped down into some wild part of Kregen to struggle against odds—who had hurled me there? For whom was I the pawn now?

The grit slicked into cold marble. I lurched forward and, as a fighting man will, ricked up the sword in my fist.

A sword!

With the Star Lords?

I held the scabbarded Krozair longsword. I wore the scarlet breechclout.

Hitherto in my dealings with the Everoinye, with but a few remarkable exceptions, they threw me down into combat naked and unarmed. I felt I might change my opinion of this practice. I might be less contemptuous than I thought I might be if they left me with a sword...

The marble under my feet felt cool.

They did not set me in a chair which hissed as it bore me along. I did not break through veils of spider silk. There were no chambers of various colors to penetrate until I reached the ebon robed room at the end.

The black walls rose about me instantly. The colors cleared. Millions of luminous motes danced away to my left, receding into infinity. Along the opposite wall three pictures, framed in heavy silver, showed views of Kregen. I had seen those pictures before and guessed that movements had taken place in the world, perhaps movements that would shatter empires.

A spindle-legged table stood in the room. Upon the table rested a costly golden goblet.

I stared and then I laughed, I, Dray Prescot, in those superhuman and awesome surroundings, laughed.

“You do not waste much on hospitality, Star Lords!"

For that goblet belonged to the Emperor Nedfar of Hamal. I had toasted him in best Jholaix and then the Everoinye had brought me here, and I'd drained the cup and placed it on the mushroom-shaped table. And it was still here. I crossed to the table, ready to make some scornful remark, and looked down and—loh! the goblet was filled to the brim with best Jholaix.

The voice whispered in, sounding in my ears and in my head.

“Things are not as they were, Dray Prescot."

First things first...

“The Shanks—?"

“Look!"

The oval silver-framed picture that showed the familiar outlines of the continental grouping known as Paz swirled and appeared to radiate outward. I felt that odd sensation as of falling into the picture. The focus swept up to the northeast, past the enormous continent of Segesthes, up to the large island of Mehzta.

From Mehzta came my comrade Gloag, who was not apim, and who ran Strombor for me in the city of Zenicce. Now his homeland ran with fire and blood.

“The devils..."

The Shanks, fish-headed, quick, tridents gleaming, ravaged the island of Mehzta. Men fought back.

“They will conquer Mehzta; but the task will take them a few seasons yet."

“How—?"

“Questions are not to be answered by us, Dray Prescot, as you know."

“Aye! I know!” I shouted back into the echoing emptiness. “But if things have changed, then why not tell me so that I can aid the fight against the Shanks? Surely—"

“The fight against the Shanks is only one of our concerns. Kregen is not the whole."

Unknowable, the Star Lords, as I thought then; but in the words, through the lethargy and tired despair, could I detect that note of humor, as of the last bubble in a forgotten glass of champagne?

The voice whispered, “Let us ask you a question, Dray Prescot, and will your overweening pride afford you the answer?"

“What pride? I own to no pride—as you damn well know—"

“Why do you think, Emperor of Vallia, that we permitted you for so long to go about your affairs? You will soon reunite Vallia. You will deal with the Witch of Loh, Csitra. You must unite all of Paz. Why, Dray Prescot, do you imagine we have chosen you when for so long you were just a stupid onker, a get onker, an onker of onkers? Well, tell us."

I didn't know.

I'd been whisked up to Kregen by the Savanti and by my own intense longings. Then the Star Lords had taken me over to run their errands for them and do their dirty work. I'd resisted as best I could. I suspected the Everoinye were not only growing old, as they'd told me, and tired; I felt they were failing seriously in performing what they wanted to do on Kregen—and elsewhere. I own to being a rogue and a rascal, a paktun, a leem-hunter; that I was also an emperor of this and king of that and kov of somewhere else was beside the point. I was a plain sailorman, a fighting man, a warrior—could I be more to the Everoinye than merely a strong sword arm?

“Well,” I said. “Perhaps because I get things done."

“After a fashion."

Again—that champagne bubble of tired amusement?

Then the acrid voice of Ahrinye broke in, fiercely, so far different from the husky whisperings of the other Star Lords.

“The man has the power, the yrium—then let us use him to the full! Why delay—?"

This squabble among the Star Lords affected me deeply. If Ahrinye won this argument I could say good-bye to liberty and more probably than not to life.

“Because he has the charisma,” the whispering voice said without hint of impatience. “He can unite Paz."

“Well, you bunch of onkers!” I bellowed up, so scared my throat hurt. “Isn't that what I started off to do long before you ever suggested it?"

Silence.

Then: “So you believe you created the thought yourself?"

“Yes."

Silence.

A voice that perhaps by the thickness of a butterfly's wing was different from the first husked out: “The man believes he speaks the truth. There is merit in his belief.” He sounded as though he might be a million years or so younger than the first. Still, what was a mere million years of age to superhuman beings like these?

“I'll unite Paz,” I said, “given half a chance. That sounds willfully boastful in my ears. The task is bedeviled by what I sorrowfully imagine is Savanti-inspired animosity by apims toward diffs—"

“They have their beliefs, which we have failed to alter."

By this time I'd found a weird acceptance of the way the aloof and dispassionate Star Lords were prepared to talk with me. Not just to talk to me. We weren't bandying words; but I felt I might open up a few other locked doors while the opportunity presented itself.

“Tell me,” I said. “What of Zena Iztar in all this?"

Ahrinye's hateful voice burst out. “She is a mere woman who has everything backwards, as is normal among them, and refuses to understand and learn—"

Despite its apparent weakness, the whispering voice had no difficulty cutting in and blotting out Ahrinye's spiteful tirade.

“Zena Iztar has not grown up, Dray Prescot. She is as once we were. She believes she has a mission and she will do all in her not inconsiderable powers to further her ends."

Well, now!

“What is her mission?"

“Onker!"

Well, I suppose the question was foolish not on the grounds of the Everoinye's refusal to answer questions—they'd been forthright enough now, by Zair!—but on the grounds of Zena Iztar's actions. Yes, her mission was obvious enough in all seeming; I just wondered if that was all there was to it.

I said, “Zena Iztar commands my loyalty—"

“We are aware of that. Where there is no conflict it is of no concern to us."

“The Kroveres of Iztar, I believe, will materially assist in the ideal of uniting the people of Paz."

“That is why it still exists."

I felt the chill.

By Krun! Was there really no limit to the power of the Everoinye? Or were they failing? Either way, I was in for a damned hard time.

Often and often I'd pondered the question of the questions. Wherever I happened to be on Kregen—in the thick of a bustling city, out under the stars at night, prowling through some unhealthy jungle—the tantalizing thoughts would flood in to mock and bedevil me. Why, I'd ask myself the question, why don't I just damn well ask the Everoinye the questions? Then some flashing slice of action would occur and I'd be far too busy swinging a sword, or double-dealing villains in chicanery, or—as recently—climbing up some horrendous crag on a damn-fool errand. All questions outside those demanding immediate answers for survival went out of the window then, and sharpish, too, by Krun.

And, as so often happened before, just as it was now, I'd ask questions of the Star Lords and they'd come back in their aloof way that such concepts were beyond my understanding, competence and business. Except for this time. Except that now they had deigned to give me some direct answers.

Of course, I reasoned, some of my sheer scared witlessness leaving me, I could only be paddling around in the shallows of the secrets they kept.

I licked my lips, and then out of braggadocio or simply because my throat was dry I picked up Nedfar's golden goblet and took a good swig of the superb Jholaix.

I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth.

“By Mother Zinzu the Blessed!” I said. “I needed that!"

Ahrinye's acrid voice lashed in, dripping venom.

“You are a kregoinye and you are in the presence of the Everoinye! Show more respect. You are not in some stinking tavern where you might meet Zena Iztar in Sanurkazz."

Respect! Since when had I ever shown respect for the Star Lords? And I was a kregoinye, one who worked for the Star Lords, willy-nilly. But! But I'd learned a little more about them from that single outburst.

Ahrinye was probably a good few million years younger than the others, and he still hadn't learned the value of deviousness in dealings. The Everoinye could see that Zena Iztar by giving her patronage to the secret Order of Kroveres of Iztar would substantially assist me to do the Star Lords’ bidding. Zair preserve me from that unpleasantly impetuous Star Lord!

Further to needle them, I said, “When do we expect the main onslaught from the Shanks to arrive?"

I'd seen that enormous armada of Shank ships sailing across the ocean. That force would demand a very great deal of effort and dedication to defeat.

“Mehzta will detain them for a few seasons yet, Dray Prescot. You still have time to carry out our designs. Vallia must not obsess you.” Then, they gave me another little jolt of surprise. “Your dealings in Hamal met with our approval. Continue thus."

I was sensible enough to say nothing in reply.

After a space of what might have been uncomfortable silence, I said: “This will take time."

“If necessary, we will manufacture time."

They could, as I knew.

“But we must insist that this occurs only as a last resort. We have no need of explaining to you; just believe."

“Oh, I believe all right."

And, almost, like the veritable onker I was, I added, “You're growing too old and past it.” But I held my tongue.

That they could read another person's thoughts I knew, for I'd had the trick performed for me on my comrades. They passed no comment. They told me again what they required, that Paz unite to stand against the Shanks, which I knew, and I tried them with more pertinent questions which were ignored.

The way I saw it then was that the Star Lords recognized I possessed the yrium, thatis the special Kregan form of charisma which blesses or curses its owner with the capacity to lead other people, to influence them, to create bonds of loyalty unbroken by death.

Fretfully, I said: “And Mehzta? Is there nothing to be done?"

The soft voice said, “A kregoinye has been dispatched."

Soho, I said to myself. I just hoped they hadn't sent my comrade Pompino the Iarvin. He was supposed to be bringing us saddle animals from South Pandahem.

When I asked I was brushed aside. Still, with this new rapport between us, I fancied the Star Lords would have given me a better answer had Pompino really been the kregoinye dispatched off to Mehzta to help repel the Shanks.

A new voice which was by a double-thickness of a butterfly's wing different from the others, spoke up. That voice spoke in what were urgent tones for the Star Lords.

“An emergency—end location—running..."

The center picture on the wall, which usually showed the oceans of Kregen between our group of continents and islands of Paz and the other grouping called Schan on the other side of the planet, cleared. Mist formed and coiled, and then in an odd perspective I was looking at an angle at a flight of wide marble steps leading up to an imposing palace.

No sound issued; but one did not need sound to wince at the soggy blows being struck by the knobbly cudgels of the ruffians belaboring a man in a black coat and trousers.

Another man wearing a tall black cylindrical hat and black coat ran up. Moonlight washed the scene. This second man lifted an ebony cane with silver bands. He muffed it.

He tried to hit the ruffians in their nondescript coats and flat hats, and sending the first one reeling back down the steps, he was instantly set on by three others and fell beneath the rain of blows.

One of the Everoinye said something I had no possible way of understanding.

When they operated, these mysterious Star Lords, they operated fast.

Blueness just swelled up around me.

I yelled.

“No! I will not go—"

That moonlight ... That was the most important factor in that fracas.

That moonlight gleamed silver upon the marble.

Head over heels, the icy cold washing me, I soared up and away.

A voice followed me, a whispering voice cutting through the lambent blueness.

“A short time only, Dray Prescot. This we promise you."

Headlong, tumbled head over heels, away I flew, hurled back to the planet of my birth four hundred light-years away.

Chapter nineteen

The Everoinye play a jest

Well, of course. I was there. I was the one on the spot. All the Everoinye had to do when their stupid kregoinye fouled up was ship me off, head over heels, to pick up the pieces.

They'd done exactly this trick upon me before, many times.

This time I landed with a thumping great slam upon the icy steps. Moonlight fell about me. Silver moonlight!

Gone was the warm fuzzy pink moonslight of Kregen.

Gone, too, were the scarlet breechclout and the Krozair longsword.

I was not naked.

I wore a black coat and trousers identical to those worn by the poor devil of a kregoinye who lay bleeding on the marble. I could feel a ring pressing down on my head, and guessed I wore a top hat. In my hand, in place of the longsword, I held an ebony cane.

Beneath my fingers I could feel a catch in the wood, a metal latch familiar to me. I pressed. There was no time to dilly-dally with the gentry intent on lulling the gentleman screaming upon the steps.

I came up fast and silently and hit one of the ruffians over his head. He fell down.

His companion swore. I caught a ‘Verdammt!’ and he caught the cane and dragged it toward him, intent on finishing me with his cudgel.

The wood slithered off the metal with a chingling evil sound.

The poor devil stared sickly at the sword cane.

I did not slay him; just stuck him a little and then instantly slashed at another would-be murderer who came a rush at me from the side. He staggered back, shrieking, an eye hanging out, blood everywhere.

The kregoinye had vanished.

The other ruffians could either stay and die or run.

They ran.

Glaring about and breathing gently and evenly I saw there were no more potential slain in the offing and so bent to the injured man. He was unconscious. I could feel the cold bite of the wind, the ice upon the steps unpleasant, and faintly the sound of a city reached me. I picked the man up and started down the steps.

Properly dressed, the sword pushed back all bloody as it was into the cane and invisible, I was able to attract the attention of a horse-drawn carriage. The driver knew the way to the hospital. Even without my tutor's genetically coded language pill, given me by Maspero in far Aphrasöe, I could have conversed easily enough.

I was in Vienna.

Well, that suited me only in that I wasn't in some outlandish place. And—I had clothes! And—money!

Truly, the Star Lords looked after their regular agents. I'd been so used to being dropped in, all naked and unarmed, at the last minute, any other way of going on smacked of sybaritic luxury!

There is little need to make a meal of my doings on Earth at this time of the turn of the century. I had to believe that the Star Lords meant what they'd said. In view of that, and my doting passion for the music of Johann Strauss the Younger, I went the round of the best places to hear the music. I was Waltz mad, of course. And, at the same time, I caught up with what had been going on on Earth during my recent absence.

My education in matters terrestrial was materially furthered. The man I had rescued, I can now reveal, turned out to be a most important personage later on, and did, in fact, have an impact on world affairs. Still, as ever, it is not my intention to relate my life upon Earth; but to narrate what befell me on that gorgeous and barbaric world of Kregen.

The time went by and it dawned on me that I was keeping myself busy learning about science and philosophy and medicine so that I didn't notice the passage of the days. I began to grow alarmed. I took the train to Paris—and a fabulous and luxurious train journey that was, to be sure!—and checked into a high class hotel. What the hell were the Everoinye doing? Had they played me false?

Now I have mentioned that last bubble in the forgotten glass of champagne. I suspected the Star Lords did own to a sense of humor.

They proved it, at least to my satisfaction, then.

The Parisian hotel bed was comfortable enough. I'd eaten well, drunk moderately, smoked a single cigar, and I dropped off to sleep with my usual fretful thoughts gradually submerging under the most important thought of all. That thought never left me, and grew strongest as I closed my eyes in sleep.

Someone touched me on the shoulder.

“Bonjour,” I mumbled, starting to turn over and open my eyes. “Jesuis—"

“What gibberish is that you're spouting, you hairy old graint?"

Delia!

The bedclothes went one way, I went the other, and Delia was in my arms.

“When—” she managed to gasp out. “When did you get home and why didn't you tell me?"

I hugged her and then held her off and looked at her.

Divine! Superb! Absolutely stunning!

“Delia,” I said, hardly aware of what I was saying. “My heart!"

“Well?"

So I told her.

“One little yellow sun and one little silver moon and no diffs?"

“Right."

“You poor old fellow!"

“And the Star Lords just whisked me back when I was asleep. I think, I really do think, they've turned over a new leaf. They played a jest on me!"

Then we fell to and told each other the news and joyed in each other and talked and talked, and we sent for food which we did remember to eat, and so I was back once more upon Kregen, my adopted home, and where in all the galaxy I most wanted to be. With my Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains!

There were hundreds of items of news to catch up on.

So many story lines were going on, continuing dramatic threads, and I've not mentioned one in a thousand in this narrative, hewing to a central line. As an example: Nulty over in Paline Valley had done a deal to acquire more land and had taken over the next valley. Hundreds and hundreds of items that are the life blood of Kregen.

So when I mention here the news conveyed by courier to the capital—for I was in Vondium—about Seg, Turko and Inch, it is because that was uppermost in my mind, and has formed the substance of this section of my narrative.

There had been not a single plague visited on Vallia in my absence.

During a time when I could not gabble on by reason of a mouthful of palines, Delia said: “I don't know what you did to Kov Nath Famphreon. What a change in that young man!"

“You've seen him?"

“Of course. I think he'll turn out all right. At least, Seg seems to think so."

“Well, minx, go on!"

“Oh, they had a wonderful time up there in Falkerdrin. Most of the people were so tired and resentful of the Racters, particularly of Nalgre Sultant and his son, and of Ered Imlien, that they cheered like mad for Nath."

“No fighting?"

“Hardly any. Not down south. There is a pocket up north against the border of Kavinstock where Imlien marches his army about, creating a mischief—"

“What? Well, what's Turko doing about it?"

“They are, my heart. A battle is imminent, I'm afraid. We ought to win, but—"

“Yes."

Delia had said: “I'm afraid.” So was I. I detest battles and fighting and only indulge in them because as I see it the alternative is worse. But, in this...?

“I'll get up there straight away."

She sighed.

“I knew you'd say that, of course—"

“And is the reason you held the news back this late—"

“Well!” she flared up. “And weren't you fascinated by the news of Queen Lush? Tell me true—"

“Yes, yes, I was. And about Dayra and Lela, too. But this is here and now. If there is no more vitally important information I should know, then I'll fly up first thing in the morning.” I eyed her. “I suppose I can always find time to spend another night with you."

“Despite this so important affair of state you must manage?"

By Zair! But she was beautiful! And sharp, too, sharp and lovely and altogether the most wonderful girl in two worlds. And devious with it, believe me...

We flew up together the next day.

There was nothing I could say to stop the Empress of Vallia flying where she willed.

The news she had given me of Drak must wait for a small space...

Now quite a few Kregans are interested in gaining recognition and renown for great deeds, what they call absteilung, and fellows or girls with a great deal of absteilung to their credit are called kampeons. Just about all the lads in my guard corps were kampeons. Not all, for we trained up youngsters there, as you know. So, when Delia and I flew into the camp where the Ninth Army waited for the battle everyone hoped would be the last of this campaign, there were vast quantities of absteilung in the camp and many kampeons, with the prospect of more to come.

They were all there. All those gallant comrades whom you have met in this narrative. And great was the rejoicing when we sat down to the serious business of deciding how best to bash the Racters, with a glass or two for counsel as well, I might add...

I said, “You do extremely well without me. So go to it. Your plans are ineluctably fine."

Seg offered to shaft me, Turko wanted to twist my arms off, Inch swore he'd give me a short haircut, and Nath na Kochwold said tart words to the effect that the Phalanx wouldn't take kindly if the emperor was not on parade.

Delia, laughing, said: “You don't think this grizzly old graint could keep his ugly old nose out of it, do you?"

One item of information Delia gave me I considered interesting and then filed away in my mind. That was a mistake, as I was to discover.

She told me that Marion had insisted on the new guard regiment of Jikai Vuvushis being committed to action, and Kapt Erndor, now Chief of Staff to the Kov Turko as well as the Ninth Army, was enthusiastic to have this addition to his strength. Marion had stalwartly refused to marry Strom Nango until the emperor could dance at her wedding. Now that I was back, she declared that as soon as the battle was won she'd finalize the wedding details. Of course, meekly, I agreed.

Among the Vallian military officers attached as aides-de-camp to Strom Nango was Hikdar Ortyg Voman of the Fifteenth Lancers. I was surprised to see him. He'd been with his regiment down in the southwest with Drak. He was paying court to Sushi Vannerlan, and through her friendship with Marion the appointment had been arranged. From what I knew there was no shortage of action with Drak, quite the reverse. Sushi was here also, one of the camp followers we tolerated, as we tolerated very very few, for she played a demanding role in the hospital service, and Hikdar Ortyg Voman had pulled strings to be with her. I couldn't blame him.

The army was in fine fettle, crowing over their relatively unhindered march northward.

“By Bongolin!” declared Nath na Kochwold. “Once Nath Famphreon talked to a few of ‘em, they ate out of his hand!"

Perhaps you can make some little attempt to gauge the depths of my feelings of relief that we had won through so far with so little blood spilt? That my plan of the lever and fulcrum had worked?

“Just bash the last of ‘em,” said Seg, smiling at Delia and me, “and we can all go home."

“Oh, no, Seg!” I said.

“Do what, my old dom?"

“It'll be Balkan for you. The High Kov's time is near."

“Yes, well—” He coughed a dry little cough. “I was contemplating taking an army over the mountains to deal with this so-called King of North Vallia."

“That will be done. It's Balkan for you."

He knew what we were talking about. He knew I wanted to see him established on his own estates, legally and morally, as the Hyr Kov of Balkan.

So far news of the invasion by the Shanks of Mehzta had not reached here. When it did arrive I knew damn well that high-spirited young people would want to take to the air instantly and fly over to help. This question had to be debated most carefully. The Presidio would have to make the final decision. As for myself, I would not leave the work set to my hand here, particularly when the Star Lords had assured me they had one of their agents out there already.

The lads gave me a tremendous welcome when I rode out to inspect the various units of the Ninth Army.

As for my guard corps, now they were back in business. Their business was looking after my hide.

The “Hai Jikais!” rang over the parade grounds.

This last battle looked to be open and shut and I was seriously debating whether or not I should take myself off somewhere else where I might be more useful. Zair knows, there was enough to do.

Delia in her practical no-nonsense way, said: “It will not take long. And you know how they relish having you there—"

“You're right, my heart. But—!"

“But nothing. And, I'm coming with you when—"

“You're doing no such thing!"

“We'll see."

So I knew I'd lost that argument.

We sent out heralds all duly signposted to talk to the chief Racters, and received back only words of spite. The heralds uniformly reported that the army with the Sultants and Imlien thirsted for the forthcoming fight.

I said, “Is this more sorcery?"

“Who can tell, majister. They are confident."

Seg growled out, “I feel sorry for ‘em. But, by the Veiled Froyvil! We've tried to accommodate them in the decent way, now we'll accommodate ‘em in six feet of earth."

“Seg!” said Milsi, and put her hand on his arm. At once he bent to her, attentive, and she smiled and for a moment they were oblivious of us.

Whetti-Orbium, who as the manifestation of Opaz concerned with the weather, smiled on us from time to time and rained on us at others, decided to smile. The army marched out and in good order, took up positions around the smallish town of Stocrosmot and prepared for the final attack.

To my great joy Nalgre the Point had kept a good hold of Snagglejaws. I could have had the choice of many a fine zorca, blood zorcas all. I chose snuffy, tufty, drab old Snagglejaws, for I knew his mettle. Nalgre, in his olumai way, accepted the position I offered him as an aide de camp. His panda face smiled warmly.

“I'll call you majister, Kadar the Silent, and be respectful. But you cannot wash away some memories."

“Nor would I wish to, Nalgre. Just don't get yourself killed."

“Oh, I won't do that, by Lingloh! And, anyway, I'll be off home to K'koza as soon as we're finished up here."

“I shall be sorry to bid you remberee."

The battle plan worked like a charm. Even though I'd expressly requested that Marion's warrior maidens be held in reserve, they got themselves into a fine old knock-about with a regiment of Brokelsh, and in the end they broke and routed the coarse and hairily uncouth bunch facing them. The whole line advanced. We sounded the view-halloo and the chase was on.

This pursuit was necessary if we were to see and conclude an end to the unpleasant affair.

I wanted none of it and left it to our cavalry to continue. With 1 and 2 ESW and 1EYJ, together with the new guard regiments, 1EFB and 1ELC, I looked across the edge of that battlefield where the dead lay in their windrows, and sighed, and ordered camp pitched. The baggage wagons came up and we set to do what we could.

Hikdar Ortyg Voman passed staggering.

“Hik!” I called. “You are wounded?"

The twin suns had set and the stars were out, and the Maiden with the Many Smiles inched above the horizon.

“No, Majis. It is Sushi—she is out there among the wounded and the dead—and I do not like that—"

“It is her wish, Hik."

At that moment the Hamalese, Strom Nango, walked up.

“Marion requests, majister, that you meet her at once by that twisted tree—” Nango pointed. The tree, bent out of shape, leaned against the wind. I nodded.

“Very well, Strom."

Seg and Turko appeared, and Delia walked out of the tent. Inch would be inside securely fastening up his yellow hair.

“What's to do?"

“No idea. Marion wants me over by that tree."

We all walked across, passing campfires where some of the lads were brewing up or roasting slices of meat. Most were flat on their backs, spark out after the battle. A group from the various duty squadrons followed. The night breeze cooled our flushed cheeks. The stars glittered with that particular brightness of Kregen. The silence was acute. There was no long low and dreadful moaning from the scene of battle.

Under the tree, Sushi Vannerlan, her apron stained black-red, stood with Marion. The Jikai Vuvushis were camped nearby, and they were as tired as the men.

“Hai, Marion. What is it?"

She gripped Sushi's arm. I looked at the two women, surprised. Just past the gnarled tree lay an ancient burial ground where for generations the dead of the town of Stocrosmot had been laid to rest. I thought of the cemetery outside Falkerium and other towns and cities.

“Sushi?"

“Majister—” She swallowed and started over. “Majister—the wounded and the dead—they are—strange—"

Turko said, “When you're dead you're dead."

“Not,” said Seg, “in some places of Kregen."

Just then the breeze blew chill, colder than it should be on such a night.

A low rippling movement across the ground beyond the tree took all my attention. Could it be? Why not? I had seen the dead walk when I'd been down the Moder. Kao is one of the many Kregish names for death, and the kaotim, the undead, specters, zombies, call them what you will, these are well known over Kregen.

Were the dead walking?

“May Erthyr the Bow keep us now!” said Seg in a hard, tight voice. He unlimbered his great Lohvian longbow.

“By Morro the Muscle!” said Turko. “It is true!"

A voice at our backs, strong, unperturbed: “Ngrangi is with us, for the Maiden with the Many Smiles floats alone in the sky.” Inch, not a single strand of his brave yellow hair exposed to the fuzzy pink moonlight of the Maiden with the Many Smiles, joined us. He carried sword and shield and was armored.

I took the Krozair longsword off my back. I said to Delia: “You had best—"

And she said, “At your side, fambly."

So we stood, a little group of comrades, with our kampeons, and watched as the ground rose up before us.

Dead men and women, people just slain in the battle and others long dead, moved toward us. The pink moonlight caught on armor and weapon, glinted fuzzy rose. Skeletons, mummies, men and women apparently full-fleshed and filled with blood, advanced upon us.

“Csitra the Witch of Loh has planned this well! How do we slay men already slain!” The voice was lost in the night.

So we gripped our weapons and arrayed ourselves as the grisly horde bore on.

Abruptly, with a shriek as of sundering metal, the mob of kaotim rushed upon us and we puny mortals were at hand strokes with the crazed hordes of the Undead of Kregen.

Chapter twenty

Undead of Kregen

No nightmares trouble me over that horrid fight with the Undead. The poor creatures were husks only, shells, their spirits already wandering the Ice Floes of Sicce, seeking the sunny uplands beyond. Bundles of bone, swathings of rotten cloth, stained with the dirt of the years, many of them simply rushed in with clawed fingers seeking to rip us to pieces.

These already dead we could deal with. The recently slain posed a tougher problem, for in their ghastly resurrection they snatched up sword or spear, pushed helmet straight, and wearing what armor they had worn in life plunged screeching upon us.

I say we could deal with the dead. At first this did not appear to be the case.

“They are dead!” screamed that same voice at my back. “How can we kill dead men?"

Without looking back, I shouted: “Take that man into custody. Shut his damnfool mouth!"

Then I really shouted, really let my old foretop-hailing voice belt out.

“They are dead therefore half our work is already done! Chop ‘em! Cut their legs off! Sunder them into pieces! And, my friends, go with Opaz for this night's work."

Seg said: “You're right, my old dom. But, first—just one..."

A marvel with a bow, Seg Segutorio ... He loosed and his aim, unerring, sent the rose-fletched shaft directly into the backbone of a prancing skeleton leading on the grisly mob. Bits of vertebrae sprayed. The skeleton's top half fell, arms scarecrow-wide, bone bright. But the lower half, the pelvis and the legs, continued to run on toward us.

“If,” said Seg, “it's like that...” He thrust the longbow away and drew his drexer. “It's leg-chopping time."

Milsi was back at the camp, and for the moment Seg had no fears for her. I had fears for Delia. By Zair! I was terrified for her. Yet she stood at my side, lithe and limber, sword poised, and she had possessed herself of a drexer in place of the rapier. She wore no Claw. The enormous shadow over me that was Korero the Shield would have to be spoken to; but he knew, as Turko the Shield had known before him.

“Aye, Dray, aye. Rest easy."

“To you, then, Korero—"

“Aye."

More shafts flitted from our ranks into the howling shambles running on; they did little damage. We were poised, braced, as the contents of the local graveyard crashed into us.

By Makki Grodno's dangling right eyeball and dripping left armpit! Csitra had gone too far with this latest curse. As we fought I could feel not red roaring anger but cold impatient venom.

The superb Krozair brand sliced around in a whirl of roseate steely light, shattered bones, went on and no stain of blood marred that blade. We chopped the skeletons as we might chop firewood.

Do not ask me how skeletons may be wired up so that they run and fight and their lower jaws clack in a ghastly grin against their upper teeth, let alone how they may be animated. Grotesque angular dancers, limbs flinging about in abandon, bony and thin, they tried to bite and claw even as we chopped them down.

The skeletons were bad enough. The corpses dead long enough to begin decomposing were far worse. For all his macabre dancing parody, a skeleton is clean in a way a rotting corpse is not. Far, far worse to glimpse a row of exposed teeth, a jaw, a naked eyeball, a vine-net of veins, than just a bald skull, a long bony arm! Stinking, the corpses poured down on us. They were falling to pieces even as they charged.

Seg slashed a foul thing of rags and bony fingers away and said, “Even Skort the Clawsang wouldn't give these things the time of day."

“Your back, Seg!"

He dodged, slashed, and a skull toppled. He and I and Turko and Inch fought there in the front rank. Useless for my guard corps to rage and protest and try to shove up. In this horrendous conflict we all must play our part.

Skeletons, rotting corpses—they were bad. But the worst, by far and away the worst, rushed charging at us with wild war cries. Some of my lads cried out in horror.

Through the din, distinctly, I heard one anguished scream: “It is Vango, my brother, Vango!"

The voice of Nath na Kochwold: “Vango seeks the sunny uplands, Deldar Vangwin! This is not your brother! This is evil from the pits—chop, Deld Vangwin, chop as you value your life!"

So we fought our own dead comrades.

Ghastly, horrible, and pathetic, yes, it was all these things. Also, the fight could have seen us all trooping down to the Ice Floes of Sicce by regiment, all wailing dolorously for the Gray Ones.

Poor Nath na Kochwold had to see his brumbytes fighting dead pikemen. Swords in live hands clashed against shields clutched in dead, and swords in bloodless fists smashed against shields in the grip of the living. Useless to thrust. Useless to try anything except great hewing strokes that swept the dead away into bundles that mewed and tried to scrabble along, drawing legless torsos by bare hands.

And, in all this horror—where were Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling?

Others in that great fight shared those fraught doubts, and Delia said: “They will be here soon. They just have to be!"

Fascinating to see how my lads formed their ring about Delia. No skeleton penetrated that devoted circle of bronze and steel. Of course, Delia was mightily put out and kept advancing to take her share, and the ring would move and shift and so encircle her again. I approved. By Zair! If my Delia did not survive—well, the Star Lords could look for another tool, that was for sure.

A churgur from the new regiment, First Emperor's Life Churgurs, staggered back with a stux embedded in his neck. He fell. Immediately a comrade stepped up to take his place and front the gibbering horrors. I saw the dead man sprawled on the ground. I saw his right hand relax to let the sword fall away, I saw that hand turn inward, lift and fasten on the javelin. The fist ripped the stux free in a gush of blood. The man threw the stux down, picked up his sword, stood up, turned, hurled himself full at his comrades of a moment ago!

A long Saxon-pattern axe swirled. The churgur fell in two pieces, still with blood enough to stain across the trampled ground. Targon the Tapster finished him off by chopping his legs away. Inch's great axe flashed in that deadly circle as he cleared the zombies from his front, and I noticed the swathing mass of bandages about his hair fallen away so that strands of his yellow braids showed.

Poor Inch! He would have to expiate this taboo after the battle—if he were still here and not suffocating in some Herrelldrin Hell.

Many the macabre scenes enacted that night. My lads were tired from the day's battle and now they were forced to struggle in another and far more hideous conflict. No. Far better to pass over that ghastly time and record that, on a sudden, all the skeletons and decomposing corpses and bodies of our dead comrades and enemies fell.

They collapsed and the sound of bones clanking down rang like carillons.

“Thank Opaz!"

The Wizard and the Witch of Loh stepped from the small two-place flier. Their faces were strained. They looked grave.

“As quickly as we could, Dray,” Khe-Hi told me. “But the power of the uhu Phunik grows remarkably."

“Nine Curses,” I said. The piece of cloth in my hand wiped up and down the blade of the Krozair longsword. “Nine. There will be more to come."

Delia started to say something, changed her mind, went on cleaning her sword.

If I interpolate here that we cleaned our own weapons, this was true most of the time. Now it gave us something to cling onto as we digested the latest information in our struggle with Csitra and Phunik.

Counting the cost of that miserable fight was a melancholy affair. We'd lost good men and women. The dead—the pieces of the dead—were duly buried and appropriate ceremonies held and words spoken. But the memories weighed heavily upon us.

When I made inquiries concerning the man who had spoken so ill at the beginning, calling out that we could not slay men already dead, the escort wheeled up Hikdar Ortyg Voman. I was astonished.

He looked in a terrible state. Sushi Vannerlan had been badly wounded and it was feared for her life. This had unnerved him, clearly. Yet...

“Well, Hikdar. What have you to say?"

“Nothing, majister. I know only that Sushi is near death and I am frantic—"

“Yes. You have my sympathy. But you called out when the fight began. You did not act as I expected."

Miserable he was, his uniform torn and bloodied, mud over his knees, all his handsome good looks shrunken away.

“I do not recall—"

“You don't remember?"

“No, majister."

Delia said: “Khe-Hi?"

“Yes, yes, it would fit.” Khe-Hi turned to me there in the Headquarters tent with the escort holding onto Voman, more to keep him upright than to restrain him. “I was not in Vondium at the time of the first werewolf outbreaks. But—"

I nodded, sick with the revelation. “Hikdar Ortyg Voman turned up late at Marion's party, after the werewolf struck. And now Csitra spies on us again—"

Hikdar Ortyg Voman said: “Dray Prescot, you are a stubborn man! Is there nothing in all this world or the other world that will move you?"

I said, “You know the answer to that, Csitra."

“My uhu grows impatient."

“What other world do you mean?” I did not think she referred to Earth but to the mystic other dimension in which so much of the traffic of these Witches and Wizards of Loh was carried on.

“A world open to me and not to you. But I would have you share much of what I can offer—will you not visit me in the Coup Blag? Phunik can be—"

Instead of blurting out: “Phunik can be hanged!” I said, “You released Wenerl the Lightfoot from his thralldom to you when his usefulness had gone. Will you now release this man?"

Staring into Voman's eyes and seeing only human eyes regarding me blankly, I wondered for a fleeting moment if he could feel or understand what was going on through his brain. Far away south in Pandahem, in the Coup Blag, this woman, this Witch of Loh, and her malignant brat planned to make over the world in the way they wanted. But so, of course, did I.

Voman stood unseeing, supported by his escort. The others in the tent, comrades all, watched silently. I tried again.

“You know I would think better of you, Csitra, if—"

“Perhaps that is not enough, Dray Prescot!"

“Then you condemn this man to death."

“Which means nothing to me."

“Therein lies the barrier."

What the Star Lords had told me, what Delia and I had discussed, all tended to the same answer. It would not be easy and it would not be pretty, but, by Zair! I could see precious little else to do.

I said: “You are proving an obstacle to my own plans, Csitra. You are an inconvenience. Maybe Phunik will grow into powers greater than yours or his father's. Maybe he will fall down a great pit and impale himself on spikes. Should I care about that?"

“You would not dare to ask me to choose between you!"

“Not dare, Csitra, care."

“Visit me. Come to see me. You know what I can offer you in the Coup Blag."

I knew that all right, by Krun, I knew that!

“Maybe I will visit you. Will you release this man?"

“If I do, do I have your promise?"

Delia touched my arm and I put my fingers on hers. The touch gave me strength.

“Yes."

Hikdar Ortyg Voman closed his eyes. Then, just before he opened them, he said: “And can I rely on your promise?"

My fingers held Delia's and I could feel the warm firmness there without a tremble as Voman's eyes snapped open and he gasped out: “What—? Where—?"

I didn't know if the Witch of Loh could hear me or not but I said, “Oh, yes, Csitra the Witch. Oh, yes. You can rely on my promise to come to visit you."

About the author

Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.

Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer's works were published along with the works of other authors under “house names” (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.

Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series.

More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.

The Dray Prescot Series

The Delian Cycle:

1. Transit to Scorpio

2. The Suns of Scorpio

3. Warrior of Scorpio

4. Swordships of Scorpio

5. Prince of Scorpio

Havilfar Cycle:

6. Manhounds of Antares

7. Arena of Antares

8. Fliers of Antares

9. Bladesman of Antares

10. Avenger of Antares

11. Armada of Antares

The Krozair Cycle:

12. The Tides of Kregen

13. Renegade of Kregen

14. Krozair of Kregen

Vallian cycle:

15. Secret Scorpio

16. Savage Scorpio

17. Captive Scorpio

18. Golden Scorpio

Jikaida cycle:

19. A Life for Kregen

20. A Sword for Kregen

21. A Fortune for Kregen

22. A Victory for Kregen

Spikatur cycle:

23. Beasts of Antares

24. Rebel of Antares

25. Legions of Antares

26. Allies of Antares

Pandahem cycle:

27. Mazes of Scorpio

28. Delia of Vallia

29. Fires of Scorpio

30. Talons of Scorpio

31. Masks of Scorpio

32. Seg the Bowman

Witch War cycle:

33. Werewolves of Kregen

34. Witches of Kregen

35. Storm over Vallia

36. Omens of Kregen

37. Warlord of Antares

Lohvian cycle:

38. Scorpio Reborn

39. Scorpio Assassin

40. Scorpio Invasion

41. Scorpio Ablaze

42. Scorpio Drums

43. Scorpio Triumph

Balintol cycle:

44. Intrigue of Antares

45. Gangs of Antares

46. Demons of Antares

47. Scourge of Antares

48. Challenge of Antares

49. Wrath of Antares

50. Shadows over Kregen

Phantom cycle:

51. Murder on Kregen

52. Turmoil on Kregen

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