Copyright © 1976, 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 by Daw Books, Inc. in 1976.

This Edition published in 2006 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.

ISBN 1843194120

Armada of Antares

Dray Prescot #11

Alan Burt Akers

Mushroom eBooks

A Note on Dray Prescot

Dray Prescot is a man above medium height, with straight brown hair and brown eyes that are level and dominating. His shoulders are immensely wide and there is about him an abrasive honesty and a fearless courage. He moves like a great hunting cat, quiet and deadly. Born in 1775 and educated in the inhumanly harsh conditions of the late eighteenth century English navy, he presents a picture of himself that, the more we learn of him, grows no less enigmatic.

Through the machinations of the Savanti nal Aphrasöe — mortal but superhuman men dedicated to the aid of humanity — and of the Star Lords, the Everoinye, he has been taken to Kregen under the Suns of Scorpio many times. On that savage and beautiful, marvelous and terrible world he rose to become Zorcander of the Clansmen of Segesthes, and Lord of Strombor in Zenicce, and a member of the mystic and martial Order of Krozairs of Zy.

Against all odds Prescot won his highest desire and in that immortal battle at The Dragon’s Bones claimed his Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains. And Delia claimed him in the face of her father, the dread Emperor of Vallia. Amid the rolling thunder of the acclamations of “Hai Jikai!”

Prescot became Prince Majister of Vallia, and wed his Delia, the Princess Majestrix. One of their favorite homes is in Valkanium, capital city of the island of Valka of which Prescot is Strom. Prescot is plunged headlong into fresh adventures on Kregen in the continent of Havilfar. Outwitting the Manhounds of Antares, ghastly parodies of humans used as hunting dogs, and fighting as a hyr-kaidur in the arena of the Jikhorkdun in Huringa in Hyrklana, he becomes King of Djanduin, idolized by his incredibly ferocious four-armed Djangs. But Hamal, the greatest power in Havilfar, ruled by Queen Thyllis, is bent on conquest; Prescot acting as a spy under cover of the alias of Hamun ham Farthytu, has discovered half the secrets of the airboats that give Hamal so much of her power. Now Prescot must bend every effort into thwarting the egomaniacal plans of Queen Thyllis and her iron Empire of Hamal with whatever weapons he can find . . .

This volume, Armada of Antares, sees the conclusion of the second cycle in the saga of Dray Prescot, the “Havilfar Cycle.” With the next book, tentatively titled The Tides of Kregen, we are launched onto the third cycle of Prescot’s adventures under the Suns of Scorpio which, because of the locale and the mystic order of which Prescot is so valued a member, I have called the “Krozair Cycle.”

Alan Burt Akers

Chapter 1

Swordplay in a garden

“Drak!” said the Princess Majestrix of Vallia, walking unhurriedly across the grass to the pool’s edge. “If you insist on climbing the tree I shall be cross.” She put one bare toe into the water and shook her head, looking so gorgeously lovely that I marveled anew at her beauty. “Of course, Drak, if you fall in I shall be more than cross. You are wearing your best clothes.”

“I’m not wearing my best clothes,” said Lela, higher in the tree. She looked down at her brother, giggled, and threw a leafy twig at him. “Silly boy! All dressed up to see his soldiers.”

“I will climb up,” said Drak, with the solemn ferociousness of extreme youth. “And pull your hair.”

Delia’s smile vanished. Her face took on a most purposeful look as she stared up into the missal tree which overhung this small private pool in a walled garden of Esser Rarioch. The garden rioted with flowers, their colors and scents filling the air with brilliant beauty and sweet perfumes. And, over all, the high blue sky of Kregen smiled down, fluffed with cloud. From that sky shone the twin suns, the Suns of Scorpio, Zim and Genodras, the red and the green, streaming down their glorious mingled opaz radiance. Well, I was home. Home in my island Stromnate of Valka, off the coast of Vallia, and my Delia had very quickly led me to understand that bringing up twins, a boy demon and a girl demoness, was a far cry from racing off into adventure with my red cloak flaring and the glitter of a rapier in my eyes. I looked up at young Drak, whose vigorous body swung from the tree branch as he hauled himself up with a determination of which I approved despite his mother’s stern admonishments about his best clothes. “Drak,” I said, speaking in my relaxed at-home voice. “Drak, my lad. If you fall into the water you will not please your mother. If you fall at all you will not please me. And, anyway, if you fall into the water you will hardly be ready to present the standards to your regiment.”

“I will not fall, Father.”

“Humph,” I said. But he was right. The little devil could climb like a grundal, one of those rock-apes of the inner sea.

No doubt some deep realization that his mother meant what she said penetrated at last, making him heed her rather than his desire to scare his sister. For I had noticed that for all the bloodthirsty threats young Drak made against Lela, he did not carry them out — or not many of them and only very briefly. I had, like any parent, a deep concern and apprehension over the relationship of my children and, thank Zair, I saw they loved each other. Now he began to shinny down the tree, with a careless, casual abandonment that masked his exquisite care over his bright buff clothes and the red and white sash. I smiled.

Delia, I saw, contained a tremble at the corner of her mouth, that mouth which in its soft ripe redness held the whole universe of beauty, and she half turned away so that her twins should not see how easily they could move her. She wore a brief white tunic, flowing free, and I would have stepped forward and taken her in my arms.

The little wicket gate in the angle of the old red brick wall, drowned in white and purple flowers, opened with a smash. A Valkan archer stumbled through. He wore the usual Vallian buff, bedecked with the brave red and white Valkan favor. His bow was broken in two, dangling by the string. He had lost his wide-brimmed hat and his fair hair tumbled about his face. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, one hand groping before him, the fingers outspread. Speaking was difficult, for a thick spear had passed between his ribs, and I did not think he had long to live. But, before he died, this guard tried to cry out his warning.

The comfortable little family scene had been ripped apart.

“Largan!” cried Delia, and her hand went not to her mouth but groped emptily at her side. She was not wearing a belt and there was no long slender dagger scabbarded there.

“Go up into the tree, Drak!”

I spoke quickly. I must have used something of that old command voice, for Drak jumped and instantly began to climb again.

“Do not worry about your clothes, Drak! Climb up high, with Lela. Hide in the leaves! Climb quickly, my son.”

“We will buy you new clothes if you tear them, Drak!” Delia spoke firmly, but I heard the choked sob in her voice.

“And you, too, wife,” I said. “Get inside and—”

“There is no time, Dray.”

They walked into the cool scented garden, arrogant, confident, vicious. There were four of them. They came like executioners into a schoolroom.

I put my hand to my waist. I wore a white shirt and buff Vallian breeches and black boots. I did not wear a sword. I cursed then, deep in my throat. Here. Here! In my own walled garden of Esser Rarioch overlooking my capital city Valkanium and the Bay! This was incredible. It was obscene. The four carried rapiers in their right hands, and left-hand daggers, and they walked forward without haste. They were men who knew their work. They had been hired to do this. They were men accustomed to the quick and efficient dispatch of their business.

Each of the assassins wore a steel domino-mask beneath the wide Vallian hat. Their clothes were unremarkable: good solid Vallian buff. They spread out a little as they advanced. I wondered how much they knew of me, how much they had been told.

Delia began to shout. She did not scream. She shouted, a high ringing call that should bring attendants, guards, and friends running.

The first assassin’s mouth widened beneath the mask.

“You are too late, lady,” he said. His voice sounded perfectly normal. To me, he said: “You are the Strom of Valka?”

“It is clear you do not know me,” I said. “Else a mere four of you, with rapiers and daggers, only, would never have taken the gold.”

He laughed.

“Brave words, from a man about to die.”

He was clever in his trade. Even as he spoke he sprang. He thought he would catch me completely unprepared.

The rapier lunged for my midriff. I leaned to my left and I swayed; I thrust my leg forward and struck him a cruel blow between wind and water. As his face turned green and his eyes popped I took the rapier away, jumped his collapsing body, and circled number two, spitting him through the guts. I saw number three’s dagger spin and glitter and extend into a streaking silver blaze as he hurled it at me. The old Krozair disciplines brought the rapier up; the dagger chingled against the blade and flew to splash into the pool.

Number four yelled in a shocked voice: “The man is a devil!”

Number three tried to meet my attack, but fell away with his face slashed open. I knocked him down, and I said to this number four, who backed away, the rapier circling: “Yes, you poor onker. I am a very devil!”

He tried to run and I thrust him through his kidneys. There is no chivalry in me when a man tries to slay my Delia. None whatsoever.

Number one was holding himself and trying to get enough breath to gasp, making a most distressing groaning and hissing. I hit him on the head, enough to put him to sleep, and then the little garden filled with servants and guards.

I shouted so that at once everyone fell silent.

‘Take this offal away. Chain up the one who lives. I shall question him later. See to poor Largan.”

Delia was halfway up the tree. I tilted my head back and called up: “Take your time, my Delia.”

“Yes, Dray. But the little devils will have seen all, through the leaves—”

“Yes.” This was true. “They live on Kregen. The quicker they understand what that means, the better.”

But I felt a soreness at my heart. Innocence of youth should be continued for as long as possible, in an ideal world. Kregen, under the Suns of Scorpio, is not ideal, even if there is much in that beautiful and terrible world I prefer to my own Earth, four hundred light-years away. Delia glanced down, about to say something, but called up to the children instead. I knew I had spoken thoughtlessly, even after all the time I had lived on Kregen under Antares. How do you explain to your wife that you were never born on the world she was born on, that you came from a distant speck among the stars of heaven?

Like any weakling I had been putting off and putting off the time when I must explain to Delia. I had been brought from Earth to Kregen many times through the agency of the Scorpion, through that mysterious blue radiance that encompassed everything and which transported me from one world to another. The Star Lords, those unknown, aloof, supernal beings manipulated me from time to time, to carry out their wishes. Certainly I had been able to manufacture a crazy kind of strength that had given me some opposition to them; but I was always conscious that their purposes, dark and unknowable at that time, demanded more from me than I was prepared to give. As for the Savanti, those mortal but superhuman men and women of Aphrasöe, the Swinging City, their purposes were altogether more direct, for they wished to make the world of Kregen a fit place for men and women to live, in friendship and peace, with dignity and honor.

The four corpses and the unconscious would-be assassin had been removed. As stikitches these four must have been high in their trade. They had successfully penetrated the high fortress of Esser Rarioch overlooking Valkanium, and managed to make their evil way right to the target. It had been their misfortune that their potential victim had been a ruffian called Dray Prescot. No stikitche would go around wearing a special kind of fancy dress proclaiming him an assassin, of course, for his days would be smartly numbered if he was so foolish. I bent and picked up one of the steel dominoes. There was blood clotting around the milled edges. This came from the fellow who, before he died, must have pondered the lack of half a face. The metal was still warm. It was merely an artifact, a lump of metal, fashioned into a mask with two eye-pieces, a swell for the nose, with straps to secure it in place. I had worn a similar steel domino during that fracas in Smerdislad. At once impatient urgings closed on me. I threw the mask to the grass. Today a newly raised regiment of archers was to be given new standards. The important thing to remember here was that in Valka, an island Stromnate which prided itself on its own Valkan archers, armed with the compound reflex bow, this new regiment had been raised and armed with the great Lohvian longbow. The men had practiced religiously with this great bow and I had received tremendous help and encouragement from that master bowman, Seg Segutorio, the Kov of Falinur.

He had said in his feckless way: “To make a longbowman you must start training with his grandfather!”

To which I had replied. “But these Valkans of mine, Seg, are used to drawing the bow. They only have to draw that extra notch, to snug the string under their ear, and to feel the extra power across their shoulders. They will grow into it far quicker than you would credit.”

And he had said, “I’ll train ’em for you, Dray. Aye, by the Veiled Froyvil! I’ll run ’em in little circles until they can shoot out the chunkrah’s eye!”

He had been as good as his word. But then, I never expect anything less from Seg Segutorio, a good companion and a friend.

So, with the honor of Hyr-Jiktar going to my son Drak, the regiment would receive the new standards today.

I bellowed up: “Come on, Drak! You must learn never to keep honest soldiers waiting on parade. Least of all bowmen, who are a rough lot at best.”

“I am coming down, Father.”

And down he came. He did not come down as he had expected.

Delia let out a little ladylike shriek. Lela let rip an enormous laugh from so dainty a little maid. For Drak went down headlong from his high branch, a fluttering, yelling bundle that hit the water with an almighty splash.

We stood on the poolside as he swam across and climbed out, lily pads hanging around his ears.

“Drak!” said his mother.

Lela giggled.

Drak tried to get at his sister to push her into the water; but I took him up into my arms, all wet as he was, and carried him off for one of the fastest dryings and changings of clothes he had ever endured. The urgency in me was not just to have the standards presented to the longbow regiment. Thoughts of Smerdislad, where I had overheard much that still puzzled me, thoughts of the airboats that my country of Vallia must acquire for the coming struggle with the overweening Empire of Hamal — these were the imperatives urging me on.

Quite simply Hamal, the greatest power on the continent of Havilfar, which lay south of us below the equator, was bent on a road of conquest; abandoning her attempts to fight on three fronts simultaneously, she had concentrated her strength for the thrust north against Pandahem. Pandahem was the island to the north of Havilfar and to the south of us in Vallia. Vallia and Pandahem were old-time adversaries on the oceans of Kregen. If all the countries of Pandahem went down in ruin there was nothing to stop the ambitions of Hamal from turning against us in Vallia. And Hamal possessed fleets of superb flying ships, airboats which they manufactured, which we did not. I had discovered some of the secrets of the air-boats and I wished to put through a big program of building. The Emperor of Vallia, Delia’s father, had promised to make up his mind. The parade this afternoon would provide a good opportunity to force him to give his consent, I had thought, for he was flying in to see his daughter and his son-in-law and, no doubt, to find out what I had been up to in Havilfar.

“Who were those men, Father?”

“They were foolish fellows, Drak, paying a visit without telling us first they were arriving.”

“But you hit them — you hit them hard.”

By the lice-infested scaled hair of Makki-Grodno! How did you tell a little boy that men had come to slay his father, and his father had slain them instead? In cold words? Drak had seen. Maybe he thought this was a game in which one thumped a playmate over the head and fell down, shouting out that he was dead, and the next minute jumped up ready for further mischief.

I said, “Sometimes you have to do that, and you will find out when to do it and when not to do it. I promise you, Drak, you will know. For now, you must always listen to your mother and do as she says—”

“I know, I know! But, Father, why do you have to go away? Dray’s father doesn’t.”

“And if you don’t hurry up Dray’s father will not be pleased.” That was true. Like myself, Seg Segutorio, the father of young Dray, intensely disliked keeping bowmen waiting on parade. So, spruced up, young Drak was hauled off to do his part in the presentation of the standards to the First Regiment of Valkan Longbowmen.

We met this same Seg Segutorio riding up at breakneck speed as we wound down the narrow path from Esser Rarioch. The fortress pile reared stark above our heads, dominating Valkanium with its ordered streets of neat houses, the parks, the boulevards, the shops, the docks, all spread out below. The industrial sections were over on the other side. Seg reined his zorca in, so that the animal scattered sparks from his four dainty steel-shod hooves. Seg looked extremely upset.

“Dray! Delia! By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! I heard — I thought—”

“We do not yet know who it was. But one did not die.”

“I give thanks to Erthyr the Bow you are unharmed.”

The streaming mingled light of the twin suns cast those familiar and dear double shadows as we trotted on, going down from the high fortress and out onto the paved kyro with colonnaded shops all around. People there were, honest Koters and Koteras of Valka, who set up a shout as their Strom appeared. I waved a hand to them, knowing some of them by sight, able to recall the lusty days when together we had fought the slavers and the aragorn for this rich and beautiful island Stromnate of Valka. Seg and my other friends, Inch in particular, had learned to accept the puzzling aspects of my life, and I had made a half-promise to tell them all one day. We trotted on, a brave cavalcade, out through the new walls and so over the ditches and onto the wide and dusty plain called Vorgar’s Drinnik. This Mars Field now held a splendid array of bowmen, lined up in impeccable and yet not rigid ranks. Despite all our attempts at knocking some kind of discipline into these rough and hairy fighters of Valka they set up a hullabalooing cheer as their Strom rode out onto the field.

A knot of zorcamen waited at the saluting base, and many orderlies stood ready. The new standards, cased, stood planted by the piled drums. Colors and panoply blazed everywhere. A trumpet blew and flags and banners unfurled from staffs set in ranks along the edge of Vorgar’s Drinnik. Among that small group of waiting zorcamen I saw Lykon Crimahan staring at me beneath the brim of his helmet. I did not much care for the expression on his face. This Crimahan was the Kov of Forli —

often called the Blessed Forli — and he had been one of that company with whom I had supped when first presenting myself as the Strom of Valka to his Majister the Emperor of Vallia. During the time of troubles Lykon Crimahan had been fortuitously absent on his estates of Forli, which lay on one of the eastern tributaries of Vallia’s marvelous central water, She of Fecundity. His allegiances might lie with the powerful Racter party, with the panvals, with any other of the many smaller political and territorial parties. I did not know. He had managed to retain both his head and his estates. Now he stared at me with a bright and merry look of evil that made my back go up and made me sit straighter in the saddle.

“Lahal, Prince Majister.”

“Lahal, Kov Lykon.”

Others of the group made their greetings, and Lykon Crimahan sidled his zorca closer. The zorca, with that close-coupled muscled body and those four spindly tall legs of wind-blown fleetness, is a superb animal; I did not much care for the tightness of rein, the curb, the whole way this Crimahan had harnessed his animal — a superb specimen, full of fire and spirit.

“The Emperor is delayed,” said this Lykon Crimahan. His whole demeanor showed the zest he took from conveying this news to me, Dray Prescot, the upstart barbarian clansman who had dared to woo and win the Emperor’s daughter. This Kov Lykon’s face grew a thin fuzz of dark beard beneath his jaws, and his mouth rat-trapped shut when he stopped speaking. He was gaunt with prominent cheekbones and eyes as malicious as those of any pagan idol of Balintol. He kicked his zorca and instantly kicked again as the animal objected.

“Quiet, you rast of a beast!” he said. Then, to me, and as though the words were a mere continuation of his thoughts: “The Emperor will arrive late, after the ceremony.”

About to blast and curse, I halted as Kov Lykon went on, speaking smoothly, with the expressive pleasure he might feel as he drove his rapier into the guts of an opponent.

“There has been much discussion in the Presidio about your plans to build a great fleet of fliers. Your information from Havilfar has been laid before our wisest men. They express doubts—”

“Doubts! By Vox! There is no time for doubts.”

“Nevertheless, Prince, the Emperor is not convinced. There will be no program to build an air fleet.”

Give the rast his due. He probably believed what he was doing was for the good of his country. But his country was my country now. And I knew a damn sight more than he did. I could say that in all humility, knowing it to be true.

“Vallia must have an air fleet!”

“You may shout and bluster all you will, Prince, but it will avail you nothing. The Presidio is firm on this decision. You must resign yourself.”

He could not leave well alone.

“After all, Prince, a clansman from the wastes of Segesthes is hardly in a position to understand the high politics of a great empire like Vallia.”

I did not hit him.

Chapter 2

We argue in Esser Rarioch

I had risked my life — for what that was worth — to steal the secrets of the fliers from Havilfar and send them to Vallia. I had expected the Emperor and the Presidio which guided him to leap at the opportunity to construct fliers that would not break down, vollers we must have to counter the threat from Hamal.

And now, calmly, maliciously, evilly, they refused the opportunity. They sat in their pride and arrogance and said I had wasted my time and efforts, that this was no concern of mine, that they ran the country, not me.

Well, that last was true, Zair knows.

This was a matter of far greater importance than that four stupid stikitches had tried to assassinate me. I caught up my zorca’s reins and even then, through my rage, I refrained from jamming my heels in hard. The zorca was Snowy, a priceless animal, a mount with whom I had a great relationship. At my urging he trotted away from Lykon Crimahan, turning his hind quarters on him, and with this fitting gesture I trotted over to Seg.

I spoke loudly. Many men in the ranks heard me. The news would circulate, scuttlebutt that would explain what was happening.

“The Emperor has been delayed, Kov,” I said in a penetrating bellow. “And, by Vox, I won’t have these lads hanging around waiting! And they have a right to have the Emperor on parade when they receive their standards. So if you’ll have their Jiktar dismiss them and tell him to order them a double ration of wine tonight, I will be much obliged.”

Seg understood some of my ways. He responded in fine style.

“At once, my Prince!” he bellowed and swung away, riding with a light rein, shouting the orders to the regiment’s Jiktar, its commanding officer.

There followed a most unpleasant few murs with young Drak, highly incensed that he had been all dressed up and promised much — for nothing.

“When your grandfather arrives, Drak, you will present the standards. It is important for the regiment. Do you see that, lad?”

“If you say so, Father.”

About to say: “It’s not if I say so!” I held my tongue as Delia trotted her zorca across and leaned down to speak to this young limb of Satan. Well, I’d had dealings with young limbs of Satan before — notably Pando, a real rapscallion who was now the Kov of Bormark, and Oby who had once dreamed of becoming a kaidur, and even the son of Rees the Numim, young Roban to whom I had given a dagger in time of trouble. If I cared to think that far back I could recall to mind some regular roarers who had been powder monkeys with me and had run on bleeding feet across the scarred decks to bring the leather buckets of cartridges as the great guns thundered. But the most confoundedly odd thing about it all now was that this particular young limb of Satan, whose lower lip stuck out so threateningly, was my own limb

— making me the Satan of the piece. I admit I am one of the biggest rogues in two worlds, but I wouldn’t father that on young Drak.

“We shall have squish pie for tea,” I said very firmly. “And if Inch was here he would eat some, because he cannot resist squish pie. Then, my lad — you tell me — what would happen then?”

Drak turned his face up from the cub-zorca he rode, a delightful little animal which could carry the child even though not fully grown itself. Drak’s face betrayed conflicting emotions, then his trembling lips parted and he laughed.

“Why, Father, Inch would stand on his head!”

“Aye, lad!” I said, feeling relieved. “And I need at least six cups of tea, not one less will suffice.”

So we trotted back to the promise of that rich Kregan tea which is priceless above all wines of two worlds.

If you, listening to these tapes spinning through the heads of your machine, now reflect that the Dray Prescot of whom you hear is a very different person from the Dray Prescot of his earlier days on Kregen

— you are absolutely right. And yet if, say, that Dray Prescot who had so intemperately refused to bow his knee to the Princess Natema had lived through the scene on the parade ground on Vorgar’s Drinnik, would not Kov Lykon be lying on that dusty ground with a mouthful of smashed teeth? And, that being so, what of my fine and fancy plans for Valka and Vallia?

Four armed men had tried to slay me. Well, there was nothing new in that. I did not think Kov Lykon had sent them. He might have, of course. But if I had acted as that old lusty, headstrong and foolish Dray Prescot would have, I’m absolutely sure that more than four stikitches would be assigned my death. That was an eventuality I would have to face one day. But I had no intention of allowing my Delia to face any unnecessary danger. Nor would I allow danger to touch my twins if it was humanly possible. Now, of course, I recognize that I’m speaking like a bumbling, impractical parent, anxious to keep the world away from his family. As I have said, those children of mine led me as many a merry dance as ever I led when I was that old headstrong, willful Dray Prescot — as indeed I still am, to my shame, when the need arises.

There was no need to take vove to catch a ponsho.

So, filled with the self-satisfaction of the piously righteous, I walked into the Great Hall of Esser Rarioch with the carved beams and the banners and the weapons along the walls and, like any idiot stuffed up with pride, I was to fall long and heavily, headfirst, into disastrous troubles. Wild alarms and frantic action lay before me, and I sat at my ease with my friends, sipping fragrant Kregan tea all unknowing!

But, first, there were important secrets to be unveiled.

Naghan the Gnat, that crafty armorer, thin and wiry and full of sly humor, drank his tea down and said: “I have chained him up so that he does not even feel the kiss of the iron. Oh yes, my Prince. He will be in good shape.”

A bit of a savage, the good Naghan the Gnat. He and I had shared a few scarlet moments in the arena of Hyrklana. Now with his invaluable assistance we fashioned weapons for the men of Valka in the coming struggle with Hamal.

Balass the Hawk, fierce and predatory, laughed. “By Kaidun, my Prince! I think he will sing so that all the shishis in Xanachang will yearn for him and his song.”

“You are a bloodthirsty devil, Balass,” I said.

“Aye! If a stikitche tries to kill me I serve him as I serve a stupid coy in the arena.”

This Balass the Hawk had improved the burs in Valka by trying to organize a Jikhorkdun and had been most put out when I had, very firmly, told him to desist. He might practice his skill, and teach Oby and the others, but the weapons must be of wood, and it must be practice only. The itch to step out of the red’s corner and stand once again on the silver sand, clad in the armor of the kaidur, and face his fate as thousands upon thousands roared from the stands of the amphitheater — yes, that passion had got into the blood of Balass the Hawk.

He was a black-skinned man from Xuntal, with fierce predatory features and brilliant eyes, and he was a fine fighter, a kaidur.

The friendship we had been unable to allow full rein in the Jikhorkdun had grown since our escape. Now Balass was in command of the training of recruits to the army. Oh, yes. I was in the business of forming an army. I will speak of this later, at the proper time. Now, as we sat drinking Kregan tea, our conversation revolved around the fate to be meted out to the captured stikitche. The matter was important.

Seg sat very quietly, occasionally taking a piece of squish pie and, no doubt, thinking of Inch. He knew my mind better than the others. Even the Elders of Valka who ran the island for me in my many absences could not penetrate past the facade I put on for them.

Now Encar of the Fields shook his head and said, “What you do to this man will not affect the crops for next season.”

“But,” said Tom ti Vulheim, very intense, leaning forward on the table so that his tea spilled, “but what we do to him may have a very great effect on the life of our Strom!”

The others nodded, agreeing, hardly noticing that Tom had called me by the old title. I was the Strom of Valka first to these men of the island, Prince Majister of Vallia a long second after. So we sat and drank tea and argued the pros and cons of torturing a man for information. Hard, fierce, intense talk. The assassin’s life meant nothing. What he could tell us of who had sent him was the vital information. No one drank wine. Only pigs drink wine at all hours of the day. Our heads remained clear. I did not wish to hurt the man. He had been hired to do a certain thing and he had failed. That assassins are particularly loathsome forms of life is true. But the fellow was suffering how, hanging in his chains, waiting for what he must know would follow.

I said, “I think we can find out what we wish to know without touching him.”

Some nodded, comprehending; others scowled and their fingers gripped up. They would take the hot iron and the pincers to the fellow, to make him talk.

I marked them all.

Vangar ti Valkanium, the captain of my personal airboat, poured milk ready for a fresh cup. “He will sing without a hair of his head being touched, if the Prince says so. For myself, I believe all this talk of the sanctity of human life. But when the life of the Prince is involved—”

“Not so, good Vangar!” I did not speak sharply, but they all looked at me, held in their actions, motionless. “No man can pretend to a position which allows him to deny the rights of another human. That is not my way. It is not the way of Opaz. What a man has is what a man fights for; nothing in this world is given free.”

They laughed. “You may say that again, Prince!” said Naghan the Gnat, cunning in the ways of fashioning metal.

Delia walked in, having seen to the twins, and we all stood up, as was proper. She sat at the table at my side, for we observed no high protocol here and the table was shoved into a paneled corner of the high hall, with the stained glass windows above opened to allow the full glory of the suns to shine on the opposite wall. Truly, I think that the Great Hall in Esser Rarioch is a wondrous place!

A heaping pile of sandwiches lay on a silver platter. They were covered by a pure white linen cloth. No one had touched this particular platter of sandwiches, although all the others had been plundered. The famous Kregan bread had been cut into extraordinarily thin slices, and that superb Kregan butter spread by a hand with the skill to spread evenly and not too thinly, not too thickly. The sandwiches contained crisp slices of banber, a kind of succulent cucumber. Delia lifted the cloth as I poured for her and took one of the banber sandwiches.

I did not look at her as she ate, for the sight of those lips . . . Well, I went back to what we were talking about, trying to carry on my policy — which I thought was approved of by the Savanti — of civilizing the barbaric men of Kregen.

The others were arguing the pros and cons and I half turned and looked past Delia to where that superbly muscled, superbly built, superb man sat, unspeaking, a glowering look on his handsome face.

“Well, Turko!” I rallied him. “What do you say on this matter?”

Turko the Shield put down his cup. He looked directly at me. Those hands so gently holding the cup, a fine piece of porcelain from Rensmot in Vallia, could tear a man to pieces, could hurl him cunningly with a mere twitch of the wrists, in the dreaded disciplines of the Khamorros.

“What do I say on this, my Prince?” Turko was over his astonishment about the maniac Dray Prescot and his place in the scheme of things; but he always hesitated when he called me Prince, an echo of that mockery laughing behind his eyes. “I would say do as any sensible man would do. We Khamorros can make a man tell us all we wish to know without using clumsy instruments, blunt or sharp.”

Turko would still not use a weapon apart from his own body; the shield he habitually carried for me in battle hung on the high walls of the hall, dust motes dancing in the suns’ beams before its massive bulk. Truly the Savanti in their civilizing task faced ingrained attitudes on Kregen. But I had to try.

The Savanti had thrown me out of Paradise because I had failed them. I would do exactly the same thing over again, too! And this time I’d do it a damn sight more quickly! I stole a glance at my Delia, and she turned, caught my eye, and smiled. For Delia, Delia of the Blue Mountains, Delia of Delphond, I’d be thrown out of every paradise in those four hundred light-years between the worlds of Earth and Kregen!

Still and all, the Savanti had set themselves the task of bringing order, civilization, and dignity to Kregen, and I saw it as a worthwhile task to which to set my hands. One day soon, I had promised myself, I’d go off to Hamal with the intention of finding the Todalpheme, those wise men and mathematicians, and ask them what they knew of Aphrasöe, the city of the Savanti, the Swinging City. The Empire of Hamal had to be beaten in war first, or at least halted in the tide of conquest, some modus vivendi arrived at, before I could consider my own selfish ends. So I said, “My friends, torture is not the answer. It may give us the information we seek, but think what it will do to us who practice it—”

“It’ll keep us alive,” said Balass the Hawk.

“Certainly. But, Balass, and all of you, the brands you use on your victim must surely brand you yourselves.”

Some of them could see, most could not. They were all good-hearted fellows, prime companions, chosen comrades to have around me in battle or roister. But it is truly said that Kregen is a hard world. I had gone through torments enough in the past to know that from bitter personal experience. A rumbling bellow from the far end of the table made us all look that way, and some of us smile, and all of us listen as Naghan Kholin Donamair burst out: “By Zodjuin of the Silver Stux! All this is emptiness, fit for Obdjangs! Take the cramph by the throat and choke it out of him!” N. Kholin Donamair had clearly been holding himself back from the conversation, for now, glaring around, his four fists clenched, he recollected himself and finished: “That is what I would do, my King.”

I do not forget that I am king of Djanduin.

My Djangs are the most fearsome warriors in Havilfar, with their four perfectly matched arms and their proud heads and defiant step. With weapons no Khamorro can stand against them. There is a great deal more to tell of the relationships there, in southwestern Havilfar, far away down south below the swell of the equator; but for now here was the typical Dwadjang philosophy exemplified. The four-armed Dwadjangs are unexcelled fighting-men; but they are a trifle thick at affairs above a Chuktar’s rank. The gerbil-faced and extraordinarily clever Obdjangs handle affairs of state and strategy in Djanduin. I am king of Djanduin. I said: “Well spoken, Naghan. But the fellow is a professional stikitche. He will have steeled himself to being choked, even by a Djang.”

“These affairs seem simple to me,” said the Djang, and he reached his left lower arm for a vosk sandwich as his left upper brought the teacup to his lips. Both of his right hands fondled the little gyp sitting at the side of his chair, gobbling crumbs.

No one said to Naghan Donamair: “You stick to your flutduins and what you know, Naghan!”

The comment might have been apt; it would have been cruel, unnecessary, and boorish, and these are things I will not tolerate in my Great Hall of Esser Rarioch. This is known by my friends who sup with me there.

As for the flutduins, those marvelous saddle flyers from Djanduin, after their initial reticence the good folk of Valka were now agog with the idea of flying through the thin air astride the back of a giant bird. I was actively arranging for more flyers to be brought all the long way to Valka, and the recruiting Deldars were forming enormous lists of bright young Valkan lads who wished to join the aerial cavalry. Seg, his black hair and blue eyes as always very reassuring to me now that I knew his feckless and yet deeply moving ways, laughed and said, “If Thelda were here instead of caring for young Dray and the twins back in Falinur, I think she would understand, Dray.”

“I am sure she would.” I am loyal to my friends.

So we talked on through that glorious afternoon tea, arguing whether or not a man should be tormented. The mingled lights of the suns glowed on the high walls. We laughed a lot and banged the old lenken table. Tilly, the glorious little golden-furred Fristle fifi, quite accidentally knocked her tea over the white robe of Elena, the matronly wife of Erdgar the Shipwright. Erdgar was away supervising the building of certain unusually shaped ships at this time. Elena made no great fuss, Tilly was filled with contrition, and a fresh cup was poured. While no one laughed, we all felt the spirit of the occasion. Truly, those days of sunshine in Esser Rarioch provide rich memories in a crusty old shellback like me. Delia suggested we go out to the high terrace where the mushk glowed yellow in the suns’ light and the bees droned most contentedly among the perfumed flowers.

So it was that among my friends, on that high terrace with the radiant lights of Antares reflecting back in refulgent gleams from spire and pinnacle and tower, with Valkanium spread out below in a chiaroscuro of brilliance, bowered in greenery and flowers and mellow with the splash of fountains, I turned and held up my hand and said: “We will not torture this miserable stikitche. If he does not tell us who employed him we shall hand him over to the Emperor’s justice.”

“And is that all, my Prince?” That was Balass.

“Aye, that is all.” I screwed up my eyes. “Do you relish the idea of the mercy of an emperor, if you had tried to slay his daughter?”

The others nodded, no doubt thinking their thoughts. I knew I had bungled. But, about to correct that slip, I was arrested by the sight of a voller skimming perilously low over the rooftops toward us. Seg said, “Another attempt, do you think?”

“It could be. Roust out Jiktar Exand.”

Seg nodded and ran back off the terrace. Exand, an old battle companion, had been appointed Jiktar of the fortress guard. Seg returned far too soon. With him stomped Jiktar Exand, furious, beet-red of face, almost stuttering in his anger.

“Strom!” he burst out, enraged with himself. “The miserable cramph of a stikitche is dead! Assassinated while he hung in his chains! Strom, the fault is mine!”

So there was an end to all our academic arguments.

Chapter 3

Evold Scavander reads from Drozhimo the Lame

The voller, a swift and brightly painted craft, swirled up from that mad dash over the rooftops. It was headed for a landing platform three stories below the level of this high terrace. Tom ti Vulheim let out a shout. “That is no stikitche, Strom! That is Lish! He always flies as though his tail is on fire.”

“The fault is mine, my Strom,” repeated Jiktar Exand. He crashed his right fist against his breastplate, rather as a housewife takes a rolling pin to a cheap steak. “The guards were in the act of changing when two were struck down; two others were lucky to escape with their lives, although wounded. The prisoner’s body was slashed to pieces.”

“Hum,” I said. Then: “Do not blame yourself, Exand. The fault is more truly mine. We did not realize that we were up against highly professional stikitches. Ordinary swods of the guard could scarcely comprehend the villainous expertise of these hireling murderers.”

“The Strom takes upon himself the fault of his people,” shouted Exand. These tough old warrior birds all seem to shout in normal conversation about their business. “I understand the need. But, Strom, I failed you!”

This Jiktar Exand — broad, heavily boned, thickly muscled, with a gut that extended the massive arch of his chest — was of that breed of men who serve, it seems, in the armies of all countries of two worlds. His square face bristled under the helmet. The brave red and white slashed his sleeves. He wore the usual rapier and main-gauche, and his tall black boots gleamed with the loving polish administered by his batman.

I sighed. He wouldn’t forgive himself, even if I did.

About to reason with him, I was arrested by a shocked gasp, a shout of horror, from the people on the terrace. I swirled around.

The airboat was falling. Like a tossed chip of wood it spun end over end, tumbling from the bright air. Everyone held rigid in a stasis of horrified anger as the voller struck a domed roof, bounced, turned over into a spire, rebounded, and so smashed into kindling and vanished into the slot of the street far below. We had all seen the tiny dot of the pilot, arms and legs pinwheeling, pitch out and plunge to his death.

“Lish!” said Tom. He gripped his hands together.

Lish Sjame had been a battle comrade of ours when we cleansed Valka of the slavers and the aragorn. Now that laughing man with the lean, intense face and the intellectual grasp of a problem, that man who had sung many a fine song with us, emptied many a filled flagon, was gone. We stood looking down. And mingled with our sorrow ran an ugly murderous thread of anger: anger against the builders of airboats that failed; anger against the manufactories of Hamal which sold us vollers that murdered our friends.

“If ever we needed the secrets of the vollers, now is the time to show all men that truth!” said Seg.

“Aye!” I said. Then, in my old way I burst out: “Sink me! I’ll take that damned Presidio, one by one, and shake them by the scruff of the necks! Vallia must build her own vollers!”

We went down the long flights of stone stairs to the dungeons. Oh, yes, if you feel surprise that there should be dungeons you must have forgotten that the high fortress of Esser Rarioch had been built in the old times, in the days when dungeons featured as essential adjuncts to the gracious living of Stroms, and Kovs, and high nobles. Also, I think you may judge Valka better now if I tell you that the only occupant of this complex series of dungeons in the rock had been this same stikitche. He hung in his chains, hacked to pieces.

Which made me ponder.

The two dead guards had been carried away. The wounded two had been treated. Bound up in clean yellow bandages, acupuncture needles cunningly inserted to take away their pain, they awaited the Strom’s verdict of their crime. For, make no mistake about it, they had sinned. Their dereliction of duty could very possibly cause severe problems for the future.

The two swods braced themselves up the moment I appeared. They stood to attention as best they could, so that my first words were: “Stand at ease, you couple of famblys.” I looked at them, cast a single glance at the hunk of bloodied meat hanging in the chains, and said, “You, Larghos. Tell me.”

“Yes, my Strom.” He swallowed. A youngster, newly appointed to the fortress guard, he was now clearly appalled at what had happened and what he had been part of. “We were changing guard. I saw Nath and Pergon set upon and I attacked the nearest of the men and he whickered his blade and—”

“Steady, lad.” His lorica had been unbuckled so the doctor could more easily get at the thrust that had gone cleanly through above the top segment, above the collarbone. These stikitches are fine swordsmen.

“Now, who did you attack?”

“The assassins, my Strom.”

“Yes. Yes. Tell me what they looked like.”

“Dressed in black, Strom. All in black. With steel faces.”

And that, I knew, was as fair a description as I would get.

His comrade, Yaldy, was in worse case, the rapier having thrust through his cheek, scraping the bone. It had missed his eye, the target; but for the acupuncture needles Yaldy would have been in great pain. He leaned on his glaive as he spoke. I pondered the wisdom of the glaive, that wicked bayonet-blade splined into a five-foot ash shaft, and yet the Valkans normally have no fear of a rapier man with the glaive in their hands.

“No more to add, my Strom!” bellowed this Yaldy. His parade ground shout whispered out weakly. I nodded. There was nothing more to learn here except, perhaps . . .

I spoke with a forceful presence of urgency and importance.

“Did either of you hear the stikitches say a word? Anything?”

They shook their heads, and then Larghos checked, his head going up.

“Well?”

“The assassins did not say a word. I do not know how many of them there were. But this one here—”

He gestured vaguely to the hunk of meat hanging in the chains. “This one cried out as they went up to him.”

“Ah!”

“He shouted in mortal terror. He shouted, ‘I did not say a word!’ Then he swore by a name I do now know. He said: ‘As Lem is my witness, Traga, as Lem—’ Then they cut him.”

Although it seemed to me Kregen exploded around my head, I felt it expedient to keep the shock from my face and voice.

Lem!

That evil cult of Lem the Silver Leem had found its vile way to my own home of Valka. Well, I made a most solemn vow that I would never allow that evil superstition of Lem the Silver Leem to sully Valka. I would uproot the whole foul practice, root and branch. By Zair! This was a matter of supreme importance, far outweighing the mere stikitches’ attacks.

Now I asked, “Traga? Does that mean anything to anyone?”

They all shook their heads. The name was not common, but there had been a Traga in Valka, that Traga ti Vandayha, the city of silversmiths. I thought this was merely coincidence, nothing more. The Traga we knew had perished when the aragorn’s fortress above Findle’s Crossing had burned.

“Jiktar Exand.”

“Strom!”

“Fetch me a man from the city who swears by Diproo the Nimble-Fingered.”

“Aye, my Strom.” He knew exactly what I meant.

His red and white banded sleeve, made from first quality humespack, bashed across his breastplate as he clanged off, his booted feet loud on the unyielding stones of the dungeon floor. With a few further words to the guards, for they were brave young men and had been woefully overmatched in their encounter with the stikitches, I led the way back into the upper terraces of Esser Rarioch.

The remains of Lish Sjame had been brought in and I saw to it that he was given a decent funeral, with all the proper rites accompanying the burial, as was proper. His wife had long since died, victim of one of the diseases that, notwithstanding the skill of Kregen’s doctors, still carry off far too many of her people. The remains of the airboat were taken up to that long and lofty room with the tall windows I had set aside as a laboratory. Here I had been carrying out experiments, with the help of the man who was, I fancied, the wisest wise man of Valka.

“Ha! My Prince!” he cried as I came in, and then he sneezed. He was smothered in fine dust, and he kept sneezing. I kept upwind of him.

“You seem to be immersed in your work, San,” I said.

I called Evold Scavander, the wise man, San. As you know, San is the respectful title given to a dominie or sage, and how well San Evold Scavander earned this mark of respect. But, for all that, sneezing, he had to say: “Nothing, my Prince. Not a movement, not a sign. And the bags grow less with every trial.”

A spluttery, bewhiskered, round-faced man, with crab-apple cheeks and snapping brown eyes, he wore an old stained smock and a pair of decrepit foofray satin slippers. I always had the feeling that, with his contempt for the Wizards of Loh, he missed something of their dark power. But he refused to adorn his clothes with archaic symbols or wear the tall conical hat, and he used his long sensitive fingers to good purpose in the many schemes to improve Vallia and Valka I put forward. His temper was of the same order as a leem’s.

On a scarred bench lay a number of silver boxes. I felt my heart go thump at the sight. These were boxes we had made up here, in Valka, in imitation of those silver boxes made in Havilfar that powered and lifted fliers. I had uncovered many of the secrets of the various minerals that went into the vaol boxes, at some discomfort to myself, as you know. With a mix of five minerals of certain kinds of voller would fly and might be pushed by the wind, with the effect of gripping the subetheric forces of the structure of the universe, of sliding against these forces as the wind pushed. With a mix of nine minerals a voller would fly independently of the wind.

As for the paol boxes, those boxes that for so long I had thought contained only air, there lay the heartbreak.

“Dirt and air!” I said, somewhat heavily, I fear.

“Aye, Prince! The minerals would seem to operate well enough, and I have that lazy scamp Ornol out searching for them in the Heart Heights. I feel confident they will be found.” His brown eyes snapped at me. “If they are not, Ornol will get a striping, by Vox!”

“Yes, but, San, what of the paol boxes? What of cayferm?”

He crowed his triumph.

I stared at him, willing it to be true, willing that he had discovered what that mysterious immaterial substance truly was, if substance it was at all.

He reached down a monstrous old hyr-lif, massively bound with brass bands and with a brass lock. He produced a key from under his clothes, a key of brass hanging on a brass chain. With this and much creaking and groaning, he turned the lock and opened the book. I swear I expected a black cloud of bats to fly forth. He blew away dust and sneezed again.

“Here, Prince, in The Secret Lore of San Drozhimo the Lame is to be found the only reference I have run across to cayferm.”

He turned the pages, ancient and stained and yet supple still in that perfect atmosphere of Valka. A little spider crept out and ran across the lines of black writing, and Evold Scavander leaned down and gently blew to help the spider on its way.

I was fully aware of the gravity of the moment. Dirt and air! How they had mocked me in my struggles in distant Havilfar! But I had come through in the end to an understanding of the names and the compositions of the minerals. We might not find all of them in Valka; we must find them all in Vallia! And cayferm! That mysterious substance, cayferm that was supposed to be steam, when all of Kregen knew steam as kish; could old San Scavander have found the secret in this musty book?

He found a page very nearly at the end. I breathed more easily when I saw the page was untorn. How often at the end of a book a torn page has destroyed all hope . . . He cleared his throat, sneezed a mighty sneeze, and peered close.

“Listen, my Prince, to the words of a sage dead these thousand seasons and more!”

“I listen.”

“Then this is what Drozhimo the Lame has to say.” He read in a loud wheezing voice, and I felt the shadows come closer in that high ceilinged room with the tall windows and all the splendor of the Suns of Scorpio flooding in.

“ ‘The Freeing of an Ib from a Mortal Body Undiluted.’ ”

He looked up. “The spirits of the dead do not always leave the body the moment men are killed. Sometimes a man retains his ib, to his own mortification in the blessed light of the Twins.”

“Aye. Read on.”

“ ‘Take the body and wash in the water taken from a maiden’s first bath after the marriage night. Place the body undried in a brazen coffin above a fire heated seven times, and with bellows pumped by a dwarf. A dwarf with red hair ensures complete success; if a red-haired dwarf is not to be found then a black-haired dwarf will suffice, or a brown-haired dwarf; but then the fire must be pumped over twice. Into the coffin over the body pour the water used in the bathing. To this add the same weight of squishes. The fruits may be used entire, but they must be scrupulously clean. Add in double-handfuls so that the spirit may boil from them into the water and the cayferm enter the submerged body and so remove from it the ib. When all has boiled away the body may be taken up and given due burial; it is wise to place a tuffa wand at the head and feet until the first night of Notor Zan passes.’ ”

He looked up, resting one hand on the open hyr-lif. His eyes wrinkled up, regarding me. I was aware of a flick-flick plant snaking out a six-foot tendril, taking a fly on the wing, and popping it into one of its orange cone-shaped flowers. The shadow of the plant in its pot on the windowsill, the sound of laughter from outside, high and shrill, meant nothing; the sight and sounds were as distant as the planet of my birth.

“Cayferm,” I said.

“Aye, Prince. I think after treatment like that any body would be willing to go down into burial, aye, and be glad to.”

“Yes, that would be the way of it. But, Evold, it must be! Don’t you see? Steam! If you boil water you must get steam!”

“Steam,” he said. We used the Kregish word, the most common word for steam, kish. “I can find no other mention of cayferm in all my library.”

“You have done well.”

“I remembered one horrific time in the Heavenly Mines where I had sweated, as number eight two eight one, to dig and tunnel for minerals. And how a little Och stylor, writing in his notebook, had jumped with alarm, deep in a tunnel through a seam, and called to the Rapa guard to prod the slaves out fast. We had not gone back to the seam. And now I recalled that over the smell of the cheap oil lamp I had sniffed the scent of squishes. I had thought of Inch, and then the little Och had near-panicked. Now I thought I knew why.

“Steam made up with boiled squishes,” I said. “Cayferm.”

Evold sneezed. “Maybe, maybe. But we must test it first. We can only talk now, we must—”

“Yes!” I bellowed. “Everyone must gather squishes! Every perishing soul, by Vox!”

Evold Scavander nodded, the excitement getting to him.

“Although . . .” I said. And I felt a chill. “Although this cannot be so. It is against nature.”

“Many things are against nature, my Prince. Every time you put on a hat to go out into the rain, it is against nature.”

“I grant that. But I mean that boiling will produce a purity; the steam cannot possibly contain any part of the squishes! This is a matter of common knowledge.”

He put a yellowish finger alongside his nose, which had a large brown lump on the larboard side.

“Maybe nature winks, my Prince. For a man to fly through the air using boxes filled with dirt and air —

surely that is so against nature as to make all the rest simple.”

“Oh, the vollers work. There is no doubt of that. Aye,” I added viciously, “and they crash, also.”

We looked at the pathetic pile of wreckage. Lish’s voller had come down hard at the end. The two silver boxes had been taken from the smashed jumble of sturm-wood and bronze orbits. They lay on the table, separated from those we had made ourselves.

They were also well separated from each other. I walked across and gently pushed one of the boxes toward the other, along the lenken tabletop. I could feel nothing at first. And then like a thrilling of rubbed amber, like a million warrior ants of the hostile territories marching over my skin, I felt the tremble, the vibration. When the two boxes came within that certain special distance from each other they both, together, sprang into the air. Up they went, glittering in the light of Antares. We stared upward, knowing what would happen.

The boxes flew up together until wind pressure divided them. They curved out and away and so, separated, plummeted back to the floor. One hit so heavily that the corner split. I cursed. Evold Scavander scuttled for the box, lifted it, and stuck it under that lumpy nose of his. His mad old eyes snapped with intelligence, with baffled intelligence.

“Ha, my Prince! Squishes! When I was a small boy, cleaning the retorts and collecting the frogs’ legs and sweeping the floor, aye, and being well beaten by the old San, I remember a piece of squish pie as a direct gift from Oolie Opaz himself.”

I sniffed. Squish, without a doubt.

“It has gone, drifted into the air and gone.”

“True. But we will do as you command, and boil many squishes. The whole fortress will be perfumed with squishes.”

“But,” I said, fretful, seeing that first quick flash of hope utterly ruined, “if we boil squishes and put the steam in a silver box, why, then, the steam will condense and we will merely have a box of water.”

San Evold shook his head. What I said was true. But he had no other suggestion.

“Let me first try, my Prince. Afterward, if it does not work, we must think again.”

“You see about the squishes and the boiling. Inform me and I shall come at the right time. Meanwhile, there are the other minerals to be found.”

“Ornol will be back by nightfall, my Prince.”

So, with a few cheerfully intended words which sounded dismal even to me, I took myself off. Seg met me in the long hall of the images where, in ivory and chemzite and bronze and marble, the ancient ones of Valka stared endlessly out upon the blue sky of Kregen. His face was reassuring and refreshing to me, but he said, “Dray! The Emperor has arrived and is in a foul temper!”

Chapter 4

Standards for a regiment and answers for an Emperor

“We are not well pleased with you, son-in-law.”

The Emperor looked just the same as when I had last seen him, big and powerful, standing with booted feet thrust firmly on the ground, his back erect, his hands on his hips. He wore a fine Vallian tunic-coat and breeches, and his hat glowed with feathers. He wore a rapier and left-hand dagger, and a cloth-of-gold cape glittered finely, slung from his left shoulder. But the creases at the inner corners of his eyes had grown more deeply etched, and his face showed a pallor that I saw, with a pang, distressed his daughter Delia.

Across this end of Vorgar’s Drinnik the First Regiment of Valkan Longbowmen stood in their long lines, braced, ready, waiting. They made a fine show. I admit I would far rather deal with them and their like than the gilded popinjays who surrounded the Emperor and his suite, the Pallans and the courtiers, the nobles and the high Koters. I made no direct challenge to the Emperor’s annoyance. He had been feeling his way back to greater power than he had enjoyed for many a long season, and all because I had saved his neck, I and my comrades there in the immortal fight in The Dragon’s Bones. So I placidly said, “It is right that the first regiment of this kind formed in Vallia should be honored by their Emperor’s presence at the presentation of the standards.”

“As to that, Dray Prescot, I agree. But I talk of weightier matters.”

The zorcas moved gently in the lessening heat of the late afternoon. Soon Zim and Genodras would be gone. Then we could go up into the Great Hall of Esser Rarioch to see what kind of banquet my people could prepare for the Emperor.

“You do not question my meaning?”

“I know you have surrounded yourself with men who are not worthy of you.”

He felt some shock; but I also remembered that this man was the Emperor, the most powerful man in all Vallia, which made him the most powerful man for many dwaburs around in this northern hemisphere of Kregen. He could order me executed. He had already given that order once, and he had not been obeyed. If he tried to tell his men to take off my head now, they would find an abrupt and unyielding wall of Valkan steel — not protecting me but threatening them.

“You persuaded me to send a great host of men and fliers into Havilfar, son-in-law. A great battle was fought. But what has come of that? Where is the profit? You promised to bring me back vollers, Dray Prescot. Where are they?”

“You do not speak as I hear the Presidio speaks.”

The flush in his face deepened. This was an old story: powerful as he was, the governing body held certain authorities that could check him. I knew I had slackened many of those strings — and all men understood the Emperor had been even more firmly seated on the throne — but the Presidio still counted in council. Also, I had to admit I had been rewarded. I was Prince Majister and Kov of this and Strom of that and Zair knew what else in the amazing glitter of titles and lands of Vallia. All this meant nothing. I think he understood me just a little better now and realized that titles meant as little to me as they did to him. Land, canals, corn, cattle, minerals — these were power. He would have added slaves to the list earlier, but he understood the views that Delia and I held on slaves. He did not grasp that being a Krozair of Zy was far more important to me than all the titles he could bestow.

“There are those in the Presidio who have set their faces against this talk of Vallian fliers.”

“I have talked briefly with Kov Lykon. The man is a fool.”

“Not so, Dray Prescot. He is clever and cunning and wields certain powers. You would do well to be wary of him.”

My surprise was genuine. Was this puissant Emperor nurturing a spark of feeling for the hairy barbarian who had come bashing his way in to become son-in-law? Then I saw Delia trotting out with young Drak, and Lela on an exquisite pure white pony, and the moment dissolved. Delia greeted her father with warmth, although, as I say, she too saw the betraying tiredness in his eyes. I was pleased — I admit, by Zair, I was very pleased — that he seemed genuinely attached to his two grandchildren. He stood, blocky, square, the golden cape glinting in the suns, and he talked with Drak and Lela for a while. I let my bowmen stand and wait for that, for I believed they would understand. Delia met my eye and smiled. It was not too difficult to find a smile for her in return.

The Emperor looked up quickly.

“What is this of men in the garden — men you hit?”

“Later,” I said. “It has been dealt with. The bowmen await their standards and I warrant their throats are drier than the Ocher Limits.”

He took the reference well enough. He was hardly likely to forget it. He mounted up, his zorca stiff with imperial trappings, his massive, handsome face still flushed and dark as we rode out to present the standards.

I will not weary you with a full description, although you must guess the moment was important not only to me but to Valka and Vallia, and therefore to all this part of Kregen, these continents and islands called Paz. The parade was an emotional and moving occasion, filled with meaning; as the standards were presented I saw the ensigns stiffen up with fierce and dedicated pride in the symbols of Valka their regiment would carry into battle.

There lives in Valka a small bird with white wings and back, and a rosy breast. We call it the valkavol. That small bird, normally eating fruits and nuts, will turn into a fighting fury when attacked by the gawky, clumsy brown birds called threngs when the threngs try to steal eggs from the high nests. These are the names we give these birds in Valka, at least, and it is this small bright bird, the valkavol, which crowns the standards of my regiments. This cheeky, loyal, intelligent bird with its peaceful, herbivorous way of life is well liked by farmers, for the valkavol eats those unpleasant gall-like fruits of the deep forests. So far it has not decided to come down to the orchards to sample gregarians, squishes, malsidges, and the many other kinds of luscious fruits we grow. It does eat palines, but no true believer would grudge another living soul the delights of palines. This peaceful bird, a bundle of incredible ferocity if its nest is threatened, was perched atop each standard pole. Oh, the carvings were of wood, but they were gilded so they gleamed and flashed bravely, and the claws were finely sculpted from balass. They presented a fair and heartening sight, slanting into the rays of the twin suns.

The colors beneath each valkavol flared with symbol and number, for I had authorized an individual standard for each pastang and, as was proper, two standards for the regiment as a whole. There was reason in this open-handed distribution of standards. Each pastang numbered only fifty men, when in most of the regiments of Hamal the pastang numbered eighty. There were ten pastangs to this regiment, whereas the regiments of Havilfar were normally composed of six pastangs. Treating the first pastang like the first cohort of a legion, I had given the company its full complement of eighty, so that the regiment numbered five hundred and thirty, plus ancillaries. All this was done with an eye to the future.

And, though I say it myself, who with Seg had wrought the work, they looked grand!

Yes, there was reason for this panoply and this structure, as you shall hear. Young Drak conducted himself well. He sat astride his cub-zorca stiffly and, young as he was, he was already on his own. He carried the affair off superbly, at which I felt all the fond, fatuous, foolish pride of a parent. If I didn’t know my Delia better I’d have thought a tear glistened in the corner of her eye. The banners flared in the suns, the zorcas behaved with perfect composure — always a good omen —

and the men formed and marched in perfect alignment. The bands played cheerful rousing music, The Song of Tyr Nath, The Heart Heights of Valka, Paktun’s Promenade, and a national Vallian song of some consequence to my family and to Valka, Drak na Vallia. This marching song is called by the swods in the ranks Old Drak Himself.

Seg did not fuss as the men took rank to shoot the exhibition three shafts apiece. He looked at the flags fluttering from their staffs, and Jiktar Targhan ti Vulheim — a battle comrade, one of the old freedom fighters selected by Seg with the advice of Tom ti Vulheim — trotted his zorca over for a last-minute word. All the bows leaped into the correct position, all the bows spanned as one. The Jiktar’s rapier slashed down and his bellow made Lela’s pony jump. All the shafts loosed simultaneously. Next to me Seg grunted. “By the Veiled Froyvil! I swear a good twenty out of a hundred missed the mark!”

To Seg that was so miserable an example of shooting as to be beneath contempt. So I said gently, “They will improve.”

“If they do not those rasts of Hamalese will riddle ’em with their confounded crossbows.”

With bands playing and colors flying, the regiment marched back. The crowds who had come out to watch broke up and drifted back to the city. This night there would be many gallons of wine drunk and many boasts made and songs sung, aye, and a few broken heads to show for it in the morning. We are a rough old lot, in Valka, and we take our pleasures when they come.

“So my grandson is Hyr-Jiktar of this new regiment, Dray Prescot.”

“He is, Emperor. And I tell you that in the days to come you will have to accustom yourself to using soldiers of Vallia, formed into regiments, rather than merely sending for mercenaries and paying them to fight for you.”

“We are a nation of the sea. Our galleons—”

“Of course! I grant the galleons are the finest vessels afloat — vessels of Paz, that is — but you face new threats now, Emperor.”

He wanted to pursue the conversation, but I did not wish to talk about those shanks from over the curve of the world, those fishmen with their fast-sailing craft who would, I felt sure, one day pose so great a danger we must all band together to resist them. At the moment Hamal was the great threat. We rode back and I saw Delia with Lela in tow talking to Turko the Shield. He had not brought that massive shield; it still hung in my hall. Drak rode at the head of his regiment, a small and lonely figure, but proud, proud!

I had not asked for him to be born, but I had been very happy with his and his sister’s birth. Now he must face the never-ending threats of life, and I could only help and guide. So we rode back through my capital city of Valkanium to the high fortress of Esser Rarioch. A Hyr-Jiktar is a purely honorary position, of course. Drak would not be leading this regiment into action for a good many seasons yet. I felt a pang. I would far prefer he never had to involve himself in the mad red obscenity of war at all. Tharu ti Valkanium, the leader of the high assembly of my island Stromnate of Valka, arrived as we were about to go in stately procession into the Great Hall for the feasting. Tharu, as always grim with purpose, his leonine head with its shock of brown Valkan hair proudly lifted, greeted me and then said, “I made all haste, Strom. But the flier failed us—”

“You bring no news in that, Tharu.”

“Aye! I heard the terrible news of Lish. He was a good man. I vow there will not be a man of Valka who will not go willingly, aye, and gladly, when we deal with these cramphs of Hamalese.”

Tharu ran Valka for me, with the high assembly of Elders. I trusted him implicitly. He was reconciled to my absences. With Tom ti Vulheim, who had accepted the rank of Chuktar with his reckless laugh and a pledge to see that the men of Valka fought in the ways I directed, Tharu in his grim, thorough way kept Valka as an island paradise. Now he joined us as the feasting and drinking began. Well, I have spent many and many a roistering night in my high hall of Esser Rarioch, and Zair willing, will spend many more before I die. On this evening, as the moons of Kregen floated over the horizon to cast down their mingled pink and golden radiance, I felt restless. My plans were going very well where they touched Valka; they had gone disastrously astray over this business of the vollers we must build. Presently, with a song from Erithor of Valkanium, that preeminent skald, finishing on the last defiant notes of The Lament for Valinur Fallen, the Emperor motioned to me in a sign that meant he wished to retire.

Valinur Fallen did not suit my mood. The lament begins with: “Glaive-bearing marched they in storm-light and thunder.” It finishes on a high note of apotheosis, of the ending of days, and the defiant expectancy that Valinur’s sons and daughters will refresh the land. The last few words are: “The zhantil will rest in the dusty earth under; but the heart in the human breast never.”

I hasten to add that this is a mere literal representation of the words; all the beauty of the original is lost in this clumsiness of my expression. The Valkans practice a finely tuned form of kenning, and one must listen carefully and tease out the meanings from the golden words, the ringing phrases. I did not wish to dwell on death, on the destruction of a country, and of the resurrection and revenge through the children. That was the way of Kregen, of course, but the mood left me hollow and chill, thinking of Drak and Lela, and I welcomed the opportunity to go with a few of my closest people and more of the Emperor’s retinue into the Chavonth Chamber. This room, comfortably furnished, was held for talks that, while not of the stiff and formal kind held in the audience chamber, were not yet so informal that they could be held in my inner and private rooms. The floor was covered by a single enormous carpet embroidered with chavonths engaged in many of the scenes of the hunt; the walls were hung with tapestries where more chavonths snarled and showed their claws. The carpet, the tapestries, the curtains, all were of Hlinnian weave, good and solid and vastly expensive.

The closeness of the room, although it was large, and the sound-deadening effects of the draperies, meant that only one with keen hearing might pick up the racket bouncing from the Great Hall. They’d started on The Bowmen of Loh down there, and Seg licked his lips, picking up a fresh goblet of Gremivoh.

A very great deal of power, wealth, and majesty was packed into the Chavonth Chamber that night. I knew most of those there, and many of them you have already met in these tapes. There were others who were to figure in my story at a later date, but I will confine myself to talking only about those who affected me in the immediate dealings with which we were engaged.

The chief of these, of course, was Lykon Crimahan, the Kov of Forli.

“Let me fill your glass with this excellent Gremivoh, Kov,” I said, very friendly. We wanted no servants with flapping ears when we talked high state business. And I wanted to let this damned Kov think I was something less than he expected. Here I believe something of my double-dealings in Havilfar came to me and, despite the lessons I had learned there, I admit I took a nasty little pleasure from the thought of fooling this Kov Lykon.

Now Gremivoh is a wine of Vallia much favored in the Vallian Air Service. This Lykon, despite my manner, took the point.

“I would prefer a more subtle Pastale,” he said, very — smooth.

I took that point, also. For Pastale — and I admit it is a reasonable vintage — is the export monopoly of the House of Operhalen, whose colors are blue, green, and ivory. And the Operhalens, a noble house of the enclave city of Zenicce, were at that time allied with the Ponthieu and against my own noble house of Strombor. The ruler of Operhalen was a little frog-like man with a stoop and a leer, and a reputation for inspecting his own consignments of Pastale too lovingly and too frequently. This damned Lykon Crimahan would know I was Lord of Strombor and that the Operhalens would like to see me dead, so he asked for a glass of their Opaz-forsaken wine. I smiled.

“Certainly, Kov. As it happens, I was able to board and take a ship of the Operhalens. Their wine is yours, freely given as it came to me, free.”

Seg laughed and then turned away, drinking.

Tharu did not laugh, but his fierce old whiskers bristled up a little more. The Emperor spoke and everyone stopped talking.

“We are here to discuss serious matters,” he began. “I have said I am not happy with you, Dray Prescot, you whom I made Prince Majister. I would like an accounting of what you have done with the treasures we have poured out for you.”

The damned old scoundrel! He’d lent me a parcel of fliers, which he had got back, and some of his Crimson Bowmen of Loh, almost all of whom he had got back. As for hard cash, that had been conspicuous by its absence.

I said, “You found your journey here pleasant, Emperor?”

He didn’t like me calling him by title, and he knew I knew it.

“Yes, it was comfortable. The voller you presented me is a fine craft.”

“It should be. It was taken by the Kov of Falinur and his friends from Hyrklana, and is a first-class voller.”

“That is as may be. Where are the fliers you promised me? There was much fine talk, I remember,” and here he waxed most sarcastic, “of bringing to us the secrets and the methods of the contraptions inside fliers. We should build our own, you promised me. Well, Dray Prescot? Where are these secrets?”

Mind you, the old devil had the right of it, for all that he over dramatized his part. I had signally failed to gain all I had dreamed of. But I did know a very great deal now.

“The wise men are still laboring to reproduce the silver boxes. For reasons I will not go into now, the full secrets did not come my way.”

That was the signal for the dowager Kovneva Natyzha to thrust up her lower lip and let go one of her famous barking laughs, like the blow of an ax striking a tree.

“I warrant you do not wish to go into the reasons, Prince! I warrant you enjoyed yourself in Hamal.”

I stared at her with a cool expression on my face, I hope, my eyebrows raised. This old biddy, this Vallia-renowned Natyzha Famphreon, the dowager Kovneva of Falkerdrin, was a noble woman with whom I had always tried not to cross swords. Her face held that nut-brown, cracker-barrel, experienced look of iron authority exercised over many seasons. Her mouth curved down at the corners, and grooves alongside her chin extended the arc. Her chin thrust forward so that her lower lip was habitually upthrust, giving her a scornful, arrogant look of power. She was well past her one hundred and fortieth year, I knew, and her face showed something of that, although on Kregen people change little from their coming of age to the time when they are battened down for the last journey to the Ice Floes of Sicce. But her body! She had pampered that body of hers, so that it remained firm and pliant, soft and supple. She was known to say that a man couldn’t care less about a pretty face, but no man could stomach an ugly body. She was generally right about it, too, if many of the men surrounding the Emperor at this time counted. She wore a bright red gingerish wig, which gave her a comical appearance as well as a great and horrific presence. In addition, her eyebrows, a fierce and wiry black, jagged upward like black wings over her dark eyes.

“You have heard of the Heavenly Mines?” I asked.

“Some stories,” she said offhandedly. “Answer the Emperor. Where are the fliers and their secrets?”

“Yes,” chipped in her son, the Kov of Falkerdrin. “Answer the Emperor.” He was a product of bad breeding: chinless, weak-eyed, pimply faced. That was not his fault, of course, but the fault of near-incestuous parents greedily grasping each other in lust that did not consider the consequences. The result had made him a straw in the hands of his mother, who ran him and his official position as Pallan of the Armory.

Delia put a hand to her breast. She knew me. She half rose, and, on a breath, said, “You would not go back to the Heavenly Mines?”

“No one but a fool who wished to commit suicide in the most painful of ways would go back there.”

The unspoken thought lay between us. She knew just how much of a fool, a true onker, I am in these matters.

The door opened and San Evold Scavander put his head in, his brown eyes mad and snapping, glee written all over his crusty old face.

“My Prince!” he tried to bellow, sneezed, and wiped his nose, gurgling with laughter. “My Prince! The cayferm is true cayferm! A residue is left — I do not know how. The boiling has been a success! Come, my Prince, and let us test the gift of Oolie Opaz.”

I rose. “Then let us go to the laboratory,” I said, not without a sneaky feeling of satisfaction. “And see if Opaz shines upon Vallia.”

Chapter 5

Cayferm?

The vaol boxes and the paol boxes lay nearby.

I said, “Majister, if you would push this box toward this other box . . .”

He did so.

We all clustered around the scarred lenken table in Scavander’s chemical-smelling room, where the wreckage of Lish’s airboat, the silver boxes, and the supplies of minerals Ornol had brought were piled. Two new boxes awaited the imperial blessing.

A brass vessel still bubbled on a dying fire, and the sweet scent of squishes hung in the air. Samphron-oil lamps had been lighted, but through the high windows She of the Veils smiled in from the night sky of Kregen.

The Emperor, most tentatively, pushed one box toward the other.

They reached that particular distance from each other and they both sprang into the air!

We all let out our breaths. I was enchanted. Delia hugged me and everyone was one beaming smile. The boxes rose straight up. They struck the ceiling among the cobwebs, parted, and so fell down again with a great clatter. Everyone laughed. I say everyone — even in my mood of great euphoria I noticed that Lykon and the dowager Kovneva Natyzha did not laugh, did not even smile.

“And this can be repeated?” asked the Emperor.

“Oh, yes, Majister,” piped up Scavander. He wiped a hand across his forehead. “Indeed, it is a mere matter of—” And here he launched into a description which made me frown. It was recondite and extraordinarily complex, filled with arcane words, and made little sense even to me, who ought in the nature of things to have known what he was talking about. I felt the whisper of unease. The Emperor waved all that aside brusquely.

“Suffice it that my son-in-law has succeeded in his task. I will have sums set aside for the building of fliers. Indeed, if all we hear out of Hamal is half true, we shall have need of them.”

“I do not believe it, Majister,” spoke Kov Lykon. “I am not at all persuaded that Hamal means us mischief. Their quarrel is with the countries of Pandahem. And we of Vallia should welcome anyone who can ruin the Pandahem.”

The growl of assent saddened me. Vallia and Pandahem were rivals on the outer oceans of Kregen. That rivalry seemed stupid, wasteful, and altogether ugly to me. I had friends in Bormark, a Kovnate of Tomboram, a kingdom in Pandahem.

“You may stake out a ponsho for a leem,” I said, somewhat heavily. “That does not prevent the leem from eating you after he has finished the ponsho.”

Seg at my elbow quaffed off his Gremivoh. I knew what he was thinking: by the time the leem was halfway through crunching up the ponsho Seg’s superb longbow would have feathered the devil of a leem like a pincushion. But they all took my meaning. I was finding the importance of talking at an oblique angle to the direct statement, in dealing with these people around the Emperor. As a one-time first lieutenant of a seventy-four on the oceans of Earth I had been used to belting out my orders and seeing that the hands jumped to it, or there’d be a few red-checked shirts at the gratings. Now, as I had discovered, the soft approach often worked better at this level of statecraft. Not that either Lykon Crimahan or Natyzha Famphreon much cared for the soft approach; they employed it in the same fashion I did.

These two eyed the Emperor. They no doubt fancied themselves laboring under the enormous disadvantage of not being related to the Emperor or his daughter, whereas I was the old devil’s son-in-law. Little did they know of the true situation at that time if they thought my marriage to his daughter had softened him to me! He tolerated me — was indeed more than a little afraid of me, as I well knew — yet the affection he could give was stunted and could only flower where his grandchildren were involved.

There was a great deal of further conversation, in which I caught the anger against me more clearly than ever. The fact that I was a barbarian clansman from the Great Plains of Segesthes, as well as being Lord of Strombor, was held against me with as much venom as my marriage to the Emperor’s daughter and my schemes to create friendship with Pandahem. Crimahan and the dowager Kovneva argued vehemently against squandering money on my crazy fliers. Since Hamal had begun her war against Pandahem they had refused to sell us vollers. Hyrklana was even selling vollers to Hamal. Queen Fahia of Hyrklana, that fat and evil lady, had trouble with her flier factories, and I knew there were men in Hyrklana who burned her manufactories and sought to topple her from the throne. Yet Hamal insisted she sell to them. No, we had to go on as I had planned. The only nit in the fleece was this puzzling attitude of San Evold. What in the name of Zair was he up to?

The answer came like a thunderbolt when I got him alone in the laboratory after all the others went back to the Chavonth Chamber to carry on the drinking and the discussions.

“My Prince! I am desolate!”

I saw — or thought I saw.

“You fixed it, Evold! The squish steam was not true cayferm so you used another silver box — a genuine one from Hamal!”

He shook his head, holding out his hands, palm up, and then he sneezed. Spluttering, he said, “Not so, Prince, not so.”

“Well, spit it out, Evold!”

“When the steam condensed I began to wonder if the water could have anything to do with the secret at all. What was left in the box apart from water? Air!”

“Ordinary air, from this damned laboratory of yours.”

He beckoned me over to an apparatus on a low lenken table.

Ornol, his assistant, hobbled in. Ornol had fallen into a Valkan canal and before they’d fished him out he’d drunk some of the canal water. He had not died, but he’d never be able to walk properly again. His left leg, in some mysterious reaction to the poison in the canal water, had shrunk and become almost useless. Now Ornol, a cheerful fellow with a shock of lank yellow hair that was pulled back from his forehead and streamed down over his shoulders, limped forward and set up the amphora, boxes, and tubing.

“See, Prince! With this tube I draw off what was left in the box after the steam condensed . . .”

I knew of this strange non-substance called vacuum, but I hesitated to mention it. I had an idea that the box would collapse, for it was of exceedingly thin metal, tinned, as I have said. I grunted and Evold went on, excited by his work.

“The next time I collected the steam in this amphora, inverted it, and drew off what was there through this pipe. It must, my Prince, be the true cayferm!”

In that he was wrong, but we were both engrossed now and so I sniffed. There was the scent of ripe squishes. He had been unable to get to me through all the ceremony and knowing the urgency of the work had gone ahead alone. I did not fault him in this. Instead I said, “So it does work!”

“Aye, my Prince. And yet there is a strange discrepancy in the action. It does not operate as the others do.”

I heard a shout from the long hall of the images.

“Dray! The Emperor is waiting.”

If I did not care for my skin, Seg Segutorio, the Kov of Falinur, most certainly did.

“Two murs, Seg, and I am with you.” Then, to Evold: “Explain!”

“I have placed the new boxes in their correct positions in the orbits taken from a flier.” These circles of sturm-wood, their bearings of balass and bronze, revolved intricately and so carried the silver boxes into different aspects with each other. By these movements the upward and forward directions of the flier were controlled, as the backward and downward.

“Hurry!”

“Their reactions are different. There is no directional control . . .”

I kept my face impassive. “You mean these boxes — our boxes — will only rise in the air? You cannot make them move forward?”

He nodded, and his lumpy nose glowed in the samphron-oil lamps’ gleam. “That is so, my Prince.”

“By the disgusting, worm-eaten kidneys of Makki-Grodno!” I was furious. All the work, all the pain, all the indignity — only to be rewarded with half the answer at the end!

“Very well. Have supplies made up. I will talk with Erdgar the Shipwright. We must change the plans again.”

“But, my Prince—”

“Dray!”

“Do it, Evold!”

“Yes, my Prince.”

I went out, my long white robe swirling, feeling thoroughly annoyed. All my pretty schemes were falling in ruins around my head. There were a few farsighted men of Vallia who could see what the future portended, could understand that the insane ambitions of Queen Thyllis of Hamal would not be slaked when all of Pandahem lay under the sway of her iron legions. But for every such one there were a hundred, no, a thousand, who could not see. These proud men of Vallia put store in their great galleons, in the mercenaries their gold could buy. These men would never see — let alone acknowledge — that Vallia might be threatened by any other country or empire. Now would not be the time to tell the Emperor the true situation. I would not tell him I could build fliers that would rise in the air but would not fly forward or backward!

Later, when I had him alone with Delia, then would be the time to broach the subject. Such were the powers of nepotism already swaying me. I have said earlier that nepotism in theory is loathsome, but in practice it often works. Without it and its concurrent corrupt practices of selection and advancement Nelson would never have risen to command at Trafalgar. That it had kept me as a mere lieutenant was the reverse of the coin.

The drinking and argument were well underway when I returned to the Chavonth Chamber, but my heart was not in them.

And now I must tell you of an occurrence which at the time struck me as singular, and the answer to which was not vouchsafed me for many a long season. I will keep the account brief. Suffice it to say that it began with Jiktar Exand informing me that he had unearthed a certain man who swore by Diproo the Nimble-Fingered.

Those of you who remember Nath the Thief from Zenicce, who had assisted my wonderful clansmen in the rain, and ever since swaggered a little as he remembered those golden days, will recall that Diproo the Nimble-Fingered was that saint or deity revered by the fraternity of thieves. Where there is portable property not chained down there will be thieves, I think, until the spirit in men is changed. Here one must draw a distinction between those of the fraternity who pocket portable property and those who reive away a whole community and those who, like Korf Aighos of the Blue Mountains, look upon legitimate loot as their property anyway. So, excusing myself and telling Delia this was to do with the stikitches and to inform her father as discreetly as possible why I absented myself from his august presence, I went down with Jiktar Exand.

Seg Segutorio, the Kov of Falinur, accompanied me.

He, too, had not welcomed Erithor’s rendering of The Lament for Valinur Fallen, although conceding the greatness of the song and its content, and notwithstanding that his Kovnate of Falinur lies in Vallia, whereas Valinur is a ruggedly beautiful area of northern Valka south of the stretch of ocean containing the Penal Islands. As well, further north, rises the island of Jynaratha where once I had been taken up in a blue radiance by the Scorpion,taken away from all this grandeur and pomp and power and brought to a proper understanding of my role on Kregen. And, too, north of Jynaratha lies the island of Zamra, of which I am Kov.

Trouble over slaves plagued me in Zamra; but that it a story for another time. Expecting perhaps another Nath or Naghan, I went down with Exand to see the thief. He was a fat and oily fellow, all smiling and hand-washing, a far cry from the lean and hungry villain I had expected. He was no Nath or Naghan, either, being a soberly named Kornan, and very willing and lubricious with it. What he had to say may be summed up as: Yes, there had been strangers in the city, frequenting the taverns and dopa dens, hard, edgy men, with faces scarred and seamed from experiences most men might shudder away from. In the taverns they had asked questions, mainly of the guards of the fortress. Some had given them dusty answers, carelessly, others had drunk enough to tell more than they should. Here Jiktar Exand swelled. His face turned that purplish plum color and I fancied later this Kornan would remember a few names and faces for Exand. Well, that was his province. I admit I felt an unease at the simplicity with which the guards of Valka had been culled. The tavern at which these strangers had put up was named the Admiral Constanto and I halted Exand with a word as he prepared to storm off.

“Hold, Exand. There is more to tell yet.”

“Aye, Prince,” he said, with that sullen fury boiling away in him. I felt that since I had escaped with my life I could therefore scrape some comfort from the improvements in fortress discipline that would follow. My men of Valka are the very devil in a fight; this intrigue among simple swods came as altogether fresh. I did not blame Exand. But I would blame him if the same thing occurred again. This he knew.

“Old Naghan the Hook tried to dip one of these men,” said Kornan. He belched and afterward covered his mouth with his hand, being in polite society. “They cut off his hand.”

“I was not informed of this.”

“No. The reasons would be obvious, Prince. Naghan the Hook prefers to take his chances with one flapper.”

There were no names to be had. No, Kornan had never heard of any Traga. No, these men did not wear black, only decent Vallian buff. The thieves steered well clear of them, and the sequence of events was all too obvious. Seg said, “I will go down to this Admiral Constanto tavern and ferret them out.”

“Aye,” I said. “And tread carefully.”

He went off, taking with him a party of guards clad in civilian clothes, a mere party of roisterers out for a night’s airing. Kornan the Thief swallowed and licked his lips. “May I ask what—?” he began.

“No, Kornan,” said I, very friendly and cheerful. “It is best for your state of health you do not ask.”

His lubriciousness congealed a little, but he nodded and mumbled that he knew nothing, by Diproo the Nimble-Fingered. As soon as he spoke, he cursed himself.

And then, as we stood there by the lower guard gate, with the frowning walls of Esser Rarioch rising above and the watch fires burning, with all the stars of Kregen spread above and She of the Veils swimming in her golden haze, Kov Lykon descended the narrow stone steps to us. He walked with the dainty and yet heavy tread of authority picking its way. With him he had two Chail Sheom, poor girls scantily clad and in silver chains, after the debased fashion of Hamal or Hyrklana or any of those nations which feel a woman in chains gives pleasure to a man. I had spoken to the Emperor about this; he had merely replied that this had been a custom in the long ago and there were no laws of Vallia proscribing the custom.

With Lykon Crimahan and the two girls came down also a young Numim, very thick of arm and leg, very bull-like of neck, with the small round head of the fighter, dressed in leather clothes of supple cut. A rapier and dagger swung at his sides from golden chains. His nose was broken and set quite well, except that it lent his whole hard lion-face an aura of savageness much in keeping with his attitude of overweening pride.

“What goes on here, you cramphs?” demanded the Kov before he came fully into the torchlight, obviously before he had seen that I stood there, also.

“A mere matter of routine, Kov,” said Jiktar Exand.

“A mere matter, eh? You all look confounded glum.”

“Some business over a wench,” said the thick-necked muscular young Numim, switching his rapier up.

“The foul rasts waste their time instead of guarding us. I’d have them flogged jikaider, every last mother’s son of them!”

This was Ortyg Handon, a young Jen[1]of Crimahan’s retinue. We all knew what he was: a professional bully, a man kept to provide sport for the Kov, a man who delighted in thrashing other men who lacked his strength and his skill at arms. I had to tolerate him in my home for the sake of his Kov, who was high in the councils of my father-in-law.

Balass the Hawk, a hyr-kaidur, had marked this Handon and mentioned him to me with a few belittling words. I had had to say most sternly to Balass, that fierce man: “Do not cross swords with him, Balass! I don’t want a corpse spouting blood over my carpets of Walfarg weave.”

So Balass had kept out of his way, and I had given the word to my chamberlain, old Panshi, to pass along to Kov Lykon’s chamberlain that the professional swaggerer, Ortyg Handon, must behave himself or else he would be guested in the dungeons for his visit here. I meant it, too. I was about to step forward and make myself known when I saw a shadow cast in the pool of torchlight above the last step leading up from the great Kyro of the Tridents. A black, deformed shadow leaped the steps, and then a young man appeared, walking forward into the lights. I looked at him and felt a strange

— a weird! — sensation in my throat. I had never seen him before. I knew this to be so and it was true. I did not know this young man.

But something about him — the way he held his head, the way his open, ruddy, handsome features broke into a genuine smile as he advanced, all the clean limber strength of him — caught at me. I was in shadow and I remained there, staring at the young man, feeling this uncanny sensation and not liking it one little bit.

“Lahal!” called the stranger in greeting. He wore a beard, which I thought heavy for him, and mustaches which jutted arrogantly above his upper lip. He wore a rapier and a dagger, and his clothes were clean although poor and patched, the decent Vallian buff. He wore sandals, not boots. The effect of what I call his open and handsome features, as I have recounted it, was purely subjective. For he wore the usual Vallian hat with the wide brim and the two slots over the eyes. There were no feathers in the hat.

“Lahal,” said Jiktar Exand, no doubt experiencing relief at this excuse not to talk further to the bully and rapier-rattler Handon.

“I have business in the fortress,” said this young man.

“Your name?”

“I am called Zando—”

Before he could speak further Kov Lykon burst in with anger trembling his voice.

“We are talking about your dereliction of duty, Jiktar! Tell this scum to clear off before he is treated as his sort deserves.”

Still I did not intervene. There are uses for lengths of rope if allowed to lie around.

“But my business is pressing,” persisted Zando. His face, as I have indicated, lay mostly in the shadows of his hat and the beard concealed the rest; yet I clearly received the impression of a genuine smile. “I must speak with the Prince Majister.”

“Ho!” said Exand. But he knew me and knew I would speak with anyone, given the correct procedures.

“I think we have had enough of strangers seeking to speak to the Prince this day. Your business?” The last lashed out like a risslaca tongue.

“That I am not at liberty to reveal to any living soul but the Prince. But I can give you messages for him that will—”

“Enough!” Kov Lykon swaggered forward. His day had not been the best, for the Emperor had heeded my words on the Hamalian question and Lykon Crimahan still smarted. “Schtump, you cramph! Schtump before I have you flogged.”

This young man Zando put his left hand to the pommel of his rapier. His back went up. Clearly he did not relish being thus addressed with schtump, which is a crude way of telling a fellow to take himself off, a word meaning hurry.

“I do not have the pleasure of your acquaintance,” he said. “But I assure you, sir, I do not take pleasure in being addressed in quite that way.”

Lykon gave a half-snarl and swung to his toady Handon.

“Unsheathe that blade of yours, Ortyg, and teach the cramph manners!”

“With the greatest of pleasures, Kov.” Ortyg Handon stepped forward, sleek and feline like a leem, and drew his rapier and dagger with that slow languid grace of the professional Bladesman thirsting to draw blood.

Even as Ortyg Handon stepped forward, clearly about to take the utmost pleasure in killing this young man, the rapier and main-gauche appeared in a twinkling in the fists of Zando. I saw that draw, and I sucked in my breath.

“I cannot allow brawling here,” protested Jiktar Exand.

Kov Lykon said, “Keep a still tongue in your head, rast. I shall deal with you later.”

Kornan the Thief withdrew into the shadows, so near he almost touched me; his hoarse breathing rasped with his terror. If Exand wondered why I did not step forward, he knew enough about me to know I would never allow him to suffer unjustly at the hands of this popinjay from Vallia. Young Zando spoke softly. “I do not wish the blood of any man upon my blades. Put your sword up, Koter, and let me be about my business.”

“I shall cut you up first, you who call yourself Zando, and then I shall spit you through like a side of vosk!”

“I wish you all to witness that this is upon this man’s head.” Zando spoke firmly. Then, to Jiktar Exand, he said a few words that made the whole of Kregen spin about me, in a whirl of disbelief and impossibility:

“I would take it as an honor if you, Jiktar, would inform the Prince Majister that one called Zando wishes to speak to him. Say to the Prince, this Dray Prescot, say to him that I am a messenger from a Krozair brother who needs his assistance at this moment. Remember that, Jiktar, a Krozair of Zy.”

Chapter 6

The mysterious Krozair

I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy — I stood there like a loon. About to step forward, I saw the quick and deadly glitter of the rapiers and the daggers as they crossed and clashed. If I stepped forward now, I knew only too well what would happen. This young Zando would put up his blades and that kleesh of a Handon would spit him as he stood.

So I stood, with all the wild surmises hurtling about my head. What an onker I am! I should never have allowed this to go so far. Fully prepared to stop it at that moment, I had been halted, stone cold halted, in my tracks by those few quietly spoken words.

Only a few people of the most close relationship with me — Delia and Seg, Inch, Turko, and Korf Aighos, too, and some others who knew more than most about me here in the island empire of Vallia —

knew that I was a Krozair of Zy. They did not fully comprehend what being a Krozair brother meant. Long and long had I yearned to return to the inner sea, the Eye of the World, far away on the western side of the continent of Turismond. But quite apart from the long months of sailing, quite apart from the awesome mountain ranges of the Stratemsk and that hideous crack to the very bowels of the planet exuding its noxious vapors, the Klackadrin, there had been no time in my desperate adventuring for any return to be possible.

So how could a stranger come walking out of the night and talk about the Krozairs?

It could not be.

But he had said the words. And now he was hotly engaged with a noted Bravo fighter, a Bladesman who would laugh as he skewered home his final thrust.

This Zando was not a Krozair. He had not used the words in speaking of those mystic and martial orders which would identify him as a Krozair and, if he wished, the order of which he was a brother and, further, if he so willed, the rank in that order he held. I was a mere Krozair; I was Pur Dray, not a Bold or any other of the adepts, yet to me, as you know, being a Krozair of Zy is the most important fact of my life on Kregen — apart from my Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains. I could only hold my passions and watch to see how quickly young Zando would dispose of this Handon. He was not a Krozair, those superb fighting men who use the Krozair longsword with such uncanny skill. His rapier work was smooth and businesslike, economical, with many touches about the art that reminded of my own style. I watched and, like any fighting man, I became absorbed with the art and the skill as the blades screeched and rang, touched and parted. The torches flared down and the stars shone, and She of the Veils was joined by the Maiden with the Many Smiles, so that a bright and fuzzy, pinkish golden moonslight glowed down and gave all the light needed for the death of a man. The fight was quick and deadly, very close. Handon began with cocksure swagger, confident that he had the measure of this youngster, for all his heavy beard. But soon Handon grew to understand that he faced a swordsman. The blades flung back the golden moonslight in drops of purest gold, and then those drops turned to drops of blood as Zando delicately sliced through Han-don’s guard and pierced his right wrist. The two daggers clashed and fell away, and Handon staggered back, cursing foully. I stepped forward.

“Let this be a finish,” I said. “Jiktar Exand, take the Diproo Nimble-Fingered man away and see him rewarded by ten talens. I shall ask him again, later, so let him keep his eyes and ears open.” I turned to Handon. “You. Go up and have your wound attended to.” I half turned to glance at Kov Lykon. “I think you overreach yourself, Kov. I command here. Go back to the Emperor and ponder well what you nearly accomplished.”

“I go, Prince, and I shall ponder well.”

Well, it was just about all he could say without having me knock him down on the instant. Now I could speak to this Zando.

But he was staring at me with a look of sickly surprise on his face. I looked into his eyes, liquidly gleaming below the wide brim of his hat, and I thought I saw fear lurking there. Fear? I thought I must have misread him. He was pallidly white now above the beard, below the shadow.

“Dray Prescot!” he said. He breathed the words as though he did not believe them. I took his arm. He shuddered at the touch. I led him up the stairs along the wall of Esser Rarioch and through a small postern then, by flang-infested stairways — for this was a private way to which only a few of my intimates had the key — we went up into a small study. There I flopped him down into a chair and poured him wine. I poured him the best Jholaix. He sipped, but he was over his panic and he looked up at me over the brim.

“You spoke of Krozairs,” I said. “Krozairs of Zy. Tell me, Zando, what is a Krozair? What is a Krozair to you?”

“I bear a message from a Krozair brother. He is in some desperate straights. It is necessary, for the sake of your vows, that you supply him with arms, with money, with a voller.”

I nodded. “All that I shall do, of course. But tell me of this Krozair brother—”

“I may not do that, Prince.” He got the title out with a slight hesitation, as though playing a part. “It is an interdiction laid upon me. The Krozair said you would give me all I asked for, without questions.”

“That is so,” I said. I felt certain that this could be no confidence trick on a gargantuan scale. No stranger could possibly know of the connection I had with the Krozairs. He could scarcely know of them, although that was a possibility.

“So you will not tell me?”

He was over that fraught reaction, I thought, to the fight. “I may not do that, Dray.”

I looked up quickly.

“That is — Dray Prescot, Prince Majister.”

“Hum,” I said. “Very well. You wish the supplies tonight?”

“As soon as is humanly possible.”

I rang for Panshi and he slippered in, smiling, bringing with him a fresh bottle of Jholaix. I said, “Panshi, give this young man Zando all he requires. Do not stint.” I glanced over as Zando finished his glass at a gulp. He was one relieved mysterious visitor. “As to vollers, you ask a great deal. We have a need for every voller we can lay out hands on.”

We used the word voller, which is more generally heard in Havilfar, although coming more into use in Vallia.

“I understand that. I may only ask of your goodness.”

“Hum,” I said again. I detested the procrastinating word, but it served a purpose. I said to Panshi: “Have Hikdar Vangar ti Valkanium turn out a first-quality flier. The best we have. When he shouts that the order is impossible tell him I know he will shout and object, but that the order is so.”

Panshi bowed, put the bottle down, and went out. A quiet, patient, knowing man, Panshi my chamberlain could organize a twenty-course banquet in the fiercest typhoon of the outer oceans, and bring on a theater production to follow.

Zando laughed. He threw back his head and laughed. “You ask all the right questions and behave exactly as I knew you would. By Zair, Dray Prescot! I praise Opaz the day I met you—”

“You swear by Zair,” I said somewhat sharply. “And you do well to thank Opaz for what I give you. You will leave something of my treasury to me?”

“A thousand talens, I think, will suffice.”

I took some pleasure in not allowing any expression to cross my ugly old face, and so pique him, I thought, by my lack of response. He merely chuckled.

“And Dray Prescot, your iron self-control is also pleasing to me.”

I knew he was mocking me, like so many of my friends, and so I said, still in that sharp voice, “When you are ready to take off let me know and—”

“I shall, with your permission, take the money and the supplies and the voller and depart as soon as I may.” He stood up. “If you would have someone show me the way . . .?”

He was a cool customer, all right. I had him seen to and then, on an impulse, I stretched out my hand to shake his, in the wrist-gripping way favored over most of Vallia. He hesitated. When at last he clasped hands I felt his arm trembling. Then he said, “Remberee, Dray Prescot. May Zair have you in his keeping.”

“Remberee, Zando. And tell your mysterious friend, this Krozair brother, that Krozair vows are to be kept.” I then added a few words I did not think Zando would understand, words I knew would bring a grim smile of pleasure to the face of the Krozair. Then Zando was gone. As I say, this whole little episode had been strange in the extreme and also a little unsettling. I went back to the Chavonth Chamber prepared to be unpleasant to Kov Lykon; the man had had the sense to take himself off to bed.

Chapter 7

“I believe you are some kind of King of Djanduin.”

The twin suns shone down magnificently as I walked out into that secret walled garden with Delia radiant and lovely at my side. There is much to tell of this period in Valka when I labored to prepare the Empire of Vallia to measure her strength against the Empire of Hamal; but I must press on, and indicate with only a few brush strokes the main outlines of the work. This garden was not the one in which we had been surprised by the stikitches. This garden, hung with flowers, shrubs, and trees, glowing, colorful, and odoriferous with perfume, with a pool into which Drak and Lela might push each other, was entirely surrounded by a high stone wall, creeper-covered on the inside but stark and bare on the outer. The door from the fortress of Esser Rarioch was of stout lenk, iron-barred and banded, and the keys were kept always with Delia or myself.

On the grass of this sunshine-filled day in which an argenter of Pandahem was brought into the harbor as prize, I walked with Delia, talking of our plans. On that grass, starred with tiny yellow chremis flowers that Delia had not the heart to order mown, Drak and Lela played and romped with Kardo and Shara, the twin baby manhounds.

Melow the Supple paced by our side. She was dressed now in a way befitting a devoted mother, with good Valka buff relieved by bright colors — for she was genuinely fond of all bright things after her life as a Manhound of Faol — and her yellow hair had been neatly coiffed and delicately scented. How strange to see a fearsome, frightful, unnatural manhound thus walking with us and even laughing at the antics of our children. Delia, with all that womanly virtue and that glorious compassion which made her delightful mockery so precious a facet of her character, had welcomed Melow and her babies with coos of delight. Of course, the two baby jiklos, being manhounds and adapted to run on all fours, with snarling mouths filled with jagged teeth, developed very quickly. Drak would pummel and roll over and over fighting with Kardo, and the snarls, roars, and yells often brought a quick pang of apprehension; but through all their mutual scufflings it became clearer every day that my son Drak and the son of Melow the Supple, jikla, were growing into a close comradeship of love and affection. And the same was true of Lela and Shara, for together they did all the things little girls do — which for the most part are mysteries to grim fighting men like me.

So, on this day, I kissed my Delia and ruffled Drak’s hair and kissed Lela, and swung down the long ways to the harbor.

Here the argenter rode at anchor, surrounded by guard boats as the prisoners and the booty were brought ashore. The argenter had been wounded in the action, her sides caved in by a massive rock flung from a catapult, and she needed attention. Broad, slow, and comfortable are the argenters of Pandahem. I had given my captains of Valka strict orders not to attack an argenter from Bormark, for that was the Kovnate of my friends Tilda and Pando. But this argenter came from Jholaix — glory be! — and was crammed with the finest wines imaginable.

Seg had had to return to his Kovnate of Falinur, and I admit I missed that feckless practical man immensely. So I flung myself into the preparations needful, and one such preparation was the acquisition of information.

The captain of the argenter, a certain Captain Rordhan, a genial enough fellow with the bluff seafaring ways of Kregen making him a good drinking comrade, and yet, to our mutual folly, an enemy of Vallia, was happy to tell us all he knew. He had been on his way to the Chulik Islands loaded with the finest wine to pay for the hire of Chulik mercenaries. Well, the Emperor had sent off a convoy loaded with manufactured goods of Vallia and with a great treasure, to effect exactly the same thing. The price of mercenaries would rise on Kregen, that was for sure.

The argenter in the usual way had for topmen those agile long-limbed men of the Hoboling Islands, and I said to the captain of the maintop: “Well, dom, and are the pirates still at their trade, up along the Islands?”

“Yes, master, they are.” He looked disgruntled.

“And have you heard of a certain Viridia the Render?”

“Indeed I have, master. She took a fine argenter on which my brother was captain of the foretop . . . sent him back naked with a demand for a sackful of dhems for the rest of the crew.”

I stopped myself from laughing. It was good to know that Viridia still lived, even if she was still about her rending trade with all the old panache. They had been cut-and-thrust days, when I had sailed with Viridia the Render!

So I gave orders to treat the Pandahem kindly, and we went back up to Esser Rarioch. The Emperor and his closest advisers awaited us, and soon Captain Rordhan was telling us of the frightful gloom that had spread over all of Pandahem which had not already fallen to the iron legions of Hamal.

“The bloody Menahem,” he said, shaking his head. We had given him a goblet of his own cargo, and he drank feelingly. “They assisted the Pandrite-forsaken devils of Hamal. The ships flew through the sky and the iron men marched. Tomboram is beset—”

I asked the inevitable question, but he shook his head.

“You may know all I know, Prince. There is little news out of Tomboram. As to Bormark, which I know a little, Pandrite alone knows what has happened to their Kov.”

The upshot of this was that I worked my way a little closer to a scheme I wished to carry out at once. The building of ships in the yards of Valka and Vallia and all the other Kovnates and provinces of the Vallian Empire went ahead. I had told the Emperor of the difficulty, but had softened the blow by taking him up in the first vessel we had finished.

Later I will have to tell you of the exact construction of these new vessels, so that you may understand what we intended. For now I will content myself by saying that the Emperor was convinced that we must fight the Hamalians with whatever weapons the wisdom of Opaz placed in our hands.

“The news from Pandahem makes me believe you, Dray. This Captain Rordhan is a shaken man. The doom he sees ahead stinks in him.”

“And it is now clear the Hamalians will leap from Pandahem once they have conquered the whole island. We are next.”

Kov Lykon attempted to pooh-pooh the idea; but even he could not shake the beliefs we now saw to be true.

“No, Kov,” said the Emperor in his authoritarian voice, so that men listened most carefully. “You have lost your cause, so plead no more, or else, perhaps, men will say you have been bribed by the Hamalians to strip us of our defenses.”

I looked narrowly at Lykon Crimahan at this, but he dissembled well, and blustered and protested his innocence.

But I pondered the thought. It made sense.

Later, closeted alone with the Emperor in the samphron-oil lamps’ gleam, we spoke long into the night. I told him of the plan I thought might give us a breathing space.

“What it boils down to, Majister, is that we must afford assistance to Tomboram. Even to Jholaix. When they go down there is nothing between us and the Hamalians.”

“There is the sea, Dray! That has been our defense and our highway to fortune for generations.”

“I have seen Hamalese skyships. They burned a great galleon of Vallia. They will burn all if we do not stop them short of Vallia herself.”

He was a deeply worried man. Being emperor is fine when things go well, but things seldom go well, least of all on Kregen.

“Very well. You must draw up a list of the forces you think proper. I will give you what I can. The newly hired Chuliks will not arrive in time. But we have a few thousand Pachaks, and they are redoubtable fighting men.”

We talked more and then I said, “And the Crimson Bowmen of Loh?”

At this he hummed and hawed. The Crimson Bowmen of Loh were his own personal bodyguard, superb archers, mercenaries, a corps which had been completely reorganized by Seg and Dag Dagutorio after the shambles of the attempted coup by the third party and the battle at The Dragon’s Bones. He propped a fist under his chin and gazed at me, holding the goblet of Jholaix in his other hand, so that it spilled a little on my carpet. I waited.

Presently he answered, “I gave you three thousand of my Crimson Bowmen when you fought for the Miglas against the Canops. I have yet to see any great reward for that.”

We argued. I was taking as many men from Valka as I felt safe. I would not strip my island Stromnate of its fighting power, but here a strange and true phenomenon showed itself: any country which has gone through a recent war, in particular a civil war, produces skilled soldiers in great profusion. I probably had in Valka, which is not a particularly large island, as many first-class trained soldiers as in the rest of Vallia, which formerly relied on mercenaries for its land forces.

In the end we compromised and he let me have a thousand.

Only for their longbows would I prize them. I said, “Our foot soldiers cannot go up with true confidence against the Hamalians, with their shields and thraxters and their discipline.”

He was surprised. “You thrashed the Canops on the field of the Crimson Missals.”

“Archery did that. And we were lucky — make no mistake. The Hamalians will be in large numbers and they will have the benefit of a superb Air Service. They will have saddle flyers, also.”

“There are these flutduins you had sent from Djanduin.” He glanced up at me and, in the nasty way he more than half meant, peevishly said, “I believe you are some kind of king of Djanduin.”

“As to the flutduins,” I said, keeping my old mahogany features straight. “They are perhaps the best saddle flyers in all Havilfar. But we have less than a hundred couples. The Hamalians will fill the sky with fluttrells and mirvols, aye, and some of the damned young fools will be flying zhyans.”

“I know nothing of all these flying creatures—”

“But your army will!”

Well, from this you will see the obstinacy with which we both argued. In the end I scraped together a little army of some fifteen thousand. Small enough, when I recalled the regiments of Hamal, but it was a start. With this army then, and a welcome reinforcement from Djanduin — of which I was ruler! — we would sail for Pandahem and stand shoulder to shoulder with Pando, the Kov of Bormark, and deny those cramphs of Hamalians the springboard to Vallia their evil Queen Thyllis sought in her conquest of all Pandahem.

Before we left I decided that a little object lesson might not be lost upon the doughty warriors of Valka. As you know, the fighting men of Turismond and Segesthes, as of Pandahem and Vallia, consider the shield a coward’s artifice, something behind which to hide in the heat of battle instead of striding out, rapier or clanxer or glaive flashing.

I said to Balass the Hawk as we paused in our strenuous leaping around in the tiny sandy arena we had erected for practice purposes: “Now, Balass. You saw how Ortyg Handon disposed of that poor onker Larghos the Unrequited yesterday?”

He nodded. “I watched with great interest, by Kaidun!”

Yesterday Ortyg Handon, still smarting from his handling by the mysterious Zando, had forced a quarrel on Larghos; that young man, well-named as the Unrequited, had responded to the challenge. Handon’s wrist wound had mended under treatment. He had made a spectacle of Larghos, killing him with unnecessary messiness. Once the challenge had been given and accepted there lay no other recourse under the codes of honor and chivalry of Kregen save it be settled in blood. The Emperor might have stopped it, had he willed. But Larghos had been determined to rush upon death or honor. So I asked Balass the Hawk, “Can you take him — with sword and shield?”

He nodded. He did not boast. Not in a matter of seriousness.

So it was arranged and two days later, out on the field of Vorgar’s Drinnik with the assembled fighters of Valka watching, the quarrel that had suddenly flared between Handon and Balass was to be settled. I admit I felt some disquiet. A rapier-and-dagger man, versus a sword-and-shield man. I knew I ought to win if I handled either set of equipment, but that meant nothing. Balass was a hyr-kaidur. Handon was a Bravo fighter, a Bladesman. The contest held far more than the old question in its outcome, for if Balass failed my scheme would be ruined.

I remembered Vomanus, calling merrily as he fought against armored men, “They don’t like it through their eyes!”

To make everything equal apart from the weapons, the two combatants wore no armor. Clad in breechclouts, they squared up to each other. Balass was used to fighting as a secutor. He carried the shield with which he had run out into the Jikhorkdun of Huringa, the capital of Hyrklana, when I had fought the boloth and my Delia had been chained with silver chains to the central stake to make a spectacle for the crowds. He hefted his thraxter, which was not the same weapon, being a specimen specially forged by Naghan the Gnat, of superb temper. The straight sword, despite its cunning and balance, looked heavy and clumsy beside Handon’s slender rapier. But the main-gauche against a shield?

Well, it all depends on the men using the weapons, when the Deldars are ranked. I do not think it necessary for me to say that Balass wore a red breechclout. After all, we had fought for the ruby drang. Handon wore a white loincloth. I trusted it would show up the blood spots brightly. Against the white of his loincloth Handon’s golden Numim fur glowed and gleamed in the light of the suns. Balass’ shining black skin and his red breechclout afforded to me, also, a touch of the contrasts I so much admire.

Balass, like me, was apim. Handon was Numim.

This made no difference. Had there been a Rapa, say, or a Bleg, a Kataki, or a Chulik in this confrontation, my impulses would very easily, I am ashamed to admit, have leaned in the other direction. Everything was done with propriety and the Emperor and his suite attended, for this had been turned into a gala festival. Kov Lykon was there, taking enormous bets on his man. I told Panshi to take what we could get on Balass. How this reminded me of the days of bladesmanship in Ruathytu, capital of Hamal!

The Emperor nodded and Jiktar Exand, acting as marshal, dropped the scarlet scarf. Instantly Handon leaped with that ferocious feral snarl of the Numim, his golden mane blazing. The unequal contest was beloved by the connoisseurs of the arena in Huringa in Hyrklana, and we had many times seen secutor pitted against rapier and dagger. I do not think Handon had. Balass the Hawk was a wily old bird. He backtracked and his shield rang with the scraping thrusts and blows of the rapier. The rapier is your true cutting weapon as well as a thruster. So is the thraxter. Balass foined his man away. The main-gauche caught the thraxter, but then the curved shield smashed out like a battering ram and knocked the Numim a clear six feet away. Handon did not fall. But he snarled deep in his throat and took a fresh grip on his weapons. He came in again, weaving, feinting, aiming to thrust his longsword past that infuriating shield.

I could spare only half my interest on the fight. I must watch the faces of my fighting men of Valka. How their faces betrayed each moment of the fight! Of course, they were all for Balass. Wasn’t he a blade comrade of their Strom? And wasn’t this Handon a lackey of the popinjay Kov Lykon? Well, then! So they cheered and roared, and I watched them, trusting they were taking in the skills of the superb shieldman exhibited before them.

The fight might have gone on a long time, but Handon thought he had the mastery of the sword-and-shield combination. He feinted away, swirled his rapier overhand so that Balass’ shield angled up to deflect and then — quick! oh, so quick! for the rapier is faster than the thraxter — the slender needle of steel whipped in like that risslaca tongue, whipped in to pierce high over the shield rim. Balass took three quick steps backward and the rapier ripped free, dark blood staining three inches of its point.

“First blood!” called Jiktar Exand in a surly voice.

‘To the death!” bawled Kov Lykon.

It seemed my comrade Balass would most certainly be slain before my eyes in the next few murs.

Chapter 8

News of Pando and Tilda

Kov Lykon laughed in high glee. He jerked the silver chains binding his two Chail Sheom.

“There, my pretties! See the great Numim. And shall I set him on you tonight, to our mutual pleasure?”

They rattled their chains and emitted high false shrieks of pleasure, feigning love and affection for the man. I turned away. Chaining women up and threatening them are sports for things from under flat stones.

Many men say women enjoy this treatment and, of course, there is truth in this. But how do you judge the honesty of a girl’s reactions? How do you know for sure that a girl means it when she says she pines to be chained and wishes only to be humiliated by her master, that she wishes only to be a slave? How can you tell? And, if in the end you believe her and understand she thinks this is what she ought to do —

she may even derive genuine pleasure from the humiliation, a supposed role between man and woman —

then, perhaps, you ought to consider just how sick in the head she is. So Kov Lykon maltreated his girls and laughed, and Handon bore in for the final killing thrust. Balass still kept his shield up. His thraxter moved in that short deadly arc, a blurred upthrusting of steel, and Handon staggered back, screeching, his rapier and dagger falling from nerveless fingers, spraying his guts out from his ripped-apart stomach.

I relaxed. It had been a near thing, but Balass the Hawk was a true kaidur; he had fought in the arena and he knew what the taste of blood was all about.

Lykon looked abruptly defeated. The girls at the ends of the chains were very quiet, anticipating unpleasant evenings for a long time ahead.

I walked across.

“Your boastful Numim is dead, Kov. I would like to buy these girls from you.”

He looked at me, hot-eyed, but there was a haggardness about him. I think he was as well aware as any one of my freedom-fighters there, now creating an enormous hullabaloo of triumph, that I myself had not fought because too much was known about the fighting habits of Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor. Had I won no man would believe that it was because the shield is a powerful instrument in battle. They would have put the victory down to my own prowess at arms. Now Balass had proved my point.

“Sell them?” Kov Lykon recollected himself. I did not know just how much he had bet. “Sell my little pretties?”

The two girls were looking at me as though I was either mad or of divine origin. That settled it in my mind. They were no voluntary slaves; they did not enjoy being chained up, humiliated, and expected to shrill, squeak, and feign enjoyment each time the master playfully tortured them with words or whip.

“You owe me the wagers, Kov. You owe me much money, for your Numim failed you. I will cancel the debt for the girls.”

So that was how we arranged it, and I struck the chains off. Tilly, my gorgeous golden-furred Fristle fifi took them off to wash the sores, bathe them, and dress them in fine sensil and so decide their future as free women.

The very next day the army sailed for Pandahem.

Before I left I told Balass, most sternly, “He got over your shield, Balass! Careless. Although, I will admit, he was very good.”

“Aye, Dray,” said Balass. “He was good. Was.”

I laughed. “And now you will train the coys — that is, these brave young fighting men of mine — train them to stand in line and use sword and shield, train them to stand against the iron men of Hamal.”

“Such will be my pleasure. But I can only train them to fight. For tactics and drill — all these things —

you will need a drill master.”

“Yes. You train them to fight with shield and sword, or see how the glaive fits in. Tom ti Vulheim will provide the drill masters, and for the new drills we shall need . . . well, I’ll have to think on that.”

The truth was that I had already thought of this problem and had already reached a solution. I feel sure you will guess easily where I intended to obtain my drill masters in this new-fangled — to my blade comrades of Valka — mode of fighting.

Naghan Kholin Donamair was absolutely furious. His four fists beat the air. His eyes protruded. He was one enraged Djang.

“But, King! My flutduins are ready, the young Valkans trained — well, trained enough to give an account of themselves, by Zodjuin of the Silver Stux! And the chicks are hatching well, so the next generation is assured.”

I shook my head. “I do not punish you by asking you to stay here, Naghan. Your task is great. We must build up a corps of flyers here in Valka. The flutduins are vital.”

“But, my King! You go off to war and I do not go with you?”

“By Holy Djan himself! I ask this of you as a favor, for I know the agony you suffer. But if Hamal wins, if Vallia goes under, won’t those cramphs of Hamal turn south through the Dawn Lands? How long will it be before they come knocking on the Mountains of Mirth? And do you think they will be sucked in as the Gorgrens were? Well, by Zodjuin of the Stormclouds, what do you think, Naghan Donamair?”

It just wasn’t fair of me. I know that. These wonderful four-armed Djangs of mine have no heads for statecraft, strategy, and the intricacies of diplomacy. Give them a sword and a shield, a bow and a quiver of arrows, a joat or a flutduin, and they are the bravest fighters one could ask for. So I bamboozled poor Naghan, but I was right. His place was here, in Valka, training my aerial cavalry. Saying goodbye to Delia came with the shock of abrupt agony.

She had said she was coming with me and had started rummaging out her leathers and the brave scarlet breechclout and sash. But I knew her condition would prevent her from joining me, as, of course, she knew herself. But, still, being Delia, she argued.

“And suppose the little fellow’s born in the middle of a battlefield, under a flap of canvas, with headless corpses all around?”

She laughed at me. She mocked me. “Oh, Dray, Dray! And don’t you think that’s just about the most fitting place a son of yours could be born?”

I was furious. “Delia! Anyone would think I liked wars and bloody battles—”

She was serious at once, those wonderful brown eyes warm and tender. “I know, dear heart. But your life has been hard, one of fighting — yes, all for very good reasons! And I think that long before Kregen is a fit world in which to bring up children, as you have so often told me, then he must learn to cope and fight as quickly as may be.”

“But suppose he’s a girl?”

“Suppose he’s twins again?”

I sighed. “Well, Delia, my girl, you are not coming with me, and that is final. You’d best get Thelda for I know she loves you, even if she means well, poor soul.” Here I did Seg’s wife Thelda an injustice, and both Delia and I knew I only prattled on about yesterday. “And Inch, too. Time that long streak was married, anyway.”

“I shall stay here, in Esser Rarioch.”

I hummed and hawed, but I suppose she was right. Valka was now a real home to her, and she had many friends here.

“And Doctor Nath the Needle.”

“Do not fret, dear heart!”

“Excellent advice that it is impossible to take!”

There was no question of my not going. Delia was the daughter of an Emperor and she would have looked at me rather strangely if I had said I was not going because she was to have a baby — or, as she lived on Kregen, the strong possibility of two babies.

“Turko the Shield will bear his great shield over you, so promise me you’ll stay there, and not rush out like you always do!”

In giving her the promise I recollected that I might rush out anyway, forgetting in the heat of the moment. And she, the witch, understood that, too, for she said: “Well, I will not take your promise and lock it in my golden chest with a golden lock. But, Dray Prescot!” When she spoke like that it paid me to take heed. “Take care of yourself and come back with everything still attached to that body of yours! Do you hear?”

I kissed her most tenderly and said goodbye to the twins, and everyone else. There were so many RembereesI was two long burs about it. Then I went down to the galleon and so, at last, we set sail for Pandahem.

A number of high nobles and Pallans made a last-minute attempt to halt the expedition. Led by Kov Lykon and the dowager Kovneva Natyzha, they put forward powerful arguments, the chief of which worried me. His ran like this: “If we send a force to Pandahem to fight the Hamalians, and they are not at war with us, won’t this enrage them, be tantamount to a declaration of war on our part, and won’t they then really determine to overthrow us?”

I had thought about this, and decided that the obvious answer, “A Zorca shod today is a herd saved tomorrow,” while being true, was not ample enough. We had to make an attempt to stop the Hamalians at any risk — and I knew the risk did not exist for it had already taken place. One of the Emperor’s council of the Presidio, a lean tall man with a scarred face who talked little, one Nath Ulverswan, the Kov of the Singing Forests, spoke and out of surprise obtained all ears. “You do ill, Majister, in allowing this headstrong son-in-law of yours to drag honest Vallians to their deaths over the sea. We are a sea people and we rely on our galleons. Buy mercenaries to fight, in the old way.” Then he ceased and sat down. The Singing Forests extended for many kools just south of the Mountains of the North in Vallia, and this Kov Nath Ulverswan was a man rich among rich men. I stood up and said, “Much of what Kov Nath says is true. But times have changed. In any case, the expedition will seem to be composed entirely of mercenaries. We will not wear Vallian clothes or colors. We fight for pay, on behalf of the Kov of Bormark. There should be no repercussions.”

I had sought for this scheme and used it desperately. But it was accepted, for the Emperor still wielded power to push through this kind of measure against the opposition of his enemies in the Presidio. So it was with much regret that I left my flag, that yellow cross on a scarlet field, that battle flag fighting men call “Old Superb,” in the high hall of the fortress of Esser Rarioch. Instead we carried Pando’s colors, the blue field charged with the blazing golden form of the wild zhantil. The same orders had been sent via voller messengers to Ortyg Coper and Kytun Dom — true comrades both — in far Djanduin. When my ferocious Djang warriors joined me with their flutduin regiments, they, too, would fly the blue flag with the golden zhantil emblazoned at its center. I guessed that Ortyg Coper would run Djanduin in my absence, as its civil head, and Kytun would fly with his warriors to fight at my side.

I was not wrong.

Kytun Kholin Dom, his coppery hair flowing as wildly as ever, his four arms wide in a gigantic embrace, leaped from the first voller to touch down at our camp in a small bay to the east of the northern coastline of Tomboram. We were not too many dwaburs west of Jholaix here, for the army of Hamal pressed ever on from the west, overrunning Pando’s own Kovnate of Bormark.

“Dray! King!” He enfolded me in three of his bear-like arms and I tensed my gut. He punched me there, so I punched him back with fifty percent of my arms, and his seventy-five percent hugged me while the other twenty-five rat-a-tatted against my stomach. “Dray! King! By Holy Djan himself!”

Well, such is the temper of my Djangs. I fancied my Valkans would find themselves in the company of their peers, if not their superiors, when it came to drinking, brawling, and fighting. A four-armed man holds a tremendous advantage over us two-armed types, I fear.

The Pachaks, with their two left arms, hold many advantages, also, and I had high hopes for the regiments of those we had brought, too.

Soon messengers from Tomboram arrived. We had timed it nicely, Kytun complaining boisterously of the long haul here, all the way up from Djanduin in the southwest corner of Havilfar, along the South Lohvian Sea and, avoiding the Sea of Chem, striking inland northeastward over the Orange River and Ordsmot. From there they’d flown north, skirting the badlands and that area where no flier or flyer would voluntarily go. Here Kytun made a face.

“These damned fliers aren’t what they used to be, Dray! In the old days, by Djondalar, fliers flew! This new rubbish we bought from Hamal breaks down all the time!”

“There is this war, Kytun,” I said gently, “which is being fought in part over that matter.”

“Then let us get to it, by Asshurphaz! We lost two good vollers over in the badlands, and Kodun Myklemair was flying one of ’em, a fine lad, may the Curse of Rig strike those cramphs of Hamal!”

I expressed my regret. Although I did not know the young Djang personally, his name was that of an honored family.

Kytun had brought his men in a wide sweep to avoid the Hamalians in South Pandahem and so, curving to the northwest around between the Koroles and Astar, had driven swiftly across Tomboram here. The messengers from King Nemo of Tomboram — for that fat greasy rast still sat on the throne here, for all he quaked in his high black boots and his black bar mustache quivered with the fury of his ferocious and petty nature — assumed a high and mighty air of importance. I held down my rage. I had dealt with their kind before. I said, “You will wait until the Kov of Bormark or his messengers arrive.”

The chief of these messengers from King Nemo was a hard-faced man, bulky, in the flamboyant robes of his kind. He bristled up, his hand to his rapier. His face was covered with purplish spots, and his nose was a mere bloated purple cauliflower.

“I am Lart Mosno, Kov of Memberensis, and my Kovnate does not lie beneath the heel of the invader!

The King commands—”

“I have had dealings with your King Nemo before,” I told him, very brisk. “I let him inspect my dagger. But if you must prattle, Kov Lart, tell me what you know of Kov Pando.”

He laughed, nastily, like a leem sneezing.

“Better ask his mother, Tilda the Fair!”

I took his neck between my fingers. I did not choke him, much. I let him breathe. His fellows gaped at the swords in the hands of my people, ringing them.

“We have come here to assist you in fighting the Hamalians. You had best keep a civil tongue in your head. I will ask you only once more: What of Kov Pando?”

He gobbled a little and spittle ran down. He managed to blurt out: “His army was broken and he was forced to flee. The King has put a price on his head for treachery. As for his mother, Tilda of the Many Veils . . .”

“Yes?”

“She . . .” He swallowed and avoided my eyes, which I allow must have been glaring and mad. I thought of what Inch had told me.

“She drinks,” I said. “I know that. Speak!”

“Yes, yes! They are hiding somewhere, I hear! My neck! I beg you, put me down!”

I hadn’t realized I was lifting him off his feet, his face a bright and brilliant purple, his neck white under my grasp. I set him down with a crash that jarred his teeth. He moaned.

“The dowager Kovneva Tilda is drunk all the time, and the Kov Pando Marsilus, Kov of Bormark, has no army, no wealth, no friends, and is under interdict! If the King catches him in his skulking place he will be executed, by royal order!”

Chapter 9

The Battle of Tomor Peak

Ishook this Kov Lart.

“You are mistaken, onker! Kov Pando has an army, friends, and wealth! For they are here, surrounding you with steel! And if King Nemo harms a hair of his head, or his mother’s, I shall hang him from the highest spire in his own damned palace! Is that clear?”

Only after I had shouted so passionately did I stop to consider what my men thought of all this. For they had traveled far to arrive here. They had expected to be met by friends, by an army, by a hospitable Kov and Kings, ready to go with them in arms against the enemy.

Instead, they had been met with a tale of disaster, possibly a tale of treachery, for some might think I had lured them here, knowing the situation, intending merely to use them as bargaining pieces. Translation difficulties ensue here, for I cannot say they might think I used them as pawns, for the pawn in Jikaida is called the swod, and, indeed, so very many of these wild fighting men were swods in real life. So harsh truth trips up all the fine euphemisms!

Kytun had no hesitation.

He ripped out his djangir, that short broad sword which symbolizes so much of the warrior Djangs, and waved it aloft.

“We came here to fight, Dray Prescot, King of Djanduin! Lead us to the enemy and we will thrash them!”

As usual, Kytun had struck at just the right psychological moment. The clustered warriors took up the shout and the soldiers, although no doubt looking a little askance at this calling of their prince a king, joined in, and so the moment passed, as so many moments pass on Kregen, in a shining forest of upraised blades, and a mighty shout of these men of mine to lead them on to the enemy. So, complying with the wishes of my army, I shook this Kov Lart Mosno again.

“Where is Kov Pando hiding?”

“If I knew that, I would have had him dragged out by the heels.”

“But you would not do such a foolish thing now, would you?”

He saw my face. “No, no I would not.”

Turko the Shield, at my left side, half a pace in the rear, stepped forward. He put his handsome face up against Mosno’s.

“You address the Prince Majister as Majister, nulsh!”

And Kytun, also outraged, stepped up and boomed, “You address the King as Majister, nulsh!”

I kept my face iron-hard. As you know, titles mean nothing to me — except my being a Krozair of Zy, and that is not a title, anyway — but I did feel some relief that Turko had not bellowed that this quaking Kov should call me Prince, while Kytun had boomed that he should call me King. I did not relish the set-to which would follow that little contretemps.

“Majister,” said this miserable wight. I would not allow myself to feel sorry for him. “The last report from the King’s scouts said he was hiding with the remnants of his army.” He swallowed and choked a little. I set him on his feet more firmly, patted his ornate uniform front in a mock cleaning-up way, smoothed a strand of hair from his gilt-encrusted shoulder. “Now take your time, Kov. Just think. And tell me.”

“Yes, Majister.” His eyes were unfocused and he was sweating. Probably he had never before been in such close proximity to such a gang of rascals as surrounded us now. And the chiefest rogue of all was myself.

“In the woods south of Tomor Peak. Yes, Majister. He must be hiding there for the enemy has sent a force to cut off what is left of the army of Bormark.”

“You mean,” I said, outraged, “that your miserable cramph of a King Nemo let Pando and his army fight alone?”

“It was the policy, Majister.”

This was no time for further bickering. “How many in this force?”

He licked his lips. “We estimate at least twenty thousand.”

I felt relief and I felt alarm. My warriors could surely overcome a force only this much stronger than they were, but now the fight would be against the iron legions of Hamal. The effect of my demonstration with Balass the Hawk and Handon might strike shrewdly now. Not all of my men had witnessed that — a deliberate stratagem on my part — and most of these witnesses remained in Valka and were training a little more willingly with sword and shield. But enough here had seen . . .

There is no sense in saddling a fluttrell before you catch him, so I set at once about organizing the order of march.

I shouted so that as many men as possible might hear.

“We need a guide. The Kov Lart of Memberensis knows the country and the whereabouts of the enemy! He volunteers to be our guide!”

Kov Lart sputtered. “But, Majister, I must return to the King and report!”

“Oh,” I said. “He’ll find out in due course, I have no doubt.”

So we ended on a jest and could ready for the march in good spirits. Belying the jest, however, I told one of Kov Lart’s retinue to take a message to King Nemo. He was to come with forces to the woods south of Tomor Peak and be ready to fight Hamalese troops. I had little faith he would turn up; and if he did he might very well fight us over the question of Pando. The main army of Hamal, meanwhile, still lay to the west, being held in play by an army consisting of the remnants escaped from those Pandahem countries already overrun, together with the main forces of King Nemo. If we were off on a sideshow it was a sideshow commensurate with our strength, and the taking out of twenty thousand men would surely embarrass the generals of Hamal. I thought of the Hamalian Kov Pereth, the Pallan of the Northern Front. He had been appointed during the time of my spying mission in Hamal; perhaps by now the intrigues within Queen Thyllis’ court had deposed him and set up a fresh commander.

So we set off. We had a considerable quantity of baggage, mostly warlike stores. Of provisions we had only iron rations, for I fully intended my men to live off the country. They would do this anyway, even if the commissariat could give them roast vosk, taylynes, momolams and looshas pudding every day, followed by miscils and palines. All the infantry we could we crammed onto the baggage carts. The patient quoffas with their long faces and their hearth-rug appearance did not complain but sturdily hauled the creaking carts. The transports of Vallia had been designed well, massive craft nearer superior argenters than galleons. We did not lack for cavalry, and our aerial cavalry was the best, I had now persuaded myself, in all Havilfar.

The new regimental system of organization appeared to be working well, and the Jiktars knew they would have to face me if they fouled up. So we plodded along the country roads of Tomboram, heading south, and on the third day the country grew wilder of aspect, with mountains rising in the distance. On the fourth day we passed the site of a battle, most distressing, with corpses in grotesque attitudes, broken weapons and drums, tattered banners. I saw the blue flag and the golden zhantil there, as well as the purple and gold of Hamal, and I pondered. Whoever had fought here had retired swiftly after the defeat, and the victors had followed up with equal rapidity.

Flutduin patrols had not yet reported the presence of any enemy. I kept the voller force close. We marched on.

The mountains proved troublesome, but we found local guides only too pleased to show us the easiest ways through the passes, the hatred of Hamal evident in their vigor when they saw our banners and realized we fought for Tomboram. Down on the southern side we debouched from the last pass below Tomor Peak. Stones rattled under the hooves of the nikvoves, zorcas, and totrixes, and under the stout marching boots of the men. The quoffas trundled along and the carts creaked and protested. The men sang.

Before us stretched a wide plain, much forested, with the wink and glitter of watercourses. Interesting country to plan a battle. We marched on and the flutduin patrols came in with negative reports until, at last, one returned with news that he had spied a military encampment far off. Obeying my instructions, he had returned immediately.

So I took flight astride a flutduin, with Kytun and an escort, and we flew into the eyes of the suns, turned and came down to survey the camp.

Laid out neatly, as was to be expected of the Hamalians, the camp could contain the twenty thousand men reputed to be in the force facing us. I studied and made notes against the wind rush, then we turned and, undetected, returned to our own camp. I felt some pleasure as we touched down in a flurry of wings.

“We can take them, Dray,” said Kytun. He removed his flying helmet with one hand, unlaced his leathers with another, took up a goblet of wine with the third, and reached for a camp chair with the fourth. That kind of behavior always made me blink.

“Yes, Kytun. But no mad chunkrah rush for us!”

“They have vollers.”

“But not as many as I had expected. There must be scouts out, so we must have a patrol aloft at all times. But, still, remember this is a flank-force of the main army only, finishing up its business with Pando’s army.” I sighed. “Poor Pando! He needed a touch of a father’s hand — a not so gentle hand —

when he was young.”

Pando, that young imp of Sicce, would be almost full grown now. I wondered if he would remember me. I thought he would, but you could never tell. As for Tilda the Beautiful, his mother, she’d remember . . . if she was sober. That, in absolute truth, was a tragedy.

We ate scanty rations that night, for the country had been poor, inevitably, through the mountains. Out on the plains we could find deer and fruits, and life would perk up. We marched at night, too, at a steady pace I had instituted as a regulation pace, not to be deviated from unless ordered, and we covered the ground steadily if not rapidly.

We were not observed, I felt reasonably sure, in the light of She of the Veils. The Twins came up after midnight and the Maiden with the Many Smiles only just before dawn. The three lesser moons of Kregen hurtled frantically across the sky, close to the ground, but the totality of light gave our wide-ranging patrols opportunity enough of counter-observing any Hamalese scouts. Just before the Suns of Scorpio were due to rise we marched up to an extensive forest area, scouted and clear, so we could enter in among the trees to bivouac. Fires were lit under the strictest control, Hikdars being appointed to the task to ensure that no betraying smoke wafted away. I rested for a while and then rode Snowy through the lanes between the trees to the forest’s southern edge. For a long time I sat there looking out. One more night’s march, I thought, and we would be in position to spring. The day passed peacefully. The men saw to their weapons, animals, and vollers. This very quietness seduced a man. Tomorrow, with the dawn, we would turn into a pack of ravening beasts, seeking to slay and go on slaying before we were slain in our turn. Many thoughts thronged my brain, but of them all only the image of Delia rode with me, constantly. Only after her could I think of the strangeness of my life, of how I had been caught up out of humdrum nothingness on Earth to be transported four hundred light-years through space, to joy in the exhilaration of Kregen, to love and to battle — aye! and to hate!

— on the surface of this wild and beautiful, lovely and horrible world of Kregen under Antares. That night we left all unnecessary impedimenta in the camp among the trees. Stripped for action, with carts loaded with shafts to follow, we marched out under the moons of Kregen. Pinkish moonlight showed us the way. We marched silently. Not a weapon chingled, not a man spoke. Direction was maintained by stellar navigation, and Jiktars marked the ends of our lines. A great ghostly array of men, marching on, timed to strike just as dawn broke in a blaze of emerald and crimson, we marched across the face of Kregen . . . and who of all those thousands could guess the man who led them had been born under the light of another sun — a single sun!

Kytun rode his zorca next to mine. He leaned over and his whisper reached me, harsh in the night:

“We are late, Dray! The Twins are already up!”

“The ground is softer here. It makes for heavier going for the infantry.”

Then, to compound our troubles, a merker astride his fluttclepper flew swiftly in from the moonshot darkness landing with a great rustling. He alighted and ran swiftly across to pace my zorca and so stare up, troubled of face.

“Well, Chan of the Wings?”

“We are observed, King. A voller — very fast — curved sharply away. He must have seen us.” This Chan of the Wings was a most important man in a king’s retinue, a man of secrets. “There was nothing we could do.”

“Thank you, Chan of the Wings.” This was the man who had first openly raised the call of “Notor Prescot, King of Djanduin!” With the Pallan Coper and Kytun, and the others with me in that old struggle to refashion Djanduin, Chan of the Wings had been an important man in banishing the phantom of Khokkak the Meddler from my scheming brain.

Well, my brain had been idle and shiftless then, even if full of careless schemes; now it must be filled with purpose, or my valiant warriors from Vallia and Djanduin were doomed. And then a more sensible thought occurred to me as we advanced through the moon-drenched shadows. To attack a camp, a fortified camp at that, against superior numbers had not appealed to me. If we had been observed and our numbers counted, maybe the overconfident Hamalians would march out to confront us. We could bring our entire force to bear on one face of the camp, against locally inferior numbers. If the whole Hamalese force marched out, they could form their superior numbers in the old wing formation, to encircle and crush us. I perked up. Maybe this was not so disastrous a happening, after all.

From this last apparently paradoxical thought you will gather just how much reliance I placed in my thousand Bowmen of Loh, my half-thousand Valkan Longbowmen and the remainder of my Valkan Archers.

One day, I had vowed, there would be no difference between a Valkan Longbowman and a Valkan Archer, for everyone — except for a few reserved for fortress and aerial work — would use the great longbow.

So we marched on and I did not give the order to increase our speed to the full pace. The regulation pace would bring us to the spot I had selected in good time. The rising suns would shine obliquely down over our left shoulders. I grunted at Kytun to continue the march, then swung Snowy to canter off down the ranks just to reassure myself.

This little army was not the army I had promised myself I would one day create on Kregen. But we were a fine bunch, and a wildly mixed bunch, too. There were the Archers, there were the Chuliks, the Pachaks, a group of Rapas and another of Fristles — not marching together. There were the corps of cavalry, the zorcamen for recce work and the heavier warriors astride their nikvoves for the crunching shoulder-to-shoulder charge. I heard the creak of leather and the breathing of the men and animals as we pressed on. I pondered this little army. The Pachaks carried their shields on their two left arms. Because the Chuliks from the Chulik Islands southeast of Balintol are trained from near birth to fight with any weapons and use those of the master who hires them, these Chuliks carried rapiers, daggers, and glaives. There had just not been any shields in Vallia for their equipment. Trained to be mercenaries on their islands, the Chuliks were also trained in the same old ways in their own places of the Eye of the World. It is difficult, perhaps, to remember that if ordinary men and women called apims may live on the face of Kregen in ignorance that others of their kind live on other continents, the same is true of all the diffs also. Only a diff, Bleg, Numim, Chulik, or Rapa, would call himself ordinary, and we apims would be the halflings to him.

At the rear of the column tailed the baggage carts loaded with shafts and bolts for the varters. These trundled along on carriages drawn by teams of four totrixes, and there were far too miserably few of them for any well-balanced army. But I must make do with what I had. The varters would spit their venom when the time came.

When the dawn broke and the whole plain lit up with the fires of Antares, the green of grass and tree breaking into splendid color, the sky paling through all those marvelous changes of radiance, I halted the army and we rested for a while. Now was the time for those last-minute preparations: the rapier clean and easy in the scabbard, the main-gauche to hand, the Jiktar and the Hikdar. The glaive firmly socketed, the ash stave true and ungreasy. The helmet sitting well on the forehead, so that the brim did not tip up nor yet dip down over the eyes. The corselet not constricting the free play of the arms. And, in the case of those with this despised article, the shield fair and ready, resting on its grips. And, finally, the last check to make sure the high-laced marching boots with their studded soles were tightly secured, ready to afford that vital security of grip on the earth — this earth that was not my Earth but the wonderful world of Kregen.

Turko the Shield gently rode his zorca over as the men began to rise and stretch and take up their arms to move out to their appointed places. The light grew stronger mur by mur, and our twinned shadows stretched long.

“You will ride Stormcloud, Dray?”

“Later, I think. I’ll need to be here and there at the beginning, so Snowy will be better.”

“I’ll tell Xarmon.” Xarmon was the groom I had brought, a man from Xuntal like Balass the Hawk, a man who loved zorcas and nikvoves. He even liked totrixes, which proved his love of the steeds of Kregen.

I would not fly a flutduin, despite the advantages of aerial observation, because of the disadvantages of being cut off from the giving of immediately obeyed orders and also because I did not wish to deprive the fighting air cavalry of a single mount. The air smelled crisp and sweet, a tiny breeze started up, which all the bowmen would feel in their bones.

Some people say that one battle is much like another and I suppose if you are in the ranks and it is all a red mist of cutting, thrusting, and bashing on — or running — then there is truth in this. But no two battles are really alike. There is always some factor that gives each battle its individual flavor. I think this battle, which became known as the Battle of Tomor Peak, was marked by the first full realization by my Valkans of the power of the shield in battles of this nature.

Tom ti Vulheim, who had fought with me in the Battle of the Crimson Missals, gave orders similar to the ones I had given then. But now we had pitifully few shieldmen. The Pachaks must not fail us. They strung out in the first ranks, grim, hard men, among the most intensely loyal of all the mercenary warriors of Kregen. They held their shields high in their two left hands, their single right hands gripping thraxters or spears; their tail hands, flicking evilly this way and that or shooting diabolically between their legs, grasped bladed steel. The archers formed their battle wedges. The rapier and dagger men lined out, ready to drive in when the first gaps appeared and, like sensible fellows, they would use their glaives until the stout ash shafts broke.

Over all, the aerial patrols curved against the sky. Up there the first important maneuvers would be carried out. I cocked my head up. Then I looked to the wings where the zorca and nikvove cavalry waited, their lances all aligned, the brave blue pennons flying. We did not wear Vallian buff, but the blue of Pandahem: blue shirts and tunics hastily sewn up for us by the sempstresses of Vallia. We still wore buff Valkan breeches and boots, or buff breechclouts held by broad belts with dependent bronze and leather pteruges, and high-thonged military boots. But I admit I took little comfort that we did not fight in scarlet and that my own flag, Old Superb, did not fly above us.

The Hamalians lined up, ready for us.

They made a brave showing. I studied them, watching how they formed, judging their efficiency, even their morale, by the way they marched into position. Already, even as the final preparations were made in this earliest of light, the flyers clashed. The aerial fighting swirled this way and that, each side attempting to break through above the opposing army and shower down their shafts. And each side sought to throw back the hostile waves of screeching fighting men of the air.

I felt that Kytun had the thrashing of the Hamalians, and the few vollers we had could hold their own against the vollers of Hamal, for this flank force was not overly well supplied with air power. I guessed Kov Pereth, the Pallan of the Northern Front, kept the majority of his air for his own use with the main army. But, make no mistake, although this may have been a sideshow, it was a most grim and bloody affair.

The armies clashed in a first flowering of shafts. Crossbow bolts rose from the massed ranks of the enemy, and our shafts cut the air in reply. The sheer mass of the enemy meant we could not halt them, as we had halted the Canops, by an overwhelming deluge of arrows. But even so the superior rate of discharge of the longbows and the compound bows more than compensated for our inferiority of numbers.

I had checked every point. We had successfully kept the air above us clear. The cavalry waited for the orders to charge. I positioned myself in the center, astride Snowy, and Turko hovered at my side, his shield ready. With his superb Khamorro skills and muscular control, he could pick up the flight of a shaft and take it out of the air with a casual-seeming flick of the shield. This meant that I could concentrate on the battle instead of constantly watching for the shaft that would slay me. Kytun had done wonders. We were able to shoot coolly and methodically. When it came to hand strokes, the shield walls of the Hamalese brigades held firmly at first, but the longbows tore huge gaps in their ranks, which immediately closed up, only to be ripped apart again. The Pachaks and the Chuliks roared into action, thirsting not only to earn their pay but also for glory to be won, the possible achievement of the honor of being dubbed paktun. The armies clashed along the center, and I saw the Hamalese wings begin their circling movement.

“Hanitch! Hanitch!” screeched the soldiers of Hamal, iron men advancing in their might, yelling their war cries. “Hanitch! Hamal!”

I marked a regiment with flowing colors born on ahead, standards larger than those of the other regiments of infantry, colors that glowed with purple and gold, and so knew them for an imperial regiment dedicated to Queen Thyllis. Above the closer yells and screams I heard this regiment’s deep-toned yells:

“Hanitch! Thyllis! Thyllis! Hanitch!”

My men responded with yells, too, and among all the shouts for “Bormark!” and “Tomboram!” I heard the old familiar cries. When men march forward into battle, their weapons in their fists, their heads down, and their helmets clanging with the steel tips of the birds of war, they tend to forget subterfuges and shout out what they are accustomed to yelling. “Vallia! Vallia!” they bellowed. “Valka! Valka!” And, of course,

“Dray Prescot!”

Most of the mercenaries managed to remember to shout for Bormark and Tomboram. Just as I marked that arrogant purple and gold regiment yelling for Queen Thyllis, I saw Tom ti Vulheim ride out astride a zorca, waving his sword in command. His men released their shafts in a superb display of controlled shooting. I thought Seg would have gained pleasure from that sight. Queen Thyllis’ regiment shrank. The crossbow bolts came back, hard and lethally, but as the armies clashed with the iron clangor of hand-to-hand combat I saw with great satisfaction that, indeed, the superior rate of discharge and the longer range of the longbows had once again played their part.

Dust rose as thousands of booted feet stamped in the throes of conflict. Thraxter and shield clashed with glaive, or with sword and shield. My rapier men fought like leems, sliding in and out, not holding firm ranks but using their mobility and individual skills to the utmost, exploiting the gaps torn by the bowmen. The battle swayed. I surveyed the field and, as always, keyed up to that kind of pitch in which every detail limns clear, and yet the whole is one vast blur of action. Soon the climax would come, soon I must make the decision. Too soon and disaster; too late and disaster.

The noise spurted high into the glowing air. A flight of mirvols swooped over the struggle, their riders attempting to shoot down, and a savage flight of flutduins followed them, mercilessly feathering them from the air. Men reeled from the fight, torn and bloodied. The noise grew to a prodigious long, drawn-out howl. And still those Hamalese cavalry wings circled around us, not drawing in yet, biding their time.

“Xarmon,” I said. “I will ride Stormcloud now.”

“Here, Majister.”

I hopped off Snowy with a pat to his sleek white neck and took a grip on the harness of Stormcloud. He was a splendid steed. He was not a vove — one of those glorious russet mounts of the Great Plains of Segesthes, chargers full of fire and spirit, all horns and fangs and pumping hearts that would never surrender save in death. Stormcloud was a glossy black nikvove, a half-vove, smaller than a true vove and without the fangs and horns. But he did have the eight legs of the vove and a loyal heart; he was a king’s steed for any man.

Delia had given me a rich set of trappings for Stormcloud over the schabracque of zhantil skin, and first-quality lesten hide studded with bronze and scarrons. The rich gleam of the bronze and the brilliant sparkle of the scarlet scarrons, all matched and perfect, against that jet coat made an inspiring and martial picture.

I saw the high polish on my black boot as I stuck it into the stirrup, and I saw a little ant crawling there. I mounted up and sat firmly, and I let the ant take his chances on my boot. He and I would ride together today.

Any general must have a corps of aides and messengers. To young Nath Byant, who was an Elten in his own right, his father being a Trylon of Vallia, I said: “To Chuktar Erling. My compliments. He may begin his advance. Tell him from me, may Opaz ride with him and all his men this day.”

Elten Nath Byant, who rode as an aide out of sheer zest for adventure, bashed his right arm across his breastplate in salute and yelled, his voice rather shrill, “At once, my Prince!” and was off like a shaft from a Lohvian longbow astride his zorca. The left-hand squadrons would commence their charge at the vital moment, led by Chuktar Erling.

Turko had mounted up astride his nikvove. Also riding closer on a nikvove was Planath Pe-Na, my personal standard-bearer who had been with me since the affair of the Burned Man at Twin Forks.[2]

Planath, being a Pachak, could carry the standard and also swing a mean sword at the same time. As for the standard — as I say, the old scarlet and yellow remained at home in Esser Rarioch. I rode beneath a confection of blue, green, and crimson with a great deal of gold bullion for tassels. It was a gaudy object, but it would serve its purpose and identify my position in the field. As for the great flag of Bormark, that was carried into action alongside my own color by a specially selected Hikdar from the regiments. The honor he achieved was great. These are high and serious matters in any army which fights hand to hand. The chief of the corps of trumpeters was now Kodar ti Vakkansmot, for old Naghan had contracted an eye infection and had been unable to march with us. Kodar had been with me at the Battle of the Crimson Missals.

So it remained only to don the Mask of Recognition.

Xarmon handed the blazing golden mask up. I fitted it in place beneath my helmet brim, covering my features, the sights and breaths less than adequate but providing a discomfort I would have to put up with. This great mask might afford some slight protection against a shaft; I tended to doubt that. Its main function was to make me instantly recognizable to my men. An auxiliary function and one which I valued was to conceal my features from those who did not know me.

All these preparations assumed a heightened significance.

The tall and heavy lance with its golden pennon slanted in the rays of the Suns of Scorpio. I said, the words booming and hollow: “We ride to victory. Opaz is with us.”

“Aye,” said Turko, with that mockery clearly evident. “And you stay close to my shield. I have made a promise.”

No need to ask who had taken that promise willingly given.

We wheeled to the right. The right-hand squadrons of nikvove cavalry saw me riding to lead them and let rip an enormous cheer. This heartened me. I pointed at the enemy cavalry, at the junction with the infantry flank about to come into action against our right flank consisting of Rapas. The enemy clearly intended to roll us up from the right, and yet his left wing cavalry persisted in advancing against us. Either the general in command was a goodly way off, was a fool, or was dead. I did not think he was either of the first two, and so that cheered me up no end.

“Forward!” I shouted. My voice clanged resonantly. “Follow me!”

This is no way for a general to behave in a battle. I know.

The only regret I had as we smashed in a mighty avalanche of flesh and blood and steel into the roaring racket of the charge was that my own flag, Old Superb, did not wave over me and I did not wear the old brave scarlet.

I saw two regiments of Hamalese cavalry — they were zorcas, a crime in itself — haul out to face us and we went through them as — to say like a hot knife through butter is to give no adequate picture. For the poor zorcas simply sprayed away from our charge, like chips ripping from a buzz saw. We smashed on with such thorough ground-shaking power that we scarcely noticed the zorcamen. They bounced and were whiffed away.

Beyond them three regiments of totrixes attempted to stand. For a space their courage held and a wild excitement of whirling brands and piercing lances ensued; then they broke and we roared on, unstoppable. And we rode only nikvoves!

My men followed me as we carried out the tricky operation of changing front in a charge. The angle was not great, a mere partial wheel to the left, and it was carried out to perfection. We hit the Hamalese infantry in their left flank and we began to roll them up as the furniture men roll up a stair carpet. That proved the turning point of the battle.

The moment chosen was the correct one. An earlier charge would have exposed us to the crossbow bolts of unbroken infantry — a prospect to send shudders down any cavalryman’s spine — and against uncommitted cavalry. A later charge would just have been too late. Our left wing also enjoyed success and then — then — it was the turn of the zorcamen to go in and pile on the agony in the flying pursuit, not allowing infantry to reform and stand, catching stragglers, routing any and everything Hamalese that had fought on the field of Tomor Peak.

The rest of the day was administration, that and the caring for the wounded and the burying of the dead. We had lost men, good men; but the Hamalese force had ceased to exist. One indispensable part of the aftermath was the herding of the prisoners into stockades built from their own ripped-apart camp fortifications. That and the recognition of bravery by my men, the awards of the medals I had instituted, the battlefield promotions, the gifts and the congratulations. Over the moans of the dying rose the fierce battle songs. Oh, we cared for the wounded, friend and foe alike, for I would have it no other way; but my men knew what we had accomplished, and we were still an intact force, ready to turn and join with our new comrades of Pandahem and struggle again with the foes from Hamal. A Chuktar strode up, bluff, beefy, his helmet under his arm and showing a dint in the crown, its blue feathers half shorn away. He looked drunk on glory. “My Prince!” he bellowed. I looked up from the camp table where the lists were being prepared. “Chuktar Erling! I am overjoyed you live.”

“My Prince, I have found a young fambly who says you want to see him. A thin, scruffy urchin, with a drunken slut . . .”

But I knew as they were wheeled up by a guard party of Pachaks, as always to be trusted in times of victory as well as defeat, I knew so I sighed and stood up and braced myself for the ordeal of meeting Pando, the Kov of Bormark, and his mother, Tilda of the Many Veils.

Chapter 10

“Hamun! By Krun! Hamun!”

Tilda — and Pando!

How I wish Inch could be here now.

Pando had fleshed out, growing tall and straight in the seasons between now and our last meeting. He still carried that cheeky air about him, the urchin description perfectly apt, and I saw that he was short of his full stature of growth and short too, I fancied, in his full stature as a Kov. But imp of Sicce though he was, I had known him as a nine year old, a scamp, but a lad full of brightness and good humor, untidy, mischievous, and lovable.

And Tilda. My heart sank as I looked on Tilda the Beautiful. I remembered her as a genuinely beautiful woman, with that black hair floating around her as she swirled, black and lush as an impiter’s wing. I recalled those violet eyes that could flash into scorn or love, into hatred and mockery, and those sweet luscious lips, soft and melting. Her figure had been marvelous, firm and voluptuous and calculated to drive any mortal man to madness. She had not plagued me, only at the very end, there in the palace of Pomdermam, the capital of Tomboram, just before the Scorpion and the blue radiance had snatched me back to Earth. And no woman can touch me now, not one, not when I hold the form and face of my Delia with me.

So I stood looking at them as they trailed up, and I saw how Pando had changed and knew that with wise counsel he would become good in life. But Tilda! Her face was as beautiful as ever, even if betraying lines showed around her eyes and mouth. But her hair hung lank and bedraggled. And that glorious figure had coarsened, grown fat around the waist, sagging, and she walked in a slovenly slouch that I knew instinctively was not merely because she had been captured. Both of them were dressed in rags, the tattered remnants of finery.

After the battle I had washed and changed into a simple short tunic of finest white linen — that linen called verss — but pandering to old times Delia had caused to be stitched around neck, arms, and hem an inch-wide band of brilliant scarlet. So, I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor, stood cool, clean, and bathed, to greet these two, my friends, in their dirt, misery, and despair.

“Fetch a chair for the Kovneva,” I said. “The Kov may stand.”

Pando glared at me defiantly, finding spirit to drag himself out of his misery and curse me by the gross Armipand.

At the sound of my voice Tilda looked up sluggishly; then a Pachak swod pushed a folding chair forward and she sank down, grateful to rest.

“You were captured, I take it,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

Pando forced his shoulders back. And I recalled him as a nine year old, running, shouting, and tumbling in the dust with the other urchins of Pa Mejab.

“Those cramphs of Hamal beat our army. And now you come to take us prisoner in your turn. If you want money in ransom, you whom men called Prince Majister, then you are unlucky. I suggest you have our heads off now. That is what princes do, as I know full well.”

You couldn’t say much to that.

Chuktar Erling grunted and spoke up in his parade ground bellow. “They were chained up among the calsanys.”

I made a face. I knew as well as anyone on Kregen what calsanys did when they were upset. No wonder these two filled the air odoriferously.

“There is an old apim with them who says he is a Pallan. He is being carried in, being extremely fragile.”

“That is Pallan Nicomeyn, an old and valued friend!” snapped out Pando. I could guess that the miserable King Nemo had in some way disgraced Pallan Nicomeyn, who had helped Tilda in the days when we sought to prove Pando’s right to the title of Kov of Bormark. He must have gone to Pando for help and protection.

“See to the Pallan,” I said. “Let him rest. Give him eat and drink and have him bathed and give him clothes. He is to be treated with respect.”

“At once, my Prince!” Erling bellowed and dashed off to give the orders. I had a shrewd suspicion that even if these two poor wights here did not recognize me, Pallan Nicomeyn would, and quickly.

As though something of her old witchery at reading men and their inmost secret thoughts returned to Tilda, she lifted her head, somewhat drunkenly, for the Hamalese guards had let her drink — no doubt with evil intentions — and regarded me.

“I knew a man, once,” she said, slurring her words. “A man — he looked a little like you, although tougher and harder and leaner — and he wouldn’t — wouldn’t—” She forgot what she was saying, wiped her lips, and started over. “This man I knew, he cared for Pando ’n me. If he was here now he’d knock you down as soon as look at you, grand and a prince though you are.”

I felt like a get-onker.

She might be talking about her husband, she might be talking about Meldi, who had cared for her and Pando, she might be talking about any man she had known recently . . . I fancied she was talking about me.

I said, “I am told your husband, Marker Marsilus, was a fine soldier and a good man. It is fitting you should think of him.”

“Onker!” she said. Something of her fire flashed. “For what business it is of yours, you lord of Vallia, I loved my husband and we gave up our separate lives for each other. I have loved no man since . . .” Her drunken voice droned on, telling things she would keep fast locked if she was sober. She did not fall off the chair, and her poise was that of the great lady. It boiled down to a maudlin recital of lost hopes and fading memories, of her husband and of her great days on the stage — for she had been a justly famed actress — of memories of this man she talked about so wistfully, this man who had been me, so that I turned to Pando, with a look on my face that made him start back.

Before I could flare out what boiled in me, telling them it was I, their old Dray Prescot, who stood before them, Tilda rambled on, her voice rising: “So between Hamal and Vallia we are crushed like a grain in the mill. Well, so be it. Pandrite knows the whole of it; with Opaz is the right. Have done with us as my son commands, and let Vallia pick over the corpses.”

“You do not like Vallians?”

“I hate and detest them!”

“Yet you have not looked at the banners we fly.”

Pando laughed most scornfully, his lip curling. “A mere trick, Vallian, to deceive. The blue flag with the zhantil is my flag. Mine! Had I my strength and my army I would make you rue the day you flaunted the flag of Bormark, which is a sign given by this same man of whom my mother speaks.”

He moved forward, passionate, and the Pachaks tensed up a little, their deadly tails quivering.

“You have the power now. You have the position, the treasures, and the army. Bormark is gone, gulped by the cramphs of Hamal. And now Vallia stoops in to claw the corpse. A fitting act for a vile nation.”

“By Vox!” I said. “You’re still a confounded spitfire!”

“And I would shoot fire-arrows into your eyes if I could.”

“Hikdar Re-Po!” I bellowed as loudly as the Chuktar had. The Pachak Hikdar of the guard stiffened up, his straw-yellow hair beneath the smooth round helmet of his race glimmering in the suns’ light. “Hikdar!

Clear these two off to be bathed and clothed decently. Give them food! I do not want to see them again until they are no longer an offense in a man’s nostrils, and until the Kovneva is sober!”

The Hikdar’s tail flashed in the Pachak salute. He turned to march his detail off and I shouted, very passionate, despising myself: “And treat them with respect. See that the Kovneva is cared for, for she is a great lady.”

“Yes, my Prince!” bellowed Hikdar Re-Po, and Pando was politely invited to step between the ranks of armored men, and his mother was carefully assisted away. I glared after them. By Zair! I should have found time to come back to Bormark and make sure Pando developed like a proper Kov. It was all my fault, and I was not prepared to blame my Delia or any of my friends or enemies who had detained me in Valka or Havilfar.

But, I vowed, I would have Tilda dried out, and I’d talk to that young rip Pando and sort him out — I would! It was a task I had withdrawn from for far too long. And if you ask why I considered this my business at all, then you have no understanding of the madman who is Dray Prescot. My own despicable action lay, of course, in that I had not come straight out with it and let them see who I was. But I felt this would shame them as much as it would me. Relationships are prickly bedfellows. Once they were bathed and well fed and dressed fittingly, feeling more human, then would be the time to let them know that the lordly and puissant Prince Majister of Vallia was only their old friend and helpmeet Dray Prescot.

As it happened there was inevitably so much to do after the battle that I could not spare a thought for Pando and Tilda for most of the day. Hikdar Re-Po sent an ob-Deldar to inform me that my orders had been carried out, that the prisoners — guests — were sleeping fast, for they were exhausted. I sent the ob-Deldar back with orders that they were not to be disturbed, but that I was to be informed two burs after they awoke, by which time I indicated I expected them refreshed, filled with a good meal, ready to meet me — and sober.

One of my concerns meanwhile lay with Kytun, who reported in his losses, shaking his head. He brightened up as he described the flyers and fliers he had captured. What with the masses of zorcas and totrixes we rounded up, and the saddle-birds and vollers Kytun brought in, we were reasonably well provided. I told Chuktar Tom ti Vulheim that we would mount up a goodly proportion of the footmen, turn them into mounted infantry. I cocked my head on one side. Tom ti Vulheim had served well and faithfully in those dark and harrowing days when we had cleansed Valka, all of which you may hear in the great song: The Fetching of Drak na Valka.

“Tom,” I said, and I spoke in my no-nonsense voice, so that he braced up. “Tom. You struggled against being made a Chuktar. You run the foot soldiers perfectly. Your Archers are a wonder. Yet you refuse a second name. Why?”

He stared at me, nonplussed. He was a blade comrade. “Do I need a whole raggle-taggle tail of names?”

“You do not, and neither do I. Yet, for my sins, I have been saddled with a rainbow of pretty names. I wish to unload some of my sinfulness upon your head.”

He knew I had something in my mind, so he smiled and nodded and waited for the ax to fall.

“We have just gained a victory — oh, it was not one of the greatest battles in all history — but it was a smart little win, all the same. Beneath Tomor Peak. And, too, there is a nice estate not too far from Vulheim, a place of samphron bushes and nectarine plantations, a charming place called Avanar—”

“I know it.”

“Well, Tom ti Vulheim, whether you like it or not, whether you own it or not, from henceforth you are Tom Tomor, Elten of Avanar, with all the rights and duties of your rank and all the goodness of your estate for yourself — save what the law requires you to part with in the way of taxes and imperial dues.”

He bowed. He actually bowed. “I thank you, Prince.” Most formal, this, for Tom ti Vulheim, who was now an Elten! “I accept with all gratitude, and I do so for the sake of Bibi, the granddaughter of Theirson and Thisi the Fair.” I nodded at this, the memories rising. “And, if it pleases you, I will call myself Tom Tomor ti Vulheim.”

“And you, Tom, the man who mocked a string of names!”

But I understood his meaning.

Well, as you may imagine, all this was highly gratifying to me, in the old selfish way. I’d make all my friends princes and princesses, if that was possible. Mind you, on Kregen, it is entirely possible, entirely .

. .

I mentioned earlier that I had instituted a mark of valor within the Valkan regiments. A silversmith of Vandayha, one Eckermin the Graver, had designed a round medal showing the little valkavol flying above and the symbol of Valka in the center, the trident shooting up from the bow. Below was a scroll of leaves and sacred plants and, on the reverse, a space for the name of the recipient, the place, and occasion. These medals were more like phalerae and those men who distinguished themselves in battle received them at my hands and proudly wore them on their war harness. Well, petty it may have been, but it seemed the least I could do, that and the addition of tidily heavy bags of golden talens. My men called these phalerae “bobs.” This was a typical ranker’s way of contracting and abbreviating their full name, which was of the order of “The Strom’s Medal for the Valor of a Warrior Heart.”

I had not, needless to say, chosen that name myself. The High Council of Elders of Valka, warming to my suggestion, had given the name. I, like the swods, preferred bobs. So we worked all that day. With the sinking of Antares I took up a cup of Vela’s Tears and drank deeply, preparing to plunge afresh into the reorganization and forward planning of my little army. We must not be trapped by the vastly superior forces of Hamal before I had made proper contact with the King of Tomboram, who had not turned up, as I had expected. Mind you, he had his hands full elsewhere. Now we must march and throw ourselves into the battle line alongside him. Kytun Kholin Dom and Tom Tomor would handle the troops; I had no fears on that score. So I planned and, the night being hot, threw off the white tunic and sat in a plain blue breechclout, drinking, and working by the mellow gleam of the samphron-oil lamp within my tent.

Stretching, I yawned. The close air clogged my lungs, so I rose and, hitching a fine Vallian rapier and main-gauche about me, strode outside the tent for a breath of fresh air. The guard slapped his glaive across as I went out and I spoke a few words to him. I wandered along in the fuzzy pink moonlight, with the camp about me filled with those nocturnal noises of a sleeping army . . . A shadow moved against a darkened tent. I halted at once but the shadow had gone. I went on quietly and saw a guard — a Chulik — sleeping peacefully on the ground. About to bellow at him to stand up and get on guard, he’d face a charge in the morning, I held my tongue. A thin thread of dark blood trickled down behind his ear. He was not dead. I straightened up, looking around, and the pink moonlight fell full on my face.

I heard a gasp. Then a voice spoke, a blustery lion-voice that strove to whisper in that moonshot darkness.

“Hamun! By Krun! Hamun!”