Gahlos nodded again, but firmly this time. "So you freed the mob that they might not open the gates or give the trick away."

"Partially, captain, partially," Drehkos agreed, adding, "but also because fleeing along the south and west roads, they force the goddam Morguhns to split their forces, since both roads lead to Vawn, and when they've discovered we're not in Morguhnpolis, they'll surely know that we're bound for Vawn."

"Hmmmn." Understanding flickered in the captain's eyes. "But we'll not be on either road, then, my lord?"

"Exactly, Gahlos. Well hie us out due west from the quarry, crosscountry. Well cross the river at Bloody Ford, strike the Old Trace up through Raider Gap, then angle southward into Vawn. It will certainly take longer, perhaps two or three days, but if it saves our necks, none can say it wasn't worth the effort, eh?"

Astride a big, red-chestnut mare-the finest animal he had ever been allowed to ride-Geros Lahvoheetos trotted beside Staisee Ehlyuht, prehsvootehros of the squadron of Confederation lancers, some hundred of whom were marching in the wake of Thoheeks Bili and his party. Gero's scaleshirt was heavy and hot and devilishly uncomfortable, the weight of the saber on his baldric made it difficult to keep his shoulders squared-as he felt the warrior everyone now thought him to be should ride-and, if push came to shove, he had no idea of how he would control the mare, what with seven feet of wolfspear in his right hand and an iron-rimmed target strapped to his bridle arm. But for all the discomforts, he would not have been in other circumstances or another place than this.

Since the night of the bridge fight when, in a panic of fear, he-Geros the valet, who knew as much of weapons and warfare as a turtle knew of flying-had accidentally lanced one rebel and cut the throat of a second while his mule trampled down a third, he had been living in the very lap of his former fantasies. With his young master, the Vahrohnee-skos Ahndros, kept unconscious by the arts of Master Ahlee, the physician, there was no one to betray him, to reveal the sad truth that he had never been aught save a body servant and musician, who had always privately considered himself to be a coward.

But here he rode, booted, armored and helmeted, with shield and spear, saber and dirk, bestriding a well-bred and trained warhorse, whose even, distance-eating strides were bearing him toward yet another combat-his third, now. And he was frightened, every bit as frightened as he had been at the first, that night on the lonely, moon-dappled road. But, now, he would die ere he would allow that fear to surface, to show its shamefulness to this affable young officer and his troopers, all of whom had immediately and naturally accepted him as a warrior like themselves.

Old Komees Djeen, himself, had commended him to the light-cavalry commander, resting his handless, armored arm over the valet's shoulders and saying, "My comrade, Geros, knows that road better than most, having right often ridden it in the service of his employer, poor young Ahndee. He'll make you a good guide and," he chuckled good-naturedly, "a right good lance to add to your troop, too."

Chuckling again, he squeezed Geros with his hooked arm, continuing, "Just don't let Geros' gentle speech and modest manner delude you as it did me. He's a stark warrior, is our Geros. Why not too many days agone, he rode off alone, armed with only a boar spear, and fought his way back to Horse Hall to fetch aid for his master and the High Lord and the thoheeks!-Rode in with that spear all blood from tip to ferrule! But, by Sun and Wind, no sooner was he rearmed and remounted than he rode back out with the rest of us to have at the damned rebels again!

"And have at them, he did, Prehsvootehros Ehlyuhtl"

There, in the hot, sun-drenched courtyard of Morguhn Hall, in an eyewink of time, Geros relived the darkness, coo-fusion and icy-cold crawling fear. After a few volleys of arrows, Komees Djeen's column had poured across that blood-slimy, corpse-cobbled bridge, hurdling the windrow of mutilated men and hacked horses which marked the spot where Vahrohneeskos Ahndros and Thoheeks Bili and the High Lord had made their stand. Then it was into the inky tunnel between the trees, hot on the heels of the routed rebels.

It was a good hunter they had put Geros upon, strong, leggy and fresh, not already ridden several leagues during the preceding day, like the mounts of the Komees and his Freefighters. Consequently, Geros shortly found himself to be the unintended point of the column, and so was the first to come up with the enemy.

As Geros pounded up behind, a rebel halted and turned his lathered mount, an errant sliver of moonlight silvering the length of his bared swordblade. Heedless of who heard his whines of terror, Geros extended his fresh spear, hoping against hope to fend off his opponent long enough for those behind to come up and succor him. Crouching low in his saddle, plastered to the galloping hunter's neck and mouthing childhood prayers, he fully expected to feel at any moment the agony of steel in his quaking flesh.

But what he felt, when feel he did, was a shock which almost unhorsed him. Forgetting once again, as he had in the brief melee on the road to Horse Hall, that his "staff" bore a wide, knife-edged, needle-tipped blade on the end, he was mightily surprised when a bone-chilling scream interrupted his gasped prayers, at the same moment that an unbearable weight seemed determined to either wrench the spear from his grasp or his shoulder from its socket!

Releasing the shaft, he galloped on, still wincing and cringing from the swordcut that was certainly coming . . . but unaccountably failed to arrive. Feeling terribly defenseless without something in his hand, he fumbled for, found and finally drew the saber they had hung on him-no mean feat, at a full, jarring gallop. And it was as well that he did, for as the hunter rounded a turn and effortlessly cleared the dead bodies of two men and a horse, Geros was horrified to see two more riders only bare yards ahead.

Because the valet had but marginal mindspeak-telepathic ability which those better endowed used to communicate with their horses-his mount had been equipped with a bitted bridle. But that bit was now firmly between the hunter's teeth and no amount of tugging on the rider's part could diminish the speed which was relentlessly narrowing the gap betwixt the terror-stricken valet and two men he knew to be armed and highly dangerous.

At the last moment, the trailing rider half-turned in his saddle and commenced to fumble for the hilt of his broadsword. They had come into an open area, and in the bright moonlight Geros could see the fully armored man's white teeth bared in a snarl of rage, could even see the droplets of sweat glistening at the tips of his double-pointed chinbeard, could see the feral fire of hate glinting in the black eyes which blinked constantly against the trickles of blood from some wound hidden under the helm. And he knew as certainly as ever he had known anything that if that gauntleted hand found and closed on that hilt, Geros the coward would right speedily become Geros the corpse!

Screaming wordlessly, mindlessly, Geros dropped the useless reins, gripped his saber in both hands and, as he came athwart the rebel, rained a swift succession of unaimed blows upon the armored head and shoulders. Then the racing hunter was past and overhauling the leading horseman, who made no attempt to stand and fight, bending all his efforts to coax more speed from his laboring mount.

Not really knowing what else to do, Geros swung his saber in passing at this man too-still gripping it two-handed, and with the strength of all his quaking apprehensions behind the keen edge. The fleeing rebel wore only a helm and a pike-man's breastplate, neither of which afforded the least protection against the heavy blade, which severed his spine. The man did not so much as moan, he simply fell forward across his horse's withers, then slipped from his saddle, dead before his hacked body hit the dust.

At that point, the headstrong hunter elected to leave the roadway, breasting a high, grassy slope, still at the gallop. As the fleet beast cleared the mossy trunk of a long-fallen tree, Geros and his saddle parted company, the soft-looking moon-frosted grass came rushing up at him, and consciousness departed to the clashing of armor upon the hard ground and stones beneath that grass.

He awoke to the splashing of water on his face and sat up to see Komees Djeen and most of the Freefighters sitting their horses around him, one of them holding the reins of his run-out hunter.

The komees abruptly dismounted and strode over to him, extending his hand to help him arise. Gravely, he said, "I can see that I trained young Ahndee well, for he obviously knows how to choose good men for his service. But Sun and Wind, man, what did you mean to do? Take them all yourself, eh?" Suddenly he showed his yellowed teeth in a grin. "You're a brave man, Comrade Geros, none here will gainsay me on that score. But you're hardly fair to the rest of us, taking all the glory for yourself that way!"

Chapter III

"But, my lord," Bili had vainly expostulated, "it Is no longer a matter of the High Lord observing me command my own retainers. These are his lancers; he should command, by right!"

Prehsvootehros Staisee Ehlyuht, overhearing, could not have been more in agreement. He had served, in his time, at the court in Kehnooryos Atheenahs, as a guards officer. He had met and mingled with the northern noblemen and had found them, with damned few exceptions, to be peacock-proud, supercilious, overbearing and cruel. This arrogant young bastard of a thoheeks looked, despite his lineage, to be out of the northern mold, and the last thing Staisee wished to see was his own fine troopers under such command.

His tone mildly reproving, Milo answered, "However the right may lie, Bili, it is my, wish that you should command, presently, not only your own, but the Confederation force. I do have my reasons, and you shall hear of them anon."

And so, when they again took to horse, Staisee and his lancers-whose usual functions were those of point riding and flank guarding-found themselves to have become the main body, formed in a column of fours and taking the road at a brisk trot while eating the dust of the knot of heavily armed nobility who rode the van. Chief Hwahltuh and his clansmen had been given the job they did Best; they rode in a wide-spreading arc, well ahead of the column. A dozen Freefighters secured either flank, while the remainder guarded the rear.

But the precautions proved needless, for isolated stragglers-all quickly dispatched by the Sanderz clansmen-and a couple of foundered horses were the only living creatures they chanced across before the walls of Morguhnpolis loomed before them.

With Bili and Milo in the lead, the van closed up behind the knot of Sanderz men, just out of bowshot of the west gate and its flanking tower. As the city had been built upon hilly ground, some few portions of the streets were visible over the walls, but these all appeared as strangely lifeless as the empty walls themselves.

Old Komees Hari kneed his charger up beside Bili, growling, "Son, something stinks here. It needs no tracker to tell that some fair-sized bodies of men were on this road ahead of us. Why aren't the buggers on the walls?"

The Confederation commander walked his mount into the group, saying, "Perhaps the rebels' leader realized that such old-fashioned walls and towers couldn't be held."

Vahrohnos Spiros Morguhn shook his head. "Not that damned Myros. He'd hold Morguhnpolis as long as life remained in his wretched carcass! He's always felt that it, rather than Deskati, should be his rightful patrimony. We warned Hwahruhn it was a mistake to make him city governor of the capital. More than likely he's trying to make the city look deserted so we'll be tricked inside to be butchered at his leisure."

"No, vahrohnos," the High Lord disagreed. "Were such the case, that gate would be open." He turned to Bili. "Have you tried fargathering?" "Yes, my lord." "And?"

"Nothing, my lord, which could mean something or nothing. I tried fargathering during the siege of Behreezburk and got the same results."

Milo shrugged. "Well, gentlemen, we accomplish damn-all in sitting here and speculating. Prehsvootehros, some of your more agile men should be able to top that wall. Then, if things are as they seem, they can open the gate to the rest of us."

With the gate tower strongly manned, well-armed patrols trickled out through the empty streets, the lancers guided by Raikuh's Freefighters, most of whom had formerly been Morguhnpolis city guards and knew well each alley and byway. All rode warily, visors down and beavers up, steel bared or lances presented, archers' bows strung with one arrow nocked and one or two more ready in the fingers of the bowhand.

Thoheeks Bili and the High Lord, with Vahrohnos Spiros, Komees Hari, Master Ahlee, Chief Hwahltuh Sanderz and Clanbard Gil Sanderz, the hulking Komos Morguhn and one Khlai Ehsmith, a lieutenant of the Confederation lancers, were trailed by Geros, three or four Sanderz clansmen and a couple of Freefighters.

The party rode directly for the palace of the city governor, but walking their mounts no less warily than the other patrols, eyes constantly scanning house fronts and deserted shops, the mouths of alleys or intersecting streets.

The steel-shod hooves rang on the cobbles, saddles creaked and bridle chains jangled discordantly, armor clanked and clattered as the riders turned to left and right. But there were no other sounds . . . and all found this silence eerie, threatening. And when the High Lord's chestnut gelding suddenly reared, startled, every sword was instantly ready.

A scarred, rangy tomcat followed close on the heels of the scuttling rat which had spooked the warhorse, making a quick, practiced kill in the center of the street. Heedless of the column of horsemen, the cat stalked away, bearing his feebly twitching prey between his jaws.

Pigeons strutted the small square before the palace, fluttering up in a gray-white cloud before the horsemen. Like the city gates, the palace gate was closed and barred. But the low wall was easily scaled, and soon the noblemen were dismounting in the minuscule courtyard, scrutinizing the facade of the palace, whose windows stared back sightlessly, like the empty eyesockets of a bleached skull. All of the palace doors were secured from within, but the main portals, despite their showy brass sheathing, required but two hard swings of a jerry-rigged ram before they slammed splintering asunder.

Bili was first to stalk into the foyer, his axe at the ready, the clanking of his armor echoing from wall to marble wall. Halting in the center of the dim, cool chamber, he dropped his beaver and roared.

"Vahrohnos Myros, you rutting rebel, you perverted traitorous swine, come out and meet the death you've so long cheated! Or-do you lack the courage, you forsworn, buggering bastard?"

But once the echoes had ceased to carom off the muraled walls and high, carved ceiling, only silence answered his challenge. Turning to the group which had followed him, he grounded his heavy axe and shrugged.

"Of course, we'll search, but my fargathering senses no menace within these walls. Where could all the dogs be hiding?"

"It is possible," commented the High Lord slowly, "that there really is no one left in the city."

Master Ahlee carefully sheathed his double-curved saber. "The High Lord supposes then that the rebel lords drove out the inhabitants, barred the gates and then went down the walls?"

High Lord Milo nodded. "Either that or ... these old Ehleen cities often are honeycombed with subterranean passages, both connecting important buildings and giving a hidden means of entering or leaving their confines."

Spiros Morguhn shook his head briskly. "There're no records of any such thing in Morguhnpolis, my lord, nor even any legends of such."

"Since they generally were used for secret or clandestine purposes, by the old Ehleenee," Milo said, "there were probably never any records to begin with. And since, as I recall, Morguhnpolis fell by storm, the Ehleen governor or lord could have taken many secrets to his grave. But this is all supposition, gentlemen-we'll not truly know until we search."

He turned to Staisee. "Prehsvootehros, mindcall your other troop and bid them ride straight to the palace. I'd feel better with more force behind me, ere I start probing this place."

Drehkos and his party had not progressed far when they chanced upon a small detachment of Vawnee cavalry, who had halted to bury their former commander, freshly deceased of wounds sustained the night before. Fortunately this band had lost some third of its original numbers in the firelit debacle below Morguhn Hall but had retained most of the now-riderless horses; consequently, all members of the allied party were able to ride when they left the nobleman's grave and turned their faces west.

The only remaining Vawnee gentleman was a sixteen-year-old nephew of the dead commander, one Kleetos of Mahrto-spolis, who was overjoyed to confer his unwanted responsibilities upon the middle-aged Drehkos. The Vawnee seemed much relieved at this transference of authority. And, sensing their immediate trust in him, Drehkos had not the heart to tell them the cold truth.

Although reared to the sword and the horse, as were all Kindred and most Ehleen noblemen, Drehkos Daiviz had never acquired any formal military training or experience. When, thirty-odd years before, his brother, Hari, and the bulk of the other young Kindred of Morguhn and Daiviz had ridden to the Middle Kingdoms to seek fortune and adventure as members of the Freefighter condotta formed by Djeen Morguhn, Drehkos had flatly rejected all blandishments and remained in the duchy of his birth.

At his father's death-which many attested had been much hastened by Drehkos' almost continual misconduct and profligacy-Hari, the elder by eighteen months, had returned to Morguhn to be confirmed in his komeesteheea. For his part, Drehkos had then been well content to accept the baronetcy which was the patrimony of a second son of his sept of Clan Daiviz and the very munificent maintenance income which the new komees generously and most unexpectedly offered to furnish his brother until he was well married or had otherwise made his fortune.

And Vahrohneeskos Drehkos had married well, financially speaking, though many had frowned upon his choice of a girl who was neither Kindred nor Ehleen. But there were few who said aught of their feelings in Drehkos' hearing, for the sloe-eyed Rehbehkah had been the only living child of the most successful goldsmith-moneylender of the archducal city of Prahseenospolis-two hundred kaiee southeast of Morguhn-and the heiress-bride had brought to her new husband a vast fortune, so much in fact that not even twenty-five years of Drehkos' debaucheries, harebrained business ventures and large contributions to the Ehleen Church or other questionable causes had forced him to lower his standard of living.

Rehbehkah Daiviz of Szohbuh had never presented Drehkos with a child, but he could not fault her for that lack, for neither (to the best of his knowledge) had any other of his multitudinous women. Though he never tried to conceal the fact that he had married her solely for her wealth, as she proved gentle, companionable, forgiving of his frequent excesses and an admirable chatelaine of his palatial Mor-guhnpolis townhouse, with the passing years, Drehkos came to truly love her . . . and, in the three years since her death from summer fever, he could not recall ever being really happy.

He had thought deeply about everything in the course of that ride from the rout below Morguhn Hall to Morguhnpolis, and had decided that his constant loneliness and longing for his dead wife was actually what had driven him into this sorry mess of a rebellion. Not religion, not envy, not hate, just simple, soul-deep loneliness.

Brother Hari had urged him to take another wife, either from within the Duchy of Morguhn or from beyond, had begged him close his empty, echoing townhouse and come to bide at Horse Hall, at least for a while. Dear old Hari-no man could ask a more loving brother or more generous friend. And, at that thought, Drehkos felt real regret that he had had even a small part in the slaying of the one person his older brother sincerely loved-Vaskos, the komees" illegitimate son.

As he led his heterogeneous band of Morguhnpolisee and Vawnee westward toward Bloody Ford and Raider Gap, he bade a silent and infinitely sorrowful farewell to the duchy of his birth, knowing that he would never again see its rolling leas, its verdant fields, or the Morguhnpolis house where he once had been so happy.

"Goodbye, dear brother Hari, please try to forgive me. Goodbye again, Rehbehkah, my own dear love, I'll be with you soon."

If Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz was repentant, his sister-in-law, Komeesah Hehrah Daiviz, was anything but. For days she raged whenever anything or anyone reminded her of her three youngest daughters. She had been so certain of their loyalty, so sure they would cleave always to the True Faith, into which they had been baptized and in which she had reared them, regardless of Komees Hari's frequently loud and vociferous disapproval. Yet, when the time at last arrived, what did the three sisters-flesh of her flesh-do but betray her and everything which she believed in and had taught them? Not only had her recreant spawn given the bastard sufficient forewarning so he and his man were able to arm and fight their way out of the hall-killing four good Christian men in the process-but the shameless hussies had most certainly been responsible for jamming the closing mechanism of the main gate and had been waiting in the courtyard with saddled horses.

Even so, it had been a near thing, and the valiant warriors of the Faith might still have run them down or arrowed them, had not that whoreson's retainer lingered within the entry passage, his presence unsuspected until he had treacherously cut down three more of her warriors. But God had favored His Cause with regard to that one pagan. The brave Danos had crept into the passage and driven an arrow into the heathen's chest, then put another in his back when he tried to ride out. But the delay had been enough.

Hehrah could not imagine why three good, pious-seeming girls, who had not appeared at all attached to their Sun-worshiping sire for many years, would become so murderously disloyal, all of an instant. Why, why would Eeohabnah and Mehleesah and . . . and even little Behtee conspire to cost the lives of decent, God-fearing men with no higher motive than to prolong the unholy existence of a bantling half-brother? And the truly amazing fact was that he was almost a stranger to the girls, since even the eldest had seen him no more than two other times in her life.

The Bastard, which was all she ever called Keeleeohstos Vaskos, was a byblow of her husband's youth and, consequently, of roughly her own age-though she always asserted him "old enough to be my father!" She had, since first her father had married her to Komees Hari and she had learned of her noble husband's love for both the boy and the half-kindred peasant who had farrowed him, actively hated them both almost as much as she hated her coarse, barbaric heathen spouse. She had long relished the thought of seeing the Bastard dead-as dead as his pagan bitch of a mother, who, no doubt, had been frying these twenty-odd years in the deepest pit of Perdition. But his demise had not really obsessed her until his old fool of a father had announced his intention to have the Thirds Council legitimatize the object of her hatred, that he might be named and confirmed heir to the title and lands of Daiviz. -

Since none of her boy children had survived infancy, she had long ago promised her eldest daughter, Djoodith, that title and lands and wealth would, upon the death of Komees Hari, go to the girl's husband, Eeahgos of Mahrtospolis, second son of the komees of that city, a Kath-ahrohs or pure-blood Ehleen and, most important, a good Christian. She knew the Bastard to be as much a pagan as his horse-loving, Christ-hating father. To declare him legitimate and confirm him heir would be to dash her fondest hopes and dreams; it would mean that, barring a heaven-sent miracle, never would she live to see the lands and monies of Daiviz reaffirmed to the service of God and the True Faith-from which service they had been stolen by her husband's barbarian forebears.

She had confided her hopes and her fears to her only peer then a member of the Thirds-dear, sweet Myros of De-skahti. It was thanks only to him and to the few other fine, upstanding men who clove still to the old loyalties that Komees Hari's nefarious design had not been accomplished three years ago.

Because he knew of her fears of her husband and the Bastard, knew of her unparalleled devotion to the Faith, knew of her love for all things Ehleen and her deep and uncompromising contempt for the Kindred and all they represented, Myros had first approached her, dropped a few hints of the planned glories, then introduced her to the new kooreeos of Morguhn, the saintly Skiros.

She had become one of the very few women and the only noble woman who had been initiated into the Deeper Mysteries of the Faith, and, if she had been a zealous Christian previously, the witnessing of her first Holy Sacrifice made her a fanatic. The spurt of blood under the keen edge of the Holy Skiros' knife, the dying screams of the pagan child whom he was sending to God, had fulfilled in her a longing which she had never before recognized.

And when she partook of that Communion Cup, she had known to the innermost fiber of her being that the blood of that pagan child truly had been transmuted into the authentic Blood of Christ, for she could feel that precious holiness spreading out from her vitals, permeating the whole of her being with its blessed goodness. Since that miraculous event, she had never missed any of the necessarily rare and clandestine repetitions; indeed, on one occasion when the blessed Skiros had lacked a Sacrifice, she had contributed little Ehlaina, her pretty blond love girl.

She had hoped to take both the Bastard and his retainer alive so that the personal priest, recently sent her by the Holy Skiros, might offer them as Sacrifice, and all true Christians in her hall, especially her three daughters, might be recipients of that all-encompassing holy goodness. Which was another reason why the defections of her girls had so maddened her. Nor had the defeat of her alternate plan improved her disposition.

Red Death, the blood-bay king stallion of Komees Hari's herds, had been an object of her hatred since, upon the death of his predecessor-the redoubtable Boar Killer-her husband had bought him back from the barbarian princeling whose warhorse he had been. In the nearly ten years since this dumb, brute animal had been brought from the north, she had watched in sick hatred as the komees evinced more and ever more friendship and respect and, yes, even love for the huge beast. He lavished more devotion on that horse than ever he had on her or their daughters, yet had the temerity to brutally denounce the civilized pleasures she took with her succession of love girls as depraved and unnatural!

Still trembling with rage at the escape of the Bastard, she had called to her Gaios Morguhn-despite his name and un-Ehleen appearance, he was a good and dutiful son of the Holy Church-and ordered him to mindcall Red Death. It would do her heart good to see him, at least, butchered to the Glory of Christ

Knowing the dangers inherent in displeasing the Lady Hehrah, even when she chanced to be in a good mood, Gaios fidgeted uncomfortably and slowly shook his red-blond head. "My . . . my lady, the . . . the king stallion will . . . will only respond to the mindcall of ... of Lord Hari."

Then Gaios was frantically ducking the heavy silver ewer she flung at his head, and when he and three others rode out to rope their quarry, his hair, shirt and trousers were still wet and sticky with the wine that ewer had contained, and his ears still rang with his mistress' screams and curses. As the four men came near to the farthest pasture, that one most favored by the king stallion, Gaios shuddered involuntarily at | their proximity to the Forest Bridge where so many of his friends were struck down by that hideous axe of the young • son of the Morguhn, and the arrows and dripping swords of the other Kindred. And once more he breathed silent thanks to his god that, since his mount had thrown a shoe while they pursued Lord Bili along the forest road, he had not been called upon to take part in the subsequent battle-actually, subsequent debacle, he was sufficiently honest to admit to himself, since those three Kindred nobles had easily beat more than seven times their number to a virtual standstill even before the arrival of the rescue party.

The big old warhorse raised his large, shapely head at their approach, then trotted out to meet them, weaving a way among his grazing mares, while a number of his frisky get gamboled around him. His keen ears had registered the un-forgotten sound of clashing arms from the faraway hall, and he had been expecting the mindcall of his brother, Hari, at any moment. Now came four of his loved brother's servants, two bearing strung bows. So strong was his anticipatory shudder that he almost stumbled; it would be good to fight again.

"Greet the Sun, Lord Red Death," Gaios mindspoke.

The stallion halted a few yards from the riders, his head nodding. "Greet the Sun, Gaios, two-leg of my brother. There has been fighting at the hall." It was a statement, not a question.

Successful lying in mindspeak is difficult and requires long practice. Gaios lacked that practice and knew it. "Yessss," he agreed, trying to becloud his motives and intentions long enough to get a couple of ropes on this potentially dangerous animal.

Toeing his mount closer to Red Death, he added, "Unexpected events have occurred at the hall, Lord Red Death. Your brother would have you there, near to him."

"Then why has my brother not mindcalled me, two-leg?" demanded the horse.

Gaios squirmed in his saddle, wishing that Ohros would hurry and signal that he was in position to cast his rope, ere the stallion became suspicious.

But Red Death was already suspicious. He had never liked Gaios, had tolerated him only to please his brother, and he trusted no two-leg whose mind he could not reach, like these other three two-legs. Nor was he so dense as not to be fully aware that Gaios and another were slyly moving within range of the rawhide ropes coiled on their pommels. Nor had his alert eyes missed the fact that the right hands of the other two were hovering near their arrowcases. Also, there was the stink of fear on these two-legs.

Snorting, he mindcalled the danger signal to the small herd behind him and did not need to look to see them abruptly break off their tranquil grazing, bunch together while mares summoned their ranging progeny, and lope off out of bowshot even as a couple of younger stallions moved forward to add their teeth and hooves in combating the danger, whatever it was.

Observing the oncoming pair of almost mature stallions, heads held low and ears laid back, menace in every line of their bodies, Gaios' partner panicked and cast his rope too soon. The king stallion saw the loop snaking through the air and danced lightly aside, tossing his head on his scarred, muscular neck. The outer edge of the rope struck his crest, slithered down to his withers. At its hateful touch, he screamed his battlecry, half-reared and pivoted in the direction of the two-leg who had so insulted him.

Frantically, Ohros was reining his mare about as soon aa he saw his rope fail to snare, alternately sputtering prayers and screaming at Danos and Roopos to arrow Red Death.

As for Danos, he had indeed attempted to loose a war arrow at the fearsome horse, only to have his bowstring snap near th£ hornbow's upper nock. Whereupon he had backed his mount, reined about and spurred toward the safety of the road, not being of a suicidal nature. From that road, he heard the shouts and shrieks of men and the furious screaming of the king stallion and his two sons, while he hurriedly fitted another bowstring. Then he waited, freshly strung bow held on thigh, arrow nocked.

But man shrieks ceased, as did the battlecries of the embattled horses. Then Gaios' dun gelding came limping over the crest of the grassy knoll, his eyes rolling whitely, his off fore-quarter streaked with red blood from the great tooth gash in his withers. Of the two mares, Ohros' and Roopos' mounts, there was no sign, and Danes' repeated shouts evoked no human answer, only the faraway challenge of a stallion.

As soon as he had firmly relatched the high gate and gathered up the trailing reins of the dun, he cased his bow and rode for the hall as fast as the battered gelding could travel.

So, for the Lady Hehrah, there had been nothing for it save to order that a child be seized from the nearby village. But all of her people seemed suitably impressed with their introduction into the Deeper Mysteries, and, fronvthe moment she again partook of the Blood, she felt much relieved ... almost at peace.

With the reclamation of Thoheeks Bill's deserted capital city, Milo had had Aldora lead her five thousand cavalrymen there, partially because it was more centrally located than was Morguhn Hall, partially to remove the passionate and possessive woman from proximity to the convalescent Vahrohneeskos Ahndros-who, until his return to the Duchy of Morguhn, had been the dearly beloved lover of the High Lady Aldora Linszee Treeah-Pohtohmahs Pahpahs.

Nearly a hundred and fifty years of witnessing and sometimes attempting to ameliorate Aldora's infatuations and tantrums had vouchsafed Milo great familiarity with her character. And although he had known her but bare days, he also recognized Mother Mahrnee, old Hwahruhn of Mor-guhn's youngest widow, for a woman similar in many ways to Aldora-which might be part of why Ahndros loved her. She loved him, as well, and would violently oppose any attempt on Aldora's part to rewin the nobleman's affections. A stand-up fight betwixt the Undying Lady Aldora-who, like Milo, could not be slain by steel-could have but one certain outcome, and the rebellion had sown enough discord in Morguhn without the addition of a so surely tragic duel.

The Confederation troopers, guided by the young thoheeks' Freefighters and Kindred, fanned out through the duchy. Their orders were simple and merciless: take anyone suspected of being noble or priest alive, if at all possible; burn all Ehleen churches; reclaim and garrison all Kindred property; slay any non-noble, male or female, who essayed either fight or flight; slay any non-noble discovered in possession of sword or pike or war gear, burning his home, if possible; burn any village or hamlet found to be harboring rebels.

While the cavalry went ravening through the countryside and the main army marched from the trade city of Kehnooryos Deskahti, which had been secured earlier, Milo left Aldora to command the Morguhnpolis garrison and rode with a large force under the nominal command of Thoheeks Bili upon the duchy's two remaining cities, Theftehrospolis and Lohfahspolis. Neither were actually cities, only large villages wherein a nobleman had his seat, nor were they walled.

Nor did either resist. The people of Theftehrbspolis, indeed, welcomed the troops with open arms, having been much bedeviled of late by small bands of rebels fleeing across the nearby southern border. They proved as unreservedly loyal as their lord, Vahrohneeskos Ahndros, who had come by his grievous wounds in defense of Thoheeks Bili and the High Lord. Lohfahspolis, formerly seat of Vahrohneeskos Stehfahnos, the first noble rebel to die, was found to be as bare of life as had been Morguhnpolis. The thoheeks allowed the troopers free rein in looting the sprawling village, and himself, sent back a groaning wagon of loot from the late Stehfahnos' palace. Then the torch was put to every structure, not even the privies being spared.

Chapter IV

Nestled as it was in the far southeast of Morguhn, a long day's ride from Morguhnpolis, with the Great Southern Forest lying between it and any other occupied area, Horse Hall-and Lady Hehrah, its chatelaine-remained blissfully unaware of the abysmal failure of the rebellion and the utter rout of the crusaders.

The komeesa, who now considered herself to be Hari's widow, lolled in the very lap of her dreams. Not only was her faith now the only allowed faith in the county-and, she surmised, in the duchy-but at long last, after many dragging years of suffering the unwarranted persecutions and gainsay-ings of her barbarian husband, she was victorious. Savoring her triumph, she laid a heavy and pitiless hand upon Horse County and all who dwelt there.

The threescore or so inhabitants of Horse Hall village had not been particularly upset when the priest and hall men had come and taken the child, assuming that bluff old Lord Hari would shortly ride in and either return the boy or explain why he was needed at the hall. But when, the very next morning, some of the same hall men had come and, after beating the village headman senseless, had seized, bound and borne off his pretty young wife, grinningly informing all and sundry that their hysterical captive was henceforth to have the honor of being Lady Hehrah's love girl, there were mutters of an appeal to the komees, upon his return from Mor-guhnpolis.

Danos, confirmed captain of the komeescfs guard after his report of Gaios' demise, had laughed harshly. "Then you bastards will have a damned long wait! That blaspheming pagan is now burning in Hell, his stinking corpse so much offal. You had all best heed me. Heed me well!

"My Lady Hehrah now has the power of life or death over you and your wives and your snotty brats. It is her right to claim whatever, whomever, she wishes. It is your duty to render her honor, to accede freely to her every request or demand. If you fail in this, your duty, you will be made to suffer or to die for the crime."

The stunned villagers stood, silently listening to the cold, sharp words of the arrogant horseman, aware of their helplessness against so many armed men.

Danos continued, "Now, my lady feels that this village has been too long without a House of God. Since God is Lord of all, He must be served with the best we can offer. The Holy Pavlos, sub-kooreeos of this county, will be here shortly to bless the shack whence this wench came; it will be used as a church until you have time to build a proper one."

Then they clattered out of the village toward Horse Hall.

But within a few hours they were back to seize another child. And after that, another . . . and another . . . and another!

When, a week after their first incursion, Danos led his men into the village, it was empty, deserted. The trail led into the forest, but knowing that horsemen would be at a disadvantage in the dense, trackless underbrush, Danos halted his troop and rode back to the hall.

Although Lady Hehrah was violent in her rage at being denied the simple, holy pleasure of a sacrificial ceremony whenever she felt the need for one, Sub-kooreeos Pavlos was mightily relieved. His throat was grown raw from so much chanting, and the shrill screams of two or three victims each day were just too much, setting his nerves on edge and his head to throbbing. Also relieved were those servants whose chore it had been to bury the hacked little corpses; digging was, after all, hard work.

One balmy dawn, a pair of men rode big warhorses along the Forest Road. Sacred Sun's rays sparkled and glittered upon the polished surfaces of their three-quarter armor. The faces of the two riders were remarkably similar in cast as well as grim expression. So alike were they that one might have surmised them brothers, since both appeared of middle years. But they were actually father and son, though a bare sixteen years separated them in age.

Behind them, in column of twos, rode a score of Thoheeks Bili's picked Freefighters and three full troops of Confederation kahtahfrahktoee or heavy cavalry.

At the place where an almost invisible game trail crossed the road, Komees Hari Daiviz and Vaskos Daiviz drew rein and conferred with Captain Linstahk, commander of the Confederation troops.

"This is the way of which I spoke last night, Gaib," said the komees. "We'd best leave half a troop here, in case the swine flee along this road . . . though I doubt me they'll head into Morguhn."

The young captain frowned thoughtfully. "Why not a platoon then, Lord Hari? Surely thirty of my troopers will be sufficient to deal with any number of the scum we've encountered so far."

The old nobleman shrugged. "Whatever you think best, Gaib, for you do know your men better than I."

So it was that the chosen platoon, grumbling as soldiers always have and always will, watched the last of the long, single column finally disappear among the trees, heading roughly west and south.

The mixed column, paralleling the course of Forest Creek, clove to the woods path almost to the unmarked border between Horse County and Sheep County, domain of Komees Djeen Morguhn, forded the creek and then followed another game trail and a succession of tiny glades, heading almost due south. They rode in silence-no bugle or shouts, all orders being transmitted in hushed tones from each rider to the one behind. They rode with visors down and beavers up, bows strung, arrows nocked, swords out, though due to the narrowness of the ways they traversed, targets were left slung.

In every glade, they found horse droppings and the marks of hooves; obviously a goodly number of horses were roaming far deeper into the forest than was either normal or safe-and Komees Hari was troubled by the fact.

"Dammit, Vaskos, Red Death must be easing into senility to let them stray thus! He knows the dangers of the forest, what with boars and bears and treecats, not to mention lack of proper graze. Why, in your grandfather's youth, there was still a goodly herd of shaggy-bulls in this forest, and as late as ten years ago, I slew a damned big mountain cat not two hours' ride from here!"

In the interest of continued sflence, the old lord had mind-spoken. With his mind open and receptive, he awaited Vaskos' reply but received the mindspeak of another.

"My brother ... my loved brother, Hari. Red Death sor-ows that he has displeased his brother. But the two-legs from my brother's hall hunt us. Hunt horses as they would hunt deer or boar, with spear and dart and arrow. So Red Death and his subchiefs fled here and have not been pursued."

"My brother has not displeased his brother," Hari beamed, simply and bluntly. "His brother did not know of the terrible things done by the two-legs of the hall. All are aware that King Red Death is both valiant and wise, and he did what he thought best; that he and his were not pursued shows the sagacity of his choice.

"But, my brother, come to me. There is like to be fighting this day and your brother would feel better with his brave, wise and fearsome brother betwixt his legs, when swords ring."

There was infinite sadness in the king stallion's mindspeak then. "Ah, my dear brother, Red Death cannot come to you, cannot even stand. In the first fight with the two-legs, Red Death slew two of them but took a wound which has turned evil, and he would long since have been food for the carrion birds or the scuttling creatures of the forest had not his valiant sons watched over him. Will not Red Death's true brother come to this place and bring water?"

The mindspeak had been weak and Hari had closed his eyes in concentration. When he opened them, the tears spilled over and coursed through the dust coating his stubbled cheeks. His gauntleted fist beat upon his armored thigh with enough force to all but dent the princegrade Pitzburk plate.

Of Vaskos he inquired, "Did you receive, my son?" At the shaking of the steel-encased head, he said, "It is Red Death-my brother. He is ... is badly hurt. That slimy bitch 1 She failed to slay you, so she struck at the only other creature she knows I love! He has a festered wound, cannot rise, and is being guarded by the young stallions. And he ... he thirsts. Give me your water bottle."

With Hari's departure, Vaskos recrossed the glade, now beginning to fill with Freefighters as they debouched from the forest. Wordlessly, he signed them to dismount and rest or see to their horses. When Captain Linstahk, his blond mustachios sweat-plastered to his face, emerged from amongst the trees and brush, Hari's son kneed over to the officer.

"Gaib, pass back word for the column to halt in place. They can probably use the rest since we've been on the march for nearly nine hours now. My father was mindspoken by his king stallion, who lies injured nearby, dying, from what he told me. He loves that horse in a way that you possibly cannot understand, and nothing is now more important than that he go to him, take him water, try to ease his suffering."

When the captain raised his visor, there was deep sympathy in his green eyes. Laying his swordhand on the big man's shoulderplate, he said, "But I do understand, Vaskos. My own father, Vahrohnos Djahsh Linstahk, breeds horses, you know. Between him and his king stallion there is a ... a . . . well, it is as if the two of them were of the same birthing.

"But this still be hostile territory, Vaskos. The lord should not be alone. Let us go to him and . . . wait, my squadron has a horse-leech, nor is he far down the column, as I recall; I will pass word for him to join us. Perhaps he can do something."

Djehsz Reeguhn truly loved horses and exercised all possible gentleness in his examination of Red Death's grievously infected wound. Nonetheless, the stallion's neck and legs jerked, his eyes rolled, he snorted and snuffled, and twice he screamed. Arising, his sensitive face set in hard lines, the horseleech wiped foul-smelling greenish pus from his hands with a handful of leaves torn from the bush, then approached the komees who sat weeping unashamed tears onto the big, scarred head cradled in his lap.

"My lord, I suspect that the weapon was envenomed or at least dungcoated, for the infection is far advanced. Were he a man, I would say, 'Dose him with brandy, club him senseless and saw off the leg.' I have seen such done with horses, but, weak as he is, he would not survive that shock. He cannot live for long, in any case, and, as you know, he suffers greatly. Believe me, my lord, I sorrow with you, but there is only one thing we can now do for him." His hand strayed to the short, heavy axe cased at his belt

Hari nodded, his tear-shiny face glinting in the noon sun. "Thank you, sergeant, thank you for everything. But I ... we know, we knew even before, but I had hoped ..." He broke off, chokedly.

After a moment of silence, Sergeant Reeguhn uncased his mercy-axe and placed it on the well-cropped grass of the tiny glade, straightened and stepped back. "My lord, considering his position, a deathstroke would be difficult with a sword but very easy with my axe. If my lord wishes, I have sent many a brave, suffering horse to Wind-**

"No . . . again my thanks, sergeant, but no. He is my brother. I will do what must be done for him. Please leave us now, but send my son to me."

Vaskos squatted beside his father, laid his big, callused hand on Red Death's damp cheek and stroked him tenderly. As always, physical contact made mindspeak easier, and the dying stallion bespoke him.

"Get of my brother, Red Death knows but little of you, for you were already gone a-warring when he first saw Sacred Sun. You have pleased my brother, he mindspeaks of you often and well, mindspeaks of your valor and weapons skills and of your glorious deeds and of how highly your captains regard you. These are things Red Death can understand and admire, for he was long years the brother and warhorse of King Ahlbehrt of Pitzburk.

"Red Death loves battle, get of my brother, loves the feel of plated thigh forking him, loves the peal of the bugle and the ring of the sword, loves the wild gallop of the charge and the shock of its arrival, loves the sensation of rending flesh under his steelshod hooves . .. but Red Death has fought his last fight, get of my brother."

Komees Hari sank his chin upon his breastplate, and bis steel-cased body shook to his grief.

Red Death snorted weakly. "Why weeps my brother? All creatures must go to Wind, soon or late, and Red Death has known near twenty-four summers, long and long for a war-horse. Shortly, my brother, Ahlbehrt, will take up the little axe of that good two-legs and end Red Death's pain. Then he will be one with Mighty Wind. He will gallop the endless plains of the Home of Wind . . . mayhap, he will find his brother, Alin, there___"

The dying stallion mindcalled, and two younger stallions hesitantly paced from the surrounding forest. Though one was a steel gray and the other a dark chestnut, their noble paternity was clearly etched into every line of their splendid bodies-heavy, rolling muscles; large but fine heads; deep chests; and proud, spirited bearings.

"Brother Hari and get of my brother, these are two of my own get. They call themselves Arrowswift"-the chestnut nodded his head, snorting-"and Swordsheen"-the gray stamped a hoof lightly.

"Red Death has taught them all that he has learned, and, as they are both intelligent and good mindspeakers, they should make good warhorses even without the refinements of proper training.

"Brother and get of my brother, you ride to battle now. Red Death-cannot share your joys as he would like, but his loyal sons can. Will not you both ride to the good fight on Arrowswift and Swordsheen?"

Blinking his eyes rapidly against the sting of his unshed tears, Vaskos rose and strode over to the young stallions, a hand outstretched to each. When he had a palm on each of their foreheads, he mindspoke them. "This is as you would wish, my brothers? You would be the war steeds of my father and me?"

"Yes, brother," replied both together, the gray adding, "Red Death avers that no other way can a stallion prove himself fit to breed."

"This is true, brothers," agreed Vaskos. "And the strength and bravery of the noble Red Death be rich heritage indeed. It must continue to flow in the veins of Daiviz foals."

So it was that while Vaskos and Gaib and the sergeant transferred the saddles and armor and gear from the two horses lent them by Thoheeks Bili to the waiting gray and chestnut, Hari bid his last farewell to his beloved Red Deatft. Beyond the screen of brush, Vaskos saw the brief, metallic glint of sun on steel, followed immediately by a meaty tchunk. A butcher sound.

The old komees walked out of the glade, moving slowly, heavily, his reddened eyes filled with a frustrated fury which Vaskos had never before seen in his father. He shuddered strongly, thinking that he would hate to be the very next man against whom the grief-ravaged nobleman swung his sword.

But Komees Hari's sense of direction and knowledge of these oft-hunted woods were unaffected by his sorrow and anger, and they had ridden onward a bare half-mile when, at a lightning-scarred tree which seemed no different to Vaskos than many a similar one seen on this trek, his father led the column east. Soon, almost imperceptibly, the forest began to thin, with here and there vine-grown stumps, marks of axe and saw showing through the brush. Then they chanced on the camp.

It had clearly been such. Though no trace was found of any attempt to lay a fire, a good number of folk had lived within its raggedly cleared confines for many days to judge by the scatterings of refuse and dung.

While Vaskos refilled water bottles at a crystal-clear spring whose gentle gurgling fed a tiny rill dividing the camp, his father and several Freefighters wandered about the area, examining oddments left behind by its former occupants-who, without a doubt, had decamped suddenly, and not too long ago.

Freefighter Lieutenant Bohreegahd Hohguhn ambled up to the nobleman with a crudely made spear-just a knifeblade bound into the end of five feet of sapling, with the bark still on.

"It ain't no warcamp, my lord," the mercenary averred fa his nasal, mountain dialect. "Ain't no rhyme nor no reason to these here lean-tos. But they ain't entirely peaceable neither, else they wouldn't of been a-makin' this here sad excuse for a spear. Outlaws, you reckun, my lord?"

Sheathing his broadsword, the old lord took the spear and scrutinized its single-edged blade, answering, "No, lieutenant, I think not. I'd have known of any band this large."

Vaskos paced up to them with the filled water bottles, adding, "Nor would outlaws have small children in a forest camp. And the mud along the rill has bare footprints so small that only a child of no more than three yean could have pressed them."

Now Hohguhn had, while listening to father and son, snapped up the cheekpieces of his open-faced helm and removed it to vigorously apply dirty fingernails to furiously itching scalp, so the humming sound and its deadly import were clearer than to those whose ears still were covered by steel.

With a shouted "Down!" be flung his wiry body against that of the startled komees, while violently shoving big Vaskos, who fell forward so that the stone aimed for his unprotected face clanged instead off his raised visor.

But three of the wandering Freefighters were not so lucky, and when at last the komees' party had crawled or scurried back to the shelter of the woods opposite those which held the slingers, the bodies of those three still lay where they had fallen. Against men clad in open-faced helms, slingstones can spell instant death.

Chapter V

Briefly Vaskos showed himself, trying to spot the positions of the ambushers, and a subdued humming launched a ragged volley toward him. But the range was too great and only one or two stones bounced off the first treetrunks, most falling in the deserted clearing.

"That be a warnin* and a sample of more to come, y* child-stealin* bastards!" snarled a deep voice from the trees and brush which hid the slingers. "We'uns owe yer mistress nothin', y* hear? Make a Ehleenee church out'n ever" house we left, but you come after us 'n* our women *n* our kids 'n* we'll kfll ever1 last one of you priest-bound boy-buggers!"

"That," whispered the komees amazedly, "was Ehrik Ooontehros, the village headman! What in the world could that witless bitch have done to inflame so even-tempered a man to ambush and murder?"

Before Vaskos or Hohguhn, who were continuing to watch the source of both stones and voice, could divine his intent, Komees Hari was already swinging up onto Steelsheen and mindspeaking the stallion out into the campsite, even while he stripped off his gauntlets and commenced to unbuckle his helm.

Hohguhn would never have suspected that big, burly Vaskos could move so fast. At a weaving, crouching run, he reached his father's side just before the older man cleared the last of the screening brush. Gripping the near stirrup leathers, he frantically remonstrated.

"Is my father a fool? They've already downed three good men-they'll not stick at yet another. Wait until Gaib and his men are up to us, at least. A few patterns of shafts will clear that brush in record time."

The old nobleman lifted off the helm and thrust it down at Vaskos, patting his son's weather-browned cheek with the other hand. "You need not fear for me, lad. Those poor men yonder are my people. They'll not harm me-not if they can see who I am. Hehrah has obviously wronged them in some way, else they'd be in Horse Hall village, not faring like wild beasts here in the forest Without doubt, some more of her damned perversion of a religion. You caught what Ehrik said about churches, didn't you?"

Then the big gray was into the clearing, and Vaskos was left clutching his father's helm and nursing his apprehensions. He watched the stallion come to a halt, then commence a slow, stately walk across the width of the campsite, tail held high and neck arched in pride. Then came again the sound he had so feared: the humming of a whirling sling. •

"Father?' he shouted. "My lord, beware!" But when he would have run after his sire, many hands restrained him.

And Captain Linstahk was there before him, saying, "You cannot aid him now, Vaskos. And would your death make his any more meaningful?"

With the abrupt end of the humming, a whistling stone narrowly missed Hari's head, caroming off his shoulderpiece. But the old nobleman might have been an image, carved of one of those stone outcrops which dotted his lands. He never so much as flinched at the loud clang of stone on steel. He sat his mount easily, erect in his high-bowed warkak, loosely handling his reins, his bare swordhand resting on his armored thigh.

His clear baritone rang out in a merry laugh, followed by the chiding comment, "A bad cast, Ehrik! You missed the mark by at least a handsbreadth. Sun and Wind, man, have we then grown so old and decrepit, you and I? Why, I've seen you bring down a stooping hawk with that sling!"

The vicious humming had recommenced. Again it ceased, and Vaskos gritted his teeth, for his father was now closer and, with the westering sun to his back, would provide an unmissable target. But no stone came.

"Ha . . . Hari . . . ? My lord? Be it really you?" rumbled the hidden basso.

"Aye, Ehrik. Half-deafened by the last loud note of your slingsong, but it's me. But man, you know my financial state! How in hell am I going to pay the thoheeks bloodprice on those three Freefighters of his you just slew?" the komees said.

There was a deep whoop of joy from the underbrush, and a black-bearded man of about Vaskos' age arose from his hiding place, a gap-toothed grin splitting a battered face capped by a handful of blood-caked, dirty bandages. Looking into the brush about him, he crowed, "You see! You see! I told you all that that woman-stealing, child-stealing, ewe-raping dog of a Danos lied in his mossy teeth! He swore Komees Hari lay slain, yet there he sits, you gullible fools. There sits our dear lord! Why bjde we here?"

Then they were all about him. The empty-appearing brush poured forth men, women, children, dogs and even a few goats. And Ehrik's thick arms were lifting up the youngest child of his dead first wife that he might see that this rider was truly the old lord, always the protector of his people. And the others clustered as close as possible, laughing, weeping, chattering, reaching forth dirty, broken-nailed hands to touch a dusty boot or a bit of armor, their tears of happiness almost laying the dust raised by their bare feet.

Watching, Vaskos felt both awe and fierce pride. Awe of a man so uncompromisingly good that he could command such love and devotion from his people, pride that he was the son-even the bastard son-of so just and loyal a man.

As it developed, only one of the Freefighters was dead, the stone having taken him in the eye and smashed a splintering path into the brain. The second had a dented helm and a lump the size of a turkey egg on the side of his head. The last had suffered a broken collarbone-but was conscious and jokingly asserting to have suffered worse injuries from hungry mosquitoes.

While villagers and hidden archers guarded a farflung perimeter, Gaib's troopers lined up to water their horses at the small spring, then hunkered down to share their rations with the ravenous villagers.

Pain and anger in his swollen eyes, Ehrik took another long pull at Hari's commodious brandy flask, wincing as the strong spirit bit into the raw sockets of knocked-out teeth. Then he went on, "So, when I recovered sommats from that beatin' they give me an* got my wits 'bout me agin, I got ever'body together an' led 'em inta the woods. I flggered was the bastards to come in here a-horse, they'd make us damn good targets what couldn' move fast in the brush. An* I "uz jest hopin' to Wind the boy-buggers 'ud come in a-foot!

"But we didn't light no fires, cause it 'uz men with Danes hadn' none of us seed afore, an' I couldn' be sure jest how many men he did have ... an' I didn' wanta lead a whole pack of 'em to us, an' us with nothin* but slings an' knives an' a few homemade spears."

Hari nodded gravely. "You did very well, Ehrik. Your father would be proud of you. It takes real guts to stand off armored men-and Wind alone knew how many of them-with nought save slings."

Then his face clouded. "But you and your folk must be equally as brave when I tell you what now I must, Ehrik. Do you recall my valet, Kristohfohros? Well, he was one of that pack of cutthroats who attacked the young thoheeks, that night at the Forest Bridge. Komees Djeen's men captured him and bore him to Morguhn Hall, where the komees and the Undying High Lord and others put the pig to the torture. What he revealed to them has since been detailed to me and my son, and it bodes ill for your missing children."

A deep moan swelled up from the folk massed about, but Hari went on. "The Ehleen priests have taken to slaying children on their altars, draining them of blood, which is then mixed with wine and herbs and drunk by those swine.

"As for your dear wife, Ehrik, I think we can be more hopeful. I well know my wife's unnatural traits . . . and her tastes. Shell not have done aught to mar her beauty, for such is as important to Hehrah as it would be to a man. With any luck, she should be back with you by this time tomorrow, dear friend."

Mairee Goontehros lay sleepless near the edge of the broad bed, her azure eyes fixed upon the blue-white flicker of a winking star. She wished, prayed, that Wind might whisk her through the narrow window to that faraway star. To anywhere rather than here-naked in her shame, beside the gross , hulk of the Lady Hehrah, who having yet again sated her sickening depravity on Mairee's passive flesh was once more snoring. But it was not the unlovely rasp of the fat woman's snores which kept the slender girl wakeful; rather was it the pain and the self-loathing that she had so cravenly sacrificed her honor to gain surcease of pain ... that and sorrow.

"Poor dear brave Ehrik." The words were shaped soundlessly and she stifled her sobs, that she might not waken her bloated captor to wreak fresh horrors upon her, but the silent tears coursed from her eyes to trickle amongst the strands of her cornsilk hair.

That day, that cursed day that Captain Danos and his henchmen had come and demanded that she accompany them back to Horse Hall, she had been so very proud of her strong, black-bearded husband. His arguments and questions ignored by the arrogant guardsmen, he had still attempted to be reasonable-until the first Ehleen had grasped her arm to pull her out the door. Then he had exploded into furious action. Ehrik's first mighty buffet had knocked him who held her sliding, rump foremost, into the cookfire, whence he quickly emerged to run howling from the house, his leathern breeches ablaze.

When the captain made a pass at him with a stabbing sword, Ehrik's nimble sidestep sent the blade past him, while his big, hard fist actually dented the brass breastplate, driving the breath from the captain's chest and setting him stumbling backward into the wall. Another guardsman had been lifted bodily and thrown headfirst into the next two to rush through the doorway. He had broken the arm of another swordsman; despite the stamping and shouting and Ehrik's roaring, she had distinctively heard the bones snap.

But of course it could not last; one lone man, no mattef what his strength or his rage, is just no match for a score of bravos. A knot of them forced in and bore him down amid the smashed furniture and two of them held her tightly while, with fists, feet, swordhilts and whipbutts, a dozen of their fellows bludgeoned the life from her husband. And when they at last stepped back from their inert victim, Mairee could not recognize even one feature of the bloody deathmask which was all that remained of Ehrik's smiling face.

They had borne her into the square, screaming and vainly clawing at her captors. After roughly binding her hands and feet, they tossed her across the withers of the guardsman's horse. Since hard hands explored and fondled her body all the way to the hall, she expected to be raped by them all, to be their plaything . . . until she could gain access to a knife and send herself to Wind.

Once more, the pale lips moved. "Better their rapes ... an of them, one after the other. Far better than this . . . this abomination! It is natural that men should lust after a woman, but that a woman should . . ."

A strong shudder of horrified loathing coursed the length of her, then she lay trembling, for a long moment, praying that the movement had not wakened Lady Hehrah.

But at the hall, Mairee had found herself delivered up to the lady's women. Numbly, she had allowed herself to be led to a bathing chamber and stripped of her torn and dusty garments. While the deep basin was being filled with warm and sweet-scented water, the laughing but hard-eyed women had turned her round and round, squeezing her firm young breasts, running their hands over the slender hips and small buttocks and flat belly, conversing in whispers she could not hear, then sharing gales of raucous laughter. When she had been laved from foot to crown and her fine hair had been dried and arranged, they clad her in a single short garment made of stuff so sheer as to be almost transparent, then conducted her to the suite of the lady.

When she had wed poor Ehrik, three months agone, dear old Lord Hari had generously feasted them in the hall and gifted them and presented them to his king stallion, his daughters and his lady. But on that joyous day, Mairee had been too full of the giddy happiness of the events and awe of the sumptuous surroundings and the old nobleman's preferential treatment of her and Ehrik to note aught but that the lady was stout, black-haired and aloof, seeming displeased with her noble spouse.

But the lady of the initial phase of her second meeting was all solicitude, tenderly embracing Mairee and kissing her cheek in a motherly greeting, drawing her down to sit beside her on a soft-cushioned settle, insisting she eat of the rare dainties and drink of the strong, brandied wine. The lady's plump, beringed fingers gently brushed the bruises left on Mairee's fair skin by the cruel manhandling of Danos and his men, lifting the hem of her sole garment and pulling the low-cut neck even lower that she might see and touch the entireties of the discolored areas, all the while clucking sympathy and promising dire punishments for the guardsmen responsible.

And the combination of soothing words and strong drink had had their effect Mairee had forgotten her fears enough to weep, thinking of poor Ehrik lying dead in his blood on the floor of their home amid the smashed wreckage which had been its furnishings, and the lady's pudgy arms had immediately enfolded her.

"Do not weep, little Mairee," she had crooned. There is naught to be feared, for never again will any dirty, lustful man lay his hairy hands upon your sweet flesh. Never, so long as I live. My word upon it."

And Mairee had sobbed, "Oh, my lady, they . . . those men slew my husband. Murdered my dear Ehrik. He ... he is dead, all bloody and dead."

"My husband, too, is dead, fair Mairee," the lady breathed. "But what need have we two of husbands, when we now have each other? Little one, I will be husband and more, so much more, to you. I shall provide for you and care for you . . . and please you as no base man has ever pleased you ... or could."

It was not until Lady Hehrah's strength and immense weight had borne Mairee back, pinned her under that mountain of musk-scented flesh, that the girl realized, remembered the half-comprehended remarks made by her captors on that terrible ride from village to hall, recalled the sly whispers of women of the village when word was passed to be on the lookout for the girl Ehlaina, who was missing from the hall.

Then the mists cleared and she heard again the words of the man whose horse had carried her, the words he had spoken while his hands squeezed and groped at her: "Enjoy me while you can, you little slut, for once you're old Hehrah's glohsah-athehlfee, you'll never again be allowed near a man!"

Glohsah-athehlfee! Tongue-sister! That whispered-about vice of Komeesa Hehrah. The thought alone was enough to sicken Mairee. But when she opened her mouth to protest, the older woman's thick, blubbery lips pasted themselves over hers while the hot, winy tongue forced between her teeth in search of her own.

Mairee struggled to wrench free, to sit up, but Lady Hehrah's layers of fat concealed other layers of muscle, and she held the slender girl easily enough to free one bejeweled hand.

And when Mairee felt that hot, damp hand slip betwixt her slim thighs, she reacted frantically, sinking her sharp white teeth into that alien tongue thrusting between them, while punching at the head and face above her, tearing at the coif-fed black hair. And when at last she had felt some of the weight shift, had made to get to her feet, the lady's buffet had set her almost to swooning. And she had thus understood only snatches of the things the lady said to the women who had come to her screams.

"Ahtheena, Khohee, Ntohrees . . . skoola . . . ahkahrees-tosha . . . Ktoopeemaptehrnasl . . . eeahkoopohgnohmohsoo-nee..."

Though the language was archaic Old Ehleenohkos, it was sufficiently similar to Confederation Ehleenohkos for Mairee to understand that she was being called an "ungrateful bitch" along with something about "stubborness"; the term Ktoopeema-ptehmas she did not know... not then.

Mairee had never imagined the existence of such pain as that which brought her fully, screamingly conscious. She shrieked her throat raw, she pled, begged a stop to the torment, her fine-boned body arching and writhing in the grasps of the serving women who held her down and immobilized her tiny feet under the brutal bite of the bastinado. But it went on... and on. Finally she fainted again.

The bright rays of that distant star twinkled, till her tears blurred the sight of it. She shifted her still-aching feet, trying not to rattle the long chain which secured her slender ankle to the massive bedstead. But rattle it did, sounding like the clanging thunder of a smithy to the girl's ears.

Beside her, Lady Hehrah snorted, groaned and threw a fat arm across the quaking Mairee's small breasts. She lay so for a moment, then, muttering something incomprehensible, rolled onto her side and recommenced her resounding snores.

And then Mairee could again draw breath. "It cannot last," she wordlessly told that friendly, unreachable star. "No woman can long live with this torture, not without going mad. And she even denies me means of honorably ending my life. Oh, what am I to do?"

The guardsman, Rubmos, also watched that flashing star, as he lifted his leathern kilt to piss down the outer face of the wall. He heafd the chorus of snores from the barrack below with envy. He knew that there was no damned excuse for robbing him and so many others of sleep, when a single man or at most two could have kept adequate watch. For did not the rolling leas stretch away on every side, treeless for most of their extent? And who was there to keep watch against anyway? That unarmed, spineless scum of villagers? A few homicidal horses?

Nonetheless, he had his orders from that arrogant, posturing ape his old roistering companion Danos was become since the stallions killed that bastard Gaios and Danos the archer was proclaimed Danos the captain. He let his eyes sweep carelessly over the expanses of moon-silvered pasture to the north and west, before he shook his yard, dropped his kilt and made to turn about

Then a hard, rough hand clamped down over his mouth, jerking back his head and preventing him from voicing his agony at the sharp bite of steel which bit in under the angle of his jaw and traced fire across the front of his straining throat And the hand was taken away, being no longer needed, for Ruhmos' windpipe was filled now with a thick, hot liquid which he realized, as the crushing blackness engulfed him, must be his own blood.

For many long years, Komees Hari had utilized the barrack space above the hall stables for the practical purpose of storing grain and hay. Only since he rode out to his supposed death had the Lady Hehrah restored it to its original function, feeling that with the men so far from the hall, there would be less likelihood of them attempting to seduce the female servants into the filthy sin of fornication . . . and, of course, her scheme worked no better than equally puritanical plans ever do.

This night, at least a quarter of the sleeping guardsmen shared their straw-filled pallets with companions. But like the now deceased Ruhmos, the soot-smeared apparitions who invaded the long, darkened room had their orders. They obeyed those orders to the very letter. Working south from the tower through which they had entered, they made brief stops at each sleeping couch, and when they passed on to the next, no one-man or woman or painted love boy- remained alive behind them.

Their sanguinous task silently completed, most of the dark men descended to the courtyard, and, rumbling and stum-Wing in the inky entrance passage, they began to unbar the main gate. Two sought the hall stable, where they quietly strangled the man found there. One retraced his steps to the tower, took an arrow from dead Ruhmos' case and wound its shaft with strips of oil-impregnated cloth.

In deference both to his new rank and to her high regard for him, Lady Hehrah had granted Captain Danes quarters in the hall itself. Which, he often thought to himself, was a fair step upward in the world for a young man whose father had been beaten to death by old Komees Djeen Morguhn's herdsmen when caught stealing sheep.

Thanks to several extra measures of wine, Danos had slept well and deeply earlier in the night, but a full bladder had wakened him soon after midnight. He had piddled in his chamberpot, then returned to his bed, only to find that sleep evaded him. He turned over and over on the sweat-damp bedclothes, vainly seeking a position which would once more vouchsafe him sleep. At length, he surrendered to wakeful-ness and, with a groan of anger, lowered his feet to the tiles and sat up on the edge of the bed.

Without conscious volition, his hand dropped into his crotch and, before he knew he had done so, he had stroked his sex several times. Frantically, he snatched the hand away before he could do anything really sinful, breathing a short prayer for protection against temptation.

Clasping his hands firmly behind his head, he lay back across the width of the bed, and his thoughts strayed back to his triumphs of that first week of his captaincy. Nearly every time he and his troop had gone down to the village for another child, they had been able to catch women and girls in the fields, ride the shrieking sows down and rope them and strip them and swive them properly. That had indeed been fun. And no need to worry about the wrath of the old heathern komees, as on Danos' necessarily rare previous forays.

Sex, such as he knew the guardsmen were presently enjoying in their barrack, had been denied Danous for much of his life, his rare attempts always having the same tiring, Inconclusive, infinitely frustrating end. Then one early autumn day, the chief huntsman had been ill and Danos had been sent out to bag small game for the table. Deep in the forest, he had chanced upon a village girl gathering nuts, and on a never-understood impulse, he had savagely beaten her with his dog-whip, then shredded her homespun smock and brutally raped her.

And it had been nothing less than wonderful! Her screams and pleas and agonized whimperings had spurred him on to his complete pleasure as had never the moans and gasps and contortions of the slack-lipped tarts he had tried to bed. He could not even remember rolling off her quivering, bleeding, sob-wracked body. And how long he had lain on the crackling leaves, lost in a private nirvana of delight, he knew not.

But when at last he returned to the world, he had realized that the girl must assuredly be slain, else what had happened would get to the ears of the komees, and the certain consequences of that mischance were too horrible to bear contemplation. For, while the old lord had always been known as a lusty man, he would not countenance rape in his domain any more than he would murder or maiming or thievery.

It was with a chill of apprehension that Danos thought of that roving chapman who, nighting at Horse Hall, had accosted a serving wench on her way to the privy, punched her into unconsciousness, and been caught while having his will of her senseless body. The peddler had been haled before the komees at dawn, and since unlike most of his peers Lord Hari maintained no mercenary soldiers, the senior hunter and Danos had been set to guarding the prisoner, who had claimed drunkenness to be the cause of his attack.

But the old lord would have none of it, saying, "You be a well-built man and not unhandsome, so you might have had that woman, and many another here, for but a bit of frippery from your pack or even a few winning words; but you felt you must steal not buy, for a rapist be nothing less than a thief and a maimer.

"Well, master chapman, you chose the wrong county in which to commit your crime! Some lords might well let you off with a striping or the payment of a suffering price, but Hari Daiviz values his people more highly than that.

"In the Middle Kingdoms, where I soldiered years agone, they know how to deal with scum such as you. So rape be unknown, except in time of war or intakings."

Danos well recalled how that husky chapman's face had paled under his tan and dirt, how be had fallen to his knees on the flags, groveling and wringing his raised hands in supplication, his terror having frozen his power of speech.

And the komees had continued in the same tone. "Master chapman, you have dishonored your manhood. Were I a burk-lord, I'd have it off your body, leave you a hollow reed to piss through and seal the stump with hot pitch. But I think me IT! have done enough for the women of this world if I make certain that you'll breed no more of your contemptible ilk."

The nobleman then addressed the senior hunter. "Rai, you and young Danos drag this piece of filth into the courtyard, have off his breeches and lash him to the whipping frame. I'll be along presently."

They had obeyed their orders. The komees, the raped woman and all the men of the hall and the village had assembled in the courtyard, where Lord Hari had recounted the crime, his judgment and sentence, then had called forth the horse master. And Danos' blood ran cold when he remembered the hideous cries of the hapless chapman when old Vintz stepped forward with his hooked knife and commenced the gelding.

So Danos had buried his hunter's blade in the girl's whip-wealed breast, dragged the corpse far into the forest and secreted it near to where he recalled having seen bear tracks. And when her pitiful remains at last were found, the komees, his neighbor, Komees Djeen, and several other nobles, with their hunters and retainers, rode out on a week-long hunt that bagged three bears and a host of other animals.

With his duties to offer excuse for frequent and prolonged absences, to explain bloodstains on his weapons and clothing, and with the wide-spreading forest to conceal his movements, Danes' rape-murders had gone almost unremarked-since he had been careful never to strike the same domain twice in a row and had ranged over most of the Duchy of Morguhn and parts of the two duchies to the south and east-and his murderous role had never been suspected. Throughout the intervening years, many a bear or treecat or boar or wolf had been slain as bloodprice for Danos' twisted sex drives.

The thoughts of those pleasurable deeds aroused Danos to an unbearable pitch of passion, so that when once more he found his traitorous hand straying toward commission of unforgiveable sin, he sat up, laced on a pair of sandals and donned a soft doeskin kilt. Leaving his door ajar, he crept past the rooms of the upper servants and ascended the narrow stairs to the roof, then headed along the wall walk toward the barrack, thinking to borrow a woman from one of the guardsmen, take her someplace apart and hurt her enough to gain such reaction as he knew he required for his sexual release.

But he had taken only a few steps along the wall when there was the twanging of a bowstring somewhere near the barrack and a blazing arrow arched high into the starry sky. What in hell, he pondered, are those drunken whoresons up to now? Aren't dice enough to gamble with that they must waste good arrows? And they could fire the- corn or the hay, as well!

Lips set grimly, Danos strode purposefully toward the south tower. Dawn would see those thoughtless, wasteful rogues well striped for this night's lark. But in the shadow of the tower, only a few steps from the door, his foot struck something which sent him sprawling, all but tumbling into the courtyard twelve feet below.

On his knees, he made out the dim shape of a helmeted guardsman, stretched motionless across the walk, legs dangling over the edge. Snarling, he grasped the obviously drunken man's shoulders and shook him mercilessly . . . without result. Then he became conscious of warm, sticky wetness on the miscreant's tunic. He thought at first that, in his drunken stupor, the sentry had puked down his front But some atavistic sense sent his hands exploring.

His nape bristled as his trembling fingers penetrated the still-warm gash gaping under the guardsman's chin. Leaping up, his blood-gummy hand sought the hilt of the sword he had left in his room and his mouth was opened, his lungs filling to shout an alarm.

Then came the creaking protest of the gate's hinges, whereupon a dozen or more shadowy, wraithlike figures poured from the entry passage and trotted across the deserted courtyard toward the hall. And Danes' throat choked off that shout. Shakily, he stepped over the dead man and tiptoed through the tower, thence into the deathly still barrack.

What he found there imbued him with such panic that he only took time to arm himself with belt and dagger, bow and case of arrows, ere he stole back through the tower, dropped from the wall and ran for the forest like a bunted beast

Chapter VI

Sleep finally had claimed Mairee, but the throbbing of her feet made it a light slumber at best, and when the arms slipped under her body and the lips pressed down on hers, she instantly came to full, shuddering wakefulness. All that she could see of the face above her was as black as the hair. Then she became aware that those lips on hers were surrounded by a beard, a full beard! And she knew the feel of that beard . . . and those arms and those warm, tender lips. And she knew also that she was certainly dreaming. The knowledge that she could not live on and on forever in that blessed dreamworld, but must soon waken to the horror of her real existence, wrenched a groan from the depths of her being and flooded her eyes with hot, salt tears.

Beside her the snoring suddenly broke off, the bed shook to the lady's ponderous movements. Then her strident voice shrilled, "A man\ A dirty man! What are you doing in my bedchamber, you pig? Get your filthy hands off my girl!"

Ehrik's deep bass rumble answered her, his tone hard and cold as polished steel. "Komeesa Hehrah, I done come to fetch back my wife."

Lumbering her bulk half off the bed, Lady Hehrah turned up the lamp and stared in utter disbelief at the visitor, clad in dark-brown tunic and breeches, face and hands smeared with soot, wide dagger and shortsword hanging from his belt

"May God damn those blunderers!" she shouted wrath-fully. "I told them to kill you! They swore you were dead! But you'll not ejcape me this time!

"Klohee, Ahtheenal Call the guards at once! Do you hear me, you bitches?"

Ehrik did not move a muscle other than to treat the lady to a gap-toothed, derisive grin. "If it's them two hussies in the antechamber you be callin', you can save y'r wind. With crushed gullets and snapped necks, they'll be bavin' trouble answerin'."

Black eyes widened in terror, the lady backed across the bedchamber, screaming. "Captain Danos! Guards, to me! Guarrds!"

Ehrik chuckled again. "We done sent all your bullyboys to Wind, too, komeesa. Lord Hari, he give us leave to butcher ever" boar an' sow an' shoat in this here hall, 'ceptin' you an* your damn priest"

Lady Hehrah started as if arrowpricked. "My ... my husband is dead! He's dead, I tell youl Myros promised Hari would be among the first to die!"

Ehrik's bass laughter filled the chamber. "Well, 111 not gainsay you, komeesa, but Cousin Hari do make the livelies' corpse I ever come to see. He be a-ridin' "crost the wes' pasture right now, him an' near three hunnerd C'nfederashun kahtahfrahktoee. An' I hopes to Wind he crucifies you, you unnatcherl thing, you!"

He stepped over to the bed, gathered his sobbing wife into his thick arms and would then have departed, but at the length of the chain she was almost jerked from his grasp and caught her breath in agony. It was as he gripped the chain to wrench it from the massive bedstead that his blue eyes lit upon Mairee's feet and saw what had been done to them, and he roared his rage.

Setting his wife down gently, he slipped his forefingers between her lacerated ankle and the iron cuff circling it. Setting his jaw, he pulled once, and half the brass rivet sped through the air to clank against a wall and fall to the floor. Two more metal-rending efforts and he was holding a six-foot length of fine chain.

Then he slowly advanced upon the komeesa, who backed before him, stuttering, "B-but you-you said-Hari said- not kill me!"

"I ain't gon' kill you, you bitch," Ehrik grated, swinging his length of chain from his huge right hand. "But whataO your folks done to my Mairee's pore feet that calls for suf-ferin' price."

Lady Hehrah hastily stripped all the rings from her shaking hands, cupped them in one palm, extended them before her. "There! There's enough to buy you half of Morguhnpolis. Take them! But don't touch me ... please don't ... I ... I cannot stand pain!"

Ehrik never halted his slow advance. His open left hand slapped her quivering white one, sending a vahrohnos' ransom flying in all directions, the faceted gems scintillating in the lamplight.

Whimpering, nursing her hand, Lady Hehrah dropped to her fat knees, and Ehrik, after knotting the chain about her wrists as if it had been twine, dragged her over to an iron wall sconce, effortlessly lifted her heavy body and suspended it by those pinioned wrists. Lady Hehrah began to scream even before he started to unbuckle his rawhide belt, as all her weight drew upon that chain and its links bit into her pampered flesh, bringing bright spurts of blood to trickle down her depilated arms.

Mairee wanted to bid Ehrik desist, wanted to close her eyes to what she could see coming, but she sat mute, staring in horrified fascination. At the first swish and solid whack of the swordbelt, the lady emitted a piercing shriek, and the left eye-the only one Mairee could see-seemed about to spring from its socket. Ehrik exacted his suffering price thoroughly, methodically. When he had done and stood panting, the thick belt trailing on the floor tiles, the lady's back was one red-purple weal, from nape to knees, and the blood from innumerable cuts and splits in her soft skin trickled down to drop from her toes.

Ehrik rebuckled his blood-smeared belt, snapped on the weapons, wrapped a rich coverlet about his wife, then gathered her up and stalked out of Horse Hall.

As Ehrik descended the broad steps and paced resolutely toward the gate, no one who saw what lay within his eyes even asked him his destination, much less moved to block his way-not even the old komees.

Geros Lahvoheetos, since he was one of the few who had ever been in Horse County, had been sent by young Thoheeks Bili as one of Lieutenant Hohguhn's score of Freefighters. He had but just ridden into the familiar courtyard and stiffly dismounted from his mare when he observed the press of men parting, making way for that big, black-bearded farmer who had led first that frightening ambush back in the forest, then the raiding party which had cleared the way and opened the gate to the rest He saw in the smoky red glare of the torches that the fanner bore in his arms a willow slip of a pretty girl. She was wrapped about with a splendid dark-red coverlet of woven silk and her slender arms were clasped about the big man's bull neck, while her head lay pillowed on his chest.

The circumstances which had, almost overnight, transformed Geros into a respected warrior had failed to rob him of his gentle, polite demeanor or helpful nature. He had, of course, heard the shocking tale of what had befallen this man and his lovely young wife, and he surmised that, having freed her of that odious bondage, Ehrik was now bearing her home to the village, which was a long walk to Geros' mind.

Still leading his mare, he stepped out into the farmer's path. The blackboard halted abruptly an arm's length away, stood glowering for a long moment, then snarled, "Out of my way, damn you! I be done in this place!"

He might have added more, but was disconcerted by Geros' obviously sincere smile. The dirty, dog-tired sometime valet-musician said softly, "Sir, your wounds are still almost fresh, nor are you as young as the men you led here this night; it is a long walk to your village and you must be near to exhaustion now at its beginning. My mare," he proffered the reins, "is strong enough to carry two for that distance and more. Will not you and your lady wife accept the loan of my sweet Ahnah?"

Ehrik glowered a minute longer into Geros' open, honest eyes, then, with a smile that was almost shy, he closed the gap between them, saying, "Freefighter, would you then hold my wife and hand her up to me, an' I be mounted on your pretty mare? Ah ... be you careful of her feet, man! She be ... hurt."

When Ehrik had swung up and was settled betwixt the high cantle and flaring pommel of the battle kak, Geros gingerly passed the feather-light girl back to him. The headman reined about, heading the mare toward the entry passage, then thrust his big, callused hand down to grip Geros1 own crushingly. Geros was shocked to see tears glistening in the deep-blue eyes of this man who had suffered so much so stoically.

"What be your name, Freefighter?" asked Ehrik huskily. "Geros Lahvoheetos, sir."

The thick black brows rose perceptibly.  "A Ehleenee Freefighter?"

Geros shook his helmeted head. "Fm not really a Freefighter, sir, though I've ridden with them much of late."

"Well, Geros Lahvoheetos, be you whatever you be, you done been a good friend to me and my Mairee. When you need a friend, you yell for Ebrik Goontehros, an* sure as Sacred Sun's a-comin' at dawn, I'll be with you. Heah?"

He trotted the mare to the mouth of the entry passage, one big arm steadying his wife on the mare's withers. Then he reined about one last time and roared the length of the courtyard. "Cousin Hari, your lady warn*t dead, whin I left her. But I took sufferin' price out'n her fat carcass, give her a good hidin', I didl 111 git this here lil' mare back here t'marra mornin*. An* you tek good care of Master Geros Lahvoheetos-he be a friend o* mine."

And thus was that friendship which was to affect the lives of so many-noble and common, Kindred and Ehleenoee- born in the crowded, torchlit courtyard where the legend of Geros first began, with a mule and a spear.

Chapter VII

The city of Morguhnpolis had never before seen such activity. While about its walls camped near twenty thousand soldiers of the Confederation, the city itself housed the persons and retinues of High Lord Milo, High Lady Aldora, an arhkeethoheeks, no less than six thoheeksee, and scores of komeesee, vahrohnoee, vahrohneeskoee and untitled Kindred noblemen. Chief Hwahltuh of Sanderz and his clansmen lodged, too, in the city not because they liked city life-they one and all hated it!-but because the lovesmitten Hwahltuh had taken to heart the beauteous Mother Behrnees Morguhn's parting admonition to "look out for our Bili." Though, to the thinking of Clanbard Gil Sanderz, if any one of these mostly softer eastern Kindred definitely did not need the services of a bodyguard-much less a clan of them-it was that grim, stark warrior, Thoheeks Bili, Chief of Morguhn.

Awaiting the arrivals of the remaining three thoheeksee and certain other tardy nobles, Bili began to wonder if his duchy would be stripped bare in sustenance of the swelling hordes. One night in the soft bed he now shared with the Undying High Lady Aldora, he mindspoke of his apprehensions, and within a week, Confederation commissary wagons were stocking his larders to the very rafters. He remarked, lightly he thought, in her presence that it was a shame there were no more unemployed Freefighters about, as late arrivals would find themselves unable to field more than what swords they brought with them from their demesnes. Shortly, the north and east traderoads seemed to swarm with bands of Freefighters, ranging in size from two or three bravos to a score. Yet Bili knew that not even the legendary Confederation Gallopers could have so rapidly spread the word.

On the large bed in the sumptuous suite which had been Vahrohnos Myros* own while he had governed Morguhnpolis, Bili and Aldora lay entwined. The dim light thrown by the low lamps glinted on their sweat-shiny bodies. His long arms enfolded her, his thin, pale lips were locked to her full, dark ones, while the palms of her small, hard hands moved in lazy, sensuous circles on the fair, freckled skin of his thick-muscled back and wide, massive shoulders.

When first Aldora had actually seen the young thoheeks, she had felt almost repelled, for though handsome enough, his waist was thicker than she preferred and his hips were far wider than were those of the average man. It was not until she actually fought beside him against a desperate force of cornered Vawnee horsemen, saw the ease with which he managed that ten-pound axe, making of it both shield and fearsome weapon, that she came to appreciate his atypical build. The classic masculine form-wide shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and slim hips-would never have been able to develop or give purchase to the almost abnormal masculature of back, buttocks and belly which were requisite in a skilled and accomplished axe wielder.

But in the weeks since that first meeting, his hard, scarred body-so very fair where sun and wind had not browned it, the skin so soft and smooth where the puckered cicatrices of old wounds did not roughen it-and the fine young man that body housed had become very dear to her. Few men she could recall in nearly a hundred and fifty years had become so dear so soon.

As his deadly efficiency as a warrior impressed all who witnessed it, as his almost immediate grasp of problems of strategy, tactics, logistics and the proper marshaling of a large, heterogeneous force impressed his peers and the High Lord, so did his understanding of the theory and application of the skills of the bedly arts amaze and enrapture the High Lady Aldora. His beautiful blending of tenderness and fire, of fierce passion and gentle regard, never failed to leave her trembling and gasping, sometimes weeping her pure joy and gratitude. Then he would kiss the tears from her cheeks and eyelids, while their warm breaths mingled and the caressing hands did delightful things to the ultrasensitive parts of her blissfully tired body . . . and would continue doing those things until her tiredness was once more drowned in a surging flood of fresh desire.

So it was this night His lips left hers to first nuzzle at her soft throat, then kiss their way downward to end suckling one red-brown nipple, while a big hand crept from beneath her back to gently roll the other nipple between thumb and forefinger. When the uncommitted hand glided over her flat belly, she moaned, then softly gasped as his hard but tender fingers continued on into the damp tangle beyond. And even as that hand moved slowly, engulfing all of her being in joy-drenched agony, his lips forsook her nipple and returned to her throat But now it was his even white teeth which served, inflicting tiny, stinging bites from the hollow of that throat around to the nape, then back up the slender column of her neck to her ear.

And the palms which had caressed his back were short-nailed claws which dug deep into his shoulders, tore oozing scratches in that freckled skin. Long shudders racked Al-dora's olive-tan body, her head lay thrown back, the eyelids tight closed and her lips skinned back from her teeth, while from her half-opened mouth issued an endless moan, interspersed with little whimpers of unbearable pleasure.

At last she began to gasp, "Oh, Bili . . . Bili ... oh, Bili, love . . . Oh, please, please, Bili .. . oh, dear, sweet Bili, enter -now ... I beg of you, Bili, as you love Sacred Sun . .. Please, Bili, please . . . Bili . . . Bili . . ."

And much, much later, as they lay side by side, his hand clasping hers, a balmy nightwind flickering the lamp flames and soothing their bodies, his mind touched her own.

"Aldora, I am ignorant of many things, but horses and riding I know well. It is ten days' hard riding from Morguhn to the nearest of the Middle Kingdoms, so it is just not possible that any galloper could have covered that distance and let it be known that there was a market here for Freefighters in time for them to start arriving in Morguhn only two weeks after I remarked the need for them. What sorcery do you practice, Aldora?"

"Not sorcery, Bili, farspeak."

"No\" He shook his shaven head, speaking aloud in his vehemence. "I know something of farspeak, Aldora. Most talented is the farspeaker who can range more than a score and ten miles, and even then he must know well the mind to which he speaks!"

A smile flitted across her face. "Oh, darling Bili, there is truly much you now know not But you will. I doubt you could believe now the multitude of new skills you'll learn, the abilities you'll learn you possess and can develop once we get this devilish rebellion scotched and-but that is future, my love.

"As for farspeak, generally speaking, you're right though training and practice can sometimes extend the range of one with minimal ability. Certain exceptional people, however, are born with fantastic range. I am one such, love. We have never had a way of determining just how great is my range. And the vast majority of farspeakers, who are normally limited to five or ten or twenty or forty miles, can still range far, far out if they take the time or are given the opportunity to acquire the skills of melding their minds with others in order to transmit with the combined force.

"The Undying High Lady Mara and Milo-she is almost devoid of farspeak, and he, with Sun and Wind know how many centuries of practice, can, under ideal conditions, range all of fifteen miles!-this is how they range distances, by drawing on the added power of another mind. But the mind must be willing to be so used, and it must be conscious and rational."

Bili interrupted. "Yes, Aldora, I know a little of this, come to think of it One of the Sanderz prairiecats, Whitetip, told me that the High Lord had contacted you through his mind on the night my brother was . . . slain. But he mentioned it sometime during that first, wild, hectic day of pursuit and, quite honestly, I'd forgotten it until now." She did not return to her discussion, but asked, "How many ... on how many levels of mindspeak can you operate, Bili?"

"Uhhhh . . . lets see. Well, personal, of course, and broadbeam, farspeak . . . within limits, of course. That's about it, unless my, uhhh . . . ability to foresense danger be considered a part of mindspeak."

She shrugged. "Some would say yes, some no, but the fact that you can is not really important in itself. What is important, Bili, is what your possession of that rare ability reveals to those who can recognize its hidden meanings."

"I don't follow, Aldora."

She sat up and crossed her shapely legs, running a fingertip along the scar of an old swordcut slanted across his chest. "Your formative years were spent either in warfare or in preparation for it, and is not your foresensing a very valuable ability for a warrior?"

"Yes, Aldora, it's saved my skin on numerous occasions."

Nodding, she then asked, "How many of your peers in Harzburk possessed mindspeak ability?"

Reaching out, he brought her hand to his lips, kissing the fingertip which had brushed his chest. "Well, it's not really rare in the Middle Kingdoms, though it's not customarily used as much as it is in the Confederation for some reason. I'd say maybe three burkers out of five have it to a greater or lesser degree. Why?"

"And," she inquired, arching her brows, "how many "of your peers possessed the ability to foresense danger as accurately as you do, love?"