poured through the arch in response. Garth bellowed again, shouting, 'I'a bheluye! I am destruction!' He knew that the psychologically correct action at this moment would be to leap down into the men before him, slashing about with the sword; such an assault would almost certainly drive them all back out through the archway. Unfortunately, he could not bring himself to cause such unprovoked bloodshed, and instead merely whirled the blade about his head again, so that it flashed redly as it caught the last light of the setting sun.
The men stared up at him open-mouthed; none advanced-but none retreated, either, though there were some who shuffled uneasily. He was not going to awe them into flight unless he attacked, but he could not bring himself to do so. Quite aside from his aversion to such wanton aggression, it was a long leap down from the roof; even if he made it without injuring himself, which shouldn't prove too difficult, he would most likely stumble or fall upon landing, which would destroy his dignity and ruin the effect of his entrance by revealing him as merely mortal, leaving him open to a concerted counterattack.
The solution to his quandary arrived suddenly, just as the perfect moment passed and the men began to recover their nerve; in a single silent bound, Koros cleared the stable wall, rebounded from the roof with a spray of shards of tile shattered by its weight, and landed atop three of the Dыsarrans. They died without knowing what had hit them, as the warbeast's claws shredded robes, armor, and flesh; the crunching of bone was audible throughout the stableyard over the triumphant roar that Koros released as it struck. The swords the three men had held flew from their hands and clattered on the armor of their companions behind them; one laid open a man's scalp before falling aside.
Not satisfied with the single attack, Koros leapt again, a short, powerful pounce that smashed another man to the ground so suddenly that the man behind him went down as well, his leg trapped beneath the falling body even as he turned to flee. The first man was ripped open from forehead to groin by a slash of the warbeast's fangs as the second lay screaming, pinned beneath the weight of the monster's forepaws on his companion's corpse. As an afterthought, one of those great velvet-padded paws licked out, in a motion identical with that of a kitten batting a ball of yarn, and the beast's curving claws snatched the screamer's head off, spraying blood across the heels of his fleeing comrades.
Garth stood on the rooftop, virtually forgotten, and watched as the crowd of warriors vanished back through the arch into the street. The huge broadsword hung loosely in his hands as Koros, with a brief gaze at the fleeing Dыsarrans, declined to pursue and settled down to feast on the five it had slain. It licked its claws daintily, cast a glance of its slit-pupilled eyes at its overman master, and began eating.
When a moment had passed with no further attention paid him and no sign of a renewed assault from without, Garth tossed the sword to the ground, then cautiously lowered himself over the eaves and dropped down into the yard.
The gathering dusk had shrouded the stables in semi-darkness, and he had no way of making a light; he peered through the gray gloom at the familiar stall, and made out the pale oval of Frima's face above the door. He strode up to her, and found she was staring fixedly, mouth gaping, at Koros as it chewed contentedly on a human thighbone.
'We must get out of the city,' he said.
She said nothing, but continued to stare. Her mouth closed; her throat worked, making no sound, and her jaw fell open again.
'Our best hope is to ride Koros. It can probably carry both of us faster than we could move on foot, and we need not worry about separation.'
She was silent for a second longer, then blinked and turned toward the overman. 'Ride that?' Her voice was hoarse.
'Yes. It is the same animal you petted yesterday, and now that it has eaten, it should give us no trouble.'
Her gaze turned back to Koros who, having eaten its fill, was licking its paws clean, then traveled across the fragmentary remains of its victims, to rest at last on the severed head that had rolled, unwanted and unnoticed, across the yard, to lie against the wall beside the arch. Her mouth twitched, and she turned away to vomit on the dirty straw that floored the stall.
Garth waited patiently until she had finished, then said, 'It would be helpful if you would aid in loading the supplies.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Although it was plain from the rattle of armor, the mutter of voices, and an occasional quick glimpse through the arch that a considerable body of armed men lurked in the street in front of the inn, there were no further attacks nor attempts to enter the stableyard. Koros was completely docile once he had eaten his fill, and Garth had no trouble in loading and tying down all his remaining supplies and the sack containing the assorted loot from the first five temples-excluding Frima, who remained nervous and reluctant to approach the warbeast. When that was done, he found a place for the great sword, slipping it into the harness in such a way that its oversized blade ran along the beast's right flank, with the hilt at its neck. It would not be very accessible, but it would be secure; Garth was much more willing to trust their defense to Koros than he was to try and hang onto the awkward weapon while riding at high speed. When that was in place, he lifted Frima onto the back of the saddle, and swung himself up into position in front of her.
His current plan was simplicity itself; he and Frima would hang on as best they could while Koros made a dash for the city gate. The Dыsarrans had not yet had much opportunity to see the warbeast in action, and it was Garth's hope that they would be unable to do anything to stop such a dash. There was always the chance that a lucky archer would put an arrow through the beast's eye, or through his own throat, or through some part of the unarmored girl behind him, but he could see no way to avoid that risk.
He made a final check of the knots and buckles securing everything, adjusted his own seat, and reminded Frima to hold on well; then he leaned forward and spoke in the warbeast's triangular ear the single word that meant, 'Take us home.'
It snorted, and padded silently out into the yard; it circled once, studying its surroundings, and then, with no warning, launched itself upward.
It landed on the now-familiar roof with a crunching of broken tiles, continued forward with a shorter leap to the brink overlooking the street, then dove over the edge into the street, ignoring the crowd of humans.
Garth had expected the warbeast to take that route, but the actual fact was nothing like the expectation; never before had he been subjected to such sudden changes in velocity and direction, such abrupt rising and falling, and his firm grip on the harness seemed suddenly very precarious. His stomach churned with the movement; he had once been in a storm at sea-or at any rate while aboard a ship, though technically it had been in a sheltered bay and not on the high seas-and the seasickness that had briefly overcome him on that occasion was the only comparison he could think of for this new and thoroughly unpleasant sensation. The seasickness had developed slowly and gradually; this motion sickness was as sudden and instantaneous as the motion that caused it. He leaned forward, eyes closed, clutching at the beast's neck, fighting the need to vomit.
Frima, behind him, was equally affected; her head snapped back and forth with each leap, as she fought to retain her hold on Garth's waist. Her just-emptied stomach rebelled painfully, but was unable to expel what was no longer there. Her eyes watered with the pain.
Thus neither could see what was happening, which was probably just as well. Unmindful of the puny humans, Koros had landed full in their midst, flattening several, then bounded forward again, leaving half a dozen dead or maimed. A shower of crossbow bolts, fired far too late, tore through the spot where it had first appeared on the stable roof, and a random spatter of crossbow fire continued to follow in its wake as it made its way through the crowd toward the marketplace. At first its path was strewn with bloodied corpses and new-made cripples, but very quickly the mob vanished from in front of this unstoppable juggernaut, and it moved forward in its normal smooth glide instead of a series of violent assaults.
Garth recovered himself enough to marvel at the number of men his enemies had mustered, and at the incredible power and speed of his mount. He had seen the beast in action before and admired its fluid might and blurring quickness, but watching that velocity and being carried along were two entirely different things. When Koros moved at its full fighting speed, the wind in the faces of its riders was like a solid wall pressing them back; it
