The Lohvian soldiery of Hiclantung ran smartly to their nactrix lines, mounted. Detachments maintained a covering shower of arrows. With an excess of energy like the release of icy water in the spring thaws of the north, I flung Thelda up into her saddle. I straddled my own mount. Seg was with us. Hwang shouted. The emptied supply cars were loaded with wounded. A wedge formed. I thrust my way to the apex — thinking ironically that this was the spot Queen Lilah had wished me to occupy, a spot in which my own foolhardy valor would spur on and encourage her army. Now I obeyed her wishes in order to save a paltry remnant of the Lohvians of Hiclantung.
Like some bursting summer storm cloud we broke away down the grassy slope. The nactrix hooves pounded. Arrows crisscrossed. Men and beasts shrieked and reared and fell away. We went bounding on, bouncing in our saddles, and yet maintaining that incredible accuracy of shooting that is the pride of the Lohvian.
Seg spurred up with me, his bow bending and releasing with a smooth inflexible rhythm. He controlled his mount with his knees, as did most of the men of Erthyrdrin, although some cavalrymen of Hiclantung tended to gather up their reins in the hands that grasped their longbows. I had followed the example of Seg, although my training stemmed from those far-off days riding with Hap Loder and my Clansmen across the Great Plains of Segesthes. Had I a phalanx of voves at my back now — we would smash like a roller of the gods across the Harfnars of Chersonang!
Seg turned his tanned flushed face toward me. Every thing about him was instinct with the passion of battle. I saw his face change; the expression of absolute horror and then of fanatical determination that crossed his features told me, without the need of personal verification, what had happened. With a tremendous shout Seg swirled about. He thrust his great longbow away as he spurred cruelly back.
Back there Thelda’s nactrix had taken an arrow in the belly.
She was sprawled across the grass to one side of the following wedge of cavalry. Arrows nicked the air. Arrows feathered into men and beasts. The carts rolled and bucked as they bounced after the cavalry wedge, their wounded occupants shrieking in time to the jouncing. Dust spurted. In all the crazed uproar I knew Seg could see only Thelda.
As he reached her a flying wing of Chersonang cavalry swept over them. I saw his long sword shining red; then he was down.
Somewhere in that melee of spurring beast-men and trampling nactrixes, of cutting steel and thrusting lances, lay Seg and Thelda.
I thought of Queen Lilah, and of my place at the apex of the wedge — but we were in retreat, we were not charging to victory. I brought the nactrix around with as much cruelty as Seg had shown, dug in my spurs, sent the half mad beast crashing back.
Harfnars with their flashing weapons reared before me.
Arrows cut the plumes from my helmet. Arrows clanged away flintily from the armor. One sank deeply into the neck of the nactrix. It went on and over in a somersault. I flew from its back, turning over, still grasping my long sword. I did not see Seg and Thelda again in that maelstrom of barbaric savagery. Then, for a space, I did not see anything at all save a red-flaming blackness. During this period of misted movement and dulled perception I was aware of a voice speaking in the common language of Kregen, so I knew it would be an indigo-haired Ullar talking to a Harfnar of Chersonang.
“Bring him. He will furnish sport for a while.”
There followed movement and the sensation of flying and the thrashing sounds of great wings beating the air. The ache in my head diminished to proportions just short of bearable and I came back to my senses chained and bound and strapped up to a granite wall in a dark dungeon. Dungeons are dungeons, as I have remarked before, and some are worse than others. This particular specimen contained all the unpleasant features a human-operated dungeon would have, plus a few the Harfnars had thought up out of their own culture of bestiality.
A groaning and moaning sound told me there were others of the men of Hiclantung with me, reserved for sport. There was no need to elaborate on what was in store for us. Cultures approximate, given the original dark impulse that began the gene trail.
By the time the first set of jailers flung open the lenken door and descended the greasy steps toward us I had freed my left wrist and partially broken away the links chaining my right. Under the impression that it was now or never I exerted all my force. My shoulders are not only wide, they are blessed with roping muscles that can surprise even me. The last link parted with a ringing ping. In the fresh dazzlement of light I blinked and caught two of the Harfnar jailers about their throats and squeezed and flung them into their companions. All the time a low bestial growling rumbled and raged in the dungeon. The Harfnars hoisted themselves up, yelling, and their swords flicked out. They approached me warily. I was still securely fastened by my legs, so that between fending off the beast- men with swung chains I bent and tried feverishly to unfasten my legs, only having to straighten up and lash out again to make them keep their distance.
“Put down your chains, you Hiclantung cramph!”
“I’ll slit your belly up to your throat, rast!”
At first I did not deign to answer them as they yelled at me and I worked on my bonds and swung the chains and all the time that sullen bestial roaring boomed and thundered in the dungeon.
“Keep them occupied!” shouted a Hiclantung cavalryman. The other captives were attempting to break their bonds, but they could not succeed. I still do not recall the exact strengths I exerted to snap those chains.
“Smash him over the head!” screeched the guard commander.
They danced in, one went down with his face ripped off, then they had entangled the chains, were bringing up spears to strike at me.
“Come on, rasts, and by the Black Chunkrah, come to your deaths!”
As I shouted the words, that bestial roaring stopped in the dungeon. Only then was the realization borne in on me that it was I, Dray Prescot, who had been roaring and thundering in so savage a fashion. The shock sobered me.
In that instant the dungeon door was blocked off by the entry of a bulky half-man and the guards finally lost their patience with me and one thrust hard and in deadly earnest. His spear point darted for my breast.
I smashed it away and took him by the throat with my left hand, held him squirming and kicking in the air as I snap-reversed the spear and de-gutted the next guard. Then I hurled the one I held into their midst and swung the spear down again in low port.
“What are you waiting for, offal and dung feeders?”
They hesitated. They were splashed with the blood of their comrades. They could see the dead bodies sprawled on the dungeon floor, dreadfully mutilated. And all this from a man chained up by his legs!
The newcomer shouted, harshly, loudly, angrily, beside himself with fury.
“Dunderheaded dolts! By Hlo-Hli the Debased! I’ll flog every man of you! Take him!
Goaded by twin fears, the Harfnars flung themselves upon me in a body. They entangled my left arm in flung ropes and dragged me down cruelly. I gasped and forced myself upright. A spear blade slogged down on my temple and I only half broke its force. But I slashed through the ropes — the flint-headed spear was sharper than any cheap steel — and reared back, blood obscuring my vision, my legs clamped as though trapped by a chank of the inner sea.
The man giving the orders moved closer. He peered at me in the light streaming down the dungeon steps. He put both hands on his hips and jutted his head forward, so that his indigo-stained beard shot forward like the ram of a swifter.
“You must be the one they call Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor.”
“And if I am, much good it will do you!” I shouted and hurled the spear full into his stomach. He gobbled and fell back, his hands clawing himself, seeking to stem the dark rush of blood welling past the neat flint-knapped semicircles of the blade.
His opened mouth sought to shriek, but only blood poured forth.
He fell.
And then I, Dray Prescot, laughed.
It did not last long after that.
The other captives were taken out one by one and when it was my turn I was tightly wrapped around in chains and ropes and carried up the dungeon steps. I saw clearly on the square boxlike faces of my captors a gloating kind of good humor. They knew what lay in store for me and they joyed in their dark fashion for the horrors
