happened but one thing alone could have lifted that burden from you.'
'He lives.' Her whisper tried to lose itself amid the sighing of the stream.
'I told you before,' he said, his arm encircling her, 'he must be a man indeed to leave so deep a mark upon you.' He smiled lop-sidedly. 'I wish that I could meet him.'
'Oh, but you can! Tomorrow, if…' She couldn't bring herself to say if either of you live. He shook his head. 'I have but one tomorrow remaining to me.' 'What do you mean?'
He pointed to the evening star twinkling on the saw-toothed edge of the wall of the mountains to the west.
'I shall not see the Crown of Jirre again, Bright Princess. I know this.'
'How can you know?' She wanted to jar him from this prophecy, but a thought jarred her instead. 'You have the Sight.'
'it may be so. I've felt at times 1 have a Gift. How else could I stir men as 1 do with simple words any can utter?' He hugged her tight, kissed her forehead. 'But don't grieve for me. Bright Princess. The end comes for us all. And this I know – tomorrow I shall have that which I desire most. No man can ask for more than that. And many receive much less in their lives – and deaths.'
'You're rationalizing,' she said weakly. 'You're trying to spare my feelings.' She tried to convince herself that Darl's belief he wouldn't live out the next day was only morbid imagination. Something within her knew better.
'Will you love me one last time?' she asked, her voice barely audible above the rippling of the stream. 'Princess, I'll love you forever,' he said.
Tenderly he touched her breasts, dipped his head, nuzzled her cheek, touched his lips to hers. Her mouth opened to his. In the last light of day they stripped and made love beside the river, with the bittersweet languor of those who know there will be no other nights for them.
A trumpet skirled from the highest tower of the Palace of Winds as the dawn spilled over the rim of the Central Massif and fell upon the swarm of shapes rising from the hills ahead. A thunderclap broke the City's stillness as four thousand eagles seized the air with eager wings. For a moment, they hovered like a feathered cloud above the buttressed towers of the City in the Sky. One eagle broke to rise above the rest, a huge bird as black as the bedchamber of Itsu but for the scarlet crest blazing on its head. The tiny figure on its back waved a lance. Eight thousand throats, men's and birds' together, answered him with a fearsome cry. Then the aerial legions of the City in the Sky formed and flew to meet the attack of Moriana and the Fallen Ones.
Moriana's heart quailed as she saw the arrowhead flights streaking toward her. She had known all along that her quest must end with this. She faced the eagles of the City in the element they had ruled for eighty centuries. More than anyone else she knew how near that course skirted outright suicide.
But the skyrafts had plied the air for uncounted generations before the first of the giant war eagles were bred by Kyrun Etuul for the armies of Riomar shai-Gallri, first human queen of the City. More than a thousand of the rafts formed Moriana's aerial armada, from small swift two-man flyers to great stone barges mounting powerful war engines and carrying scores of men. Her own raft fell midway. It was thirty feet long and fifteen wide, ringed with a stone bulwark that came waist-high on the princess.
A wooden box atop the bulwark gave added protection. With her rode forty men in the green and brown of the Nevrym foresters. The only Hisser aboard was the pilot, a stunted male in a loincloth who hunkered at the stern, moving his clawed hands over the surface of an obsidian ball. The globe somehow steered the craft. Moriana had felt magic tingling beneath her palms when she had handled one experimentally, but she couldn't attune herself to it. It was Vridzish magic, like the skyrafts themselves.
Most of the craft were less well protected than hers. Most made do with movable screens of wicker or wood, and some augmented the stone ramparts with sandbags. It wasn't solely to protect the princess that her craft carried so much cover. Along with four other craft similarly equipped and crewed, hers would be running the gauntlet of the defenders in advance of the main force and land in the City to link up with the Underground's rebels. The other rafts would engage the bird riders while Moriana fought her way into the Palace of Winds and the meeting with her twin.
The princess looked to her right. Darl stood resplendent in plate armor, the golden slanting sun turning him into a demigod. He had one booted foot on the bulwark of his raft and his head was thrown back, grinning into the wind with his long brown hair streaming out behind. He saw Moriana, brought hilt to lips and kissed it. She mocked a smile and waved.
To her left rode Khirshagk. Like Darl's, his raft was mostly open and like the Count-Duke's his vessel had a mixed crew. There seemed two classes of Zr'gsz: tall, well-built males who were possibly nobles and resembled their Instrumentality. The other type of lizard men was more numerous and seemed of the same caste as the pilots. They were smaller and armored rarely, if at all. They carried shortbows, slings, javelins; another was assigned to every noble, Darl included, and bore only a large shield.
Here and there on the other rafts Moriana glimpsed the paleness of human skin. There were many more of the green Hissers. She wondered where they had come from, as she had many times since the first columns marched to Omizantrim from the keep at Thendrun in strength greater than she would have believed the Zr'gsz could muster. This was no time to question their presence; the eagles were on wing and she could only be thankful for the numbers of her allies.
A wedge of birds flew straight for the three long rafts in the lead. Moriana appreciated having the three paramount commanders each on a different skyraft – she had insisted on it – but at the moment she wished fervently she had Darl at her side. Or Fost.
Spears, stones and arrows arced to meet the attacking formation. From the way the bird riders flew, Moriana knew these weren't Sky Guards. She nocked an arrow but kept her attention high. Far overhead an echelon lined out with mathematical precision. The Guard, no doubt led by Rann himself, waited for the common bird riders to draw the attention of the enemy so they could swoop and kill. 'Above!' she called. 'The Sky Guard. Rann!'
Darl turned, then shouted back, 'I see them! Thank you, Bright Princess!'
She had to shout again to attract Khirshagk's attention. The king-priest of the Hissers solemnly bowed but didn't look above. Moriana considered shouting again to be sure he understood, then decided to save her breath. He would discover soon enough what he faced.
The nearest attackers were three hundred yards away and closing fast. Without thinking, Moriana drew and loosed. The lead bird rider somersaulted over his mount's tail feathers and fell, flailing his arms in a futile attempt at flight. Moriana heard a buzz of admiration from the Nevrymin. A half-dozen of them had shot and none of their shafts had found a mark. They considered themselves fine shots, and so they were – by groundling standards. The princess was a full-fledged Sky Guardswoman and could put fifteen shafts into a palm-sized mark at two hundred yards in a minute's time.
The foresters loosed another volley. This time one eagle fluttered groundward and another shrieked mourning for its fallen rider. Only a few of the Nevrym men could shoot through the firing slits at a time. The others hunkered on the deck and grumbled. But they weren't meant to shoot it out with the bird-borne marksmen. They must be preserved as shock troops for the landing.
'Well shot,' she called to her men. They turned rueful smiles in her direction. She obviously outshot them. They applied themselves to the attack, concentrating in an attempt to better her towering skill with a bow.
Shooting methodically, Moriana emptied four more saddles with five shots. Then the eagles were rushing past in a whirlwind of sound. A bluff blackbearded forester to her right gurgled and sank with an arrow through his neck. Arrows fell like the sleet against the plank protection of her raft.
She darted a glance at Darl's raft. He still stood exposed, his foot on the low wall. 'You fool!' she cried out
'But a magnificent fool,' said Ziore from her secure spot at Moriana's hip. The powerful eagle Terror uttered a brief cry to its master.
'I see her, old friend,' Rann said, leaning forward to pat the sleek black neck. It took eagle-keen eyes to make out the princess's slim form through the slits of the covered raft. Rann's tawny eyes were second only to those of the great bird he rode. He smiled, raised a gloved left hand. Then he put Terror into a steep dive
Moriana glanced up, saw the Guards peeling from their echelon formation and streaking down. She widened her stance, nocked a new arrow, waited.
'Damn the bitch!' cursed Rann. 'She sees me.' But to his surprise, the prince found himself laughing in sheer delight. He had personally trained his cousin. He would hate to have her disappoint him. He nocked his own shaft,
