The battle came to him in surrealistic flashes. Bearded faces distorted with rage or pain as his blade bit home; Moriana's slim sword flickered like a tongue of flame, its tip tracing lines of blood in the air as it struck and darted away; Onsulomulo danced through the crush of sweating, bloody bodies and fought using two short swords, hamstringing, stabbing kidneys, capturing swung cutlasses between his blades and spinning them away with a scissors twist; Magister Banshau, prodded in the belly by a blond-bearded pirate, raised a shrill keening of fury, swept a large tar barrel up above his head and sent it bowling down the decks like a runaway boulder crushing half a dozen pirates to bloody gruel. They all fought well. Erimenes crowed encouragement and Ziore, wincing with pain at what she must do, clouded the minds and slowed the reactions of pirates as they closed with Moriana. But it was all in vain, as Fost knew when he thrust his sword into an angry face and counted the eighth he'd killed with no slackening in the tide of enemies. The day was lost. Sheer value wouldn't offset the crushing weight of numbers.
Then with a bang! the Tiger drove its spur through the bireme's stern and her corvus thumped against the stern to allow Tim Devistri to lead the Tolvirot crew, rowers and all, up and over and in among the pirates. The battle was as good as ended.
Later, Fost and Moriana lay exhausted in their stateroom. The sweat of battle had been washed from their limbs in a cold stream of water pumped by bloody, bandaged, grinning seamen. Now their limbs were clad in the sweat of lovemaking of a fervor unusual even for them. The nearness of death had made the sensations all the sharper.
Moriana lay at Fost's side running fingers through the hair on his chest. He yelped as they explored a sticking plaster the ship's surgeon had slapped over a shallow puncture where a lucky pike thrust had popped a few more rings of his hapless chain mail shirt.
'I never would have thought the Tolvirot could fight like that,' she mused. 'They're mercenaries, after all. They fight for money, not conviction.'
'They've convictions. They're protecting freedom of trade, and that's powerful medicine to a Tolvirot. And does a highly paid artisan do lesser work merely for being higher paid?'
'I suppose not.' The ship creaked and sighed about them, a note of smugness in the sounds, as if the ship, too, were happily surprised to find itself still alive and free.
'Most of all, I guess, they fight for pride. A sense of honor.' He shrugged. 'Most soldiers fight for that, in spite of claims for creed or country.' 'You may be right.' She turned to nibble on his ear.
He squirmed. He resisted, only for the sheer pleasure of prolonging the sensation. She reached down and grabbed none too gently.
'Oh, well,' he said as he turned eagerly toward her. 'At least we're safe. Nothing can get past the Tiger.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
The whole populace of High Medurim had turned out to greet the Wyvern, complete with a skirling and banging military band, colored streamers and a troupe of naked dancing girls and boys, without which no public occasion was complete.
'At last,' Erimenes had said, puffing up like a courting frog, 'we receive attention commensurate with our status.'
Burly stevedores had swung Wyvern's fat stern up to the pier. The joyous tumult climaxed as the long wooden ramp was let down and the weary, shaken, but nonetheless gratified travellers set foot on the ancient stone of High Medurim. Singing traditional songs of welcome, the crowd swept forward…
… and engulfed Zolscher Banshau, hauling his vast bulk up onto its collective shoulders, bearing him forward in triumph to a state carriage waiting at the waterfront. An assembly of great and learned men, if their phenomenal beards and dizzingly tall hats were any indication, welcomed him aboard, while gorgeous maidens wearing diaphanous robes and foil haloes placed a wreath on his head and smothered his moustache with kisses. Magister Banshau, lying at ease on a sumptuous divan, beamed from the depths of gaudy floral wreaths as if he'd been named the Twenty-fourth Wise One of Agift. Shouting with joy, the crowd pelted along the sidewalks on either side of the carriage. The band fell in behind while nude brightly painted dancers scattered flowers and hard candies.
'Welcome to High Medurim,' Ortil Onsulomulo called down sarcastically to Fost and Moriana from the sterncastle. Not even Erimenes had anything to say to that.
They were still standing at the foot of the ramp when a carriage appeared. A fraction the size of the one bearing away the Wirixer mage, it was impressive enough, black enamelled and polished so obsessively that a courtier could use it as a mirror. The muffled, hooded driver brought the landau to a noisy halt in front of Fost and Moriana. A curtained door swung open and a clean-shaven man wearing a gleaming black uniform stepped out.
'I am General Falaris, Imperial Intelligence Service,' he announced. 'You are the Princess Moriana?' Startled, Moriana nodded. He bowed perfunctorily. 'Please come with me, Your Highness.' He shot hurried looks in both directions. 'Get in quickly before anyone sees.'
Fost felt nostalgic tears sting his eyes. 'Imperial Intelligence' was a contradiction in terms. Any Medurimin above the age of three knew who the shiny black landaus belonged to. They could as effectively keep secrets by hiring criers to proclaim that mysterious visitors had arrived by ship to confer with the Emperor.
The general's invitation had not included Fost. Moriana solved that problem by grabbing his arm and dragging him into the box after her. General Falaris looked doubtful at this turn of events but said nothing.
Fost went to Emperor Teom the Decadent's palace in a daze. The familiar sights and sounds of his birth city overwhelmed him. The richness, the poverty, the places of learning, the pits of dismal ignorance. He peered out from behind the golden curtains in the landau and saw urchins begging in the streets, old men, toothless and blind, directing pickpockets and cuffing the younglings incapable of stealing enough. He had been there – once. Now he was on his way to the palace of the Emperor.
'Welcome to High Medurim,' Emperor Teom said languidly. Draped over the arm of his throne, his wife and sister Temalla smiled and nodded in greeting, as well.
Moriana and Ziore bowed. Fost stood upright until a none too gentle elbow in his ribs from Moriana made him bend forward at the waist. It wasn't that he meant to defy the Emperor. He was simply struck numb by meeting the man who had once possessed so much power over him as a youth.
'The blue ghost does not bow.' hissed the small man at Teom's left. 'He does not pay proper reverence to Your Ineffability.'
Teom waved a hand. The fingers were slightly doughy and devoid of rings. 'Peace, Gyras. Were I fourteen centuries old I'd not be reverent to a mere emperor either.' His voice rang in mellifluous low tones. Though he sprawled bonelessly across his gilded throne, he seemed to be a tall, well-proportioned man.
Flushing turquoise in pleasure, Erimenes performed a deep bow. His domed forehead sank alarmingly into the marble floor before he straightened.
'Your Radiance is too kind,' he murmured. 'Far be it from me to contradict you, however, but I must point out I am fifteen centuries old, and a shade over, rather than fourteen.'
A growl emerged from Gyras's throat. Teom silenced him with a wave. The dwarven advisor drew his balding head down angrily, accentuating the hump on his back.
'I've never seen an Athalar spirit before, though I've heard of them,' Teom said.
'We are alike,' said Erimenes, fawning and again bowing so his head vanished through the floor clear to his brows, 'for I have never before seen an emperor.'
With superhuman effort, Fost bit back his reply. Fortunately, Te-malla interrupted Erimenes's sally into diplomacy by fixing Fost with big dark eyes made bigger by a liberal application of kohl and saying, 'Oh, but you must have had a long, hard journey.' Her husky voice accentuated the adjectives with undue emphasis. The Empress's voice had a curious quality about it that sent shivers up Fost's spine.
'Yes,' Teom said. A light came into his brown eyes. Reading his mood, his sister leaned forward and slipped a hand into a fold of his robe. She was of medium height, plump and with tightly curled brown hair hanging to her shoulders. Though she had not withstood the onslaught of middle years as well as her husband-brother, she was far
