tall man's head. The Zr'gsz was trapped.
'Have you anything to say before you fry, serpent man?' she called.
His hair smouldering from the nearness of flames, his right shoulder a torn and gaping ruin, Zak'zar showed sharp teeth in a smile.
'This round goes to you, Lady. But we shall meet again quite soon, and I believe I can promise a different outcome!'
'Meet again?' Her fine features showed disbelief. 'Not unless they've integrated Hell!'
'I'm not due there for quite a while, yet. It may be that you will precede me, unless your pitiful friends manage to defeat the army of the People that even now prepares to cross the River Marchant!'
The listeners gasped. Fost's face stung with the infernal heat of the flame. He marvelled that Zak'zar endured them so calmly. 'An army! Where would you get the men?' Moriana asked.
'Haven't you divined that? It is an army of the Children of Expectation. Since our exile from the City in the Sky, entire generations have grown to adulthood and then entered hibernation in vast crypts beneath Thendrun, waiting for the day we'd meet you in battle. I number myself among them, Your Highness. I have waited six thousand years for the day of final victory.'
'You won't live to see it!' screamed Moriana. She flung forth her hands. The flames devoured the wall.
Before the hungry blue tongues reached Zak'zar, the Speaker disappeared. There was a sharp crack! as air rushed to the space he had vacated. Then the only sounds were the disappointed clucking of the flames, and the moans of wounded men.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
'It seems we've been through this before,' Ziore remarked, looking down at the armies spread out at the foot of the bluff. Moriana had to agree. In many ways, the impending battle shaped up like the conflict at Chanobit Creek.
Vigorous interrogation of the assassins captured in the Palace revealed a plot laid by Zak'zar in collusion with the Guilds of the High Medurim – and Gyras, late advisor to Emperor Teom. The hunchback had been intercepted riding along the coast road that led to North Keep. After undergoing suitably painful torments, the dwarf was impaled as an object lesson for others.
Had Teom been with a Medurimin woman trained from birth in helplessness instead of Moriana, or had the dozen assailants infiltrating the Golden Dome not succumbed to the libidinous emanations from Erimenes's and Ziore's coupling, High Medurim would now be dominated by the Fallen Ones. Ten days after that night of lust and slaughter, Fost still had nightmares. One image in particular haunted him. Exhausted and bloodied, he had been helped back into the Golden Dome. He saw Ch'rri the winged cat woman kneeling above the body of her erstwhile lover licking the blood from her whiskers and paws. In good feline fashion, she had taken her pleasure from the lust-crazed assassin, then ripped him to pieces.
Badly shaken, Teom had named Fost a Marshal of the Emperor and given orders to march for the River Marchant. In two days, the Imperial Army issued forth from the high walls of Medurim, winding in a mile-long serpentine of trudging foot soldiers, baggage wagons and proud war dogs stepping out beneath armored riders. Temalla was left behind to cope with the administrative tangle ensuing from the attempted coup. Not the least of her problems was cleaning up after rioting had broken out the night of the attack when the Watch had attempted to arrest over seven thousand Medurimin for fornicating in the streets in violation of the traffic code.
As rapid as Imperial response had been, it had not come quickly enough to prevent the Vridzish from pouring across the Marchant and laying waste to half the Black March. Like locusts the Zr'gsz devoured everything edible in their path, including human inhabitants who didn't flee in time. Unlike locusts, what they couldn't consume they put to the torch.
A hundred spires of smoke reared up into the blue sky beyond the black ant-mass of the Zr'gsz armies. For the hundredth time since the sun came up, Fost tried to estimate how many there were. For the hundredth time, he gave up when the numbers became too hopelessly huge.
'Why did Zak'zar tell us about the Children of Expectation?' Fost asked, pulling up a clump of black-tipped grass and thumping the sod around its base listlessly against his thigh.
'To seize psychological advantage,' said the short, round, bald man in the white robe. Oracle tuned himself to Moriana's mind and succeeded in projecting his image several hundred miles from High Medurim as a result. 'We already know the Hissers had greater numbers than expected. By letting us know where they came from, Zak'zar also gave us reason to fear there'd be so many we couldn't possibly win.' Fost plucked out a blade of grass and chewed on it.
'Yes, if they've been stashing away the rising generation for thousands of years…' He let the sentence trail off. It was too depressing to finish.
'Well, Fost my boy,' Erimenes said avuncularly, 'see how you've come up in the world under my tutelage? You're now a bona-fide hero, and Marshal of the Empire as well, with a fine suit of armor and a strapping black and white war dog.'
'Marshal of the Empire, indeed.' He spat out the grass. 'Being Marshal doesn't mean those highborn fools listen to me, much less take my orders.'
'But Foedan of Kolnith and the Border Guards heed your counsel,' Ziore said. She favored Erimenes with a wink of surprising lewdness.
'That's all well and good,' replied Fost. 'The high and mighty chivalry of High Medurim and the knights of the other City States all think
Foedan's a traitor to his class. And the Border Guards and militias of the various Marches – never mind theirexperience – are considered nothing more than low born dabblers in the fine art of war.' He pointed with an armored arm.
'Behold the main strength of the Medurimin army. Fifteen thousand spearmen, every one of whom is a conscript wanting nothing more than to be somewhere else. Then there are eight thousand regulars of the Imperial Army, who look sharp in drill and who have never seen blood shed outside a barroom brawl. Then the infantry. On both wings are men who will win the day for humanity, if you care to listen to their boasts. Six thousand knights from Medurim and the City States, all of whom can be relied on to do the worst thing possible in any given circumstance. Sandwiched between are the only troops likely to do a damned bit of good, longbowmen from Samazant and Thrishnor, and there're only a scant four thousand of them. 'But what of the Borderers and the militiamen you think so highly of?' asked Ziore.
In disgust, Fost waved at men drawn up well to the rear of the front ranks.
'Back there where they can't get in the way of the precious cavalry.'
Oracle rubbed his plump chin with fingertips. It was a mannerism he'd picked up from Fost, which unnerved the courier every time he saw it.
'Is not the reserve a good place for them?' the projection asked. Fost swallowed hard. The sunlight contrived to shine through Oracle's body.
'It may turn out that way,' Fost answered, 'if the battle isn't lost before they can come to grips with the Hissers.'
Moriana walked over and laid tender hands on his shoulders. He couldn't actually feel her hands, since his body was encased in a lobster carapace of metal, but he still appreciated the gesture. He reached up and clasped her hand to his. 'At least you're near me, love,' she said quietly.
Fost's joy at hearing those words was short-lived. The two genies had heard the words, too, and triggered off a now-common response.
'Yes, my own true love,' Erimenes said in a disgustingly honeyed voice. 'And I shall be here, not far from your side!'
Ziore batted nonexistent lashes and said, 'Never leave me again! Oh, swear you won't, my blue darling.' 'Never, so long as we both shall live, sweetums.'
'Sweetums?' Fost and Moriana cried in unison. They shared a groan. It had been like this ever since the night in the Golden Dome. Neither ghost was a stranger to lust, but with the discovery that they could at long last do
