indicated the place on the chart. 'Move swiftly to it. There will be scouts waiting for you. They will have more weapons for your men, and they will guide you to the Kitangule Gap.
That will be the main mustering ground for all our people. Be discreet and circumspect. Tell only those you can trust of our plans. You know from bitter experience that the spies of the oligarchs are everywhere. Do not move before the appointed time, unless you receive direct orders from either Colonel Cambyses or me.' Before sunrise they rode on. The commanders of the outlying garrisons and military forts were almost solidly Tinat's men. They listened to his orders, made few suggestions and asked fewer questions. 'Send us the order to march. We will be ready,' they told him.
The three main mines were in the south-eastern foothills of the mountains. In the largest, thousands of slaves and prisoners toiled on the stopes, digging out the rich silver ore. The commander of the guards was one of Tinat's men. He was able to spirit That and Meren, dressed as labourers, into the slave barracoons and prison compounds. The inmates had organized themselves into secret cells and elected their leaders. That knew most of the leaders well: before their arrest and incarceration they had been his friends and comrades. They listened to his orders with joy.
'Wait for the harvest moon,' he told them. 'The guards are with us.
At the appointed time they will open the gates and set you free.'
The other mines were smaller. One produced copper and zinc, the alloy needed to turn copper into bronze. The smallest of all was the richest.
Here the slaves worked a thick seam of gold-bearing quartz, so rich that lumps of pure gold gleamed in the light of the miners' lamps.
'We have fifteen wagonloads of pure gold stored in the smelter,' the chief engineer told That.
'Leave it!' Meren ordered brusquely.
That nodded. 'Yes! Leave the gold.'
'But it is a vast treasure!' the engineer protested.
'Freedom is an even greater treasure,' Meren said. 'Leave the gold.
It will slow us down, and we can find better use for the wagons. They will carry the women, children and any men who are too frail or sick to walk.'
It was still twenty days short of the harvest moon when the oligarchs struck. Many thousands were already privy to the planned exodus so a bright flame was burning throughout Jarri. It was inevitable that the spies would pick up its smoke. The oligarchs sent Captain Onka with two hundred men to Mutangi, the village from which the rumours had emanated.
They surrounded it at night and captured all the inhabitants. Onka interrogated them one at a time in the village council hut. He used the lash and the branding iron. Although eight men died during the questioning, and many more were blinded and maimed, he learned little.
Then he started on the women. Bilto's youngest wife was the mother of twins, a girl and a boy aged four. When she resisted Onka's questions, he forced her to watch while he decapitated her son. Then he threw the boy's severed head at her feet, and picked up his sister by a handful of her curls. He dangled her screaming and wriggling before her mother's face. 'You know that I will not stop with just one of your brats,' he told the woman and pricked the little girl's cheek with his dagger. She shrieked afresh with pain, and the mother broke down. She told Onka everything she knew, and that was a great deal.
Onka ordered his men to drive all the villagers, including Bilto, his wife and their surviving daughter, into the thatched council hut. They barred the doors and windows, then set fire to the thatch. While the screams were still ringing from the burning building, Onka mounted and rode like a fury for the citadel to report to the oligarchs.
Two of the villagers had been hunting in the hills. From afar they witnessed the massacre and went to warn That and Meren that they had been betrayed. They ran all the way to where the band was hiding, a distance of almost twenty leagues.
That listened to what the two men told him, and did not hesitate.
'We cannot wait for the harvest moon. We must march at once.'
'Taita!' Fenn cried out, in agony of spirit. 'You promised to wait for him.'
'You know that I cannot,' That replied. 'Even Colonel Cambyses must agree that I dare not do so.'
Reluctantly Meren nodded. 'Colonel That is right. He cannot wait.
He must take the people and fly. Taita himself wanted it.'
'I will not go with you,' Fenn cried out. 'I will wait until Taita comes.'
'I will stay too,' Meren told her, 'but the others must leave at once.'
Sidudu reached for Fenn's hand. 'You and Meren are my friends. I will not go.'
'You are brave girls,' said That, 'but will you go again to the Temple of Love and bring out our young women?'
'Of course!' Fenn exclaimed.
'How many men will you need to go with you?' asked That.
'Ten will suffice,' Meren told him. 'We will also need spare horses for the temple girls. We will bring them to you at the first river crossing on the road to Kitangule. Then we will come back to wait for Taita.'
They rode for most of the night. Fenn and Sidudu led, but Meren followed close behind on Windsmoke. In the early light of dawn, before sunrise, they breasted the top of the hills and looked down on the Temple of Love, nestled in the valley below.
'What is the morning routine in the temple?' Fenn asked.
'Before sunrise the priestesses take the girls to the temple to pray to the goddess. After that they go to the refectory for breakfast.'
