slope straight toward us. There were twenty-three of them, as I saw at a glance. Their mail and helms gleamed in the sun. And holstered and upraised from a horse near their leader was a long pole from which streamed their standard: a bright yellow banner showing the coils and fiery tongue of a great red dragon.
'Oh, my Lord!' Maram cried out. 'Oh, my Lord!'
Liljana, who had drawn her sword, looked about with her calm, penetrating eyes and said to me, 'Do we flee or fight, Val?'
'Perhaps neither,' I said, trying to keep my voice calm for Maram's sake – and my own. I turned, pointing toward the right, where a hummock stood like a grass-covered castle. 'Up there – we'll face them up there.'
'That's very right,' Master Juwain said reassuringly as he looked at the men bearing down on us. 'This is probably just some wayward lord and his retainers. If we flee, he'll think we're thieves or afraid of them.'
'Well, we are afraid of them!' Maram pointed out. He might have said more, but we had already turned to gallop up the hummock, and the shock of his horse's heaving muscles drove the wind from him. It took us only a few moments to gain what little protection the hummock's height provided us. Its top was nearly flat, perhaps fifty yards across; we sat on our horses there as we watched the men approach. I didn't remark what we could now see quite plainly: that next to this great lord, who bore upon his yellow surcoat another red dragon, rode three naked men whose bodies seemed painted blue. Their little mountain ponies carried them up our hummock with greater agility than did the war horses of their more heavily armored companions.
Each of the three men were short and immensely muscled, and they each brandished in their knotted fists an immense steel axe.
'I'm sorry,' Alphanderry said to Kane, who had his sword drawn as his black eyes stared down at the approaching company.
'It's not your sorrow that we need now, my young friend,' Kane said with a grim smile, 'but your strength. And your courage.'
The company drew up in a crescent on the slope below us. And then their leader, along with the standard- bearer and one of the blue men, rode forward a few paces.
He was a quick-eyed man with a vulpine look to his hard face, which seemed all angles and planes, like pieces of chipped flint. Many would have called him handsome, a grace that he seemed to relish as he sat up straight on his horse in all his vanity and pride. His eyes were almost as dark as his well-trimmed beard; they fixed upon me like poisoned lances that pierced my heart with all the darkness of his.
'Who are you?' he called out to me in a raspy voice. 'Come down and identify yourselves!'
'Who are you,' I said to him, 'who rides upon us in surprise like robbers?'
'Robbers, is it?' he said. 'Be careful how you speak to the lord of this domain!'
I traded a quick look with Kane and then Atara, who held her strung bow down against her saddle. Rinald had told us that Virad's lord was Duke Vikram, an old man with scars along his white-bearded face. To this much younger man below us, I said, 'We had heard that the lord of this domain is Duke Vikram.'
'Not any more,' the man said with glee. 'Duke Vikram is dead. I'm the lord of Virad now. And of Sikar and Aigul. You may address me as Count Ulanu.'
It came to me, all in a moment, what the terrible stench in the air must be: the taint of manycorpses rotting in the sun. Somewhere near here, I knew, a battle had recently been fought. And Count Ulanu claimed the lordship of Virad by right of conquest.
'You have my name, now give me yours,' the Count said to me.
'We're pilgrims,' I told him, 'only pilgrims bound for Khaisham.'
'Pilgrims with swords,' he said, looking at Kane, Maram and Liljana Then he turned his gaze on me and studied my face for a long time 'It's said that the Valari look like you.'
I slipped my hand beneath my cloak as I rested it on the hilt of my sword. I noticed Maram gripping his red crystal in his free hand even as Liljana held her blue stone to her head.
'What's that you've got in your hand?' Count Ulanu barked at her.
But Liljana didn't answer him; she just sat staring at him as if her eyes could drink up all the challenge in his and still hold more.
Count Ulanu bent his head to whisper something to one of the Blues, whose large, round head was shaved and stained darkly with the juice of the kirque berries, even as Kane had said. One of his ears was missing, and the skin about the hole there all scabbed over. Along his side, he showed an open wound, probably from a sword cut; in the dark red suck of it squirmed many white maggots eating away the decaying flesh there. As he pointed at Alphanderry and whispered back to Count Ulanu, I understood that this was the man who had sighted us earlier. Most likely, he had then gone to fetch the Count and his other men upon us.
'You picked an evil time for your pilgrimage,' the Count said, looking up at us. His raspy voice had now softened as if he were trying to lure a reluctant serving girl into his chambers. 'There has been unrest in Sikar and in Virad. Both Duke Amadam and Duke Vikram were forced to ask our help in putting down rebellions. This we did.
We've recently fought a battle not far from here, at Tarmanam. Victory was ours, but sadly, Duke Vikram was killed. A few of the rebellious lords and their knights escaped us. They'll likely turn to outlawry now and fall upon pilgrims such as you.
This country isn't safe. That is why we must ask you to lay down your arms and come with us for your own protection.'
I sat on top of Altaru sweating in the burning sun as I listened to him. I smelled the acridness of his own sweat and that of the knights about him. I knew that he was lying, even if I couldn't quite tell what the truth really was, I noticed Liljana suddenly close her eyes; it was strange how she seemed to be staring straight at him even so.
'You might ask us to lay down,' Kane told him, with surprising politeness, 'but we must respectfully decline your request.'
'I'm afraid we must to do more than ask,' Count Ulanu said, his voice rising with anger. 'Please lay down now and come with us.'
'No,' Kane told him. 'No, we can't do that.'
'When peace has been restored,' the Count went on, we'll provide you an escort to Khaisham so that you may complete your pilgrimage.'
'No, thank you,' Kane said icily.
'You have my word that you'll be treated honorably and well,'
Count Ulanu said smiling sincerely. 'There's a tower for guests at Duke Vikram's castle – it overlooks the Ashbrum River. Well be happy to set you up there.'
Now LilJana's nose pointed straight toward him as if she were sniffing out poison in a cup. She suddenly opened her eyes to stare at him as she said, 'He speaks the truth: there are many towers of wood now at the Duke's castle. He intends to set us on these crosses with the Duke's knights and his family.'
The sudden rage that enpurpled Count Ulanu's face just then was terrible to behold.
He whipped out his saber and pointed it at Liljana as he shouted, 'Damn you, witch!
Give me what's in your hand before I cut it off and take it from you!'
Liljana opened her hand to show him her blue gelstei. Then she smiled defiantly as she closed her hand about the stone and stuck her fist out toward him.
'Damn witch,' the Count muttered.
'There was a battle at Tarmanam,' she said to all who could hear. 'But there were no rebellious lords – only those faithful to Duke Vikram, who has been cruelly tortured to death.'
In her frightfully calm and measured way, she went on to tell us something of what she had seen in the Count's mind. She said that he and his army had marched into Sikar even as Rinald had told us. But there had been no siege of the mighty fortifications there. As soon as the Count's engineers had set up their catapults and battering rams, his army had been joined by a host of Blues. And then Kailimun priests within the city had assassinated the Duke of Sikar and his family; the Duke's cousin. Baron Mukal, bowing before the terror of these priests, had thrown open the city gates. Hostages had been taken and threatened with crucifixion. The Sikar army had then gone over to the Count taking oaths of loyalty to him and his distant master. Thus Sikar had fallen in scarcely a day.
Count Ulanu had then gathered up both armies – and the companies of Blues. In a lightning strike, he had swept south, into Virad. Duke Vikram and his lords had had no time to watch events unfold in Sikar and to sue for
