with Maytera Rose and Maytera Marble; and they, praying together
in the sellaria of the cenoby, had quite properly said 'we.' She
thought: But I'm praying for all of us. For all who may die this
afternoon, for Bison and Patera Gulo and Bream and that man who
let me borrow his sword. For the volunteers who'll ride with me in a
minute, and Patera Silk and Lime and Zoril and the children.
Particularly for the children. For all of us, Great Pas.
'_We acknowledge you the supreme and sovereign_...'
And there it was, an armored floater with all its hatches down
turning onto Cage Street. Then another, and a third. A good big
space between the third and the first rank of marching Guardsmen
because of the dust. A mounted officer riding beside his troopers.
The soldiers would be in back (that was what the messenger had
reported) but there was no time to wait until they came into view,
though the soldiers would be the worst of all, worse even than the
floaters.
Beads forgotten, she hurried back the way she had come.
Scleroderma was still there, holding the white stallion's reins. 'I'm
coming too, Maytera. On these two legs since you won't let me have
a horse, but I'm coming. You're going, and I'm bigger than you.'
Which was true. Scleroderma was no taller, but twice as wide.
'Shout,' she told her. 'You're blessed with a good, loud voice. Shout
and make all the noise you can. If you can keep them from seeing
Bison's people for one second more, that may decide it.'
A giant with a gape-toothed grin knelt, hands clasped to help her
mount; she put her left foot in them and swung into the saddle, and
although she sat a tall horse, the giant's head was level with her
own. She had chosen him for his size and ferocious appearance.
(Distraction--distraction would be everything). Now it struck her
that she did not know his name. 'Can you ride?' she asked. 'If you
can't, say so.'
'Sure can, Maytera.'
He was probably lying; but it was too late, too late to quiz him or
get somebody else. She rose in her stirrups to consider the five
riders behind her, and the giant's riderless horse. 'Most of us will be
killed, and it's quite likely that all of us will be.'
The first floater would be well along Cage Street already, halted
perhaps before the doors of the Alambrera; but if they were to
succeed, their diversion would have to wait until the marching men
behind the third floater had closed the gap. It might be best to fill
the time.
'Should one of us live, however, it would be well for him--or her--to
know the names of those who gave their lives. Scleroderma, I
can't count you among us, but you are the most likely to live. Listen
carefully.'
Scleroderma nodded, her pudgy face pale.
'All of you. Listen, and try to remember.'
The fear she had shut out so effectively was seeping back now.
She bit her lip; her voice must not quaver. 'I'm Maytera Mint, from
the Sun Street manteion. But you know that. You,' she pointed to
the rearmost rider. 'Give us your name, and say it loudly.'
'Babirousa!'
'Good. And you?'
'Goral!'
'Kingcup!' The woman who had supplied horses for the rest.
'Yapok!'
'Marmot!'
'Gib from the Cock,' the giant grunted, and mounted in a way
that showed he was more accustomed to riding donkeys.
'I wish we had horns and war drums,' Maytera Mint told them.
'We'll have to use our voices and our weapons instead. Remember,
the idea is to keep them, the crews of the floaters especially, looking
and shooting at us for as long as we can.'
The fear filled her mind, horrible and colder than ice; she felt sure
her trembling fingers would drop Patera Silk's azoth if she tried to
take it from her pocket; but she got it out anyway, telling herself
that it would be preferable to drop it here, where Scleroderma could
hand it back to her.
Scleroderma handed her the reins instead.
'You have all volunteered, and there is no disgrace in reconsidering.
Those who wish may leave.' Deliberately she faced forward, so
that she would not see who dismounted.
At once she felt that there was no one behind her at all. She
groped for something that would drive out the fear, and came upon
a naked woman with yellow hair--a wild-eyed fury who was not
herself at all--wielding a scourge whose lashes cut and tore the gray
sickness until it fled her mind.
Perhaps because she had urged him forward with her heels,
perhaps only because she had loosed his reins, the stallion was
rounding the corner at an easy canter. There, still streets ahead
though not so far as they had been, were the floaters, the third
settling onto the rutted street, with the marching troopers closing
behind it.
'For Echidna!' she shouted. 'The gods will it!' Still she wished for
war drums and horns, unaware that the drumming hooves echoed
and re-echoed from each shiprock wall, that her trumpet had shaken
the street. 'Silk is Calde!'
She jammed her sharp little heels in the stallion's sides. Fear was gone,
replaced by soaring joy. '_Silk is Calde!_' At her right the giant
was firing two needlers as fast as he could pull their triggers.
'_Down the Ayuntamiento! Silk is Calde!_'
The shimmering horror that was the azoth's blade could not be
held on the foremost floater. Not by her, certainly not at this
headlong gallop. Slashed twice across, the floater wept silvery metal
as the street before it erupted in boiling dust and stones exploded
from the gray walls of the Alambrera.
Abruptly, Yapok was on her right. To her left, Kingcup flailed a
leggy bay with a long brown whip, Yapok bellowing obscenities,
Kingcup shrieking curses, a nightmare witch, her loosed black hair
