'The delta is so huge,' said a fellow beside us, on the deck, looking out.
'It is so vast, so green, so much the same, yet everywhere different,' said another. 'It frightens me.'
'We need scouts,' said another.
'We need eyes,' said another.
'Look!' cried a fellow, pointing upward.
'There are our eyes!' said the fellow who had spoken before.
There was a cheer from the hundreds of men about. A tarnsman, several hundred feet above us, coming from the south, wheeled in flight. Even at the distance we could make out the scarlet of his uniform.
'He is bringing the bird around,' said a man.
'He will land,' said another.
Several of the fellows lifted their hands to the figure on tarnback who was now coming about.
The lookout on the observation platform behind us, on that barge which served the officer as his command ship, began, with both hands, to call the tarnsman down.
I watched the pattern in the sky. I was uneasy. There was a smoothness in it, the turning, and now, as I had feared, the wings of the tarn were outspread.
'He is arming!' I said. 'Beware!'
I watched the smooth, gliding descent of the bird, the sloping pattern, the creature seemingly almost motionless in the air, but seeming to grow larger every instant. The tarn's claws were up, back, beneath its body. 'Beware!' I cried. 'It is not landing!' Men looked upward, puzzled. 'Beware!' I cried. 'It is an attack pattern!' Could they not see that? Did they not understand what was happening? Could they not understand the rationale of that steadiness, the menace of the motionlessness of those great wings? Could they not see that what was approaching was in effect a smoothly gliding, incredibly stable, soaring firing platform? 'Take cover!' I cried. The fellow on the observation platform, on the barge, watching the approach of the bird and rider, lowered his arms, puzzled. 'Take cover!' I cried. One could scarcely see the flight of the quarrel. It was like a whisper of light, terribly quick, little more than something you are not sure you have really seen, then the bird had snapped its wings and was ascending. It then, in a time, disappeared, south.
'He is dead,' said a fellow from the deck of the captain's barge, where the lookout had fallen, the fins of a quarrel protruding from his breast. It had not been a difficult shot, it might have been a stationary target, a practice run on the training range.
'Those are not your eyes,' I said to a fellow looking up at me. 'Those are the eyes of Cos.' The tam had returned southward. That was as I would have expected.
Men stood about, numb.
'Where are our tarnsmen?' asked a fellow.
'Cos controls the skies,' I said. 'You are alone in the delta.
'Kill him,' said a man.
'Surely,' I said, 'you do not think the paucity of your tarn support in an area such as this, and even hitherto in the north, in the vicinity of Holmesk, is an accident?'
'Kill him!' said another.
'Kill him!' said yet another.
'What shall we do, Captain?' asked a man.
'We have our orders,' said the officer. 'We shall proceed west.'
'Surely, Captain,' said a man, 'we must daily, to punish the rencers!'
'Then Cos would escape!' said a fellow.
'Our priority,' said a man, 'is not rencers. It is Cosians.'
'True,' affirmed a man.
'And we must be now close upon their heels,' said a man.
'Yes!' said another.
'I would recommend the swiftest possible withdrawal from the delta,' I said.
'Excellent advice, from a spy!' laughed a fellow.
'Yes,' laughed another, 'now that we are nearly upon our quarry!'
'It is you who are the quarry,' I said.
'Cosian sleen,' said another.
'We shall continue west,' said the officer.
'To be sure,' I said, bitterly, 'you will encounter the least resistance from the rencers to such a march, for it takes you deeper into the delta, and puts you all the more at their mercy.'
'Prepare to march,' said the officer to a subordinate.
'The rencers are not done with you,' I said.
'We do not fear rencers,' said a man.
'They will hang on your flanks like sleen,' I said. 'They will press you in upon yourselves. They will crowd you. They will herd you. Then when you are in close quarters, when you are huddled together, when you are weak, exhausted and helpless, they will rain arrows upon you. If you break and scatter they will hunt you down, one by one, in the marsh. Perhaps if some of you strip yourselves and raise your arms you might be spared, to be put in chains, to be taken, beaten, to trading points, thence to be sold as slaves, thence to be chained to benches, rowing the round ships of Cos.'
'Sleen!' hissed a man.
'To be sure,' I said, 'perhaps some will serve in the quarries of Tyros.'
'Kill him!' cried a fellow.
'You must withdraw from the delta, in force, immediately,' I said.
'There are many columns in the delta,' said the officer.
'This column,' I said, 'is in your keeping.'
'We have our orders,' he said.
'I urge you to withdraw,' I said.
'We have no orders to that effect,' he said.
'Seek them!' I urged.
'The columns are independent,' he said.
'Do you think it an accident that you are in this place without a centralized chain of command?' I asked.
He looked at me, angrily.
'Ar does not retreat,' said a fellow.
'You are in command,' I said to the officer. 'Make your decision.'
'We did not come to the delta to return without Cosian blood on our blades!' said a fellow.
'Make your decision!' I said.
'I have,' he said. 'We continue west.'
There was a cheer from the men about.
'Saphronicus is not even in the delta!' I said.
'If that were true,' said the officer, 'it could be known only by a spy.'
'And I had it from a spy!' I said.
'Then you, too, are a spy,' said a fellow.
'Spy!' said another.
'Gag him,' said the officer.
I was again gagged. This was done by my keeper.
'Let me kill him,' said a man, his knife drawn, but the officer had turned away, consulting with his fellows.
'He tried to warn Aurelian of the tarnsman,' said a man.
'He feared only for his own skin,' said my keeper.
'And let him fear even more, now,' said the other fellow. I felt the point of the knife in my belly, low on the left side. Its blade was up. It could be thrust in, and drawn across, in one motion, a disemboweling stroke.
I stood very still.
Angrily the fellow with the knife drew it back, and sheathed it. 'Cosian sleen,' he said. He then, with others, turned away.
