began to tilt downward. Gradually it widened. One by one they remounted, removed their horses’ blinders, and moved on at a slow walk. By the time darkness fell, all had cleared the pass. By morning the force was deep within Easlon’s eastern forest.
It moved at a leisurely pace, but its every action was severely disciplined. This was no frenzied charge at the enemy, but a stealthy, coldly calculated attack with all of its objectives carefully delineated in advance. It sheltered by dae in the dense mountain forest without so much as a sound or a wisp of smoke to betray its presence while its scouts searched surrounding hills and valleys in an attempt to capture any lurking Easlon scout before he could give an invasion alarm. They found none.
They encountered no defenses of any kind. The Peerdom of Easlon had not merely been caught napping but sound asleep. The Lantian force continued to travel by niot and shelter by dae. On the fourth niot it moved forward swiftly, and at dawn it fell upon Easlon’s most eastern community, a flourishing town called Eas.
Eas was deserted. Its granaries were empty. Even its most valuable and cumbersome object, the mill’s irreplaceable, enormous steel circular saw, had been removed and spirited off or hidden.
“The curstuff Easlon scouts saw us at least two days ago and gave warning,” the prince informed the first general. “The one-namers took their prized possessions with them.”
Even so, the loot that remained was enormously valuable. During the sikes of peace, Eas had transformed itself from a frontier village to a wealthy town. Every abode had pottery in graceful designs and colors that were wholly alien to the rough civilization across the mountains. The wall hangings were richly illustrated. Furniture in the humblest home was of a quality and style not even affected by peeragers in Lant.
They despoiled the town at their leisure and scoured the countryside for wagons that could be piled high with loot. Then they set fires and began a well-laden withdrawal toward Low Pass, the only route the wagons could negotiate.
To reach it they had to cross the foaming Stony River, and at that treacherous ford the Easlon scouts sprang their ambush. Beams of light ripped the invaders, and terrifying claps of sound crashed about them. The Lantiff knew those horrors only too well. They had used them with delight on the foes of Lant; now the same forces of death and destruction were unexpectedly turned on them, and they succumbed to a frenzy of terror. The reek of burned flesh filled the peaceful valley and terrified the horses. Easlon scouts plied Egarn’s weapon with an accuracy the armies of Lant had not even imagined, and they destroyed the entire raiding force—scouts, mappers, peeragers, officers, and Lantiff—to the last man and woman and captured unharmed nearly eighty of the horses.
6. INSKOR
Sheer happenstance had given the the Ten Peerdoms’ critical mountain border to the peer most capable of defending it. The Peer of Easlon was a rotund little woman with sharp eyes and a plain but kind face. Her eldest daughter, the prince, was as unlike her mother as possible in appearance, being tall, slender, and handsome; and as much like her as possible in intelligence and ability.
An equally fortunate twist of fate had given Easlon a genius for a chief scout at the precise moment when he was most needed. Inskor was a grizzled veteran of conflict on Easlon’s eastern border and the survivor of more hazardous missions into Lant than he could recall. His effectiveness was enhanced enormously by his relationship with his peer, which was one of respectful admiration and also of mutual affection—emotions rarely found in contacts between different social classes. They worked together in perfect rapport. Inskor was of course a one- namer. The job of scout—full of danger and severe hardship with small reward—held no appeal for peeragers.
When word reached Easlon Court that raiders from Lant had crossed the frontier, the peer sent no orders to Inskor. None were necessary. The event had long been considered inevitable, and plans for dealing with it had been formulated sikes before. In principle, Inskor’s task was to make the raid as costly as possible for the Lantiff with the smallest possible loss to Easlon. He was not to offer battle. Instead, his scouts were to hang on the flanks of the raiding force, picking off stragglers and restricting the activity of the Lantian scouts but without risk to themselves.
If time permitted, he was to evacuate everything of value in the path of the raid. He was to ambush the raiders whenever the opportunity occurred—but only if this could be done without endangering his own force—and repeat the ambushes until the invaders were wiped out or driven out of Easlon.
The plan had worked to perfection, but Inskor had no time to savor his victory. He hurried his scouts back to the frontier to await Lant’s next move while he set about disposing of the Lantian dead and their possessions. He also had to decide what should be done with Egarn. He was still pondering that perplexing question two daez later when Arne finally arrived.
Inskor greeted him with mingled affection and relief. Arne’s father, Arjov, had been the old scout’s lifelong friend. They got to know each other well because Arjov, as first server for the Peer of Midlow, often performed errands for her throughout the Ten Peerdoms, and they had become friends in a way that was unusual for one- namers who were subjects of different peers.
Inskor had known Arne since he was a grave-eyed boy of six accompanying his father. Whereas others were astonished to see a child with so much intelligence and maturity, Inskor perceived the truth: Even at six, Arne was no child. He was a childish-looking adult who matter-of-factly accepted adult responsibilities and made decisions that would have frightened men many times his age. As illness incapacitated Arjov, Arne gradually assumed his duties. When the Peer of Midlow appointed him first server after his father’s death, she was merely confirming him in a post he already held.
At twenty, Arne still looked like a mere boy despite his sturdy build. His short facial hair had scarcely attained the status of a beard, but when there was anything to be discussed, when there was a decision to be made, everyone waited for Arne to speak—and then did what he suggested. He had ample opportunity to meet marriageable girls throughout the Ten Peerdoms, and girls everywhere thought him handsome despite his short stature, but he was still unwived. The girls may have been put off by his overwhelming seriousness of manner and total devotion to his duties; or perhaps girls his own age seemed frivolous to one who bore the cares of ten peerdoms on his shoulders.
“You have finally come!” Inskor exclaimed, grasping his hands. “Did you have trouble getting away?”
“Some. You know I can’t absent myself without a reason.”
“Have you heard what happened?”
“I heard your scouts wiped out two Lantian armies, burned Lant Court, and captured the peer. If it is true, I will apologize for not believing it.”
“You will find the truth just as unbelieveable.”
They talked for the remainder of the dae. Inskor described the rescue of Egarn, the strange weapon he carried, and the copies of it made under Egarn’s direction for the scouts. Then he called for horses, and they rode to the ford where the ambush had occurred. Inskor showed Arne where each scout had been hidden, described the Lantiff’s disarray in crossing the river— evidence of deplorable discipline, it had played into the scouts’ hands —and spoke with awe of the carnage the weapon had wrought. He pointed out the places where each peerager had fallen: The first general here; the prince over there; one of the peer’s sons by that tree; two high officers in a clump of bushes where they thought to hide; another of the peer’s sons while crossing the river, his body was recovered later; the third son…
Arne listened quietly and had few questions except when Inskor tried to describe Egarn’s weapon. Arne knew len grinding well. Arne knew everything well—that was part of his job. Inskor was unable to explain how or why the weapon worked, but he had no difficulty in describing its effects and discussing the most effective tactics for its use.
They returned to Inskor’s headquarters, and Arne was given one of the weapons to examine and a porkley to try it on. That niot Egarn and the two scouts from Slorn, Roszt and Kaynor, joined them. First they feasted on roast porkley—the porkley being the one Arne had killed with Egarn’s weapon— eating it with critical interest and trying to determine whether the strange beam of fire had tainted the meat. It tasted delicious. Then Egarn described his plan and the role Roszt and Kaynor were to play in it. Arne said little, but he was willing to listen as
