be sacrifices. It is just. They presumed.”
“Just! Is that Magdaggian justice?”
“What do you, a Kov of Vallia, know of Magdaggian justice?”
I gripped her shoulder.
“I would like to find those two-”
“To kill them? To take your revenge?” She let me grasp her and swayed into me, clasping me in her arms. “Ah, no, Drak. No! Let them go. Escape. I have it all arranged. When Genodras returns and the world is green once again — then we can ride!”
“Where to? Sanurkazz?”
She shook her head against my chest. “No. I have wide estates. No one will question the Princess Susheeng. I will create a new identity for you, my Drak. We can return to Magdag. I have wealth enough for us both, and to spare-”
I had had, for the moment, enough of new identities.
She had been clever in not attempting to find a hauberk of width enough to encompass those shoulders of mine, and an overseer of the balass was nicely balanced to move about the megalithic complex without question within the hierarchical structure. I moved to the door. My face was set.
“Where are you — Drak! No! Please —
“I thank you for your help, Susheeng. I do not blame you for what you are. That is not of your manufacture.” I opened the door. “If you wish to call the guards, that is your privilege.”
She ran to me, caught the gray slave tunic. Outside, a guard detail passed with a sacrifice screaming between them.
“Drak! I will come with you!”
We went out together. She preceded me, as was proper, and she led me through the maze of corridors, avoiding the halls from which floated the horrid sounds of the rituals. There was nothing I could do for those men of Zair now, here in a hive of mailed Magdaggian might. But my blood boiled and my heart thumped the quicker, and I had to hold myself very stiff and straight as we passed those men of Magdag. Genal and Pugnarses were chained together in a cell, awaiting their call to the sacrificial games. They looked miserable and woebegone and defeated. I was glad to notice they did not look frightened. They had had time to think, chained naked in a Magdag dungeon.
They saw me over the shoulder of the guard. Their eyes popped and they would have spoken out and so betrayed me once again had I not struck the guard on his chin, above the opened ventail. I took his keys and his sword.
I stood looking at them, as Susheeng hovered uncertainly at the door, peering with frightened eyes into the corridor. I shook the keys before them.
“Stylor-” Genal swallowed. He looked sick. “If you are going to kill us, do it now. I deserve it, for I betrayed you.”
Pugnarses, in turn, swallowed. He stared at the sword as a man stares at a snake. “Strike hard, Stylor.”
“You pair of fools!” I said. I spoke fiercely, hotly, angrily, feeling all the hurt in me. “You betrayed me because of Holly. Did you not see the pile of corpses — of our own men? The group leaders dead, the glorious revolution finished?”
“We-” croaked Genal.
“I persuaded Genal,” said Pugnarses. “I wanted to be an overlord! I thought they would believe two of us more than one alone. I must take the blame, Stylor-”
“And see what the men of Magdag do in return, how they repay your treachery!” My face, I could see, made them believe all was over for them. “I can understand either of you doing anything for love of a girl, and I suppose you thought she must choose one of you! Betraying a rival is a small thing to a man so obsessed with a girl. But you betrayed everyone and everything we worked and struggled for. You betrayed more than me, Stylor!”
I lifted the sword. Both of them stared at me, unflinching.
I reached across with the keys, threw down the sword, and snapped open the locks.
“Now,” I said. “Old vosk heads. We fight!”
But first — there was Holly.
I handed the sword to Susheeng. She hesitated. A party of guards moved past a cross corridor. I motioned to them. “A shout, Princess, and how do you explain this?”
She flung herself around, taking the sword, and almost, I believe, the impulse to cut us down mastered her. Then she led us on. The swing of her hips as she walked ahead of us made a fascinating sight
“Wait here,” she said outside her brother’s palatial apartments within the megalith. “I will bring the girl.”
When she had gone, Pugnarses said: “Can we trust her?”
Genal said: “We have to. She, and Stylor, are our only hope.”
“And when we get back to the warrens,” I said, “what is to become of her then?”
Genal looked at me, and away. He felt his disgrace keenly. Pugnarses, uncharacteristically, said: “At another time, Stylor, I would have counseled: ‘Kill her!’ But I do not think you will do that.” He eyed me.
“Do you love her?”
“No.”
“But she loves you.”
“She believes so. She will get over it.”
“And — Holly?”
“Holly,” I said, “is a sweet child. But my love lies far away from here, in another land, and I remain here only because it is a stricture laid on me. As soon as I have finished my work, then — then, believe me, I shall leave Magdag and all its evil ways far behind me!”
I spoke with a passion that forced them to believe. Holly, following Susheeng meekly, came out then, and she saw me and the color flooded her cheeks.
I merely said: “Hurry, Princess.”
There was no time, as I saw it, for a traumatic and emotional outbreak. I wanted to get back to the warrens. We all knew what would happen as soon as Genodras reappeared in the sky above Kregen and the overlords of Magdag were freed from their superstitious imprisonment in the megalithic complexes.
Susheeng, it was clear, still believed she could persuade me to accede to her plan. To her it would appear the only sensible plan, indeed, the only and inevitable one.
Why would a man, a Kov of Delphond, choose to return to a stinking rasts’ nest of workers and slaves?
We hurried through the corridors. Truth to tell, I was beginning to think we would break clear away without trouble.
“This way,” panted Susheeng. “Up this narrow staircase lies a bridge and then a descent to the outside. I dare not venture out while Genodras is gone from the sky. We can wait.”
I did not say anything to that. I would not wait.
At the top of that steep flight of stairs, walled with enameled tiles depicting fantastic birds, animals, and beasts, two mailed guards were descending. Torchlight struck back from their mail. Between them they marched a captive, a fresh sacrifice for the ritual games. He was haggard, bearded, filthy. But I recognized him. I moved aside to let them pass.
But Rophren, that certain Rophren who had been first lieutenant aboard Pur Zenkiren’s
A shout lifted from the foot of the stairs. More torches spattered lurid orange light upon the brilliant tiles.
“Hai! Princess! Princess Susheeng — that man is Stylor! They are escaped slaves! They are dangerous!”
I took the first guard’s sword away and chopped him over the back of the neck. He pitched forward and tumbled all the way to the bottom. Pugnarses and Genal dealt with the second guard, who joined the first in a tumbled heap at the feet of his comrades. They started up.
“Run!” screamed Susheeng.
We now had three long swords.
Rophren reached out a hand.
