mere seventy-eight stanzas, but every one is turned and polished like a gemstone, and when I hear it the blood thumps and thrills through my veins. Perhaps, at least to me, there is no finer passage than that which follows. But I, speaking in English, can only tell you in my plain sailorman’s prose what happened. You must dream of the wonder-images, the defeat and triumph, the despair and hope, the smell of blood and sweat, the slick taste of dust, the feel of a rapier hilt hard in the fingers, the main-gauche gripped in the left fist; hear the devilish shrieks and yells of the wounded and maimed, the screams of the dying. You must blend all this into a mighty uproar in the brain.
We fought.
Vomanus was a fine rapier man, as I knew. Seg Segutorio was the finest archer in two worlds. Yet we would not have lasted more than a few murs, but for the wonder.
How to tell you of that moment?
We heard yells, surprised shouts, and the press upon us slackened. We could gulp for air, wipe the sweat from our foreheads, and look about. We were all wounded, but we lived. We looked about, we looked up — oh, the wonder, the wonder of it!
The sky filled with airboats.
They slanted down from the east, so that I guessed Inch must have swung his fleet from the Blue Mountains around. And in that I was wrong. Gloriously wrong!
The fliers landed in the clearing and men poured out.
Such men!
I didn’t believe it then. I just stood there, my mouth open, my rapier and dagger hanging limply, and any onker of a rast could have run me through as I gaped.
The very first man to hit the dusty rock of the clearing wore russet leathers, tasseled and fringed, with cunning pieces of armor strapped where they would protect the most. He wore a helmet, but I knew his hair was fair and bleached by the Suns of Antares. He swung an ax, double-bitted and daggered with six niches of flat-bladed steel. Belted at his side swung a great broadsword and a deadly shortsword. Over his back he carried, ready strung, a short reflex compound bow.
Running swiftly with him was a ferocious being all dun-colored hide and bristly bullet-head, massive shoulders, and short sinewy legs, clad in as brilliant a scarlet breech-clout as you will find on Kregen. He wore parts of armor, too, and carried a rapier and main-gauche. I smiled, guessing he had been taking lessons.
With these two ran a young man clad all in powder blue, with an elegant and handsome appearance, his bronzed face keen and his black eyes alert. He wore cropped hair beneath his steel cap. He handled his rapier and main-gauche with superb authority, a true bravo-fighter of Zenicce.
Following on rushed a great crowd of men clad in the russet leathers of my clansmen, the brave scarlet of Strombor, the powder blue of Eward — and there were even a few bravos wearing the silver and black of the Reinmans, and the crimson and gold of the Wickens.
I saw those old familiar faces — Loku, Rov Kovno, Ark Atvar, fierce merciless clansmen sworn in obi brotherhood to me. And — and by Diproo the Nimble-fingered! There ran Nath the Thief, dressed up in clansmen’s russets and the scarlet of Strombor, with an empty lesten-hide bag flapping at his side ready to be filled with the loot his nimble fingers could close on!
How I stared!
My men — my ferocious Clansmen of Felschraung with their horrendous axes and broadswords, and my bravo-fighters of Strombor! I had not seen them for long and long; but they had not forgotten me, for as they smashed like a solid wall of iron and steel into the panic-stricken mob of Furtway’s mercenaries, they were yelling and roaring it out: “Hai! Jikai! Dray Prescot! Jikai!”
My clansmen roared in a deep rolling thunder of noise: “Hai! Zorcander! Hai! Vovedeer!” With the last they exaggerated, as they always did.
My men of Strombor roared in a high fierce screeching: “Hai! Strombor! Strombor!”
Furtway’s men had little chance — hell! — they had no chance at all!
My clansmen, the most ferocious and brave warriors in all Kregen, simply smashed over the rapiers and daggers like a single wave blots out a fragile bridge. A few Undurkers let fly with their arrows, and from the rear ranks of the clansmen rose a sheeting storm from the cruel reflex bone and horn bows, and the Undurkers fled. They had recognized clansmen, and however impossible it was for clansmen to be here in the heart of Vallia — they were here, in iron and steel and blood!
The axes rose and fell. The great broadswords scythed. The shortswords stabbed, in and out, very deadly.
Then Vomanus, who had been staring with the eyes goggling in his head, shouted and pointed. A second aerial armada settled down in the space cleared of dinosaur bones. The first man out was Inch, waving his huge Saxon-pattern ax, roaring into action to chop at an angle into the crazed mob of Furtway’s mercenaries. I did not see the Kov Furtway, or his nephew Jenbar, or the wounded Trylon Larghos, but word was brought to me they had managed to escape. And I was willing they should go, for the score between us lay on a personal basis. Much more important, though, was the fact that the Star Lords wanted Furtway alive for their own schemes. I had been prepared to balk them and see the man slain for what he had tried to do, but I own I felt a certain relief, a cowardly relief, if you will, that the Star Lords would not have reason to toss me back to Earth.
Following Inch and his Saxon ax raced Korf Aighos at the head of the Blue Mountain Boys. I saw the way many swung the great sword of war of the Blue Mountains, even Ob-eye, and the flash and glitter from sharp-honed edges before they stained a more sinister hue.
After that it was all over. Then — I did shout.
“Majister! You may come out of the bones, now. You are safe.”
He crawled out. He tried to arrange his robes, but they were torn and bedraggled. The sacred emblem strung around his neck winked blindingly in a flash of gold as he lifted his head. He did not look frightened, of that he cannot stand accused. But there was about him an air of shrunken pride and tawdry magnificence, the arrogance shredded away to a reality he had never had to face before. He walked slowly toward me followed by his retinue of old men. Among them I could not see Kov Vektor. And then, for me at least, came the greatest wonder of all.
My men had fashioned a litter of dinosaur bones and over it flung a great scarlet silk, very grand in the suns- light. Golden cushions bestrewed the scarlet silk. They had lifted the litter high, proudly. Reclining there, warm and vibrant and altogether magnificent against the gold and scarlet, holding in her left hand the staff of Old Superb, my old flag with the yellow cross on the red field —
They carried her, those men of mine, they carried her proudly as befitted a princess. And no princess in two worlds ever had so proud or gallant a party so to carry her. My men! They carried my Princess in triumph before me, and over all waved the old flag of mine, Old Superb, as men called that flag, waving in the streaming mingled light from the twin Suns of Scorpio.
I heard Vomanus smother an exclamation. Then he and Seg were running, and in a twinkling they, too, were carrying that precious burden high before the Emperor of Vallia. That Emperor, that proud man, looked at me most uncertainly.
“They shout a name, I think,” he said. “Do you not hear the name they shout, Strom Drak?”
“Oh, aye, Majister, I hear.” I would not take my eyes off my Delia to stare at him. His voice reached me, whispering. “I am the Emperor, the Emperor of Vallia, the greatest power in Kregen.” He might believe that; I did not, not when Havilfar provided airboats and those mysterious ships raided up from the southern oceans. “I keep my word,” said Delia’s father. “And, in truth, I believed myself already dead, and the promise of no great value.”
Delia was smiling at me. I stared back, entranced.
“What promise was that?”
“I said that if you rescued me I would make you Prince Majister, Strom Drak.”
“Oh, yes, I remember.” I lifted my voice. I shouted to my men as they drew near bearing the dear form of my Princess. “Hai! Jikai!” And I hailed them, High Jikai, every one, by name. The High Jikai is not lightly given on Kregen.
