“The island of Nikzm is small,” I shouted. “Since we dispersed the pirates there has been no fighting. There is no garrison to speak of. All that lies between these Fish-Heads and the defenseless people — is us — the Order.” I did not wave my sword. I sat hard and upright and glared upon these, my men, the brothers of the Order I hoped would achieve so much. “But that is not the whole reason why we fight on. Yes, it is the ultimate reason for our being. For the people of Nikzm represent all the peoples of Paz. All the continents and islands here. But we fight for our own honor. We fight in our own eyes, we are our own judges. It is to us, and us alone, that this Jikai belongs. And in honor we must redeem our pledges so freely given.”
The line, so shrunken now, quivered. Zorcas began to sidle. The men were dispirited, despite their words. In only moments one man might break, and with his desertion the whole line could crumble. Was this how my own vaunting ambitions were to end? On a tiny island, destroyed by stinking Fish-Heads?
Was my own pride so vainglorious that I would condemn to death this fine company of men, young and proud in their strength, laughing and merry, send them remorselessly to destruction? For myself? For my overweening pride and ambition?
In that dark moment, I, too, I, Dray Prescot, of Earth and of Kregen, came very close to despair. A voice, an anonymous voice, rose from the ranks.
“Let us ride from hence and gather reinforcements. Let us save ourselves so that we may fight another day.”
I looked.
I confess it, I looked to mark the man.
It was Dredd Pyvorr, Tarek, created by me, given honor and rank, his father uplifted, an Elder, the Chief Elder of this island we fought to save.
“If this is your will-” I started to say, not thinking, not even savage, but resigned. I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, Krozair of Zy, resigned to running from my foes!
Another voice bellowed, hard and fierce.
“They charge! See, the Shanks attack!”
I swung about, lowering, hating, filled with anger and remorse and fury and shame. The Fish-Heads bore down on us, a long dark breaking wave of beasts and mounts, tipped with steel, riding knee to knee, hard and savage and utterly without mercy, riding to crush us and smash us into utter destruction.
“Now are we doomed!” The shriek rose and shattered in despair.
The line began to break.
Chapter Two
As that dark and glittering onrushing mass bore down on us I cursed my own stupidity and pig-headed vanity and folly. I, Dray Prescot, had led these men to their deaths. The horrid clicking and scratching of many sleeth claws reached us with hypnotic intensity. The tridents glittered red in the light of the Suns of Scorpio — glittered red with our blood.
The line at my back moved and snaked, restively. The zorcas were tired. The men were exhausted. Fool! Onker! I should have retreated at the first, sought what assistance there was in Nikzm; small though it was, it would have made the difference. All the mercenaries at the Fair, the stout country-folk, the fishermen — with what weapons we could have gathered up for them, we would have fought — and I realized even as I thus castigated myself that no simple countryman, no fisherman, was going to meet and best in battle these supremely warlike Shanks. The Shanks lived for battle. It was a creed with them, some divine right given to them by their own dark and fishy gods, driving them on, egging them on to plunder and conquest and eternal battle.
The truth was the Brotherhood had achieved against the Shanks what few groups of men of Paz had ever achieved before. And the cost was high, the payment dear, the final reckoning written in blood and spelling death.
“Brotherhood of Paz!” I bellowed, turning in the saddle, glaring back at the shuffling line. “Those of you who will, go! Flee! Save yourselves. Raise the island, carry word to Zamra, rouse the garrisons. And those that will — follow me!”
Lumpily turning in the saddle and ready to clap in heels — no man who is a rider uses spurs to a zorca
— I hesitated, and turned back. My face must have borne that old intolerant, savage, devil’s look. I bellowed.
“Seg! Inch! Balass! Turko! Oby!” I shouted, loud, intemperately, viciously. “Tom! Vangar! Nath! Kenli!
Naghan! You do not ride with me. Your duty lies in other places closer to your hearts! I order you to ride and seek succor!
They left it to Seg to speak for them all.
Seg Segutorio lifted his bow. He smiled that raffish, fey grin of his, his blue eyes very bright and merry in that tanned face beneath the shock of black hair.
“Oh, aye, my old dom. We’ll ride. We’ll obey your damned high-handed orders. Only it happens that the quickest way for us to ride to do your bidding —
“And if any lumpen Fish-Face happens to get in the way, let him look out,” Inch finished.
“Famblys!” I shouted, feeling the gush of warmth, the anger, the pride at their folly, the agony and the shame. “Idiots! Onkers! It is my duty and mine alone — it falls to me-”
“Sometimes you take too much on your shoulders,” said Turko. His magnificent muscles bulged. I blinked. In Turko’s left hand a green-dripping sword caught the lights of the twin suns. “Turko? A sword?”
He laughed. “They broke my parrying stick. This serves in its stead. Had I my great shield, now, then-”
The clicking scrape of the advancing sleeths bore down on us.
The line shifted and yet, and yet they would not ride off. For a space the tension hung. Now I knew that they must ride. I had been wrong, criminally wrong, in thus dragging these men to their deaths. In my own folly and pride I thought I had been doing the right, the noble, thing. But nobility can be bought at too high a price. It was folly to have these men slain to no purpose now. If we all died here — as we would, as we would! — how would that help this tiny island of Nikzm, let alone the mighty empire of Vallia?
No thoughts of my Delia must be allowed to enter my stubborn old vosk-skull of a head. None.
“Go!” I bellowed. “Save yourselves!”
A few men shook out their reins, they would not look at me. But I did not blame them as they began to turn their zorcas’ heads, ready to ride back through the dark defiles of the forest. So this was how all my brave dreams for a great Brotherhood had foundered! The Order was finished. It had never even begun.
I turned back to face the oncoming mass of Shkanes, and I wished I could have had my old Krozair longsword with me, and I kicked in my heels and the zorca lunged forward for the last time. Headlong I belted for the black and silver glittering mass of Fish-Heads. A shrill and shocked shrieking began — began to my rear.
I did not look back. The zorca flew fleetly over the grass where the blue and red and white flowers starred the green, where drops of red blood stained across the flowers. The shouting at my back increased and voices mingled in shocked disbelief. I looked up to my left, toward the white ruins. I stared, disbelieving.
A light glowed among the white tumbled columns.
A golden yellow light, lambent, blazing, growing in color and luminosity, swelling. And at the heart of that refulgent radiance the figure of a woman astride a zorca. A woman wearing golden armor, astride a white zorca whose single spiral horn blazed with golden light. I stared and the mount beneath me ran loose. I stared at the apparition. She wore golden armor and carried a great banner which flowed freely outspread in a breeze no one else could feel, an unearthly breeze from a land beyond the senses of normal men.
“Zena Iztar!” I screamed it out, shaken, dazed, wondering.
This was the supernatural woman who had visited me on Earth when I had been banished there for twenty- one miserable years. Then she had used the fashionable name of Madam Ivanovna. She had appeared to me before, using supernatural means, and I believed she had helped me. She was not, as far as I then knew, aligned either
