with the Savanti or with the Star Lords. I gaped and the zorca eased up, and slowed down. Zena Iztar lifted the great banner so that all could see the device coruscating upon the crimson surface.
Outlined in white upon the glowing crimson banner the deep royal blue of her cogwheel device forced itself upon my own senses, yet I had never grasped the significance of that emblem. Always before Zena Iztar had appeared to me alone, with those around us frozen in a timeless sleep. Yet now — now from the shouts and excited and shocked exclamations that broke from the brothers of the Order, she could be seen by us all.
Her voice reached us. Golden, ringing, full-bodied, her voice floated above all the sounds of coming battle, over the shouts and yells of the men, over the clicking scraping advance of the sleeths and the hissing malevolence of the Fish-Heads, over the mingled jingling of war harness.
“Men of Paz! Brothers of the Order! Comrades in blood! Those you call Fish-Heads must be shown the error of their ways. The Order demands sacrifice, loyalty, utter devotion, unswerving purpose, obedience.” She lifted the banner in her left hand and golden coruscating sparks shot from her armor. In her right hand a sword — a sword! A sword like unto a Savanti sword — lifted high and pointed. The brand pointed at the Shanks. “Death is a small price to pay for honor! Brothers of the Order! Your duty in honor is to be true to yourselves and to Paz and to the Order.”
The light began to fade.
I shook my head. There was much she had said with which I would not, could not, agree. But a great deal summed up something of what I struggled for.
But, in the name of Zair! How did she know the Order existed at all?
But, then, she was no mortal woman. She understood many secrets I longed to know, could see into the hearts of men, must surely comprehend the doings of Kregen and attempt to mold them to her own ends. The Shanks pressed nearer. They were confident now. They had withstood all we could throw at them. They had suffered and had lost a goodly number from their ranks. But they could see how we had suffered. They shrilled their hideous screeching war cries and they came on, fishy, stinking, scaly, repulsive, deadly.
They had not seen the golden glowing apparition of Zena Iztar.
Her chiming voice rang out for one last time before the vision disappeared.
“Fight for what you believe to be true, Men of Paz. And, remember, never speak to anyone not of the Order of my presence, for I am sacrosanct. This is a stricture laid on you as members of the Order -
and a privilege. Follow Dray Prescot.
The first man to move was Dredd Pyvorr.
With a high lifting shriek he set his zorca in a straight dead run at the oncoming Shanks. We saw him galloping madly into the thickest of them. We saw his sword swirling and smiting left and right, saw him engulfed as a stone is engulfed in a pool. In the same instant we were all once more in motion, roaring down, headlong belting down into the repulsively stinking mass of Fish-Heads. Dredd Pyvorr had shouted as he charged for the last time.
Over and over he had shouted as he roared to his death.
“For the Brotherhood of Iztar! For the Order! For Dray Prescot! Iztar! Iztar!”
I felt the coldness running through me.
There were manipulations here, superhuman twistings of normal human men to supernatural ends. Then we hit.
The red roaring madness of battle descended on us. I am contemptuous of that notorious red curtain that falls before the fighting man’s eyes — so it is said — but it is a thing that transcends humanity and must be used and manipulated in its turn so far as a man may. We fought. We fought. I think, now, as I thought then, that Zena Iztar brought some of her magical powers to our assistance. Nothing else, in all sanity, serves to explain what happened.
The few of us, the few Brothers of the Order of Iztar, smashed and beat and routed the confident might of the Shanks from around the curve of the world. We destroyed them. The survivors ran. The sleeths poured blood as the Shkanes poured blood. Green ichor fuming onto the grass, smoking under the suns. We pursued them.
Down the long slope and through the copse and so down the last curve of the trail into Briar’s Cove we pursued them, slaying all the way.
Memories are scarlet and monstrous and do not pass.
Our arms did not tire. We were possessed of superhuman strength. Tireless, we smote and slew and drove them down to the beach where we slew them in the water as they tried to reach their ships. Those ships with their clumsy square upperworks and the sleek fishlike lines below water, with the tall banded aerodynamic sails, pushed off with the last few remnants. The black and amber sails slid up the tall masts, curving to the breeze. The ships pulled away, sliding easily through the water, and we stood on the beach and shook our fists at the Shanks, and cursed them, and jeered them, and felt, perhaps, as no men of Paz had ever felt before.
We did not attempt to sail the ships in which the Katakis had landed after the Shkanes. I knew that no ship of Paz, not even the superb race-built galleons of Vallia, could catch a Shank ship. Some of the very best galleons built in Valka might almost match a Shank vessel, and we were working all the time on improvements; but these Kataki vessels were mere small editions of argenters, broad and squat and with a pitiful sail plan. They were broad- beamed and capacious and designed to hold slaves. We stood and jeered and fumed until the last Shank vessel vanished from sight, and then we turned back to the dolorous business of clearing up after the battle.
There was much talk, and much to talk about; but one single topic dominated every conversation. Zena Iztar.
Dredd Pyvorr had been the first to drive into battle at her instigation. He, it was soon apparent, was the original martyr of the Order. His name would live enshrined.
Traditions were built in this fashion.
And, too, I detected a difference about these men. Some inner strength had been vouchsafed them. They were not the same men who had agreed to join the Order. They had been refined, refined in the crucible of agony and battle, and now they gleamed with a luster of spirit I found mightily reassuring -
and also worrying in that nagging anxious way I have when events pour past without due design and thought spent upon them.
As with my membership of the Order of Krozairs of Zy upon the Eye of the World, I will not speak of much of our discipline. Much had been taken from the Krozairs, for their Orders are justly famed, and workmanlike, martial and mystic, devoted to Zair, and designed to sustain morale and spirit in the deepest of adversities. So I will content myself with a few remarks only. In the old days of Valka, when that island of which I am Strom was its own kingdom, they had their own knights, men of high-caliber, renowned, given the honor prefix of Ver to their names. This, we chose to resurrect, and members of the Order of Iztar were called, among ourselves, Ver Seg and Ver Inch, and so on. Ver Seg Segutorio was the High Archbold.
This I welcomed and refused to take on any particular position for myself, preferring to be a plain member, a simple Ver of the Order.
We called ourselves Kroveres.[1]
Kroveres.
The name rang and reverberated, as the name Krozair rings and reverberates. We were the Kroveres of Iztar.
Also, and at the time much to my displeasure, another name was also used, and I asked questions and was told. Was told.
Seg said to me: “We are the Order of Kroveres of Iztar, Dray. Now we must build. This little Island has witnessed a miracle.”
“Surely,” I said as we rode lumpily for the Mound of Arial. “And you still haven’t given me any idea why we came here in the first place — except to check up on progress.”
He laughed.
“Why, you may as well know now. I think Elder Pyvorr will be mourning his son-” All the laughter fled.
“It was a great deed, Dredd Pyvorr’s. We shall remember him in the Kroveres.”
“Yes, that is so. And?”
“And, my old dom, you were asked here to be given the new name of the island as a gifting. You are the Kov of Zamra. Zamra is just over the horizon to the north, and this little island is called Nikzm-”
“I know!” Nik as a prefix means half and as a suffix means small. In the names of lands and islands, however,
