by then, sail without us.'
Coralean grinned. 'How do you know I'll wait?' he asked. 'Coralean is a man of his word, but sometimes urgent business forces a man of industry and ambition to make regretful decisions.'
Safar looked at him, measuring. Then he nodded. 'You'll wait,' he said, flat.
'I suppose if I don't,' Coralean pressed, 'you will cast some wizardly spell of misfortune upon me, correct?'
Safar chuckled. 'Another sort of question no wizard will ever answer, my friend,' he said. 'But let me tell you this. If I do, your wives will be the first to notice!'
The caravan master roared laughter, leaping to his feet to drag Safar from his chair for another tortuous embrace of Coralean friendship.
'What a man you are, Safar Timura!' he cried. 'What a man!'
Then he broke away to refill their goblets.
'More drink, Safar,' he said. 'More drink. It's the only honorable way to seal a bargain between such like- minded brothers.
'To Syrapis!' he shouted, raising his glass.
'To Syrapis!' Safar replied. 'And may we live long enough to see it!'
CHAPTER THIRTY
Luka was a fighting prince. Born of rape and murder, teethed on steel, he had carried his father's royal banner into scores of crucial encounters. Under Iraj, he had seen warfare on an even greater scale. When it came to the shedding of blood and the taking of life, Luka firmly believed he had seen it all. But when he led his shock troops into the Caluzian Pass all his previous experiences seemed like nothing.
The road through the pass was treacherous. The storm had left a thick blanket of snow in its wake, hiding the pits and broken rubble, turning them into traps for the unwary. Overhead, a threatening sky boiled with clouds that cast everything into intermittent shadows, making travel harder still. Even the demon steeds with their fierce natures and huge cat claws were sorely tested. Several suffered broken limbs and had to be destroyed before they'd progressed beyond the second bend.
Luka thought he knew what to expect. Fari's vision had given him a good look at the enemy he would face. Powerful spells had been cast to sheath their weapons so they would cut through ghostly flesh and parry ghostly thrusts. Even so, he was not prepared when the horde of warriors rose up to confront him.
The battle for the Caluzian Pass was to consist of three waves, of which Luka's was easily the most dangerous. He was to lead a shock force composed of his best cavalryfiends. His mission was to charge through and break the enemy formation. Under no circumstances was he to engage in fixed fighting or worry about what was happening behind his back. He was to charge and keep charging, leaving the next two waves of troops to deal with whatever was happening behind him. Not only that, but he must maintain his demon form to inspire his soldiers, thereby abandoning the extra magical powers and strength of a shape changer. In short, if the slightest thing went wrong he would be the first to fall.
Skilled as he was, brave as he was, Luka had no love of battle. As a prince his death was always ardently sought-on both sides. The enemy wanted his head as a trophy of their prowess. And in his own court so many would gain from his assassination that he had to be constantly on lookout for a knife in his back from one of his own soldiers. So he despised battles. Distrusted the motives of those who sent him to fight.
Killing, he firmly believed, was a dish to be enjoyed in private. It was like torturing an animal bound for the table-the greater the entree's agony, the tastier the dish. In other words, the fear and pain should be confined to the victim with no danger to the chef.
Luka was thinking of such things when he entered the pass and so he shouldn't have been surprised when he was stricken by a sudden feeling that he'd entered a kitchen where he was set to be the main course.
Never mind that Fari had warned him-and armed him-against the spells of fear and hopelessness the enemy was sure to employ against him. A vision leaped into his mind's eye of a demon bound to a spit slowly rotating over a slow fire-twisting and screaming and begging his tormentors to end the agony with a swift and merciful death. The demon was Luka.
The prince might have been overcome there, the battle lost before it had even begun. But the moans and wails of his brother warriors jolted him to his senses. Cursing himself as a fool and a coward, he cast Fari's spell. There was nothing to mark one moment from the next. No fiery blast, no sorcerous smoke, only an immediate feeling of heavy shackles falling away-and then he was free.
His demon brothers shouted gleefully, as if they'd already won a great victory. Jokes and laughter ran through the ranks, punctuated by loud boasts from young warriors about what they'd do to the enemy when they found him. Luka was too experienced to be drawn in. He had no doubt this would be only the first of many spells hurled against them. And if his opponent was wily he would be saving the worst for last.
A dedicated survivor, Luka granted extreme cunning to his enemy. But he couldn't pause or turn back to study the extent of his enemy's perfidy. In such circumstances a prudent soldier, a soldier loath to have his fangs plucked from his lifeless jaws to make a necklace for some tavern wench, knows he has only one recourse-madness.
Luka signaled his buglers to sound the attack, unsheathed his sword, and raised it high-desperately driving away the memory of the human, Vister, in identical circumstances. Digging deep for all the courage, all the blind battle lust he could muster.
'For the King!' he shouted over the blare of the horns.
'For the King!' his brothers roared in return.
And with no enemy in sight they charged.
In the end, it was this act of madness that saved him.
As Luka came around the bend, honor guard lagging several paces behind him, his mount's claws broke through the snow's crust into a hidden pit. The beast stumbled, nearly foundering, Luka sawing on its reins and raking its sides with his spurs to bring it up. Hissing in catlike fury, the animal's head snaked around, long fangs bared to punish him. He leaned forward, whacking its sensitive nose with the flat of his blade to remind it who was master and who was slave.
At that moment the air was suddenly filled with the deadly song of the arrow and something passed over his head. He heard meaty thunks of arrows striking their targets, cries of the wounded, surprised coughs of those who would never breathe again.
He came up, raising his shield in time to deflect a second swarm, cursing Iraj for putting him in such a place. Shouting orders to rally his warriors out of the shock of ambush.
It was then that he saw the enemy. Time was knocked from its course and Luka's whole world became a long and frozen moment. Hundreds upon hundreds of ghostly warriors were marching toward him. There were no challenging roars, no shouted insults, no loud chorus of what would be done to them. He heard none of the words that give a normal army its voice. Curses that warriors are encouraged to shout when they advance on their foes. Shouts of bloody purpose crafted by bullying sergeants long ago and passed down from one generation of soldiers to the next. All calculated to shrink the enemy's courage and enlarge the imagined prowess of the aggressor.
Luka, who would have ignored such things like a fishing hawk ignores water when it dives for its prey, was unnerved by their absence. His entire existence was suddenly filled with the image of silent men, deadly men, marching in measured steps to crush his life away. The thud of their boots, the clank of their armor, hammering their purpose against his.
Fari's final words of warning crawled to the fore. 'There is no single heart to this enemy,' he'd said.
'No single head we can lop off to defeat them. Each one will fight until the end. The only way to defeat them is to kill them all.'
Luka forced himself to ignore the mass of advancing warriors. He fixed on one man-a huge ghost with hollow eyes and bloody lips-one step ahead of the others.
The demon prince spurred his mount forward, shouting for his soldiers to follow.
