Warlord

above metal content, for the convenience in the Colonial trade. Slaves will be a glut in Komar, but-' he laid a finger alongside his nose '-your humble servant knows several mine and quarry firms that would be delighted to buy direct.'

He continued down the list, and the soldiers looked at each other, uneasy. To yeoman and squire alike, it was a reversal of the natural order of things for mercantile skills to work to their benefit. Descott County's largest town was smaller than El Djem, and the merchants and factors there were mostly outsiders. Yet the Komarite had been one of the first over El Djem's wall. .

'Commission for you?' Evrard said bluntly.

Muzzaf looked down, fiddling with the paper. 'No,' he said quietly. 'I pay my debts.' A shadow of his old grin: 'In Messer Whitehall's service, I may do that, and profit well, and face far less boredom than I did before.'

'Well,' Raj said gently, and touched him on the shoulder. 'I think we can spare you a full share, at least; we'll put your name on the rolls as a scout.'

Muzzaf swallowed and looked away; it was a sign of acceptance, more than the money. He was still a wealthy man, with what he had been able to salvage from Komar and send west to the coastal city of Kendrun with his wife; her kindred would care for it.

Raj continued briskly, 'Remind the men that we're moving out tomorrow, hangovers or no.' Luckily a Muslim town wouldn't have much in the way of liquor. 'We'll leave one platoon here, for base-of-communications work, and move east along the escarpment in column with two-squad units out to take the outlying farms. Master Sergeant, organize demolition squads from the duty Company, and start the prisoners on felling the orchards and destroying all pumps, wells, and irrigation canals.'

Da Cruz nodded; there could be no defenses where men could not live, and they could not live far from the source of their food, not without navigable water to carry it. This raid would weaken the Colony's northwestern border for a generation or more; even then, restoring it would impose enormous expense.

'Ser,' he said. 'I'll have the date-palms felled an' piled about the orchards, day'r two and they'll burn enthusiastic-loik. Rubble an' bodies down the wells. Blast to cover the springs. .'

'See to it. The servants and transport should be in by this afternoon. As soon as the ammunition is unloaded, get the prisoners coffled-' there were slavers travelling with the column, they followed war like scavenger birds behind a carnosauroid, and they would have the equipment '-fill every spare wagon and anything local with the loot, and we'll send it all back immediately. They can shuttle between here and Fort Blair while we're in the field; as we move east, everything can be sent back here and staged north in relays. The Colony semaphore net will get the news to the Drangosh Valley soon enough, and I want to keep us mobile as possible.'

'Consider it done, ser.'

'Oh, and turn captured dogs and weapons over to the servants,' Raj said. 'They won't be any use for fighting, but they can plunder and burn well enough, which is our job right now.'

'Immediately, ser.'

'We'll start pulling back as soon as we meet the 2nd, cleaning up the southern rim as we go.' The basin that held El Djem was a flattened oval lying east-west; the bulk of the habitations were on the north edge, where artesian springs were most abundant. A lesser scattering rimmed the southern edge; the water that seeped to the surface in the low center of the playa was too salty for food crops, but it supported rich spicebush plantations. 'When the last load's assembled here-or sooner, depending-we pull back to Fort Blair and then Komar, mission accomplished. Understood?'

Gerrin was lounging against a pillar. 'Good, provided the enemy cooperates.'

'Mought wish they wouldn't, ser,' da Cruz said. 'New draft, I'd admire to see how they shape under some weight.'

M'lewis spoke up unexpectedly, from where he sat crouched on his haunches trimming a hangnail with his skinning knife. 'Mebbe so,' he said. The others looked at him, and he responded with a shifty, snaggle-toothed smile. 'Summat of the newlies, they thinkin' Messer Captain's a luck-piece, turn bullets to water. Foin while it lasts, make 'em take chances, though, mebbe turn arse when the red wine's served for really.'

'Not much we can do about that,' Raj said, pushing back the shimmering vision of a firing-line dissolving as men ran, abandoning their comrades. . no, abandoning strangers they had not learned to depend on, officers they did not know enough to trust. Raj knew his own motivations, knew that he would carry out his mission whatever the consequences, but he would not have been an effective leader if he did not realize that most soldiers were governed by different imperatives.

Somewhere in the building behind them wood crashed. Voices shouted, in a yelping exultant falsetto, 'Aur! Aur!'

'Spirit of Man of the Stars,' Kaltin muttered. 'It's those damned irregulars again. Bloody weasels in a henhouse.'

Raj sighed wearily, rubbing a hand over his face and unbuckling his helmet. Tepid sweat trickled greasily from the cork and sponge lining. 'They've been willing to listen to reason, somewhat,' he said.

'Summat, ser,' M'lewis added, 'after the boys told 'em what they thought of spoilin' loot.' The officers nodded; their Descotters could be a trifle rough-they were soldiers, after all, not schoolgirls on an outing-but they were good lads at heart. 'Got a good nose for hidey-holes, true told, once they blood's cooled a bit. Few of the kaypadros were goin' around with them, gleanin'-loik.'

More crashing, the rhythmic sound of metal on wood. Then another chorus of screams, women's voices among them this time; a single shot, and a brief clash of steel. Shouts, the shrill yelping of the borderers and deep- chested Descotter bellows.

'Well, I think that's the Caid in his little hideaway,' Evrard said, looking around and through the unshuttered floor-to-ceiling windows. 'But damned-'

Raj looked back; the irregulars were kicking an elderly man along, one dressed in an expensive-looking robe. His beard was dyed green, sign of one who had made the pilgrimage to the Holy City of Sinar; where the first ships from Old Earth had landed, bearing a fragment of the Ka'bah from the ruins of burning Mecca. They swung open- handed blows at him, spitting in his face; one ripped out a handful of the beard. The Caid cried out, a prayer in Arabic.

'— if there's going to be much left.'

The borderers were shouting as well:

'This for our priest you flayed in his church-

'Scream, dog! Scream as my brother did when the Bedouin burned him alive!'

Raj slapped a hand against the fluted limestone of the pillar beside him. 'Well, they didn't have to volunteer,' he said. The irregulars were invaluable at raid-and-ambush work, and they were certainly fighting men. . but they were not any sort of soldiers, and the ones who'd come this far into hostile country were likely to have exceptional motivation.

Ripping cloth, and more breathless cries of pain and fear. A jeering borderman's voice, 'These are your bitches, dog? Hai, an old dog like you doesn't need them!'

He glanced in through the windows again. The Caid was down on hands and knees, and one of the irregulars was sitting on his back as if on a riding dog, slashing behind him with the Caid's own ceremonial nine-thonged whip of authority. The jagged pieces of steel on the ends of the thongs were fully functional as well as symbolic, however. Spirit of Man, what a way to make a living, Raj thought with weary disgust.

'This dog won't answer to the lash,' the 'rider' joked.

'A cull-dog!' somebody else laughed, darting in with the sleeve of his robe rolled back and a knife in his hands. 'Cull-dogs must be castrated.'

The commanders did not precisely look away, but there was no particular need to watch what was effectively out of their control. Thus they missed the first flicker of movement through the doors, and nobody heard the slap of bare feet on the sandstone floor because the Caid's dying scream was loud enough to stun their ears for a second. It did not last long; a man whose testicles have been completely severed bleeds out into unconsciousness quite quickly. Barton Foley was startled enough to jump backward with a yell as the girl ran into him, head down. He shouted, his voice cracking; the girl gave a breathless shriek, staring about wildly as weapons were returned to scabbards and holsters. Her hands stayed gripped in the harness of Ensign Foley's shoulder-strapped baldric. A torn-open vest was her only clothing apart from the thick hair that fell past her waist; she looked to be about