Conqueror

victory, however small, and they'll be attacking us instead of running away. We can beat any nobleman's following, but that would take time. Keep your men moving, and don't let yourself get bogged down.'

Which meant, among other things, keeping them from burdening themselves with too much loot; a real test of command skills, when they'd be fanning out on razziah across rich countryside.

Suzette spoke softly. 'I'm sure Major Clerett won't disappoint us, Raj.'

probability clerett will act according to instructions within acceptable parameters, 82 % ±4 based on voice-stress and other analysis, Center said.

And Barholm can't complain I'm not giving his nephew an opportunity to shine.

Cabot clicked heels. 'Rest assured, Messa.'

Raj nodded. 'I'm giving you no more than one week of raiding,' he went on. 'Then I'll need you back at Lion City. Throw out a wide net of scouts west of the river-the native locals will probably give you information enough, especially with some-' he rubbed finger and thumb together '-but you'll have to check. Then turn over command to Major Istban and make tracks for the city, which will be invested.

'This is a complex set of movements, gentlemen, to be carried out at speed, but you're all big boys now. Exercise your initiative.'

Gerrin cleared his throat. 'What'll you be doing, Raj?'

'Ah, well, our tribal auxiliaries have arrived. Including eight hundred Skinners.'

'The gentle, abstentious people,' someone muttered.

'A two-edged sword, but a sharp one,' Raj admitted. 'They, and the two companies of the 5th, will form a central reserve under my direct command. When you run into anything unusual, gentlemen, tell me and I'll bring them up. After that happens once or twice, even the most onerous surrender terms will start looking very good indeed.

'No more questions? Then let's get our men together and be about our business.' The Companions and a few of the other battalion commanders stepped closer, and they slapped their raised fists together in a pyramid. The leather of their gauntlets made a hard cracking sound.

* * *

'Hell or plunder, dog-brothers.'

'Anither seven in t' trees, ser,' M'lewis said, without turning his head. 'Half a klick, loik.'

'Good eyes, Lieutenant,' Raj nodded.

Skinners didn't set lookouts, really. It was just that there were always groups of men lying-up around one of their camps, and they saw and heard and probably scented everything. At home on the plains of the far northeast they lived by hunting sauroids. All shapes and sizes, from sicklefoot packs to the big grazers to carnivores ten meters tall. Bellevue's sauroids hadn't had a million years of exposure to hominids to give them an instinct to avoid men. Most inhabited areas had to be kept shot out of all the larger types; the Skinners lived among the native life, and throve.

'Trumpeter, sound the canter. Remember the instructions.'

The cool brassy notes sounded, and the two hundred men broke into a swift lope, the butts of their rifles resting on their thighs. As they broke through the screen of brush around the big meadow, they raised them and fired them into the sky, then flipped the long weapons down and sheathed them in the scabbards before their knees. A gesture of contempt, not reassurance. . a statement: you're not worth carrying a loaded gun to meet.

There was an etiquette to dealing with Skinners.

Nobody got up as the soldiers approached, unless they happened to be standing at the moment. Those who wanted to stare did; those who were sleeping or drinking kept on doing so. One man did amble out, peering as if in surprise.

'Eh, mun ami!' Chief Juluk Paypan said. He turned and shouted in Paytoiz, the Skinner tongue:

'Iles de Gran' wheetigo! E' sun bruha. L'hum qes' mal com nus!'

Many of the Skinners looked up at that; a few gave quick yelping barks of greeting, and started drifting toward their chief and the general who was-theoretically-their commander.

'Which means?' Suzette asked. She had ridden into a near-riot in the Skinner camp with him on the last campaign, to face down their chiefs after Raj hung two Skinners for murder. This was her first glimpse of them in a peaceful mood.

Of course, on that occasion they'd had four battalions with leveled rifles and a battery of artillery behind them.

Raj translated: 'It's The Big Devil and his witch. The man who's bad like us.'

'Is that a compliment?'

Raj grimaced. 'To a Skinner.'

He had never learned the Skinner tongue, not himself-the knowledge had the ice-edged hardness of something Center had implanted. Thinking about that always gave him a queasy feeling, like a mental image of bad pork.

It was not a good idea to think of smells when you were around Skinners. The bandy-legged little nomads had only been ashore a day, but the stink of their camp was already stunning. One man was standing in his sketchy saddle to urinate as they entered; he waved cheerfully and readjusted his breechclout without embarrassment, then rode off with a whoop. A few of them had put up leather shelters on poles, but most of the nomad mercenaries slept as they ate, defecated and fornicated-as and where the impulse took them. Dung, human and canine, and bits and scraps of things unidentifiable dotted the encampment. A monohorn carcass lay in the center of a ring of fires; those were medium-sized browsers, about twice the weight of a large bull, with columnar legs and a bone shield that extended from the long horn on their nose to the top of their humped shoulders. A single round hole above one eye showed what had killed it; the Skinners had probably camped where it died. The body and the ground for meters around was black with a carpet of flies.

As Raj watched, a Skinner backed out of its stomach cavity with a length of huge glistening purple-grey intestine in his teeth. He sawed it free a foot or so from his mouth, then threw back his head to swallow it without chewing. A visible bulge went down his throat to the already rounded stomach as they watched.

Juluk was grinning from ear to ear. He was fairly typical of his race, shorter than Suzette but twice as broad, a normal man compressed halfway down to dwarf size. Face and body were the color of old oiled leather; it was difficult to tell what his shaven scalplocked head and round button-nosed face would have looked like naturally, because of the mass of scar tissue. About half of it was tribal markings. He wore fringed leggings and breechclout of soft-tanned sauroid leather, with long knives on his thighs; crossed belts on his chest held shells for the two- meter tall rifle he leaned on, and each brass cartridge was longer than a man's hand, each bullet bigger than Raj's thumb. His hound lay at his feet; it cocked an eye up at Horace and went back to sleep.

Only Skinners habitually rode hounds, and entire males at that. Horace was one reason they regarded Raj as a human being. Most of it was the number of bodies his battles had piled up, impressive even to the tribes the Church called the Scourge of the Spirit's Wrath.

Juluk drank and passed him up the leather flask. 'Hey, mebbe we kill you now, sojer-man, wait too long anyway. You come to hang more of mes gars for killing farmers? That why you bring half-men?'

He jerked his head at the two companies of the 5th sitting their dogs behind Raj and Suzette. Half-men was a compliment; the Skinners had a quasi-respect for Descotters. Their name for themselves translated into Sponglish as Real Men. Or The Only Real Men.

Raj took a long swig of the arrak, date gin yellow with distilling byproducts and spiked with cayenne peppers, chile and gunpowder. Then he leaned over and spat half of it on the nose of the Skinner's dog. The big animal leapt to its feet, growling: Raj's boot and stirrup-iron met its nose with a nicely-timed swing, and Horace showed teeth as long as a man's fingers centimeters from the other animal's throat. It reconsidered, turned its back and ambled off, dishcloth-sized ears flapping.

'I only keep you alive to make me laugh, Juluk,' Raj said, drinking again. He'd eaten half a loaf of bread soaked in olive oil just before coming to the Skinner camp. 'I brought real men here to show your little boys how to