spent as much of this time as he could spare with her betrothed. But a
space force had been detected within a few light-years of the Zorian
System which might intend action on behalf of some other claimant to the
Imperium than Hans Molitor whom the Gospodar supported, or might use
such partisanship as an excuse for brigandage. Therefore Bodin
Miyatovich led some of the Dennitzan fleet out to warn off the
strangers, and if necessary fight them off. Mihail Svetich, engineer on
a Meteor-class torpedo craft, had kissed Kossara farewell.
Rather than fret idle in Zorkagrad, she flitted to her parents’ home.
Danilo Vymezal, voivode of the Dubina Dolyina, was head of council,
chief magistrate, and military commander throughout a majestic country
at the northern rim of the Kazan. Soon after she reached the estate,
Kossara said she wished for a long hunt. Her father regarded her for a
moment before he nodded. “That will do you good,” he said. “Who would
you like for a partner? Trohdwyr?”
She had unthinkingly supposed she would go alone. But of course he was
right; only fools went by themselves so far into wilderness that no
radio relay could pass on a distress call from a pocket transceiver. The
old zmay was welcome company, not least because he knew when to be
silent.
They took an aircar to a meadow on the unpeopled western slope and set
forth afoot. The days and nights, the leagues and heights, wind, rain,
sun, struggle, and sleep were elixir. More than once she had a clear
shot at a soaring orlik or a bull yelen poised on a crag, and forbore;
those wings or those horns were too splendid across the sky. But at last
it was sweet fire in the blood to stand before a charging dyavo, feel
the rifle surge back against her shoulder, see fangs and claws fall down
within a meter of her.
Trohdwyr reproved: “You were reckless, Dama.”
“He came at me from his den,” Kossara retorted.
“After you saw the entrance and took care to make much noise in the
bushes. Deny it not. I have known you longer than your own memory runs.
You learned to walk by clinging to my tail for safety. If I lose you
now, your father will dismiss me from his service, and where then shall
a poor lorn dodderer go? Back to his birth village to become a fisher
again, after these many years? Have mercy, Dama.”
She chuckled. They set about making camp. This was high in the bowl of
the Kazan, where that huge crater bit an arc from the Vysochina. The
view could not have been imagined by anyone who had not seen it, save
God before He willed it.
Though treeless, the site bore a dense purple sward of mahovina, springy
underfoot and spicy to smell, studded by white and gold wildflowers; and
a nearby canebrake rustled in the breeze. Eastward the ringwall sloped
down to timberline. Beyond, yellow beams of evening fell on a bluish
mistiness of forest, as far as sight could reach, cloven by a river
which gleamed like a drawn blade. Westward, not far hence, the rim stood
shadowy-sharp athwart rough Vysochina hills. Behind them the snowpeaks
of the Planina Byelogorski lifted sungold whiteness into an absolute
azure. The purity of sky was not marred by a remote northward thread of
smoke from Vulkana Zemlya.
The air grew cold soon after the sun went behind the mountains, cold as
the brook which bubbled iron-tasting from a cleft in the crater’s lip.
Kossara hunched into her jacket, squatted down, held palms forth to the
fire. Her breath drifted white through the dusk that rose from the
lowlands.
Before he put their meat on a spit above coals and dancing flamelets,
Trohdwyr drew a sign and spoke a few words of Eriau. Kossara knew them
well: “Aferdhi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds, Haawan who lairs on the
reefs, by this be held afar and trouble us not in our rest.” Hundreds of
kilometers and a long lifetime from the Black Ocean, he remained an
old-fashioned pagan ychan. Early in her teens, eager in her faith,
Kossara had learned it was no use trying to make an Orthochristian of