“Time?”
“She says the crusaders plan to kill the Noor because the Noor are black. She says the crusaders have betrayed Pamra Don. A devil has come to lead them. So says Queen Fibji. She called upon me, the Protector of Man, to put an end to him.”
Oh, clever Queen, Tharius thought half-hysterically. Turning her enemies or former enemies against one another. “What is this devil’s name?”
“Peasimy Plot. He calls himself Peasimy Prime. He teaches no breeding, no children, no Noor. He cries, ‘Light comes,’ and brings only darkness and death. So says Queen Fibji.”
“Where is he?”
The general gestured toward the west. “There. She showed me where. His people and wagons have recently arrived. If you will look with your glass, you can see him between those two buttes, high in his wagon, a crown on his head. I have looked at him. When we have talked, I will go kill him.”
Tharius laid a hand upon his shoulder. “First we must take care of Pamra Don.” He pointed out the buttes, showed the general the message he had received. “Two days ago, Jondrigar. Almost three. They would be here by now, wouldn’t you think?”
“If they flew. Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they sent her back as she came to them, traveling over the steppe with Gendra Mitiar.”
Tharius stared at the high buttes. They couldn’t have picked a more visible place to do whatever they planned. Accessible only from the air, only by fliers, yet sloped enough to be unconcealed to all except those at the foot of the butte. Even as he stared, the seeker bird arrived.
“Fliers carrying baskets, slow, coming this way.”
From the air, the butte tops looked like tables above the colorful carpet of the valleys. Nearest the pass were two where many fliers clustered, and it was to one of these that Gendra and Ilze were carried and tumbled out with no ceremony. Ilze was on his feet at once, shaking his fist and screaming, but Gendra lay where she had rolled, unable to move. Some link within her was broken, she thought dully. Some vital connection. At last she gathered her remaining strength and struggled to her feet. At the very center of the space they stood upon, Sliffisunda crouched among a few weathered boulders, invisible to anyone looking from below, staring across Gendra’s shoulder. She turned. Across from her, level with her eyes, was another butte, perhaps a hundred yards away. Fliers clustered on it like flies on puncon jam, getting in each other’s way.
They are building a nest, she thought to herself. The stupid fliers are building a nest. She looked down. Thousands of faces stared back at her, white ovals, mouths open. A ripple moved from the base of the butte outward as people turned, staring, faces and faces. A murmur came, like a murmur of waves. She had not expected this many, not this many.
A new emotion came to her, all at once. Dismay. There should not have been this many crusaders. And there should have been only a few Jondarites, but there were Jondarites everywhere. With their bows. Why were there so many Jondarites?
Beside her Ilze stood, still waving his fists at the crouching Talker, screaming at him. “You owe her to me, Sliffisunda. You owe me!”
A flier came screaming low over the crowd below. Gendra could not understand what it said, but the crowd seemed to understand, for the murmur deepened, became a roar.
Tharius crumpled the message and raised his glass. The fliers had reached one of the buttes near the pass and dumped the basket on it. Someone stood up, shaking his fist. “Ilze,” Tharius breathed. “The Laugher. They’ve brought him. There’s another one.” This time the tumbled figure did not stand up at once; when it did, Tharius could hardly recognize it. Gendra Mitiar? It looked dead, a staggering corpse. An errant wind brought Ilze’s shouts to their ears, though they could not see whom he was shouting at.
“You owe her to me, Sliffisunda. She’s mine!”
“Where are the Jondarites who were with Gendra?” the general asked. “What has happened to them?”
“I don’t know,” Tharius answered. “Gendra and Ilze seem to have come willingly. They haven’t been hurt.”