V
I OPENED MY EYES. For a while I was aware entirely of the horror. Physical misery rescued me, driving those memories back to where half‑forgotten nightmares dwell. The thought flitted by me that shock must have made me briefly delirious.
A natural therianthrope in his beast shape isn’t quite as invulnerable as most people believe. Aside from things like silver‑biochemical poisons to a metabolism in that semifluid state?damage which stops a vital organ will stop life; amputations are permanent unless a surgeon is near to sew the part back on before its cells die; and so on and so on, no pun intended. We are a hardy sort, however. I’d taken a blow that probably broke my neck. The spinal cord not being totally severed, the damage had healed at standard therio speed.
The trouble was, they’d arrived and used my flash to make me human before the incidental hurts had quite gone away. My head drummed and I retched.
“Get up.” Someone stuck a boot in my ribs.
I lurched erect. They’d removed my gear, including the flash. A score of them trained their’ guns on me.
Tiger Boy stood close. In man‑shape he was almost seven feet tall and monstrously fat. Squinting through the headache, I saw he wore the insignia of an emir?which was a military rank these days rather than a title, but pretty important nevertheless.
“Come,’ he said. He led the way, and I was hustled along behind.
I saw their carpets in the sky and heard the howling of their own weres looking for spoor of other Americans. I was still too groggy to care very much.
We entered the town, its pavement sounding hollow under the boots, and went toward the center. Trollburg wasn’t big, maybe five thousand population once. Most of the streets were empty. I saw a few Saracen troops, antiaircraft guns poking into the sky, a dragon lumbering past with flames flickering around its jaws and cannon projecting from the armored howdah. No trace of the civilians, but I knew what had happened to them. The attractive young women were in the officers’ harems, the rest dead or locked away pending shipment to the slave markets.
By the time we got to the hotel where the enemy headquartered, my aches had subsided and my brain was clear. That was a mixed blessing under the circumstances. I was taken upstairs to a suite and told to stand before a table. The emir sat down behind it, half a dozen guards lined the walls, and a young pasha of Intelligence seated himself nearby.
The emir’s big face turned to that one, and he spoke a few words?I suppose to the effect of “I’ll handle this, you take notes.” He looked back at me. His eyes were the pale tiger‑green.
“Now then,” he said in good English, “we shall have some questions. Identify yourself, please.”
“I told him mechanically that I was called Sherrinford Mycroft, Captain, AUS, and gave him my serial number.
“That is not your real name, is it?” he asked.
“Of course not!” I replied. “I know the Geneva Convention, and you’re not going to cast name‑spells on me. Sherrinford Mycroft is my official johnsmith.”
“The Caliphate has not subscribed to the Geneva Convention, said the emir quietly, “and stringent measures are sometimes necessary in a jehad. What was the purpose of this raid?”
“I am not required to answer that,” I said. Silence would have served the same end, delay to gain time for Virginia, but not as well.
“You may be persuaded to do so,” he said.
If this had been a movie, I’d have told him I was picking daisies, and kept on wisecracking while they brought out the thumbscrews. In practice it would have fallen a little flat.
“All right,” I said. “I was scouting.”
“A single one of you?”
“A few others. I hope they got away.” That might keep his boys busy hunting for a while.
“You lie,” he said dispassionately.
“I can’t help it if you don’t believe me,” I shrugged.
His eyes narrowed. “I shall soon know if you speak truth,” he said. “If not, may Eblis have mercy on you.”