peasants. It had taken Ekrasios two days and all of his eloquence
to keep half his men from abandoning the cause and returning
immediately to Delphaeus.
Adras, Ekrasios’ boyhood friend and his second-in-command,
was among the most profoundly disturbed. Adras now avoided
his leader whenever possible, and the few communications that
passed between them were abrupt and official. And so it was
that Ekrasios was somewhat surprised when Adras came to him
unsummoned in the ruddy glow of that fiery sunset.
‘A word with thee, Ekrasios,’ he asked tentatively.
‘Of course, Adras. Thou knowst that it is not needful for thee
to ask.’
‘I must advise thee that I will not participate in this night’s
work.’
‘We are bound by our pledge to Anakha, Adras,’ Ekrasios
reminded him. ‘Our Anari hath sworn to this, and we are
obliged to honor his oath.’
‘I cannot, Ekrasios!’ Adras cried, sudden tears streaming
down his face. ‘I cannot bear what I have done and must do
again should I enter yon city. Surely Edaemus did not intend
for us to so use his dreadful gift.’
There were a dozen arguments Ekrasios might have raised,
but he knew in his heart that they were all spurious. ‘I will not
insist, Adras. That would not be the act of a friend.’ He sighed.
‘I am no less unquiet than thou, I do confess. We are not suited
for war, Adras, and the curse of Edaemus makes our way of
making war more horrible than the casual bloodletting of other
races, and, since we are not fiends, the horror doth tear at our
souls.’ He paused. ‘Thou art not alone in this resolve, art thou,
Adras? There are others as well, are there not?’
Adras nodded mutely.
‘How many?’
‘Close to a hundred and fifty, my friend.’
Ekrasios was shaken. Nearly a third of his force had quite
literally defected. ‘You trouble me, Adras,’ he said. ‘I wi’ll not
command thee to forswear the dictates of thy conscience, but
thine absence and that of they who feel similarly constrained do
raise doubts about our possible success this night. Let me think
on’t.’ He began to pace up and down in the muddy forest clearing,
considering various possibilities. ‘We may yet salvage some
measure of victory this night,’ he said finally. ‘Let me probe the
extent of thy reluctance, my friend. I do concede that thou canst
not in conscience enter the ruin which doth lie before us, but
wilt thou abandon me utterly?’
‘Never, Ekrasios.’
‘I thank thee, Adras. Yet mayest thou and thy fellows further
our design without injury to thy sensibilities. As we discovered
at Norenja, the curse of Edaemus extends its effects to things
other than flesh.’
‘Truly,’ Adras agreed. ‘The gates of that mournful ruin did
collapse in decay at our merest touch.’
‘The east wall of Synaqua is constructed of logs. Might I prevail
upon thee and thy fellows to pull it down whilst I and the
remainder of our force do enter the city?’
The mind of Adras was quick. His sudden grin erased the
estrangement which had marred their friendship for the past
several days. ‘Thou wert born to command, Ekrasios,’ he said
warmly. ‘My friends and I will most happily perform this task.
Do thou and thy cohorts enter Synaqua by the front gate whilst
I and mine do open a huge back gate to the east that they who
reside within yon city may freely depart. Both ends are thus
served. ‘
‘Well said, Adras,’ Ekrasios approved. ‘Well said.
CHAPTER 27
‘They’re out of sight now,’ Talen hissed. ‘Go grab their cart.’
Kalten and Sparhawk rose from the bushes, appropriated the
‘ half-full wood-cart, and pulled it back out of sight. It was about
noon.
‘I still think this is a really stupid idea,’ Kalten grumbled.
‘Assuming that we don’t get stopped when we try to go through
the gate, how are we going to unload our weapons and mailshirts
without being seen? And how are we going to get out of
the slave-pen to pick them up?’
‘Trust me.’
‘This boy’s making me old, Sparhawk,’ Kalten complained.
‘We might be able to pull it off, Kalten,’ Bevier said. ‘Xanetia
told us that the Cynesgan overseers don’t pay much attention
to the slaves. Right now, though, we’d better get this cart away
from here before the fellows it belongs to come back and find
that it’s gone.’
They pulled the wobbly, two-wheeled cart along the narrow
track toward the spot where Xanetia and Mirtai were concealed
in the bushes. ‘Lo,’ Mirtai said dryly from her hiding place, ‘our
heroes return with the spoils of war.’
‘I love you, little sister,’ Sparhawk retorted, ‘but you’ve got an
overly clever mouth. Kalten’s got a point, Talen. The Cynesgan
overseers themselves might be too stupid to notice what
we’re doing, but the other slaves probably will, and the first
one to open his mouth about it will probably get a lot of
attention. ‘
‘i’m a-workin’ on that port, Sporhawk,’ the boy replied. He
.dropped to his knees and scrutinized the underside of the cart.
‘No problem,’ he said confidently, rising and brushing off his
bare knees. They had modified the Cynesgan robes they had
bought in Vigayo by removing the sleeves and hoods and cutting
the tails off just above the knees. The resulting garments now
resembled the smocks worn by the slaves who labored in the
fields and woods surrounding Cyrga.
While the rest of them fanned out through the woods to pilfer
firewood from the stacks cut by the slaves, Talen remained
behind, working at something on the underside of the cart. They
had amassed a sizeable pile by the time he had finished. Sparhawk
returned once more with an armload of wood to find
the boy just finishing up. ‘Do you want to take a look at this,
Sparhawk?’ he asked from under the cart.
Sparhawk knelt to examine the young thief’s handiwork.
Talen had wedged the ends of slender tree-limbs between the
floorboards of the cart and then had woven them into a shallow
basket that fit snugly under the bottom of the stolen conveyance.
‘Are you sure it won’t come apart if we hit a bump?’ he asked
dubiously. ‘It might be a little embarrassing to have all our
weapons and our mail-shirts come spilling out just as we’re
passing through the gate.’
‘I’ll ride in it myself, if you want,’ Talen replied.
Sparhawk grunted. ‘Tie the swords together so that they won’t
rattle, and stuff grass in around the mail-shirts to muffle the
clinking.’
‘Yes, oh glorious leader. And how many other things that I
already know did you want to tell me?’
“Just do it, Talen. Don’t make clever speeches.’
‘i’m not trying to be offensive, Mirtai,’ Kalten was saying. ‘It’s
just that your legs are prettier than mine.’
Mirtai lifted the bottom of her smock a little and looked critically
at her long, golden legs. Then she squinted at Kalten’s.
They are rather, aren’t they?’
‘What I’m gettinE at is that they won’t be quite as noticeable
if you smear some mud on them. I don’t think the gate guards
are blind, and if one of them sees the dimples on your knees,
he’ll probably realize that you aren’t a man, and he might decide
to investigate further.’
‘He’d better not,’ she replied in a chill tone.
‘There are not so many of the dens of the man-things in this
place as there were in the place Sepal or the place Arjun,’ Bhlokw
noted as he and Ulath looked down at the village of Zhubay. It
had seemed that they had been travelling for several days, but
they all knew better.
‘No,’ Ulath agreed. ‘It is a smaller place with fewer of the
man-things. ‘
‘But there are many of the dens-of-cloth on the other side of
the water hole,’ the Troll added, pointing at the large tent city
on the far side of the oasis.
‘Those are the ones we hunt,’ Ulath told him.
‘Are you certain that we are permitted to kill and eat those?’
Bhlokw asked. ‘You and Tin-in would not let me do that in the
place Sepal or the place Arjun or even in the place Hat-os.’
‘It is permitted here. We have put bait out to bring them to
this place so that we can hunt them for food.’
‘What bait do you use to lure the man-things?’ Bhlokw asked
curiously. ‘if the minds of the Gods ever get well again and they
let us go back to hunting the man-things, it would be good to
know this.’
‘The bait is thought, Bhlokw. The man-things in the dens-of-cloth
have come to this place because certain of our pack-mates
put it in their thought that the tall man-things with the yellow
skin will be here. The ones in the dens-of-cloth have come here
to fight the tall ones with yellow skin.’
Bhlokw’s face contorted into a hideous approximation of a