But humanity is frail. Muscles and blood, sinews and breath, can only sustain a man for so long. Then strength will fail and breath come hard. Then muscles will fail to bring the sword up in time, to deliver the terminal blow. And there were many Fish-Heads, over twice as many as in the Brotherhood. We fought magnificently.
But we were pressed in and back. The Pachaks found a weak link in the circle and we smashed our way through. I lifted in the stirrups and waved the dripping sword.
“To the trees!” I yelled. I took the responsibility. I ordered the retreat. I, it was, who took my men away from that death trap.
We galloped hard for the trees and we passed the little ruin atop its hill. There were fewer of us who thus retreated than there had been who so valiantly charged.
At the tree line we reformed. Our zorcas were tiring. We were all panting. Most of us were wounded. Blood shone red upon our armor. And, over all, the sticky green ichor clung, stinking, foul, like a vomit to revolt us all and remind us of the inevitable end.
The dark mass of the Shanks with those evil glittering points of light from point and edge of weapons waited at the far end of the greensward slope. Banners fluttered above them, a multi-colored display that meant much to them and nothing save as targets for destruction to us. I looked at the Brotherhood, panting but determined still. We were few.
“We will chew them up piecemeal and spit them out as one spits out gregarian pips,” I shouted. “We hit the left flank and break clean through and retire. Understood?”
“Aye, prince. Understood.” The cries came bluffly, strong, confident despite wounds and tiredness. I shook my zorca’s reins and led out.
We hit them like a rapier lunge, chopping off the left flank. We lost men, yes, we lost good men; but we trampled down and slew more of them than they of us.
The Shanks — the Shkanes as Pyvorr called them — handled their tridents with superb efficiency. The wicked barbs would degut a man as neatly as a fishmonger deguts a cod. But the wicked tridents had their disadvantages. Seg deflected one with the bowstave in his left hand, his sword blurred down and sliced away an icy Fish-Face, and Inch, the barbs of a trident caught in his saddle, slashed his axe in a merciless horizontal sweep that sprayed bits of fish everywhere.
We reformed back upslope and turned, and hit them again.
Four, five, six times we regrouped and charged.
At each charge we were less. The zorca, as we all believed then, was not the animal for the solid shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee charge, bodyweight and mass of metal counting more than fleetness and agility. Times change — but that is for later.
Seven times we raced fleetly over the slope, angling the direction of our lunge, trying to chew and chop at the mass of Fish-Heads as a man hews and cuts at a stubborn log of wood to shape it to his satisfaction. The fight was of great intensity during the action; the compass might be small but of individual prowess the battle was of epic proportions.
The arrow storm I had expected to greet us from the Shanks’ asymmetrical bows stormed only once. We lost men; but I shouted and lifted my sword and beat away the glancing shafts, and others bent their heads into the sleet. We charged through that ordeal, losing men — the Pachaks suffered here — and so came to hand strokes, again. After that the arrows fell sparingly and I guessed the Shanks were running low.
If ever the relative merits of the reptilian two-legged sleeth and the close-coupled four-legged zorca could be proved, then this battle matched them and proved decisively the zorca as the master. Pirouetting, dancing nimbly sideways, circling, the zorcas outran and outmaneuvered the clumsy sleeths. This gave us one tremendous advantage. We could drive in, deliver our blows and spin away before the sleeth riders could form front to receive our onslaught.
The grasses stained red and green with dropped blood. Men and Fish-Heads lay upon the stained grass, some howling, some screeching, most dead.
Eight times we roared in, and on the eighth time we were fractionally slow through tiredness and so were nearly surrounded and trapped. We fought free. Sword against serrated sword and trident, we hewed and savaged our way through the pressing ranks, rode with bent heads for the tree line past the white columns of the ancient ruin. We were nearly exhausted. All were wounded. We gasped for breath. Our superb zorcas were near the end.
I rode a few paces before the brothers of the Order — with the Pachaks and the Khibil there in the line with us — and I lifted in the stirrups. I surveyed my men from under the helmet rim.
“If any man wishes to withdraw through the forest, he is free to do so. I shall not think any the worse of him for that. If any one of you wishes to go, then go now, and may Opaz guide your footsteps.”
There were gaps in the ranks, and the gaps closed up.
No man moved back.
The zorcas shifted on their polished hooves. Oby held the scarlet and yellow banner high. I let out my breath.
“Then let us all go forward, together, as a band of brothers.”
“They fight hard, by Erthyr the Bow,” said Seg. He shook his bow at the dark ranks of Shanks, speckled with the cruel glitter from their weapons. “But we’ll have ’em!”
“We’ll take a few with us to the Ice Floes of Sicce,” said Inch. “By Ngrangi, this old axe will lop a few fishy heads.”
“By Xurrhuk of the Curved Sword,” spat out Balass the Hawk. “We can lick them yet.”
“Aye!” sang out Oby. He used an oath of the Jikhorkdun, in remembrance of other days. “You speak sooth, Balass, by the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax!”
Other oaths rose as men swore on their honor. These men would fight to death, however nonsensical that might be. And yet — and yet? Could I detect a wavering among some of those with us? A very slight, an almost imperceptible, reluctance? Some of the shouts and cries carried overtones of hysteria. Some of these men might waver. They could see quite plainly that this affair could end only in their deaths. Where was the sense in that? Yet these men were brothers, of the Order — yet the Order was new, unfledged, with no long-rooted traditions to inspire and uplift and enable men to act beyond their own resources. Could I blame them?
“The island of Nikzm is small,” I shouted. “Since we dispersed the pirates there has been no fighting. There is no garrison to speak of. All that lies between these Fish-Heads and the defenseless people — is us — the Order.” I did not wave my sword. I sat hard and upright and glared upon these, my men, the brothers of the Order I hoped would achieve so much. “But that is not the whole reason why we fight on. Yes, it is the ultimate reason for our being. For the people of Nikzm represent all the peoples of Paz. All the continents and islands here. But we fight for our own honor. We fight in our own eyes, we are our own judges. It is to us, and us alone, that this Jikai belongs. And in honor we must redeem our pledges so freely given.”
The line, so shrunken now, quivered. Zorcas began to sidle. The men were dispirited, despite their words. In only moments one man might break, and with his desertion the whole line could crumble. Was this how my own vaunting ambitions were to end? On a tiny island, destroyed by stinking Fish-Heads?
Was my own pride so vainglorious that I would condemn to death this fine company of men, young and proud in their strength, laughing and merry, send them remorselessly to destruction? For myself? For my overweening pride and ambition?
In that dark moment, I, too, I, Dray Prescot, of Earth and of Kregen, came very close to despair. A voice, an anonymous voice, rose from the ranks.
“Let us ride from hence and gather reinforcements. Let us save ourselves so that we may fight another day.”
I looked.
I confess it, I looked to mark the man.
It was Dredd Pyvorr, Tarek, created by me, given honor and rank, his father uplifted, an Elder, the Chief Elder of this island we fought to save.
“If this is your will-” I started to say, not thinking, not even savage, but resigned. I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, Krozair of Zy,
resigned to running from my foes!
Another voice bellowed, hard and fierce.
“They charge! See, the Shanks attack!”
I swung about, lowering, hating, filled with anger and remorse and fury and shame. The Fish-Heads bore down on us, a long dark breaking wave of beasts and mounts, tipped with steel, riding knee to knee, hard and savage and utterly without mercy, riding to crush us and smash us into utter destruction.
“Now are we doomed!” The shriek rose and shattered in despair.
The line began to break.
Chapter Two
Kroveres of Iztar
As that dark and glittering onrushing mass bore down on us I cursed my own stupidity and pig-headed vanity and folly. I, Dray Prescot, had led these men to their deaths. The horrid clicking and scratching of many sleeth claws reached us with hypnotic intensity. The tridents glittered red in the light of the Suns of Scorpio — glittered red with our blood.
The line at my back moved and snaked, restively. The zorcas were tired. The men were exhausted. Fool! Onker! I should have retreated at the first, sought what assistance there was in Nikzm; small though it was, it would have made the difference. All the mercenaries at the Fair, the stout country-folk, the fishermen — with what weapons we could have gathered up for them, we would have fought — and I realized even as I thus castigated myself that no simple countryman, no fisherman, was going to meet and best in battle these supremely warlike Shanks. The Shanks lived for battle. It was a creed with them, some divine right given to them by their own dark and fishy gods, driving them on, egging them on to plunder and conquest and eternal battle.
The truth was the Brotherhood had achieved against the Shanks what few groups of men of Paz had ever achieved before. And the cost was high, the payment dear, the final reckoning written in blood and spelling death.
“Brotherhood of Paz!” I bellowed, turning in the saddle, glaring back at the shuffling line. “Those of you who will, go! Flee! Save yourselves. Raise the island, carry word to Zamra, rouse the garrisons. And those that will — follow me!”
Lumpily turning in the saddle and ready to clap in heels — no man who is a rider uses spurs to a zorca
— I hesitated, and turned back. My face must have borne that old intolerant, savage, devil’s look. I bellowed.
“Seg! Inch! Balass! Turko! Oby!” I shouted, loud, intemperately, viciously. “Tom! Vangar! Nath! Kenli!
Naghan! You do not ride with me. Your duty lies in other places closer to your hearts! I order you to ride and seek succor! Ride!”
They left it to Seg to speak for them all.
Seg Segutorio lifted his bow. He smiled that raffish, fey grin of his, his blue eyes very bright and merry in that tanned face beneath the shock of black hair.
“Oh, aye, my old dom. We’ll ride. We’ll obey your damned high-handed orders. Only it happens that the quickest way for us to ride to do your bidding — prince — is to ride straight ahead. Straight ahead!”
“And if any lumpen Fish-Face happens to get in the way, let him look out,” Inch finished.
“Famblys!” I shouted, feeling the gush of warmth, the anger, the pride at their folly, the agony and the shame. “Idiots! Onkers! It is my duty and mine alone — it falls to me-”
“Sometimes you take too much on your shoulders,” said Turko. His magnificent muscles bulged. I blinked. In Turko’s left hand a green-dripping sword caught the lights of the twin suns. “Turko? A sword?”
He laughed. “They broke my parrying stick. This serves in its stead. Had I my great shield, now, then-”
The clicking scrape of the advancing sleeths bore down on us.
The line shifted and yet, and yet they would not ride off. For a space the tension hung. Now I knew that they must ride. I had been wrong, criminally wrong, in thus dragging these men to their deaths. In my own folly and pride I thought I had been doing the right, the noble, thing. But nobility can be bought at too high a price. It was folly to have these men slain to no purpose now. If we all died here — as we would, as we would! — how would that help this tiny island of Nikzm, let alone the mighty empire of Vallia?
No thoughts of my Delia must be allowed to enter my stubborn old vosk-skull of a head. None.
“Go!” I bellowed. “Save yourselves!”
A few men shook out their reins, they would not look at me. But I did not blame them as they began to turn their zorcas’ heads, ready to ride back through the dark defiles of the forest. So this was how all my brave dreams for a great Brotherhood had foundered! The Order was finished. It had never even begun.
I turned back to face the oncoming mass of Shkanes, and I wished I could have had my old Krozair longsword with me, and I kicked in my heels and the zorca lunged forward for the last time. Headlong I belted for the black and silver glittering mass of Fish-Heads. A shrill and shocked shrieking began — began to my rear.
I did not look back. The zorca flew fleetly over the grass where the blue and red and white flowers starred the green, where drops of red blood stained across the flowers. The shouting at my back increased and voices mingled in shocked disbelief. I looked up to my left, toward the white ruins. I stared, disbelieving.
A light glowed among the white tumbled columns.
A golden yellow light, lambent, blazing, growing in color and luminosity, swelling. And at the heart of that refulgent radiance the figure of a woman astride a zorca. A woman wearing golden armor, astride a white zorca whose single spiral horn blazed with golden light. I stared and the mount beneath me ran loose. I stared at the apparition. She wore golden armor and carried a great banner which flowed freely outspread in a breeze no one else could feel, an unearthly breeze from a land beyond the senses of normal men.
“Zena Iztar!” I screamed it out, shaken, dazed, wondering. “Zena Iztar!”
This was the supernatural woman who had visited me on Earth when I had been banished there for twenty-one miserable years. Then she had used the fashionable name of Madam Ivanovna. She had appeared to me before, using supernatural means, and I believed she had helped me. She was not, as far as I then knew, aligned either with the Savanti or with the Star Lords. I gaped and the zorca eased up, and slowed down. Zena Iztar lifted the great banner so that all could see the device coruscating upon the crimson surface.
Outlined in white upon the glowing crimson banner the deep royal blue of her cogwheel device forced itself upon my own senses, yet I had never grasped the significance of that emblem. Always before Zena Iztar had appeared to me alone, with those around us frozen in a timeless sleep. Yet now — now from the shouts and excited and shocked exclamations that broke from the brothers of the Order, she could be seen by us all.
Her voice reached us. Golden, ringing, full-bodied, her voice floated above all the sounds of coming battle, over the shouts and yells of the men, over the clicking scraping advance of the sleeths and the hissing malevolence of the Fish-Heads, over the mingled jingling of war harness.
“Men of Paz! Brothers of the Order! Comrades in blood! Those you call Fish-Heads must be shown the error of their ways. The Order demands sacrifice, loyalty, utter devotion, unswerving purpose, obedience.” She lifted the banner in her left hand and golden coruscating sparks shot from her armor. In her right hand a sword — a sword! A sword like unto a Savanti sword — lifted high and pointed. The brand pointed at the Shanks. “Death is a small price to pay for honor! Brothers of the Order! Your duty in honor is to be true to yourselves and to Paz and to the Order.”
The light began to fade.
I shook my head. There was much she had said with which I would not, could not, agree. But a great deal summed up something of what I struggled for.
But, in the name of Zair! How did she know the Order existed at all?
But, then, she was no mortal woman. She understood many secrets I longed to know, could see into the hearts of men, must surely comprehend the doings of Kregen and attempt to mold them to her own ends. The Shanks pressed nearer. They were confident no
w. They had withstood all we could throw at them. They had suffered and had lost a goodly number from their ranks. But they could see how we had suffered. They shrilled their hideous screeching war cries and they came on, fishy, stinking, scaly, repulsive, deadly.
They had not seen the golden glowing apparition of Zena Iztar.
Her chiming voice rang out for one last time before the vision disappeared.
“Fight for what you believe to be true, Men of Paz. And, remember, never speak to anyone not of the Order of my presence, for I am sacrosanct. This is a stricture laid on you as members of the Order -
and a privilege. Follow Dray Prescot. Jikai!”
The first man to move was Dredd Pyvorr.
With a high lifting shriek he set his zorca in a straight dead run at the oncoming Shanks. We saw him galloping madly into the thickest of them. We saw his sword swirling and smiting left and right, saw him engulfed as a stone is engulfed in a pool. In the same instant we were all once more in motion, roaring down, headlong belting down into the repulsively stinking mass of Fish-Heads. Dredd Pyvorr had shouted as he charged for the last time.
Over and over he had shouted as he roared to his death.
“For the Brotherhood of Iztar! For the Order! For Dray Prescot! Iztar! Iztar!”
I felt the coldness running through me.
There were manipulations here, superhuman twistings of normal human men to supernatural ends. Then we hit.
The red roaring madness of battle descended on us. I am contemptuous of that notorious red curtain that falls before the fighting man’s eyes — so it is said — but it is a thing that transcends humanity and must be used and manipulated in its turn so far as a man may. We fought. We fought. I think, now, as I thought then, that Zena Iztar brought some of her magical powers to our assistance. Nothing else, in all sanity, serves to explain what happened.
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