"I count a hundred and eighteen bodies," Grax announced. He was in buoyant spirits: even his chain mail seemed to be jingling with satisfaction. "We lost six, and three of those were lost because they fell off their mounts and got trampled by our own side, or drowned in the river."
"'Tis a famous victory," said Aristide.
Leaning on his scabbard, he sat on one of the great granite rocks above the pass while he watched the convoy guards demolish what was left of the barricade and hurl the stones into the river. His two prisoners, thoroughly bound, crouched at his feet.
Bitsy sat on a nearby rock, licking her anus.
Grax carried a sack of heads thrown casually over his shoulder, in hopes the sultan would offer a bounty. Since there was no pool of life in which to deliver the bodies that choked the roadway, the bandits' headless torsos were given to the river.
Aristide had made a point of refilling his water bottle upstream from that point.
The troll's gaze turned to Tecmessa.
"Your sword is magic?"
Aristide considered his answer. "It performs miracles, to be sure," he said.
"I've seen other swords that were supposed to be magic. They were all used in the past by heroes—well-made swords, all of them. But so far I know they never—you know—did anything."
"This one never did anything until I touched it," said Aristide. "It seems to work only for me."
Which, in addition to being the truth, might dissuade anyone—Grax, for instance—from killing him over possession of the blade.
Grax looked at him. "How did you find out what it does?"
"That's rather tragic actually. I'd rather not talk about it."
"When your enemies . . . disappear," Grax said. "Do you know where they go?"
Bitsy paused in her grooming and looked at him with green eyes.
"I've no idea," the swordsman lied.
Grax hitched up his wide belt. His chain skirts rang. "The captains are going to meet to decide what to do next. They all want to hunt for the loot and the Venger's Temple, but some are still going to have to guard the convoy on its way to Gundapur."
"This should be entertaining," Aristide said. "I'll attend, if I may." He rose to his feet and prodded his prisoners with his scabbard. "Up, you two," he said. The prisoners rose and, without their bound hands to aid them, picked their way carefully down the steep slope. Aristide rested his sword on his shoulder and followed.
As the party moved off, Bitsy rose to her feet, yawned, stretched, and joined the party.
The argument that followed was not unpredictable. Nadeer wanted to lead his little army to the Venger's Temple. Others pointed out that Nadeer was captain of the convoy guards charged with escorting the caravans to Gundapur, not the leader of a group of freebooters on their own account. Nadeer protested at first, but was finally brought to admit that he had accepted the responsibility of escort.
With Nadeer thus out of the running, the other captains all proposed themselves as leaders of the expedition to the Temple, and were in the process of arguing this when the actual caravan masters, their employers, demanded that all the guards accompany them all the way to Gundapur—or, failing that, surrender a share in any loot.
The argument was brisk and prolonged. Aristide, perched nearby atop a boulder that had fallen from the cliffs above and come to rest on the edge of the river, ate hard bread and dried fruit, and enjoyed the rush and flow and scent of the Cashdan with the pleasure that only thirty-odd days in the desert would bring. He smiled to himself as he listened to the arguments. Bitsy, less entertained, found a warm place on the rock and curled up to sleep. It was only when the captains' wrangle had grown repetitious that Aristide interrupted.
"My friends," he said, "may I point out that this debate is bootless?"
They looked at him. He stood on his rock and smiled down at them.
"At the Venger's Temple lies the loot of over a dozen caravans!" he pointed out. "Plus a sizeable hoard of plunder gathered elsewhere. Even if every convoy guard among you marched to the Temple and captured the treasure, how would they get all the treasure away? Even if they took every beast of burden in our combined caravans, they could only move a fraction of the total."
The captains looked at each other, their eyes glittering not with surprise, but with calculation. Perhaps, they seemed to be thinking, we could only take the absolute best . . .
"Therefore," said Aristide, "Nadeer and at least half the guards should take the caravans to Gundapur as quickly as they can, because they will have a vital role—to search the city in order to round up every horse, every camel, every ox, and every dinosaur-of-burden, and to bring them back to the Vale of Cashdan to carry away the greatest treasure in the history of the sultanate!"
The captains raised a cheer at this. But Masoud the Infirm raised an objection.
"If we take the treasure to Gundapur," he wheezed, "the sultan will want a percentage."
"No doubt," Aristide said. "But if you take the treasure anywhere else, the local ruler will also require a tax. And it must be admitted that your ordinary guards and camel drivers will want to be paid as soon as possible, so that they may spend their earnings in the city's pleasure-domes. Gundapur is your best bet.
"And since that is the case," Aristide said, and made a gesture of money falling from one palm into another, "may I suggest that while some of you organize the caravan to bring the treasure to the city, the rest of you should be offering bribes to the sultan's advisors to make certain that the taxes you're required to pay are minimal.
"And furthermore," he added, "since the caravan guards won't be able to afford to rent all those animals, or bribe the sultan's advisors, it's clear that the merchants who command the caravans deserve a share of the treasure."
Which began another argument concerning how large that share would be. Aristide had no comment to make on this matter, and instead returned to his seated position. He looked down at his two prisoners, who slumped against the rock below him. One—the bowman he had tripped—was a man of middle years, with a scarred cheek that put his mouth in a permanent scowl and a beard striped with grey. The other was a tall man, very muscular, but who presented the appearance of youth, with bowl-cut hair and a face swollen by the blow from the flat of Aristide's sword.
"Where is the Venger's Temple, by the way?" the swordsman asked.
The older man gave him a contemptuous look from slitted eyes. "I will happily tell you," he said. "Certain as I am that the knowledge will send you all to your deaths."
"Well," Aristide said, "for heaven's sake don't keep me in suspense."
The older man gave a jerk of his head to indicate the way they had come. "The Temple's in a side canyon," he said. "Back up the valley."
Aristide looked at the younger man. "Do you agree?"
"Oh yes. Also, that you will certainly die if you go there."
"How far?"
"From here you can walk the distance in fifteen or twenty turns of the glass. But you'll die. So don't."
Aristide looked at him with curiosity. "Are the defenses so formidable?" he asked.
"Not the defenses. The priests." The young man looked at Tecmessa. "The Priests of the Vengeful One possess the same power as your blade."
Aristide's face turned into a smooth bronze mask, his hawklike nose a vane that cut the wind. His dark eyes glittered with cold intent.
"What do you mean?" he asked. He spoke with care, as if the simple sentence was a fragile crystalline structure that might shatter if he uttered the wrong syllable.
"The priests cause people to disappear in a clap of thunder," the captive said. "Just as you caused Ormanthia to disappear."
"It is a sacrifice," the older man corrected. His voice was a hiss. "The Vengeful One is a powerful god. He swallows his victims whole."
The young man gave a shudder. "True. He does."
The older man looked at Aristide. "He will swallow you."
"Perhaps," said Aristide. "But on me he may break a tooth." He turned to the younger man. "How many priests are there?"
"Three."
"And they have swords like mine?"
"No. They are armed with . . ." He hesitated, as if he knew how absurd this would sound. "Clay balls," he finished.
"Clay. Balls." The delicate words once again chimed with a crystalline sound.
"They dangle the balls from strings. The balls dart around as if they had minds of their own. And the balls . . . eat people."
Aristide's profile softened as he considered the bandit's words.
"I shall look forward to encountering these priests," he said softly.
The older bandit spat.
"I shall look forward to your death," he said.
"How do you know the priests send their victims to death?" Aristide asked. "It might be paradise, for all you know."
The bandit spat again.
"I'll cut your throat myself," he said.
"Now, now," said Aristide. "I'll have to tick the box next to your name that says unrepentant."
"So we swear! So we swear!" The cry went up from the assembled captains. Aristide looked up from his conference. Apparently the leaders of the expedition had reached agreement.
As the others moved off to their companies, Grax looked up at Aristide on his rock
"You're authorized a double share if you accompany us to the Temple," he said.
"I wouldn't miss it," Aristide said. "You're in command of this expeditionary force, I assume?"
"Of course!" The troll showed his yellow teeth.
"Congratulations on your expanded responsibilities. My captives—for different reasons admittedly—are willing to lead us to the Venger's Temple."
Grax studied them with his golden eyes. "They show wisdom."
The older bandit curled his lip. Perhaps he'd run low on saliva.
"May be," Aristide said. "But I regret to tell you that it may be that our fight against these people may be more difficult than we've expected."
"Yes?" Grax didn't seem troubled. "Where is the Temple," he asked, "and how far?"
"Back up the valley. Fifteen or twenty glasses."
"Damn. We'll have to wait for this lot to get by us, then." He lumbered off to give orders to the elements of his new army, and to pass the word to the caravans that they should begin to move. The huge caravan picked itself up and began to trudge its way down the path to Gundapur's plain.
The story of the brief battle must have spread through the caravan, because Aristide found that many pointed at him as they passed, or huddled together and whispered. He saw Souza ride past on a mule, leading two more mules shared by the three children he'd salvaged for the College, and he and the scholar exchanged salutes.
Finding his celebrity tedious, and unable to move out of public scrutiny on a narrow track filled with carts and camels, Aristide spoke with his prisoners and found the younger bandit talkative, as he'd anticipated. He learned that the Venger's Temple was in a broad cleft in the mountain, with its own water supply, and with powerful natural defenses.
"It's like a pool of life, really," the young man said. "There's a waterfall on both sides of a stone pillar, and a pool below."
"Does it have the properties of a pool of life?" Aristide asked.
"No. It's just rocks and water. Quite pretty, really."
The long serpent of the caravan continued its crawl past the swordsman's perch. Aristide looked up at the sight of a young blue-eyed woman on a palfrey, but she had drawn a veil over her face, and kept her eyes turned from his.
He bowed as she passed. She kept her face turned away.
She had demonstrated that she was afraid of sorcery, and of the College. Certainly anyone who could wield such a weapon as Tecmessa must be a powerful wizard, worthy of trepidation.
Aristide's expression confirmed he was not pleased to be such an object of fear.
The caravan finally passed, leaving behind colossal amounts of fresh dung, and Grax organized his force of sixty warriors. They had few spare mounts: their comrades were deliberately making it difficult for the party to abscond with much of the loot. Aristide gave Grax the older bandit as a guide, and kept the talkative one for himself. Both captives were tied onto saddles that had been placed on mules.
The mounted force could move much more quickly than the caravan. After a brief march up the valley they came to the ridge where the band of caravan guards had been left to face a group of enemy on the opposite ridge. Their lieutenant descended to greet Grax.
"I was coming to report," he said. "The bandits we were watching have gone."
"Gone where?" asked Grax.
"Back over that ridge they were on. We don't know any more than that."
"Survivors must have told them we'd wiped out their main force, and they decided it was pointless to stay."
"There's a goat track back there," said the younger bandit. "It leads to the Venger's Temple."
Aristide raised his eyebrows. "A back entrance?" he asked.
"More like a side entrance. But the defenses are less formidable than the main track up the canyon."
Aristide looked at Grax. "Perhaps we should take this path."
Grax looked at the outlaw. "Is it suitable for our mounts?"
"You may have to lead them up a few steep places, but you shouldn't have any real trouble."
And so it proved. Grax's force—now augmented by the rear guard, who opted for glory and loot rather than the more tedious prospect of rejoining the caravan—ascended the enemy ridge unopposed, and found a narrow valley behind, pleasantly shaded by aspen. Birds sang in the trees overhead; butterflies danced beneath the green canopy. A brook sang its way down the valley, and the party crossed and re-crossed the water as they advanced.
There was fresh dung on the trail, which proved that they were on the track of the outlaws. The valley was ideal for an ambush, and Grax kept his scouts out. They saw nothing but a small, wary deer—they took a shot, and missed.
The trail rose from the valley floor and up a stony ridge. The party dismounted and led their mounts along the steep, narrow trail. From here it was a constant climb, on foot or mounted, along one slope or another. The terrain varied widely: sometimes they were in little green valleys filled with trees and flowers; on other occasions they were on rocky slopes as dry as the desert plateau beyond the top of the pass.
At one point, as the party rested and refreshed themselves while the scouts examined the next ridge to make certain there was no ambush, Aristide offered his captive a drink from his water bottle. He considered the outlaw's physique, his length, his breadth of shoulder, his well-developed muscles.
"How old are you really?" he asked.
The young man laughed. "I was sixteen when I left the Womb of the World. I'm not sure how long ago that was—eighteen months, maybe."
"Had you always intended to be an outlaw?"
The bandit gave a rueful grin. "Songs and stories made the life seem more exciting than it is. I'd thought it would be more fun."
Aristide gave an amused smile. "I've heard that from someone else recently."
"I hadn't intended to become the slave of a group of killer priests, that's for certain. But when I saw what their men did to Black Arim—he was our gang's leader—I joined right up. And once I met the priests, I was too frightened to run away. Especially after what I saw them do to a couple fellows they called 'deserters.'"
"Do the priests have names?"
"Not that I've ever heard. They speak to us in the common tongue, but they have a language of their own when they don't want us to understand what they're saying."
"Which is most of the time, I suppose."
The outlaw nodded. He looked over his shoulder to make certain no one was listening, then leaned close to Aristide and spoke in a lowered voice.
"How about cutting these ropes and letting me run for it?" he asked. "I've cooperated, and I promise to give up the outlaw life once I'm away from here."
Aristide considered this proposal. "I think I'll wait to see whether your information is correct."
"No offense," the bandit said, "but in a few hours you'll all be dead. I'd like to be well away from here before that happens."
The swordsman smiled. "I guess you'll have to take your chances with us. Want some more water?"
The bandit accepted another drink. The scouts on the ridge ahead appeared, and signaled that it was safe. Aristide helped the bandit back onto his mule, made sure the ropes were secure, and mounted his own horse. The small army continued their long climb.
Four turns of the glass later, they entered a small, shady valley fragrant with the smell of pine. "The Temple's just ahead," the young outlaw warned. "Past the trees, and up a slope."
Aristide rode ahead to deliver this news to Grax, whose own captive had been mute in the hopes that the column would just blunder into the bandit nest.
"Ah," Grax said in surprise. "I see." Then he turned in his saddle and without preamble ran the older bandit through with his lance. As the man kicked and thrashed his way to his next incarnation, Grax began making his dispositions.
Aristide rode ahead to where the scouts were hovering in the fringes of the trees, looking up at a boulder-strewn slope marked with evergreen scrub.
"Bitsy," he said. "Take a look, will you?"
The cat jumped from his perch behind Aristide's saddle. The barb snorted and made an uneasy sideways movement. Bitsy ignored the animal and sprang ahead, out of the shadow of the pines and onto the slope, and stayed close to the ground as she took a zigzag path to the crest, darting from cover to cover.
The nearest scout—a green-haired woman—gave Aristide a look.
"Your cat understands you," she said.
Aristide affected nonchalance. "Most of the time, yes."
Grax rode forward on his giant lizard to give instructions to the scouts, and seemed surprised to find Aristide there.
"I've sent a scout ahead," Aristide said. "She should be reporting back any time."
And in fact Bitsy was soon observed returning from her mission. She didn't bother weaving from cover to cover, but instead came straight back.
"You sent your cat?" Grax laughed, and then Bitsy arrived and spoke.
"No guards," she said. "It seems they've all been called in to witness punishment."
"Punishment?" Aristide asked.
"Your cat talks!" Grax said, wide-eyed. His green-haired scout made a sign to ward evil.
"I counted twenty-two outlaws, variously armed," Bitsy went on. "Three priests in black, and eleven bound captives. I believe these latter are the group we've been following—it seems the priests are unhappy with the failure of their mission."
"Your cat talks!" said Grax.
"The waterfall and pool are ahead on the right," Bitsy continued. "On the left is a plantation of date palms, and that's where the outlaws are congregated. Behind the pool is a stock pen, where their mounts are confined."
"Your cat talks!" said Grax. Bitsy looked at him.
"Yes," she said. "I do. May I suggest that you attack soon while one-third of their strength remain bound and helpless?"
Grax looked from Aristide to Bitsy and back again, his huge grey head bobbing on its thick neck.
"I believe Bitsy's advice is sound," Aristide said. "But let me tell you first about the priests."
He related what the captives had told him about the priests' abilities. Grax listened with grim attention, his eyes darting toward Bitsy now and then, as if to discover if she had sprouted wings, or a second head, or demonstrated some other unexpected talent.
"What do you recommend?" Grax said finally.
"Don't close with the priests. Tell your archers to keep shooting at them, from as many directions as possible."
"You can't make them . . . go away?"
"Perhaps." Aristide rubbed the stubble on his chin. "I wish we could take them alive. I'd like to know what they can tell me."
"If their powers are what you say, it may be easier to kill them."
"Yes. And what happens to them is going to be more their choice than ours."
"You're wasting time," said Bitsy sharply.
"True," Grax looked over his saddle at his forces, now waiting his command. He turned his great lizard and rejoined his guards, to give his orders.
Aristide also rode back, but only to join his guide, the young outlaw. The bandit flinched as Aristide drew a knife from his belt. Aristide reached out and placed the knife in one of the young man's bound hands.
"What you do from this point is your choice," he said, "but I'd run like hell if I were you."
The outlaw's face flushed. "Thank you!" he said. "I'm a law-abiding man from this point forward!"
"Don't make any promises you can't keep," Aristide said, and turned to rejoin the caravan guards. The outlaw called after him.
"Try not to die!"
Aristide laughed and rode on.
Grax's little army, having received its orders, was deploying left and right and moving upslope, all the while trying to make as little noise as possible. Aristide looked ahead and saw Bitsy's black-and-white tail waving from the shelter of a scrub pine. He increased his pace and rode to join her, passing the armed force as it was still deploying.
He dismounted before he reached the top of the slope, and made his way cautiously to the shelter of the little pine. He found himself on the rim of a shallow bowl three hundred paces in width. There was a great pile of rock on the right, cleft by a mountain brook that fell in two streams past a great basalt pillar into a broad pool, just as Aristide's guide had described. The stream rose again from the pool and wound its way across the bowl, cutting a trench through the palm plantation. The plantation itself had been raised above the floor of the bowl, and was surrounded by a chest-high stone wall, the interior of which had been filled with soil hauled to this place at considerable labor, to provide a fertile anchor for the trees.
Whoever had done this was long gone. The plantation had an untended look.
Beyond the plantation was a corral with horses and other animals. Most of the open area was cluttered with the tents and shelters of the bandit army. Only the fact that the plantation was elevated above the surrounding area gave Aristide a view of what was happening beneath the palms.
There was a gathering in the plantation, a half-circle of bandits with the three black-clad priests prominent in the center. At the priests' feet stretched another group of bandits, each bound hand and foot. Taller than the tallest human, and unnaturally slender, the priests stalked among them, chanting in a guttural tongue. It was impossible to hear any words over distance, and over the sound of the waterfall.
Grax rode up behind Aristide, peering over the twisted pine, his lance poised to give the signal to attack. Aristide motioned him to wait.
"I want to find out what happens next," he whispered.
Grax turned and signaled the army to stillness and silence, and then he dismounted and joined Aristide in concealment. The troll was wider than the bush he was hiding behind: at some other time it might have been amusing.
The priests continued to stalk among the bound bandits. The other bandits watched, and even though they were over a hundred paces away, Aristide could tell they weren't happy.
Then Aristide noticed the clay balls. They were dangling by cords from the priests' hands, and they darted through the air as if they were creatures with minds of their own, like cicadas leashed by children to string.
Aristide and Grax started at a sudden blast of sound. A stir of dust rose from the grove, and whirled away as the crash echoed repeatedly among the rocks. Birds flew up from their perches, calling in alarm.
Where there had been a bound bandit, there was now nothing but air.
Again Aristide's face became a smooth, intent mask, a motionless work in bronze from which glittered his dark, fierce eyes.
"So it's true!" Grax said. He looked over his shoulder at his troops, who seemed to have grown nervous. He favored them with a silent, morale-boosting laugh.
The murmur of the priests continued without cease. Another boom shattered the air; another bandit vanished.
"We should attack," said Grax.
"The longer this goes on," Aristide said, "the more they reduce their own strength. Let's watch."
"We can't wait too long. My men will lose heart."
"Go tell them the bandits are killing their own people and doing our job for us."
"Oh." Grax considered this. "Oh. Very good."
Bent low, he rumbled down the slope to his troops, and told them to spread the word.
"This isn't looking good," Bitsy said to Aristide, once they were alone.
"No."
"This overthrows everything."
Aristide didn't bother to answer. The priests continued their milling, their chanting. The startled birds began to settle back into the trees. Aristide watched as closely as he could.
Another detonation sounded from the grove. The birds rose again into the sky. Another outlaw vanished. And, somewhere behind Aristide, a warhorse neighed.
The horse was a stallion and waiting with other stallions made it fretful and belligerent, and it was beginning to scent the strange horses in the corral, and the repeated detonations had not soothed its nerves. So when the third bang echoed from the surrounding ranks the stallion answered, issuing a furious, shrieking challenge into the sky.
Aristide glanced over his shoulder at the sound. Grax, standing by another body of caravan guards, whirled to the horseman and signaled angrily for the horseman to quiet his beast.
Horses in the bandits' corral answered. The first stallion screamed back at them, and so did several other horses in the party.
Grax turned to Aristide, arms thrown wide in frustration. Aristide turned back to the plantation.
The three priests had turned as one to stare in the direction of the noise. Their chanting ceased. And after a half-second pause they were in motion again, running, gesturing, issuing orders.
Aristide turned to Grax and his command.
"Now!" he called. "Charge them!"
Grax took three steps and hurled himself onto his riding-lizard. He pulled his lance from the ground and shook it.
"Grax the Troll!" he shouted.
"Grax the Troll!" his riders echoed, and spurred forward.
"Not exactly 'Leeroy Jenkins!'" remarked Bitsy, "but I suppose it will do."
The riders roared over the lip of the bowl in a great cloud of dust. Grax led the lancers across the open ground to the right while the archers spread out widely, their arrows already humming through the air.
As the riders passed him, Aristide stood to get a better view.
The archers were not particularly accurate in firing from the backs of jouncing beasts, but their arrows at least served to increase the confusion of the bandit force. The swift advance of Grax and his lancers was hampered by the tent lines and shelters of the bandit camp, but they managed to maintain their momentum, and as they advanced trampled much of the bandits' armor and reserve weapons underfoot.
The main body of bandits had faded back from the edge of the palm plantation, leaving behind eight of their number still bound hand and foot. These were screaming and rolling and crying for help, much to the amusement of the archers, who were pleased to use them for target practice as they trotted forward. Aristide could see nothing of the priests.
There was a series of concussions, however, that revealed the priests were most likely causing arrows to disappear.
Aristide unsheathed Tecmessa and trotted forward on foot. Bitsy ran by his side.
Ahead of him, the archers fired a low scything volley into the plantation, then jumped their beasts over the wall and rode on. Aristide followed. There followed a series of cracks, and Aristide was nearly trampled as the archers came galloping back with a group of sword-swinging bandits in pursuit. A pair of priests were leading the charge and the archers knew not to let them get close.
It was clearly unwise to fight two priests at once. Aristide retreated along with the archers. Bitsy went up one of the palms.
The bandits pursued to the edge of the plantation. In the shade of the palms their eyes glowed like distant candles. The archers rode back to a safe distance and then resumed their shooting. Clay balls whirled on the ends of their cords, and booms tore the air as arrows vanished in midflight. But while the priests could protect themselves, they couldn't protect all their followers, and outlaws cried in pain and rage as they fell with arrow wounds.
Then there were shouts of Grax the Troll! from the depths of the palm trees, and the sound of riders. One of the priests turned and dashed back into the plantation, along with a group of bandits. The other priest remained, with a handful of followers clumped behind him, so that he could protect them from arrow fire.
Aristide came forward again, his sword leveled. A few archers trotted forward as well, but rode wide, keeping a respectful distance between themselves and Tecmessa.
An archer sheltering behind the priest knelt, drew, let fly. Tecmessa took the arrow with a crack, a blast of wind, and a puff of dust.
The bandits, as one, took a step back, consternation plain on their features. The priest did not move.
Aristide paused in his advance and addressed the priest.
"I am Aristide, the traveler. Will you favor me with your name?"
The priest made no answer, but glared at him with orange eyes. His unnatural height was exaggerated as he stood on the wall that bordered the plantation. He wore a black turban with the tail wrapped around his lower face, a black robe, black pantaloons, boots. His hands and the skin around his eyes were blue. He wore an indigo-colored sash around his narrow waist with a pair of silver-hilted daggers stuck in it. The clay ball, no larger than a knuckle, quested on the end of its cord like the antenna of an insect.
"If not your name," Aristide said, "then perhaps your purpose. Your order. Feel free to discourse on the name and nature of your god—who knows, I may convert."
The priest gave no answer.
"Well." Aristide whirled his sword in a bit of bravado. "As you choose to remain silent, let us then get on to the contest of skill."
There was a barrage of bangs from the depths of the plantation, and cries of "Grax! Grax!" Aristide advanced, his eyes intent on the clay ball.
The ball swooped, darted, swung toward him. Tecmessa's point angled toward it.
Something twisted in the air between them. Then untwisted. A preternatural silence seemed to descend on the field for an instant.
Aristide continued his advance. "We are well-matched, I see," he said, "except of course in the matter of practical weaponry."
Tecmessa slashed through the air and cut the priest's leg in half just above the knee. As the priest fell, a backhand cut took his right hand.
The hand, the ball, and the cord fell to the ground, all lifeless.
The priest gave a howl of anger, snatched a dagger from his waist, and lunged as he rose on the elbow of his crippled arm. Aristide parried, and then his blade thrust forward, the single edge slicing the priest's throat.
There was a red spurting, a rattle, a kicking of boots. The air tasted briefly of copper. The silver knife fell to the stones.
Tecmessa slashed out again, and three bandits vanished in a blast of air. The rest scrambled back in disorder.
Aristide leaped atop the wall and waved the archers forward, then moved into the plantation on the heels of the bandits.
Amid the palms ahead, a knot of bandits brandished weapons in the murk and dust. Arrows hissed between the trees. Lancers galloped in, then away. Grax had succeeded in cutting off the outlaws from their mounts, which made their escape problematical, but a barrage of cracks and booms made it clear that the priests were still guarding their flock.
"Grax the Troll!" There was a storm of arrows, followed by a rush on the flank. Cries among the bandits showed that at least some of the arrows struck home. An unnaturally tall figure rushed to meet the threat, and the riders reined in and turned. All save the leader, who was too large to easily check his speed.
There was a bang, a swift eddy in the risen dust. Grax vanished.
"Damn!" said Aristide.
The Free Companions fell back in confusion. The outlaws gathered courage and prepared an attack. Aristide took several running steps forward, and took another pair of bandits with a blast from Tecmessa.
The priest turned, the clay ball moving ahead of him like a third, questing eye. Aristide dodged behind a tree just as a blast peeled bark and sent leaves flying. He lunged out of cover to the right, Tecmessa in a high parry, and saw the priest's boots disappearing around the tree in the other direction. The sword made a great slashing cut to the left just as the clay ball darted around the palm trunk, the cord whipping around the tree like the chain of a morning star.
The cord was severed. The clay ball flew spinning through the air.
The priest shrieked, a hair-raising sound like the battle cry of a cougar. Aristide took a step back as the tall, black-clad figure lunged around the palm trunk, a thrusting spear held high in one hand. The orange eyes blazed. The tail of the turban had been torn away from the lower face and revealed a mouth brimming with dozens of needle-like, moray-sharp teeth.
The priest was inside Tecmessa's effective range and Aristide parried desperately as he fell back, kicked to the priest's knee, and fell back again. The priest hissed, thrust. Aristide dodged inside the thrusting spear and cut upward beneath the priest's arm, slicing through the triceps. The spear fell from nerveless fingers; the tall black-robed figure staggered with shock. Aristide drove upward again, this time with the point, through the ribs and to the lungs and heart.
Blood fountained past the priest's needle teeth, and the tall, slender body began to fall. Aristide cleared Tecmessa from the corpse and rolled just in time to avoid a blast from the third priest.
Aristide rolled to his feet, the sword on guard. The third priest hobbled toward him. He had got an arrow through his left knee early in the fight, and had spent most of the combat kneeling, protecting his followers from inbound arrows. Now he had no choice but to take the fight to the enemy.
The clay ball quested out from his right hand. The left carried a long, curved sword.
Aristide took a step back, keeping his distance.
"May I suggest that you surrender?" he said. "By now your position is quite hopeless."
The priest snarled and continued his lurching march. An arrow whistled past his head.
"Archers should fire all together," Aristide called in a loud voice. "And from as many directions as possible."
Archers fanned out on either side. The few remaining outlaws—they were down to eight or nine—crept along in the wake of their priest. Many were badly wounded. Desperation clung to their faces.
"You can't defend against the arrows," Aristide told the priest. "The second that ball of yours moves to cover an arrow coming from one flank, either I'll take you or you'll be hit by arrows from another quarter. So I suggest you drop your . . . weapon, and we can discuss your fate like reasonable men."
The priest hesitated. He seemed to consider the matter.
Apparently he decided that Aristide's analysis was correct, because in a single purposeful motion he raised his sword and slashed his own throat.
The bandits gave a collective moan as their leader fell.
A few fought to the last, but most tried to surrender.
The Free Companions of Grax were not in either case inclined to mercy.
Aristide did not participate in the brief, bloody massacre, but instead retreated to the body of the second priest he'd killed and squatted before the clay ball that lay by its tangled, knotted cord. There was a dab of blood on the end of the cord, which caused the swordsman to examine the hand of the dead priest. The cord was not tied onto the priest's finger, but grew out of it—the cord had been alive.
Aristide wiped Tecmessa on a clean part of the priest's robes, then sheathed the sword. He took his dagger out of his belt and wound a bit of the cord around the tip, then raised it to examine the ball more closely. It was a dusky red in color, and plain-featured, without runes or script or magic signs.
Bitsy dropped from one of the palms and came up to rub her cheek against the swordsman's free hand before she gazed up at the dangling ball.
"It seems harmless," she said.
"I imagine it is. Now." He rose, took a cloth from his pocket, and wrapped the ball carefully before returning it to his pocket. He looked up.
The battle was over. Overexcited convoy guards rode furiously over the grove, kicking up dust and looking for someone to slaughter. Aristide went looking for whoever was in charge.
Grax's deputy, Vidal the Archer, was trying to properly organize the looting.
"Where's the plunder?" he demanded, arms akimbo as he glared at the field. He was a dark-skinned man with short, bandy, horseman's legs and a long, broad trunk, perfect for drawing his bow. He gave a bandit corpse a kick. "All we can find is their tents and their spare trousers."
"I'd look behind the waterfall," Aristide said. "If memory serves, it's a traditional place for fabulous treasure."
Vidal turned his horse and galloped to the waterfall. Aristide followed on foot. By the time he arrived, Vidal had checked behind the fall of water and found the bandits' cache.
"Grax promised me a double share," Aristide said.
Vidal gave him a narrow, impatient look. "You'll get it," he said.
"I don't want it," Aristide said. "What I want is the three fastest animals you have here, and a bag of silver coin for remounts and supplies."
Vidal looked at him with more interest. "You have an urgent errand?"
"Yes. I need to take the news of these priests to the College. The scholars there might be able to understand what they are, and what they represent."
Vidal nodded. "Very well," he said. "You may have what you ask."
"I would like a few other things as well," Aristide said. "I would like the heads of the priests, their right hands, and the balls they used to make your troopers vanish."
Vidal gave him a curious look. "Do you think you can get our people back?"
Aristide considered this. "It might be possible. I doubt it, though."
Vidal made a pious sign. "May their next incarnations give them wisdom."
"Indeed."
Some of Vidal's guard turned up with improvised torches, and they and their commander ventured behind the waterfall. As Aristide walked away he heard exclamations of delight and avarice at the riches found there.
He collected the hands, the heads, the clay balls, then retrieved his barb and fed her some of the sultan's grain. He took off the saddle and laid out his sleeping rug in the palm plantation, as far from the sight and smell of bodies as possible. There he drank water, ate some dried fruit, and reclined with the tail of his turban drawn across his eyes. He reckoned it had been eighty turns of the glass since he had last slept.
When he awoke the camp was still, most of the guards asleep after celebrating their victory and their newfound fortune. He found Vidal, who had not yet slept, and greeted him. Vidal gave him his bag of silver and led him to the corral, where he chose his three mounts. Vidal offered him food for himself and grain for the animals—any grass or bushes had already been grazed out by the bandits' beasts—and then Aristide mounted the first of the horses he planned to ride that day.
"If you hear of any more of these priests operating in the world," he said, "find out as many details as you can, and send word to the College."
"I will," Vidal said simply.
Bitsy sprang to her nest behind the swordsman's saddle. Aristide rode away, leading his horses down the side canyon that led to the Cashdan and the route back across the desert to the Womb of the World.
It had taken him eight months to walk the route that had taken him to the Vale and the Venger's Temple.
He would return in three, if he had to kill a hundred horses to do it.