going forward; things were ripe to start happening soon.
Let Chief Verkan watch it, for the next couple of centuries. After Year-End Day, ex-Chief Tortha would have his vineyards and lemon-groves to watch.
II
Rylla tried to close her mind to the voices around her in the tapestried room, and stared at the map spread in front of her and her father. There was Tarr-Hostigos overlooking the gap, only a tiny fleck of gold on the parchment, but she could see it in her mind’s eye—the walled outer bailey with the sheds and stables and workshops inside, the inner bailey and the citadel and keep, the watchtower pointing a blunt finger skyward. Below, the little Darro flowed north to join the Listra and, with it, the broad Athan to the east. Hostigos Town, white walls and slate roofs and busy streets; the checkerboard of fields to the west and south; the forest, broken by farms, to the west.
A voice, louder and harsher than the others, brought her back to reality. Her cousin, Sthentros.
“He’ll do nothing at all? Well, what in Dralm’s holy name is a Great King for, but to keep the peace?”
She looked along the table, from one to another. Phosg, the speaker for the peasants, at the foot, uncomfortable in his feast-day clothes and ill at ease seated among his betters. The speakers for the artisans’ guilds, and for the merchants and the townsfolk; the lesser family members and marriage-kin; the barons and landholders. Old Chartiphon, the chief-captain, his golden beard streaked with gray like the lead-splotches on his gilded breastplate, his long sword on the table in front of him. Xentos, the cowl of his priestly robe thrown back from his snowy head, his blue eyes troubled. And beside her, at the table’s head, her father, Prince Ptosphes, his mouth tight between pointed gray mustache and pointed gray beard. How long it had been since she had seen her father smile!
Xentos passed a hand negatively across his face.
“King Kaiphranos said that it was every Prince’s duty to guard his own realm; that it was for Prince Ptosphes, not for him, to keep bandits out of Hostigos.”
“Bandits? They’re Nostori soldiers!” Sphentros shouted. “Gormoth of Nostor means to take all Hostigos, as his grandfather took Sevenhills Valley after the traitor we don’t name sold him Tarr-Dombra.”
That was a part of the map her eyes had shunned: the bowl valley to the east, where Dombra Gap split the Mountains of Hostigos. It was from thence that Gormoth’s mercenary cavalry raided into Hostigos.
“And what hope have we from Styphon’s House?” her father asked. He knew the answer; he wanted the others to hear it at first hand.
“The Archpriest wouldn’t talk to me; the priests of Styphon hold no speech with priests of other gods,” Xentos said.
“The Archpriest wouldn’t talk to me, either,” Chartiphon said. “Only one of the upperpriests of the temple. He took our offerings and said he would pray to Styphon for us. When I asked for fireseed, he would give me none.”
“None at all?” somebody down the table cried. “Then we are indeed under the ban.”
Her father rapped with the pommel of his poignard. “You’ve heard the worst, now. What’s in your minds that we should do? You first, Phosg.”
The peasant representative rose and cleared his throat.
“Lord Prince, this castle is no more dear to you than my cottage is to me. I’ll fight for mine as you would for yours.”
There was a quick mutter of approval along the table. “Well said, Phosg!” “An example for all of us!” The others spoke in turn; a few tried to make speeches. Chartiphon said only: “Fight. What else.”
“I am a priest of Dralm,” Xentos said, “and Dralm is a god of peace, but I say, fight with Dralm’s blessing. Submission to evil men is the worst of all sins.”
“Rylla,” her father said.
“Better die in armor than live in chains,” she replied. “When the time comes, I will be in armor with the rest of you.”
Her father nodded. “I expected no less from any of you.” He rose, and all with him. “I thank you. At sunset we will dine together; until then servants will attend you. Now, if you please, leave me with my daughter. Chartiphon, you and Xentos stay.”
Chairs scraped and feet scuffed as they went out. The closing door cut off the murmur of voices. Chartiphon had begun to fill his stubby pipe.
“I know there’s no use looking to Balthar of Beshta,” she said, “but wouldn’t Sarrask of Sask aid us? We’re better neighbors to him than Gormoth would be.”
“Sarrask of Sask’s a fool,” Chartiphon said shortly. “He doesn’t know that once Gormoth has Hostigos, his turn will come next.”
“He knows that,” Xentos differed. “He’ll try to strike before Gormoth does, or catch Gormoth battered from having fought us. But even if he wanted to help us, he dares not. Even King Kaiphranos dares not aid those whom Styphon’s House would destroy.”
“They want that land in Wolf Valley, for a temple-farm,” she considered. “I know that would be bad, but. . . .”
“Too late,” Xentos told her. “They have made a compact with Gormoth, to furnish him fireseed and money to hire mercenaries, and when he has conquered Hostigos he will give them the land.” He paused and added: “And it was on my advice, Prince, that you refused them.”
“I’d have refused against your advice, Xentos,” her father said. “Long ago I vowed that Styphon’s House should never come into Hostigos while I lived, and by Dralm and by Galzar neither shall they! They come into a princedom, they build a temple, they make temple-farms, and slaves of everybody on them. They tax the Prince, and make him tax the people, till nobody has anything left. Look at that temple-farm in Sevenhills Valley!”
“Yes, you’d hardly believe it,” Chartiphon said. “Why, they even make the peasants for miles around cart their manure in, till they have none left for their own fields. Dralm only knows what they do with it.” He puffed at his pipe. “I wonder why they want Sevenhills Valley.”
“There’s something in the ground there that makes the water of those springs taste and smell badly,” her father said.
“Sulfur,” said Xentos. “But why do they want sulfur?”
III
Corporal Calvin Morrison, Pennsylvania State Police, squatted in the brush at the edge of the old field and looked across the small brook at the farmhouse two hundred yards away. It was scabrous with peeling yellow paint, and festooned with a sagging porch-roof. A few white chickens pecked disinterestedly in the littered barnyard; there was no other sign of life, but he knew that there was a man inside. A man with a rifle, who would use it; a man who had murdered once, broken jail, would murder again.
He looked at his watch; the minute-hand was squarely on the nine. Jack French and Steve Kovac would be starting down from the road above, where they had left the car. He rose, unsnapping the retaining-strap of his holster.
“Watch that middle upstairs window,” he said. “I’m starting, now.”
“I’m watching it.” Behind him, a rifle-action clattered softly as a cartridge went into the chamber. “Luck.”
He started forward across the seedling-dotted field. He was scared, as scared as he had been the first time, back in ’51, in Korea, but there was nothing he could do about that. He just told his legs to keep moving, knowing that in a few moments he wouldn’t have time to be scared.
He was within a few feet of the little brook, his hand close to the butt of the Colt, when it happened.
There was a blinding flash, followed by a moment’s darkness. He thought he’d been shot; by pure