"I have missed you," he said, typically blunt and to the point.
"And I you, Lord, Great King of Shasht."
But he knew she hadn't, not really, and he understood. He was man, she was mor, and they were of different kind under the sun.
"Now, don't lie to me. Remember, I know you well."
She recalled how penetrating those eyes of his could be. "No, Lord, I will not deceive you. I owe you too much for that."
"And I owe you everything, Nuza of Tamf."
She blinked. He had never called her that before.
"Tamf was burned to the ground by your soldiers."
"Yes, and we are helping to rebuild it. We will do what we can to make amends."
Again their eyes met, and neither wavered.
"I would have killed myself that day but for your intervention," he said at length.
"I am very glad that you did not, Lord."
Impelled by some unknown emotion, Nuza stepped forward and kissed Aeswiren on the cheek. It was not so strange. She had done it many times before when they had been together on the ship. She felt affection for this man, despite the chasm that separated them.
He put his hand to the spot, then kissed his fingers. "Thank you, Nuza of Tamf."
She felt uncomfortable once again. "What do you want from me, Lord?"
"Other than just to see you once more and talk like we did in the old days?" He smiled, seeing her unease. "No, fear not, I have no heavy demands to make of you, dear Nuza. I understand that each of us must go his or her own way in this world. We were not made to be together. I was infatuated with your beauty—it gave me solace in a desperate time. But that is behind us. You need not fear me."
The small cloud that had settled in her eyes was dispelled again, and he was pleased.
"But, yes, I do have a purpose for seeing you. An excuse, if you like."
"Good, because as you know, I have little time for anything other than my work these days."
"Yes, yes, I know. We are both slaves to the machinery of this war, but you, my dear, you are bringing something new and wonderful into the world, while I, well, I merely continue to practice the art of war."
She waited, watching him carefully, wondering what he wanted from her.
"All right, yes, I want your help, dear Nuza. I need information."
Her big eyebrows rose at these words.
"It is not so strange a request, surely? I am here on the sufferance of your people, of your King and General Toshak. And though I have a good rapport with the general now, that is not the case with the rest of his army. There is bad blood between our peoples. We have incidents now and again that threaten our alliance. Where I can anticipate such problems, I warn my men. I have laid down strict rules to keep us separated. Yesterday a man was given forty lashes for stealing a cask of ale. But, while I can try to control my men, I cannot know or control your people. I feel sometimes that outside the perimeters of this camp is a world of which I know almost nothing. I need someone I can trust who can tell me what is happening among the mots. What they feel about us. How they will react in this difficult situation."
Nuza studied him closely. "You want me to be your spy?"
He grinned. "Oh, my Nuza, so quick, so sharp. Spy? Not so. I do not need a spy, because I trust General Toshak. No, I need an informant. A different role entirely, not spying on your soldiers but telling me what your people are saying, how they see this situation. Will you help me?"
Nuza knew she could not refuse him.
"Of course, Lord, I will do anything to help you win this war."
"Good."
"And I will bring you reports. Or shall I give them to Simona?"
"Best if you can come here in person, of course, but I understand how busy you are with your work, so if you can tell Simona, or give it to her in writing, then do that."
"That stolen cask of ale, by the way?"
"Yes." His head came up, his eyes tightened.
"The general opinion I have heard is that men are thieves by nature. They steal from each other, steal from the land, steal from the sea and the air, and are beggars because of it. Another opinion I heard expressed was more favorable. Men are trying to learn how to brew ale like ours because their own brewing arts are so weak."
"Ah-ha, well, already that is invaluable. Your people have a low opinion of us, then."
"What else would you expect?"
He nodded glumly.
"And the punishment, the whipping of the thief?"
"Yes?"
"That, too, has been much commented on. Among us, the penalty would have been less severe but more accurately connected to the crime."
"And what would that have meant?"
"Someone who stole beer would be made to work for the brewer for a period that matched the severity of his misdeed. A barrel stolen might be repaid with a week's work mashing wort in the brewhouse."
Aeswiren chuckled, enjoying the thought of Puugil, the soldier who'd been lashed, being condemned to a week mashing hot grain in a brew cellar. Aeswiren knew the men would rather take a lashing any day than be demeaned by performing slaves' work.
"I'm afraid in this army we don't have the resources for such a punishment regime, and my men would rebel if I tried to introduce it. But he'll wear those forty stripes for at least a week and be proud of them, too."
Nuza could not understand this, but Aeswiren assured her that it was so.
"My men are soldiers, dear Nuza, not brewers, and they touch no tools except their weapons. That is the way it is among us."
The talk turned to the city and its people and to Toshak and finally to Thru Gillo, her beloved, who once more was lost from view on a dangerous mission. Nuza tried to keep her fears in check.
"I fear for him, but at the same time I feel that the Spirit truly watches over him. He survived a journey across Shasht, passing through great dangers. Surely he will survive this, too."
"If anyone can, it is he. I have dealt with him now many times, my dear, and I have rarely met anyone of my own kind who seems so capable."
They finally parted at the entrance to the tent.
"Farewell, dear Nuza, and please come to tell me what your people are saying when you have the opportunity."
They clasped hands a moment and she left him.
The drums thundered anew as the Lord Leader, the Great One, the High Master of the World, stepped back from the stakes and the men who were tied to them. He had cut the three men's throats with smooth strokes of his long knife. Their blood ran hot and red down their naked chests, carrying their lives away with it and pooling on the ground atop the magic circle of powdered bone.
The Old One spoke the words of power and felt the very ground tremble beneath his feet. The magic took hold.
The drums thundered. Thousands of pyluk bulls stood before him, a great mass of green-skinned terrors, their yellow eyes staring, their bald pates glistening. In their hands they clutched their long spears. At the sight of the blood flowing down the men's chests, thousands of jaws lined with sharp teeth opened, and a massive hiss of appreciation rose into the air.
To the rest of the surviving men, now numbering sixty-three, the collective hiss brought on a shudder. This mission to the mountains had long since become the blackest of nightmares.
The Leader had taken Frob, Nump, and Pagliro because they'd fallen behind the day before on the march through these accursed mountains. It was hardly their fault. Their horses were exhausted. But the Old One was not interested in excuses.
This was the pattern that had developed. Each time they stopped, the Leader took two or three men, convicted them of some crime or other, and killed them in this sorcerous fashion.
Then he played his pipes and sent that strange tune echoing away into the hillsides. Soon more of the hideous, terrifying lizard-men would come down and join the swelling mass that had already gathered.
Now the pipes were playing while the giant man danced on the ring of blood. The horde swayed in place and sang with him. A great bubbling drone arose, accompanying the magic pipes.
Soon small groups of new pyluk appeared at the edges of the clearing. Their eyes swelled and popped at the sight of the mass of their own kind awaiting them.
Never had there been a horde like this! The newcomers shook with anticipation. The horde was huge. The prey would be huge, too. There would be gorging. The terrible hunger that dominated their lives would be sated.
The newcomers stared at the cluster of men and hungrily fingered their spears, but pyluk chieftains, wearing woven bibs, stepped forward with harsh barks of dominance. The newcomers crouched submissively.
As soon as the newly arrived pyluk had been marshaled into a single group, their Master, Lord Leader, came to them. He stood as tall as a pyluk bull with scalp sacs inflated and loomed before them, wreathed in a cloud of dark glory. Small lightning flashed and flickered above his head. Bright green sparks flared from the tips of his fingers, even from his eyebrows.
The newcomers were awed.
He spoke to them in their own tongue, and his words carried the great magic he had made. Power went out from him and into them, and they became his children, as it was of old.
Sergeant Rukkh was taking a nap when the first crisis came. It was one of those rare quiet days that left him with an hour free in the afternoon, a perfect opportunity for forty winks. He'd toured his section, checked at the cook shack to check on any problems regarding the evening meal, and then lay down on his cot and pulled the blanket over his head.
The blissful peace was shattered ten minutes later by young Neaps who came hurtling into his tent, shouting about a fight with the monkeys.
"Where?" said Rukkh, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
"In the woodlot behind the camp. Some of us went over there to get some firewood. There were monkeys there, and they attacked us."
"Damn!" growled Rukkh, now on his feet, automatically buckling his sword around his waist. His perfect afternoon had definitely been ruined.
"Take me there," he snapped, grabbing his helmet as they left the tent. Neaps led at a run. Once they were near the woodlot, Rukkh could hear the fighting, mostly a lot of yelling but with the occasional ring of steel. Rukkh didn't like that. They were supposed to be getting along with the monkeys. They were allies now, even though that seemed crazy to half the men. They were not supposed to be fighting them with drawn swords.
When they finally emerged into a cleared space, he could see the outline of a looming disaster. A dozen men were squared off against a larger mob of monkeys. A few of the men had drawn swords, as had a few monkeys, and with a rush of dismay Rukkh saw that blood had been drawn, for several men and mots were down.
He hurled himself into the fray with a roar of anger, grabbed the nearest men, and threw them back. "Stop it! Stop fighting, now!" he bellowed.
Men put up their swords. These were all boys from the Blitz Regiment, under his command more or less. But they weren't happy with his interference.
"Aw, c'mon, Sarge, we can't back down from a bunch of fornicating monkeys!"
"Yeah, Sarge, they already cut Fidibi bad. He's not gonna make it."
"Shut up!" roared Rukkh, pushing them back, ignoring their protests.
A handful, led by Romioli, were still too pumped up. They wouldn't back away until Rukkh whacked a couple of their helmets with the flat of his sword.
"Romioli, you want to be working on slops the rest of this campaign?" Rukkh snarled as he dragged the offender back.
Romioli finally gave it up as Rukkh's threat sank home.
That left the mob of mots standing there, swords and axes held ready if the fight resumed. Their fur was standing on end, their eyebrows were up, and they looked ready for battle. Rukkh had seen monkeys like this quite a few times now, and the sight gave him the shivers. When they were worked up like this, the monkeys made fierce opponents.
Since his men were all boiling over, too, this confrontation could easily explode again. Worse, other men were running up, itching for a fight. A lot of the soldiers had not really accepted the Emperor's words on this thing. To them, the monkeys were still the enemy.
Meanwhile, the monkeys had sorted out the men and mots who had fallen. All but one mot and one man managed to get back on his feet, albeit a little shakily in some cases. The man was Fidibi, who had a nasty stab wound in the thigh.
"You, Neaps, put a tourniquet on Fidibi. Good and tight," snapped Rukkh. "You, Bemeek, run to the surgeon's tent and make sure he's ready."
Rukkh took a look at the fallen mot, lying there in a pool of blood. That really didn't look good.
"Damned... fornicating..." sputtered Fidibi while Neaps went to work with a length of thong.
"Shut up, Fidibi!" roared Rukkh, bending down to take a quick look at the wound.
Fidibi was lucky; he would probably live. Rukkh wasn't so sure about the monkey.
"You idiots!" Rukkh growled at his men. "What was the orders, eh? What was they?"
They hung their heads.
"Uh, to, uh, treat the monkeys as allies, Sergeant," said someone in a toneless voice.
"Right! And what do I find? I find you fools have gone and killed one. You'll be lucky if the Emperor doesn't have more than just the skin off your backs, all of you."
More men had joined them. A couple were ready to pitch right in, and Rukkh had to yell at them to desist. A lot more monkeys had come up as well, and they were making excited cries and waving axes, spears, and swords above their heads. Rukkh was starting to feel overwhelmed. Even while he was yelling and pushing the men back, the mass as a whole was still edging toward the monkeys. The men coming up from other regiments didn't know him that well, and they were slow to heed his orders.
Then some big, bald-headed fool from the First Regiment arrived and pitched straight into the monkeys with a roar. He had sword and shield, and he immediately became the center of a knot of monkeys striking back.
He would have gone down in a moment if Rukkh hadn't reached in, grabbed him by the collar, and lugged him out of there.