Istu awakened

CHAPTER TWELVE

In increasing desperation, Fost attempted to tell Moriana that the talisman she carried was not the Amulet of Living Flame but the mercurial Destiny Stone. The opportunity eluded him. As the City moved toward Wirix and the waiting army, the press of preparation drove each of them ever faster. Not infrequently Fost was on hand when Uriath and Moriana were in communication. They exchanged a few hurried words, looks which Fost hoped meant certain things but couldn't be sure.

But Uriath was always there, somedays bland, sometimes avuncular, always giving the impression of something hooded coiled beside him. Even with Erimenes there to hold his tongue for him, Fost found himself unwilling to speak of the Amulet and the Stone with Uriath near.

As the City crossed the Thail Mountains and began to descend from the height to which it had climbed to clear the peaks, Moriana's army broke camp and moved southwest from Lake Wir to meet it. The Wirixers didn't want the battle fought over their heads and were unwilling to take active part in the action. They had given Moriana's forces the right to stay for a time and had provided her with supplies. More than that they wouldn't do. It mattered little. The battle for the City would be fought in the City's own element: sky.

It was the last day before the two sisters met, doomsday for unspecified numbers on both sides. Fost had gone without sleep for three days trying to accomplish a million things at once, laying out tactics for the joint invasion and insurrection, trying to keep the morale of his untried revolutionaries from disintegrating totally at the prospect of battle, dodging the last-minute push by the Monitors that wiped out a quarter of the Underground's cells overnight. He stumbled like a zombie when he entered Uriath's current catacomb to confer with the resistance chief.

A silent youth guided him down a slippery flight of stairs. Rank and humid smells clogged his nostrils. Why did Uriath pick a mushroom farm for his new command post?

A door streaked with a rainbow array of fungus was pushed open. Fost caught a glimpse of Uriath slamming a book closed and slipping it into a compartment on his desk. The courier was too exhausted to care what the volume was or why the High Councillor acted so furtively.

He nodded to Uriath, spotted a blond wood stool, navigated to it as the door shut behind him with a groan like an arthritic giant. He gave the stool a quick once-over before sitting. The wood was warped and water spotted but showed no signs of mold. He sat and leaned back against the wall with a sigh.

'I think I've got the damage patched up,' he said without preamble. 'Rann, or whoever is handling interna! security for Synalon, actually struck too soon. We didn't give out the fina! assignments until this afternoon, which means no one they netted knows our exact plans or dispositions. As a bonus, it's easier to change assignments and then distribute them instead of changing them abruptly after they've been issued and confusing hell out of everybody.'

'Your idea,' said Uriath, more curtly than usual. Crediting the courier irked him.

'All our reports indicate Synalon's going to be locked up tight in the Palace, working her magics from there. So I've cut the number of people on other squads, the ones attacking the aeries and Monitor stations, to get the full complement for our push at the Palace. What we really need…'

A chime shimmered in the air of the room. Hairs rose on the back of Fost's neck though the sound was now familiar to him. He still wasn't used to sudden tones issuing from tubs of water.

Energized again, he stood and went to peer into the tin vessel. Uriath swiveled in his chair, gave Fost an annoyed look, and bowed his head to the water.

The surface turned murky. The cloudiness began to swirl without stirring the liquid. The murk coalesced into Moriana's tired but radiantly beautiful visage.

'Fost,' she said smiling, 'you're upside down. Good evening, Uriath. I trust everything proceeds according to plan.'

'We have experienced some difficulties, Princess,' said Uriath with a sigh, 'But we are persevering, even in the face of such great adversity.'

Fost saw that Moriana tried hard not to laugh at his sententious manner.

'It pleases me to hear that, good Uriath. Now, as for our plans tomorrow, we must coordinate…'

A door opposite the one through which Fost had entered swung inward on oiled hinges. Councillor Tromym entered unsteadily. His nose glowed the color of Uriath's florid face.

'Uriath, I have to talk with you,' he said with the meticulousnessof the truly inebriated, seeming to pick each word out precisely and exactingly with a pair of tweezers.'It is about this.. . oh. Ah, well, yes. Hello.'

Fost grimaced. Tromym showed every sign of collapsing completely under the strain. In the courier's opinion the best thing the whiskered little man could do was climb into a rumpot and stay put until the shouting was over. Uriath was visibly unhappy.

'Tromym,' he said sharply. He heaved his substantial bulk from the chair. 'If you'll excuse me – I'm sorry, Your Highness. I'll be but a moment.'

Moriana nodded graciously as the pair left her line of sight. Fost looked at her wondering if she was eager to have him gone so they could speak privately. He held his own passions in check. He had more important things to tell her. 'Listen, I've got to tell you something,' he began.

'No, I have something I must tell you,' she said. 'Oh, Fost, I can't express how it makes me feel to see you. When I stabbed you, I knew I was doing the right thing, though part of me died with you. Or when I thought you died.'

In his befuddled state it took him until now to realize that what he'd taken for a necklace about her neck was the all too familiar pendant, a big-faceted stone in an elaborate silver setting. Half of the stone's surface shone white, half radiated blackness. He had only seen the gem once, briefly, but was unlikely to forget it. 'But…' She raised a hand, cutting off his words.

'No, you need say nothing. Even though you didn't die, I can never atone for what I did, not in my own heart.' A tear welled from one eye and rolled down her cheek. 'I… I'll try to make it up to you, Fost. I promise!'

But the courier wasn't I istening. He stared in horror as a wave of black slowly washed over the Destiny Stone entirely blotting out the white. 'So,' a voice said from the outer doorway.

Slowly, Fost turned though he knew what he'd see. He would have felt better at meeting Istu himself awakened from a ten-millennium-long nap. Luranni stood there, her gaily colored smock in sharp contrast to the dull gray of her expression. She looked as if she'd just been struck in the belly. 'Fost? Fost, what's wrong?'

He didn't answer Moriana. Luranni's oval face was stricken. She knew. As Fost opened his mouth hoping some inspiration would make the proper words come forth, she turned and ran.

He caught her in the antechamber of Uriath's office, at the foot of the slimy stairs. Rows of mushrooms stood at attention in boxes, rank on rank until they were lost in the gloom. An eerie pallid glow rose from some of them to mingle with the green shine of the tube filled with miniscule luminous beings that lit the room. Other than sunlight and moonlight, the light vessels provided the only form of illumination by which it was safe to conspire in the City.

He seized her wrist as she tried to race up the stairs. Her arm seemed ridiculously skinny against his scarred fist and burly forearm. He thought with a pang how such restraint wouldn't be possible with a woman like Moriana. 'Wait,' he said. 'I can explain.'

Her eyes called him a liar. He felt shame at uttering the faithless lover's age-old plaint.

'You still want her,' she accused. Her voice, normally so musical, rang out in the cellar as husky, broken.

'I do.' He released her slender wrist and moved closer to her rigid body. 'I'm sorry, Luranni. We…' 'Don't say anything. I thought you believed in our cause – in me.' He took a deep breath and let out a sigh.

'I care for you, Luranni. But I came to the City to help Moriana. I chose to help the princess because of… the way I feel about her, and because I fear what Synalon intends.'

'But I thought you believed in our revolution! Don't you want to bring popular government to the City?' He hesitated, unsure how to answer.

'I guess my upbringing warped me. When I look at any government, no matter how popular or benevolent, all I see is the field of spearpoints holding it up.'

'So you did it all for the love of her!' she cried. She was gone before he could deny it. But then he could never have denied so plain a truth.

The tattoo of her steps faded up the stairs, ended with the bang of a door. He turned back and raced for the office. 'Moriana, you've got to listen to me! The pendant…' 'Yes? What about a pendant?' Uriath's eyes glittered,

Fost looked into the tub. Water. He turned and walked out without another word.

Evening settled on the camp of Moriana's army. The clink of the armorer's hammer drifted to the ridge of the human's camp, along with the murmur of talk around the cooking fires, occasional snatches of song. From the dark pavilions of the Zr'gsz nearby came only silence, as ominous and complete as that in which their oblong skyrafts flew. Rarely, she heard a stacatto burst of syllables, and once came a chanting in a voice she recognized as Khirshagk's.

'Come,' she said, taking Darl's hand. She led him down the far side of the rise, toward the stream above where it curved around the bluff to run beside the twin encampments. The cool, moist air danced with the smell of growing things, and the songs of crickets and frogs and tree lizards hummed and reverberated. Once below the lip of the hill, it was impossible to tell or even believe that within half a hundred paces beings of two races prepared for war.

She led him to a fallen log by the river, shaded and covered with moss. They sat together, watching the sun light the nearby Thails with evening colors. Darl looked robust and heroic in tight whipcord breeches and a silken tunic of the palest blue. This evening Moriana dressed feminine and soft in a long beige gown that made her eyes glow like emeralds.

She hadn't worn her swordbelt; at her waist rode a sheathed poignard. No satchel bounced at her hip. Many things had to be resolved, and she would speak of them herself without having Ziore to soothe her.

'There's something I must tell you.' Her thoughts echoed Fost's earlier in the eveing: I care so much for this man. Why can't I think of anything that's not inane?

'I know,' he said, a tiny smile wrinkling his lips. She looked at him in surprise. 'You do?'

'Yes. I've known for some time.' He laughed at her stricken look, took her chin in his hand and kissed her. 'A blackness lay upon your soul, Moriana. When I came back from the City States, it had vanished. I don't know how it happened but one thing alone could have lifted that burden from you.'

'He lives.' Her whisper tried to lose itself amid the sighing of the stream.

'I told you before,' he said, his arm encircling her, 'he must be a man indeed to leave so deep a mark upon you.' He smiled lop-sidedly. 'I wish that I could meet him.'

'Oh, but you can! Tomorrow, if…' She couldn't bring herself to say if either of you live. He shook his head. 'I have but one tomorrow remaining to me.' 'What do you mean?'

He pointed to the evening star twinkling on the saw-toothed edge of the wall of the mountains to the west.

'I shall not see the Crown of Jirre again, Bright Princess. I know this.'

'How can you know?' She wanted to jar him from this prophecy, but a thought jarred her instead. 'You have the Sight.'

'it may be so. I've felt at times 1 have a Gift. How else could I stir men as 1 do with simple words any can utter?' He hugged her tight, kissed her forehead. 'But don't grieve for me. Bright Princess. The end comes for us all. And this I know – tomorrow I shall have that which I desire most. No man can ask for more than that. And many receive much less in their lives – and deaths.'

'You're rationalizing,' she said weakly. 'You're trying to spare my feelings.' She tried to convince herself that Darl's belief he wouldn't live out the next day was only morbid imagination. Something within her knew better.

'Will you love me one last time?' she asked, her voice barely audible above the rippling of the stream. 'Princess, I'll love you forever,' he said.

Tenderly he touched her breasts, dipped his head, nuzzled her cheek, touched his lips to hers. Her mouth opened to his. In the last light of day they stripped and made love beside the river, with the bittersweet languor of those who know there will be no other nights for them.

A trumpet skirled from the highest tower of the Palace of Winds as the dawn spilled over the rim of the Central Massif and fell upon the swarm of shapes rising from the hills ahead. A thunderclap broke the City's stillness as four thousand eagles seized the air with eager wings. For a moment, they hovered like a feathered cloud above the buttressed towers of the City in the Sky. One eagle broke to rise above the rest, a huge bird as black as the bedchamber of Itsu but for the scarlet crest blazing on its head. The tiny figure on its back waved a lance. Eight thousand throats, men's and birds' together, answered him with a fearsome cry. Then the aerial legions of the City in the Sky formed and flew to meet the attack of Moriana and the Fallen Ones.

Moriana's heart quailed as she saw the arrowhead flights streaking toward her. She had known all along that her quest must end with this. She faced the eagles of the City in the element they had ruled for eighty centuries. More than anyone else she knew how near that course skirted outright suicide.

But the skyrafts had plied the air for uncounted generations before the first of the giant war eagles were bred by Kyrun Etuul for the armies of Riomar shai-Gallri, first human queen of the City. More than a thousand of the rafts formed Moriana's aerial armada, from small swift two-man flyers to great stone barges mounting powerful war engines and carrying scores of men. Her own raft fell midway. It was thirty feet long and fifteen wide, ringed with a stone bulwark that came waist-high on the princess.

A wooden box atop the bulwark gave added protection. With her rode forty men in the green and brown of the Nevrym foresters. The only Hisser aboard was the pilot, a stunted male in a loincloth who hunkered at the stern, moving his clawed hands over the surface of an obsidian ball. The globe somehow steered the craft. Moriana had felt magic tingling beneath her palms when she had handled one experimentally, but she couldn't attune herself to it. It was Vridzish magic, like the skyrafts themselves.

Most of the craft were less well protected than hers. Most made do with movable screens of wicker or wood, and some augmented the stone ramparts with sandbags. It wasn't solely to protect the princess that her craft carried so much cover. Along with four other craft similarly equipped and crewed, hers would be running the gauntlet of the defenders in advance of the main force and land in the City to link up with the Underground's rebels. The other rafts would engage the bird riders while Moriana fought her way into the Palace of Winds and the meeting with her twin.

The princess looked to her right. Darl stood resplendent in plate armor, the golden slanting sun turning him into a demigod. He had one booted foot on the bulwark of his raft and his head was thrown back, grinning into the wind with his long brown hair streaming out behind. He saw Moriana, brought hilt to lips and kissed it. She mocked a smile and waved.

To her left rode Khirshagk. Like Darl's, his raft was mostly open and like the Count-Duke's his vessel had a mixed crew. There seemed two classes of Zr'gsz: tall, well-built males who were possibly nobles and resembled their Instrumentality. The other type of lizard men was more numerous and seemed of the same caste as the pilots. They were smaller and armored rarely, if at all. They carried shortbows, slings, javelins; another was assigned to every noble, Darl included, and bore only a large shield.

Here and there on the other rafts Moriana glimpsed the paleness of human skin. There were many more of the green Hissers. She wondered where they had come from, as she had many times since the first columns marched to Omizantrim from the keep at Thendrun in strength greater than she would have believed the Zr'gsz could muster. This was no time to question their presence; the eagles were on wing and she could only be thankful for the numbers of her allies.

A wedge of birds flew straight for the three long rafts in the lead. Moriana appreciated having the three paramount commanders each on a different skyraft – she had insisted on it – but at the moment she wished fervently she had Darl at her side. Or Fost.

Spears, stones and arrows arced to meet the attacking formation. From the way the bird riders flew, Moriana knew these weren't Sky Guards. She nocked an arrow but kept her attention high. Far overhead an echelon lined out with mathematical precision. The Guard, no doubt led by Rann himself, waited for the common bird riders to draw the attention of the enemy so they could swoop and kill. 'Above!' she called. 'The Sky Guard. Rann!'

Darl turned, then shouted back, 'I see them! Thank you, Bright Princess!'

She had to shout again to attract Khirshagk's attention. The king-priest of the Hissers solemnly bowed but didn't look above. Moriana considered shouting again to be sure he understood, then decided to save her breath. He would discover soon enough what he faced.

The nearest attackers were three hundred yards away and closing fast. Without thinking, Moriana drew and loosed. The lead bird rider somersaulted over his mount's tail feathers and fell, flailing his arms in a futile attempt at flight. Moriana heard a buzz of admiration from the Nevrymin. A half-dozen of them had shot and none of their shafts had found a mark. They considered themselves fine shots, and so they were – by groundling standards. The princess was a full-fledged Sky Guardswoman and could put fifteen shafts into a palm-sized mark at two hundred yards in a minute's time.

The foresters loosed another volley. This time one eagle fluttered groundward and another shrieked mourning for its fallen rider. Only a few of the Nevrym men could shoot through the firing slits at a time. The others hunkered on the deck and grumbled. But they weren't meant to shoot it out with the bird-borne marksmen. They must be preserved as shock troops for the landing.

'Well shot,' she called to her men. They turned rueful smiles in her direction. She obviously outshot them. They applied themselves to the attack, concentrating in an attempt to better her towering skill with a bow.

Shooting methodically, Moriana emptied four more saddles with five shots. Then the eagles were rushing past in a whirlwind of sound. A bluff blackbearded forester to her right gurgled and sank with an arrow through his neck. Arrows fell like the sleet against the plank protection of her raft.

She darted a glance at Darl's raft. He still stood exposed, his foot on the low wall. 'You fool!' she cried out

'But a magnificent fool,' said Ziore from her secure spot at Moriana's hip. The powerful eagle Terror uttered a brief cry to its master.

'I see her, old friend,' Rann said, leaning forward to pat the sleek black neck. It took eagle-keen eyes to make out the princess's slim form through the slits of the covered raft. Rann's tawny eyes were second only to those of the great bird he rode. He smiled, raised a gloved left hand. Then he put Terror into a steep dive

Moriana glanced up, saw the Guards peeling from their echelon formation and streaking down. She widened her stance, nocked a new arrow, waited.

'Damn the bitch!' cursed Rann. 'She sees me.' But to his surprise, the prince found himself laughing in sheer delight. He had personally trained his cousin. He would hate to have her disappoint him. He nocked his own shaft, grinning a taut grin devoid of all humor. This would decide so very much. Him against her, arrow against arrow, teacher against prize pupil.

'Goodbye, Moriana,' he said softly. 'If only I could consummate my love for you at greater length.' He drew.

Darl's raft bucked upward. Before either cousin could loose an arrow, his craft had swung protectively over the princess's. Rann shrieked a curse and shot at Darl. He'd at least take care of Moriana's damned lover. He didn't.

Darl watched the arrow, calmly awaiting death. With contemptuous ease, the Zr'gsz at the Count-Duke's side thrust up his shield. The arrow Chunked into it. Darl stared at the malformed head gleaming an inch from his breastplate. 'My thanks,' he said dryly. The lizard man grinned.

Moriana tracked Rann the instant Terror plummeted past Darl's craft. 'Die, you devil!' she screamed, and shot.

The Destiny Stone went black. The glue binding one of the three feathered vanes to her shaft gave way. The arrow slewed wide. Moriana wept with frustration as Rann and Terror were lost to sight beneath her skystone raft.

More bird riders rocketed in. Archers Zr'gsz and human got the feel of aerial shooting and took a grim toll of the attackers. But the Sky City riders took a toll of their own. Men and lizard men fell writhing on the decks. Red blood mingled with green.

A clump of riders bore down on Khirshagk's raft. He stood as defiant as Darl. The Heart of the People smoked in his right claw. Only one rider reached the raft and that one died as he flew overhead. But he cast down the heavy clay vessel he carried.

It shattered on the prow of the Instrumentality's raft. The Zr'gsz leader turned at the acrid odor of turpentine. Four hundred yards away, three bird riders dropped fire lances, heard the chittering of salamanders, released them.

Moriana gasped as three lines of blinding fire reached for Khirshagk. He revolted her, ally or not, but it was hard to see him die in this diabolical manner.

Khirshagk uttered a laugh that' resounded above the clamor of battle. He held the Heart high. Smoke boiled into the sky. The salamanders streaked straight into the core of the huge black diamond and were absorbed without sound.

Deadly quiet filled the sky. Watching from her throne room in the Palace, Synalon choked out an obscenity and raised her arms in invocation. The sleeves of her robe flapped like wings in the wind streaming through the open windows.

'It's time!' Moriana cried to her steersman. He shook his head in Zr'gsz affirmation and the raft plunged ahead. She heard a wolf cry from the Nevrymin foresters in the skystone rafts behind as they sped up to keep pace. 'Moriana and victory!' she heard Darl cry. She raised her bow in salute. There were no words adequate.

Rann's death plunge had carried him far below Moriana's raft. Levelling out at the bottom of his attack, he found himself in the midst of an angry swarm of two-man rafts. Rann's bowstring snapped in a furious exchange of arrows. Terror finished that duel by clutching the stern of an eight-foot raft with his mighty talons and bodily flipping the craft, sending its occupants tumbling to their deaths.

Angrily Rann flung the useless bow away. Not even he could restring a bird rider's bow in flight. He satisfied himself that the rafts were being dealt with successfully – even at the high cost of half his elite flight – and put Terror into a climb, searching the sky above for Moriana's raft.

He found her. A mile in advance of the others he saw the five wooden-clad skyrafts, almost to the ramparts of the City itself. There was little point in pursuing now. Rann allowed himself a sardonic smile. Synalon would soon be learning the extent of the powers she'd accepted from the Dark Ones.

He drew his sword and led the flight steeply toward the armada floating overhead.

Eyes as wild as an animal's, Fost glared up and down the street. He had hacked down three Monitors in a storm of blood without being aware that he did so. Erimenes still cheered hysterically.

He tested the heft of the round shield he carried. This was his first real, full-dress battle. He wasn't fool enough to go into it with no more protection than his broadsword and chainmail shirt.

'Back!' cried Erimenes. Fost jumped into a doorway. An arrow splintered the doorpost near his head. A girl with close-cropped red hair popped out of the next doorway and let fly her arrow. The sniper did a high dive from a minaret across the cobblestone street. His scream ended in an ugly thump.

'Excellent shot!' applauded Erimenes from his jug. Fost's lips curled back from his teeth in a wordless snarl. The genie's bloodlust sickened him, but Erimenes still seemed inclined to help – and help he had. He'd just saved Fost's life. 'Where's Luranni?' came the inquiry from the street.

Fost cautiously peered from his niche. Two young men trotted toward him surveying the heights all around. He recognized Prudyn and Chasko, two of the ablest of the lower caste recruits. Short and stocky Chasko carried a javelin and bird rider's target shield. Prudyn loomed over him, holding a bow with professional ease, brown eyes keen beneath the rim of a stolen helmet.

'I don't know,' Fost replied as the two ducked into the niche with him.

'We thought she'd be with you,' said Chasko. Fost shrugged and turned away. He'd futilely sought her at her apartment the night before and wound up sleeping with his assault squad in a warehouse. By the time the unit had to move, the High Councillor's daughter hadn't shown up.

A sea-gray eagle flecked with brown swept over the rooftops. Prudyn whipped up his shortbow and shot. The rider tumbled off and disappeared behind the buildings. Prudyn whooped delight. Chasko and Fost pounded him on the back.

They calmed enough to take stock. The tumult of street fighting raged all around. Smoke sprouted from a dozen fires. To his right, the soaring architecture of the Palace lorded it over lesser buildings. Two hundred yards away, Fost judged. He had an appointment on the steps of that edifice. He prayed fervently to gods he still didn't fully believe in that the other party would arrive unharmed.

The door opened behind them.

They jumped into the street snapping weapons around. A pudgy feminine-looking hand reached out holding a green glass bottle. Prudyn hesitated, accepted it and lifted it to his lips and drank.

'Thank you kindly,' he said. The arm withdrew and the door closed once more.

The three passed around the wine bottle until it was drained. Fost called for the rest of his squad and they moved toward the Palace.

A melee raged among the rafts of the People. Sky City men had birds shot from under them and if luck favored, they managed to drop to the decks of the enemy rafts and continued the fight at close quarters. Others, out of arrows or simply eager to come to grips with the ancient enemies of their kind, landed deliberately to fight side by side with their birds. Riderless eagles plucked Zr'gsz and Nevrymin from the skystone slabs and cast them down.

Both sides fought with fanatical intensity. More than a few of the bird riders passed under the rafts after firing their arrows, only to have the hissing Vridzish fling themselves onto them so both fell, struggling viciously until the hard earth mingled their substance and rendered all issues moot.

Darl's great blade reaped lives like grain. A wareagle knocked his shield-bearer to the deck and disembowelled him with his talons. Darl decapitated the bird with a single cut and spun to split the rider's skull to the teeth as the man closed with a spear.

The deck teemed with battling men and near-men. A green-clad giant loomed over a knot of wiry little bird riders, flailing at them with his bow. So great was his strength that he batted three of the black and purple clad troopers over the edge before the others brought him down.

Darl leaped upon the giant's slayers. They turned as quick as serpents, but their speed and skill meant nothing against the Count-Duke. They died.

Behind him Darl heard a boom of wings, a scrape of talon on stone.

'Very well done, my good Sieur r'Harmis,' came a cultured voice. 'We seem to find ourselves alone. Shall we?' Darl turned and slowly smiled at Prince Rann Etuul.

In eerie suspended silence, Moriana's raft soared over the rimwall of the City in the Sky. She fancied she floated on the wings of a dream until a ballista thrummed and a barbed iron head punched through the wooden shielding to kill a Nevrymin. She came out of her reverie and shot an artillerist as he bent to the windlass of his engine.

Eagles screamed and circled. Arrows hammered the walls and roof. Moriana cast aside an emptied quiver and stooped to pick up another as a sweating forester drew his dagger across the throat of the howling man with the ballista-bolt in his guts. She said nothing. She understood battlefield mercy all too well.

Quiet and outwardly untroubled by the carnage around him, the Zr'gsz steersman guided the raft between the airy spaces of the City, making for the Circle of the Skywell in the center of town. Moriana peeked through the slit to check on the craft following hers.

She saw only three. Something had happened to the other; its pilot slain perhaps or it might have been knocked down by the catapults. As she watched, the next raft behind hers careened abruptly to the right. She caught a glimpse of its steersman slumping from behind his globe, arrows sprouting from his back.

The raft brushed a thin tower and brought it crashing into the street. The impact caused the raft to straighten.

'Please, survive,' the princess called quietly. She had little hope they would.

It ran headlong into the forward wall of the Lyceum and disintegrated, flinging Nevrymin about like dolls. And then there were only two rafts remaining.

She felt the deck tip beneath her. Her heart missed a beat but a quick glance aft showed her steersman intact and in control. She looked out again.

The Circle wheeled lazily below. The Skywell opened onto a pastoral landscape a thousand feet below. The pilot banked to follow the Skullway to the very portals of the Palace. To the left she saw armed men and women racing for the Palace. Ahead a squad of Monitors fled toward the same destination, heedless that their feet were defiling the skulls of the City's past rulers.

Some sense made her turn and look back toward the battle she'd left behind. With terrible certainty she knew what she'd see.

A thousand yards ahead of the City's prow two figures fought back and forth across the deck of a raft crewed by corpses. Moriana knew the splendid black bird who stood to one side watching the humans; she knew the tall figure in shining armor who swung his broadsword with skill apparent even across the distance; and all too well she knew the smaller black and purple figure darting in and out while his scimitar parlayed with the huge straight blade.

As the princess watched, Rann tripped and fell back toward the bulwark of the raft. Darl rushed. Rann ducked under the blow and swung with his scimitar. Darl's plate was sturdy but Rann's strength belied his size. The curved blade sank into Darl's side.

The Count-Duke spun, snapping the sword from Rann's grip. Rann danced away. Darl's heels came against the bulwark. He raised his broadsword to salute his foe. Then he turned, looked at Moriana and saluted again. And fell.

'He knew,' came Ziore's anguished words. Moriana returned his salute with her own broadsword. Her eyes stung but she wouldn't cry. Tears would cloud her vision. And then they were down.