March Upcountry

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The messenger lay prostrate in front of the throne. He couldn't think of any bad news in what he had to convey, but that didn't really matter. If the king was in a bad mood, the messenger's life was forfeit, anyway, no matter how important he was.

"So, 'Scout,' " the king said with a grunt of humor, "you say that the humans will come out on the Pasule side of the river?"

"Yes, O King. They follow the old trade route from Voitan."

"Insure that they bypass Pasule." The monarch picked at the ornate intaglio of his throne. "They must come to Marshad first."

"Yes, O King," the messenger said. Now to figure out a way to do that.

"You may go, 'Scout,' " the king said. "Bring them here. Bring them to me, or kill yourself before We lay Our hands on you."

"It shall be done," the messenger said, wiggling backwards out of the king's presence. Cheated death again, he thought.

"Cheated death again." Julian sighed as the company broke through the final screen of trees into obviously civilized lands.

"Yeah," Despreaux said. "Damn, but I'm glad to be out of the jungle."

The passage over the hills from Voitan hadn't been terrible. In fact, they hadn't lost even one person to the jungle flora and fauna, although Kraft in Second Platoon had been badly mauled by a damnbeast.

The march from Voitan had also given them time to shake down into their new organization. The reduced company had separated into just two platoons, Second and Third, and they were getting used to all the empty files. Not happy about them, but adjusted.

All in all, they were probably in better shape both physically and in morale than at any time since leaving Q'Nkok, and the vista stretching out before them would help even more.

The region was obviously long and widely settled. Cultivated fields, interspersed with patches of woodland, spread for kilometers in every direction, and the river the old path had been following was flanked in the middle distance by two towns, one clearly larger than the other.

Captain Pahner waved for the column to hold up as it cleared the jungle completely. The bare track they'd been following for the last day had suddenly become a road. Not much of one these days, perhaps—weeds and even small trees thrust up through the roadbed's cracked, uneven flagstones—but it showed that this had once been an important route.

The company stopped by the ruins of a small building. The structure was set on a raised mound, one of many scattered across the floodplain, and its construction had been massive. It looked as if it had been a guardhouse or border station to receive the caravans from Voitan, and Pahner stepped up onto its two-meter-high mound to watch the caravan pull to a halt as the company deployed.

The Marines had been training hard with their new weapons, and it showed. Bead rifles and grenade launchers were still slung over their shoulders, but their primary weapons were clearly the short swords and spears they carried, and the small units spread out in a cigar perimeter, one swordsman to each spear carrier. Once Pahner had the shields designed, the formation would be quite different, but that was going to have to wait. The tower shield was another thing the Mardukans had apparently never discovered, so he would have to have them built somewhere.

And that somewhere would, hopefully, be here.

He made another gesture, and his "command team"—a grandiose term for a small group of battered Marines and civilians, but the only one he had—gathered about him. Sergeant Julian was filling in as Intel officer in the wake of Lieutenant Gulyas' death, but other than that, it was the same group he'd faced in Voitan.

"Okay," he said, gesturing to the two towns, "it looks pretty much the way the Voitan contingent said it would. This has to be the Hadur region." Heads nodded, and he wished—again—for an even half-way decent map. According to the Voitanese, the Hadur region took its name from the Hadur River, which had to be a truly major stream even for Marduk from the descriptions. He had no reason to doubt them, but he hated trying to fix his position without a reliable map. "If we're where we think we are," he went on with a crooked smile, "that larger town should be Marshad. And that," he pointed to the smaller town "must be Pasule."

Heads nodded again. Marshad had been the primary destination for caravans from over the hills before the fall of Voitan, which had made it a wealthy mercantile center. Pasule, on the other hand, was just a farming town, according to T'Leen Targ.

"I'd almost prefer to get our toes wet locally in Pasule before we tackle the big city," he went on, "but if we're going to get the shields and armor made, it will have to be in Marshad. On the other hand, we need resupply, too, and Pasule might be a better source for that."

As he spoke, he looked around the nearer fields, where peasants had stopped their work to gawk at the force coming out of the jungle. Most of the workers were breaking ground for another crop of barleyrice, but other laborers were harvesting the ubiquitous kate fruit. That was good. It meant that both the fruit and the previous barleyrice harvest would be fully available when it was time to buy.

"Yeah," Jasco agreed, with a grunting laugh that sounded almost Mardukan, as he, too, watched the workers, "these damn pack beasts go through some grain."

"Sergeant Major, I want you and Poertena to handle the resupply and procurement of the shields."

"Got it." The NCO made a note in her toot. They'd discussed the possibilities before, of course, but now that they were actually able to see the lay of the land, it seemed clear that Pasule would be a better, and probably cheaper, source for the food.

"We've seen that they can make laminated wood, plywood," said Roger, who'd been quietly listening. "We should have the shields made out of that."

"Plywood?" Jasco sounded incredulous, but, then, he hadn't been present to hear the prince discuss sword making with the Voitanese leaders. "You've got to be joking... Your Highness. I'd want something a little more solid than that!"

"No, he isn't joking." O'Casey shook her head. "The Roman shield was probably the most famous design ever to come out of Terran history, and it was made out of 'plywood.' The histories always call it 'laminated wood,' but that's what plywood is, and it's enormously tougher than an equivalent thickness of 'solid' wood."

"They have to have metal or leather rims to protect the edges," the prince continued, "but the bulk of the shield is plywood."

"Okay." Pahner nodded. "Kosutic, coordinate with Lieutenant MacClintock on the design of the shields." He looked around and shook his head. "I hope I don't have to remind anybody that we need to maintain as low a profile as possible. We can't afford another butt-kicking like Voitan. Hopefully, we'll be greeted as heroes for taking out the Kranolta and be able to pass on quickly. But if we get into a hassle, we have to think our way out of it. We're way too short on ammo to shoot our way out!"

Corporal Liszez trotted toward the command group with one of the locals. The Mardukan wore a haversack full of tools and appeared to be some sort of tinker.

"LT?" the corporal said as she approached Roger.

"Whatcha got, Liz?" the prince replied with a nod.

"This scummy's gabbling something, but the translator can't make anything of it."

"Oh, great," O'Casey sighed. "Dialect shift. Just what we needed."

"Get on it," Pahner said. "We have to be able to communicate with these people." The local was gesturing across the river at the distant city, obviously agitated about something. He either wanted the company to go there, or else he was warning them away. It could have been either, and Pahner nodded and gave him a closed-lip, Mardukan-style smile. "Yes, yes," he said "we're going to Marshad."

Either the smile or the words seemed to calm the local. He gestured, as if offering to lead them, but Pahner shook his head.

"We'll be along," he said soothingly. "Thank you. I'm sure we can find our own way."

He smiled again and started to wave the still-gabbling local politely away, then paused and looked at O'Casey.

"Do you want to talk with him?"

"Yes." She sounded a bit absent, obviously because she was concentrating on the translation—or lack thereof—from her toot. "I'm starting to pick up a few words. Let him walk with us to the town, and I'm pretty sure I can have most of the language by the time we arrive."

"Okay," Pahner agreed. "I think that's about it. Questions? Comments? Concerns?"

There were none, so the company reassembled and moved on up the road.

The ancient high road became even more cracked and damaged looking as it entered the planted areas, despite clear indications of repairs. Heavy deposits of silt had been thrown up to either side, obviously as the result of post-flood road clearing, which forced the company to move between low, brown walls. In places, the walls built up to true dikes to protect the barleyrice crops, and in places the dikes were planted with the tall kate trees.

The peasants harvesting the kate fruit dangled from ropes or perched on tall, single-pole ladders that were unpleasantly reminiscent of scaling ladders, but they paused in their labors to gape at the human contingent as it headed toward the distant city-state. Whether because of the humans' outlandish look, or the fact that they came on the road from dead Voitan, the locals' reaction to them was far different from reactions in Q'Nkok.

"You'd think they'd never seen a human before," Denat snorted.

"Buncha rubes," Tratan agreed with a grunt. "Ripe for the plucking." He looked down at the diminutive human striding along beside him under his huge rucksack. "What should we teach them first?"

"Poker," Poertena replied. "Always start wit' poker. Den, I dunno. Maybe acey-deucy. If they really stupid, cribbage."

"They pocked," Cranla said with a grunt of laughter. He waved at one of the harvesters. "Hello, you stupid peasants. We're going to pluck your merchants for all they're worth."

Julian pointed at the Mardukan tribesmen with his chin.

"They've taken quite a shine to Poertena," he said to Despreaux.

"Birds of a feather," the other squad leader responded absently. "Is it just me, or does this place look fairly run down?" she went on.

The company was approaching a fork in the road, where the travelers had to choose between Marshad or Pasule. There was another official looking building on a mound where the roads diverged, but although it was in better repair, it had obviously been converted into an agricultural outbuilding.

"Yeah," Julian said, glancing at the structure. "I think the loss of the Voitan trade must have hit them hard."

The company took the left fork and headed for the river. The solid stone bridge which crossed it was the only structure they'd so far seen which appeared to have been properly kept up. In fact, there'd been some obvious renovations—the well-fortified guard posts on either bank looked like fairly recent additions.

The guards on the near bank gestured for the caravan to halt, and Julian looked around as the long train of flar-ta dragged to stop. An outcropping of the underlying gneiss of the Hadur region rose steeply on the right side of the road, he noted. The oxbow river took a bend around it, and an extension of the outcropping acted as a firm base for the bridge.

The hill was surmounted by trees and what appeared to have once been a small park. A well-made road in very poor repair wound to the summit, but it was obvious that the track was rarely used anymore. Only a thin path cut through the layered silt and entangling undergrowth on its lower sections. Despreaux followed his eye, and shook her head as Captain Pahner argued with the guards on the bridge. They obviously felt that the travelers ought to keep themselves—and the business they represented—on this side of the river.

"This place has really been hammered," she observed.

"No shit," Julian agreed. "It looks like it used to be a pretty nice place, though. Maybe it'll get that way again with Voitan back in business."

"We'll see," Despreaux said. "The old Voitan wasn't built in a day."

"No," Julian acknowledged as the caravan lurched back into movement, "but that guy from T'an K'tass looked like he was going to try to do it pretty damned fast."

"That he did," Despreaux said, but her tone was a bit distracted, and she nodded at the sour looking guards on the bridge as they passed. "Those guys don't look happy."

"Probably pissed at all the money they're losing," Julian said. "We're about to pump a lot of cash into the local economy... on the other side of their bridge."

"We hope," she answered.

The approaching city-state was huge, much larger than Q'Nkok, but it had a seedy air. Once past the bridge area, the road was once again rutted and cracked from traffic and ill repair. In fact, it was in worse shape than it had been on the other side of the river, and the peasants plowing the fields to either side of the roadbed also seemed less interested in the passage of the company.

Flar-ta were useless as draft animals, because they were far too large to move effectively in the fields. That meant that the only way to plow was to use teams of Mardukans for traction, which was a remarkably inefficient method. It was also extremely hard work, but while the plowers on the far side of the river had taken the opportunity for a break while they watched the company march by, those on this side all kept their heads down, concentrating on their tasks. And while the majority crop had been barleyrice on the far side of the river, on this side most of the fields were being sown with legumes or a crop the humans didn't recognize. The Marines had encountered the legumes before, and promptly christened them bullybeans, but they'd never seen the other crop, and the locals seemed to be planting a lot of it. At least two-thirds of the fields they could see seemed to be dedicated to producing whatever it was.

"I wonder why there's a difference," Julian said, pointing it out to Despreaux, who shrugged and gestured across the wide expanse of fields. There was another hill barely visible in the distance, but it was apparent that the local city-state dominated a vast area.

"They've got plenty of room," she pointed out. "This is probably just their area for bullybeans and... whatever that other stuff is."

"I guess," the intel NCO said. "But that much change just from one side of the river to the other?" He shrugged. "I'm no farmer, but it seems kinda strange to me."

"I suppose we'll find out why they do it eventually," Despreaux said with a shrug of her own. "But I wonder what that other plant is?"

"Dianda," the itinerant tinker said to the chief of staff. "It is... urdak into wosan... like that," he finished, gesturing to the chameleon cloth uniform the civilian wore.

The local was named Kheder Bijan. It was obvious he expected some sort of reward from the company for guiding them to the clearly evident city which the ignorant foreigners could never have found on their own, but the chief of staff was happy to have him along, anyway. He'd been a good way to update the language program, and he was a mine of information about conditions around Pasule. He was strangely uninformative, however, about Marshad.

"Ah!" Eleanora said. "Something like flax or cotton!" The software had updated the local dialect well enough for Pahner to talk their way across the bridge. She was puzzled by the fact that the officials of Pasule had been more trouble than Marshad's. The local guards had simply stepped aside, almost as if the humans had been expected.

"Yes," the local said. He rubbed a horn in thought while he considered the best way to explain. "We make cloth from it for trade."

"A cash crop." The chief of staff nodded. "Where are the subsistence crops?" she asked, looking around. "I'd think you'd be planting more barleyrice than this."

"Well," Bijan said, fingering his horn again, "I don't really understand farming. I fix things." He gestured with his haversack. "I suppose there must be other farms around here somewhere."

"Who owns the land?" Eleanora had been pleasantly surprised to discover that in the Q'Nkok region the farmers owned their own land, for the most part. The farms were passed down through complicated cultural "rules" that moved them from generation to generation more or less intact. That denied inheritance to most of the "younger sons," but that was a common problem for agrarian societies the galaxy over, and the important thing was that the farms weren't broken into minuscule lots that were impossible to manage. Nor were they sold or lost in chunks to form giant latifundia. The Houses of Q'Nkok had been well on their way to the sort of backward agricultural "reform" which would strip the peasantry of land ownership, but hopefully the destruction of their power would stop that in its tracks. At this level of technology, small-scale "yeomanry" farming was as good as it got.

"I'm not sure who owns it," the tinker said, fingering his horn again. "I've never asked."

The chief of staff blinked, then smiled cheerfully. The "tinker" had blithely nattered on about the minutiae of the inner workings of the council of oligarchs who ruled Pasule, and the different groups of independents and sharecroppers who farmed the land on that side of the river. Now, on the side that he claimed he was from, he suddenly clammed up. She wouldn't have survived a day in the imperial court if that hadn't set off some alarm bells.

"That's interesting," she said with complete honesty. "I suppose a tinker wouldn't really care, would he?"

"Not really," Bijan said. "I just look forward to returning to my beautiful city!"

"Nice city," Kosutic said tugging at an earlobe.

"It's okay," Pahner replied.

Marshad was larger than Q'Nkok, but smaller than the former Voitan had been, with streets that wound up the hill from several gates in the curtain walls.

The gates were unusual. They were constructed of thick wood, well joined and even caulked, and their bottoms were lined with copper, which must have cost a fortune. There was also a base upon which they were, apparently, supposed to seat, but it was shattered, and any metal which might once have sheathed it was long since gone.

Much of the city appeared to be in the same dilapidated condition. The walls were higher than Voitan's, but in even worse shape. Numerous parapets had fallen to lie in rubble at the base of the main wall, leaving gaps like broken teeth in the battlements, and in places the outer stones had worked out, exposing the rubble interior fill. One section was so badly damaged that it might as well have been called a breach, and they discovered even more signs of neglect once they entered the city proper.

The area immediately inside the gate was clear, but beyond that the city reared up the hill in a maze of alleys and tunnels. The houses were mostly built of stone, pink granite and blinding white limestone, erected in a crazy quilt of warrens, with one house on top of another in a widely varying mixture of styles and quality.

The main thoroughfare was wide enough for the passage of the company, but only barely, and the boulevard was lined with wide gutters which were joined by thin streams leading out of the alleyways. This lower section clearly wasn't the best place to live: the noisome stew in the streams which obviously provided the entire city's drainage was a noxious compound of fecal matter and rot that was practically explosive.

As they continued inward, the road presented a graphic cross-section of the city. The lower slopes showed the best quality of work, with well cut blocks of feldspar and gneiss cunningly fitted, mostly without mortar. The surfaces had been coated in white plaster, and the lintels and trim still showed signs of colorful paints. But now the plaster was patched and fallen, with caved-in roofs and shattered corners, and the once bright paint was pathetically faded in the blazing gray light. There were signs of flooding, as well, with brown high-water marks well up the sides of the houses. Many of the buildings were deserted, but shadows moved in some of the wreckage—furtive inhabitants who clearly only showed their faces under the friendly cover of night.

The quality of the stonework fell as the procession headed up the hill, but the upkeep improved. More houses were inhabited above the level of the floods, and the warren became truly mazelike, with houses piled on houses and built across alleyways which their floors turned into tunnels.

Business was being conducted in this labyrinth, but with a definitely desultory air. A few vendors lined the road with sparse offerings of half-rotten fruits, moldy barleyrice, cheap and poorly-made jewelry, and assorted minor knickknacks. The obvious poverty of the area was crushing, and the stench of rotting garbage and uncleaned latrines hung in the air as young Mardukans sat in doorways, scratching listlessly at the dust in the street.

The slums ended abruptly in a large square. Its downhill side was lined with tall townhouses which had apparently been carved out of the warren beyond at some time in the past. They fronted on a broad, flat, open area that was partially natural and partially Mardukan-made. The centerpiece of the square was a large fountain around the statue of an armed Mardukan, while the upper side of the square was occupied by a large ornamental building. The building seemed to climb—without a break, but in a myriad of differing styles—up to the citadel at the hill's summit. It appeared to be one vast palace, and a ceremony was in progress at its entrance.

It was apparently a public audience. The ruler of the city-state sat in a resplendent throne set up at the front door of the palace. As with the throne in Q'Nkok, this was made of many different inlaid woods, but the local monarch's throne was also set with precious metals and gems. The entire edifice gleamed with gold and silver and the twinkle of the local sapphires and rubies in their rough "miner's" cut.

The king was the first Mardukan the company had seen wearing any significant clothing, and he was garbed in a light robe of lustrous saffron. The outfit was slit down the sides, gathering only at the ankles and trimmed in bright vermillion. Traceries of silver thread ran through it, and the collar was a lace of silver and gems.

The monarch's horns had also been inlaid with precious metals and gems and were joined by a complex web of jewel-strung gold chains that caught the gray light and refracted it in a dull rainbow. As if all of that weren't enough, he also wore a heavy chain of jeweled gold around his neck, dangling far down his chest.

Arrayed to either side of the king were persons who were probably advisers. They were unclothed, except for one obvious commander in armor, but their horns were also inlaid and gemmed. The display was an obvious indication of rank, for it grew less expensive and spectacular in direct proportion to the owner's distance from the monarch.

About six hundred guards lined the steps at the front of the palace, standing at parade rest in two ranks. They were more heavily armored than the guards in Q'Nkok, with metal thigh-guards and bracers in addition to breastplates shining gray-silver in the clouded light. They carried the same long spear as the Q'Nkok guards, but they also wore palmate swords, about a meter in length, and despite their carefully polished breastplates, their purpose was obviously more than merely ceremonial.

The crowd before the monarch was a mixed bag. Most of them seemed to be from the Mardukan "middle class," to the extent that the planet had one. They also had decorations on their horns, but the displays were generally simple and made of base metals or brass. A few of the poorest of the poor were mixed in here and there, and it was one of them who was currently making some plea to the refulgent monarch.

The petitioner was in full prostration before the king, all six limbs splayed out as he abased himself. Whatever he was saying was unintelligible at this distance, but it didn't really matter, since the king was sitting half across his throne and paying virtually no attention to him.

As the company watched, the suppliant apparently finished whatever he was saying, and the monarch picked a kate fruit off a platter and nibbled on it. Then he threw the fruit at the petitioner and gestured to a guard.

Before the first protest could leave the unfortunate Mardukan's mouth, the guards had seized him and cut off his head. The head rolled to the edge of the crowd as the stump spurted a red spray and the body of the serf slumped into a twitching heap.

There was not a sound from the gathered Marshadans.

"We may have a problem here," Pahner observed.

"Oh, my," O'Casey said. A few months earlier, she probably would have lost her breakfast, but after Voitan, she was going to have a hard time finding anything that truly shocked her. "I agree."

"Well, if we turn around and leave," Roger said, "which is my first instinct, we will have a problem."

"Agreed," the captain said. "Stick to the prepared speech Your Highness. But I want the up squad right on you. Sergeant Major!"

"Captain?"

"Fall in the company in extended formation, Sergeant Major. I want a snappy movement. And drop the pig-stickers. Rifles and cannon front and center!"

The caravan devolved into an organized frenzy as the Marines prepared to "present" their noble lord to the local monarch. Roger, for his part, rehearsed his speech and checked his pistol, on the assumption that he was equally likely to need either of them.

"Credentials, credentials," O'Casey muttered, diving into the packs on the flar-ta called Bertha. Somewhere she had the now much travel-stained, vermillion-sealed documents of Roger's credibility, along with letters from the King of Q'Nkok and the new council of Voitan, but she hadn't expected to need them so soon. They'd assumed that they would have to deal first with a functionary just to find shelter, then the king—not the other way around.

"Snap it, snap it, snap it," Kosutic chanted subvocally. The change from a tactical formation to one intended for parade had to be made as cleanly and professionally as possible. Any trace of disorder would not only reflect poorly on the Regiment, but would create an opening. If you looked professional, it stopped nine out of ten fights before they started; the tenth, of course, was Voitan.

The post guide had found a mark, and the squad leaders fell in on her, with their squads in turn falling in behind them. On command, the company—less one squad, which was "tight" on the prince—deployed in a double line facing that of the local guards. The Marines were pitifully few in number, but soon enough the locals would know what that pitiful few had accomplished at a place called Voitan.

Then let them get ideas.

Roger looked behind him into the unsmiling blue eyes of Sergeant Nimashet Despreaux.

"We've got to quit meeting like this. People will talk," he told her, but her demeanor didn't change.

"I'm on post, Sir. I'm not supposed to carry on a conversation."

"Ah." Roger turned back to the front and tugged at his braid as Pahner and O'Casey walked up to find him. "Sorry. I'll put myself on report."

"Ready?" Pahner subvocalized over the com.

"Bravo in position," Lieutenant Jasco replied almost as quietly.

"Inner team in position." Despreaux's voice was the ghost of a whisper at the back of Roger's head.

"Documents," O'Casey said, handing them to the prince.

"Then let's do it, Captain," Roger said calmly, and hid a silent snort of mental laughter. The presentation ceremony they were about to use was the same one they'd planned and rehearsed for Net-Hauling on Leviathan. The only difference was that the survivors of the company were on a hair trigger, and if anything went wrong he was hitting the deck at about Mach 3. Fifty-eight weapons would turn the square into an abattoir at the slightest sign of threat, and anything he personally might have added to the carnage would be purely inconsequential.

The group started forward in a slow, hieratic half-step which was used for only two purposes: formal presentations, and funerals. Since Marines did a lot more of the latter than the former, they referred to do it as "The Death March," which, in Roger's considered opinion, did not bode well in this circumstance.

The crowd before the throne parted to let them through. It was surprisingly silent; the only sound in the entire square was the slow tap of the humans' boots and the distant rumble of thunder.

Roger reached the sticky red stain where the previous petitioner had pled his case and stopped. He bowed deeply and held out the documents as the iron and shit smell of a fresh kill rose around him.

"Your Majesty, Great Ruler of Marshad and Voice of the People, I, Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock, of the House MacClintock, Heir Tertiary to the Throne of the Empire of Man, greet you in the name of my Imperial Mother, Her Majesty, Empress Alexandra MacClintock, Empress of Man, Queen of the Dawn, and Mistress of the Void."

Eleanora took the documents ceremoniously back from him and stepped forward and to the side. Dropping to both knees at the edge of the stairs, she held them out, hoping that one of these glittering idiots would figure out her purpose.

One of the advisers—a senior one, by the decoration of his horns—trotted down the steps and accepted the documents as Roger continued his speech about the magnificence of Marshad and its ruler, whose name he had yet to find out.

She backchecked the translation and winced. The program had reversed genders on Empress Alexandra, making her "Emperor Alexander," which was historically humorous but a pain otherwise. Eleanora locked that description in for this culture (they were never going to know the difference anyway), and checked the other gender settings. Sure enough, the program had reversed gender in the dialect. Fortunately, the translation glitch hadn't come up yet, so she suppressed a snarl and fixed it, then dumped the patch to the other toots and went back to listening to Roger's speech

"... bring joyous news: Voitan is restored! The Kranolta in all their fury came against us when we entered the fallen city, but that was a grave mistake. Aided by the forces of New Voitan, we defeated them in a terrible battle and destroyed their war host utterly. Even now the foundries and forges of fabled Voitan ring once more with the sound of forming metal! Soon the caravans will come once more on a regular basis. We are the first, but we shall not be the last!"

The prince paused in a planned break for the expected applause, but there was only a quiet murmur, and even that was almost instantly hushed. Roger was clearly nonplussed by the lack of reaction, but he carried on gamely.

"We are foreign emissaries on a voyage of exploration, and we are to be met by ships on a distant shore to the northwest. Thus we ask the boon of permission to pass through these lands in peace. We also wish to rest and enjoy the hospitality of your city, and we have brought rich booty from the conquest of the Kranolta which we wish to trade for supplies to continue our journey."

He bowed again as the king sat up. The entire company tensed, although an outside observer might have been pardoned for not realizing that it had, as the saffron-clad monarch leaned forward and examined the documents. After a brief, whispered consultation with one of his advisers, concentrating on the letter from the King of Q'Nkok, the monarch clapped his hands in agreement and stood.

"Welcome, welcome, Your Highness, to the land of Marshad, you and all your brave warriors! We have heard of your exploits in defeating the Kranolta and raising Voitan to its ancient and honorable place! In Our name, Radj Hoomas, King of Marshad, Lord of the Land, We welcome you to Marshad. Rest here as long as you like. A place has been prepared for you and your great warriors, and there shall be a great feast in your honor tonight! So We declare! Let there be merriment and celebration, for the way to Voitan is open once more!"