Sea of Death

Chapter 7

Everywhere the land was parched. It wasn't all sandy desert, or even a combination of sand and rock. There were patches of such ground aplenty, but more frequently the land was cracked earth dotted with skeletal plants. There were cacti and stunted trees too, growing in depressions and along steep-sided gullies.

"I guess it does rain here… sometimes," Gord said, patting his horse's neck as he peered around at the waste. "I am glad you are a hearty one, Wind-eater, or else we would be in desperate straits." The stallion moved on, ears twitching to indicate he heard his master's words, but he had interest only in where his hooves were placed. They had been traveling across the barrens for two days. Wind-eater had been able to find sufficient forage, but didn't like the cracked ground. Sand and rock troubled the stallion not at all — in fact, the courser moved with ease through the loose grains of such stuff, and trotted easily on hard sheets of bare rock. However, broken and powdery dirt, prickly succulents, and potholes made the courser uneasy, and as he paced through such terrain he paid attention mainly to his footing.

The ground became very rough. Gord dismounted and walked his mount then, not wanting to risk a fall or a broken leg. Clambering down a steep bank, they found themselves in a boulder-strewn wash that apparently served as the bed of a swift watercourse at times. The relatively smooth and level terrain here offered a fairly sure and easy means of travel, so Gord and the stallion shifted their path from south to southwest, following its course. At mid-morning they rounded a sharp bend, and Gord's eyes lit up in the same instant that Windeater's nostrils flared.

"Look, Windeater!" Gord boomed. "Water at last!" In a moment both man and horse were drinking from a deep pool off to one side of the dry wash — a place where the flood that came periodically sweeping along the wash had deposited some of its content. It was a well-used waterhole, judging from the signs of hoof and paw imprinted around it. As thirsty as the two travelers were, neither man nor horse cared. After checking quickly to see if any predatory animals lurked nearby, Gord dismounted, dropped to his knees, and began splashing and drinking. Windeater lowered his head and sucked up great gulps of the precious liquid even as his master did likewise.

"If you move, Bayomen dog, you are dead!"

Gord froze. Lifting his head imperceptibly, the young adventurer could just see shadows that indicated men behind him, advancing as they came down the slope of the wash. The horse jerked his head up and snorted wildly at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. Then came a clatter as rocks were dislodged by approaching feet, and at that Windeater snorted again and bolted, trotting away on down the dry wash.

"Kodan! Vahkta!" cried out the same voice that had threatened Gord. "Stop that horse! He is worth more than this one in the Great Bazaar!" A short distance ahead, Gord saw a couple of men riding camels appear over the edge of the wash and head down into the depression, trying to intercept the runaway horse.

In the bit of confusion this incident caused, Gord decided to take a chance. With one smooth move he rolled to his right, gained his feet, and started to dart away along the same route Windeater had taken. But before he could take more than a couple of steps, a lasso circled his upper arms and drew them tight to his sides, stopping him in his tracks. A second later, another lariat tightened around his neck. The point of a weapon touched the small of his back at the same time. Gord stood stock still. He was captured, and there was no use attempting anything now to compound the peril. The weapon at his back was taken away. Then two of his attackers, mounted on camels, came around to his front, and he glared at them as they examined him.

This is no Al-baburi, even though he is dressed like one. See his eyes?"

"Had he different hair, he might be of our own people."

Gord looked from one speaker to the other. Both men were swathed in buff-colored garments, turbaned and veiled too. All he could see of them were patches of dark skin where their hands held weapons, and gray eyes through the slits in their veils.

"Who are you?" one of the voices demanded. The rope that circled his neck was pulled tighter by one of the men still behind him, and the young man had to shake his head a little to enable his constricted throat to get words out.

"I am a peaceful traveler from the north."

"Liar!" boomed the questioner. At the same time, the other man confronting Gord brought the tip of a lance to within inches of his stomach. "Only bandits and rogues come from the north! Where is the rest of your party?"

"I am alone," Gord said.

"Liar still!" the one holding the lance against his belly said as he pushed the point forward a little to make his statement show how he felt about falsehoods. "You are a scout for that band of Yoli dogs who ride but a little distance behind."

That statement made Gord's blood run cold. Could his old pursuers still be on his trail? If so, and if they were realty that close, then all of them, camel-riders and Gord alike, would soon be dead. Those Yoli are enemies who seek my death!" the young man said as forcefully as he dared.

"When we take them, snake-tongue, we will make all of you speak truth."

"Have a care, warrior," Gord shot back. "There are workers of spells among those after me."

"Let's be done with this one now, Yahoud. I think he is a renegade who leads our enemies to our waterholes and oases."

The lance-bearer demurred. "Perhaps, Haradoon, but I am not so sure. See that he is bound and guarded." Then this man, apparently the leader of the group, looked past Gord and gave another order. "Bohkir, take your men and spy out the Yoli."

"Aye, Yahoud," Bohkir replied from behind Gord. "What should I do when I come to the enemy?"

"Use your eyes, think, then act. You are my right hand," said the one called Yahoud. Bohkir turned his mount around, gestured to a small group of nomads, and all of them headed back in the direction from which Gord had come.

Gord was half-led, half-dragged to a sheltered spot a hundred yards away, a place where the curve of the gully and an outcropping of rock hid him and his captors from view. The nomads remaining with him, four in number, stripped him of all his weapons and gear, leaving him with nothing but his simple clothing, and trussed him with coils of rope so that he could barely move. Two took up positions as sentries nearby while the other pair stayed next to Gord, their long, straight swords ready to cut him down if he tried to get free. Shortly after Gord was bound, he heard the sound of approaching riders, followed by telltale snorts that could only mean one thing: Windeater had been captured.

"The beast is fast, and ornery too," said one man to the others, "but we finally got a noose around him. Quite a prize, is he not?" Gord was saddened that Windeater had not escaped — in fact, he felt worse about that than he did about his own plight.

The shade disappeared as the sun rose to its zenith. Gord sweated and wondered what was going to happen. Right now, he was as good as dead any time the men who held him chose to kill him. He considered, then dismissed, trying to change to panther form; that would take time, and he doubted that he would be invulnerable to their weapons during the transition, even if none of these warriors bore magical blades. The young adventurer waited and watched for an opportunity as patiently as he could, but his guards never took their eyes from him. After nearly two hours more he heard the soft sounds of camels coming down the streambed, and then conversation that took place right outside where he was being held.

"What did you learn, Bohkir?"

This one spoke truth, Yahoud. The Yoli were after him, and with them were workers of spells."

"So?"

"I parlayed with the fools. When I told them we had captured a stranger garbed in Al-baburi dress, they asked for his surrender. They offered me silver for him, threatening to slay us and take him by force otherwise."

"Well, you are not dead. Where are the Yoli?"

Bohkir laughed derisively, They are as stupid as all the rest of the Bakluni, my shaik. When I signaled for my warriors to allow themselves to be seen, the Yoli dogs seemed impressed. The warriors made themselves seem a hundred, and their crossbows were in evidence. At such range, and with so much cover, the outland spell-casters with the Yoli would be of little use once fighting began."

"What did the dogs offer then?" Yahoud asked, heavy contempt for the Yoli evident in his question.

The leader of the group was one of the foreign spell-workers. He and the chief warrior of the Yoli conferred for a time, and then the dung-eating Yoli actually told me that through the kindness of his mighty captain's heart, they would spare us — if we promised to slay the prisoner we held." "So?"

"I laughed at the statement, asking why the interlopers thought we would spare them. "The Arroden can kill whomever we wish, as we wish!' I said. Then the Yoli babbled to their pale-skinned leader, and we began to bargain."

"From your tone, Bohkir, I would guess that the Yoli were as easy as always," Yahoud said mirthfully.

"In the end, shaik, they gave over a hundred silver pieces, these two good horses, and a necklace of gold. In exchange we allowed them to ride back the way they had come, unmolested. The silver is to assure that our 'guest' dies," he finished.

"You gave your word?" Yahoud asked the man incredulously.

"That he would surely die? Yes, shaik, that I did. But when he would die… that I did not say at all! He will fetch our tribe yet more silver in the slave market at Karnoosh. Slaves sold there die quickly anyway — at least, those who go to the mines of Zondabad do. One such as this one, small but well muscled, will surely be bought by the Kizam's agents for just such work."

"Well done, Bohkir! Make sure the Yoli are carefully watched, for I trust them not. Join us as soon as you can. We will ride south to Karnoosh."

After his captors freed him enough so that he could ride, Gord was unceremoniously placed atop a camel. Bohkir and a small band of warriors headed north and the remaining nomads, with Gord, went in the opposite direction under the leadership of the one called Yahoud. After they had ridden about two miles, they met up with the main body of the nomad force, so that the group traveling south now numbered about a hundred camel-riders. Besides the camels the men rode, there were quite a few other humped beasts bearing equipment and supplies. With these pack camels were his own horse, the two gained from the Yoli, and a half-dozen less desirable animals — probably either wild horses taken by the nomads or else prizes from some raid. Gord saw no other prisoners, so he supposed that the small horses were wild ones.

His guards still numbered four, even though Gord was virtually helpless — precariously perched atop a camel that was being led by one guard, flanked by two others, and covered from the rear by yet another of the nomads. These Arroden, as they called themselves, were both thorough and cautious. Even though they had confiscated everything from Gord, they were still taking no chance that he would escape, or that they might be forced to kill him if he made such an attempt.

Apparently, Gord thought, he had enough value to the Arroden that they strongly desired to keep him alive and in their possession until they reached the slave market. But they did not know just what resources he still had at his command, both natural and not so natural. He felt sure that he could get out of his bonds in moments, if he ever got the chance. In addition, he had the power to see at night — an ability first bestowed upon him by his cat's-eye ring, but something that his long contact with the ring now enabled him to call upon even when he was not wearing it. He might be helpless at the moment, but he was certainly not beyond hope.

Although he was treated roughly by his captors, and riding a camel proved to be sheer torture for him at first, Gord was given food and water whenever the Arroden ate and drank. After a couple of days the young adventurer became fairly accustomed to his strange mount, and the pain of his sore muscles lessened enough so that Gord was able to actually pay attention to his surroundings as he rode. The land they passed over was similar to that which he and Windeater had encountered before.

The guard on Gord's right flank, Brodri by name, had shown himself to be a bit more sociable than the others — in other words, Gord could occasionally speak to him and get an answer other than a growl and a painful blow. When the young captive saw that they were no longer heading south, he risked punishment and asked Brodri about it.

"We now go more eastward than south," Gord said without expression.

"There are caravans near Ghastoor."

"You trade?"

"Don't be stupid. Arroden warriors take what they need from the Yoli," the veiled warrior said, turning his head to speak directly at the captive.

"Such men as you Arroden can surely do that," Gord said with a note of humiliation in his voice, "but surely the swarms of Yollite horsemen resist that. Are so few real warriors as this able to overcome the many who must protect such caravans?"

"Sometimes there are only a few guards. Sometimes others of our people join us-"

"Stop chattering like a woman!" This command came from one of the lieutenants of the warrior band. Brodri shot an angry glance at Gord when he was rebuked, and with this he turned to face forward and spoke no more. What the nomad had told him, however, gave Gord some slight hope. A fight, or even the confusion of new warriors joining the group who held him captive, might allow him the chance he needed.

The Arroden warriors rode in a broad arc. Their path curved to the southeast, and their pace was now slow. A dozen scouts trotted to the left and an equal number rode ahead, all of them beyond sight of the main body of camel-riders. It was evident that the leader, Yahoud, was looking for a passing caravan, just as Brodri had said. Nothing occurred that day, though, and the next morning they turned due east, for the rising sun was directly in his eyes as Gord was hoisted up to begin his day's ride with his feet, as usual, lashed under his camel's belly.

Near the end of the day, Gord detected a line of undulating darkness on the faraway southern horizon — a stretch of hills, he suspected. The nomads stopped and went through the usual camping routines. Gord watched for an opening as usual, but the Arroden guards were as alert as they had always been. The young adventurer forgot about thoughts of escape for the time being and slept as comfortably as his bonds permitted; tomorrow was another day. The veiled nomads swung southward the next morning, riding perhaps two leagues in that direction. Now Gord noticed mountains to his left hand — perhaps the Barring Ridge, but he wasn't sure. Then the Arroden abruptly turned and headed their camels west, sweeping back toward the area they had come from. Gord was perplexed by this, and decided to probe Brodri for information.

"Do we now ride for Karnoosh?" he asked.

The nomad stared hard at Gord for a moment. Then his visage softened slightly and he said, "It is only because you might have our blood, the blood of the Arroden, that I speak to you… I would not wish to die in slavery either, outlander. Karnoosh lies to the south, several days' ride. We will make for the city, but as we do we will travel eastward and westward as well. Our shaik seeks prey, so we sweep the land for Yoli or others who are so bold as to ride through the land of the Arroden."

There are others who are your foes here, then, too?"

"Of course. Many come and go to and from Lake Karnoosh and the rich markets of the bazaar there. Bayomens, Yoli, and the dark Jahindi all travel to and from that place. Even the folk of Sa'han and Be-how are seen at Karnoosh. We abide most of these visitors, requiring only that they pay us in goods and livestock when we run across them. But when the dogs of Yoli dare to pass over our lands, they are subject to our special tariff."

"Tariff?"

"Plundering and death," Brodri said with a thin, grim smile.

The very next day just such an encounter occurred. Running camels, their curious side-to-side gait still seeming strange to Gord despite the time he himself had been riding one, brought a handful of the veiled Arroden scouts back to the main body. They shouted that Yoli were coming toward them from the north.

There are many animals laden with goods, shaik!" one warrior called, and then added, "Many slaves — women slaves! But the dogs have many guards with them, too."

Yahoud immediately called in his lieutenants and held a council. When this broke up, Gord overheard the plan that was passed down to his guards by their leader. "We will wait for darkness, for those cowardly mongrels do not like to fight when they can't see to use their bows. When we halt at dusk, keep that one wrapped well," the veiled warrior said, nodding toward Gord. "All but one of you four must come with us when we attack."

"No one wants to lose honor and spoils," one of the guards remarked. "Which of us must stay?"

The other groups of sentries are drawing lots," said the lieutenant as he turned to ride away. "You can do the same, or settle it any other way you wish, so long as no one is injured."

The guards decided to leave the question to chance, and the other three insisted that Brodri draw last since he was the youngest. To no one's great surprise, Brodri lost. He was furious and insisted he had been cheated, but of course the others would not admit to such a thing. Gord did not say a word during the rest of that day's ride, knowing full well that Brodri was in no mood for talking.

That night, Gord stayed awake but silent until several minutes after the Arroden horde had ridden out to take on the Yoli. He knew that Brodri was still furious, but tried to approach him with a question anyway — and got a kick in the ribs for his trouble. "Keep that wagging tongue still, or by Lightning and Wind I'll tear it out of your head!" the young guard screamed. So, Gord thought, it wasn't going to be possible for him to draw Brodri into talk and then persuade the guard to loosen his bonds a bit. He would have to play a waiting game instead — and, as it turned out, the wait was not a long one.

Gord kept his peace for another few minutes while Brodri sat nearby, facing his prisoner and brooding. Then the guard's expression changed to one of resignation. He stood up, looked around, went a few paces over to his gear, and pulled out a small pot. Gord could smell the heady odor of date wine as Brodri sat down in front of him again and swigged occasionally from the container. The container was drained in less than half an hour. Brodri stood, belched, heaved the empty wine-pot disgustedly to one side, then stumbled heavily off to Gord's left, looking for a place to relieve himself!

Possibly Brodri believed that the many loops of cord and complex knots were sufficient to secure the prisoner. Possibly the potent wine had made him incautious. Whatever caused him to be careless in the first place, Brodri made an even greater mistake when he heard the sounds of fighting coming faintly over the still night air of the arid land. When his ears picked up the distant yells and din of battle wafting in from the north, the warrior ran several dozen yards farther away from Gord, in the direction of the sounds, in hopes of hearing more clearly.

Gord had already managed to loosen his bonds somewhat during the two minutes when Brodri had been busy relieving himself — literally the only occasion on which the young thief had been left un-supervised since he was captured. In the time it took Brodri to cover the additional distance and then stand for a moment with his ear cocked toward the faraway sound, Gord finished the job of getting free, then quickly and noiselessly crept up behind the careless guard, one of the ropes that had tethered him held fast in his hand.

A barely audible choking noise was the last sound Brodri made, just before the rope Gord had drawn around his throat cut off the noise and his breath all at once. Gord felt a slight pang of regret as Brodri's body slumped to the ground, for this Arroden was the closest he had had to a friend during his captivity. But even at that, thought the young thief, it was certainly not the sort of friendship that was bound to last. Strengthening his resolve to its fullest once again, he bent over the corpse and claimed the nomad's long sword and heavy-bladed dagger. Now Gord felt a lot better. He owed these Arroden much, and tonight he would repay them for their kind hospitality.

He wanted to get back his belongings, and using his special night-sight and his keen ears he did not see or hear any guards around the warriors' tents — including the one belonging to Shaik Yahoud, where he supposed his gear would be stored. But Gord didn't go there immediately. He assumed that there would be sentries stationed with the pack animals and horses to keep them from hurting themselves or straying away, and he wanted no men in the camp left alive when he searched the shaik's cloth shelter for his precious gear.

His reasoning was correct. After creeping along the perimeter of the camp, using tents and shrubs to conceal his movements, he detected two guards in the area where the remaining camels and the horses were tied on a long line. The first he struck from behind, using the unfamiliar but deadly sword. The nomad never knew what happened, and he was dead before his body fell to the sandy ground he had been walking on a moment prior. The sound of his collapse alerted his comrade, however, and the other Arroden warrior called out.

"What is wrong, Lafdan?"

"Hsssst…" Gord replied, allowing the indistinct sound to trail off.

The nomad crouched and came cautiously toward the noise that had risen out of the darkness. He moved with all the stealth of any of his kind, and his sword was held ready before him as he advanced. That maneuver did him no good, for Gord had already flanked him and came to the attack from his left. The Arroden, sensing the young thiefs silent rush, tried to bring his blade around at the last second, but both sword and dagger struck before he could defend himself. Choking on his own blood, the veiled warrior followed his comrade to wherever dead warriors of the Arroden go.

There, slaver, is your pay for the work you have done," Gord muttered bitterly. Not bothering with either dead sentry further, Gord went swiftly to the rows of tents and sought out the largest one, which was Yahoud's. In his haste, he pulled aside the flap covering the entrance — and almost ran directly into the sword of the warrior on guard inside.

The man's sword slashed through the air as he lunged forward, and Gord had to throw himself sideways to avoid a mortal wound. As it was, he suffered a long, shallow cut. The nomad followed up his advantage, slashing and stabbing so furiously that it was all the young adventurer could do to avoid another wound while he retreated back out of the cramped confines of the tent's entryway. Once the battle was carried to the outside, Gord's opponent got his blade caught for a moment in one of the ropes that held a nearby tent, and as he freed it, Gord managed to spring back and take a proper position. Then the two engaged in a fencing match.

The contest was silent except for the ring of steel on steel. The Arroden must have known that either the noise of fighting alone would be sufficient to summon his fellows, or that no amount of noise would help, so he saved his breath and fought without outcry. Within seconds, both combatants realized that no other men remained in camp — no live ones, at any rate. The nomad was a little taller than Gord and very skilled. Whether or not a contest in daylight with equal weapons would eventually have gained the warrior a victory, Gord wasn't sure — but the young adventurer was in no mood for gallantry and honorable tests of arms at this point. The Arro-den had taken him, stolen all of his precious possessions, and thought to sell him into a short life of slavery and death for a few bits of silver. Revenge and recovery of what was his were the only thoughts in Gord's mind as he acted.

With a lightninglike flick of his wrist, Gord brought the heavy dagger down. His arm shot outward as he did so, and the weapon flew from his hand, point first. The sharp point of the blade hit where he had aimed, imbedding itself in the bicep of the veiled man's sword arm just as he was bringing forward his weapon for a sweeping cut targeted at Gord's neck.

"Aargh…" the nomad cried, a half-stifled sound of pain as the dagger pierced his flesh. The stroke could not be held, and neither could the warrior's grip on his sword hilt. Gord ducked, but need not have done so. The long blade went flying on an incline into the darkness, sailing well over and past the young adventurer's head with a whirring sound. The Arroden tried to continue the fight, standing his ground and reaching for his dagger with his sound left arm, but with two sword slashes and a final dagger thrust, Gord cut him down.

It took only a little time for Gord to locate the Arroden shaik's hidden wealth. It was buried, of course, and kept safe in a locked chest. Gord had it out from under the carpet and the dirt quickly. He used the long sword to hack the container open, for he feared that poisoned needles protected its lock and he had no time or desire to try to use his skill as a thief to defeat any protections that might have been built into the nomad chiefs strongbox. Inside were all of his treasures except for his shirt of magical elfin mall.

"So, Yahoud, you like my armor, do you?" he said aloud as he buckled on his shortsword and tucked his enchanted dagger back into its sheath. "Let us see how much good it does when my long-fanged poniard here kisses your lousy body!" His ring, his armband, his sling, and all of his other possessions were here as well, and he savored each thing as he reclaimed and donned it. Adding a largish leather pouch full of coins to what he had recovered of his own, Gord ran out of the tent and headed back for where the animals were kept. He was curious about what was happening in the battle to the north, and besides that he was not yet done with revenge. With luck, it might be possible to find Yahoud in a position where he had only a few of his warriors around him. If that happened, Gord vowed he would risk the odds to even the score with the Arroden shaik.

Windeater recognized him as soon as he came near the stallion. It was a simple matter to untether him, then find and put on his saddle. Just before Gord broke camp, so to speak, he cut the rope that held the camels and other horses together. Then he galloped Windeater along their length, hooting and waving his arms as he went. Frightened dromedaries and equines ran off in all directions, and horse and rider pounded off toward the sounds that still came faintly from the north.

After about twenty minutes of hard riding, Gord brought Windeater to a halt atop a low rise. A few hundred yards in the distance he could see the Yoli encampment. Spread out in an arc along the flat ground were clusters of Arroden; from this vantage point, Gord could see that the camp was about two-thirds surrounded. Inside the camp, several unwinking lights glowed brightly. They looked like magical globes of illumination, evidently cast by the Yoli sometime during the combat. There had probably been more, but Gord supposed that the Arroden had priests and shamans of their own to counter such light with magically wrought darkness. A few burning tents added a flickering glow to the steady brightness of the enspelled light spheres. Even though his night-sight did not operate at such long distances, Gord could discern what was going on in the camp, and some of what had transpired, thanks to this strange combination of illumination.

It appeared that at one point the attacking force must have been right among the defenders. There were bodies dressed in the pale ochre robes of the Arroden strewn throughout the camp. Many Yollites had died there, too. Because of what he was now witnessing, the young adventurer assumed that the defenders had managed to push back the first onslaught of the veiled warriors. He saw no combat activity within the camp, but with every passing minute the Arroden were expanding the ends of their arc and clearly intended to encircle the Yollite encampment. The beleaguered Yollites were lying low, for the attackers were sending buzzing bolts from their crossbows toward the camp. Any figure that showed itself in or against a light source was a target. Before, the Yollites had needed the light to use their bows, just as the Arroden had suspected they would prefer to do, but now the illumination was a liability, and the lit areas were being generally shunned. Gord could make out burned and smoking patches of ground here and there around the camp. If any spell-workers still lived among the defenders, no sign of this was evident. Either their magic was exhausted, or these men had died after casting their spells. Gord wondered how many Yoli warriors remained. It was hard to tell from this distance.

Gord tied Windeater to a scrubby bit of brush a hundred paces away, in a place where an upthrust fold of ground would conceal the stallion's presence unless someone came within ten or so yards. Moving quietly down the slope and then working to his left, the young thief began moving toward the veiled warriors who were besieging the camp. The Arroden strategy was a logical and unsurprising one; by encircling their enemy, they could contain them and also gain maximum sniping advantage, just so long as the attackers were careful not to hit the allies on the other side of the circle with their crossbow fire. The Arroden camels were ground-reined in small groups along the outside edge of the circle, but the animals' senses had already been assaulted by so much commotion that they paid no heed to another man in their vicinity. And, as Gord soon found out, the attackers themselves did not even consider that someone might be coming up behind them…

It was so easy as to be almost laughable. Each of the Arroden warriors was stationed roughly one hundred fifty feet from the fringe of the Yoli encampment, and more importantly each one was at least seventy-five feet, sometimes as much as a hundred, away from his nearest neighbor — not enough space for the Yoli to attempt an escape as a group, but plenty of room for Gord to work undisturbed.

He picked a spot in the loosely spaced circle to begin, and then moved relentlessly along the Arroden rank. He killed as silently as the whisper of an owl's wings, as swiftly as that nocturnal predator does when its great talons strike an unsuspecting rat. From one of the first men he felled, Gord appropriated an attractive-looking necklace. Then, as he went on, he amused and revenged himself by stripping many of his victims of the silver bracelets they wore, stringing them on the necklace as he went along. Old habits die hard, Gord thought to himself as he did this — but the Arroden were certainly dying a lot more easily.

One of the men he did in was Yahoud himself, and he was careful to take this man with a dagger thrust in the neck so that he could reclaim his mail shirt in whole and unharmed condition. Gord's only regret was that he had had to strike the shaik from behind to kill him quickly, and thus the Arroden leader never knew by whose hand he died. He lost exact count after a time, but Gord thought that he had managed to slay no fewer than a score of the veiled men, and had worked his way around about a quarter of the circle. Then his presence was noticed — but not by those whom he was killing.

It was his own success that proved his undoing. The lack of missile fire from the segment where Gord had been wreaking his revenge must have become apparent to the besieged Yoli. A brief, tentative movement in that direction by a group of Yollites failed to bring any reaction from the attackers, and, unbeknownst to those along the circle, some intelligent leader among the defenders' ranks managed to spread the word of this development.

As for the attackers, they were so widely spaced, and one side of the circle was so far from its opposite section, that they remained oblivious to the fact that their ranks had been thinned. The closest Gord came to discovery was when an occasional warrior remarked to himself that the comrade on his right must have used up his crossbow bolts — just before that man himself fell to Gord's blades.

There was a sudden burst of activity in the center of the beleaguered encampment, but much of what went on was shielded from the view of outsiders by tents and large canvas shields. Some of the Arroden continued to fire indiscriminately into the mass, but most of them held their fire and did what they could to prepare for what was sure to be a last, desperate rush. Then the rush began — but it went in two directions at once. While expendable animals were driven out toward the side opposite Gord, a rush of men and animals headed toward the unguarded portion of the circle. The ploy was detected by the veiled nomads within a couple of minutes, when those on the still-intact side of the circle realized what they were being "attacked" by. Shouts and cries traveled along the arc, and an Arroden shaman stationed close to the gap in the circle brought forth a globe of light to show his brethren what was happening.

The brilliant sphere sprang into being not far from where Gord was crouching. An Arroden warrior who would have been Gord's next victim got to his feet nearby, shifting his attention from the on-rushing Yoli to the strange sight the globe revealed. "It is the prisoner!" the veiled nomad shouted, pointing his small crossbow at Gord and jerking the trigger to release a hasty shot at the young adventurer. "He has escaped the camp and slain Thotir!"

The shaft plucked at the baggy robe that covered Gord, but did him no harm. Gord shouted a curse at the fellow, ran forward, and attacked without thinking. By this time he was mad with fighting lust and blood madness. The Arroden dropped his crossbow and defended himself with his sword, and before he died the man managed to keep Gord occupied long enough to enable another and then another of his tribesmen to join in the melee.

Even as this occurred, the escaping Yoli saw that not only were their enemies caught totally unaware, but that the Arroden were not nearly as many in number as they had made themselves seem to be. This knowledge offered the Bakluni fighters an opportunity to revenge themselves upon their hated foes. Spread out as they were, the Arroden would find it hard to regroup to counter the nucleus of warriors who had just broken through the encirclement and were now ready to fight ferociously again. While the noncombatants among their number rode pell-mell to escape, the warriors of Yoli began to fan out along each side of the broken circle, riding down upon their dismounted enemies and trampling and stabbing as they went.

As the sound of hooves came toward him, Gord disengaged from the two Arroden who fought him and darted away from the scene. A half-dozen mounted Yoli descended upon the place where he had been but a moment before. The two veiled warriors managed to unseat one of the Yollites, but they lived only long enough to see him trampled beneath the hooves of his cohorts' mounts.

All of the Arroden now knew what was happening, and many of them had regained their own mounts and begun to form into groups. The fight was far from over, and it was anyone's guess as to what the final outcome would be, but Gord had no interest now. It was time for him to forget about thoughts of revenge, to get clear of the confused battle and ride away. He had no trouble getting back to the spot where he had left Windeater. Gord mounted the steed and rode off, heading along a route that angled away from the direct line of escape that most of the fleeing Yoli noncombatants had taken. He could not avoid the flight of these dozens of people entirely, for they had fanned out once they were away from the Arroden circle and were heading in many different directions at once.

Gord hadn't gone far when he saw the shape of a fallen horse outlined against the lighter-colored ground ahead of him. Farther in the distance he heard the sound of several other horses, camels, and shouting riders heading away from where the fallen animal lay. The sound of steel on steel rang out intermittently from this cluster, and Gord assumed that some of the Arroden had broken off from the main battle to chase down the Yollites who were riding away. He slowed Windeater's pace; he saw no sense in coming too close to the fighting at this point. The frenzy of killing had left him now, and Gord felt disgusted, nauseated, and exhausted. He was drained of emotion and strength, and what he wanted most now was a place where he could rest and regain his energy.

As he came within about twenty yards of the fallen horse, a high-pitched but tentative cry rang out: "Help!" Gord reined Windeater to a halt and peered intently toward the horse, able to see it at this distance as if the dark night were brightened by both of Oerth's moons in full splendor. He spied a heavily robed, slender figure lying on the ground beside the horse. Or was it partially beneath the animal? His vision of the form was somewhat obscured from this vantage point. He edged Windeater closer, circling to get a better view, and cautiously drew his dagger just before he identified exactly what was before his eyes. The animal was indeed dead, seemingly from a wound suffered in combat, and the figure was a woman with one of her legs pinned beneath its body. Evidently, she had been unable to free her foot from the stirrup in time when the steed collapsed and died.

"You are not going to hurt me," the woman said groggily, phrasing the question more like a statement. Then, in a more panicky tone, she continued, "How did I get like this? Who are you?" It was obvious to Gord that the woman was not seriously injured, but she was disoriented and puzzled.

"I am neither friend nor foe, just one who is glad to be done with fighting," said Gord in response, trying to put reassurance into his voice.

"Will you please help? My leg is trapped!" she said, a tinge of panic creeping into the statement. "Aid me, and I will see that you are rewarded!"

"No need for a reward, lady," Gord replied, dismounting and walking to her. "I will free you, and then we will both be gone from this charnel place."