The Unforsaken Hiero

IX. WINDS OF CHANGE, WINDS OF CHANCE

There was no one nearby, unless shielded by a mental block or guard of some sort, as Hiero could tell with ease. He and the others were now in the lower room of some high building, almost certainly one of the abandoned churches that Luchare had described. There were minds, alien and inimical, below and above thern, in the vaults and what must be the tower. But there did not seem to be more than three or four in either place. Making up his mind, the man began to feel his way through the gloom and smoke to where a faint gleam of light showed the beginning of a narrow stair. Behind him came the others, quivering with excitement.

I have to see, he sent. B’uorgh, you stand guard at the bottom of this tower. If one or two come, slay thern. If more, send a warning and follow us up. He knew the big chief would probably resent being left, but would also have enough discipline to understand why the best warrior ought to stay as a rear guard.

With the others in his wake, sword at point, he began to climb the narrow steps, which wound upward in a tight spiral. The steps were cracked and greasy, as well as being worn with great age. The smoke was drawn up past their heads, and they had to fight to keep from coughing at each cautious step. They passed the first Sanding in silence and went on. Hiero could detect no sign of life on that floor, though a battered door yawned open. It grew lighter as they climbed, and the smoke thinned. Another apparently va-

cant floor was passed in silence, and Hiero sent a hand signal along to get ready. The roof lay ahead, and daylight was visible through the last door. At his nod, they burst out onto the platform of the ancient spire, perhaps once the bell tower of the long-abandoned church. Now, however, it was a watchtower, and whatever the occupants had expected, it was not this sudden onslaught from the depths of the building.

There were four beings on the small square of the turret, and all had been gazing north to the waters of the Inland Sea, visible even through the smoke and haze which enveloped the lower parts of the town. The two Man-rats and one of the humans died, their throats cut before they could take in the fact that they were attacked. The fourth human fell limp as the iron edge of Hiero’s left hand chopped at his neck below the base of his metal helmet. In seconds, the place was taken. Telling the two young males to watch the stunned man, Hiero strode to the wooden rail of the tower, which surmounted the ancient stones of an even older wall, and peered eagerly out. Below and before him lay an amazing sight.

He already knew that large portions of Neeyana were on fire, the aged wooden structures which made up the larger part of the town having the quality of tinder. The fires raged, whole blocks and streets spurting flame where wooden sidewalks passed the fire from house to house. Here and there, stone structures, probably older by far, resisted the heat and thrust up through the smoke. The wind was constantly shifting from east to west and back again, a light wind, but fluky and varying in force.

Down the narrow streets ran companies of Unclean troops, battling to reach the waterfront and being forced back by barriers of fire and by mobs of the civil populace, who seemed to have given in to complete panic and were struggling to get away in the opposite direction, to the south. There had obviously never been any plans for the defense of the place from a serious attack. The conceit of the Unclean Masters had not envisaged any such happening. Now they were having to improvise, with the usual results of such attempts. Appalled, the Metz saw a pack of Hairy Howlers hew their way with swords through a band of ragged humans who disputed a path with them, sending the bloodied survivors shrieking in renewed terror off into side streets and alleys. The cries and screams were nightmarish from all over the city.

It was toward the Inland Sea that Hiero’s attention turned, the rest being observed only in passing. The entire waterfront was under attack, and most of the ancient warehouses and crumbling docks were on fire, with only a wall of stone or some ruined jetty of the same material resisting the heat. But it was the water and what was on it that fascinated the man.

Five rectangular shapes lay out off the town, clearly visible through the veils of smoke. From their sloping sides belched fire at intervals as ports opened and closed. They had no sails, but carried squat twin funnels and one short mast at the stern. It was these masts and what flew upon them that brought Hiero’s heart into his mouth. Out there, green upon white background, waved the Sword and the Cross of the Abbeys! The Metz Republic was at long last taking the war to the enemy!

His mind racing, Hiero noted the many anchored sailing vessels out beyond the five strange warships. This was no mere raid; this was an invasion fleet. He spared hardly a thought for the black muzzles whose projectiles were exploding in the town. There had to be a source of the continual crashing that he had heard in the last half hour. How the weapons operated was of small concern to him. They seemed larger variants of his long-lost thrower, the hand-carried rocket propeller which S’duna had taken from him in the North.

Vainly, his hands clenched against the railing, he tried to contact someone out in the fleet. It was useless. A powerfully held mind shield, as good as anything the Unclean had ever managed, kept all the ships under a mass shroud, one that his thoughts simply could not penetrate.

And he had knowledge that they needed out there, he knew something vital, concerning which they ought to be warned! He beat upon the railing in his despair.

A furry hand timidly touched his shoulder and brought him back with a rush to the personal situation. It was M’reen. B’uorgh has come from his post. He says that many of the evil ones have come up from down below, under the earth, and then gone away outside. They did not see him. Unless more come now, we are alone in this place. Behind her, the tall shape of the chief loomed through the thinning smoke.

Almost absently, Hiero noted that the wind was rising and also backing, blowing with increasing strength from the south, from the forest and out to sea. What to do now?

He looked out at the attacking fleet again. From the mind talk he had caught the day before, he knew that there were at least two of the Unclean warships in the neighborhood, the metal-hulled craft driven by what he felt certain was the fury of the atom. And they had on their decks the dreaded gun which fired electric bolts, the weapon he called the lightning gun. If they appeared, could the Abbey fleet withstand them? The new ships, formidable though they were, appeared clumsy, like waddling turtles. He noticed that they were anchored in a line, bow to stern, and he shrewdly guessed that, although there was almost no sea running, they needed all the stability they could get in order to fire with any accuracy.

He turned and looked down at the prisoner, who was now squatting and rubbing his neck while he stared with frightened eyes at Hiero and the People of the Wind. He was a nasty-looking specimen, but he wore good clothes, and his boots and helmet were excellent in fit. Also, he was clean in his person. Around his neck hung a metal replica of the yellow spiral the Unclean Lords bore on their robes. He was an officer, then, and one of some rank in the enemy hierarchy. Hiero probed the man’s mind and, not to his surprise, met blankness, an impenetrable barrier.

Strip him! he sent on the mind wave of the catfblk. In a moment, the keen claws had left the man’s body bare to the waist. The sealed locket on the bluish metal chain contained the mechanical mind shield the Unclean used to protect their servants and allies. In another second, Hiero had whipped it off and thrown the device over the parapet. Now he addressed the man aloud, using batwah, the almost universal trade language.

“Speak the truth and only the truth and you may yet live. Lie, and I give you to my friends here.” He saw the shudder as the other took in’ the avid, yellow eyes. “Where are the secret ships? How many of them are there? What strength of troops is in the town? Are there more on the way and how many? Where are your Masters and how many of them are here?” As he fired the rapid questions, hardly waiting for the answers, he listened to the now unguarded brain as well, a technique in which he had grown so practiced that his ease, compared with that of the previous year, was automatic. He could not compel his prisoner to do anything; that power was gone. But he could sense his thoughts.

The man was not a coward and he was indeed of some rank, the equivalent of a Metz regimental commander. His name was Ablom Gord, and he knew a great deal, all of it interesting. He tried to lie, but it made no difference to Hiero, though the Metz masked his face and never indicated when what his ears heard was not the truth.

It seemed that no more than two of the deadly gun ships were anywhere nearby, but those two had been summoned and were close at hand. The garrison of the town still was holding but might crack if and when the invasion took place and the Abbey warships were not successfully challenged. No lightning guns were in the town itself, only on the ships. The Unclean forces were rallying in great strength, having been summoned from far and wide; they were not mustering at Neeyana, but rather at a secret base many leagues to the east. More forces were coalescing in the north on the far side of the Inland Sea, and a mighty assault had been planned. But this sudden attack on Neeyana had been totally unexpected. No help could be summoned in time unless the ships with the lightning guns could alter the balance of forces.

Hiero stared coldly at the officer when he had learned all he thought useful. “You have lied to each question,” he said finally. “You were warned.” His signal to B’uorgh was sent so swiftly that the knife was in the man’s throat before the mind could realize a death sentence had been passed. Hiero dismissed the matter. He had read enough in the fellow’s past to sentence him to death a dozen times over, murder of helpless women being only one of the charges.

He stepped over the twitching body, realizing with distaste that his sandals were slippery with blood, and once more stared out at the Abbey war fleet, still engaged in softening up the waterfront with methodical, well-aimed fire. Behind him, the wind rose in increasing strength, ruffling his hair as it blew—steadily now and, aside from small gusts, always to the north, to the sea. The wind, he thought idly, now why was the wind on his mind? The enemy was undoubtedly coming fast; their grim, speedy ships, driven by silent motors in the sleek metal hulls, must even now be close upon the town.

Why on earth was the wind so much in the foreground of his thoughts? Then his thoughts clarified. That was the answer!

He wheeled and began to rap out orders, punctuating them with an occasional question. In no more than a minute, so rapid was the mental interchange on the catfolk’s mental band, the decision was made and the little party was groping its way down the stairs.

The lower part of the building still seemed silent and deserted. Smoke fumes swirled in through the ancient door. The shrieks and cries, the crackle of flames, and the roar of the bombs and shells outside, all came from a distance. The impetus of the attack, Hiero thought, seemed to have shifted a bit and was coming more from the west, as if the Metz fleet had moved in that direction. So much the better for his purpose.

As silently as so many ghosts, the five departed from the old building and darted off down the narrow street, all senses tensed to the uttermost. Hiero led, along with B’uorgh, for his human abilities were more needed here in this human-built maze than the more finely attuned nerves of his allies. Soon they came to a small square and shrank back against reeking walls as a mob of shouting people crossed in front of them. Its members seemed to be some of the bewildered and terrified human populace, running with no clear aim in view, and soon disappeared in the smoke off to the east. Hiero signaled, and the five ran swiftly across the square and vanished into the gloom of a smoldering building on the far side. They were heading, insofar as the man could tell, on a slight downward slant. If his judgment, backed by a view from the tower, was at all accurate, they would strike the water in a fairly short time. Once a running figure, shapeless in the murk, loomed up in front of them; but one sight of the five grim shapes, their size magnified by the poor light, was enough to send the runner shrieking away down a side alley.

We must be even more careful now, the Metz sent. The main body of their troops will be down here near the water. We have to get through them and find a boat.

M’reen answered. The water is not far. I can smell it. Even through this dirty air and smoke, it smells clean.

Suddenly, more quickly than the man had thought possible, they were there. They had been slinking down a narrow runway, lined with cracked brick underfoot, when it came abruptly to an end. Before them lay a tangle of ancient piers, some half-rotted and leaning drunkenly in the mud of the shore’s edge, while others burned sluggishly, ignited either by the shells of the strange fleet or by chance-caught sparks. The wind still blew from behind the group’s backs, and the wreaths of smoke wafted straight out before them to the open sea beyond.

Hiero scanned the scene, his eyes intent for one purpose. There were no Unclean about, at least not near. He could sense them on either side in strength, but none were close. He knew that if the catfolk had seen or sensed why, he would be told at once. He listened intently, but the gunfire was still off to the left, down toward the west. Here where he stood, due to some trick of acoustics, it was even quite quiet, and he could actually hear the lapping of tiny waves on the muddy foreshore at the foot of the street.

Then his roving gaze fixed on a small, pointed shape, half-hidden under one of the crumbling docks, moving gently to the action of the water. It was this slight movement that had caught his eye. He stared harder and again checked the immediate neighborhood for other movement. He could see nothing, yet instinct now began to warn him. There was another presence somewhere near, something watching!

It made no difference, he told himself. Time was too important for these vague fears. The decision had to be taken.

Wait here and keep watch on all sides, he sent. If that thing out under the wood, that thing which sits on the water, is what we need, I will signal. Without waiting for assent, he darted out into the open and sped across and down to the mud and the lapping, oily tide. In a second, he was over the side of the small boat and staring at its sole occupant—doubtless some local fisherman.

The man must have been trying to flee, for there were both oars and a net in the skiff. He was unarmed save for a belt knife and was clad only in a leather vest and a loincloth. Either in the act of fleeing or earlier, he had been shot, and the vanes of a crossbow quarrel thrust up from the center of his back. The oars were still bundled, and it looked to Hiero as if he had been carrying them to the boat when he had suddenly taken leave of life, one more unnumbered casualty of the war.

The Metz breathed a quick prayer, in case the man should have been honest and not one of the Unclean, then tipped the body over the side into the shallows. He turned and waved once, a beckoning gesture, then seated himself on the central thwart and began to cut the leather painter which held the boat to a cleat on one of the crumbling pilings. Seconds later, the other four were wading alongside and clambering aboard, to huddle excitedly on the bottom. In another instant, Hiero had the oars between the crude rowlocks and was easing the little craft out under the pilings toward the open sea.

Behind him, eyes glared in impotent rage from the narrow slit of a window set high on a ruined wall. A white hand fumbled with a neck chain of bluish metal; then, a decision taken, it dropped again. A hooded shape whirled and departed in haste on an urgent errand.

The little boat was about three times Hiero’s length, high of prow and with a pointed stern. She rode the water sweetly as the Metz pulled hard away from the shore. The People of the Wind, nervous and yet stoic, crouched silently, two in the bow and two in front of the man and aft. All four were trembling with excitement and the newness of the experience, but they would have died rather than admit it. As the waves increased in strength, they simply laid back their ears and waited for whatever their new friend had to tell them.

Hiero was constantly checking the wind while calculating the course. His scheme was so filled with holes that he could only hope that it had a bare chance of succeeding. If only the wind would keep blowing from the south! Meanwhile, he watched over his shoulder for what the thinning smoke and reek of the burning town would reveal.

Ah! Sure enough, there was the Metz fleet! The five warships, looking more than ever like turtles or even the roofs of barns come adrift, were slowly steaming back to the east in his direction, firing as steadily as ever. If the offshore breeze obscured their targets, they gave no sign of it. Gaps in the smoke probably afforded them all the aiming points they needed. Farther out, the armada of sailing craft still moved sluggishly under light sail, waiting for a signal to close in. The offshore breeze held steady over the brown water.

Hiero rested on his oars and stared as hard as he could to the east, using his mind at its utmost, as well as his eyes. Was there something there? On the edge of his mind, that something came, then went, then came again and steadied. It was like a cloud, a moving shroud in his mind. He could detect no thoughts, nor did he need to do so. Once before, on the far side of the Inland Sea, he had felt this sensation. Ships were coming from the east, faster than anything driven by either sail or the engines of the new vessels of his country. The secret ships of the enemy were coming to the rescue of Neeyana, summoned by the devices of the Masters of the Unclean. The lightning guns were going to be opposed to the crude armor of the Metz warships.

Hiero had no hope in his own mind as to which would be the victor. The Metz ships were powerful and had taken Neeyana by surprise. But he did not for one moment think his people could stand up against the forces of the Unclean ships. That Abbot Demero and the Abbey Council were the source of the new war fleet, he never doubted. But he felt that, in the short time the Abbeys had had at their disposal, they could hardly have matched the strength and speed of the Unclean warships. Wonderful as it was to see a Metz battle squadron, those crude floating forts would be horribly outclassed by what was speeding from the east!

M’reen, he sent in haste, get ready with your preparations. Hurry! The enemy comes! We must all lie down so that this craft appears empty. If our foes see nothing but a drifting skiff, they may pass before us to attack our friends.

It was B’uorgh who answered. She is working. And I can see our enemy. How fast they come!

Hiero could see them now himself, two dots rushing at tremendous speed from down the coast to the east, growing larger by the minute. He almost wrung his hands. If only he could break the mental shield of his friends and tell them what was going on! He ducked below the gunwale with the others and tried to free his mind from worry. At the same time, he felt a sudden wave of fear come over him and secretly rejoiced. For M’reen’s bag of hide was open and her hands were stirring, mixing, and blending. The fear was coming back from her, ignored by the cat people but acting on his human body chemistry! The Wind of Death was churning and drifting out over the open sea to their front. The veils of smoke from the burning port had something far more lethal than a throat irritant mixed in with their dark shroud.

Hiero stole a look to the west, then ducked back hastily. So far all was well. The Abbey fleet had formed a line well down the coast and was preparing to receive the Unclean forces. The ships were no longer firing at the town, and the sailing vessels had moved even farther down in order to take shelter behind them.

They come, B’uorgh sent. Now we will see.

Hiero shut his eyes and began to pray. He had done all he could, and only God could help now. Perhaps the Unclean wizards had learned long in the past how to nullify this awful weapon, back in the days when the catfolk had broken free and fled from their bondage of torture and enslavement.

As he prayed silently, he heard the sound he had been waiting for and dreading, the hissing crackle of the enemy weapon which had once struck him down—the lightning gun! Was it aimed at their little vessel? One blast could incinerate them in seconds. He could no longer restrain himself and peered over the side of the boat. So did the others, and all five beings watched the panorama of a sea battle in silent awe.

The Unclean ships, sharp-prowed and slender, had no tactics for pitched battle on anything like an equal basis. They had never had to learn any, since their mysterious craft so far outclassed any possible foe. As a result, they simply charged at the Metz fleet, bows on, the weapons on their foredecks firing as fast as they could. The two ships were quite close to each other, as if racing to be first for what they thought was the inevitable kill. They apparently never even noticed the drifting boat which floated on the oily sea a quarter of a mile to their south and well out of their path. And they were scoring hits. As the Metz priest had feared, the strange weapon on their bows, which somehow fired sheets of static electricity, outranged the crude cannon of the Metz fleet. Already one of the clumsy vessels was smoking from a great rent in its sloping hull, although it held its line along with the other four. None of the Abbey ships were firing now, and Hiero knew they were holding back until their outranged weapons could bear. He prayed again for the miracle he had tried so hard to conjure up, his eyes smarting both from the smoke and with unshed tears for the discipline that held his countrymen in their silent line.

And, as miracles sometimes do, especially when backed by courage and forethought, it happened.

The two slender Unclean war craft were well past the drifting boat, still pointing at the enemy fleet, when they seemed to go mad. Hiero suddenly saw one of them yaw wildly and head at full speed for its consort’s unprotected flank. At the same time, the crackle of the lightning guns ceased abruptly, and the group in the boat could hear a screaming outcry come over the now silent waters. Black dots, which spilled and sprang from the metal hulls like demented fleas, showed where the crews of the stricken ships fled in sheer madness from their hitherto unconquered craft. And then came the final act. With no one—or perhaps a fright-driven lunatic—at the helm, the ship nearest the shore drove at full speed into the side of her racing neighbor, the sharp prow cutting like a gigantic plow, two-thirds of the way back from the peak.

There was first a small puff of smoke as the locked hulls drifted to a halt, then a blaze of white light which made the five cover their eyes. The roar of a tremendous explosion followed the light, and all ducked once more under the shelter of the gunwale. A whistling noise in the overcast air made them try to flatten themselves on the bottom even further. As they crouched in terror, splashes of water all around them sent a spray over their flinching bodies.

Fighting his panic, Hiero looked up and was in time to see the wave coming. He sprang to the central thwart and, in one motion, shipped the oars and turned the boat bows on to the wail of water sweeping down upon them. They rose high on the crest and rushed deep into the valley beyond, but the Metz had acted in the bare nick of time, and hardly a drop of water was taken in. The second and third waves were far smaller, and he had no trouble meeting them. Only then did he once more rest on his oars and wave the cat people up so that all could see the results of their work.

Where the Unclean ships had met in their final and horrific tangle, now a vast and greasy circle lay on the water, widening as the south wind sent the gentle waves to spread it yet farther out. Bits of wood and rubbish floated here and there, none of them large. Of life, there was no sign whatever. The grim vessels, which for so long had haunted the south shore of the Inland Sea, were totally gone. With them went their adept commanders of the Dark Brotherhood, their crews of ghastly mutants, and the human scum which served on them…

In the bow of Hiero’s fishing boat, M’reen sat smiling, her leather bag on her lap, her furry ears cocked, and a broad and sharp-toothed smile on her expressive face. The Wind of Death had triumphed over the enemies of her race in a total victory, one on a scale of which she and her folk had never conceived. There would be songs around the hearth fires of her clan for countless generations over this! A keening purr of triumph rose from four lipless mouths, a wild rhythm of exaltation, as the freest of the free rejoiced at the death of their sometime masters.

Hiero smiled as he watched the swelling throat muscles and the blazing eyes. He would have liked to join in, had his vocal chords been capable of so doing. He had already remembered to give thanks to his Deity in his own way, silently, but no less heartfelt. He had no illusions about their luck. They had been lucky indeed! The timing, the weapon, and the wind had all been just exactly right. One could not count on such things forever, or even more than once. And there was still a lot to be done. This was only the first skirmish of what promised to be a terrible war, one extending far into the future and over many thousands of leagues.

Reluctantly, he called the catfolk back from their paean of joy and brutally brought them to the present.

Friends, he sent, the war is over. We have much to do, and first we must meet my other comrades. This is what I have come so many weary paces out of the South to do. He pointed with one bronzed hand at the Metz fleet, which was milling in some disorder, shaken by the totally unexpected end to the battle. Sit quietly now, and I will row us out there. And pray to your wind gods my own folk don’t turn their thunder weapons on us before I can tell them who we are!

Actually, it was not that hard, The Metz warships were steaming slowly east once more, and an alert lookout spotted the little craft rowing toward them almost at once. The lead vessel slowed as Hiero and his party approached, the smoke from its twin stacks dying down as it did so. From a wheelhouse set forward, a group of figures emerged to gaze down at them. Noticing that several of the round muzzles set in the slanting hull were also pointing downward in their direction, Hiero shipped his oars and stood up, arms over his head. Then he lowered them and slowly began to cross himself with his right hand, moving it over his broad chest so that all could see his action clearly.

There was a moment of silence as he stood there and the fishing boat drifted closer. Then, over the narrowing gap, came a bull’s bellow of a voice. “Look at that sword! Look at that dirty face! Look at that dung-eating grin! I told everyone they couldn’t hang the worst priest and the most useless bum in the Metz Republic! He’s alive!”

Hiero laughed with relief. “What are you doing on that hulk, you big moron? I didn’t know they let you near water. You never bathed in your life and you’re not smart enough to learn to swim!”

The big man smiled down at him with a weary benevolence. Per Edard Maluin was a head taller than Hiero and twice his weight. He had the thews of a bull morse and the chubby face of an innocent child, vastly enlarged. He was a veteran of the Frontier Guards, a murderous killer at need, and one of Hiero’s best friends, having roomed with him in the Abbey Academy when they were only in their teens.

“Who are your friends, Shorty? And are you lucky! Did you see what we just dealt with? This ship, which I command, please note, and the others?”

Hiero took one oar and sculled over to the hull of the big vessel. Then he looked up, his face incredulous, at the small group above.

“You dealt with? You’d be so much garbage at the bottom of the sea, my friend, if it weren’t for me and these four chums of mine. What do you think made the Unclean go crazy, then ram each other? The distant sight of your ugly face?”

Per Edard’s eyes narrowed. Behind his broad forehead lurked a very good mind, and he was suddenly thinking hard. “So that was you, was it? I might have known. You always were the king of the dirty tricks league. And thank God for it! Now listen, come aboard quickly. We have a war to finish and we have to clean out that rats’ nest. We have new mind shields and they’re being held tight, so I can’t talk to your pals. Come up on the bridge with me, and we’ll get back to work.”

In an instant, the five had leaped aboard, abandoning the little boat, and passed through a narrow entry port on the side of the sloping hull. Moments later, they stood, while Per Edard rapped out orders, peering through narrow slits at the smoke-covered town they had just left. And moments after that, the roar of the big cannon below and the trembling of the ship in response made them all wince in reaction. Between commands to the helmsmen, the gunners below, his signalmen, and many others, Per Edard threw questions and snatches of talk over his huge shoulders. He wore the leather breeches and shirt of the Frontier Guards, but on his head was a leather band with a short visor in front. Above the visor was an insigne the Metz had never seen before, picked out in silver. Looking closely, Hiero saw that it was a square-sailed ship, shown head-on, as if coming at the viewer, and that behind it again, as a background, was a slanted anchor with a twist of rope around it.

“Oh, that? We all wear them. Demero found it in some old book as usual. Lot of nonsense, I suppose, but the men like it. The admiral is Colonel Berain from over on the Beesee coast. His is gold, if you please. Lower ranks wear it in copper. I’ll try to get you one in lead. We’re a navy now, Hiero.” He rambled on while all of them watched the shells burst in the distant town. No answering fire of any kind was coming out.

“We had a hell of a time getting enough metal for the guns. It’s a bronze alloy from some old city, I guess. No, the hull’s not metal, just wood. But it’s got thin plates of some ceramic fitted over it. Damned good protection against most things, though not those bloody electrics. I must admit, I think you saved our necks there, my boy.

“The ships? Steer small, you copper-plated numbskulls! Think this is a canoe? How can they aim below with you barging around that way? Oh, yes, the ships. Well, Demero started moving seamen from the Beesee area over to a lake northwest of Namcush. A fair-sized lake, and the Dam People helped dredge a big outlet. They’re working with us now, you know. Lot been happening since you went off” gypsying down south.” He aimed an affectionate cuff at Hiero’s head, which would have stunned him if it had landed, then went back to bellowing at the men who manned the twin steering wheels. In a moment he was talking to Hiero again.

“None of this stuff is new. God alone knows where the knowledge got dredged up from, but it was pretty complete. Ail we had to do was ask a question and the answers came quickly. The Abbey files, I suppose. They gave us everything. How to build the damned things, how to build the engines. They call them ‘high-compression steam engines,’ and we blew up a couple before we got the hang of it. No one got killed, though. The old ships, the ones we copied, were built the same way, but with iron sheathing. We had no way of getting all that iron, at least not fast. But we got the formula for this ceramic, like a pottery dish but twenty times as hard, and it works fine. Now that I think of it, I’m kind of glad we didn’t have the iron. That lousy electric thing on those Unclean ships would have fried us all, maybe.

“Anyway, we got five of them built, the Dam People opened their sluices, and down the river to Namcush we came, early one morning, let’s see, about three weeks ago. We towed two regiments in barges along behind and we had that town in one half hour. Not one ship got away. Not too many of the Unclean were there, but a lot of crooked traders, frontier scum, and some just plain pirates. We threw everyone into a prison and interrogated the hell out of all of them. We hanged the pirates and locked up all the ships of the others. No way the Unclean were going to get warned. Then we began to move down the coast to this place. We couldn’t tow all those sailing ships, so we had to move fairly slowly for the others to keep up. And here we are. What’s that, son?”

A teen-aged boy had appeared from aft and stood at the salute.

“Signal from the admiral, sir. Move slowly in toward the town and conform to his movements. He is going to pass the troops through our line and start them landing while we give any cover needed.”

“Right. Cease fire and wait for commands below there.” He straightened from the voice tube and for the first time stared hard at the Children of the Wind. “Your friends are going to have front-row seats, old buddy. One big tough, two young toughs, and a real cutie. Now, where did you find them? Never saw or heard of anything remotely like them, and I know more than most about Leemutes—sorry, aliens.”

His admiration as his twinkling black eyes roved over M’reen’s supple shape was so obvious that it transcended the barrier of species. The young priestess bridled.

“Down, boy,” Hiero said. “The young lady you are leering at was solely in charge and responsible for ruining those two loads of Unclean, who otherwise would have happily blown your little toy boat here completely out of existence. Shall I turn her loose on you instead?”

Per Edard’s eyes widened at this astounding comment, but he knew Hiero too well to doubt a word of it. Instead, he bowed and addressed the four catfolk formally.

“I am honored to meet such brave warriors, the friends of my old companion. Please accept the thanks of all of us for your destruction of our mutual foes. You will receive more formal thanks later from our chiefs and wise ones. In the meantime, you are our honored guests and allies. Anything that we can do for you will be done at once. You have only to ask.”

Hiero translated and waited to see who would answer. It was B’uorgh, which made sense. The big war chief was the senior, despite M’reen’s rank in the Pride structure.

We thank you in turn. We have corns far to help our friend Hiero and his people. We wish to be led to battle against those you call the Unclean. Our name for them is worse. May we soon talk to you with our minds in true friendship. Meanwhile, is there any way we can breathe clean air? These stinks from that town and this floating thing are choking us. We ask only if this is possible. If not, we can endure. We will eat and drink when you do, go where you go, fight when you fight, and, if necessary, die when you die.

As he translated the answer, Hiero could see that Edard was impressed in spite of himself.

“Please tell them, Hiero, that I’ll get them on one of the outer picket ships as soon as I can. The air should be clean out on the sound, and those are sailing craft, so they won’t have the engine-room coal dust and oil to contend with. We have plenty of lignite coal, but even I think it stinks. Eight now I have to cover this landing. Here come the Guards going ashore.”

While Hiero spoke again to his friends, they all watched as the Metz Frontier Guards sailed through the armored steamships and cautiously approached the rotting wharves in front of them. There was no talking now; all stood silent, waiting to see if there were any counterattack coming. Hiero tried to reach out: with his mind and learned something new. The mind shield that the Abbeys were using to guard their war fleet blanketed his own powers as well. He could neither send nor receive on any mental band beyond the limits of the ship! He mentioned this to Per Maluin in a low voice.

“Yeah, that’s right. Abbot Demero told me about you, Hiero. I sort of gathered you had become the grand champion of the world at this sort of thing in the last year or so. Well, we have a lot of people trying to do the same trick now ourselves. And, man, are they going to be glad to have you back! But that’s by the by. When we got these shields for the fleet, the top people, which means the Council, of course, decided that we might just have one or two nasties in our own. ranks. As a result, this thing clamps down on everyone, so no one has a chance to pass any little leaks which might get us killed in an emergency. Get it?”

Hiero nodded, and they returned to watching the disciplined ranks of the Abbey infantry disembark and scatter out through the smoke-laden streets toward the inner part of Neeyana. Aside from distant screams which came dimly to them through the haze and the crackle of fires burning nearby, there was no sound. No evidence of any enemy action, organized or otherwise, was apparent. A second sailing ship, a two-masted coaster like the first, appeared and unloaded troops. Officers, several of whom Hiero recognized, gave quiet orders on the foreshore and then followed their men inland. One ship after another disembarked its human cargo, until Hiero estimated that at least two full regiments, perhaps four thousand men, had gone ashore. He watched, somewhat jealously, as they passed. He had the rank of Major (Reserve) in the Scouts, the elite of all the Abbey forces; hence he found himself wishing—childishly, as he reminded himself—that he were going in with them. Part of this feeling, he knew, was simply the trained reaction of a professional soldier on seeing others going into battle. But he was wise enough to know that there was more to it than that. For more than a year now he had been alone, in the sense that none of his own people had been with him. He had journeyed thousands of leagues and found new friends, a mate, new rank, new everything. But all had been new, and what he really was feeling now was simple homesickness. As the bronzed files padded down the narrow gangplanks and vanished into the murk, he simply wanted to be one of them, to be a part of the master unit that he had been trained to serve—the hive, the swarm, the legion, the corps. His feeling was as old as mankind, and he had no way of knowing that a legionary of the Imperial Tenth, stuck at Vindobonum, watching his cohort cross the Danube to take on a swarm of Gothic horse, had felt the same sensation.

However, he was not simply a soldier. He was a priest. He made a silent orison of thanks to God and also silently confessed to pride and ingratitude for the many blessings he had received. He knew that the discontent which had welled up in his soul was unjust and based on pride. He had been blessed in many ways, far more than he deserved, and he admitted that he had less than no right to his feelings. But—oh, how he longed to be with those silent files!

His reverie was interrupted by a stiffening of all those on the bridge. Someone had entered by the rear companionway—in fact, several persons. But the man who came first riveted all eyes. He was not young and he was almost bald, a rare thing for a Metz. He might have been an old fifty or a young sixty and was clean-shaven. He wore no band and visor, but on his left breast was a badge with the fouled anchor and the sailing ship, only this time in gold. His iron face, seamed with scars, acknowledged Maluin’s palm-up salute with a nod. He wore the same simple leather they all did, and a short hanger hung by his side. No one had any doubt that the Man had arrived. He turned quicldy to Hiero and answered the salute with his own at once.

“Per Desteen? Congratulations on being here at all. Justus Ber-ain, for my sins, the commander of this squadron. I have heard strange things about you—” He paused. “—and your friends here. Do I understand that the Unclean vermin destroyed themselves through your efforts? Let’s have the story.”

It took a while. After Hiero had formally introduced the Children of the Wind and all the mutual compliments were over, the admiral began to pick their brains. While he did so, messengers and couriers came and went, interrupting the interrogation at spasmodic intervals.

Hiero listened as they reported and formed his own opinion of what was going on. There seemed, from what he could gather, to be little fighting. The town had emptied itself in a very short time and in what appeared to have been a panic-stricken rout. The Abbey troops were all reporting in with no trouble. A few of the enemy Leemutes had shown fight and had been disposed of in short order. None of the Unclean wizards, the Masters of the Circles, had been glimpsed, but there were many corpses and hundreds of terrified civilians of both sexes. Some looting had been going on but was being put down with a firm hand.

“If I may suggest it, sir,” Hiero said, “have the officers interrogate for headquarters locations and also personnel. This was a pretty big base, and they can’t have had much time to destroy things. There aren’t that many of the real top scum altogether, you know. They had to have lots of clerks and lower staff types. We could learn a lot. But they’ll probably be underground, so for God’s sake, tell our men to be careful if they go down to look.”

Berain looked at him in silence for a moment. He was not used to junior officers who spoke quite so firmly. Hiero hardly noticed. He was the prince of D’alwah, and what he had been through in the last year made him the equal of anyone. Already he had turned away to look at the burning town. Per Maluin noticed and held his breath, waiting for an explosion. But Justus Berain was not the admiral for nothing. A slight smile touched the comers of the iron mouth; that was all.

“Quite right, Per Desteen. Should have thought of it myself. Are you in good enough shape to go ashore? I can give you a squad, and you might have a better idea where to look than most of us.”

In minutes it was arranged, and Hiero eagerly led ashore, the four Children of the Wind padding behind him, ten Metz borderers and an NCO in turn following them. Led through the smoke by a young lieutenant, they were at the central square of Neeyana in no time, despite the smoke and confusion all about. Over a hundred prisoners were huddled under guard in the middle of the square. As soon as Hiero had identified himself, he began to look them over, both with his eyes and with his probing mind.

He suddenly pointed to one figure, a tall man who seemed to be trying to shield himself behind some others. Get that one and strip him. He is trying to hide and he wears one of the metal things around his neck.

Before the fascinated gaze of the Metz soldiers, the four catfolk fell upon the cringing shape and shredded its leather harness in seconds. One more of the blue-metaled pendants and its chain were handed to Hiero, who crushed the thing underfoot, his gaze fixed on the Unclean officer as he did so. He spoke in batwah.

“Tell me no lies, Master of the Second Level. You have one chance for life and one only. Where is the Central Vault? Where are the records kept? You have only a second between yourself and eternity.”

The Unclean officer might have fought in open combat. He was evil but not a complete craven. But being suddenly assaulted by the awful catfolk, being stripped, and having his disguise and his shield removed in public—all this was too much. With a sob, he prostrated himself at the feet of Hiero.

“Mercy!” He embraced Hiero’s sandals until the priest spumed him away.

“You shall have life as long as not one lie crosses your dirty lips. Answer my questions.”

It was better than might have been hoped. Though no adept, the wretched man had been third in command of the city’s military force and he knew much. With a rope around his neck, he led the squad, Hiero, and the catfolk to a small door, sunk in the side of a nearby stone tower. They had to force the lock. Then, as Hiero had expected, they found themselves at the top of a winding stair. Worn and slippery steps led down into darkness.

The party waited for a moment while torches were procured, and then, with the prisoner in the lead, they began to file downward, weapons held at the ready. Down wound the stairs and down. There were landings, but no doors issued off them. Down, until Hiero knew they were far below ground level. Now bluish fluors appeared, and they crushed out the smoking torches. They had emerged in a damp stone corridor which ran in both directions, off into shadowed distances. The dim blue light of the fluors, set in the ceiling at long intervals, revealed nothing. No one had to be told to keep silence. Hiero prodded the prisoner with his spear point. The gesture was enough, and the man turned to the left and marched numbly off. Silently except for an occasional clink of metal and the faint scrape of leather, the others followed.

They had come a long way and found nothing save emptiness before them when Hiero suddenly halted everyone by raising his left hand. His mind could touch something. With a grimace of disgust, he realized what it was. He led off again at a run, prodding the captive before him ruthlessly. They burst suddenly into a larger room, a great oval, around which were set many barred doors. And the doors were all open. From them came a stench of death and decay which made the entire party retch. One quick glance in each cell was enough. Men, women, even children—here were the choicest captives of the Unclean. All were chained and all were dead. The savage blows and sword cuts which had so recently killed them were in all probability the kindest death they could have asked for after their torment. Hiero had caught the last flicker of a dying brain back down the buried corridor.

“Fresh wounds, sir,” the NCO said. “They must have just got it.”

“Yes, and we’ll follow. Look sharp, now. The tunnel goes straight out the other side. This scum here says that their main Council Chambers are just ahead, so—watch it!”

The few pale chiefs of the Unclean, no more than three in number, who had not been able to flee on the surface, had waited just a little too long to try the secret exit tunnels. Had they not paused in one last spasm of sadistic cruelty to slay the helpless captives in their chains, they might have gotten away. When Hiero and his pack burst into the great room at their heels, they had not yet opened the far door, which was hidden behind an arras. Instead, they were engaged in trying to destroy the great wire screen. Though its moving lights were all dark now, that nerve center of the Yellow Circle was an obsession with them, and they had not realized that a foe so deadly might follow them so soon. Their gray robes dabbled with the blood of their victims, they turned to fight. Their weapons were hardly raised when the Children of the Wind were upon them. Then three limp shapes lay-in their own filthy gore, while Hiero looked about him and tried to imagine what he had found.