——— 3 ———

⁠—⁠—⁠— III ⁠—⁠—⁠—

It was a defeat that Astrias would remember until his dying day.

He had been born to a noble house, and had won victory after victory since first he rode onto the battlefield as a bold and ambitious lad of fifteen. He was a young lion of Gohra, a hero. He was next in line to inherit his father’s title as count and his position as warden of Torus. Now the same Astrias had been outmatched by a rabble of barbarous savages⁠—not just defeated but driven into headlong, ignoble retreat with scores of his men slain by monkey-warriors only half their size.

Astrias’s chiseled features, brooding in the shadows of his helm, were paler than the whitest parchment. He bit his lip and pounded his fists into his saddle time and again. To lose to the Sem! His pride as a warrior of Mongaul had been scarred for eternity.

The red knights of the First Troop of Alvon Keep were in full flight. And the Sem, who had it in their power to destroy them, had let them go at the urging of their ally Guin. From their chieftain on down, the Sem had desired to press the battle against the retreating knights, but they already revered the leopard-headed warrior as though he were the god of war come down to walk the earth. When he spoke against further slaughter, they held back.

“Why stop ’em, Guin?” Istavan demanded, looking displeased that the battle was over. “I’d like to teach Mongaul a lesson, myself. We could put the heads of arrogant young lords up on pikes in the sand. Soon enough they’ll start to run away whenever they see us two shoulder to shoulder.”

Guin shook his head gruffly.

“Why not?”

“Lord Astrias is from a good family and is a personal favorite of Archduke Vlad’s. His father, Count Malks Astrias, is the archduke’s right-hand man and the Lord Defender of Torus. Kill his son, and Mongauli retribution would be swift.”

“Hmm, good point, leopard-head,” Istavan admitted reluctantly, still disappointed at having missed the chance to deal more damage to Mongaul. “But wait! How come you know more about Torus than I do? I thought you’d lost your memory!” He stepped back and looked at the leopard-headed warrior suspiciously. Guin did not answer.

The sand was stained with the blood of the fallen. Picking his way among the Sem and human corpses, Loto, the high chieftain of the Raku, drew near to where Guin and Istavan stood. Rinda and Remus followed behind him. With his feather headdress and gray-streaked fur, Loto cut an imposing figure for one so small.

He came before Guin and Istavan and bowed deeply. When he looked up, his eyes were filled with admiration and amazement.

“Brave warriors!” The chieftain spoke in the most serious and measured tone his high Sem voice accorded him. “Alphetto God has sent you here, to this desert. The bows and arrows of the Raku are yours.”

Five lesser chieftains lined up behind Loto. Now they all bowed and said as one: “Riyaad.”

“They say in our language that you are the Leopard,” Loto explained. “You are a child of Alphetto God.”

“Hey, Guin, they’re saying you’re the son of a monkey-god,” chortled Istavan.

Guin motioned for him to be quiet. “I am Guin,” he said simply, matching the serious tone of the Sem chieftain. “I thank you for saving us.”

Loto waved his hands. “No, no, Riyaad, it is I who must thank you for saving my grandchild.”

“Suni?”

“Yes, my fourth grandchild. She had gone out to gather medicine herbs we needed for our desert rites, when the black demon came across the Kes and carried her away. The black demon peels our skin and drains our blood.”

“You do not need to fear him anymore. Guin took care of the demon of Stafolos Keep!” Rinda said proudly. She held Suni’s hand tightly in her own.

Loto shook his head. “The black demon may be gone, but now the red demons cross in great numbers. Why are they so eager to assail us?”

“Your people were not at the attack on Stafolos?” asked Guin.

Loto shook his head. “We Raku are peaceful. When the calls to attack came at the council, the high chieftains of the Karoi and the Guro decided to go, but we Raku did not go. When demons come, our way is to avoid them, to move away. We cannot stop the killing by becoming demons ourselves.”

“Stafolos fell,” Guin said, in a grim reverie of recollection. “Many lives⁠—both human and Sem⁠—were lost.”

“You and your noble companions are welcome among the Raku, great warrior Riyaad. You may stay in our village as long as you desire.”

Istavan, looking somewhat dissatisfied, stepped up as if he meant to speak. But all eyes were on Guin.

Addressing all the chieftains, Guin said: “You of the Raku love peace, and avoid combat when it can be avoided. These are great, no, these are wonderful things. And it is because you love peace that I am troubled. During this battle, two white knights broke away to head back toward the River Kes. We were able to stop one, but the other escaped. If I am not mistaken, he is now well across the river and has arrived at Alvon Keep. I fear he will organize the knights there and launch yet another raid on your land and people.”

Loto turned and translated Guin’s message for his lesser chieftains. The worry in their eyes was clear.

“Is this the entire fighting force of the Raku?” asked Guin.

“Of course not!” replied Loto, rather proudly for one who had proclaimed himself a pacifist. “The Raku are the largest tribe among the Sem peoples, and our women fight alongside our men. When there is war, only the old and the children guard the hearths. Our forces number two thousand strong.” When he spoke the words for “two thousand,” Loto reverted to the Sem tongue, using a phrase that Guin recognized as meaning “as many as the legs of two swalloworms.”

Guin plunged deep into thought. Rinda, Suni, Remus, and Istavan stood quietly, awaiting his response, like children waiting for a parent’s advice. Guin’s stern, yellow eyes were inscrutable as his thoughts turned inward.

“Riyaad,” said Loto, stepping forward. “I fear it is not wise for us to stay here any longer. Much blood has been spilled here. The bigeaters, sand leeches, desert ants, and worse will smell the feast, and they will come.”

“Ahh… I had forgotten.” Guin shook himself as though waking from a long sleep. “Then,” he said, turning to Rinda, “we must leave.”

“We will get to see Suni’s village!”

“Yes, you will.”

“But not you?” Rinda looked at the leopard-man, puzzled. “You are coming, too, aren’t you?”

Guin spoke gently. “The white knight that escaped concerns me. Chieftain,” he said, turning to Loto, who stood short but proud at the head of his retinue, “might I ask for fifty of your men? I need warriors to accompany me. I believe we would be wise to spy on the happenings at the River Kes. We will return to the village afterwards.” *

“As you wish, Riyaad Great Warrior,” Loto answered, bowing his head. “Take whomever you will.” He gestured toward his remaining troops.

“I ask also that you bring the children back to the village with you, Loto High Chieftain,” Guin added, bowing in return.

“But Guin,” Rinda protested, “you mustn’t leave us!”

“I’ll be back soon. I am only going to take a look,” the leopard warrior said comfortingly, placing his strong hand gently on Rinda’s slender shoulder.

Rinda shook her head, but could find no words to stop him. Her thoughts and fears whirled in a haze of fatigue.

“Eh, I, uh, I’m coming with you, right, Guin?” Istavan asked. “I don’t talk the language these crazy monkeys use, and I swear some of those younger ones were looking at me and smacking their lips.”

Guin hesitated, looking doubtful, but at last he nodded his assent. Then, turning to the Sem warriors gathered there, he called out in their language.

“Are there any of you who will go with me to spy upon the red demons?”

Fifty spirited young Sem stepped forward. None among them were wounded, and their fatigue from the battle had already passed. They stepped as lightly as if they had just awoken from a long nap on a bed of soft rushes back in their village.

“They are yours, Riyaad,” proclaimed Loto.

Guin nodded. “I thank you. We will return to the village soon.”

“Aye, and have a black pig roast, er… at least a sand leech roast waiting for us!” added Istavan, winking. Loto seemed shocked.

Guin and Istavan selected two new, untarnished blades from among the hundreds lying in the sand. Then they found two Mongauli horses that had lost their masters and mounted them after carefully examining the saddles, bridles and stirrups. The fifty Raku who were to join them on patrol went among those of their comrades who were returning to the village and gathered all the extra poison arrows that could be spared.

Just as the patrol party was making ready to leave, Rinda ran up to Guin and grabbed his horse’s reins.

“Guin, take me with you!”

“I cannot.”

“Please! I beg of you!”

“No, child. You have a true warrior’s spirit⁠—stronger than that of many men⁠—but your body is still that of a little girl. A very weary little girl. You must go with Suni to the village of the Raku, and rest.”

“Guin, I’m having a premonition, right now, a bad premonition. It isn’t the worst of all possibilities, but it’s something that could cause dire harm if it goes unheeded. Guin, please. Take me with you. My eyes can see into the mist that is the future. I can see around blind corners and warn you of danger! The sight is strong with me today, and I… I am afraid for you, because of what I see.”

Guin thought deeply. Hope rose in Rinda then; but it sank again like a broken wave when at last he replied, “No. You must go to the village.” He was gentle, but firm. “You said that what will come is not the worst? Then I will trust my strength, and my fortune, and this strange knowledge in my head that comes from I know not where. As long as I have these things, I will surely be able to cut through whatever misfortune might lie in wait. Do not fear, little princess. I will rejoin you soon.”

“I understand,” Rinda nodded glumly, but her eyes said she did not understand at all. Still she knew that Guin had made up his mind and that there was little she could do about it. After a moment she looked up at him again. “But you must let me tell you what I have seen so far. Guin, please listen carefully: Take care both as you go and as you return. Fear more that which you cannot see than that which you can. Fortune lies within misfortune, but you must beat down your own path if you wish to claim it.”

“Is that all?” Guin asked.

“Yes, that is all.”

“Sounds more like proverbs than prophecies,” Istavan observed with a wry smile.

Guin clapped Rinda on the shoulder. “Let us both take care.” The girl was not comforted, but she smiled, and gave Guin her blessings before walking back to where Suni stood.

It was time for the parting. Sitting tall on their heavy war horses, Guin and Istavan rode out ahead of the fifty Sem warriors, heading westward, while the twins and the remainder of the Sem turned eastward.

The Sem warriors who had been wounded in the battle were placed in the middle of Loto’s ranks, where they could lean on their brothers’ shoulders for support. The more seriously wounded were carried on makeshift stretchers crafted from bowstrings, but only those who seemed likely to recover completely were to be brought back. Any braves who had been so wounded as to be unable to fight again were abandoned among the dead. This was the law of the Nospherus wildlings. The desert was harsh and food was scarce. Those that could not fight or otherwise serve the tribe were left lying beside the bleached rocks under the harsh sun so that their families would not be burdened with the need to support them. There was no burial among the Sem. The denizens of Nospherus could be counted upon to clean up all traces of the dead and dying. The end would come quickly.

Rinda shivered. She had much love for Suni, and was glad to count the Raku tribe among the allies of Parros, but it was hard for her to accept their brutal customs. Thank the stars that I was not born in the wildlands of Nospherus!

When the two Sem forces began their march, the sun was high in the vault of the sky, and a dry, gusty wind had begun to blow the smell of blood from the battlefield in all directions. The moaning of the wounded and the whinnying of dying horses filled the landscape with the sounds of pain, while the eerie, inescapable angel hair drifted down to melt on the faces of living and dead alike, appearing and then vanishing like dimly remembered dreams or the first snowflakes of winter.

The warriors guarding the rear of each company of Sem were startled by a sudden commotion behind them. They waved their weapons and shouted their god’s name. Guin and his party peered back at them and saw the sand under the battlefield swell and burst to reveal a horrid shape with flashing fangs.

“Riyolaat,” muttered a Sem who stood near Guin, pointing at the bigeater, which gorged its blood-red mouth on the corpses of the fallen Gohran knights, then vanished under the sand as quickly as it had appeared. Moments later, a pit opened up nearby, revealing the countless white tendrils of a mouth-of-the-desert reaching out from the sand to claim the bodies of three Sem. “Lalu,” said the young Sem warrior.

Nospherus had begun its work of cleaning up the dead. By nightfall, all the men, wildlings, and horses would be gone. And by the time Ruah rose in the morning, the battlefield would have become indistinguishable from the vast reaches of that sea of white rocks and shifting sand. No one who passed would be able to guess that a battle had raged there only a day before.

Loto gave orders to march faster. It would not do to tarry. Once the cleaners of the Nospherus desert finished with the remains of the battle, they would turn to the only other source of food, the living.

The last thing Rinda saw when she looked back over her shoulder was Guin riding at the head of his tiny army, a proud half-beast god of war on the march to another victory. The leopard-man’s force moved off into the desert and faded like a mirage.

Guin did not look back. Behind him the bigeater’s jaws crunched bones and swallowed flesh in loud wet gulps, sounds that could make the hair on a man’s body stand straight up. Yet Guin seemed indifferent to the gruesome noise.

“The knights are well ahead of us. We may not have time. Hurry.”

He spurred his horse toward the west, toward the River Kes, and Alvon Keep, and the enemy general from whom he had escaped that very morning.

For a moment Istavan was doubtful that the Sem behind them would be able to keep up with the pace their leader set, but his worries were unfounded: all fifty of the diminutive warriors trotted steadily behind the two horses. The desert was their home, and their short legs navigated the shifting sands and sharp rocks with surprising agility.

After they had marched for about a twist, Guin’s leopard-mouth emitted a sudden low order to halt. The Sem ceased their movement more promptly than seemed possible and waited poised in silence.

“What is it?” asked Istavan. Guin pointed beyond a small rock outcropping that lay ahead of them.

“The remnants of Astrias’s troop.”

“They still lurking around? This is our chance, then. Let’s take ’em!”

“Not so fast,” growled Guin. “We are only fifty, separated from the rest. Do not forget that. Let us find a way through those rocks over there.”

Istavan muttered under his breath, but then his face brightened and he chuckled. “Hey, Guin.”

“What?”

“I just thought it funny that scarcely a few hours ago you and I were running scared from the Mongauli, just two swords against a host of knights, and our only treasure two tired orphans. Now we’re hunting the Mongauli, and you’re leading your own elite monkey squad like you were born for this.”

“I was never scared.”

“All right. But I bet that in your Randoch or Aurra, or wherever it was that you lived, you were some kind of a king, or a general at least. Aye, I’d bet it on the gemstone in my new-born hand that you were.”

Guin did not respond.

Avoiding Astrias’s knights, he led his party on a detour along a craggy ridge of rock. The Sem bounded lightly from boulder to boulder, and as they went they released vapors of an herbal concoction upon the wind to keep away the snakes and sand leeches and poured vials of another fluid to burn away patches of flesh-eating moss that lay across their path.

In a short while, they had reached a rise from which they could look down on the land to the west. From there, they could move along the ridge-top, keeping an eye on what was below them. The remnants of Astrias’s company were progressing unsteadily towards Alvon. They were a straggling bunch much reduced from the force of proud red knights that had raced across the wildlands that morning in pursuit of Guin, Istavan and the children. Their horses were scarred, their armor broken, and the wounded cried out every time their mounts lurched or lost footing on the rocky ground.

“Just a little farther, and we’ll reach the Kes. Just a little!”

Astrias tirelessly shouted out, keeping his men moving despite their terrible fatigue. His throat was dry from the sand and the yelling, and there were times when the cries of the wounded threatened to drown out his words, but he rode back and forth along the line, keeping the weary knights in order and trying to encourage them as best he could. He was only twenty years of age, and his defeat at the hands of the wildling Sem was his first ever in the line of duty. It had dealt a fearsome blow to his pride. Though he was really the one who needed encouragement, he rode the line tirelessly, keeping a lookout for any foes that might be following them, any stragglers that might have drifted from his ranks. Now and then he would pause to give one of the badly wounded a drink from his own canteen. All hope of a personal victory was gone that day, but the youthful spirit of Gohra was strong within him, and it kept him moving when nothing else could.

Thankfully, none of the wildling Sem seemed to be giving chase. He doubted that his band would survive if they were to face another conflict now. Maybe the great sand leech god of the Sem, Alphetto himself, had favored the young noble, for he sent no bigeaters, sandworms, or any of the other dangerous denizens of his desert to hinder their progress. Astrias did not guess, nor were his eyes keen enough to see, that a leopard-headed warrior and a mercenary in the black armor of Gohra, mounted on Mongauli horses and followed by fifty Sem warriors, were looking down at his bedraggled troop from high above, their eyes glittering among the whitened rocks.

Some of the red knights, their scabbards long lost, were dragging their swords with drooping arms, banging them against the ubiquitous boulders with an irregular clanging that grated on the nerves of all who could still hear. The chorus of moans from the wounded and the faint melody of water sloshing in nearly dry canteens made for a ghastly accompaniment. The faces of the knights who had lost or raised their faceplates were dirty, rubbed raw by sand and speckled with dried blood.

Occasionally one of the wounded, hanging nearly lifeless over the neck of his horse, would simply cast away his heavy Gohran helm. When Astrias, constantly dreading the arrows of snipers, saw this happen, he would ride back and scoop the helm off the ground with the tip of his sword, returning it to its owner with a gentle warning about the danger of an attack. He had just returned another helm when a voice called out weakly behind him.

“C-Captain.” It was Pollak, his lieutenant. Pollak seemed to be among those with at least some strength left, and one of a handful who were still bothering to watch for trouble.

“What is it?”

Astrias squinted and stared, but so much sand had caught in his eyes that even when he looked carefully in the direction Pollak indicated he could see nothing but a great hazy mist.

Lifting his faceplate, Astrias took off one of his mail gauntlets and furiously rubbed at his eyes. They burned like fire, but they watered and he was able to focus.

“Captain,” Pollak whispered again. Astrias thought he detected the faintest spark of joy in his lieutenant’s voice.

“Halt… Halt!” Astrias licked his dry, broken lips and gave the order to stop. His heart was racing. He found it hard to believe what he was seeing. Surely it had to be a mirage. He blinked, but the vision remained.

“Pollak, go. Go see and report.”

“Sir!” Pollak cried with a newfound strength, and urged his horse forward with a swift crack of the whip.

Astrias watched him ride, and he breathed in deeply. The shame and anger was draining away, leaving an almost mad joy in his heart and the sweet taste of hope on his lips. He could feel the energy flowing back into his limbs, and his face flushed with eagerness. When he saw Pollak disappear into a corner of the swimming mirage, he thumped his saddle with his fist.

“Leopard-headed monster, black-armored traitor, vile monkeys of Nospherus, hear me! Your luck has run dry… and the barbarian country’s time has run out!”