One of the riders dismounted and came forward slowly. Although he was little more than a stripling, his face was grey with dust and fatigue. “Are you from Uskutoshk?” he called, in a hoarse voice.
“Yes, from Koriantura. Are you of Asperamanka’s army?”
“We’re a good three days ahead of the main body. Maybe more.”
Fashnalgid considered. If he let them through, the two riders would be stopped by Major Gardeterark’s lookouts, and might reveal his whereabouts. He did not consider himself capable of shooting them in cold blood—why, this young fellow was a lieutenant ensign. The only way to halt them was to tell them of the fate which hung over the army, and enlist their cooperation.
He stepped one pace nearer the lieutenant. The latter immediately produced a revolver and braced it against his crooked left arm to aim. As he squinted down the barrel, he said, “Come no nearer. You have other men with you.”
Fashnalgid spread wide his hands. “Look, don’t do that. We mean you no harm. I want to talk. You look as if you might like a drink.”
“We’ll both stay where we are.” Without ceasing to squint down his gun barrel, the lieutenant called to his companion, “Come and get this man’s gun.”
Licking his lips nervously, Fashnalgid hoped that his men would come to his rescue; on the other hand, he hoped they would not, since that might lead to his being shot. He watched the second rider dismount. Boots, trousers, cloak, fur hat. Face pale, fine-featured, beardless. Something in her movements told Fashnalgid, an expert in such matters, that this was a woman. She came hesitantly towards him.
As she got to him, Fashnalgid pounced, grasping her outstretched wrist, twisting her arm and swinging her violently about. Using her as a shield between him and the other man, he pulled his own gun from its holster.
“Throw your weapon down, or I’ll shoot you both.” When his order was obeyed, Fashnalgid called to his men. The soldiers emerged cautiously, looking unwarlike.
The rider, having dropped his gun, stood confronting Fashnalgid. Fashnalgid, still pointing his revolver, reached inside his captive’s coat with his left hand, and had a feel of her breasts.
“Who the sherb are you?” He burst out laughing, even as the woman began to weep. “You’re evidently a man who likes to ride with his creature comforts… and a well-developed creature it is.”
“My name is Luterin Shokerandit, Lieutenant. I am on an urgent mission for the Supreme Oligarch, so you’d better let me through.”
“Then you’re in trouble.” He ordered one of his men to collect Shokerandit’s pistol, turned the woman about, and removed her hat so that he could get a better look at her. Toress Lahl stood before him, her eyes heavy with anger. He patted her cheek, saying to Shokerandit, “We have no quarrel. Far from it. I have a warning for you. I’ll put my gun away and we will shake hands like proper men.”
They shook hands warily, looking each other over. Shokerandit took Toress Lahl’s arm and drew her beside him, saying nothing. As for Fashnalgid, the feel of breasts had heartened him; he was beginning to congratulate himself on his handling of a difficult situation when one of his men, keeping lookout, called that riders were approaching from the north, from the direction of Koriantura.
A line of mounted men was nearing the Ivory Cliffs, a banner flying in its midst. Fashnalgid whipped a spyglass from his coat pocket and surveyed the advance.
He uttered a curse. Leading the advance was none other than his superior, Major Gardeterark. Fashnalgid’s first thought was that Besi had betrayed him. But it was more likely that one of the citizens of Koriantura had seen him leaving the city and reported the fact.
The figures were still some distance away.
He had no doubt what his fate would be if he was caught, but there was still time to act. His manner as much as his words persuaded Shokerandit and the woman that they would be safer joining him than trying to escape—particularly when Fashnalgid offered them two of his fresh yelk to ride. Shouting to his men to stand their ground and tell the major that there was a large body of armed men at the other end of the Cliffs, Fashnalgid flung himself onto his yelk and galloped off at full speed, Shokerandit and Toress Lahl following. He kicked one of the unmounted yelk before him.
Some way along the narrow defile of the Cliffs was a side passage. Fashnalgid drove the unmounted yelk straight forward, but led the other down the defile. He calculated that the sound of the escaping yelk would lead the enemy force to ride straight on.
The defile dwindled to a mere fissure. By setting their mounts determinedly forward, they could scramble up the crumbling slope onto higher ground. They emerged in a confusion of broken rock where small trees and bushes, arched over by the prevailing wind, pointed southwards. From somewhere below them came the thunder of the major’s troop galloping past.
Fashnalgid wiped the cold sweat from his brow and picked a course westward among the rocks. Both the suns lay close in the sky, Freyr low as ever in the southwest, Batalix sinking to the west.
The three riders urged their mounts through a series of eroded buttes and round a shattered boulder the size of a house, where there were signs of past human habitation. In the distance, beyond where the land fell away, was the glint of the sea. Fashnalgid halted and took a drink from his flask. He offered it to Shokerandit, but the latter shook his head.
“I’ve taken you on trust,” he said. “But now that we have eluded your friends, you had better tell me what is on your mind. My job is to get word to the Oligarch as soon as possible.”
“My job is to evade the Oligarch. Let me tell you that if you present yourself before him, you will probably be shot.” He told Shokerandit of the reception being arranged for Asperamanka. Shokerandit shook his head.
“The Oligarchy ordered us into Campannlat. If you believe that they would massacre us on our return, then you are plainly crazed.”
“If the Oligarch thinks so little of an individual, he will think no more of an army.”
“No sane man would wipe out one of his own armies.”
Fashnalgid started to gesticulate.
’You are younger than I. You have less experience. Sane men do the most damage. Do you believe that you live in a world where men behave with reason? What is rationality? Isn’t it merely an expectation that others will behave as we do? You can’t have been long in the army if you believe the mentalities of all men are alike. Frankly, I think my friends mad. Some were driven mad by the army, some were so mad they were attracted to that area of idiocy, some simply have a natural talent for madness. I once heard Priest-Militant Asperamanka preach. He spoke with such force that I believe him to be a good man. There are good men… But most officers are more like me, I can tell you— reprobates that only madmen would follow.”
There was silence after this outburst, before Shokerandit said coldly, “I certainly would not trust Asperamanka. He was prepared to let his own men die.”
“ ‘Wisdom to madness quickly turns, If suffering is all one learns,’ ” quoted Fashnalgid, adding, “An army carrying plague. The Oligarchy would be happy to be rid of it, now there’s little danger of an attack from Campannlat. Also, it suits Askitosh to get rid of the Bribahr contingent…”
As if there was nothing more to be said, Fashnalgid turned his back on the other two and took a long swig from his flask. As Batalix descended towards the strip of distant sea, clouds drew across the sky.
“So what do you propose doing, if we are not to be trapped between armies?” Toress Lahl asked boldly.
Fashnalgid pointed into the distance. “A boat is waiting across the marshes, lady, with a friend of mine in it. That’s where I’m going. You are free to come if you wish. If you believe my story, you’ll come.”