“No-o-o-o-o!” The cry split the air, freezing all the warriors in surprise. The messenger leaped into motion, a brown blur streaking toward the gate. Too late, Steetsin realized his error—he should have had the warrior bound hand and foot and cast into the dungeon. But he had not, and the Khalian rose up next to the gate, forelegs reaching out to the great bar.
“Kill him!” Steetsin screamed, but none of his warriors moved against the Clan Chief’s messenger. “Bum him!” And Steetsin himself leveled his sidearm, but too late, too late, for even as the gun leaped in his hand, the messenger had wrested the bar from its staples. He leaped in pain as Steetsin’s bullet took him; he fell crumpled in the dust, dead—but the huge gate swung inward, and the army of the Fleet filled the portal.
“Fight!” Steetsin howled. “Slay as you retreat!” For he knew the Hold was lost.
Finally, his warriors came alive. These were no loyal Khalians they faced, but the age-old enemy, tales of whose cruelty and cowardice had filled their ears almost from birth; these were the monsters who had somehow overwhelmed them. Not a warrior among them but had lost a wife or a comrade on Target; not a warrior among them but bore his own store of hate for the Fleet. Guns racketed all around the courtyard. Humans of the Fleet fell, gouting blood, but others took cover behind the gate or ran for the flimsy protection of carts and dead bodies. Guns barked in Fleet hands—puny sidearms and rifles, but so many of them, so many! And Steetsin’s men began to fall . . .
“To the postern!” he screeched as he fled down the tower stairs. “To the tunnel!” as he raced for the great portal in the side of the Great Chamber. “Down and away!” as his men began to file down to the escape passage.
Steetsin himself ran to join the rear guard, to heat his barrel to melting with bullets for the humans of the Fleet, knowing that Cartwright was nearby, would follow, would shadow him, even though Steetsin could see him not . . .
When the last of the men had stumbled through, Steetsin ran the pads of his paws lightly over the tunnel wall, found the third brick from the top, lifted it, and pressed the button underneath. A hundred yards away, on the other side of the river, a muffled explosion sounded. Steetsin turned away, the knowledge bitter within him that one wall of his ancestral Great Chamber was now choked with a jumbled mass of stonework—but no enemy would follow through the blocked mouth of the tunnel. “Raid leaders!” he called. “Tally your men!”
His lieutenants counted quickly and reported in. Only two thirds of Steetsin’s warriors had come out of the keep. His neck fur bristled at the thought. “So many comrades slain! Yet we shall avenge them.” He looked about him, gimlet-eyed. “Where is Cartwright?”
There he came, turning away from a warrior with a wounded arm—bandaged now, and healing, thanks to Cartwright’s Syndicate medicine. “Do you seek me, Steetsin?”
For some reason, the man’s atrocious accent suddenly grated on Steetsin’s nerves—now, after all these years! He told himself again that the human mouth was not made for Khalian shrills and whistles, and schooled himself to patience. “What say you, Cartwright? How shall we desecrate this messenger’s memory, he who opened our gate to the humans of the Fleet? For surely, he deserves to be forever abhorred!”
But a wordless protest sounded, from a hundred throats, and Steetsin turned, shocked. “How can you speak well of him!” he shrilled at his men. “He, who betrayed us!”
Now, now they were silent. They stood, eyeing one another uneasily.
“What—would you defend him, but not have the boldness to tell why?” Steetsin demanded. “Raznor, speak! You, who are my second in command! How can you defend the vile action of this traitor!”
Raznor glanced at his captains, then turned back to Steetsin. “I do not, Chieftain—but he placed his faith in the Clan Chief, and was loyal to him.”
Steetsin stared.
“He must have known he would die,” Raznor explained, “but even so, he stuck fast to his word of loyalty. Such courage must be admired. Wrongheaded or not, his memory should not be desecrated.”
Steetsin’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Truly, there was nothing to say.
But Raznor was not done. “Who are we, to forswear loyalty to the Chief of our Clan? Tell, Steetsin—what cause have we to think he betrayed us? For surely, it is not for us to say what is best or worst for all Clan Ruhas!”
Steetsin swelled with the horror, the enormity of it. “How could you have forgotten, forsaken the memories of your glorious comrades?” he shrilled. “What! Do you not remember their suffering? Do you not remember the fall of Target?”
Then he took up the tale, began once again to recount the atrocities of the Fleet, to remind them of the falling fires, the twisted limbs, the charred wreckage and the wasted lives, of the eternal oblivion of male cubs who would not now have their chance to prove their courage, to gain their honor; of females who would not win through to ever-life through the honor of their sons.
When he was done, not a one of his warriors but trembled with hatred and rage, held barely in check; not a one who would not have lashed out at any human of the Fleet who came near—and, indeed, several eyed Cartwright with cold hostility. But the man had courage; his smile scarcely faltered as he edged fractionally behind Steetsin. “They are ready, Chieftain. Turn them where you will.”
Steetsin knew where. He scanned the line of his warriors slowly, eyes burning. “From this time forth, the human of the Fleet will bemoan his fate! He will wish he had never come to the Wedge! In every way that we can, we will harry him! We will slay his stragglers, we will rend his supply trains! There shall be no trade, no crops—until at last, he abandons our Hold!”
“All honor to the Chief of Clan Ruhas.” The Marine captain bowed, as though he meant what he had said.
Ernsate believed that he did—that all the Fleet officers did. They may have hated the Khalia as old enemies do, but they respected them as valiant warriors. In those who had begun to see how the Khalia’s nobility had been twisted and abused by the Syndicate, that respect had turned to honor.
Therefore, Ernsate inclined his head in imitation of the human’s greeting. “The Chief of the Clan gives honor to his noble ally. I hope you are well, Captain English.”
“I am well. I trust the noble Chief is also?”
“In good health.” Ernsate tried to contain his impatience; the ritual was necessary. Still he was rather abrupt in saying, “It is the welfare of my Clan that concerns me, their welfare in body and in honor.”
“Surely there can be only the slightest of stains on the honor of Clan Ruhas!”
So. Word of the Wedge had come at last to English. “Only a slight stain that my warriors seek to banish. The time has not come when I would have to go myself to the Wedge.”
“Great honor would indeed come to a chief who would so care for his warriors!”
Yes, it was that necessary, then. “I have heard that the Chief of the Wedge Sept has feet made of mist.”
“It is true that none can find the tracks that show where he or his sept have been. Yet it is true also that he is a valiant warrior, that his claws are sharp and his grip harsh.”
Steetsin’s ambushes had done great damage, then. Ernsate rose up in decision. “I must go in person. So valiant a chieftain deserves the honor of personal care from the Chief of his Clan.”
“All praise to Ernsate,” the captain murmured, “honor to the Chief of Clan Ruhas!”