Walking-claws clattered on the bricks, close by her. She turned her head. So did Greenberg. He had the higher rank, so he spoke to K'Sed. "Your Highness."
The prince did not answer for some time. Like the humans, he was looking out at the encircling enemy. At last he said, "I wish we were back in T'Kai City."
"So do I, Your Highness," Greenberg said. Jennifer nodded. T'Kai City's walls were twice as high and three times as thick as those of D'Opt, and made of stone in the bargain.
"You Soft Ones could have done more to help us get there," K'Sed said?crabbily, Jennifer thought. She supposed the prince was not to be blamed for his bad temper. K'Sed had certainly had a hard time of it. Skulking through the woods and fleeing for one's life were not pastimes for which princes usually trained.
But Greenberg said, "Your Highness, were it not for us, you would have no army left at all, and the M'Sak would be running loose through the whole confederacy. As is, you are strong enough still to force them to concentrate against you here."
"But not strong enough to beat them," K'Sed retorted. "That only delays matters, does it not? Had we fought them somewhere else, we might have won."
The unfairness of that almost took Jennifer's breath away. For once, she did not hesitate. Before Greenberg could reply to the prince, she blurted, "But you might have lost everything, too!" You likely would have lost everything, she said to herself.
"We'll never know now, will we?" K'Sed sounded as if he thought he had scored a point. "And after the fight, you did little to keep the barbarians off us."
"We did what we could, Your Highness," Greenberg said. "I am sorry the M'Sak did not oblige us by holding still to be smashed one at a time."
His sarcasm reached the prince where Jennifer's protest had failed. K'Sed bent his left walking-legs, letting that side of his plastron almost scrape the bricks?a G'Bur gesture of despondency. "I knew this campaign was ill-omened when we undertook it. Even the moon fights against us."
It was late afternoon. Greenberg and Jennifer looked eastward. She rarely gave L'Rau's moon a thought?why worry about a dead stone lump several hundred thousand kilometers away? It looked as uninteresting now as ever: a gibbous light in the sky, especially pale and washed out because the sun was still up.
"What about the moon, Your Highness?" she said.
"When it grows full, three days hence, it will be eclipsed," K'Sed told her, as if that explained everything.
"Well, what of it?" She was so surprised, she forgot to tack on K'Sed's honorific. "You must know what causes an eclipse?"
The prince was distraught enough to miss her faux pas. He answered, "Of course?the passage of our world's shadow over the face of the moon. Every enlightened citizen of the towns in the confederacy knows this." K'Sed turned one eyestalk toward the soldiers swarming through D'Opt's narrow streets. "Peasants, herders, and even artisans, though, still fear the malign powers they believe to stalk the night."
"That is not good," Greenberg said.
Jennifer thought he'd come up with one of the better understatements she'd heard. As low-technology worlds went, L'Rau, or at least the T'Kai confederacy, was relatively free from superstition. But the key word was relatively. And because humans dealt mostly with nobles and wealthy traders, she did not have a good feel for just how credulous the vast majority of the locals were.
She had also missed something else. K'Sed pointed it out for her, literally, gesturing toward the bronze-hued T'Kai banners that still fluttered defiance at the M'Sak. "Perhaps our color is ill-chosen," the prince said, "but when the swallowed moon appears in that shade, how will the ignorant doubt it implies their being devoured by M'Sak? Truly, I could almost wonder myself." K'Sed was a sophisticate, Jennifer reminded herself, but even sophisticates on primitive planets found long-buried fears rising when trouble came.
"Maybe we could teach your soldiers?" Jennifer stopped, feeling Greenberg's ironic eye turned her way. She realized she'd been foolish. Three days of lessons would not overturn a lifetime's belief. She asked, "Do your warriors know the eclipse is coming, your Highness?"
"Sadly, they do. We tried to keep it from them, but even the M'Sak, savages though they be, have got wind of it. From time to time they amuse themselves by shouting it up to our sentries, and shouting that they will destroy us on that night. I fear…" K'Sed hesitated, went on, "I fear they may be right."
"Are you sure it is prudent to warn our foes of what we intend?" Z'Yon asked, listening to the M'Sak warriors yelling threats at the southrons trapped in D'Opt.
"Why not?" V'Zek said grandly. "We spread fear through their ranks, and anticipation of disaster. Having them with their eyestalks going every which way at once can only help us. And besides, they cannot be sure we are not lying. Almost I find myself tempted to delay the assault until the darkening of the moon is past."
"That might be wise, my master," Z'Yon said.
"What? Why?" When V'Zek stretched his walking-legs very straight, as he did now, he towered over Z'Yon. His voice, ominously deep and slow, rumbled like distant thunder?not distant enough, the shaman thought. He sank down to scrape his plastron in the dirt. "Why?" V'Zek repeated. "Speak, if you value your claws."
"The moltings suggest, my master, that we may fare better under those circumstances."
"So you consulted the moltings, did you?" The chieftain let the question hang in the air.
Z'Yon felt its weight over him, as if it were the big metal sky-thing that had crushed a fair number of M'Sak to jelly. "You said I might, my master," he reminded V'Zek, "for my own amusement."
"For yours, perhaps. I, shaman, am not amused at your maunderings. On the given night we shall attack and we shall win. If you put any other interpretation on what the moltings say, you will no longer be amused, either; that I promise you. Do you grasp my meaning?"
"With all four claws, my master," Z'Yon assured him, and fled.
Jennifer watched Greenberg cut another piece from the juicy, rare prime rib. "The condemned man ate a hearty meal," he said, and cocked an eyebrow at her. "Is that a quotation from your ancient science fiction?"
She paused to swallow and cut a fresh piece for herself. The Flying Festoon's autochef did right by beef and nearly everything else, though Koniev swore its vodka was good only for putting in thermometers. She answered, "No. I think it's even older than that."
"Probably is," Marya agreed. "It sounds as if any society would find it handy."
"No doubt," Greenberg said. "The T'Kai would certainly think it was relevant tonight." He told the others what he and Jennifer had learned from K'Sed.
Koniev nodded slowly. "I've heard the barbarians shouting their threats. I didn't take much notice; the translator garbles them a lot of the time, anyway. But they're not bluffing, then?"
"Not even a little bit," Greenberg said. "That's why we'll stay close by the ship. We may have to pull out in a hurry, and fighting my way back to the Flying Festoon through a mob of panicked or bloodthirsty G'Bur is something I'd rather not even have nightmares about."
"Sensible," Koniev said. Marya nodded a moment later.
"Too bad the T'Kai won't be able to take ship with us," Jennifer said.
"Yes?a good market will close down if the confederacy goes under," Marya said. "V'Zek won't be eager to deal with us, I'm certain."