The prince raised his gloved hand and with his naked forefinger began to tick off one, two, three…“Yes, it is seven. I thought it was eight there, for a moment. You might almost think I wanted to prolong the pleasures of this very pleasant journey we’ve been on almost a year and a half now. But you’re right. It’s only seven. The best way to spill blood in war, Kire, is to spill it where all can see. You spill it slowly, Kire — slowly, so that the enemy has time to realize our power and our greatness, the greatness of Myetra. Some locales have a genius for work, for labor, for toiling and suffering. And some have a genius for ruling. Myetra!” The prince flung up his gauntleted fist in salute. As he lowered it, however, a smile moved behind his heavy beard that put all seriousness into question. “There really is no other way.” With his ungloved knuckles, the prince pushed his rough beard hair to shape, now forward from his ears, now back at his chin. “Those who disagree, those who think there is another way, are Myetra’s enemies. You’ve seen how merciful Myetra is to its enemies, eh, Kire?” Abruptly, Prince Nactor turned and walked toward his tent.
In his black undergarments, black jerkin with black leggings over them, black harness webbing hips and chest, black hood tight around his face (a scimitar of bronze hair had slipped from under the edge), and wearing an officer’s night-colored cape that did not rise anywhere as high as you might expect in the steady eastern breeze, the tall lieutenant turned too — after a breath — and walked from the corral.
The troops sat at fires paled to near invisibility by the silvery sun. Some men cleaned their weapons. Others talked of the coming march. One or two still ate. A stack of armor flung a moment’s glare in Kire’s eyes, brighter than the flames.
In only his brown undershorts, cross-legged and hunched over a roasted rabbit haunch, the little soldier, Mrowky, glanced up to calclass="underline" “Lieutenant Kire, come eat.”
His belly pushing down the waist of his undershorts, the hem of his singlet up, standing by the fire big Uk said: “Hey, lieutenant?”
On the ground, Mrowky lifted freckled shoulders. “Sir, we saved some hare…”
But Kire strode on to the horse enclosure, where two guards quickly uncrossed their spears and flung up their fists. (Kire thought: how little these men know what goes on in their own camp.) He stepped between them and inside, reached to pull down a bridle, bent to heft up a saddle. He cut out his mare, threw the leather over her head, put the saddle over her back, and bent beneath her belly for the cinch. A black boot in the iron stirrup, and moments later he galloped out, calling: “I shall be back before we decamp for Çiron.”
Passing loudly, wind slapped at his face, but could not fill his cape to even the gentlest curve. Hooves hit up dirt and small stones, crackled in furze. Low foliage snapped by. The land spun back beneath.
Dim and distant, the Çironian mountains lapped the horizon. Kire turned the horse into a leafy copse. A branch raked at him from the right. Twigs with small leaves brushed his left cheek as he pulled — in passing — away. The mare stepped about; behind them brush and branches rushed back into place. At a stream, Kire jabbed his heels into the mare’s flanks, shook the reins —
— an instant later, with four near-simultaneous clops, hooves hit the rockier shore. Pebbles spattered back into the water. Kire rode forward, to mount a rise and halt there, bending to run a black glove over the flat neck. He was about to canter down among the trees when a long and inhuman Screeeeee made the horse rear. Kire reined hard and tightened his black leggings against her flanks.
Raucous and cutting, the Screee came again. The mare danced sideways.
Dismounting, Kire dropped the reins to the ground. Snorting twice, the mare stilled.
Upper leg bending and lower leg out, Kire crabbed the slope, coming down in a sideways slide around a boulder.
Startlingly closer, the Screeeeeeee sliced low leaves.
Kire stepped around broken stone, stopped — and breathed in:
A man, a beast —
Yellow claws slashed at a brown shoulder. The shoulder jerked, the head ducked; black hair flung up and forward. Bodies locked. Braced on the ground, a bare foot gouged through pine needles.
Canines snapped toward a wrist that snatched away to lash around behind the puma’s neck. This time, as the Screeeee whined between black gums and gray, gray teeth, something…cracked!
A broad paw clapped the man’s side — but the sound failed. The claws had retracted.
Kire let his air out as puma and man, one dead, one exhausted, toppled onto their shadows.
Before Kire got in another breath, another shadow slid across them. On the ground, the man raised himself to one arm and shook back long hair. Kire stepped forward — to see the shadow around them get smaller and darker. He reached for the man’s shoulder. At the same time, he looked up.
The flying thing — sun behind it burned on one wing’s edge: Kire could see only its size — dropped. Kire’s gun barrel cleared the sling. The report ripped the air…though the shot went wild.
Above, it averted, wings glinting like chipped quartz, then flapped up to soar away.
At Kire’s feet, the naked man rocked on all fours by the beast.
“It’s gone, now,” Kire rasped. “Get up.”
The man pushed himself back on his knees, taking in great breaths through lips pulled up from large, yellow teeth. Then he stood.
He was taller than Kire by a hand. A good six years younger too, the lieutenant decided, looking at the wide brown face, the hair sweated in black blades to a cheek and a forehead still wrinkled with gasps from the fight. The eyes were molten amber — wet and hot.
(The lieutenant’s eyes were a cool, startling green.)
Pulling up his cape and throwing it over his arm, Kire reslung his gun. “Who are you?”
“Rahm.” Still breathing hard, he reached up with wide fingers to brush dirt and puma hair from his heaving chest and rigid belly. “Rahm of Çiron.” The lips settled to a smile. “I thank thee for frightening away the Winged One with thy…” He motioned toward Kire’s black waist cinch.
“This is my powergun.” The tall youngster’s dialect, Kire noted, was close to Myetra’s. “Rahm…” The lieutenant snorted; it sounded like a continuation of whatever roughened his voice. “Of Çiron, ’ey?”
The Çironian’s smile opened up. “That is a…powergun? It’s a frightening thing, the…powergun.” He moved his head: from where it clawed and clutched his shoulder, black hair slid away. “And who art thou, that hast become Rahm’s friend?”
“I am Kire.” He did not give his origin, though with Kirke on left breast, cloak, and sling, he could not imagine the need.
“Thou art a stranger in these lands,” Rahm said. “Whither dost thou travel?”
“Soon to the Çironian mountains. But for now I am merely a wanderer, looking at the land about me, to learn what I can of it.”
“So am I — or so I have been. But now I am returning to Çiron.” Suddenly the black-haired youth bent, grabbed the puma’s yellow foreleg, and tugged. “Here.” He thrust one dark foot against pale stomach fur to shove the beast over the pine needles. With its closed eyes, the puma’s head rolled aside, as if for the moment it wished to avoid the bright brown gaze of its murderer. “Thou shouldst have the lion for saving me from the Winged One. I had thought to carry it home — it’s no more than three hours’ walk. But thou hast a horse.” He nodded up the slope. “ ’Tis thine.”