“What is it?” Kesarh asked these two messengers. His own charioteer, he had only just left the vehicle, and stood stripping off his gloves while he listened.
“My lord—the King sent us no word—are there only these few men?”
Kesarh said, “There are ships coming, a day or so behind us.”
“Thank the gods—the goddess—if they can be hurried—”
“Probably. I deduce you now expect the pirates of Free Zakoris to pay a personal visit?”
“Yes, my lord. Last night they touched Karmiss west of here, we saw villages burning. Poor villages, sir. It was done from spite. The guardian feared for Ankabek—”
Kesarh’s extraordinary presence seemed to intensify. His men knew why. Prince Kesarh’s lady sister had only just gone to Ankabek, had she not?
“But there are beacons the island would light,” the messenger hastened on, sensing something, “and none showed. Besides, the Zakorians’re superstitious about holy places.”
“Not the holy places of a woman-god,” said Kesarh. His face was forbidding.
The messenger said quickly, “But they came on in this direction, air. Eastward, away from the sacred island. The watchtower below Tjis put up red smoke at noon. A man rode in just before sunset, who’s seen them himself, at anchor a handful of miles off.”
“How many ships?”
The messenger was an optimist who had not been told the strength Istris had sent. He said confidently, almost casually, “Seven, my lord.”
Only one of Kesarh’s soldiers swore.
Kesarh waited, then he said to the messenger: “I take it you’ve good reasons for thinking they may not come on at you immediately.”
“Zastis, sir. Zakorian ships always carry women. And the villages they plundered were great beer-makers—they’ll be celebrating. Unless we’re unlucky.”
“Actually,” said Kesarh, “you may be.”
Kesarh dispatched a single rider back toward the Karmian ships. They all heard the order. The galleys were to come on at battle speed, with relays of sailors at the oars when the rowers flagged. It would not be unheard of, nor would it be popular. He expected the vessels in the bay southeast of Tjis by dawn tomorrow. One could visualize the reactions. That accomplished, he took his guard sergeant aside, said something, and remounted the chariot. Their pace had been steady but not punishing, the tough zeebas could manage a few more hours through the warm red night.
“You. Nine, and the two Fours, your animals look the freshest. Follow.”
The three ran to remount. Rem with a curse of sheer interest, surprising himself. One more minute and they were charging down the bad road in the wake of the chariot, as fast as the zeebas would gallop.
Kesarh reached the town of Tjis two hours before midnight, his team bleeding and foaming at the bits, his three men at his back on mounts practically dying. The pace had been remorseless.
The gates flew open, and the doors of the modest mansion likewise. The Vis guardian himself led the Prince Am Xai to a decorated hall, and quite a decent supper was brought in, with sweet and fragrant Vardish wine.
“Our gratitude to the King,” said the guardian, “is inexpressible.”
“So it should be,” said Kesarh, cutting himself some of the roast. “He’s sent three mildewed hulks, manned by fellows who’ll be too tired to fight when they get here. And even so much was an afterthought. If your town survives this adventure, your gratitude will be to me.”
The guardian stared, and collected himself.
“Do you understand?” said Kesarh.
The guardian, rather pale, said that he did, and took some wine.
Kesarh watched the shaking hands ringed with rather unvaluable stones, and the wine slopping over them.
“How much wine,” said Kesarh, idly, “does Tjis possess?”
“My—lord?” The guardian gaped. “What do you—”
“This will go quicker,” said Kesarh, with an awful smile, “if you answer my questions rather than asking your own. How many barrels, skins and jars of wine would you estimate are in Tjis tonight?”
The guardian gulped, made an intelligent guess, and offered it.
“Excellent,” said Kesarh. “I noted you’ve prevented a panic evacuation. Keep things as they are. Get your guard out and use them, and anyone with arms and legs, to cart the wine. The square before this house here will do for a collection point.”
The guardian sat amazed.
Kesarh pushed the wine flagon sloshing toward him.
“You can set a noble example with this.”
Very slowly, the guardian rose with the flagon in his hands, and wandered out.
Initially on being roused, the town thought the Free Zakorians upon them, and chaos reigned. It was Kesarh himself, riding about the short narrow streets on one of the guardian’s zeebas, flanked by the guardian’s guard, who introduced an element of ruthless and compelling order.
In time, his strange demand was obeyed. The wine came out, off tables and shelves, up from cellars, and was dumped in the square.
Rem, a haulier with the others, saw a kind of good humor take the town. In the face of terror, any action, even if insane, was better than passive wretchedness. There was some cause for humor too, grannies rolling barrels, the wealthy squabbling for compensation, and here and there a guard taking a few minutes off to have a willing girl against a wall. It was Zastis, after all, and the death-fear qualm was surely driving toward the life-urge here.
Tjis was mostly Visian, not a light skin or a fair head had he seen—though there must be a few of them. That Kesarh was black-haired might well be a reassurance. His three soldiers were Karmian, too.
Rem was as uninformed as any man of Tjis. Until the other things began to be brought. Then he knew, and reveled in the outrage of it, sure it must fail. And not so sure. The Zakorians were drunk already, and full of pride, and scorn. It was, besides, the only chance Kesarh really had, save to turn tail and run.
They stood up black on the sunrise, a group of three at the mouth of the little cove, and four others a short distance farther in. The water was deep enough there to support them, for they were large ships, large but swift, biremes, their double rows of oar-mouths now vacant, their black sails folded. Opened, each would show the full and crescent Moon sigil of Old Zakoris, slit over by her snarling dragon. Red eyes were painted either side the beaked prows. Fast and powerful and low, they lay now heavy-bellied on the sea. There had been plunder along Dorthar’s southern coast, and sport among the villages of Karmiss, screaming women and bright frothing beer.
Despite the orgy, however, there was a watch set at every prow, men with the cruel uneven profiles of Zakoris, black-skinned or dark brass. Their land had hated the yellow races even before Amrek, even before the allies of Raldnor, the Bastard of Sar—a man nearly dark as they—had brought their city of Hanassor to its knees. Karmiss now was fair game to these pirates, and any place that accepted or affianced the rule of yellow-haired men—which was to say, everywhere. Zakoris was in Thaddra now, and now able yet to make war upon the world. But the day of the Black Leopard would come back. For Zarduk willed it, and Rorn, and all the male gods of Free Zakoris.
After the dawn had come kissing across the lips of the cove, a big silent ship swung by them like a dream.
At sunrise, the tide swelled into the straits between Dorthar and Karmiss. Such a swell alone might be carrying the ship, for only the dawn wind filled her sail, on which a scarlet lizard flamed. Her oar-ports were hatched closed.