As she'd expected, her father's soldiers broke ranks too easily and began to retreat. But it was an orderly withdrawal. Not a flicker of panic as the pikemen moved back and the archers threw down their bows and drew swords.
They weren't true archers. None of their missiles had found a mark. But they were excellent swordsmen and they gave Jooli and her men a vigorous fight as they backed up along the road.
Far off, she saw her father's command-post banner waving in the morning breeze. She aimed for it, shouting orders to Hamyr and the others to redouble their efforts.
They overran the retreating men, stopping only to cut the throats of those who had fallen. As Iraj Protarus had warned, most of the men were feigning wounds and were only waiting their chance to leap up as Jooli passed so they could attack her from the rear.
Despite these precautions, with every step Jooli took she could sense her father's trap closing, pinching in from the sides, while leaving the way open to the fluttering command flag.
Any minute now the men she knew were lying in wait on either side of the road would spring up to overwhelm her. Even as she cut a man down she cast a spell of confusion to addle the brains of her hidden enemies.
But she knew that however great her efforts, soon it would be a case of too little and too late.
And she thought, Where's Leiria? Where's Leiria?
In the courtyard of the Castle Keep, the circus folk were desperately trying to get the airship aloft. Huge siege arrows fell all around them, sheeting green flame in every direction as the crew laboriously filled the twin balloons with hot air.
The axiom of all balloonists is that anything that can go wrong will strike in threes. And Biner's difficulties were further proof of that already well-worn prophecy.
First, the fierce storm had forced them to take refuge in the castle. The couldn't tend to the airship's engines and without fuel, the magical fires had gone out. In order to refill the balloons Biner had to waste an enormous amount of time heating up the engines.
Secondly, as the huge balloons slowly filled, straining against the lines, several cables snapped. They'd been badly stressed by the previous day's battle against the tempest and everyone had been so tired that they hadn't checked the obvious danger points.
Thirdly, the rudder had been damaged-another flaw that had gone unnoticed.
Biner and Arlain blamed themselves, not the crew, for these oversights.
As Arlain said, "I thould have been wat'thing. I'm your thecond-in-command, Biner, and it'th all my fault."
But Biner, a perfectionist to the core, cursed only himself for his shortcomings. Never mind the soul-rattling disclosures of Safar's dual identities. Never mind that he hadn't slept for two days. He was at fault, dammit.
It was the ringmaster's duty to oversee all things, and to anticipate all potential problems. And, by the gods, Biner had fallen down on his job.
So, as the explosive arrows slammed in from the skies, it was Biner who constantly threw himself into the most dangerous tasks. Shoveling fuel into the engines while others fought fires on the decks on the airship.
Dodging the scything release of broken cables, while clamping new ones in place. Once his tunic caught fire while he was heaving new ballast sacks into the airship.
Arlain beat the flames into submission while Biner continued to work, driving the crew to complete a hasty patch-job on the rudder.
Despite the brave and frantic work of Biner and the rest of the airship crew, for a time it seemed that all would be lost. The siege arrows kept falling closer and closer, marching their way across the courtyard as Rhodesa€™ engineers gradually corrected their aim.
One arrow-as thick as a sideshow fat man's waist-slammed into the bow of the airship, igniting the well-oiled deck.
Arlain led a crew of foam-spraying fire fighters into the breach, but the flames became so intense that they drove everyone back except for Arlain. Hot flames licked all around her pearly body as she pumped foam on the blaze.
If it had been a circus act instead of real-life danger, the audience would have been thrilled at the erotic vision she presented. A fantastic female body, clothed only in a modesty patch at her thighs and two tiny dots over her breasts, sucking flames into her flat dragon's belly while she shot foamy spume onto the main fire from the hose that she held between her dragon claws.
But it wasn't an act and the fire drove her back, licking all around her fabulous form as she fought stubbornly on.
Then Eeda appeared, running out of the gates of the Keep, waving her arms as she composed a fire-quenching spell, her pregnant belly swelling her tunic to the bursting point. She looked as if she was going to deliver her child at any moment as she hastily cast the spell.
A fierce cold wind suddenly blew into the courtyard, killing the flames. Then the wind was gone.
"Get up as fast as you can!" Eeda shouted to Biner and Arlain. "I don't think I have the strength to do it a second time!"
Biner and Arlain needed no further prodding and minutes later the airship shot up into the sky just as a new barrage of fire arrows fell.
And Eeda dashed back into the relative safety of the Keep.
Coralean had a deep sense of foreboding as he waited at the edge of the golden-tiled pentagram. Events were moving so swiftly that he felt he barely had control. Looking at the figures of all the gods and goddesses portrayed in the fabulous wind-rose that the pentagram contained didn't help.
Particularly the portrait of the Goddess Lottyr, whose arrow pointed in a direction opposite to the others-straight at the painted flames of the Hells.
Behind him, six Kyranian pikemen were prodding Yorlain's aides across the chamber, hustling them toward stairs that led down into the dungeons.
Meanwhile, in the center of the wind-rose, tail lashing, muscles trembling in anticipation, stood Khysmet.
Iraj, wearing Safar's body and speaking in Safar's voice, said, "Easy, friend. Easy."
Then he vaulted into the great stallion's saddle. He leaned down to offer Palimak a hand up, but the young man gave a grim shake of his head and jumped up behind him without assistance.
Khysmet whinnied eagerly, stomping his hooves on the wind-rose.
Iraj chuckled to himself when he saw Coralean's worried face. Speaking in his own voice, he said,
"There's no sense fretting, old friend. Safar and I were either born for this moment or doomed to it. You just concentrate on Rhodes and leave the Hells to us."
The caravan master sighed heavily and said, "If Coralean had a copper coin for all the times he was advised not to worry, Your Highness, he'd be even richer than he already is."
Iraj laughed. "Why is it that every phrase you speak dwells so much on profit?" he asked, half jokingly.
"There's more to this world than money, don't you know?"
Now it was Coralean's turn to laugh. "That was always your trouble, Majesty," he said. "You think of profit as a base thing. A dirty thing. Whereas I, Coralean, know profit to be a thing of the utmost beauty.
For profit is at the heart of all mortal endeavors.
"As a merchant sage once said, a€?It is profit that drives all civilization.a€™ How true, how true. For isn't it profit that makes kings-and lack of the same that ruins them? And does not profit allow the artist to make art and the musician to make music?
"More to the point-if you and my old friend Safar Timura win this day, why, the whole world will profit from your victory. So don't mock profit, majesty. But, praise it to the heavens!"
Palimak, confused and angry over the dual identities with which he was confronted, broke in,snarling,
"Never mind the talk! Let's just cast the spell and get on with it!"