He was seeing Alexandra's face in the clouds when the faint drumming of animal feet brought his attention back to earth. A pair of riders on four-legged camel-like beasts were approaching. There was a jingle of armor, and he could see slender lances held upright like radio antennae.
With a flash of alarm, he hitched his sword and his dagger around to where he could get at them quickly, though he feared that against two armored men a tyro like himself would have no chance to buckle a swash. True, the look of the men suggested soldiers rather than bandits, but in a country like this the line might be hard to draw.
Hasselborg saw with displeasure that they were going to rein up. Their armor was a composite of plate and chain with a slightly Moorish effect: chain mail over the joints connecting squares and cylinders of plate. As one of them stopped and signaled his mount to kneel, Hasselborg said:
"Good day to you, sirs; may the stars protect you. I'm Kavir bad-Ma'Ium."
The man who had dismounted exchanged a brief glance with his companion and advanced towards Hasselborg, saying:
"Is that so? What's your rank?"
"I'm an artist."
The man turned his head back over his shoulder and said: "He says he's an artist." He turned back to Hasselborg. "A commoner, eh?"
"Yes." Hasselborg regretted the word as soon as he spoke it. If these birds were going to turn nasty, he should have claimed the rank oigarm—knight—or better.
"A commoner," said the man afoot to his companion. "A fair aya you have."
"Glad you like him."
Although the man smiled, as nearly as Hasselborg could interpret Krishnan expressions the smile was predatory rather than friendly. Sure enough the man's next words were:
"We do indeed. Give him to us."
"What?" Hasselborg instinctively reached for his shoulder holster before remembering that his beloved weapon was not with him.
"Surely," continued the man. "Also your sword and those rings and any money you have. You're well-starred that we let you keep your garments."
"Forget not the carriage," said the mounted man. "He looks strong; he can pull it himself, ha-ha!"
"I'll do nothing of the sort," said Hasselborg. "Who are you two, anyway?"
"Troopers of the dasht's highway patrol. Come now, make us no trouble, or we'll arrest you as a spy."
The mounted man said: "Or kill you for resisting arrest."
Hasselborg thought that even if he gave up his goods, they might kill him anyway to prevent complaints. A firm line might be equally risky, but he had no alternative.
"I wouldn't if I were you. I have an introduction to the dasht from an important Ertsu, and if I disappeared there'd be a terrible howl."
"Let's see it," said the dismounted soldier.
Hasselborg drew the letter out of his wallet and held it up for the soldier's inspection. The latter put out a hand to take it, but Hasselborg jerked it back, saying:
"The address is enough. What do you want the letter for?"
"To open, fool!"
Hasselborg shook his head as he put the letter away. "The dasht likes his letters untampered with, chum."
"Slay him," said the mounted trooper. "He does but try to fool us with talk."
"A good thought," said the man afoot. "Spear him. if he tries to run, Kaikovarr." And the trooper drew sword and dagger and hurled himself upon Hasselborg.
Tumbling backward to get out of range of the wicked blades, Hasselborg got his own sword out just in time to parry a slash. Clang! Clang! So far so good, though the trooper addressed as Kaikovarr was guiding his shomal off the road and around toward Hasselborg's rear.
The dismounted man, finding that Hasselborg could stop his crude swings, changed tactics. He stalked forward, blade out horizontally; then suddenly caught Hasselborg's sword in a prise and whipped it out of his grasp. Out shot the blade again; the soldier's legs worked like steel springs as he hopped forward and threw himself into a lunge. The point struck Hasselborg full in the chest, just over the heart.
IV.
Hasselborg thought he was a dead man, until he realized that his hidden mail shirt had stopped the point and that his foe's blade was bent up into an arc. Then his highly educated reflexes came to his rescue. He braced himself and pushed back against the push of the sword, wrapped his left arm around the blade, and heaved upward. The soldier's sword flew out of his hand, to turn over and over in the air as it fell.
The soldier's mounted companion shouted: "Ao!" but Hasselborg had no time to devote to him. His right hand had been seeking a pocket. As he stepped forward, the dagger in his opponent's left shot out to meet him. Even faster, Hasselborg's own left seized the fellow's wrist and jerked it forward and to the side, so that the soldier took a step that brought him almost body to body.
Then, Hasselborg's right hand came out of his jacket pocket with the knuckle duster. A right hook to the jaw landed with a meaty sound, and the soldier's knees buckled. After another punch, Hasselborg dropped the brass knucks and snatched his own dagger, forgotten till now.
A blow from behind knocked him to his knees over the body of the soldier. That lance! He rolled over, dragging the feebly struggling soldier on top of him, and found the man's neck with the point of the dagger.
The shomal was mincing around as its rider tried to get into position for another lance thrust, which he found difficult now that Hasselborg was using his companion for a shield. Hasselborg yelled:
"Lay off, or I'll slit your pal's throat!"
"Gluck," said the soldier. "He's killing me!"
The mounted man pulled back a pace. Hasselborg got to his knees again, still holding the dagger ready.
"Now what'll I do with you?" he said.
The soldier replied: "Slay me, I suppose, since you dare not let me go."
"I can't." He was thinking of a scheme which, though corny, might work on the naive Krishnans.
"Why not?" The soldier's lugubrious expression and tone brightened at once.
"Because you're the man."
"What mean you?"
"My astrologer told me I'd get into a fight with a guy like you, whose death horoscope was the same as mine. When were you born?"
"Fourth day, eleventh month of the fifty-sixth year of the reign of King Ghojasvant."
"You're it, all right. I can't kill you because that'd mean my own death on the same day, and conversely."
"Mean you that if I slay you I doom myself to death on the same day?" asked the man gravely.
"Exactly. So we'd better call it off; follow me?"
"Right you are, Master Kavir. Let me up."
Hasselborg released him and quickly recovered his own weapons lest the soldiers start more trouble. However, his victim pulled himself up with effort, tenderly rubbing the places where he had been struck.
"You all but broke my jaw with that brass thing," he grumbled. "Let me look at it. Ah, a useful little device. See, Kaikovarr?"
"I see," said the other soldier. "Had we known you wore mail under that coat, Master Kavir, we'd have not wasted our thrusts upon it. 'Twas hardly fair of you."
Hasselborg said: "It's just as well, though, isn't it?
Looks as though we'd have to be friends whether we want to or not, because of that horoscope."
The dismounted soldier said: "That I'll concede, as the unha said to the yeki in the fable." He sheathed his weapons and walked unsteadily to his kneeling shomal. "If we let you go with your goods, you'll make no mention of our little now-difference?"