By the nearness or the distance of the noise of combat we could tell how went the fray. And soon it was clear the Esztercaris were smashing back the men of Eward. Our allies in the Houses aligned with us and contracted to keep in play the Ponthieu and the others of their enemies. It was between Esztercari and Eward. The Houses varied in numbers of population and a Great House, whether Noble or Lay, might contain as many as forty thousand persons. Because of the practice of hiring guards, mercenaries, either men or half-men or half-beasts the actual numbers of fighting men available to a House was more than a normal breakdown of population would yield. We had estimated there would be about twenty thousand fighting men against whom we must strike in the Esztercari House. I had told Hap Loder he must leave ten thousand of our clansmen with the tents and wagons and chunkrah. If we failed and disaster overtook us, the clans must have a cadre on which to build afresh. Hap was bringing about ten thousand warriors.
“They have struck too soon,” Gloag was saying from where he lay at my side in the rain. “Where are the clansmen?”
Through the veils of rain we stared down the canal until our eyes stung.
Was that a wherry? Shadows moved through the rain as it hissed into the water. Gray shapes, moving vaguely, like pack mastodons, through the mist-veils? The suns were up now and trying to strike through the sodden cloud masses. Was that a harder shape, a long broad shape in the water, with the figures of men like ants poling it along? I stared-and-
“Time!” I said, and stood up and took my sword.
Without a second glance for the first wherry, which now showed its blunt snout over the rippled water, I led my men through the postern to the conduit and, clad in our slave gray, we hurried up the winding stair. The Chulik guards had split, half remained at their posts, the other half had gone to repel the rooftop attack. We cut them down instantly.
Then we flung our shoulders to the windlass and gradually the deadweight of the portcullis over the entrance canal lifted. We strained and struggled and puffed. Through an arrow slit I could look down from the masonry onto the mouth of the canal. The portcullis rose, dripping. And the snout of the wherry ghosted under it, heading into the Esztercari fortress, and in the bows, standing with bow in hand, was Hap Loder. Cheekily, he looked up, and waved.
We left the windlass dogged so that all the remaining wherries Nath had arranged to steal from the marble quarries and which had been packed overnight with clansmen could pass. Then we hurried through ways known to Gloag, down dim corridors and flang-infested crannies, until we reached the slaves’ cess-pit door. We flung it open, cutting down the Och guards, let in Hap and my men. Other clansmen led by Rov Kovno branched away at once. Loku would be bringing his men in through the postern conduit opening we had used. Now my clansmen were loose within the fortress of the Esztercari!
Once my men had solid roofs above their heads they dried their hands and then brought out the carefully coiled bowstrings from their waterproof pouches, strung their bows with quick practiced jerks. Their plains-capes were thrown off with the rain slick and shining upon them. The feathers of their arrows bristled from the quivers over their right shoulders, dry and perfect. We went hunting emerald green.
I believe I do not want, at this time, to dwell on the taking of the Esztercari enclave. We killed the enemy, of course; we drove them in a wave of shafts and steel from wall to wall and corner to corner; we linked hands with the exultant ranks of men in powder blue; but we sought to win the victory and not just simply to kill. Where that was necessary we did so, for that is the nature of warfare. But hundreds of emerald green sets of clothing floated in the canals as the mercenaries fled, and gray tunics with the green bands, and we did not pursue. We did not set flame anywhere, for I had told my men that this great House was the home of a noble lady, Shusha of Strombor.
I wore my old scarlet breechclout; and over it the brave scarlet gear of Strombor, as I had promised Shusha. Like my clansmen I did not disdain the wearing of armor, and had strapped on a breast and back, a pauldron over my left shoulder, and arm and wrist bands on my left arm. But my right arm and shoulder were naked, as they had been when I hunted in my Savanti leathers. In the press the blow that kills comes so often unseen, from the blind side, from the back. Armor can save a man’s life then. It saved mine.
The final stand was made around the noble quarters in the opal palace.
I raged through that old fighting ground where I had defended Natema, my clan ax biting into skulls and lopping arms. Now it was the nobles of Esztercari we faced. The corridor now presented the same problems. Two by two we fought. I knew everywhere else was in our hands. I leaped forward and hacked down a noble and my ax split along its sturm-wood handle so that the leather thongs sprang spiraling out. Galna, he of the white face and mean eyes, roared hugely and lunged with his glinting rapier. I dodged aside. For a moment, we stood in a cleared space, our men at our backs. There sometimes falls in battle a strange kind of hush as all the combatants pause to take breath and renew their strength before continuing. Such a hush fell now as Galna stalked me. One of my men, it was Loku, shouted and hurled an ax. I took the handle in my fist as it sailed through the air.
Galna smiled toothily. “My rapier will spit you, Dray Prescot, before you can lift that ax.”
He was the Champion of Esztercari. A master swordsman.
“I know,” I said, wasting breath, and turned, and smashed that gorgeous jar of Pandahem porcelain into a thousand shards. From the wrecked interior of the vase I snatched the mailed man’s rapier I had hidden there at the close of that epic fight, and swung up, and stood, facing Galna. I know now my face must have daunted him. But he faced me bravely, his blade a living streak of light in the lanternglow. Our blades crossed. He was very good. But I live and he is dead, dead and gone these many years. He fought well and with great cunning; but I took him with a simple developed attack against which his return faltered at the last instant; my dagger twisted his blade and then my brand passed between his ribs and through his lungs and protruded all blood-smeared beyond.
No further resistance was offered as my wolves of the plains surged forward.
We stood in the Great Hall beneath that wonderful ceiling with the lamplight and the torches adding to the crimson and topaz glory of the suns’ light through the tall windows. My men crowded about me, their russet clan leathers grim beside the powder blue and, even, beside the Strombor scarlet I wore. Their swords and axes lifted high, in salute.
“Hai, Jikai!” they roared.
A figure in emerald green, lost and drowned now in the surge of newer colors, was flung forward to the foot of the steps of the dais on which we stood. Wanek, Varden, great nobles of Eward, and my Jiktars, crowded the dais. We looked down on that crumpled figure in emerald green, with the rosy limbs and white body, the corn-yellow hair.
The Princess Natema of Esztercari lay there, at our feet. Someone had loaded her with chains. Her gown was ripped. Her cornflower blue eyes were wild with baffled fury; she could not comprehend what had happened, or, believing, refused. Prince Varden, at my side, started to rush down the steps. I held him back.