David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"There may be people just that innocent," Chalcus said, his sword and dagger drawn. "What would an old pirate know of basic goodness, eh? And I surely grant they might not know what their friend the cat-"

Ilna was watching the pattern a juniper's branches wove as the breeze ruffled them. "Now, I think," she said.

As she spoke the cat pounced from an outcrop three man-lengths ahead, unseen to the instant it moved. Its forelegs were flared, and its silver-gray claws were each the length of a man's fingers.

She saw Davus move from the corner of her eye, but the lump of quartz was only a flicker. The sound of stone hitting bone was like a sledge on timber. The cat convulsed with a squall like nothing of flesh and blood. It'd been leaping for Chalcus. Momentum carried it toward the sailor, but it doubled up and pawed at its shattered left eyesocket.

Chalcus dodged, slipping the curved sword in and out. His steel lifted a fluff of mottled fur from the thing's throat and then a spurt of blood.

The cat struck the ground and got its feet under it, twisting its body to the right like an eel. The scorpion tail snapped forward like a catapult releasing.

Ilna's noose settled about the stinger and drew taut. The force of the cat's stroke jerked her off her feet, but the needle tip ejected its yellow poison into the air instead of Chalcus' throat. He thrust again, this time piercing the creature's right eye.

"Get clear!" Chalcus shouted, glancing to see where Ilna was. "It'll bleed out, I swear on my hopes of dying in a bed!"

The blinded cat sprang toward the sound of his voice. Chalcus had made a flat-footed jump downslope that put a thigh-thick treebole between him and the cat. Ilna let go of her end of the lasso-it was good for nothing now but to lead the beast toward her-and rolled in the opposite direction.

The cat's hearing must've been demonically good, because it twisted again, this time toward the scrunch of the coarse soil under her hips. Bright blood from the slit in its neck spurted farther than a man could reach.

Chalcus cried out, lunging toward the creature behind the point of his outstretched sword. He needn't have worried: a second rock smacked the cat between the ruined eyesockets, crushing the skull.

The missile ricocheted high in the air, its white quartz surface flecked with blood. The cat went suddenly limp. It slithered downslope a few feet, dead and as harmless as a rug.

"I think we should leave this place quickly," said Chalcus. The quaver in his voice was mainly from the deep breaths he was dragging into his lungs.

"A moment," said Ilna, gasping also. She rested on all fours, keeping the pressure off her chest and diaphragm so that nothing hindered her breathing. "I don't want to leave my noose, but I think I'll wait a trifle before I retrieve it."

Though the monster was dead beyond question, its jointed tail moved spasmodically. Every time it jerked forward, the hooked sting spurted another firkin of venom.

"Yes," said Chalcus softly. "I'd say I owe that rope my life; which I'd laugh at if I had my breath, for I never thought I'd find a noose my friend."

And they all three gasped with laughter, at the joke and with a touch of madness as well.

"Duzi!" said Garric as he caught his first sight of the Temple of the Shepherd Who Overwhelms. "I've never seen a temple so big!"

"In most cities the priesthoods of the Lady and the Shepherd are rivals," Liane said as she walked at his side. Garric had insisted she accompany him, for her knowledge-as now-as well as for the calm her presence brought him. "Here in Erdin, worship and wealth go almost entirely to the Shepherd. The Lady's only temple is on the waterfront for travellers from other islands."

The flight of ten broad steps to the plinth on which the temple stood was on a scale with the building itself, far too high for a man to walk. Squads of trumpeters in priestly robes stood on the ends of each step. They began to call as Garric, Liane and their guards approached. The notes rose because the instruments shortened by a hand's breadth at each stage.

Spectators filled the plaza and the buildings surrounding it. It wasn't a happy crowd like those which'd greeted Garric in Valles and Carcosa, but it was at least grudgingly respectful. Many in Erdin might think-or at least say-that their city was greater than Valles and by rights should rule the Isles, but in their hearts they were impressed that the Prince of Haft had dared to come to them.

"Aye, and they're impressed by the size of the fleet and army billeted on Volita," growled the image of King Carus. "Don't think you'd get this peaceful a reception if that weren't in the minds of everybody with brains enough to pull on his tunic right-side to."

Garric grinned. That was probably so, but it was acceptable. The people of Sandrakkan would learn in good time the advantages of being part of a unified kingdom standing against massed Evil. For now, all that mattered was that they acquiesced.

The Blood Eagles marched in two sections, ahead of and behind Garric. There were fewer than two hundred men present because of losses in recent fighting, men detached for duty in Ornifal with Sharina and Valence, and the fact that Attaper hadn't had leisure to train volunteers from the line regiments to his exacting standards.

That therewere volunteers-more than enough to bring the Blood Eagles to peacetime strength of five hundred-was a mystery Garric still couldn't fathom. Everyone in the Royal Army had seen how extremely dangerous it was to guard a prince who led from the front in the fiercest battles the Isles had known for a thousand years. Nonetheless many of them begged for a chance to wear the black armor.

In his mind, Carus chuckled. "Aye, lad," he said. "And you could be back in Valles running the government while folk like Waldron and Attaper lead the armies, not so? But you wouldn't be kin to me if you were."

From a distance the actual stairs up to the temple looked like a narrow line separating the two halves of the stepped base, but in reality they were twenty feet wide. The altar was on the broad plinth in front of the building rather than inside. The small fire on it sent a trail of smoke into the sky.

Lady Lelor and two male assistants waited at one side in full regalia, including jewel-encrusted shepherd's crooks. Across the ornately carved altar from her stood Lord, soon to be formally Earl, Wildulf and his wife. The plaza behind them, all the way back to the temple facade, was crowded with Sandrakkan nobles wearing elaborate costumes.

"Only about two-thirds of the nobility is present," Liane said. She was speaking in a louder than normal voice, though her words were for Garric alone. It required a near shout to be heard over the vast crowd, even in the intervals between trumpet calls. "Some are ill, but a number of the most powerful have retired to their estates to see what happens."

"But Wildulf called a levy of all his forces in case it came to a fight, didn't he?" Garric said in puzzlement.

"Yes, he did," Liane agreed with prim amusement. "And some of his vassals are just as unhappy with his rule as Bolor seems to be with yours, your highness."

Garric chuckled at his own naivete. It was easy to assume that the other fellow didn't have the same sort of problems that you did. Wildulf had had to fight for his throne after the Stone Wall. Ofcourse -now that Garric thought about it-there were going to be powerful people who'd be pleased if Wildulf lost power and his head along with it, even if it took an army from Ornifal to bring the change to pass.

The trumpets blew a final call, all of them together, as Garric and Liane reached the last flight of steps to the plinth. Liane wasn't panting-Garric couldn't imagine her doing something so unladylike-but her face was set in a fashion that indicated she wasn't happy about the situation.