"Neither do I. They can't have smuggled in that many cartridges. That's why the timber barricades and the ram. They'll probably move up thebarricades to shelter then-foot, or what passes for it, and rush the gates.

They have to take us now, or they won't ever."

Mykel wasn't certain of that, but Dohark had a point.

"Besides, the western seltyrs don't care that much about how many men get killed so long as they get control."

The overcaptain had more of a point there, Mykel reflected.

"You were working on something else earlier," Dohark said quietly, still looking westward through the blackish smoke rising from the burning wagon-ram. The sun, faintly orange from the smoke, was well past midafternoon. "Would it work against a mass attack?"

"It should."

"You'll probably have to use it." Dohark paused. "I only saw cooking oil, you know?"

"That's all you saw, sir. I need to see what I can do."

Dohark nodded, but said nothing as Mykel left the small north guard tower.

Almost a glass passed before the flames died down to embers. The bluecoats remained gathered back in the casaran groves, well out of range.

In the meantime, Mykel had moved his unwieldy device to a point just behind the gap in the north gate. First, he'd had to persuade one of the local squad leaders to move two timber braces and slide back a wagon bed. Then, it had taken three rankers to lift and carry the big barrel over the bracings to get it into position.

The second keg of gunpowder stood behind it.

"Cadmians-to the west wall!" ordered Dohark.

Carefully, Mykel climbed up the bracing behind him. He could see a line of riders outlined against the late-afternoon sun. He made his way down, then wrestled the barrel out the gate and onto its side. Carefully, he rolled it around the embers and charred wood of the wagon-ram and back onto the road.He could hear hoofs, even feel them through the stones, by the time he had the barrel in place a good twenty yards out from the wall. He would have liked to have moved it out farther, but didn't know that he'd be able to get everything to work if he did.

Then he ran back to the gate and grabbed the keg of power, lugging it back to the adapted barrel. Once he was behind the big barrel, he poured almost half the ancient powder into a pile and set the keg in the middle of the powder. Then he sprinted for the gate and squeezed through. As soon as he did, the rankers pushed the wagon bed back into place and began to rewedge braces into position.

Mykel stood there for a moment, panting, before he scrambled back up the steps to the wall. He was sweating, both from the heat, the exertion, and from thinking about what could have happened to him had anything gone wrong with his device. '

The rebel bluecoats were pouring toward the compound. Even some of the greencoats from the east had circled around to join the attack.

"Open fire!" ordered Dohark.

Mykel picked out one of the riders in the fore and fired. The bluecoat went down, slowing those behind him. Mykel fired again, and again. By then the bluecoats were within a hundred yards of the barrel, but as a result of the heavy fire from the compound, they had condensed into a more compact mass.

Mykel reloaded quickly, waiting until the bluecoats were almost upon the ancient barrel, sitting in the middle of the approach causeway to the compound.

Finally, he aimed at the powder around the base of the keg-and fired.

The barrel and the keg sat, there, with the rebels almost upon them. He fired again. Still nothing. The third time he fired, he willed the bullet home, willed it with power and heat.

After that shot, Mykel ducked, not even knowing whether it hit, but knowing something was about to happen.

CRUMMPTTT! Before his head was fully behind the merlon, the entire west wall of the compound shook, and fragments flew above and againstthe wall. Then, pattering sounds like rain followed as bits of things dropped onto the stones.

Mykel slowly peered around the stone edge. A circle almost fifty yards across had been carved out of the rebels, bodies and sections of bodies lay strewn everywhere. Beyond that, mounts were rearing, many riderless.

Mykel swallowed, hard, then ordered, "Full fire! Cadmi-ans! Full fire."

More rebels dropped.

The bluecoats and greencoats began to turn, riding in almost every direction.

"Fifteenth Company! To mounts! To mounts!" Mykel scrambled down the steps and raced toward the area north of the south wall, where the mounts were supposed to be lined up and waiting.

They were.

Then he had to wait for his men.

When he finally rode toward the east gate-a good fifth of a glass later-he only had about two-thirds of Fifteenth Company, but he didn't want to wait any longer.

The east gates did open, but they shut quickly.

Mykel led Fifteenth Company across the flat north of the compound, flanking the timber barricades, until he saw that they had been abandoned.

A squad of bluecoats turned, as if to form up, but when they saw that they faced a larger force, several riders on the ends turned their mounts.

Mykel rode straight for the squad leader, his sabre out and ready.

The squad leader tried to lift his rifle.

Mykel dropped almost flat against the chestnut's neck for a moment, then swept in from the right. His sabre cut was awkward-but effective enough that blood welled across the other's arm, and his rifle dropped onto the ground. Mykel kept riding, turning toward the bluecoat in thesecond rank, who half raised his sabre. Mykel's momentum slammed his weapon aside.

In moments, there was a melee, but within a fraction of a glass, half the rebels were down, and the others were scattering. Fifteenth Company had gone through them like a newly sharpened sabre through rotten cheese, leaving a half score dead.

Ahead, Mykel saw another formation in one of the few small meadows on the south side of the road. He sheathed the sabre, more slowly than he would have liked, and called back, "Fifteenth Company! Ready for firing line!"

The rebels had grouped into a tight formation and drawn blades, clearly awaiting a sabre charge.

"Fifteenth Company! Firing line and halt!"

Mykel almost couldn't believe what he saw, with the rebels standing flat, but he wasn't in the mood to be forgiving or charitable, not after poisonings, battering rams, and ambushes.

He reined up and slipped out his rifle, aiming at the squad leader.

"Open fire!"

By the time Fifteenth Company had emptied its maga-zines at a distance of less than fifty yards, at least a third of the rebels were down.

"Sabres ready! Forward!"

Several of the rebels tried to fight-not well. The others tried to flee, and a number were cut down from behind.

Less than a glass later, short of the river bridge, Mykel turned Fifteenth Company back. His sabre was bloody, as was his uniform.

As they rode slowly back to the compound through the growing twilight, Mykel saw bodies everywhere. He could smell blood and burned flesh, and already the flies and nightwasps were circling in on the ground around the compound.

He wouldn't have been surprised if a third of the rebels had died. Withthose wounded, and those deserting, the sel-tyrs could have lost half their forces.

The east gates opened just long enough to readmit Fifteenth Company, then closed with a dull thud.

Dohark was waiting at the stables.

"Wasn't that taking a risk?" he asked after Mykel dismounted.

"The whole day was a risk," Mykel replied, adding, after a moment, "sir." He took a deep breath. "I thought they'd be disorganized. They were.

We probably killed off another company or so."

"Do you think they'll be back?"

"Not soon. It'll take them a few days, maybe even several weeks, to regroup. After the men rest, I'd suggest harassing them more, picking off stragglers and anyone else we can."

"You've got the only force that can do that."

"Is that an approval?"

"We'll talk about it tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

"The colonel might want to know why you helped the rebels blow apart the gate," said Dohark. "When he returns."

"He might." Mykel shrugged. "I was trying to use some owder to spread the burning oil to burn up their ram. hings got out of hand."

"You could put it that way," Dohark said. "I'm report-lg that the kitchen oil that you used to set the ram afire xploded."

"That's also true, sir."

"That's the way it is. That powder... it must have been lisplaced when the rebel sympathizers took the rifles last ear."

"Yes, sir.""There's one other thing, Mykel."

"Yes?"

"How in the Anvils of Hel did you get that stuff to ex-lode? It's frigging near impossible to get powder to burn >y shooting it with a bullet."

Mykel managed to keep from looking blankly at Dohark. 'I guess I was just lucky. I don't have any other explanation."

"Too much luck is as bad as too little, at times."

"I suppose so."

"After you get your men settled, get some rations and est." Dohark nodded and walked into the dusk.

Why wasn't Dohark all that pleased with a battle that had urned a sure disaster into something better, with a chance :o wipe out the rebels in the weeks ahead? What was it ibout command that turned officers into men more concerned about what methods were used than about winning with the fewest losses? He stifled a yawn. He'd worry about that later.

"Bhoral? Make sure that they groom their mounts and clean their weapons. Tonight."

"Yes, sir."

Mykel led the chestnut toward his stall. He had to take care of those chores himself, or before long, men would ask why he issued orders he didn't follow. He couldn't have that. Not the way things were going.

84.

Marshal Shastylt never did return to headquarters on Quinti, and Dainyl finally left, much later than he would have liked, after confirming arrangements with Quelyt and Falyna for an early flight on Sexdi.

He and Lystrana ate quietly, and did not say much of great import throughout the meal. Once the girls had finished with the cleanup and had settled themselves for the evening, Dainyl and Lystrana retired to their bedchamber. Each brought a goblet of the golden brandy.Dainyl sat on a tall padded stool, sipping his brandy and watching as Lystrana, wearing a pale gold dressing gown, brushed her shimmering black hair. Each stroke was smooth, efficient, yet subtly sensual.

Nevertheless, he could not totally concentrate on her, beautiful as she was, close as she was.

"Something's bothering you. I can feel it."

"You always can." He laughed softly.

"Tell me." Her voice was gentle.

"I don't understand," he said quietly.

"Understand what?"

"I'm convinced the marshal and the Highest fomented this revolt in Dramur, and, now, they want me to put it down quickly. There wasn't any urgency before, and now there is."

"Too many things have gotten out of hand," she suggested.

"Why now? Because we're approaching the time when a - decision has to be made on the master scepter?" He shook his head.

"The landers and indigens know nothing about that. There are few of them who even have a trace of Talent.

How could they know?"

"My Highest mentioned that there had been a wild Talent in Hyalt, but I've never sensed that in any lander. Do you think any of them really does?

Or was that another situation that got out of hand, and the marshal claimed that it was caused by a wild Talent?"

"Either is possible," mused Dainyl.

"Do you really think so?" She laid down the brush and turned.