"Do as you are told, abomination, or I'll leave you to rot in that cage."

Two tiny dots of light blinked malevolently from the shadows behind the bars. Two minuscule clawed hands gripped them and shook the metal.

"I know you. You are too old. Soon you will be carrion for Goleg."

"Summon your master."

The two lights dimmed. There was a momentary quiet, broken only by the camp noises outside, the neighing of horses in the cavalry lines. Shahr Baraz sat as if graven in stone.

At last a deep voice said: "Well, General?"

"I must make my report, Orkh. Relay me to the Sultan."

"Good tidings, I trust."

"That is for him to judge."

"Did the a.s.sault fail, then?"

"It failed. I would speak to my ruler. No doubt you will be able to eavesdrop."

"Indeed. My little creatures all answer to me-but you and Aurungzeb know that, of course." Another pause. "He is busy with one of his new concubines, the raven-haired Ramusian beauty. Ah, she is exquisite. I envy him. Here he is, my Khedive. The luck of the Prophet be with you."

And with that mild blasphemy, Orkh's voice died. Aurungzeb's impatient tones echoed through the tent in its place.

"Shahr Baraz, my Khedive! General of generals! I am afire. Tell me quickly. What happened?"

"The a.s.sault failed, Majesty."

"What? How? How did this happen?"

The old soldier seemed to stiffen in his chair, as though antic.i.p.ating a blow.

"The attack was hasty, ill-judged and ill-prepared. We took the eastern barbican of the fortress, but it was mined and I lost two thousand men when the Ramusians touched it off. The river, also, was flowingtoo fast for our boats to make a swift crossing. They were cut to pieces whilst still in the water. Those who made it to the western bank died under the muzzles of Torunnan guns."

"How many?"

"We lost some six thousand of the Hraibadar-half of those who remained-and another five thousand of the levy."

"And the-the enemy?"

"I doubt he lost more than a thousand."

The Sultan's voice, when it came again, had changed; the shock had gone and it was as hard as Thurian granite.

"You said the attack was ill-judged. Explain yourself."

"Majesty, if you will remember, I did not want to make this a.s.sault. I asked you for more time, time to throw up siegeworks, to look over our options more thoroughly-"

"Time! You have had time. You dawdled in Aekir for weeks. You would have done the same here had I not enjoined you to hasten. This is a paltry place. You said yourself the garrison is less than twenty thousand strong. This is not Aekir, Shahr Baraz. The army should be able to roll over it like an elephant stepping on a frog."

"It is the strongest fortification I have ever seen, including the walls of Aekir," Shahr Baraz said. "I cannot throw my army at it as if it were the log hut of some bandit chieftain. This campaign could prove as difficult as the last-"

"It could if the famed Khedive of my army-my army, General-has lost his zest for campaigning."

Baraz's face hardened. "I attacked on your orders, and against my own judgement. That mistake has cost us eleven thousand men dead or too maimed ever to fight again. I will not repeat that mistake."

"How dare you speak to me thus? I am your Sultan, old man. You will obey me or I will find someone else who will."

"So be it, my Sultan. But I will be a party to no more amateur strategy. You can either replace me or leave me to conduct this campaign unhindered. Yours is the choice, and the responsibility."

A long silence. The homunculus' eyes blinked in the shadow of its cage. Shahr Baraz was impa.s.sive. I am too old for diplomacy, he thought. I will end what I have always been-a soldier. But I will not see my men slaughtered in my name. Let them know who ordered the attack. Let them see how their Sultan values their lives.

"My friend," Aurungzeb said finally, and his voice was as smooth as melted chocolate. "We have both spoken hastily. Our concern for the men and our country does us credit, but it leads us into pa.s.sionate utterances which might later be re-gretted."

"I agree, Majesty."

"So I will give you another opportunity to prove your loyalty to my house, a loyalty which has never faltered since the days of my grandsire. You will renew the attack on Ormann d.y.k.e at once, and with all the forces at your disposal. You will overwhelm the d.y.k.e and then push on south to the Torunnancapital."

"I regret that I cannot comply with your wishes, Majesty."

"Wishes? Who is talking about wishes? You will obey my orders, old man."

"I regret that I cannot."

"And why not?"

"Because to do so would wreck this army from top to bottom, and I will not permit that."

"Eyes of the Prophet! Will you defy me?"

"Yes, Majesty."

"Consider yourself my Khedive no longer, then. As the Lord of Victories rules in Paradise, I have suffered your ancient insolence for the last time! Hand over your command to Mughal. He can expect orders from me in writing-and a new Khedive!"

"And I, Majesty?"

"You? Consider yourself under arrest, Shahr Baraz. You will await the arrival of my officers from Orkhan."

"Is that all?"

"By the Lord of Battles, yes-that is all!"

"Fare thee well then, Majesty," Shahr Baraz said calmly. He stood, lifted the cage with its monstrous occupant, and then dashed it to the ground. The homunculus screamed, and in its scream Shahr Baraz heard the agony of Orkh, its sorcerous master. Smiling grimly, he stamped his booted foot on the structure, crunching metal and bone in a mora.s.s of ichor and foul-stinking flesh. Then he clapped his hands for his attendants.

"Take this abomination away and burn it," he said, and they flinched from the fire in his eyes.

TWENTY-ONE.

I T was a scream that brought Murad bolt upright in his hanging cot. He remained stock-still, listening.

Nothing but the creak of the ship's timbers, the lap of the water against the hull, the tiny thumps and slaps that were part of being at sea. Nothing.

A dream. He relaxed, lying down again. The girl had disappeared as she always did, and she had left him with a hideous dream-as she always did. The same dream. He preferred to put it out of his mind.

But could not. She was a witch, that was clear-otherwise she would not be a pa.s.senger aboard this ship. Maybe she was the man Bardolin's apprentice. He was a wizard of sorts. No doubt she was putting a black spell on him, perhaps ensnaring him with some kind of love magic.

But he doubted it. Their love-making was too real, too solid and genuine to be the product of any spell. It was almost as though she had been dry tinder waiting for a spark. She came to life in his arms, and their coupling was like a nightly battle, a duel for mastery. He had her mastered, he was sure of that. Smiling up at the deckhead he relived the satisfaction of plunging into her and feeling her body heave up in answer. She was a delightful little animal. He would find a position for her when the colony wasestablished, keep her by him. He could never marry her-the idea was absurd enough to make him chuckle aloud-but he would see her decently provided for.

He must keep her. He needed her. He craved that nightly battle, and wondered sometimes if any other woman would interest him again.

Why did she always leave just before the dawn? And that old man-what was she to him? Not a lover, surely.

His mouth tightened and he clenched his fists on the coverlet.

She is mine, he thought. I will allow her to have no others. I must keep her.

But the dreams: they came every night, and every night they were the same. That suffocating heat, the weight and p.r.i.c.kling fur of the beast on top of him. Those eyes regarding him with unblinking malevolence. What could it mean?

He was always tired these days, always weary. He had been a fool to put down the Inceptine like that-the man would have to die now. He was too powerful an enemy. Abeleyn would see the necessity of it.

He rubbed the dark orbits of his eyes, feeling as though he could never entirely grind the tiredness out of them. He wanted her here, warm and writhing in his arms. For a second the intensity of that desire unnerved him.

He sat up again. There was something strange about the ship, something he had to consider for a moment before realizing. Then it struck him.

The carrack was no longer moving.

He leapt from the hanging cot so that it swung and banged against the bulkhead, pulled on his clothes hurriedly and grabbed the rapier with its baldric. As he reached the door, it was knocked on loudly. He yanked it open to find the ship's boy, Mateo, standing there with a white face.

"Captain Hawkwood's compliments, sir, and he asks would you join him in the hold? There is something you ought to see."

"What is it? Why have we stopped moving?"

"He said to . . . You have to see, sir." The boy looked as though he was about to be sick.

"Lead on then, d.a.m.n you. It had better be important."

T HE whole ship was astir, the pa.s.sengers milling on the gundeck and soldiers posted at every hatch and companionway with their slow-match lit and swords drawn. In their journey into the bowels of the carrack Murad ran into a prowling Sergeant Mensurado.

"Sergeant, by whose orders are these sentries posted?"

"Ensign Sequero, sir. He's down in the hold. We've orders to let none but the ship's officers pa.s.s."

Murad was about to ask him what had happened, but that would reflect poorly on his own grasp of the situation. He merely nodded and said, "Carry on, then," and followed Mateo down the dark hatches towards the hold.Some water washing about among the high stacks of casks and crates and sacks. Rats skipping underfoot. It was pitch black but for the small hand lantern Mateo carried, but as they came through one of the compartment bulkheads Murad saw another clot of light flickering ahead and men gathered in a knot within its radiance.

"Lord Murad," Hawkwood said, straightening from a crouch. Sequero was there, and di Souza, and the injured first mate, Billerand, his arm strapped to his side and his face puffed with pain.

They drew back, and he saw the shape lying in the water, the dark gleam of blood and viscera, the limbs contorted beyond life.

"Who is it?"

"Pernicus. Billerand found him half a gla.s.s ago."

"I was mooching around," the mustachioed first mate said, "checking the cargo. It's all I'm up to these days."

Murad knelt and examined the corpse. Pernicus' eyes were wide open, the mouth agape in a last scream.

Had he heard it? Or had that been part of his dream?

The man's neck had been almost entirely bitten through; Murad could see the clammy tube of the windpipe, the ragged ends of arteries, a white-shard of vertebra.

Lower down the intestines had spilled out like a coil of greasy rope. There were chunks missing from the body. The marks of teeth were plain to see.

"Sweet Ramusio!" Murad whispered. "What did this?"

"A beast of some kind," Hawkwood said firmly. "Something came down here in the middle watch-one of the crew thought he glimpsed it. Pernicus liked to work his magic from the hold because it was more peaceful than the gundeck or the waist. It came down here after him."

"Did the man say what it was like?" Murad asked.

"Big and black. That's all he could say. He thought he had imagined it. There is nothing like that aboard the ship."

A dream or nightmare of a great, black-furred weight atop him. Could it have been real?

Murad mastered his confusion and straightened up out of the foul water.

"Is it still aboard, do you think?"

"I don't know. I want a thorough search of the ship. If whatever did this is on board, we'll find it and kill it."

Murad remembered the log of the Cartigellan Faulcon. It could not be. The same thing could not be happening again. Such things were not possible.

"I have sent for the mage, Bardolin. He may be able to enlighten us," Hawkwood added.

"Do the pa.s.sengers know what has happened?""They know Pernicus is dead. I could not stop that from leaking out, what with the loss of the wind, and all. But they don't know the manner of his death."

"Keep it that way. We don't want a panic on board."

The four of them stood round the corpse in silence for a moment. It occurred to all of them in the same instant that the beast could be here with them now, lurking among the shadows. Di Souza was shifting uneasily, his drawn sword winking in the lantern light.

"Someone's coming," he said. Another globe of light was approaching and two men were clambering over the cargo towards them.

"That's far enough, Masudi!" Hawkwood called. "Go back. Bardolin, you come forward alone."