Working together, Marethyn and Majja managed to half slide, half drag Ba.s.se back to the edge of the ma.s.s grave. Marethyn did not like how much blood he left in the detritus of the forest floor where he had lain.

"Why have we brought him here?" Majja asked, her nose wrinkling with the stink. "There was the pleasant scent of burnt spun sugar back where we were."

"It is already growing cold, and we need a protected spot to keep Ba.s.se as warm as possible through the night." Marethyn was using the lumane to probe the darkness below. "We need to get him down there."

"What, into that stinking pit? You have to be joking!"

"Ba.s.se will die of exposure if we do not keep him warm. Do you have a better idea?"

"In fact, I do," Majja said. "We cover him with this." She scooped up handfuls of the dried needles that carpeted the forest floor. "We use this all the time as roof thatching for temporary shelters. It's good camouflage, better insulation."

Marethyn nodded. "Let's stay near the pit, though, just in case we need to hide from Khagggun patrols."

"All right." Majja began to cover Ba.s.se. "But don't expect me to go down there with you. The place makes my skin crawl." Majja shuddered as the beam of Marethyn's concentrated photonic beam exposed corpse after corpse.

"It can't be that you are afraid of the dead."

"So many Ramahan slaughtered-I'd only heard stories from my parents, whole abbeys of them wiped out. But seeing this with my own eyes . . ." She piled the needles in compact bunches around Ba.s.se. "Tradition says that we cannot touch, cannot even approach a dead Ramahan. The Ramahan prepare their own dead. Sacred prayers must be said to guide their spirits." She shook her head.

"Though I have to tell you that there are some Resistance who would rejoice at the sight of this slaughter."

Marethyn glanced at her.

"Many in the Resistance are converts to Kara. They have turned their backs on the G.o.ddess Miina because She turned Her back on them. They had begun to resent the power of the Ramahan even before your kind came."

Majja wiped her face with her forearm. "He is as well insulated as he can be. But without medical attention I don't know how long he will last." Majja stood up and went to stand beside Marethyn. "They are also healers, you know. Many carry small leather pouches of herbal mixtures used for treating all manner of ailments and wounds. They are very powerful, so I have heard."

Marethyn played the lumane over the grave pit. There were weapons and blood and ripped robes.

"You stay here with Ba.s.se. I have the advantage of having already been down there. I'll see if I can find one of those pouches."

Majja wiped sweat off her forehead. "We're going to need food and water. I'll go forage. With luck I'll be back soon with a brace of gim-nopedes or a fine, fat qwawd."

Marethyn nodded and squeezed her friend's shoulder. It was odd, she thought as she slid down into the grisly pit, how you could feel closer to a member of a different species than to a majority of your own.

Together, they notched out a fallen tree trunk then, lifting it, slid it end first down into the pit.

She watched Majja expertly thread her way through the forest without disturbing a branch or bending a needle, quickly disappearing into the undergrowth. She turned and, wrapping her legs around the treetrunk, climbed down into the fetid pit. The stench was almost overwhelming, and she gagged a little.

Breathing through her mouth, she bent her back, steeled her stomachs, and methodically turned over the corpses one after another. Once, she slipped and fell to her knees. When her lumane illuminated what she had stumbled over, she gave a little cry.

Despite her resolve, she soon grew dizzy at the grisly work. Nothing in her life could have prepared her for death on this scale. The evidence of suffering and agony, the unmitigated horror of it staggered her, and, without realizing it, she was weeping. Biting her lip in concentration, she redoubled her efforts, for she did not think she could remain there much longer. The first pouch she found had burst open, its contents scattered and useless. The second pouch was saturated with blood. But the third, which had been thrown from the Ramahan wearing it when she had been attacked, was lying in a corner, intact and dry. Stuffing it between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Marethyn gratefully returned to the crude ladder and scrambled up.

The light was wan in the indigo forest, grey as the faces of the dead Ramahan.

For some time, she knelt, her back bowed, weeping and breathing in the air that carried the faint aroma of burnt spun sugar. She concentrated on that as if it were a lifeline that drew her slowly away from the h.e.l.lpit below. She felt the soft crush of Marre pine needles against her forehead. She grabbed handfuls as her fists beat softly against the packed earth. She uttered one sob and stopped, abruptly. The silence of the forest was almost stifling, like the atmosphere grown heavy and charged just before a rainstorm. She lifted her head. No birds twittered, no mammals foraged. Save for the almost imperceptible buzz of insects, the swale was utterly still.

Majja. Where was Majja?

She rose and went to check on Ba.s.se. Despite his thick coat of needles, he was shivering. His forehead was hot and clammy when she touched it. He was burning up with fever, doubtless because his wound was becoming infected. If she did not do something immediately, sepsis would kill him.

Brushing aside the needles on his chest, she saw that he had bled right through the impromptu bandage she had fashioned. First, she tore off the lower half of her tunic, then she unwound the filthy, bloodstained cloth. The wound was purple and swollen around the edges. She felt the Ramahan herbal pouch between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and took it out. Opening the drawstring, she smelled the heady, musky odor of herbs and ground mushrooms. She wished Majja were there so that she could ask her advice, but the probability was that she would have no better idea of what was in the pouch or what it was meant for than Marethyn did. But Ramahan were healers, Majja had said so. That was all Marethyn had to go on.

Shaking out a small handful of the powdered herbal mixture, she applied it directly to the wound. Then she rebandaged it with the cloth from her tunic and piled the Marre pine needles over him.

She sat back on her haunches and waited. She was thirsty and hungry and very tired. Putting her back against the bole of a Marre pine, she closed her eyes. Just for a moment, she thought. Just for a moment.

She started awake at a sound, and her ion cannon was out and aimed as Majja appeared. Grinning, she held up a freshly killed qwawd by its feet, shook it in a victory sign. Hearing a soft moan, Marethyn looked down at Ba.s.se. He was pale as moonslight and shaking all over.

She gave a little moan as Ba.s.se began to spasm. She heard Majja running up, felt her kneel beside them.

"What happened?" Majja asked breathlessly.

Marethyn briefly recounted what she had happened. "Oh, Majja, what have I done? Whatever was in those herbs has made him worse, not better."

At precisely the midnight hour of a very long and tiring day, Fleet-Admiral Ardus Pnin returned to his villa from delivering his reluctant grandson Miirlin back to his hingatta. To clear his mind of the questions the child asked of him that he could not answer, he took a stroll around the Kundalan garden he had refused to have torn out when he had taken possession of the villa. It was at the center of the property, at the nexus, one might say, of the villa, for there were walls all around it, but none within the garden itself. Itwas a formal garden, with four rows of smooth-trunked heartwood trees, planted at right angles to one another. They were bisected by paths of green porphyry up and down which he trod. He walked with his square head down, his huge hands clasped behind his back.

He was a big Khagggun, an aged Khagggun, a many-scarred Kha-gggun who had reached a surfeit of war and death, but could not bear to admit it to himself. In the dead of night, he would descend into a recurring dream in which he was lying on a high bed, a veritable mountain composed of the skulls of his enemies. Scrupulously picked clean, the skulls were, yellow-white like candle tallow, smooth as drowned stones. Just before he woke up, he discovered their mouths moving, sharp, curved teeth nipping at him, tearing into his flesh, rending it from sinew and bone.

He awoke so immersed in this dream he had difficulty remembering he was in his well-guarded villa.

His routine from then on was always the same. He would rise and, naked, stare into the night, his mind crowded with the times that he had crunched across battlefield mora.s.ses, blood streaming from a mult.i.tude of wounds, slaughtering as he went. He had been trained to be an efficient killing machine, and that is what he had become. Save that a machine running at peak efficiency does not dream of being rent alive by its victims. It does not have thoughts that question and, therefore, undermine its sole purpose.

Of late, he failed to find solace even in the libidinous arms of his favorite Looorm. When one was drowning in blood it was difficult to get one's tender parts to swell. Only his daughter, Leyytey, could make him feel calm. She was an armorer, a magnificent artisan. Most of his colleagues knew nothing of their female offspring's whereabouts, let alone their trade. But he had kept an eye on her progress and, unbeknownst to her or her mother, had helped finance her training with the finest armorers on Kundala.

Now she had her own atelier and all the top-echelon Khagggun were armed with her creations. It seemed a long time ago that he would visit her in her hingatta.

Truth is, I am getting old, Fleet-Admiral Pnin told himself as he pa.s.sed between the narrow rows of heartwood trees. A breath of air from the south rustled the immature leaves. Truth is, I should step aside and let Iin Mennus have his day in the sun. But he could not; defeat simply was not in him.

Besides, he harbored a deep distrust of Mennus. The Khagggun corps was built on rules and regulations, and for a very good reason. Khagggun were created to follow orders, to be part of a unit, a cog in a colossal wheel that kept rolling forward no matter what terrain or enemies or adversity it encountered. In his experience, Khagggun were uncomfortable when the strict limits within which they had been born and raised were altered or lifted. The limits made them feel safe and secure, they ensured that Khagggun would direct their entire concentration on each mission as it was presented to them. To put it another way, they were bred for the trenches. That was their world. Narrow and restrictive though it might seem to members of other castes, Khagggun themselves found it was where they operated best.

There had been altogether too much turnover at the top. First Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha made a highly political, and, therefore, highly suspect deal to give Khagggun Great Caste status. Now, Iin Mennus, the latest Star-Admiral, had begun to clean out the high command of those against whom he held a personal grudge. As far as Pnin could see, the Khagggun caste was already rotten with questionable politics and personal vendettas. He laid this sorry state of affairs squarely at the feet of the Stogggul family. The moment they had succeeded in murdering Eleusis Ashera and his immediate family, the warrnixx die was cast. Why the Gyrgon would sanction such an action was completely beyond him, but then who could fathom the motives of Gyrgon? Now he saw himself as the last bastion of the old guard, the last sane Admiral in a caste rotted by its taste of ambition and intrigue.

"Such heavy steps," a familiar voice said softly from the shadows. "Surely you will wear away these magnificent porphyry tiles."

Fleet-Admiral Pnin paused in his pacing, his clear-eyed gaze fixed at a spot between two of the largest heartwood trees, where he knew a white marble bench to be.

"Come, Ardus. Sit beside me," the figure said. "For the night is dark, and I am in need of company."

Pnin entered the deeper shadows of the trees, where the villa's fusion lamplight did not penetrate, and settled himself beside the tall, powerfully built figure.

"You all right, Sornnn? Anything I can bring you?"

"Considering our relationship, that is a very odd thing to say.""I hear the pain in your voice."

"The female I love is dead."

Pnin bowed his head. "I am truly sorry. Is there something I can do? There is nothing I can say."

"Thank you, no."

Pnin laced his fingers together. "How swiftly time pa.s.ses, Sornnn. The death of someone close does that, you know, makes you see your life differently. It occurs to me that we have been meeting like this for almost a year."

"A Khagggun and a Bashkir, skulking around like clandestine lovers."

"Castes be d.a.m.ned!" Pnin laughed. "I like to think that when he introduced us Line-General Werrrent knew we would become good friends."

"Werrrent is best forgotten since he was implicated in the aborted plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate the regent."

"Thought highly of you, Sornnn. His hearts were pure."

"He was a traitor."

Pnin sighed. "He was my friend." He shook his head. "The great pity of it is he didn't succeed."

The comment interested Sornnn. As a secret member of the Kun-dalan Resistance he was always on the lookout for potential sympathizers. He simply never considered that it might come from so high a quarter. Though he did not need to remind himself that this particular quarter might not make it to High Summer. It was Pnin's current troubles that had brought him out of himself, had cleared away the mora.s.s of self-pity in which he had wallowing, had returned to him at least a semblance of his old life.

Sornnn watched Pnin out of the corner of his eye with the concern a Genomatekk might have for a patient in critical condition. "I have been hearing rumors . . . Your situation has become untenable, hasn't it, Ardus?"

Pnin nodded. "Fleet-Admiral Hiche, Deck-Admiral Lupaas, Deck-Admiral Whon, my allies in the high command, have been taken into custody by the new Star-Admiral."

"So it is true. The regent has given Iin Mennus the power to do whatever he wishes."

Pnin's voice was very low. "I must a.s.sume the worst. My colleagues are all dead, or they will be shortly."

All at once, he gripped his head in his hands. He bent over, rocking a little. He emitted a string of awkward sounds as drool spilled out of his half-open mouth.

Sornnn dug into a pocket and slipped a handmade pellet, black as mud cake, into the Fleet-Admiral's mouth. He pressed his jaws together, tipped back his head until Pnin swallowed convulsively.

"You have been remiss," Sornnn said. "When was the last time you took the da'ala? A week at least, I warrant." He watched the blood come slowly back into Pnin's face. "Why must you test yourself so?"

"I am Khagggun," Pnin said thickly. "I should need no nostrum, Kun-dalan or otherwise."

Sornnn sighed. "Ah, my friend, what a stubborn caste you belong to. You have a tumor deep inside your brain. You should have long ago gone to a Genomatekk."

"Bah, Genomatekks know nothing." Fleet-Admiral Pnin coughed up part of dinner and spat it out.

"Besides, I would be immediately relieved of active duty if it ever came out."

"Then keep to your twice-a-day regimen. The Korrush spice at least keeps the tumor from growing as well as keeping these seizures under control."

Pnin stared bleakly at the shadows that cloaked the garden, and nodded. "One day soon our meetings will come to an end. It is only a matter of time before Iin Mennus comes after me."

"What will you do?"

Pnin sucked in his cheeks. "That, my friend, is the question." He exhaled. "I must now decide whether I have it in me to fight one more time."

Sornnn was genuinely shocked. "How could it be otherwise?"

Pnin could not help but think of his recurring dream. "I have killed too many times, Sornnn. Standing in an ocean of blood. Perhaps I should get out before I drown."

"You are Khagggun. You cannot escape."

Pnin rubbed his temples. "Possibly Iin Mennus would grant me an honorable death."

"You are fooling yourself. He will revel in denying you just that." And Sornnn told Pnin of theconversation he had overheard between Pack-Commander Dacce and First-Captain Kwenn at Alloy Fist, wherein Dacce had talked of the Mennus brothers' fixation with torture.

"If you surrender to them," he concluded, "they will take even longer in killing you. And the very last thing they will grant you is an honorable death."

"If you are right."

"You know that I am," Sornnn said. "Besides, there is your family to think of."

"What do you know of my daughter?" Pnin said a trifle sharply.

"Only what you have told me, only what I have observed the few times we have met."

"Then you cannot tell me why she still loves the father of her son."

"On the contrary. The explanation is simple."

Pnin hesitated only an instant, then he nodded his a.s.sent.

"She loves him," Sornnn said, "because he reminds her of you."

The Fleet-Admiral started as if he had been p.r.i.c.ked by a sword blade. "If you were anyone else," he growled, "believe me you would be dead by now."

Sornnn sat very still. "I tell you this as a friend, sir, as a friend."

Pnin said nothing for the longest time. He was shaking a little. He tried concentrating on his recurring dream and what it was trying to tell him. He did not want to think of his daughter or of what Sornnn had said about her.

"Please understand that I will help you, Ardus," Sornnn said, "in any way I can."

Pnin's chest felt constricted. He needed to lash out at something, someone, and had to restrain himself.

He willed his body to relax, his breathing to slow. He knew that if Sornnn had not made him take the da'ala he would have had another seizure. "I will need friends like you," he said, "in the days and weeks ahead."

"Not only me."

Pnin's head swung around. "What?"

Ever since Sornnn had overheard Dacce and Kwenn his mind had been calmly and methodically working out how to use his knowledge to its best advantage.

"Dacce is coin-obsessed," he said. "My sense is that he is deeply unhappy in his current position. That can be exploited."