as did we all; but no amount of thinking could compensate for our losses, or dream up a successful defence against future depredations by the demon Nathan. Thus that entire night was a disaster, and no guarantee that things were ever going to get any better.'We went subterranean. Unthinkable, eh - that the Wamphyri should ever flee from a man? From the sun, aye, but not from a single man! - yet such was the case. If we could not build on high, then we must build below, where the stumps of the toppled stacks were riddled with tunnels, caverns, and places which, in the olden times, were only ever fit for bats and beetles.'And despite that our work force was reduced - our flyers, too, and our warriors boiled in their vats - still we had several hundreds of thralls and provisions aplenty.'The thralls were put to work; they cleared the debris from ancient diggings, moved our provisions to safety, and built defensive positions on the surface. New vats of metamorphosis were discovered or dug, into which we sacrificed a third of our manpower, the raw materials of our future flyers and warriors. And we commenced keeping a watch ... can you believe it? The Wamphyri, vigilant against any further sabotage attempts by this mere man! Moreover, it was more rigidly enforced than any watch that our vanished ancestors had ever kept against each other.'But this last was a necessity, for from then on, whenever we raided against the Szgany, we could be sure that retaliation would follow hot on our heels. And Nathan Kiklu - man or ghost or whatever he was - he was everywhere. If we raided in the far western reaches of Sunside, he would soon be there with a party of Lidesci fighters, with "guns," "grenades" and "rockets", setting fire to the wings of our flyers, blinding them with silver shot, and knocking our thralls out of their saddles before they could even touch down! Thus, for every man we recruited in Sunside, one of ours was killed by Nathan and his Szgany soldiers. And every forward step was followed by one to the rear.'East, west, wherever we struck, Nathan and his men could be there in a trice. How? It was beyond us. Moreover, lie would snipe on us from afar, and shoot our thralls dead in their defensive or watchtower positions. Until my master and his colleagues were obliged to devise a new strategy.'Instead of inhabiting just one central area of Starside's olden ruins, now we spread out and stationed men in every shattered stump and heap of rubble. For one thing was certain: whoever or whatever Nathan was, and for all that he could appear almost magically, anywhere, in extremely short order, he couldn't possibly be everywhere at once.' And so we maintained something of our equilibrium, despite that we made little progress ...'One night my master flew out alone. Returning shortly, he complained bitterly that: "This damned Szgany bastard - he has spies in the barrier mountains! Hah! That is how he knows where we will raid: they watch us fly up from the boulder plains, the direction we take, then make report to him. I tracked them with my mentalism - which is how I discovered theirs!"' "What? They are thought-thieves, these men?" Vavara found it hard to believe. "Mentalists?"'Malinari laughed like a madman, and answered, "Even as we are mentalists, aye. So says Malinari the Mind, the greatest of them all. But... they are not men!"' "Not men?" And now Szwart was baffled. "Not men, you say? Then what - trogs?"
'Malinari gave a wild shake of his head and waved his arms in consternation. "Not trogs, no - but dogs!"ht said. "Wolves of the wild that think like men. Stranger still, they call this Nathan uncle! He is their kin!"
' "Then he is a dog-Lord!" said Vavara. "It's the only possible solution. This hated enemy of ours is Wamphyri! He dwells in the mountain heights, rules on Sunside, and keeps the Szgany for himself. His needs are so slight that the tribes suffer him for his protection. I must be right. Nathan is a changeling."
'And Szwart said, "But a dog-Lord? With powers such as he commands? And as for suffering him for his protection - against what? What was there before we came?"'My master threw up his hands,