motley spread of perhaps eight hundred drably clothed warriors, clustered around tribal banners woven in bright colours and embellished with the cured tails of kurek, an animal resembling a fox. Kevin looked on them and felt the skin of his arms crawl with gooseflesh. While the warriors of the Acoma and the s Xacatecas formed ranks and readied weapons, he retied the laces on his light, Midkemian-style brigandine and hung close by Mara's litter. There Lujan, Lord Xacatecas, Moxtl, the cho-ja Force Commander, and Envedi, who commanded the Xacatecas army, held conference. They would attack the ragtag force of tribesmen; their honour required it, as performance of their duty as guardians of the Empire's southern border. Kevin wished Tsurani custom allowed a slave to bear weapons; for that this army prepared for disaster he had not the smallest doubt.
'I will lead my two companies into the valley and attack in a frontal charge,' Lord Xacatecas rumbled in his bass voice.
'If the barbarians break and flee before us, your cho-ja company can flank and engage from the rear, and cut them off. If the desert men do not run, then Xacatecas will send a great offering to Turakamu.'
Mara inclined her head. 'As you wish,' she intoned formally. Although Lujan would have preferred to send in a mixed company of Acoma and Xacatecas warriors, Lord Chipino had social seniority. His were the more experienced officers, and Mara had made it clear that she desired alliance, not rivalry, between her house and that of Xacatecas. To contend over war honours and protocol would not be to Acoma advantage.
The sun climbed toward noon, and the shadows shrank beneath the rocks. The army of Lord Xacatecas formed up into battle array and aligned itself for the charge. Mara set observers upon the crests of the escarpments on either side and arranged messenger runners to carry dispatches. The air was still, the silence complete; Kevin stood sweating at Mara's shoulder, almost wishing for the scrape of chitinous shell that the cho-ja made while whetting their bladelike forelimbs to a razor-sharpness for killing. His teeth were on edge anyway, and the sound would have justified the discomfort. Then the horns sounded, and the Xacatecas Force Commander signalled the charge. In a wave, the warriors in yellow and purple broke into a run toward the valley.
Kevin shivered before a horrible, gut-wringing premonition that disaster was about to overtake them.
'Lady,' he said hoarsely, 'Lady, listen to me. There is something I desperately need to tell you.'
Wholly engaged with watching the army that descended at a run toward the hardpan, and the screaming, ragged ranks of desert men who surged yipping to meet it, Mara glanced barely in Kevin's direction. 'Let it wait,' she snapped. 'I'll hear you after the battle.'
Chapter 10 Snares
The army charged.
From a niche in a cleft of rock behind the desert men's lines, Tasaio licked his teeth. good, good,' he murmured gently. 'At last we have the Lord of the Xacatecas precisely where we want him.'
The Strike Leader at Tasaio's shoulder restrained an urge to scratch an itch beneath his armour. 'Do you wish our offensive to begin now, sir?'
Tasaio's cat-yellow eyes blinked once. 'Fool,' he said, with no change of tone, but the Strike Leader squirmed back. 'We do not attack now, but when Lord Xacatecas has fully engaged his troops and is absorbed with the slaughter of tribesmen.'
The Strike Leader swallowed. 'Sir, that is not what you told their chiefs in last night's council.'
Tasaio lounged back, his hair like dark copper against his cheek, a fine stubble showing just in front of his ear where his helm strap had worn the growth short. 'Of course not,'
he said in the same velvet tone. 'The tribes would hardly have committed their people to a battle to the death, the slinking cowards.'
The Strike Leader of the Minwanabi tightened his lips and said nothing. Tasaio laughed brightly. 'You think I have acted dishonourably?'
'Uh, of course not, sir,' the Strike Leader stuttered hastily.
He had heard that laugh before and learned to fear what action might follow.
'Of course not!' snapped Tasaio in disgusted imitation of his junior officer. 'The desert men are barbarians, without honour, and a promise to their chiefs is as wind. Turakamu will avenge no people who question his divine truth. The desert men are soulless bugs, and even a land such as this will be cleaner without them.'
'As you say, sir,' the Strike Leader said obsequiously.