The army of Mongaul was in mourning. The proud banners displayed at the head of the host now trailed sadly at half-mast, and the captains wore bands of black cloth bound about their arms and helmets—an unprecedented sight in the midst of such a fierce campaign. In ordinary times the stalwart warriors of Gohra would show no sign of grieving, even over close comrades, over brothers. There would be time enough for sorrow when the campaign was done. Until then the corpses could be left to rot upon the field.
But this time was different. The army which had borne the deaths of thousands grieved now for the loss of a single noble captain. Even the cruel death of Viscount Leegan had not slowed the Mongauli advance, but now the mighty invasion force had been staggered by the loss of Count Marus, leader of two thousand blue knights and lord of Tauride Castle.
On such a day of loss, the burden of command descended with fearsome weight upon Lady Amnelis, the eighteen-year-old general of the Mongauli army. The certain knowledge that every soldier had pledged total loyalty to her—that these thousands of trained warriors functioned as an extension of her will and would unquestioningly lay down life and limb to carry out her commands—brought little comfort from the onus of her duty. The commanders of the army waited in uncertainty for Amnelis to decide on their next course of action. Even the faithful Astrias, whose admiration for the young general reached far beyond the bounds of mere loyalty, would have hesitated to say that the icy noblewoman was thoughtful or prudent. Amnelis was ice, but she was hot and passionate ice. When she was angry, her anger was fierce and direct—sometimes impetuous. The elder Marus, experienced and famous, had served to counterbalance the general’s fierce intensity. Marus had followed Amnelis like her own shadow, his steady presence inspiring the soldiers to greater effort, reassuring their belief in their eventual victory. When the young lady made her decisions too quickly, the elder noble had restrained her, and when her wrath had fallen too severely upon her subordinates he had comforted the disheartened.
But now Count Marus was gone, and the Mongauli army wore its unheard-of symbols of mourning. A wordless quiet had settled on the army. The lady and her staff were the most silent of all: ever since Amnelis had received the sad news of Marus' death she had been inconsolable, weeping for the death of her “uncle” who had cared for her when she was a child. She seemed to have lost her fiery vitality; trusted officers who had once been close to her could no longer find ways to comfort her, and a pall of worry had settled over the army’s high command. The leading knights could only observe now from a distance. They moved warily about Amnelis' tent, careful to make no sound.
Only Feldrik, Gajus, and some guards and servants had been allowed into Amnelis' pavilion, where the broad flaps of the entryway had remained firmly fastened since the tragedy. The sense of desperate uncertainty was almost more than the footmen and knights could bear. The Mongauli rank and file were as shocked by the death of Count Marus as their leaders, for his death had cast a grim shadow across all their future prospects. Uneasy murmurs rippled through their numbers.
“What will become of Mongaul?”
“Can the expedition continue without Count Marus?”
“How long are we going to carry on like this? When will we be allowed to go home?”
“First we lost Leegan Corps, and now all of Marus' blue knights. How can we call ourselves conquerors when Sem ambushes are cutting us down so fast?”
The battered army had dug in to lick its wounds at its latest bleak encampment. Intermittently the captains led their men through familiar drills while the restive horses stamped at their pickets. In their free time the soldiers sat around, sneaking smokes or nibbling dispiritedly at their scant provisions, quietly passing gossip. Ordinarily such behavior would never have been tolerated, but now even the troop captains seemed to have been infected by the low spirits of the camp, here upbraiding their aides over imagined faults, there resting beside their mounts with uncharacteristic lethargy, chewing vasya fruits and brooding silently. As often as not it was the camp orderlies who added to the confusion by spreading rumors from half-heard conversations. The rumors grew quickly as the anxious Mongauli could not but whisper amongst themselves. For all the soldiers’ anxiety they had little choice but to wait—and brood—since Lady Amnelis remained secreted in her tent, not issuing orders, not even talking to her commanders. Gone was the stabilizing influence of the veteran Count Marus, who had shown equal skill at advising the lady-general and calming disturbances among the rank and file. Now the Mongauli began to feel that they had been led astray only to wind up stuck in a forsaken desert; the troops felt exposed and unprepared, surrounded by an ever-changing swarm of half-imagined perils.
In addition to the general disquiet, a certain particularly disturbing rumor, repeated uneasily by the soldiers, had begun making the rounds of the camp.
“Have you heard what they’re saying?”
“About what?”
“You haven’t heard, then? I can’t believe it. It’s about what happened to Count Marus! I got this from Yuvan, so I’m not sure if it’s true or just another of his tales, but still…”
“Sure, sure! Just tell me what you heard!”
“Well, the long and short of it is, the reason Marus Corps got wiped out completely, is…”
“Yes?”
“Everybody is saying there was a traitor in their midst!”
“A traitor? Doalspit! I don’t believe it!”
“Quiet! Not so loud!”
“But do you realize what you’re saying? That one of our own brothers betrayed us?”
“I told you, not so loud! It’s just a rumor… a rumor. Still, it makes sense. If someone in our army was trading secret messages with the Sem, he could easily have led Count Marus and his men into that hellish valley, and set ’em up for the ambush.”
“But we are the proud knights of Mongauli What kind of madman would debase himself by betraying us to those ignorant monkeys? Anyway, it’s impossible. No one can speak their language, if you call that gabble a language.”
“Like I said, it might be just a rumor.”
At that point a sly-looking knight who was passing by stopped and joined the conversation.
“No, it’s more than a rumor all right.”
“Ah! Garum, you of the sharp ears! Have you heard something new? If you have, tell us!”
Garum drew closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I’ll tell you something I heard in secret from a friend in Irrim Corps. As you know, he led the soldiers who went to rescue Marus.”
“Yes, yes…” The others gathered around the newcomer.
“There’s no doubt that there was a spy.”
“A spy?”
“I can’t believe it!”
“It’s true nonetheless. And by now our leaders know the name of this traitor even though they haven’t told us knights. According to my friend in Irrim Corps, by the time the footmen entered the valley, most of Count Marus' knights had succumbed to fire and to the boulders and poisoned arrows the Sem had rained down on them. But not everyone died immediateIy. Irrim’s men were moved to tears by the slaughter, but they still managed to beat down the flames. They found several survivors, terribly burned, who had kept alive by sheltering under the bodies of their comrades. These men were brought to Captain Irrim, and as they died they clutched at him with their peeling hands, and with what was left of their lips they whispered the story of their downfall—and the name of the traitor, the sole survivor, who escaped to continue his unclean alliance with the Sem.”
“Great Janos! What are we going to do?!”
The knights glanced fearfully at the sky, as if it might suddenly collapse, and then regarded each other unhappily.
“Betrayed to the Sem. I still can’t believe it!”
“Maybe my friend was just being stubborn, but that was his story; he insisted it was true.”
“But how can humans and monkeys even make an alliance?
“Those Sem are nothing but filthy monkeys!”
“Yes—but they must be clever monkeys, to fight us as they have and lay a trap that tricked Count Marus!” Garum was annoyed that the others still doubted him. “Have you forgotten that monster that leads them? He’s human, even if he wears the head of a leopard. Maybe he’s the one who made a deal with our betrayer—not that he seems to need any assistance.”
“But we didn’t even see the leopard-headed warrior at the last battle…”
“Shoo,” the others raised their voices to silence the speaker, almost panicked by the mention of Guin.
“Don’t even speak of him! That is an evil spirit hiding in the body of a man.”
“Yeah, what if we called it to us, by speaking of it?”
The knight who had been hushed blustered, “Hah! I am not afraid of the monster. I hope I get the chance to unmask its true features.”
“So you say. But I suspect those boasts would turn to screams pretty quickly.”
“What…!”
“Oh, stop it! Anyway, if our captains know the name of the traitor, they’ll deal with him sure enough.”
“I suppose.”
“They know where he came from. Marus Corps. Not many of them left to choose from, eh?”
“If they do know who it is, I wouldn’t want to be in his boots when they catch him! Can you imagine what kind of torture he’ll suffer when the Sem are defeated and we drag him in?”
“I still can’t imagine why he would have done such a thing. Selling Marus Corps to the monkeys and the leopard-monster!”
“Aye… What was he thinking?”
“What kind of reward could he hope for in return for such treachery?”
“To become King of the Monkeys and to rule the yidoh and the wastes of Nospherus? ‘Lord of All Nospherus,’ surrounded by sand leeches and vampire moss, never able to see his friends or set foot in his home town again!”
“Hardly seems worth it, eh? Why, indeed?”