It was the last hour before sunrise, and a secret tension crept through the darkness of the night. The Sem slept uneasily, struggling with troubled dreams, clutching their stone axes to their chests; often one or another would wake with a low moan, feeling stifled by some unexplained force, and lie fidgeting for a time before nodding off again. The army of seven thousand wildlings was separated into tribal groups gathered irregularly around the oasis like so many fields of dark unquiet fruit, every warrior curled in sleep or crouching drowsily with knees drawn up. Now and then, one of the shapeless black forms turned over suddenly in sleep or stretched its arms and legs, and half-awakened voices scolded it to be quiet. The night air was filled with the distinctive odor of the Sem’s small, hairy bodies; an interloper unaccustomed to the smell would have found it difficult to breathe without choking.
Istavan contemplated the wildling army with disgust, feeling depressed that his survival depended on such creatures. They seemed to exist at the boundary between humankind and ape, these Sem; they were a cursed tribe, not human, but not exactly beasts, either—though the time was coming when their animal side would be fully exposed. The sounds of the wildlings’ snoring breaths rose up on all sides, mixed with low mutters and whispers, more like the night noises of a band of wandering monkeys than the sounds of a bivouac of soldiers camped on the eve of a decisive battle.
Istavan found that he could not fall asleep, despite his mental fatigue from his tense work among the Mongauli and from the long journey to the oasis in the company of savages whose language he could not speak. His body was exhausted, but his mind would not allow him to rest, and he didn’t know why. For a long while he had waited in hope of a brief respite of slumber. Giving up at last, he stood and tiptoed quietly between the sleeping Sem warriors until he reached the edge of the oasis, where he sat down on the root of a desert shrub. Istavan had survived on the strength of his own devices for so long that he never felt lonely or bored when alone, but he had acquired the unwieldy habit of talking to himself, even debating himself and answering his own questions as he brought his private plans to a conclusion. Now he carried on an unconscious conversation as he sat grasping his knees, occasionally toying with his dusty shock of hair, which he had tied up with a copper ring.
“Yeah, that’s right—I’m too deep into Nospherus now to strike out into the desert alone, no matter what. My water would soon run out, and whichever way I go I’d be surrounded by nothing but dry sand. I don’t know what direction I’d need to take, and even if I did—there are monsters everywhere. No, I wouldn’t have a one in ten chance of making it! And what if I tried to go back to the Mongauli? That’s not an option either. What if some survivor of that cursed Marus Corps remembered my face? Then I’d have nothing to look forward to but hot iron. Arrgh! This Istavan from Valachia always gets into a scrape! Now I’m left to depend on baseless hopes, like the Sem defeating the Mongauli army. I can’t go forward, and I can’t go back, by Istar’s silver tail! Where is that bastard Guin? Why did he have to go and leave us behind?”
Istavan shivered as if the chill of the night had sunk into his body, which would not have been surprising under the circumstances. Nonetheless he took off his blue knight’s gear and tossed it into a campfire that smoldered nearby. Now he was clad only in light boots and a singlet and hose—garb more suitable for the desert day. He hugged his own shoulders like a woman to shield himself from the cold air and gloomily surveyed his surroundings. The endless black undulations of the desert and the brilliant glitter of the stars on the oasis water were all that met his eyes. He shivered again in the coldness of the Nospherus night.
“Arrgh! What kind of evil took my sleep?” He shook his head as he muttered in agitation. “Even when I was imprisoned in Stafolos Keep, I didn’t miss my shut-eye, not for a single night—but then maybe there’s a reason for it. Hmm. I, the Spellsword, Istavan of Valachia, was given a special extra sense of precognition as a gift for being a dear child of the gods. My neck gets hot and prickly if I’m on a ship that’s about to catch fire, and if a patrol’s heading my way, I shiver and stop my stealing. I know this to be true. So I had better stay up—there must be some reason why I am so irritated and anxious. Jarn, grandfather of the gods, follows his own reasons. And if that tomboy seer Rinda doesn’t feel anything, then it’s probably just because she is not much good as a seer.
“Oh, Doal’s toes! These Sem stink like monkeys!” he grumbled, and tried to distract himself with his vast treasury of memories. “Ah, how long ago did I drink that whole bottle of fire liquor? How long since I bought that dirty yellow-skinned whore with the great moves in bed? Ha, and how long since I ate that whole rack of boar’s ribs with my greasy fingers? Ah…”
Istavan realized abruptly that he was speaking rather loudly, and grew quiet with embarrassment. He threw himself down on the thin grass of the oasis and breathed in the cool green aroma.
“I don’t want to think about it, but I have to think about it, and I’m ready to think about it. I’m not a fool. So, what is going to happen to me if Guin doesn’t come back? If the Sem lose, and the Mongauli capture me? Ugh!”
He shivered again. No matter how he considered it, the prospects gave him little cause for hope. The mercenary shook his head despondently, then stood and stretched with a rough gesture as if trying to rid himself of negative thoughts. He stopped his movement abruptly, becoming as stiff as a bronze statue before slowly lowering his arms to his sides. For a moment Istavan dropped his gaze, and then he raised his eyes again to make sure that he was certain of what had suddenly seized his attention.
Whatever others might think about Istavan as a man, few could doubt that he had great skills as a mercenary, with more experience than most soldiers twice his age. Those skills served him well now; he did not miss what the darkness would have hidden from a less preternatural observer.
“Well, this is a fine state of affairs!” he whispered with a soft exhalation. His eyes burned with a strange brightness that made them glitter like a jaguar’s as he peered at a wall of shifting shadows far out across the sands. “That is the Mongauli army, trying to sneak in without lights, muffling their horses’ hooves and muzzles with cloth.”
Standing poised at the oasis edge, Istavan swiftly considered his options as he studied the black shapes of the Gohran soldiers creeping forward through the night.
“What a fine state of affairs, this! The monkeys don’t understand the elements of warfare—not even something as simple as planning night watches. Well, they can’t help it; they are monkeys. But that leaves me with one big problem to take care of!”
Istavan was well aware that his treachery may have made him as sought after by the Mongauli as Guin and the royal twins. Once again he measured the distance to the approaching soldiers with his eyes; then, he theatrically yawned and stretched before turning and walking with pretended calm back amongst the Sem until he reached the area where the Raku slept.
There he found Rinda and Remus, lost in dreams and hugging one another, lying together with Suni on a spread of furs.
When he drew near to them he said in a low, casual voice, “Hey, wake up. Hey.”
He shook the twins gently, but they seemed unwilling to wake.
“Uhh…” Rinda, still half asleep, turned toward him petulantly. “What is it, Boganne? Does my father need me? If it isn’t morning yet, please let me sleep. Please…”
“Shit!”
Istavan was getting annoyed, and he shook them again more forcefully.
Finally Remus opened his eyes and complained in a sleepy voice, “What is going on?”
“Hey! I swear, this prince and princess wouldn’t wake up if the Mongauli attacked the Crystal Palace at the front gate! Which they did! I beg you, wake up! Please!”
“Okay, okay, I’m awake—what’s going on, Istavan? Has Guin come back?” Rinda, who always woke faster than Remus, asked sleepily. Then the meaning of her own words jolted her fully awake, and she jumped quickly to her feet with an exclamation. “Has Guin come back?”
“I beg you, be quiet,” Istavan replied sullenly. “The opposite of that. Listen very carefully. The Mongauli are heading this way. If I am not mistaken, they are spreading out to encircle us, and they can probably have this oasis surrounded in no more than a twist. Probably it’s their whole army out there—be quiet, I told you to listen to me!”
Istavan grabbed each of the twins by an arm; Rinda and Remus seemed on the verge of screaming. “Probably the Mongauli intend to stage a final battle. Listen, I can’t speak Sem, and I doubt this situation would translate very well anyhow, but Loto can speak a little of our language. Wake him quietly, and tell him what is going on. Tell him very quietly to avoid an uproar among the tribes. If the monkeys get riled up, the Mongauli will realize that we know they’re here. Then they’ll attack us right away so we have no time to prepare, and that would be just as bad as being caught by a sneak attack. We all know that they’re much stronger than us in a direct fight. Surviving this battle is going to depend on how much time we can buy. Make Loto understand this however you can—use sign language if you have to. Make sure he knows that causing a row is the worst thing he can possibly do. Now go and tell him! Oh, and tell him that scouting the Mongauli forces would not be wise either—the most important thing is not to give them any hint that we’ve noticed their sneak attack. You understand?”
“A-All right, I will try.”