“You killed Suni.” Tears were running freely from her eyes, but the princess spoke with perfect calm. “Mongauli are murderers. Mongauli killed my father and mother, and now Suni, my friend. And Mongauli will kill me and Remus. I wonder how long you can hide your crimes from Janos?
“I will never forget your face.”
Astrias met her stare sullenly, offering no reply. There was nothing he could do now even if he did give her an answer.
Instead he maintained his silence, and with no more resistance from Rinda he rode on with her until they reached the white knights.
Astrias had hoped to receive some word of praise from Amnelis when he returned with his prize, but the headquarters was still busy issuing orders and nursing the wounded, and the lady-general had no time for him. With a bleak disappointment welling up inside him the captain of the red turned his horse quickly to gallop back to the field of battle.
Rinda was taken by a group of guards and brought to where her brother was being held; there her ankles were tied together like his. The twins called out each other’s names as they were reunited, and then simply hugged each other close without speaking. Remus was sobbing, but Rinda steeled herself against her sorrow. Her tears for Suni’s passing had already dried, and now, as she held tight to her brother, the slender, high-spirited girl kept her lips pressed shut, swallowing the lump that kept rising in her throat, forcing herself not to yield to emotion.
Rinda could not remember how many times she had been captured lately. Until now, she had always trusted in Guin’s ability to rescue her. But this time, the towering, indomitable leopard-man had not arrived to save the day. Even wily Istavan was gone. This time, the twins were all alone. Out on the desert the Mongauli were shouting heartlessly and running down the little Sem with their horses as if they were enjoying some cruel game. Rinda bit her lip until it almost bled. Guin, where are you? The Sem are lost, Guin… You are the only one. Guin.
The pitched battle around the oasis was drawing to a close. From the beginning of the war for Nospherus it had been clear which side would have the advantage if the two armies ever clashed directly in an all-out fight. Although the Sem had great quickness and agility and knew every acre of the desert terrain, there was a big disadvantage to fighting with stone axes and poisoned darts against the steel longswords and heavy armor of trained human knights. Moreover, the Mongauli soldiers had begun to grow familiar with the simians’ style of combat and had learned to counter their tricks. They had discovered that wearing their helmets with the correct tilt would deflect most poison darts, and that if they parried the stone axes with their swords they could reduce the force of their blows in half. In this battle they had a further advantage, for the fight around the oasis took place largely on ground that was grassy and relatively hard, much better terrain for cavalry than the loose sand of the open desert where the horses’ hooves often trod false. As the morning wore on, the elite Mongauli warriors were cutting down the brave Sem one after another. The wildlings fought with tremendous gusto, and the Karoi and Guro in particular had inflicted many casualties on their foes, but it was not enough to outweigh the Mongauli’s inherent advantages and the momentum of their surprise attack.
“Fall back! Fall back!”
Finally the chieftains of the Sem shrieked out the order to retreat, and their drums sounded out the message to withdraw. The chieftains gathered their warriors about them and began to slip back into the embattled encampment. But by now it was too late to make a stand inside the oasis.
“They’re going to surround us!” Illateli screamed in his high-pitched voice. “They want us to gather into one group! Scatter and run in different directions—deceive them and hide yourselves!”
“Aiieee!” the Sem answered him with a wild cry, and scattered to escape, scurrying like the progeny of a spider caught in a storm wind.
“Don’t let them get away! We must not make that mistake again. Exterminate the monkeys without mercy!”
The message was spread through the Mongauli ranks, and the troops spread out to surround the oasis, trapping the Sem within. Irrim’s footmen were waiting for the few wildlings who managed to evade the main army and flee towards the stony hills, and they descended upon them in the passes.
Meanwhile, old Loto was hemmed in at the oasis with the surviving members of his bodyguard. His trusted protector, the brave young warrior Siba, was searching for a means of escape.
“Loto, I have an idea.”
Siba’s eyes were bloodshot as he hurriedly went through his possessions. In a moment he found what he was searching for.
“I was thinking about what Riyaad would do if he were here.”
Loto kept his silence and gazed at Siba as the younger Sem took a fruit of smoke plant out of a bag and handed it to his Raku subordinates. He kept a bottle of vasya oil for himself.
“Let’s go!”
“Ayeeya!”
The group of Sem let out a wild scream and charged towards the edge of the oasis where the Mongauli soldiers seemed fewest. As they neared the enemy lines Siba’s warriors hurled a smoke plant fruit ahead of them, and the desiccated fruit burst open with a loud noise and released a cloud of dense, black smoke. The Mongauli drew back as the inky cloud roiled toward them. Swiftly Siba turned the oil bottle upside down and sprinkled its contents all round, then drew out a flint and struck a spark to the scattered drops. As soon as the oil caught fire, he poured more oil onto the blaze and screamed, “Quickly—this way!”
He urged the old chief onward as the oil-fed fire rapidly spread. Soon the members of the small band were slithering forward on their bellies like snakes, with Siba out in front throwing smoke plant fruits one after another to create a screen.
“Don’t let them go!” Mongauli knights shouted as they rushed into the noxious cloud, coughing and stabbing blindly with their swords.
“Be careful! Don’t let them escape!”
Using the rolling smoke as a precarious shield, Siba and about ten other Raku warriors were escorting Loto through the Gohran lines.
“Gather at Devil Rock!”
“Karoi, Guro, Rasa! If you escape, gather at Devil Rock!” the Sem screamed to each other in a language unintelligible to the Mongauli. Indistinct answers came back from here and there amidst the chaos, but no wilding dared pause to form further plans. They ran in different directions to escape from this oasis of death.
Irrim’s blocking force, bearing down from the north, and Vlon’s troop of white knights, hurrying in from the west, were drawing closer to each other like two heavy doors swinging shut. When they met, the circle of the besieging forces would be complete, and the Sem’s retreat would be cut off. But if the Sem could manage to escape once more into the desert, they might yet evade their adversaries’ heavy mounted troops and regain the initiative.
“Run, run, run!”
Siba screamed until his voice became hoarse as he sped through the underbrush at the outer edge of the oasis.
“Run, Sem, run! Run, Raku, Tubai, Rasa! Run in zigzags until you reach Devil Rock! Throw them off the trail!”
Suddenly Loto, following close on the young warrior’s heels, screamed and halted abruptly.
“Suni! Dear little one!”
In an instant Siba turned and scooped up Suni’s body without waiting to determine if she was wounded or dead, or had simply fainted; without missing a step he kept on running. Now the wildlings faced their ultimate race for survival, a final, furious effort to escape from the red iron god of the under-world to the goal of living free and preserving the Sem race. Siba was not the only one who led a desperate band trying to avoid the Mongauli encirclement and pursuit. Running battles had flared up all over the oasis; brave warriors had rallied to aid the leaders of each tribe, gathering in close-knit groups to protect their chieftains—or in the case of Ilateli, following their chief as he led the way, driving a fierce skirmishing wedge into the midst of the Gohran cavalry. The sun had passed its zenith and begun its slow descent, and still the battle commenced before sunrise had not reached its conclusion. As swiftly as the flowing blood dried under the intense rays of the sky’s golden orb, it was replenished by fresh gouts pouring onto the hot sands of the oasis.
And then, finally, the encirclement was complete; the Mongauli had the Sem completely at their mercy.
“Finish them!”
The relentless supreme commander waved her hand as if it were a blade.
“Don’t let a single barbarian escape alive!”
All at once the conflict ceased to be a battle and became a massacre, a heartless one-sided slaughter. The Sem who had not managed to slip through the Mongauli lines, and the brave ones who had foregone any chance of escape to remain alongside their chiefs, now felt the full might of the Mongauli army. Fierce-faced men with flashing swords rode down the wildlings one after another. The wounded were trampled by the horses’ hooves. Those who resisted were cut down piecemeal, and their blood seeped into the waters of the oasis.
Soon the pool had turned a sickening red, and the plants that grew around them were stained with dripping crimson. The groans, screams, and cries of anguish seemed endless.