Fred Saberhagen - Empire of the East trilogy

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"I think Empire of the East is better than The Lord of the Rings, though I admit it's a matter of

taste."

- Larry Niven

"Ranks favorably with Tolkien. Exceptional in sheer unbridled zest and imaginative sweep. Saber-

hagen's style is noteworthy for its detail, the depth and humor of his characterizations, and his

ability to imbue even villains with wicked charm."

-School Library Journal

"I couldn't really put the book down and regretted every page turned because it made one page less

to discover . . . Empire of the East is the work of a master."

-Algis Budrys, in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

"Empire of the East is one of the best science fantasy epics to come along in years, and Fred

Saberhagen can be justly proud of this addition to his canon. Highly recommended."

-Science Fiction Review

"Buy it; beg it; borrow it; but read it."

-Jersey Journal

"A fine mix of fantasy and science fiction, action and speculation."

- Roger Zelazny

"A riproaring, fast-moving tale that's thoroughly enjoyable."

-Birmingham News

"Empire is surely Saberhagen's best work yet . . . [his] story-telling abilities shine."

-Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Review

"Empire of the East is a book the reviewer is hesitant to say too much about because of the

continual surprises the author springs on the reader. In fact, one of Mr. Saberhagen's great

talents is a sense of rhythm; just as matters start to flag, he pulls a new character, or idea, or

plot twist out of left field. It's the most seamless splicing of sf and fantasy I've found since

Bradley's Darkover came into being."

- Baird Searles, in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

"There are few writers who can do justice to a really rich set of characters and backgrounds, and

Saberhagen has proved he is one of the best."

- Lester del Key

EMPIRE OF THE EAST

FRED SABERHAGEN

SF

ace books

A Division of Charter Communications Inc.

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A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY

51 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10010

EMPIHE OF THE EAST

The parts of this work have been published in substantially different form as:

for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the

publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is

purely coincidental.

An ACE Book

Cover art by Enric Book Design by Grace Markman

First Ace printing: October 1979 First mass market printing: July 1980

4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3

Manufactured in the United States of America

Introduction

by Larry Niven

I made my brother read Empire of the East. He builds and runs apartment buildings; he doesn't read

much science fiction or fantasy. But he loved The Lord of the Rings, and I told him this was

better. I think it is, though I'll admit that it's a matter of taste.

Fred Saberhagen has a fine grasp of magic. The laws he postulates are strange, but rigorously self-

consistent: the least one must demand of fantasy.

He has a fine flair for poetic justice -the invisible third principle of magic.

There were times when my hair stirred at the horror I saw the East bringing upon themselves . . .

as in Watership Down, when Hazel summoned the dog.

But as a writer, I most admire Saberhagen's imagery. Consider his description of the Dark Lord,

Zapranoth:

"The earth seemed to sink down beneath his feet, as stretched cloth would yield to the weight of a

walking man."

And of the Beast-Lord Draffut, impregnated with elemental life:

It was as if he walked in snow or gravel, instead of solid stone; for at his touch, rock melted,

not with heat but as if quickening briefly into crawling life, to quiet again when he had passed.

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INTRODUCTION

Images vivid and simple, easy to see, and clearly impossible; images that stick in the mind. My

mind has watched the battle between Zapranoth and Lord Draffut, while toy armies of men stopped

their own battle to watch, and I won't forget any of it.

Prologue by Roger Zelazny

Fred Saberhagen does not look like the father of the berserkers, Count Dracula's amanuensis or an

authority on Inca tortures. These items do occasionally come to mind when his name is mentioned,

however, because they are the sorts of things which fix themselves readily in memory. So, I wish

to counter any image of a latter-day H. P. Lovecraft by remarking, for openers, that Fred is a

genial, witty, well-informed individual, with a wonderful wife named Joan, who is a mathematician,

and the three best-behaved children I've ever met: Jill, Eric and Tom. He likes good food and

drink and conversation. His working habits seem superior to my own, and his facility with

scholarly matters may even pre-date his one-time employment as a writer for The Encyclopaedia

Britannica.

I liked Fred's writing before I ever met him, and now that we are almost neighbors, I am pleased

to know him. I am just returned from a trip, and I finished reading his novel The Mask of the Sun

on the airplane. It made me feel that he could do no wrong. It has one of the most suspenseful

openings I have encountered in a long while, leading steadily and carefully into a truly exotic

setting and story-situation. His management of the paradoxes it involves is an exercise in

precision and symmetry. (I might as well add "colorful imagery and characterization," and for that

matter "scholarship which does not impede but enhances.") And having recently read his The Holmes-

Dracula File, I was still fresh on it for purposes of contrast and comparison. There, I was

impressed by the apparent ease with which the chapters (alternately narrated by the count himself

and by John Watson, M.D.) were recorded in appropriately individual styles, by the authentic

feeling of his Victorian London and by the sinuosities of the plot. It was very different from The

Mask of the Sun, but was written with equivalent skill, care and attention to detail.

All of which, upon reflection, is a way of saying that he is a versatile writer. But there is more

to Fred's stuff than mere technique. Sit down and read ten pages of anything he has written, and

you begin to see that he has given it a lot of thought. It hangs together. (I'm tired of the word

"organic" in reference to literature. It makes me think of a book with fungus growing on it.

Fred's books lack fungus but are of a whole piece - press one anywhere, and the entire story

fabric responds uniformly to the tension, seamlessly - because he has passed that way many times

and knows exactly why he situated every house, tree, black hole, berserker and idea just where he

did.) To see, to feel, to know the world you are assembling in such a consistent and fully

extended fashion has always seemed to me the mark of a superior writer. It lies beyond any surface

trickery - hooks, gimmicks, stylistic pyrotechnics - and is one of the things that makes the

difference between a memorable book and one that provides a few hours' entertainment and is soon

forgotten.

I could simply end on that note and be telling nothing less than the truth - after announcing that

here is another one, to enjoy, to remember - and then get out of your way and let you read it. But

life is short, good writers are a minority group and opportunities to talk about them are few,

unless you are a critic or a reviewer, neither of which hats fit me. And there is another thing

about writing and Fred which seems worth saying here. Raymond Chandler once observed that there

are plot writers, such as, say, Agatha Christie, who work everything out in advance, and then

there are others, such as himself, who do not know everything that is going to occur in a story

beforehand, who enjoy leaving leeway for improvisation and discovery as they go along. I've

written things both ways myself, but I prefer Chandler's route because there is a certain joy in

encountering the unexpected as you work. I've compared notes on this with Fred, and he is also of

the Chandler school. If this tells you nothing else in terms of the psychology behind some

people's creations, it at least lets you know which writers are probably having the most fun. And

this is important. There are days when such a writer curses the free-form muse but the

reconciliations are wonderful, and the work seldom seems a mere chore. It is good to know that

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beyond the place of Fred's versatility - and even beyond that special metaphysical locale where

occurs the careful tightening of all story-strands into total self-consistency - there, in the

secret place where he puts things together for the first time, all alone and wondering and working

hard, he has this special on-the-spot joy in associating the stuff of life and ideas. For some of

this, I believe, does come through to the reader in all good writing that happens in this fashion.

I feel it in all of Fred's stories. If further confirmation of the versatility of Fred Saberhagen

were needed, here is EMPIRE OF THE EAST. In this unusual collaboration with his earlier self, he

has produced a fine mix of fantasy and science fiction, action and speculation.

Contents

BOOK I: THE BROKEN LANDS

I. Hear Me, Ekuman

II. Rolf

III. The Free Folk

IV. The Cave

V. Desert Storm

VI. Technology

VII. The Two Stones

VIII. Chup

IX. Messages

X. Fight tor the Oasis

XI. I am Ardneh

XII. To Ride The Elephant

XIII. The Morning Twilight

BOOK II: THE BLACK MOUNTAINS

I. Tall Broken Man

II. Duel

III. Valkyrie

IV. Djinn of Technology

V. Som's Hoard

VI. Be as I am

VII. We Are Facing Zapranoth

VIII. Chup's Pledging

IX. Before the Citadel

X. Lake of Life

XI. Knife of Fire

BOOK III: ARDNEH'S WORLD

I. Ominor

II. Summonings

III. Banditry

IV. Distance

V. Little Moment of Revenge

VI. Ardneh

VII. Orcus

VIII. They Open Doors, They Take Down Bars

IX. Ardneh's Life

X. Beast-War

XI. World Without Ardneh

BOOK ONE

THE BROKEN LANDS

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I

Hear Me, Ekuman

The Satrap Ekuman's difficulties with his aged prisoner had only begun when he got the fellow down

into the dungeon under the Castle and tried to begin a serious interrogation. The problem was not,

as you might have thought from a first look at the old man, that the prisoner was too fragile and

feeble, liable to die at the first good twinge of pain. Not at all. It was almost incredible, but

actually the exact opposite was true. The old man was actually too tough, his powers still

protected him. All through the long night he not only defended himself, but kept trying to hit

back.

Ekuman's two wizards, Elslood and Zarf, were adepts as able as any that the Satrap had ever

encountered west of the Black Mountains, far too strong for any lone prisoner to overcome,

especially here on their own ground. Yet the old man fought - in pride and stubbornness, perhaps,

and doubtless with the realization that his fighting could cause powers so enormous to be arrayed

against him, could create a tension so great, that his inevitable collapse would bring him sudden

and relatively painless death.

The intensity of the silent struggle mounted all through the darkest morning hours, when human

powers are known to wane, and others may reach their peak. Ekuman and his wizards could not

identify the particular forces of the West that the old man called upon, but certainly they were

not trivial. Long before the end, the air within the buried dungeon seemed to Ekuman to be ringing

audibly with powers; and his human eyesight misinformed him that the ancient vaults of the stone

ceiling had elongated and receded into some mysterious distance. Zarf's toad-familiar, wont to

jump with glee during the interrogation of stubborn prisoners, had taken refuge in a puddle of

torchlight near the foot of the ascending stair, for once wanting nothing to do with the dark

corners of the chamber. It crouched there solemnly, goggle eyes following its master as he moved

about.

Elslood and Zarf took turns standing on the rim of the pit, three meters deep, at whose bottom the

old man had been chained. They had with them talismans of their choice, and had drawn signs on

floor and wall. They of course could gesture freely - though on the level of physical action the

struggle was very quiet, as was to be. expected when it involved wizards of this rank.

While one of Ekuman's magicians took his turn at maintaining the pressure, the other stood back

before the Satrap's elevated chair, conferring with him. They were all sure that the old man was a

leader, perhaps the very chief, of those who called themselves the Free Folk. These were bands of

the native populace, reinforced by some stiff-necked refugees from other lands, who hid themselves

in hills and coastal swamps and carried on an unremitting guerrilla warfare against Ekuman.

It was only through a stroke of fortune that a routine search operation in the swamps had netted

the old man. Zarf and a troop of forty soldiers had come upon him sleeping in a hut. Ekuman was

beginning to believe that if the old man had chanced to be awake, they might not have taken him at

all. Even with the prisoner at his present disadvantage, Elslood and Zarf together had not even

managed to learn his name.

Down in the pit the guttering torchlight flashed with unusual brightness from chains that were of

no ordinary metal. Blood puddled darkly at the old man's feet, but not a drop of it was his.

Lifeless before him one of Ekuman's dungeon-wardens lay. This man had approached the chained

wizard incautiously, to be surprised when his own torture-knife whipped itself out of its sheath

to fly up and bury its dull blade to the hilt in its owner's throat. After that, Ekuman had

ordered all his human servitors save the two wizards from the chamber.

Later, when the prisoner had begun to display small but unmistakeable signs of weakening, Ekuman

considered having the wardens in again, to try what little knives and flames might do. But the

wizards advised against it, pleading that the best chance for a cruel prolongation of agony, for

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extracting useful information from the victim, lay in finishing by the powers of magic alone the

process they had begun. Their pride was stung.

The Satrap thought about it, and let his wizards have their way, while he sat attentively through

the long hours of the test. He had a high wall of a forehead, and a full, darkish beard. He wore a

simple robe of black and bronze; his black boots shifted now and then upon the stone floor.

Only when the night outside was drawing to its end -though day and night in here were all the same

-did the old man break silence at last. He spoke to Ekuman, and the words evidently formed no

spell, for they came clearly enough through the guarded air above the torture-pit. When toward the

end of the speech the victim's breath began to fail, Ekuman stood up from his chair and leaned

forward to hear better. On the Satrap's face at that moment was a look of politeness, as of one

simply showing courtesy to an elder.

"Hear me, Ekuman!"

The toad-familiar crouched lower, becoming utterly motionless, at the sound of those first words.

"Hear me, for I am Ardneh! Ardneh, who rides the Elephant, who wields the lightning, who rends

fortifications as the rushing passage of time consumes cheap cloth. You slay me in this avatar,

but I live on in other human beings. I am Ardneh, and in the end I will slay thee, and thou wilt

not live on."

Given the circumstances, Ekuman knew no alarm at being threatened. The word "Elephant," though,

caught his attention sharply. He glanced quickly at his wizards when it was uttered. Zarf's and

Elslood's eyes fell before his, and he returned his full attention to the prisoner.

Pain showed now in the prisoner's face, and sounded in his voice. Defenses crumbling, powers

failing, he was quickly becoming no more than an old man, no more than another victim about to

die. He labored on, with croaking speech.

"Hear me, Ekuman. Neither by day nor by night will I slay thee. Neither with the blade nor with

the bow. Neither with the edge of the hand . . .nor with the fist. Neither with the wet . . . nor

with the dry ..."

Ekuman strained to hear more, but the old lips had ceased to move. Now only the flicker of

torchlight gave the illusion of life to the victim's face, as it did to the face of the dead

torturer at his feet.

The ringing pressure of invisible forces faded quickly from the dank air. As Ekuman straightened,

sighing, and turned from the pit, he could not resist a quick glance upward to make sure that the

vaulting had settled back where it belonged.

Zarf, slightly the junior of the two wizards, had gone to open a door and call the wardens in to

see to the disposal of the corpses. As the magician turned back from this errand, Ekuman demanded:

"You will examine the old one's body, with special care?"

"Yes, Lord." Zarf did not sound optimistic about the results to be expected from such an autopsy.

His toad-familiar, however, was now grown lively again, and ready to begin the job. It burbled

shrilly as it hopped into the pit and began its usual routine of pranks with the two bodies.

Ekuman stretched, wearily, and began to ascend the worn stone stair. Something had been

accomplished, one of the rebel chieftains killed. But that was not enough. The information Ekuman

required had not been gained.

Halfway up the first curved flight of stairs he stopped, turned back his head, and asked: "What

make you of that speech the ancient blessed me with?"

Elslood, three steps behind, nodded his fine gray head, knit his well-creased brow, and pursed his

dry lips thoughtfully; but at the moment Elslood could find nothing to say.

Shrugging, the Satrap went on up. It needed a hundred and more stone steps to raise him from the

dungeon to gray morning air in a closed courtyard, from courtyard to keep, and from keep to the

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tower where his own quarters were. At several points Ekuman acknowledged, without pausing, the

salutes of bronze-helmed soldiers standing guard.

Once above ground, the stairs curved through the Castle's massive, newly strengthened walls. The

bulky keep was three tall stories high, and the tower rose two levels more above its roof. Most of

the tower's lower level was taken up by a single large room, the Presence Chamber, wherein Ekuman

generally conducted his affairs of state. At one side of this large round chamber space had been

given to the wizards, covered alcoves in which they might keep their implements, benches and

tables where they might do their work under their Lord's most watchful eye.

It was straight to this side of the Presence Chamber that Elslood went as soon as he and Ekuman

had ascended to the tower. Around him here he had all the sorcerer's impedimenta: masks, and

talismans, and charms not easily nameable, all most curiously wrought, piled on stands and tables

and depending from the wall. On a stand a single thick brown candle burned, pale of flame now in

the cool morning light that filtered through the high narrow windows.

Pausing first to mutter a secret precautionary word, Elslood put out a hand to set aside the arras

which concealed an alcove. Within this space the Satrap allowed him to keep to himself certain

private volumes and devices. The drapery pulled back revealed an enormous black guardian-spider,

temporarily immobilized by the secret word, crouched on a high shelf. The tall wizard reached his

long arm past the spider to withdraw a dusty volume.

When it was brought into the light Ekuman saw that it was an Old World book, of marvelous paper

and binding that had already outlasted more than one generation of parchment copies. Technology,

thought the Satrap, and despite himself he shivered slightly, inwardly, watching the fair white

pages turned so familiarly by Elslood's searching fingers. It was not easy for one belonging to a

world that thought itself sane and modern and stable to accept the reality of such things. Not

even for Ekuman, who had seen and handled the evidences of technology more frequently than most.

This book was not the only Old World remnant preserved within his Castle's walls.

And somewhere'outside his walls, waiting to be found -the Elephant. Ekuman rubbed his palms

together in impatience.

Having taken his book to the window for the light, Elslood had evidently located in it the passage

he sought. He was reading silently now, nodding to himself like a man confirming an opinion.

At last he cleared his throat and spoke. "It was a quotation, Lord Ekuman, nearly word for word.

From this-which is either a fable or a history of the Old World, I know not which. I will

translate." Elslood put back his wizard's hood from his bush of silvery hair, cleared his throat

again, and read out in a firm voice:

"Said Indra to the demon Namuci, I will slay thee not by day or night, neither with the staff nor

with the bow, neither with the palm of the hand nor with the fist, neither with the wet nor with

the dry." "Indra?"

"One of the gods, Lord. Of lightning . . ." "And of Elephants?" Sarcasm bit in Ekuman's voice.

Elephant was the name of some creature, real or mythical, of the Old World. Here in the Broken

Lands depictions of this beast were to be seen in several places: stamped or painted on Old World

metal, woven into a surviving scrap of Old World cloth that Ekuman had seen, and carved, probably

at some less ancient time, upon a rock cliff in the Broken Mountains.

And now, somehow, the Elephant had come to be the symbol of those who called themselves the Free

Folk. Far more important, a referent of this symbol still existed in the form of some real power,

hidden somewhere in this land that refused to accept Ekuman as its conqueror -so the Satrap's

wizards assured him, and so he believed. By all surface appearances the land was his, the Free

Folk were only an outlaw remnant; yet all the divinings of his magicians warned him that without

the Elephant under his control his rule was doomed to perish.

Still he was not really expecting the answer that Elslood gave him:

"Possibly, Lord, quite possibly. In at least one image that I have seen elsewhere, Indra is shown

as mounted on what I believe to be an Elephant." "Then read on."

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The ominous tone was plain in Ekuman's voice; the wizard read on quickly: " 'But he killed him in

the morning twilight, by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea.' The god Indra killed the demon

Namuci, that is."

"Hum." Ekuman had just noticed something: In-dra-Ardneh. Namuci-Ekuman. Of course a power of magic

could reside in words, but hardly in this simple transposition of syllables. The discovery of the

apparent verbal trickery brought him relief rather than alarm. The old man, unable to strike back

with effect, had still managed to work some subtlety into a dying threat. Subtlety was hardly

substance, even in magic.

Ekuman let himself smile faintly. "Fragile sort of demon, to die of a little sea-spray," he

commented.

Relieved, Elslood indulged himself in a light laugh. He leafed through a few more pages of his

book. "As I recall the story, Lord, this demon Namuci had kept his life, his soul, hidden in the

sea-foam. Therefore was he vulnerable to it." Elslood shook his head. "One would have thought it a

fairly clever choice for a hiding place."

Ekuman grunted noncommittally. At the sound of a step he turned, to see Zarf entering the Presence

Chamber. Zarf was younger and shorter than Elslood and also resembled far less the popular

conception of a wizard. Judged by appearance, Zarf might have been a merchant or a prosperous

farmer-save for the toad-familiar, which rode now under a fold of cloak at his shoulder, all but

invisible save for its lidded eyes.

"You have already finished looking at the old man's body? It told you nothing?" '

"There is nothing to be learned from that, Lord." Zarf tried to meet Ekuman's gaze boldly, then

looked away. "I can make a further examination later-but there is nothing."

In silent but obvious dissatisfaction Ekuman regarded his two magicians, who awaited his pleasure

standing motionless but otherwise quite like children in their fear. It was a continual enjoyment

to the Satrap to have power over people as powerful as these. Of course it was not by any innate

personal strength or skill that Ekuman could dominate Elslood and Zarf. His command over them had

been given to him in the East, and well they knew how effectively he might enforce it. The toad-

familiar, beneath any threat of punishment, squealed shrilly in some private mirth.

Having given the wizards time to consider the possible consequences of his wrath, Ekuman said,

"Since neither of you can now tell me anything of value, you had better get to your crystals and

ink-pools and see what you can learn. Or has either of you some stronger method of clairvoyance to

propose?"

"No, Lord," said Elslood, humble.

"No, Lord." But then Zarf dared to attempt defense. "Since this Elephant we seek is doubtless not

a living creature, but some work of . . .engineering, science . . ." The absurd words still came

hard to Zarf. "... then to locate it, to find out anything about it more than we know already,

that it exists and is important, this may be beyond the skill of any man in divination. . . ." And

Zarf's voice trailed off in fear as his glance returned to Ekuman's face.

Ekuman moved wearily across the Presence Chamber, opened a door, and set foot upon the stair that

led up to his private apartments. "Find me the Elephant," he ordered, simply and dangerously, ere

he began to climb. As he went, his voice came drifting down to them: "Send me the Master of the

Troops, and the Master of the Reptiles as well. I will have my power in this land made secure, and

I will have it quickly!"

"The day of his daughter's wedding draws near," Zarf whispered, nodding solemnly. The two men

looked grimly at each other. Both knew how important it was to Ekuman that his power should be, or

at least appear, seamless and perfect on the day when the Lords and Ladies from other Satrapies

around appeared here at the Castle for the wedding feast.

"I will go down," sighed Elslood at last, "and try if I may learn something from the old one's

corpse. And I will see to it that the ones he wants are summoned. Do you stay here and endeavor

again to achieve some useful vision." Zarf, nodding in agreement, was already hurrying to the

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alcove where he kept his own devices; he would pour a pool of ink and gaze into it.

On the first landing of the stair below the Presence Chamber Elslood drew aside to make room, and

bowed low to the Princess Charmian, who was going up. Her beauty rose through the dim passage like

a sun. She wore cloth of bronze and silver and black, and a scarf of red and black for her

betrothed. Her serving-women, whom she chose for ugliness, came following in a nervous file.

Charmian ascended past Elslood without deigning to give him a word or glance. For his part, as

always, he could not keep himself from following her with his eyes until she was out of sight.

He straightened, then, and put a hand into a secret pocket of his robe and touched the long

strands of her golden hair that he kept there. Those hairs had been obtained at deadly risk, and

twisted, with many a powerful incantation, into an intricate magic knot of love. And then, alas,

the love-charm had proved useless to Elslood -as he had known all along, in his heart, that it

would be. Any mastery of love was forbidden him, as part of the price of his great sorcerer's

power.

And he thought now that the knot of Charmian's golden hair would be of doubtful benefit to any

man. One as utterly evil as the Princess could hardly be moved by any charm to anything like love.

II

Rolf

When he came to the end of the furrow and swung the rude plow around and chanced to raise his

eyes, Rolf beheld a sight both expected and terrible -the winged reptiles of the Castle were

coming out to scour the countryside once again.

May some demon devour them, if they come near our fowl today! he thought. But he was no sorcerer

to have the ordering of demons. He could do nothing but stand helplessly and watch.

At Rolf's back, the afternoon sun was some four hours above the Western Sea, the shore being

several kilometers from where Rolf stood, the land between for the most part low and marshy.

Looking ahead, he could see above nearby treetops part of the jagged line of the Broken Mountains,

half a day's walk to the east. He could not see the Castle itself, but he knew well where it was,

perched on the south side of the central pass that pierced those mountains through from east to

west. The reptiles came from the Castle, and there dwelt those who had brought the reptiles to the

Broken Lands-folk so evil that they seemed themselves inhuman, though they wore human form.

Spreading westward now from the direction where the Castle lay, in Rolfs eyes disfiguring all the

fairness of the springtime sky, came a swarming formation of dots. Rolf had heard that the

reptiles' human masters sent them out to search for something more than prey, that there was

something hidden that Ekuman most desperately desired to find. Whether that was true or not, the

reptiles most certainly ravaged the farmers' lands for food and sport.

Rolf's sixteen-year-old eyes were sharp enough to pick out now the movement of leathery wings. The

flying creatures of the Castle swelled slowly in his vision, the thin and spreading cloud their

hundreds made came hurtling toward him. He knew that their eyes were sharper even than his. Almost

daily now the reptiles came, picking over the land already so much robbed and torn by the new

masters from the East; a land that had now grown hungry despite its richness, with every month

more farmers killed or robbed and driven from their soil. With villages turned into prison camps,

or emptied out to give the Satrap Ekuman the slave labor that he must have to build his Castle

stronger still. . . .

Did the foul grinning things fly ten or only five times faster than a man might run? With a big-

boned hand Rolf put back a mop of his black hair, tilting back his head to watch as the vanguard

of the reptiles now came nearly straight above him. A belt of rope around Rolf's lean waist held

up his trousers of good homespun; his shirt of the same stuff was open in the warmth of spring and

work. He was of quite ordinary height, and spare as a knotted rope. His shoulders in their bony

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flatness looked wider than they were. Only his wrists and callused hands and his bare feet seemed

to have been made a size or so too big to fit the rest of him.

In the distance the reptiles had seemed to be flying in a compact formation. But now Rolf could

see that they had been scattered widely by their differences of course and speed. Here and there a

single flyer would pause, coasting in wide flat circles, to scan something on the earth below.

Sometimes then the reptile would straighten out again into effortless speed of flight, having

decided that whatever it had seen was not worth dropping for.

But sometimes it would dive. Stoop. Plunge wing-folded, like a falling rock -

Above Rolf's home! With a shock at his heart he saw the winged predator plummeting to strike.

Before it vanished below the level of the trees Rolf was running toward it, toward his home. The

clearing and the little house were invisible from here, more than a kilometer away over broken,

scrub-grown country.

The reptile would be diving after the fowl in their coop, that must be it, though after the last

attack Rolf's mother had tried to hide the coop under a net of strings, woven with vines and

branches to make a screen. Rolf's father still lay abed with a crushed foot, mangled by a falling

stone while he had been doing his stint of forced labor on the Castle. Small Lisa might be running

out now as she had run out to challenge the last reptile, to strike with a broom or a hoe at a

fanged intelligent killer who was nearly as big as she. . . .

Between the field where he had been working and his home, Rolf's path lay across land made unplow-

able by its ravines and rocks. The familiar track wound shallowly uphill and down; it leaped and

bounded under him now, with the big strides of his running. Never before had he gone over this

path so fast. He kept looking ahead, and his fear kept growing, because of the strange fact that

the raiding reptile had not yet risen, with prey or without.

Someone might have defied the Castle's law and slain the thing-but who, and how? Rolf's father

could scarcely stand up from his bed. His mother? In obedience to another Castle law, the

household had already been stripped of any weapon larger than a short-bladed kitchen knife. Little

Lisa -Rolf pictured her, fighting with some garden implement against those teeth and talons, and

he tried to run faster yet.

So it did not seem reasonable that the reptile should be dead. Yet neither should it be sitting at

ease and unmolested, dining on some slaughtered hen. By now Rolf was close enough to his home to

have heard sounds of fighting or alarm, but there was only ominous silence.

When he ran at last into the clearing and beheld the total ruin of the simple dwelling that had

been his home, it seemed to Rolf that he knew already what he must find, that he had known it from

his first sight of the stooping reptile.

And at the same time the truth was becoming unknowable. It was beyond anything that the mind could

hold.

Smoke and flames, such as he had seen in the past devouring other houses destroyed by the invader,

might have made the truth before him now more credible. But the only home Rolf could remember had

been simply kicked apart, knocked to pieces like a child's play-hut, like something not worth

burning. It had been a small and simple structure; no great strength had been needed to topple its

thatch and poles.

Rolf was scarcely aware of crying out. Or of the reptile, flapping up in heavy alarm from where it

had been crouched over a dead fowl - one of the birds set free by the collapse of the coop when

the flimsy house had been knocked down. The destruction had been done before the reptile came. By

some roving party of the soldiers of the Castle-who else? No one in the Broken Lands knew when the

invaders might come to him, or what might be done to him when they did.

Digging wildly in the shabby wreckage of the little house, Rolf uncovered shapes that seemed

misplaced as in a dream. He found trivial things. Here was a cooking pot, the worn place on its

handle somehow startling in its familiarity. And here . . .

A voice that had been shouting names, Rolf's own voice, now fell silent. He stood looking down at

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Fred Saberhagen - Empire of the East trilogy

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