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as hard-bitten. Their reduced circumstances spoke volumes for the impetuous overawing effect of the
Iron Riders.
When Udo, Trylon of Gelkwa, subsidized by Phu-si-Yantong with Hamalese money and arms, had set
off to attack Vondium, the High Kov of Sakwara had sat still, biding his time. Now he was the
acknowledged leader of the Hawkwas, in fact as well as by rank. So Naghan ti Lodkwara had not been
involved in the earlier fighting. That, I admit, afforded me a little pleasure.
In Therminsax I anticipated making the first real opposition to the radvakkas, as I was commanded by
the Star Lords. There might only be a handful of Hamalese there; but there were many mercenaries, paid
by that damned Wizard of Loh. His wealth would be colossal, seeing he controlled all of Pandahem as
well as much of Hamal and what other lands besides Opaz alone knew. So the reality of what had
happened hit me shrewdly. I felt the shock. We had all seen the dust clouds to the south and west, and
marked their progress as we came into the city, wondering what they portended.
Now I knew.
The Vallian citizens of Therminsax stood about their charming city, wringing their hands, wailing and
crying. I did not see any guards of the Hamalian Army, nor did I see any sign of mercenaries. The reason
was simple. The Hamalian Army and their mercenary allies had taken every saddle animal, every draught
animal and every cart, and had gone. They had marched out, to the safety of the Great River some one
hundred and fifty miles due southwest. And long before the citizens could think to abandon everything
they could not carry and hurry after the deserting forces, young Wil the Farrow had ridden in on a
preysany with the frightful news that the radvakkas had closed in from the south, and had cut off direct
escape. Even as we assimilated this information and Naghan s Hawkwas hurried into the city, almost
unnoticed, so more dust clouds rose ominously from east and north. The city was ringed. We were cut
off.
Abandoned by all the professional fighting men, the citizens of Therminsax faced a future filled with
horror, with sack and rapine and death. There seemed to them to be nothing else left to them in the whole
wide world of Kregen.
Doomed, they shouted, screaming, distraught, crazed. Doomed.
Twelve
We Shut the Gates
Useless to shout and attempt to calm the frenzied mobs who ran, shrieking and wailing, this way and
that. Here and there men stood, alone, in groups, who did not scream but clenched their fists and
scowled and knew not what to do. Pushing my way through and being buffeted about and trying not to
retaliate unthinkingly, I led the Hawkwas to a central kyro I knew beside the Vomansoir Cut. This joined
the Therduim Cut in a sizable basin, with wharves and slips, and here Rordam would bring his people to
tie up. I headed for the palatial palace of the Justicar, the emperor s governor of the city.
Damn these Opaz-forsaken radvakkas! The Iron Riders had drifted westward across North Segesthes
in comparatively recent seasons, although it seemed we Clansmen had been resisting them for ages.
Where they had come from no one could be sure, for most of Eastern Segesthes was completely
unknown to us, save for a few coastal free cities and the islands of the east. Once Hap Loder had said to
me that I could weld all the clans of the Great Plains together into a single mighty fighting force, and I had
chided him, my right-hand man, my good comrade, asking of him who the enemy would be we would
fight. Well, in these latter days we knew who that foe was, and rued the knowledge.
The mobs thickened about the streets as I approached the kyro before the imperial Justicar s palace. I
pushed through and worked my way toward the front. People were shrieking and tearing their hair, some
had fallen onto their knees, their arms lifted imploringly to the facade of the palace. They shrieked to the
imperial Justicar to save them, to find some way of salvation, to prevent their destruction at the cruel
hands of the Iron Riders.
There were no guards. I guessed the small honor guard maintained here in normal times had been
suppressed by the Hamalese. I was able to push through the throngs who surged into the inner
courtyards and up the ornate stairways and into every room and chamber. The noise would have been
upsetting to a man of stone. And, still, there were these knots of citizens who did not scream out, but
clenched their fists emptily, and scowled, and did not know what to do.
Eventually I found the Justicar, standing with his back to a tall window where the crimson drapes
shadowed the brilliance of the suns. He looked shriveled. I knew him. He was Nazab Nalgre na
Therminsax an honor title adopted on his appointment. He stood there, created a Nazab by the
emperor, trembling, holding his head, surrounded by a few loyal servants and slaves, quite unable to
answer the imploring shouts and frantic pleas of the citizenry.
Without ceremony I ripped out the thraxter and angled it so that the light caught the blade and runneled
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