Haaken admitted, "It scares me. Makes me feel like I'm going to fall off the world, or something."

Bragi tried to see a bright side. "Somebody wants to attack us, we'll see them coming."

He was only partly right. Twenty-seven days out of Kasr el Helal, Reskird suddenly yelled, "Pay up, Haaken."

"What?"

"The van riders are coming in." Kildragon pointed. The native outriders were rushing toward the column like leaves aflutter on a brisk March wind. "That means a fight."

Bragi looked at Haaken meaningfully. "You suckered him out of a month's pay, eh?" An hour earlier word had come back that they could expect to be within sight of their destination before nightfall. Haaken had begun crowing about how he had hornswoggled Reskird into betting they would see action before they arrived.

Haaken suggested they both attempt the sexually impossible. He grumbled, "Those Invincibles wouldn't be this close to the castle anyway."

"They're between us and the Fortress," Reskird said. "We have to break through. Pay me now, Haaken. Be hard to collect if you get taken dead."

"Don't you ever shut up? You got a mouth like a crow."

"You do have a way with words, Reskird," Bragi agreed.

Horsemen indistinguishable from the outriders crested a ridgeline ahead. They studied the column, then flew back the way they had come.

Hawkwind halted. The officers conferred, dispersed. Soon Bragi and his companions were double-timing into the selected formation, which was a broad, shallow line of heavy infantry with the native horsemen on the flanks. Bowmen scattered behind the infantry. The heavy horse, still donning armor and preparing mounts, massed behind the center. The camp followers circled wagons behind them to provide a fortress into which to retreat.

Birdsong dressed the squad. "Looking good, lads," he said. "First action. Show the Lieutenant we can handle it." Sanguinet insisted they couldn't whip their weight in old women.

"Set your shields. Stand ready with spears. Third rank. Stand by with your javelins."

Bragi watched the ridgeline and worried about his courage. This was no proper way for a man to fight...

Riders crested the hill. They swept toward the Guildsmen, hoofbeats rising into a continuous thunder. Bragi crouched behind his shield and awaited the order to set his spear. Some of his squadmates seemed to be wavering, certain they did not dare hold against the rush.

The riders sheered off toward the flanks. Arrows from short saddle bows pattered against shields, crossing paths with a flight from longer Guild bows. Horses screamed. Men cursed and wailed. Bragi could see no casualties on his side.

An arrow chunked into his shield. A quarter inch of sharp steel peeped through. A second shaft caromed off the peak of his helmet, elicited a startled curse behind him. He scrunched down another inch.

The earth shuddered continuously. Dust poured over him. The taunting riders were racing past just thirty yards away.

He could not restrain his curiosity. He popped up for a peek over the rim of his shield.

An arrow plunked him squarely, smashing the iron of his helmet against his forehead. He tumbled onto his butt, losing his shield. Another arrow streaked through the gap in the shield wall, creased the inside of his right thigh. "Damn," he muttered, before it started hurting. "An inch higher and... "

Reskird and Haaken shifted their shields, narrowing the gap till a man from the second rank could assume Bragi's place. Hands grabbed Ragnarson, dragged him backward. In a moment he was cursing at the feet of the bowmen. One shouted, "Get back to the wagons, lad."

He didn't make it halfway before the encounter ended. The enemy tried to turn the flanks. The friendly natives pushed them back. Trumpets sounded. Hawkwind led the heavy horse through aisles in the infantry, formed for a charge. The enemy flew away, vanishing over the hill as swiftly as he had come. He remembered Wadi el Kuf, and had no taste for another bout with the men in iron.

Though Bragi had perceived their undisciplined rush as an endless tide, there had been no more than five hundred of the riders. Outnumbered by a disciplined foe, they had done nothing but probe. Even so, several dozen fallen comrades were left scattered across the regiment's front. Bragi was one of only four casualties on the Guild side.

The camp followers rushed out to cut throats and loot. The Guildsmen remained standing at arms while their native auxiliaries went scouting again.

Bragi settled down with his back against a wagon wheel, cursing himself for the stupidity that had gotten him hurt. All he had had to do was keep his head down, just as he had been taught.

"Some people will do anything to get out of walking."

He looked up, lips taut. His wound hurt bad now.

Sanguinet dropped to one knee. "Might have known you'd be the first one hurt. Let me look at it." He grinned. "Close, eh? Don't look that bad, though." He squeezed Bragi's shoulder. "There's a reason behind every lesson we try to teach. Hope you learned something today. You paid a cheap enough price." He smiled. "I'll send the surgeon around. You'll need stitches. Ride the chow dray the rest of the way in."

"Do I have to do KP? Sir?"

"Got to pull your weight somewhere."

"I'll walk, then. Just stay with my squad."

"You'll do what you're told, son. Laziness isn't a good enough excuse for losing a leg."

"Sir—"

"You have your orders, Ragnarson. Don't compound foolishness with more foolishness." Today Sanguinet spoke as a Guildsman to a brother, not as a drillmaster belittling a recruit.

Birdsong let Haaken and Reskird drop back to visit the afternoon the regiment started the long climb up the slope leading to the Eastern Fortress. They lifted him down off the chow wagon so he could look at the castle. "Gods. It's big," he said.

"They call it the Eastern Fortress," Reskird told him. "Been here for like eight hundred years, or something, and them all the time adding on."

Bragi looked around. How did the people of Hammad al Nakir survive in such desolation? The castle turned out its garrison in welcome. Ranks of silent men, dark of eye and skin, often beakish of nose, observed them without expression. Bragi sensed their disdain. The were all old, weathered veterans. He tried hard not to limp.

If he could impress them no other way, his size ought to stir some awe. He was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than the biggest.

Nowhere did he see a woman, and children were scarce. "This is the reception the old-timers talk about when Guildsmen come to the rescue?" he muttered. "Where are the flowers? Where are the cheers? Where are the eager damsels? Haaken, I'm not going to like it here. I've seen brighter people at funerals."

Haaken had his shoulders hunched defensively. He grunted his agreement.

The column passed through the castle gate, into a stronghold as spartan as its defenders. Everything inside looked dry and dusty, and was colored shades of brown. Dull shades of brown. The companies fell in one behind another in a large drill yard, under the hard eyes of a group watching from an inner rampart. "Those guys must be the ones who hired us," Bragi guessed. He studied them. They did not look any different from their followers. To him, very strange.

Reskird murmured, "Two things I'd give up what Haaken owes me to see. A tree. And a smile on just one of their ugly faces."

The group on the wall came down and joined Hawkwind. Time passed. Bragi wished they would get on with it. After all that desert all he wanted was a gallon of beer and a soft place to lie down.

Things started moving. Men led the horses away. The front company filed through an inner gate. Bragi surveyed the fortress again, scowled. Not damned likely to be any comfortable barracks here.