Sarylla left him dying on the floor, ran back to the head of the stairs, and shouted down. A shout from Elcha below answered her, then more shouts from the other women.

As if to echo the shouts came a woman's scream of mortal agony. A terrible silence followed, lasting just long enough to let the women at the foot of the stairs hurry through the door, close and bar it, then scurry up the stairs. Suddenly shouts and running feet began to fill the castle as Duke Raskod's Lords realized what was afoot.

Quickly the women went into the room and pushed all the furniture in it down the stairs to make a pile against the bottom door. The guards' bodies were stripped of their weapons and clothing and sent after the furniture. Then they closed, locked, and barred the upper door and slumped to the floor. They were breathing heavily and sweating partly with the effort, partly with stark fear at their own boldness.

Sarylla was the first to rally. She forced herself to stand up, take a few deep breaths, and look out the window. Nothing was happening in the village at the foot of the hill-not yet. The news of Duke Raskod's death would be all over the castle by now, but someone would surely have sense to keep it inside the gates for now. However, the watching eyes in the village would be enough, once they hung out the signal lanterns….

«The lanterns!» Sarylla screamed. If they weren't ready to hand…

Elcha laughed and pulled two of the horn-and-brass battle lanterns out from under her cloak. «I had them with me all along,» she said.

«I'm sorry.» Sarylla pushed sweat-dampened black hair out of her eyes. «I suppose my thoughts were elsewhere.»

That provoked a laugh which raised everyone's spirits. It didn't take long to get out the third lantern, light all of them, and lower them out the window on lengths of rope. With the signal lighted, the women were now free to explore their improvised refuge. Some were frightened to discover there was only a day's supply of water in the tower. «If the Nainans don't come soon, we'll die of thirst,» one wailed.

Elcha flayed the weaklings with her tongue. «Even dying of thirst is a better death than Fara's,» she snapped. «If you're afraid of that, you can always jump.»

«And if you don't shut up I'll throw you out the window,» Sarylla added. She said this as much to beat down her own fears as to impress the other women. Every time there was a silence, she found herself listening for more screams-the death screams of anyone who came in the path of Raskod's men. Then she bit her lip. She'd be no sort of an example to the others if she didn't get a better grip on herself. She peered out the window, to see if the lanterns were burning steadily, then turned back to the others.

«Let's get a file and start sharpening all the weapons,» she said. She bent over to pick up the mace and only then realized she was still naked to the waist. And her tunic was now on the other side of a locked door.

Oh, well. If the Nainans come in time, I'll be glad to greet them stark naked. If they don't, I'll be too dead to worry about clothing.

A good many eyes were watching the castle from the village. All saw the three lanterns hung out of the gate tower and wondered what they meant. Only one pair of eyes belonged to someone who knew.

That man waited just long enough to count the lanterns twice. Then he mounted and rode for the border of the Duchy as if monsters were snapping at his horse's heels. His horse was a good one, but it was lathered, staggering, and more dead than alive by the time he crossed into Nainan. A few miles farther on, it finally collapsed and died, but by then he was within sight of one of the frontier castles. By noon his message was on its way to Marshal Lord Alsin, and Captain of the Guardsmen Lord Blade was waiting with three hundred mounted Lords in the forest south of the castle.

By nightfall, the three hundred Lords had crossed into the Duchy of Issos and were riding hard for Duke Raskod's castle.

It took Nainan's Lords two days to reach Castle Issos. By then they knew that the message had told the truth. Duke Raskod was dead. The poison he'd sucked off Fara's nipples had done its work. In every village and from every castle they passed, they heard this. They also found so much confusion that nobody could have opposed their march even if he'd wanted to. In fact, most villagers and some Lords openly welcomed the riders of Nainan and the end of Duke Raskod's harsh and pleasure-loving rule. Blade noticed that this kind of welcome seemed to increase in strength the closer they got to the castle.

«The castles and villages close to Raskod's seat were the ones who had to give up their pretty girls for his pleasure,» said Alsin as they rode down the last valley before the castle. «He was only able to keep them at all inhabited these last few years by killing anyone who tried to flee. Even Lords sometimes suffered.»

Now that Duke Raskod's hand was lifted, the villagers were proving the truth of Alsin's statement by fleeing in swarms. The riders of Nainan covered the last few miles to the castle over roads choked with refugees, carrying babies and valuables and driving livestock before them. All of them seemed to have only one thought-to get out of reach of Raskod's Lords before they started seeking a ghastly vengeance for their Duke's murder. Blade listened to some of the refugees' talk as he rode past. None of them seemed aware that they themselves could make the slightest difference to what happened now.

No two Lords in Nainan's army agreed on what they expected to find at Castle Issos. Personally, Blade expected to find the heads of the women of Raskod's harem on pikes outside the closed gates, with a defiant garrison inside ready to fight to the last man.

They found the gates closed, all right, but they also found the women snugly in possession of the gate tower, able to lower the drawbridge any time they wanted. Under a flag of truce, Blade and Lord Gennar rode to within shouting distance of the gate tower. A lovely young darkhaired woman leaned out the topmost window, bare to the waist.

«Well done!» Blade shouted. «How are you?»

«We're safe for the moment,» she said in a cracked, rasping voice. «But for the love of the Fathers, get us some water!»

Blade sent Lord Gennar back to order up pack horses carrying water bags. From the castle walls one of Raskod's men shouted, «You aren't going to help those bitches!» and emphasized his opinion by throwing a spear. It narrowly missed Blade.

He leaned out of his saddle, pulled the spear free of the ground, then shook it at the castle walls. «The next thing any of you throws, the ladies are going to lower the drawbridge. We'll come in, and we'll come with swords in our hands.» Blade wasn't sure if he had the right to make that threat, but he didn't care. The women had shown a cold-blooded courage he greatly admired, and they weren't going to die now that safety was so close if he could do anything about it.

Raskod's men seemed to believe the threat. The men on the walls watched in silence as the women hauled the water bags up to the window. Blade and Gennar were about to ride away when they saw Chenosh riding toward them, escorted by half a dozen Lords. One of them carried a hunting crossbow. Just beyond a spear throw from the wall, the archer dismounted, cocked the bow, put a bolt in it, and shot the bolt over the walls. Chenosh rode up to Blade and explained.

«That's our terms. If they surrender by dawn tomorrow, Duke Raskod's healthy son will inherit the Duchy. He and his Lords must swear the same oaths as Duke Padro, but that's all. If they don't yield, the women will lower the drawbridge and we'll storm the castle. The Duchy of Issos will become part of Nainan.»

Blade laughed. «I just threatened them with about the same thing if they didn't let me get water to the women.» They turned their horses and rode side by side away from the castle. Blade couldn't help looking back once or twice at the massive walls and the frowning keep. Getting inside the walls would be only half the victory. He hoped that in saying he would storm the castle, Marshal Alsin hadn't made a threat he couldn't hope to carry out.