Salaman, Konya, and Lakkamai already were hard at work, poking and prodding with long spears. Bruikkos had somehow acquired two hjjk blades, one in each hand, and he was right in the midst of the attacking force, leaping and cavorting like a madman, slashing at the orange breathing-tubes that ran beside each hjjk-man’s head. Nittin too was fighting, and even the women, furiously swinging poles, brooms, hatchets, anything.

Harruel’s sudden presence in the midst of them fired them all onward. He felt a stirring, a warlike frenzy, among the defenders.

He caught sight of his son Samnibolon on the front line. Though hardly more than a child, Samnibolon was wielding a pruning-hook with which he cut without mercy at the hard, many-jointed legs of the hjjk-men. Harruel let out a cry of delight at this proof of the boy’s warlike nature, and another when Samnibolon sent one of the enemy tottering. Galihine struck the wounded hjjk-man athwart his back with a knob-ended club, and Bruikkos, turning in an offhand way, delivered the fatal blow with a quick flick of one of his knives.

Pride and wine inflamed Harruel’s battle-lust. He laid about him with savage pleasure. As he battled his way toward Salaman’s side he used his size and weight to great advantage, kicking and jostling the hjjk-men to throw them off balance and send them scrabbling down on their many knees before he speared them. The best place for that, he discovered, was in the joint where the legs were attached to the hard carapace: the spear went in easily there, and he struck again and again, with great precision of aim and lethal effect.

He reached Salaman’s side, and together they advanced toward a group of three hjjks who stood back to back, waving their little swords as though they were stingers.

“Where did they come from?” Harruel asked. “Is this the vision you had?”

“No,” Salaman said. “What I saw was a great herd of vermilions — and a vast army of the insect-men—”

“And how many are these?”

“Twenty, perhaps. No more than that. A scouting party for the main force, I think. Lakkamai and Bruikkos blundered upon them by accident in the woods, and they came charging down into the city all at once.”

“We’ll kill them all,” Harruel said.

Already he saw eight or ten of the insect-creatures lying dead, perhaps more.

He sprang forward and jammed his spear into the clustering group of hjjk-men, forcing them to move apart from one another. Salaman at the same time set upon the leftmost one of the three, beating him to the ground with fierce prods of his weapon. Turning, Harruel plunged his spear into the fallen creature’s black-and-yellow carapace and felt a satisfying crunching.

Before he could withdraw it, though, the second hjjk-man ran toward him and drew a line of fire along his arm with what Harruel realized was his beak, not his blade. Harruel winced and grunted. He raised his leg in a tremendous kick that shattered the hjjk-man’s jaw. Nittin came from somewhere and cut through the hjjk’s breathing-tubes. It fell over dead.

“We’re getting there,” Salaman said, between thrusts of his spear. “Must be no more than six or seven of them left. They’re mean, but they don’t really know how to fight, do they?”

“They fight in swarms,” said Nittin. “Ten to your one, that’s how they like to do it, Hresh told me. But they didn’t send enough this time. Behind you, Harruel!”

Turning, Harruel saw two hjjks coming at once. He knocked them both down with a sweeping swing of his spear and thrust its butt end into one narrow, fragile, exposed throat. Salaman disposed of the other attacker.

Harruel grinned. He could foresee the end of the battle now, and already he was looking forward to the wine that waited for him in the celebration of victory.

Lakkamai was chasing a frantically scuttling hjjk-man up the trail to the crater’s rim. Konya and Galihine had another cornered near Nittin’s house. A third had fallen into Salaman’s infernal trench and two of the women were jabbing at its claws as it tried to climb out.

Harruel rested on his spear. It is all over, he realized joyously.

But his elation was short-lived. Fatigue and pain overwhelmed him. There was a terrible pounding in his chest, and the fiery wound in his arm was throbbing and streaming blood. The wine that had sustained him through the heat of the battle had burned away now, leaving him grim and weary.

Looking back now at the city, Harruel saw that it was the palace that was burning. The animals had all escaped. He could not tell which child it was that had died; and now he saw one of the women dead too, or badly wounded. So it was not as great a victory as it had seemed.

Bleakness swept in upon him.

This is the punishment of the gods upon me, he thought.

For all my sins. For my forcing of Kreun, and for my other cruelties and rages, and for every unworthy thought, and for my arrogance. For raising my hand to Minbain. And for filling my head with too much wine. The hjjks have come to destroy this city that I have built, which was to have been my monument. We have killed these few, but what of the vast army that Salaman saw in his vision? How will we hold them away? How will we fend off those monstrous vermilions when they come trampling through our streets? How will we survive at all, when the main army comes?

It was another warm night and the air was heavy and close. It was warm all the time nowadays. The cold, harsh time just after the end of the Long Winter was only a dim memory. Yet despite the clinging warmth of the evening Koshmar felt a chill that grew from her bones and spread outward through her whole body, running between her fur and her skin. That chill never left her now.

Restlessly she prowled the settlement. She rarely slept at all any longer, but wandered far into the night, drifting in a lightheaded way from building to building. Sometimes she imagined that she was her own ghost, floating about weightlessly, invisible, silent. But the pain always remained with her to remind her of the burdens of the flesh.

She had said no more to anyone about leaving Vengiboneeza. That had been only a bluff, designed to elicit the truth from Torlyri about whether she would go or stay; and, having had the truth now — for she was sure of it, that Torlyri would never abandon her Helmet Man — Koshmar could not bring herself to issue the order to go. Nor had Hresh said anything to her about it again, or Torlyri. The plan remained in limbo. Is it because my illness has made me too weak to deal with the task of organizing the withdrawal? she wondered. Or is it only that I know our departure would mean the end for me with Torlyri, and I’m unable to face that?

She could not tell which it was. Personal griefs had become hopelessly entangled with public duty. She was weary, weary, weary, profoundly troubled, profoundly confused. All that she could do was wait and hope that time would take care of things. Perhaps this illness would go from her and her strength would return. Or perhaps Torlyri would grow tired of her infatuation with that Beng. Time will solve everything, Koshmar thought. Time is the only ally that I have.

Sudden brightness caught her eye. A single gleam of light came from one of the unused buildings on the far side of the plaza, near the southern edge of the settlement. Then all was dark again, as if a shutter had been hastily closed. Koshmar frowned. No one had any business over there, especially at this hour. All the People were asleep, except only Barnak, who was on sentry duty, and Koshmar had seen him just a little while ago, patrolling the settlement’s northern border.

She went to investigate, wondering if a party of Beng spies had slipped in and was hiding right here in the tribe’s own territory. What a troublesome folk they were! She had never trusted them, despite their smiles and their feasts. They had taken Torlyri from her. Soon they would have Vengiboneeza too. Dawinno shrivel them!