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Lines of Kataki crossbowmen leveled their weapons. They knelt under the cover of houses, in fishing-net sheds, behind walls. They would be invisible from the air. The voller ghosted down, her flags brilliant in the morning suns-glow, and descended to a landing in the village where the hard-packed dust made a descent inviting. Delia, Inch, Seg, and the others were looking for me, and they were searching here.
    But when they touched down they would be deluged with a sudden, treacherous sleeting of crossbow bolts. Those who survived would be swept up as slaves. All my friends — so soon to be murdered or enslaved!
    And I was bound and helpless in iron chains, gagged so that I could not cry out a warning!

CHAPTER THREE
    Of the pulling of a Kataki tail
    The flier was in truth a magnificent vessel. She moved with a sure steady grace over the village huts, and her people were hanging overside and staring down, and some of them waving . . .
    The iron chains about me bit into my flesh as my muscles bulged. Futile! I tried to gnaw through the wooden chunk in my mouth; but the wood was balass and I merely bit down with teeth-crunching agony. I writhed about in the violence of my movements and the iron chains clanked.
    Reterhan looked most evilly upon me, and placed his foot on my neck, and pressed. Sparks darted and flashed before my eyes; but they were clear enough to see the flier turning, the scarlet and yellow flags dropping to their flagstaffs now as way came off. I stared. Then I dragged my gaze away.
    The flier had to be warned.
    Vangar ti Valkanium, as the flier Hikdar, was bringing her in smoothly and gently, a perfect landing approach. Those people up there would see below them merely a sleepy, poor and innocent fishing village, with precious few people about at this time of morning.
    They would not expect serried lines of crossbowmen.
    Here in the continent of Havilfar, south of the equator, we were far from our homes in Vallia and Valka. But Havilfar was accounted the most progressive, the most modern, of the four continents that made up this grouping upon the face of the planet. Around the shores of the Shrouded Sea men had settled here first, long ago, and in the tumbled ruins of long-forgotten empires, in the artificial features of the landscape, in the admixtures of blood within the different species and races, were to be seen clear evidence of that long history of civilization here.
    Seg, that wild and reckless bowman of Erthyrdrin, was up there in the flier. He and I had fought our way through the Hostile Territories. He would never in ordinary circumstances be taken unawares in ambush. Likewise Inch, that seven-foot-tall ax-man from Ng’groga so obsessed with his taboos, and I had battled through adventures. He, too, was a seasoned campaigner.
    And — and up there on the high quarterdeck stood Delia, my Delia of Delphond!
    At any moment now the voller would touch down. And then the cruel steel-tipped bolts would flash in a raining cloud of destruction.
    Reterhan’s foot pressed with jovial power upon my neck.
    Up in the flier was Korf Aighos, the leader of the rascally but loyal Blue Mountain Boys. Up there was Turko the Shield, that superbly muscled Khamorro of the magical murdering hands; but I felt his great shield would offer some protection, and I prayed Zair he would slap it across before Delia when the bolts whickered in. Tom ti Vulheim and his Valkan Archers were there, ready to be cut down before they could draw bow. Obquam of Tajkent, the flying Strom, would be there, and I longed for his slender powerful form to flash out on his narrow wings to scout this innocent-seeming deathtrap.
    Also, up there in the voller, were those new friends who had saved me in the arena by their selfless devotion: Naghan the Gnat, armorer superb; Balass the Hawk, who had earned the distinction of becoming a hyr-kaidur, Tilly, my little golden-furred Fristle fifi; and Oby, that young rascal who had aspired to greatness in the