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tumble headlong down onto the pressing backs of his comrades. In a wild tangle of arms and legs and weapons they all slithered down to the next landing.
    “Now,” I said. “We will find out what is going on here, by Krun!”
    “It won’t be good news, that is no gamble,” said Farris.
    “But,” said Delia, her chin lifted, her face bright. “Esser Rarioch still stands. The flags still fly.”
    As we flew up to the high landing platform I fancied that my fortress palace might still stand; but not for long. Anyone of the villains who wanted the downfall of the Empire of Vallia as a prerequisite to assuming the crown himself — or herself — would not allow any strong place of the Prince Majister’s to stand. My plans for starting the counter-revolution from Valka must be re-thought. But, then, I’d half-known that all along.
    The folk who met us as we alighted from the voller bore the marks of hard fighting. Yellow bandages bore ugly stains. But the men greeted me with a roar of welcome, the women smiling at Delia. Esser Rarioch is a place dear to me, as you know, a place where no slaves were kept. Everyone in the fortress capable of bearing arms did so. We were engulfed in a human tide of talk and explanations of what had happened here and enquiries of what was taking place elsewhere and a determined defiance of anything those rasts outside could do to us.
    Chuktars hold high ranks in any army, the name in its original barbaric connotations meaning commander of ten thousand. Nowadays, a Chuktar commands a grouping of regiments or units each under a Jiktar. The Chuktar who met me as I went up onto the battlements gripped my hand in his own brown fist and beamed. I agreed with his decision not to meet me at the landing platform. He was occupied where he was and he pointed out what deviltry was afoot out there as we talked.
    The flutsmen had been employed to bring the fortress to a rapid submission, and they had been seen off with volleys of accurately loosed arrows. Chuktar Nath Fergen ti Vandayha pointed at the gathering masses far below filling the Kyro of the Tridents, and he had no need to say they prepared themselves for the next attack.
    As we talked I knew Delia would be seeing about Aunt Katri and the children, that Queen Lush would be exciting sidelong glances from the folk of Esser Rarioch, that our own preparations were being made. The Lord Farris joined us on the high battlements, and the pappattu was made between him and Chuktar Nath Fergen.
    Jiktar Exand, the commander of the fortress guard, had been wounded early on, and I would go down and see him and give him words of comfort. Nath Fergen had chanced to be in Valkanium when the attack developed. As he said, with a round oath: “Tom took most of the army off to Veliadrin, for those Opaz-forsaken cramphs of Qua’voil burst out and burned three towns and started to march north. I came here to pick up the Fourth Archers and was just in time to get myself into the castle.”
    He sounded most wroth. The Fourth Archers, a fine regiment, had been scattered in billets around the town and only a half pastang had made it up the long stairs. Among that number was Naghan ti Ovoinach, now an ord-Hikdar. Panshi, my Chief Chamberlain, came up and superintended the supply of tea and parclear and fruits. Long before Esser Rarioch could be starved out the attackers would have broken their way in, for there were very many of them, and barely a hundred and fifty souls left in the fortress. As for the Valkan army, that was away in the island of Veliadrin, to the west, fighting those porcupine-like devils of Qua’voil who would rejoice to see the destruction of everything apim within their reach.
    So, as I listened to the news tumbling out, there was precious little to cheer me. I remained firm in my decision to send Delia and the children to Strombor. All those incapable of fighting must be crammed into the voller. But, I thought with what I hoped was shrewd cunning