The Hidden City

exotic-looking embellishments—horns or antlers or stiff steel wings—and, like their breastplates, their visors fit tightly over their faces, exactly duplicating the features of each individual warrior. There was no humanity in those polished faces. The brows were impossibly wide, and, like the face of Klael himself, they narrowed down to almost delicately pointed chins. The eye-slits blazed, and there were twin holes in place of noses. The mouths of those masks were open, and they were filled with cruelly pointed teeth.
    They swarmed out from beneath Klael’s wings with his lightning playing around them. They brandished weapons that appeared to be part mace and part axe—steel atrocities dredged from nightmare. They were too close to permit any kind of orderly withdrawal, and the knights, still moving at a thunderous gallop, were committed before they could fully comprehend the nature of the enemy. The impact as the two armies came together shook the earth, and that solid, steely crash shattered into a chaos of sound blows, shrieks, the agonized squeals of horses, the tearing of metal.
    ‘Sound a withdrawal!’ Vanion bellowed to the leader of the Genidians. ‘Blow your heart into that Ogre-horn, man. Get our people clear!’
    The carnage was ghastly. Horses and men were being ripped to pieces by Klael’s inhuman army. Vanion drove his spurs home, and his horse leapt forward. The Pandion Preceptor drove his lance through the steel breastplate of one of the aliens and saw blood—at least he thought it might be blood, thick yellow blood—gushing from the steel-lipped mask. The creature fell back, but still swung its cruel weapon. Vanion pulled his hand clear of the butt of the lance, leaving the beast transfixed, skewered, as it were, and drew his sword.
    It took a long time. The thing absorbed blows which would have dismembered a human. Eventually, however, Vanion chopped it down—almost like a peasant chopping out a tough, stringy thorn-bush.
    ‘Engessa!’ Betuana’s shriek of rage and despair rang out above the other sounds of the battle.
    Vanion wheeled his horse and saw the Atan Queen rushing to the aid of her stricken general. Even the monstrous creatures Klael had unleashed quailed in the face of her fury as she cut her way to Engessa’s side. Vanion smashed his way through to her, his sword flickering in the chill light, spraying yellow blood in gushing fountains.
    ‘Can you carry him?’ he shouted to Betuana.
    She bent and with no apparent effort lifted her fallen friend in her arms.
    ‘Pull back!’ Vanion shouted. ‘I’ll cover you!’ And he hurled his horse into the path of the monsters who were rushing to attack her.
    There was no hope in Betuana’s face as she ran toward the rear, cradling Engessa’s limp body in her arms, and her eyes were streaming tears. Vanion ground his teeth together, raised his sword, and charged.
    Sephrenia was very tired when they reached Dirgis. ‘I’m not really hungry,’ she told Xanetia and Aphrael after they had taken a room in a respectable inn near the center of the city. ‘All I want is a nice hot bath and about twelve hours of sleep.’
    ‘Art thou unwell, sister mine?’ Xanetia’s voice was concerned.
    Sephrenia smiled wearily. ‘No, dear,’ she said, laying one hand on the Anarae’s arm. ‘I’m a little tired, that’s all. This rushing around is starting to wear on me. You two go ahead and have some supper. just ask someone to bring a small pot of tea up to the room. That’ll be enough for right now. I’ll make up for it at breakfast time. Only don’t make too much noise when you come up to bed.’
    She spent a pleasant half-hour immersed to her ears in steaming water in the bath-house and returned to their room tightly wrapped in her Styric robe and carrying a candle to light her way.
    Their room was not large, but it was warm and cozy, heated by one of the porcelain stoves common here in Tamuli. Sephrenia rather liked the concept of a stove, since it kept the ashes and cinders off the floor. She drew a chair close to the fire and began to brush her long, black hair.
    ‘Vanity, Sephrenia? After all these years?’
    She started half to her feet at the sound of the familiar voice.
    Zalasta scarcely looked the same. He no longer wore his Styric robe, but rather a leather jerkin of an Arjuni cut, stout canvas trousers, and thick-soled boots. He had even so far discarded his heritage that he wore a short sword at his waist. His