The Second Book of Lankhmar

then turned around.
           "Master Groniger," she greeted.
           "Mistress Cif," he responded in equally mild tones. He did not look like a man who had been sneaking about.
           "You send the strangers on a mission?" he remarked after a bit.
           She shook her head slowly. "I rent them a ship, the lady Afreyt's and mine. Perhaps they go fishing." She shrugged. "Like any Isler, I turn a dollar when I can and fishing's not the only road to profit. Not captaining your craft today, master?"
           He shook his head in turn. "A harbor chief first has the responsibilities of his office, mistress. The other stranger's not been seen yet today. Nor his men either...."
           "So?" she asked when he'd paused a while.
           "...though there's a great racket of work below deck in his sailing galley."
           She nodded and turned to watch Sprite making for the harbor mouth under sail and the skiff sculling off with its lone shaggy-haired, squat figure.
           "A meeting of the council has been called for tonight," Groniger said as if in afterthought. She nodded without turning around. He added in explanation, casually. "An audit has been asked for, Lady Treasurer, of all gold coin and Rimic treasures in your keeping — the golden arrow of truth, the gold circles of unity, the gold cube of square-dealing...." She nodded again, then lifted her hand to her mouth. He heard the sigh of a yawn. The sun was bright on her hair.

             * * * *

           By midafternoon Fafhrd's band was high in the Deathlands, here a boulder-studded expanse of barren, dark rock between low glacial walls a bowshot off to the left, closer than that on the right — a sort of broad pass. The westering sun beat down hotly, but the breeze was chill. The blue sky seemed close.
           First went the youngest of his berserks, unarmed, as point. (An unarmed man really scans for the foe and does not engage them.) Twoscore yards behind him went Mannimark as coverpoint and behind him the main party led by Fafhrd with Mara beside him, Skor still bringing up the rear.
           A large white hare broke cover ahead and raced away past them the way they had come, taking fantastic bounds, seemingly terrified. Fafhrd waved in the men ahead and arranged two-thirds of his force in an ambush where the stony cover was good, putting Skor in charge of them with orders to hold that position and engage any enemy on sight with heavy arrow fire but on no account to charge. Then he rapidly led the rest by a circuitous and shielded route up onto the nearest glacier. Skullick, Mara, and three others were with them. Thus far the girl had lived up to Afreyt's claims for her, making no trouble.
           As he cautiously led them out onto the ice, the silence of the heights was broken by the faint twang of bowstrings and by sharp cries from the direction of the ambush and ahead.
           From his point of vantage Fafhrd could see his ambush and, almost a bowshot ahead of it in the pass, a party of some forty men, Mingols by their fur smocks and hats and curvy bows. The men of his ambush and some dozen of the Mingols were exchanging high-arching arrow fire. One of the Mingols was down and their leaders seemed in dispute. Fafhrd quickly strung his bow, ordering the four men with him to do the same, and they sent off a volley of arrows from this flanking position. Another Mingol was hit —one of the disputants. A half dozen returned their fire, but Fafhrd's position had the advantage of height. The rest took cover. One danced up and down, as if in rage, but was dragged behind rocks by companions. After a bit the whole Mingol party, so far as Fafhrd could tell, began to move off the way they'd come, bearing their wounded with them.
           "And now charge and destroy 'em?" Skullick ventured, grinning fiendishly. Mara looked eagerly.
           "And show 'em we're but a dozen? I forgive you your youth," Fafhrd retorted, halting Skor's fire with a downward wave of his arm. "No, we'll escort 'em watchfully back to their ship, or Cold Harbor, or whatever. Best foe is one in flight," and he sent a runner to Skor to convey his plan, meanwhile thinking how the fur-clad Steppe-men seemed less furiously hell-bent on rapine than he'd anticipated. He must watch for Mingol ruses. He wondered what old god Odin (who'd said "destroy") would think of his decision. Perhaps Mara's eyes, fixed