“Hunt,” the mare said again.
Glamiss rapped her smartly across the muzzle. “No.”
There was a wild light of something resembling amusement in the animal’s slotted eyes, as though being struck by a creature she could rend to bloody tatters pleased her, satisfied her need for submission. “Master,” she said.
“And tell the Vulk I’m waiting for him.”
The mare snorted and bared her teeth again. It was, Glamiss thought, as though she knew that his severe manner toward the Vulk was a pose.
He felt a frailty in himself: too much compassion could be a bad thing for a warleader, and the Vulk--well, they were pitiful things, truly. Small, weak, spindly. Their featureless faces were sad caricatures of men’s, and their passive submissiveness could goad men to considerable cruelty. When Vulk were serving in the field as Talkers, many warleaders denied them even the comfort of a mare to ride upon, making them stumble across all sorts of terrain on their sticklike legs behind the warband. Glamiss contended that this was impractical, that there was no advantage in thus slowing the progress of a troop. But Emeric said that it was because sometimes his kindness leaked out between the seams of his armor. “The spirit of the Star is in you, no matter how tough you pretend to be.” It was in the high-born Emeric Aulus Kevin Kiersson-Rhad as well, Glamiss had retorted, for though the Order of Navigators was more severe with the Vulk than the mere laity, Nav Emeric treated the alien creatures with courtesy and kindness. Not at all the usual attitude of a priest of the Order toward beings who refused to accept man’s religious view of the galaxy.
Glamiss considered his priestly companion, watching him loosening the caparison on Sea Wind before freeing her to join the other mares feeding on the game. The noble Emeric was a member of an Order that formed the only tenuous ties among the worlds of the Great Sky. Navigators were autonomous, ubiquitous. According to the Way--the dogma of their Order --they piloted the starships, served as spiritual counselors to the thousands of petty lordlings on every planet, and acted as military chaplains in the constant warfare. They were needed, Glamiss thought bitterly. On town or village, castle or lodge, the starships might descend at any time, or a troop such as this one might appear. And the Navigators arriving with the invaders would serve with the invaders, while the Navigators of the defenders would serve with the defenders. Navigators never killed Navigators, but they killed others readily enough. And when the fighting was finished, the chaplain of the defeated might pray in the bridge of the invaders’ starship, thank God in the Star for his questionable mercy, and return to his wounded, defeated people. The starship would rise into the sky, carrying booty or prisoners. Life would go on as before.
In drunken moments Glamiss would sometimes tax Emeric with this strange evenhandedness in wickedness, and then the Rhadan would patiently explain that the clergy was servant of all God’s subjects. If Rhadan fought Vykan and both fought Astrari--did that make them the less God’s creatures? The individual Navigator did his duty to his assigned people--the
Order
took no side but God’s.
Glamiss asked, “If Vara-Vyka fought the Northern Rhad, would you serve against your own people?”
Emeric’s face showed the conflict of blood and faith as he replied, “I would hope the Order would not ask it of me. But if it did, I would then hope that my faith would be strong enough to let me serve God.”
It seemed to Glamiss at such times that unless men were once again united, as they had been in the Golden Age, this struggling society of conflict and conflicting loyalties must surely sink into final barbarism.
“You sent for me, Glamiss Warleader.”
The speaker was Vulk Asa, a spindly creature no more than a meter and a half high, dressed in fool’s motley. The featureless face, eyeless, smoothly modeled from broad, flat cheekbones to a delicate and sensitive mouth, was remarkably mobile and expressive. Glamiss did not believe that men could not read the emotions of the Vulk in their faces. It was rather that men seldom understood what those emotions were, for beyond love and fear, the emotions of the aliens were not those felt by men.
At this moment Glamiss could see that Asa was both weary and apprehensive.
Glamiss said sternly, “Have the troopers been deviling you, Vulk?”
Asa’s head, seemingly too large to be supported by his slender neck, wobbled in denial. “No, Warleader.”
Emeric had opened his water-bottle. He passed it to the Vulk and said, “Drink, Asa. You look dry.”
The Vulk took the flask gratefully and wet his lips.
Glamiss regarded his friend and the Vulk and smiled covertly. The Order of Navigators taught that the Vulk were as they were, eyeless and feeble, because they denied God in the Star. In punishment for that great sin, the demon Cyb had shattered their homeworld in a great astronomical catastrophe, and since that time they had wandered, dispersed and homeless, among the planets of men. The Book of Warls claimed that Vulk lived for twenty thousand years or more, a special refinement of punishment bestowed upon them by Sin --scarcely a thing an educated man would credit, though Glamiss could not remember ever having seen a Vulk dead of old age. They were occasionally killed in pogroms, but natural death was rare.
To the young captain, the disparity between the wicked, aggressive creatures described by The Warls and the Protocols, and the meek aliens he knew Vulk to be cast a certain doubt on the truthfulness of writers. The Vulk existed, after all, on man’s charity. In return they amused men--as fools, and served them in the field--as Talkers. Mentally linked to one another over anything less than planetary distances, the Vulk had a certain military value as communicators. But blasphemous, evil, and bloodthirsty as the Protocols claimed? Not likely, Glamiss thought.
“Sit, Asa,” he said, less formally now. “Rest.”
“I thank you, Glamiss Warleader.”
“Look out there,” Glamiss said. “What do you see?” The Vulk did not
see
as men did, but their sensitive minds detected the shape of living things, often even the hidden structure of the inanimate.
“There is a settlement, and beyond there is a bridge and a mill. There are fat herds in the meadows. Few men.” The Vulk hesitated and then went on. “There is an adept in the valley, Glamiss Warleader.”
“A Vulk?”
“No, Warleader. A human being. But--with a special mind. A rare thing now.”
“Now?”
The Vulk seemed deliberately vague, as all his kind were when they spoke of the distant past. “There were once many humans with a talent for the mind-touch, Glamiss Warleader. Many died in the killings of the Dark Time.”
“The eagles,” Glamiss, ever practical, prompted. “Are they under mental control?”
“Partially. Sometimes.”
Glamiss made an impatient gesture. “What sort of answer is that, Vulk? I want to know if we must fight the birds as well as the men in the valley.”
“I cannot tell you, Warleader. The adept is weak. I think perhaps it is a child. But there is other danger. Beyond the valley--near it--above--an old man--” The words became slurred and jumbled as they often did when the Vulk’s strange mind left its body. The creature’s muscles twitched and a thin trickle of moisture ran from the slackening mouth.
Emeric seized the thin shoulders and shook Asa sharply. “A warlock? Are the rumors true, Asa?”
“Leave him,” Glamiss said shortly. “He will be useless for a bit. Let him rest. And no more about a damned warlock. This is a punitive expedition for Ulm--not a hunt for sinners, Emeric. The Inquisition will have to wait.”
A sudden scream, high-pitched and furious, froze the priest and warman where they stood. Higher on the ridge they could see the plunging shape of a Glamiss’s war mare, Blue Star, rearing and striking with her clawed feet at a huge, leathery-winged bird that had appeared from high above. As they watched, the eagle rose and stooped again, the broad wings almost covering the raging mare.
Glamiss and Emeric scrambled up the slope, the priest calling for Sea Wind. Already the rogue eagle had opened several red gashes on Blue Star’s heaving flank. As they watched, the mare ripped at the wing-membranes of her attacker, screaming with fury.
Sea Wind galloped toward the Navigator and he swung into the saddle with the swift ease of a Rhadan. He let his mount carry him ahead of Glamiss and under the menacing wings of the dragonlike bird. His long iron sword was in his hand and he struck at a descending talon with all his strength. The eagle uttered a shrill cry and beat at him with razor-tipped wings. His blow had severed the eagle’s foot, and the bloody stump crashed wetly against his iron mail, almost unhorsing him.
Glamiss reached the battle now, his flail swinging. A slash from the eagle’s remaining foot sent him tumbling among the rocks. Emeric could hear the clatter of troopers running to their assistance, but the great bird’s beak was suddenly darting at his unprotected face and he raised a mailed arm to protect himself and murmured an Ave Stella, for he felt very close to death.
He heard the wicked whirring of iron chains and the solid
chunk
of the morningstars, the spiked balls of the flail, striking the bird’s armored head. When he could look again, the eagle was down, its neck broken by Glamiss’s flail. A furious and bloody-flanked Blue Star was ripping at the fallen, already dying monster with her clawed feet.
He reeled in the saddle and held onto Sea Wind’s arching neck. The troopers clattered up to them and stood looking respectfully at the twitching, dying bird.
Glamiss was inspecting his mare’s injuries, cursing and blaspheming in a steady stream. It seemed to him that his question about having to fight the great birds had been answered. If the adept in the valley had sent the eagle, the troop’s situation was perilous. He gentled the still excited Blue Star, rubbing her silky muzzle and murmuring to her. Had a
child
done this? Anything seemed possible in this strange valley.
Abruptly, he made up his mind. He turned away and scrambled down the ridge to where Asa still sat, half-recovered now from the effort of his mental probe of the valley.
“Asa,” he said, “there is more in this place than fifty warmen can handle. Tell Rahel that we must have a starship with the full warband from Vara.”
“Rahel, yes,” the Vulk said vaguely, smiling. He would reach across the miles in the Vulk’s way, Glamiss knew, to touch the mind of his sister-wife, the Vulk Rahel, who remained always in the keep on the plain. Asa and Rahel were the two termini of the Talk, the only communication at a distance this world knew.
Emeric was at his shoulder, protesting. “Ulm will never let you lead the full warband. He would not dare.”
“Then let him come himself. I need more men.”
Emeric studied his friend’s intent face. It was certainly not fear that had done this to Glamiss. The Vykan was without fear. But there was an instinct in him that Emeric had often seen. Glamiss was a military genius. Perhaps even a political one. There was something in the valley of Trama Glamiss wanted, something he must have. Emeric suspected that it might be knowledge--forbidden knowledge. He shivered inwardly, thinking not of the bumbling, crude Ulm--but of the Inquisition. He said, “There is no starship at Vara. There will be none until the
Gloria in Coelis
arrives from Aurora.”
“Then let Ulm send the soldiers overland. I must have more men.”
“Enough to take and hold this valley for yourself, warleader?” Emeric asked evenly. “You know that if there is sin in Trama, it is for the Order Militant to say what must be done about it.”
Glamiss’s eyes were as cold as the glacier on the mountain. His words were both treasonous and blasphemous, but Emeric had no doubt whatever that he meant them. “Whatever there is here I will have, Emeric--if I must wade through blood to get it.”
The Navigator’s voice was steady. “Even if the blood is mine, Glamiss?”
The Vykan’s expression tightened and he said, “Even then, old friend,” and turned to climb the ridge once again.
The cosmography of the Second Stellar Empire is based, of course, on that of the First Empire. Confusion has arisen, however, due to the much greater size of the domain of the Rigellian Galactons, which needed to be divided into Marches, Provinces, Sectors, and finally the stellar systems with which we are familiar. In ancient times, for example, the Province of Vega contained at least a dozen star systems known as “Vega.” Local names were used by the natives, but the Imperial Cosmographic Institute listed these systems as Vega A, B, C, and so on. (These classifications should not be confused with the “Alpha,” “Beta,” etc., used to differentiate between stars of multiple systems.) Confusion has been compounded by the Second Empire practice of renaming certain star systems, corrupting the old names of others, and retaining the Golden Age names of still others. Thus modern Vega and Vyka lie within the ancient Province of Vega but are separate and distinct star systems seven parsecs apart. This, in spite of the fact that “Vyka” is nothing more nor less than an Inter-regnal corruption of the name “Vega.” Cosmographers tell us that present-day Vega and modern Vyka were, in ancient times, Vega B and Vega C, respectively.
--Star Commander Kendo alt Styglyz,
First Principles of Cosmogation,
Late Second Stellar Empire period