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  The canots rushed toward the bank, the warriors in them unusually silent. Then, Rajn’s leading canot drove its prow aground and those within it came boiling over the end of it. Leaping down to the muddy earth beneath they burst into a roar, which was echoed and amplified as other canots drove aground on either side of it and their occupants leaped to the land. Yelling, the forest warriors ran toward the village.

  For a few literally frightening moments Harb, who had leaped unthinkingly with the others, thought that the rest of the raiders would carry him along in the press of their bodies into an assault upon the walls then and there—and it had not been his plan to get personally involved in any battle. However, just outside effective bow range from the wall facing them, the attackers slowed abruptly and came to a halt, falling silent again as they did so.

  Now it was the villagers’ turn to shout. A roar went up from behind the walls, as if the halting of the attack had been a victory won by the defenders. Weapons were shaken in the air above the palisade. When this at last died away, it was succeeded by a steady scattering of yells from both sides; and an intermittent exchange of stones and arrows began between attackers and defenders, none of which did any particular damage.

  The forest warriors milled about, not so much arguing with each other now as muttering to themselves, making grim motions at empty air and toward the enemy, and generally working themselves up toward an action fever.

  Rajn had evidently been waiting for this particular moment. To the surprise and pleasure of Harb, who had been worrying that he might have badly overrated the Homskarter king, Rajn climbed up on a barrel-like container of drink and began to make a speech, calling the rest cowards in every fashion his language could provide, and lashing them with the extremes of insult and contempt.

  The forest warriors gathered thickly about Rajn.They yelled back at him, waving weapons threateningly at first. But then, gradually, they fell silent.

  Ominously silent, thought Harb, who had prudently slipped back to the outskirts of the crowd. But Rajn continued to speak, still insulting the rest, but now mixing his epithets with references to the basic strength and fierceness of those he spoke to, subtly flattering them. They responded approvingly to this, and he slipped gradually into accusations and slanders against their opponents in the village. He worked them up to a wild roar of agreement; and he leaped from his platform, calling on all who were not the worst of cowards to follow him, and headed toward the gate.

  The whole crowd streamed after him. He was a good ten yards in front of the rest as they crossed the midpoint of the distance between their camp and the palisade; but by the time they were almost to the wall he had allowed others to catch up and even to get somewhat ahead of him. Though he was not among the first to lift the scaling logs and climb them to the top of the wall, he was right behind those who were first.

  The forest warriors did not yell, now. They saved their, breath for fighting, ignored their companions who fell beside them under the hail of arrows and stones and swarmed up the scaling logs to the top of the wall. Soon there were a handful of them over the points of the logs and fighting toe to toe with villagers on the walkway just inside the top of the palisade.

  All the while more of their companions were scrambling over the points of the logs to join them. Suddenly, the heavy gates in the palisade sagged open,whether broken through or unbarred from within by raiders who had gained the ground inside the village, Harb could not tell from his safe point in the rear of the attackers. Forest warriors shouted in exultation, streaming through the opening—and suddenly it was no longer a battle. The fighters around Harb were struggling now only to get into the village before those ahead of them had all the fun of slaughtering the defenseless and robbing the wealthy.

  Harb let them go. No one on either side was paying any attention to him now. Sensibly it occurred to him that the forest warriors, drunk with victory, might well prove as dangerous to him inside the village walls as the original inhabitants might once have. He waited until the noise from inside the village had largely died down before taking a walk through the half-open gates.

  There was not a great deal to see. The murder was just about over, but rape and a certain amount of amateur torture was still under way, the latter aimed at making sure that none of the villagers got away with keeping hidden possessions of value for wives or children sent off to safety before the raiders landed.

  Harb was not the sort of man to be moved in any large, emotional way by the scenes in the village; but on the other hand they were hardly much in the way of entertainment. He turned about and went back out to the raiders’ camp. There a victory party was already under way among those fortunate enough to have already found loot and returned with it. These were scarcely better company than their companions still in the village. Harb decided to retreat to one of the ships, made himself a warm bed of furs and settled down for the night. The noise on shore kept him awake for a while; then he fell into a sound slumber, rousing only briefly to find light reflections dancing on the inner ribs of the canot above his head, and discover that, by accident or design, the village was afire.

  In the morning the only visible villagers were dead and most of the raiders were in a sour mood, inclined to grumble about their hangovers, the poverty of the village and the untrustworthy honesty of their fellows. The village itself was a blackened jumble of unidentifiable rubble. By mid-morning, however, the canots were reloaded and stood off once more downstream.

  They sailed past another two villages before Rajn judged it time to send the warriors once more after conquest and loot. Of the next five villages, they struck and conquered three, and soon they were attacking almost every village they passed.

  They were into more southerly country now, where the spring was far advanced and the lands bordering the river banks were thickly settled. Now the raiders began making marches inland after looting the riverside villages, finding more remote little towns that were less well fortified and raiding these as well.

  They brought their booty back on captured wagons pulled by the native draft animals, which looked something like zebras. In the process, Harb noticed that they gave a wide berth to the much larger population centers—small cities, with earth or stone walls up to thirty feet in height—obviously as much more able to defend themselves as they were much richer than the villages.

  Harb smiled to himself. He and his equipment had, in assessing the situation here on 4938ID, estimated with a high order of probability that the raiders would behave in just this manner. They had not come all this way into the plains to get themselves killed, even though it was obvious that pickings in such a city would be beyond comparison with the proceeds they could glean from the small villages they usually attacked. Harb chose a good hour of the evening when the sun was down and Rajn, at least, was not yet too drunk; and sought out the Homskarter ruler.

  “King,” Harb said, “it comes to my mind that with all your cares and duties you might be having some little trouble sleeping these nights. If you would care for a tale or two from me to soothe your weariness—a tale told privately, that is—it would be my honor to serve you.”

  “Well now, Outlander,” said Rajn. He had been sitting before a fire, drinking with Witta and four of the lesser chiefs and his eyes glittered slightly under his brows as he looked up at the standing Harb. “It’s strange you should mention that. It’s true I’ve not had as much chance for sleeping as usual; and I owe it to the valuable warriors of our canots to keep myself in top fighting trim as an example to all. Suppose we take a skinful of this lowland drink back to my canot and you spin a tale or two there.”

  “Ho, Rajn!” said one of the lesser kings, who wore white wrappings on two of his arms and one leg. “Are the rest of us to miss out on these tales? A little fun might be good for all us leaders.”

  “Indeed—” Witta began sharply; then became silent as Rajn turned to look at him.

  “But what if the tale-telling should make me wakeful instead?” sa
id Rajn cheerfully, looking back at the chief who had spoken. “Brother swordsmen, let me try the outlander’s yarning on myself first before I inflict it on the rest of you.”

  He got to his feet as he said the last few words. “Come, Outlander,” he added, and walked out of the firelight into the darkness before further argument could develop. Harb lost no time in following.

  “Well,” said Rajn, once he was settled on a pile of furs in the beached canot, with Harb seated opposite, “what tale had you in mind to tell me, Outlander?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking of a story about a king on the sword-trail who gave up the taking of small villages and instead took a walled city such as we passed earlier today on our way back to the river,” answered Harb. “This city turned out to be so rich that the warriors he led had more wealth and grain than they could carry; and were able to go home early and spend the rest of the summer feasting and hunting.”

  Rajn spread the comers of his mouth in his race’s equivalent of a yawn.

  “I don’t know that I care for impossible tales, Outlander,” he said. “I like better those stories which could actually be.”

  “With eight thousand warriors,” said Harb, “what is even a walled city?”

  “Expensive, Outlander.” Rajn’s eyes glittered once more in the distant firelight coming over the side of the canot. “Far too expensive. What use the riches of a city, if only a handful are left to carry them home, and next summer only a slightly larger handful are waiting to take the sword-trail again?”

  “But, King,” said Harb, “in this story of mine,far more than a handful are left. Indeed, most of the warriors who attack live to return home rich.”

  “Ho? And how?” said Rajn.

  “For that,” said Harb, “I must tell you the tale. It seems this particular king had a friend on the sword-trail with him, an outlander of great strength, who could climb thirty feet of sheer stone wall with his fingernails and toenails...”

  Harb proceeded to spin a yam about a superman who could climb walls at night, silently, slay thirty city guardsmen without allowing any alarm to be given, and single-handedly open city gates so heavy that they normally required a pair of draft animals apiece to swing them apart, even after the massive bar that locked them had been lifted.

  There was a long moment of silence from Rajn after Harb had ended. Finally, he spoke.

  “Would that such children’s stories were possible,” Rajn said. “But no king would risk his raiders on the chance of such an outlander being successful in such an attempt.” He coughed laughter. “But do not think yourself unappreciated, Outlander. You have indeed made me sleepy.”

  “Risk?” said Harb. “What risk, King? If a king should march his warriors past such a city—again, just such a city as we saw earlier today in returning to our boats—on their way to take some other small village beyond such a city; and if it should happen that the warriors from the forest should camp overnight near the city, surely those within the city would not venture out?”

  “Certainly they would not,” said Rajn.

  “Then,” said Harb, “if in the middle of the night an outlander should come quietly to a king and tell him that the city gates were now open—or, better yet, a king should be in such position to see such gates open and rouse his men—what risk then?” There was another long silence from Rajn.

  “Now, that is indeed a thought,” he said, at last. “I will sleep on your tale, Outlander.”

  Satisfied, Harb left him. The next morning, at Rajn’s orders, the raiders marched inland again to raid a village beyond the city.

  That night found the raiders camped within half a mile of the city; and as soon as the dark was full, Harb slipped away from the others.

  He crossed the open country between the camp and the city silently and without difficulty. Halting in the deep shadow at the bottom of the wall to the right of the city gates, he took off his shield.

  He had brought sword and shield, not only because it would have seemed very strange indeed to any native to see him adventuring without it, but for more personally important reasons. Beneath its wooden covering, the incredibly tough alloy of which the shield was constructed was honeycombed with small compartments. Harb opened one of these now and took out a small, pistol-like device.

  Balancing it in one hand, he touched another trigger point on his helmet that slipped heat-sensing night-glasses down over his eyes. Looking along the top of the wall on either side of the gate with them, he picked out on each side the auras of three warm and living bodies, creating slight clouds above the stone.

  He moved away from the gate down the wall to his right until he was a safe distance from the auras, then stopped and fired the pistol-like device upward. A tiny projectile pulling a wire behind it leaped from the gun-muzzle to the top of the wall, and buried itself deep in the stone there. The impact made only the faintest of sounds. Harb grasped the wire where it emerged from the pistol muzzle and hooked it back through a small wheel-point in the middle of the device. Then, taking hold with each hand on a half of the pistol-shape, he prepared to go up the wall—his shield hanging at his back and the scabbard of his sword tied to his left leg.

  But he hesitated. Abruptly, he became aware that his heart was pounding fast within him—so fast and hard he could feel it thudding heavily inside his chest wall. It was true enough that he was carrying sophisticated equipment that should make the execution of what he had set out to do a sort of child’s play.

  But what if something went wrong? What if something unexpected should crop up, something outside his planning?

  He hesitated. It was still possible for him to turnaround and go back to the camp. Rajn would laugh at him secretly when morning came without anything happening. But the king was too shrewd to do more than that, or in any way risk losing Harb, as long as there were things yet to be discovered or gained from the outlander. And given time perhaps Harb could come up with another, personally safer, way to insure that the raiders took a city like this.

  But the moment of doubt and queasiness passed. Harb braced himself, pressed a button on the wire-gun, and a tiny but powerful winch inside it began to reel back into the muzzle the wire it had spat out,lifting gun and Harb to the missile-head buried in the stone at the top of the wall.

  Harb reached the top, clung with one hand to the wire-pistol while he got a grip with the other on the stone edge, then climbed up over the parapet and down on to the sentry walkway behind it. He crouched there.

  Ahead, his heat-sensing glasses now picked out sharply the heat images t>f the three sentries on this side of the gate. Predictably, and undoubtedly against orders, they were all clustered near the gate-end of the walkway, talking to each other.

  They were about seventy feet from Harb, but with the heat-sensing glasses to guide his aim, this distance was no problem. He detached the wire-end from its half-buried missile, put that device away and took from his shield a small handgun. He sighted it, and fired. Tiny, rocket-shaped projectiles leaped silently from its muzzle to bury themselves deep in the bodies of the three sentries. The three heat-auras slumped one by one to the walkway and lay unmoving.

  Harb walked up to the sentries and found them all dead. He cut their throats for appearances’ sake and then turned his attention to the ground within the gate.

  Down there his glasses showed twelve more auras. Silently, one by one, he shot these also, and saw them slump to the ground. Then he went softly to the stone stairs leading up to the walkway on the far side. Here also, the unsuspecting sentries were clumped together talking. He fired, saw them drop, and climbed the stairs to cut their throats. Then he went back down to the ground level, and gave visible death wounds to all the sentries he had slain there. Finally he turned his attention to the gate.

  Within minutes, he had used the wire-gun to cut through the massive wooden bar, and then winch open the heavy gate. As soon as the aperture was big enough to let Harb’s body through, he squeezed through into the open air beyond
, feeling a vast relief.

  “Ho! Who’re you? What’re you doing—”

  The voice exploded behind him. He turned to see an armed figure squeezing through the crack in the gates—behind him.

  There was no time to think. He had been spotted,and the alarm would now be raised. It had all been for nothing unless he could get Rajn back here before the city people found some way of rebarring the gate. Harb turned and ran, cursing his fate. The half-mile to the camp was no short run to make, loaded as he was with shield and sword.

  The shield, at least, could be picked up later. He threw it away. And then, just at that moment he heard the thud of running feet, not from behind but ahead of him. Fear took him by the throat. There must have been sentries outside the village walls as well as inside. Now he was trapped between the outside sentries and the individual behind who had surprised him; and he had nothing left but his sword,and what was in his pockets. These were vastly superior weapons to any his opponents would be carrying; but the really heavy artillery, so to speak,that he possessed were all in his shield, lost somewhere in darkness behind him.

  A clamp seemed to close on his throat. Panting, he stopped and yanked out his sword.

  Without warning the running feet before him were upon him. Their bodies surrounded him—and he almost sobbed with relief. Even in this semi-darkness he recognized Rajn and a body of the forest warriors.

  They rushed past him toward the opening in the gate, all but Rajn, who stopped briefly to peer into his face in the dimness.