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A diligent soldier and knight, he felt a great personal shame for allowing those under his command to be taken by surprise. Now that it was too late, he was well aware that he should have arranged for a better watch. If he had simply set up the usual precautions any military expedition would normally take the animals would never have been able to sneak up on them. And he was convinced that no enemy, whether it be human or semi-animal such as a centaur, could overcome a properly defended body of Hithan soldiers.

He had heard the tales of the battle between the centaurs and humans on the Infinite Plains several years earlier, when a much smaller army of centaurs had sliced the invading Hithan army to ribbons almost at will, but he had never quite believed them. Centaurs may possess exceptional strength and they might be almost impossible to kill, but Hithans were nothing to trifle with, either. Not to mention that the centaurs who had mauled the Hithan army were large creatures the size of Arabians or even Clydesdales, while the band who had attacked Colvanius' soldiers were barely the size of the ponies ridden by children back in Hitha, their human bodies no larger than those of prepubescent adolescents. Colvanius was certain that he could have bested them easily in a fair fight.

But it hadn't been fair, and he had failed miserably in not arranging for proper lookouts. It was a blot on his record that he would never live down. Even if he survived to return to his post in the Hithan army, any chance of advancement had vanished the moment the mountain centaurs had attacked his troops. His career was over. He would be forced to return to his grandfather's estate and take up some suitably pastoral pastime, like bee-keeping.

But that was all in the future, assuming he had one. His first responsibility was for the safety of his soldiers, such as he had left. If possible, to get them safely out of this and back into Imperial territory or, failing that, at least to make their captivity as honorable and comfortable as possible.

He had assumed at first that his captors intended them for slaves. After all, that was what the Hithan army would have done with captured enemy soldiers. But he had overheard the little exchange between the female centaur and the young slave, whatever his name was (Colvanius was a relatively compassionate man, for a nobleman and a soldier, but he never bothered to look at slaves, especially those belonging to other officers; it was a wonder he even recognized Cramp, let alone know his name). Thinking back on it, he vaguely recalled having heard that the plains centaurs had had no idea of slavery and had been deeply offended once the concept had been explained to them. If these mountain cousins were of a similar mind, it left him in a complete quandary as to what they intended to do with their captives.

As they had been forcibly marched across the brutal, impossibly rugged mountain landscape Colvanius had taken a covert roll-call of his remaining troops. Of the 210 men and women who had been standing that morning (not counting their personal slaves) perhaps 150 were left. Under the circumstances, it was hard to take an exact count. His field of vision was limited, and the others kept changing position in line as they struggled along. There had been 120 slaves (he hadn't been interested in them as people, but had needed to know their numbers for logistical reasons) and as far as he knew none of them had been slain, though several appeared to be missing. Probably they had foolishly fled at the moment of attack, no doubt believing they could somehow escape to freedom through the desolate, killer mountains. Colvanius wasted no thought for them.

As for the donkeys, the gods alone knew where they had vanished to. Colvanius wouldn't have put it past their captors to have slaughtered and eaten them on the spot. Probably raw, he added savagely. Whatever had happened to them, they had disappeared.

When it came to their supplies- Colvanius put that question out of his mind. Even if he could manage to arrange some sort of escape from their primitive captors, there was little chance they would be able to recover their belongings.

The soldier thought with a certain regret of his sword that had been handed down to him by his great-uncle when he had first joined the army at age sixteen. Hithan aristocrats tended to treat their swords as family heirlooms, the most prized possessions of a militaristic caste. But they were also pragmatic enough to know when to let them go. He might regret the loss of the sword but he wouldn't shed any tears over it. Except as a weapon to use against his enemies, something he surely wanted at hand, just then.

He tried to memorize their route as the animal-things led them through the mountains, but it was an impossible task. They made constant twists and turns, repeatedly following what appeared to be dead-end box canyons and then suddenly reversing course to snake their way up a narrow path along the side of a stratified cliff. At other times they scrambled along the lower face of an impassable wall of stone, only to stumble suddenly across a frigidly cold mountain stream that had sliced through it, a stream they would be forced to wade up to the summit above. He soon became dizzy trying to keep track. He was an intelligent man and painfully stubborn when he set his mind to something, but he was almost certain he would be unable to find his way back on his own.

But they did seem to be taking them at least part of the way to where they wanted to go- over the high mountain ridge into the lands beyond. He had to smile grimly at that. Were these half-witted creatures going to reveal to him the very thing he had been sent to discover, and had wasted so many weeks futility attempting to find on his own? For the entire purpose of the mission had been to discover some way through the Stone Mountains that walled off the northern borders of Hithia from the mysterious countries beyond them.

For centuries the Hithans hadn't made any effort to penetrate their impassable heights, simply because it wasn't deemed worthwhile to send an army through such hideous obstacles for what little appeared to be found there. So the maps of the Empire, made mostly by slaves who could be bothered with such unmanly, unmilitant pursuits, had left those areas blank, filling them in with fanciful artwork such as blowing whales, compasses, or scrollwork.

But that was before the army had marched into the Infinite Plains, to the east and north of the empire, and had, by roundabout means, come learn of the lands directly to the north, beyond the Stones. To their amazement, they discovered that a great and civilized nation existed there on the shores of an vast lake, unnaturally warm for a body of water so far to the north. The centaurs called it the Steaming Lake because of the thick banks of fog that constantly rolled over its surface as warm water met colder air, but the natives- people of great intelligence and cultural achievement surpassing even the Hithans- called it the Sacred Mother Ik and worshipped it as a sort of divine entity.

In their need, the expansionist Hithans had made an alliance with the Ikans, and with all northern peoples who would join them, enlisting their aid in their wars with the most militant of the centaurs on the northern Infinite Plains, to the west of the Ik. And also to overthrow the great city of Hyperborea, in the distant north, the de facto ruler of the plains and much else beside. And the alliance had held, at least for the time being, simply because the centaurs were, as a whole, too fierce to be overcome by might of Hithan arms. They effectively locked any further Hithan expansion to the northeast.

But unlike the centaurs, the Ikans were no supermen, (or super-halfmen, at any rate) invincible to Hithan weaponry. For the most part they were small and peaceful, and isolationist to a fault. True, they knew some tricks that might be termed magic, but the Hithans held all such intellectual, mystical pursuits in contempt. As a warrior caste, they allowed their children to learn to read only because it was an absolute requirement of empire. They had no respect for anything but sheer force, and believed that their muscle could overcome anything that might stand in their way.

And the Emperor had itchy fingers. His father and grandfather had conquered most of the known world, and he had added the rest. But he was of the type who could not rest until every spot on the map was acknowledged to be his personal possession. He had learned through bitter experience that the centaurs of the Infinite Plains could not be conquered (at least for the time being) and so expansion was halted in that direction. To the west was the ocean, to the south and southeast nothing but sterile desert. And to the north....

Well, to the north, just beyond a narrow, rugged shoreline, there was the impossibly, almost supernaturally high Stone Mountains. They were the home of nothing more interesting than loose, wandering tribes of Lupus, small, furred, and savage; probably not even human. No one would for a moment consider them to be worth the bother of conquest, even if one could track down whatever degenerate hovels they lived in, in their hidden villages. They apparently didn't even possess the knowledge of fire, and their weapons- Colvanius snorted in disgust even thinking of the crude sticks they fought with.

But if the centaurs blocked their expansion in the east, the only thing blocking them in the north was nature itself. And beyond the mountains, Hithans now knew there existed a land of fabulous culture and (presumably) great wealth. All they had to do was discover a way through the Stone Mountains. Once that was found, the Empire could send an army to the north without having to pass through centaur territory. They could conquer the weakling, hapless Ikans before their allies even knew what had happened.

Of course the centaurs would be unhappy, and the emperor would have to use skillful diplomacy, threats, and not a few bribes to soothe them over. But presented with an accomplished fact, with the Ikan civilization firmly in Hithan hands, even the centaurs would eventually have to accept reality. All the empire would have to do is find a way through the mountains and everything else would follow as a matter of course.

So a scouting mission had been thrown together; small so that it could pass unnoticed through the mountains, since this was not (not yet) a mission of conquest. And Colvanius Ollium, a respected but not outstanding lower officer, had been placed in charge of it.

They had passed easily enough through the rugged lower slopes of the Stone Mountains. If the Lupus had spotted them (and they probably had) the creatures had put up no resistance to these foreigners on their soil. They had simply withdrawn before them, which was more or less to be expected from creatures little above the intelligence and morality of apes (or perhaps bears or wolves; with Lupus it was hard to tell).

Their only resistance had been the land itself. Though he had admitted it to no one, Colvanius had been stunned when they had finally penetrated deeply enough through the rugged lower hills to behold the ridge of the mountains themselves. It seemed impossible that solid stone could stand so high. He found himself almost wondering if the old myths were true, that the Stone Mountains had been created supernaturally, by forces that approached the stature of the gods.

But he had his orders and he intended to carry them out to the best of his ability. So he had led his small band into the rugged lower slopes of the Stones, penetrating cautiously toward the north only to be foiled time and time again by impassable cliffs rising straight above them or dropping thousands of yards before their shuddering feet. His mapmaker had done her best to keep track of the landscape that opened out before them, but after awhile even the most optimistic came to believe it to be a waste of time. If there was any way through those mountains it was too well-hidden for a single expedition to find in only one summer of looking.

But of course that was before the ambush. It had never occurred to Colvanius or to his superiors that anything other than the scattered, animal-like Lupus might dwell in the highlands. The suggestion of a fragile, four-footed creature such as a centaur living there would have been laughed off as a bad joke. And now, because of that cynical disbelief, Colvanius and his soldiers were the prisoners of the very creatures no one would have given a chance to survive in such a rugged, impassable landscape.

Was it possible that their captors might actually show them the very thing they were seeking? A pass into the lowlands beyond? As he struggled northward under their prodding, Colvanius found himself hoping that they might. Obviously the centaur band had to be a patrol from a more tolerable climate. Nothing could possibly live at such extreme altitudes. Perhaps their native land was on the northern slopes of the Stones. Perhaps it even bordered on the territory of the Ikans. Possibly they would guide the Hithans right to the 'sacred lake' itself.

Or so Colvanius dared dream, to keep up his spirits as he marched, his bound arms throbbing with pain and his lungs screaming for air. But their route only led higher and higher, until finally they came out at the grisly sight of the Chest, a similitude of a bony ribcage pressed against the upper slopes of the highest mountain on the ridge. Staring at it in the moonlight, Colvanius found his hopes dashed against cold reality. He began to think once more of dungeons and executions, and a bitter, cold grave in the forgotten wastes of frigid glaciers and bare, mountain stone.

Part Six 

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