They took no prisoners. And whenever Aspe recaptured some village, the starving people would come out, and they would beg on their knees not to be delivered to the atheists. “Cannibals,” they called them.

“Not men, but singing devils.” They told stories of how the antinomials drank blood from their horses’

necks, and made campfires at night to grill the bodies of their enemies, or else ripped them raw with huge predatory teeth.

Most of the army hated the antinomials, and feared them more than the enemy. Some hated them and loved them too. It was infuriating to see them break off fighting in the middle of a skirmish for no reason and gallop back at random down the valley, like angry random gusts of wind. A man could never be sure whether they could tell barbarians apart, or recognize their allies from their foes, or even if they might turn on themselves some day and cut each other to pieces in an excess of frenzy.

But it was exhilarating, too, to see them riding, surrounded by this time by a great army of dogs come out of nowhere to follow them. It was exhilarating to hear them break the air each morning with their harsh, wild songs. They were fearless. They would ride laughing to overrun some dug-in guns, and then they would hold the place for hours, though outnumbered many times, and when their ammunition was gone, they would charge the enemy with bayonets, yelling like demons, the colonel out in front, until the enemy broke and ran. In those days, many of King Argon’s soldiers were adventists; they carried the red and white cockade strapped to their helmets, though some still wore the old penis-shaped pendants their fathers and grandfathers had worn. To them the antinomials represented God’s avenging scourge, and they spoke about them with a kind of superstitious awe, and they were always the first to run.

In the balance, thought Commissar Micum Starbridge, the antinomials did more good than harm, wild and undisciplined as they were. At first, Aspe was careful to keep them separate from the rest of the army, to let them fight on different days, to give them different objectives. But after a time, they answered to his call, because he bit them with his magic voice and drew them pictures in the air. In the evenings, in their camp, under the dark sky, he sang to them of home, of snowfall, of freedom, of safety from persecution, of a great journey back up above Rang-river, when all the barbarians were dead. He gave them memories of Paradise. They were easier to deceive than children. He led them in person when he could, his white hair streaming out behind him, and he took care to be the bravest and the strongest. At the battle of Halcyon Ridge, on September 99th, in the eighth phase of spring, he came back with the heads of two enemy commanders, identical twins, hanging from his saddle bow, and after that the antinomials were his, body and heart. In every man and woman, even the purest, there are deep biting instincts and an unconquerable love for destiny. They followed him without thinking.