“Very well. I’m returning to my quarters. Call me when they open their portal.”

He had to get away for a few minutes, to conquer the animal in him. He hadn’t realized there would be so much difference between the training and battle fields. Once in his quarters he seated himself on a small carpet. He used the basic tool given every child legionnaire. He went through the Soldier’s Ritual, the calming mantra-prayers with which soldiers began and ended their days. He regained himself.

Lord Kuo was right, he thought. There is something here. Maybe something bigger than Wen-chin suspected.

Pan ku came in. “Oh. Excuse me, Lord.”

“I’ve just finished, Pan ku. Have you taken the pulse of the legion?”

“They’re bored, Lord. They resent being stuck on a dead frontier. Today seems to have perked them up.”

“No serious problems?”

“No. This is an old legion. A good one. Well trained and disciplined, with conscientious centurions and decurions. It’ll do what you ask of it.”

“Good. Good. Thank you, Pan ku.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, Lord?”

“Don your battle gear. We’re going into the desert.”

Shih-ka’i flashed through the portal an hour later. He found that his hunters had chosen a good position in which to wait. After surveying their dispositions, he prepared a number of magicks. “Just in case,” he told Pan ku.

The soldier nodded. He was familiar with his master’s obsession with being prepared.

Two dust clouds came closer and closer. Hsu Shen was doing a perfect job of pushing without pushing too hard. Shih-ka’i took a look off the back side of the low hill where he waited. Dust clouds were converging on a point several miles eastward. “Setting an ambush of his own,” he murmured.

Pan ku came round the hill. “Lord, they just had word from Lord Lun-yu. Two of those bodies jumped up and tried to kill him.”

“Uhm? I should have warned him. He’s all right?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Good.”

Their quarry moved into the pocket. Shih-ka’i counted twenty-five. Someone said, “I thought they were supposed to be carrying their dead?”

Shih-ka’i did not tell the man that the dead were walking again. That none of the attackers had been alive. He gave the signal.

His men revealed themselves. The party below halted. They were badly outnumbered, and Hsu Shen was right behind them.

Shih-ka’i stared. Hsu Shen had been right. Three were legionnaires.

The group formed a turtle, ready to fight. Shih-ka’i’s men closed in.

The surrounded men dropped.

Shih-ka’i felt something electric stir the air. “Down!” he bellowed. “Every-body on the ground!” He whipped his mind into his bag of prepared tricks.

What looked like a great black boot sole blotted out the sky. Its heel descended swiftly. For an instant Shih-ka’i pictured himself as a bug about to be crushed.

He loosed a spell.

The air whined with the sound of a thousand giant whetstones scraping steel, then the cracking of a million tiny whips. He looked up. The boot had vanished.