The Quest

It was still twenty days short of the harvest moon when the oligarchs struck. Many thousands were already privy to the pla

They surrounded it at night and captured all the inhabitants. Onka interrogated them one at a time in the village council hut. He used the lash and the branding iron. Although eight men died during the questioning, and many more were blinded and maimed, he learned little.

Then he started on the women. Bilto's youngest wife was the mother of twins, a girl and a boy aged four. When she resisted Onka's questions, he forced her to watch while he decapitated her son. Then he threw the boy's severed head at her feet, and picked up his sister by a handful of her curls. He dangled her screaming and wriggling before her mother's face. 'You know that I will not stop with just one of your brats,' he told the woman and pricked the little girl's cheek with his dagger. She shrieked afresh with pain, and the mother broke down. She told Onka everything she knew, and that was a great deal.

Onka ordered his men to drive all the villagers, including Bilto, his wife and their surviving daughter, into the thatched council hut. They barred the doors and windows, then set fire to the thatch. While the screams were still ringing from the burning building, Onka mounted and rode like a fury for the citadel to report to the oligarchs.

Two of the villagers had been hunting in the hills. From afar they witnessed the massacre and went to warn That and Meren that they had been betrayed. They ran all the way to where the band was hiding, a distance of almost twenty leagues.

That listened to what the two men told him, and did not hesitate.

'We ca

'Taita!' Fe

'You know that I ca

Reluctantly Meren nodded. 'Colonel That is right. He ca

He must take the people and fly. Taita himself wanted it.'

'I will not go with you,' Fe

'I will stay too,' Meren told her, 'but the others must leave at once.'

Sidudu reached for Fe

'You are brave girls,' said That, 'but will you go again to the Temple of Love and bring out our young women?'

'Of course!' Fe

'How many men will you need to go with you?' asked That.

'Ten will suffice,' Meren told him. 'We will also need spare horses for the temple girls. We will bring them to you at the first river crossing on the road to Kitangule. Then we will come back to wait for Taita.'

They rode for most of the night. Fe

'What is the morning routine in the temple?' Fe

'Before sunrise the priestesses take the girls to the temple to pray to the goddess. After that they go to the refectory for breakfast.'

'So they should be in the temple now?' Meren asked.

'Almost certainly,' Sidudu affirmed.

'Whatofthetrogs?'

'I am not sure, but I think they will be patrolling the temple grounds and the woods.'

'Are any of the priestesses kind to the girls? Are there any good women among them?'

'None!' said Sidudu bitterly. 'They are all cruel and merciless. They treat us like caged animals. They force us to submit to the men who come, and some of the priestesses use us for their own foul pleasures.'

Fe

'We kill any who get in our way.'

They drew their swords and rode down in a tight group, making no attempt to conceal their approach. The trogs were nowhere to be seen, and Sidudu led them directly to the temple, which stood detached from the main building. They raced towards it and pulled up the horses in front of the wooden doors. Meren jumped down and tried the latch, but it was barred from the inside.

'On me!' he shouted to the men who followed him, and they formed up in phalanx. At his next order they lifted their shields and charged the door, which burst open. The girls were huddled on the floor of the nave

with four black-robed priestesses standing guard. One was a tall, middle aged woman with a hard, pockmarked face. She lifted the golden talisman she held in her right hand and pointed it at Meren.'

'Beware!' Sidudu shouted. 'That is Nongai and she is a powerful sorceress. She can blast you with her magic'

Fe

She drew and released it in a single fluid movement. The arrow hummed down the length of the nave and struck Nongai in the centre of her chest. The talisman spun out of her hand and she crumpled on to the stone floor. The other three priestesses scattered like a flock of crows.

Fe

'Speak to them, Sidudu,' Meren ordered. 'Quieten them.'

Sidudu ran to the girls, and pulled some to their feet.

'It's I, Sidudu. You have nothing to fear. These are good men, and they have come to save you.' She saw Jinga among them. 'Help me, Jinga! Help me bring them to their senses!'

'Take them out to the horses, and get them mounted,' Meren told Fe

They dragged the girls out through the doorway. Some were still weeping and wailing and had to be thrown up bodily on to the saddles.

Meren was ruthless with them, and Fe

At last they were all mounted, and Meren shouted, 'Forward at the gallop!' and touched Windsmoke's flanks with his heels. He had two girls up behind him, clinging to him and each other. Nakonto and Imbali hung on Fe

As they entered the track through the forest, the trogs were waiting for them. Five of the huge apes had climbed into the trees and they dropped out of the branches on to the horses as they passed below. At

the same time other apes came bellowing and roaring out of the undergrowth. They leapt up at the riders or snapped with their powerful jaws at the legs of the horses.

Nakonto had a short stabbing spear in his right hand and killed three of the brutes with as many quick blows. Imbali's axe hissed and hummed through the air as she cut down two more. Meren and Hilto hacked and thrust with their swords, and the troopers who followed spurred their horses into the fight. But the trogs were fearless and single-minded and the fight was ferocious. Even when they were gravely wounded or dying the apes tried to drag themselves back into the fray. Two set upon Windsmoke and tried to savage her hindquarters. The grey mare aimed two mighty kicks. The first crushed the skull of one and the second caught the other under the jaw and snapped its neck cleanly.