Blood of Ambrose by James Enge Page A

convinced that most of them were lies, fomented by the Imperial House for its own protection. He knew that many of them were slander, spread by people like himself, who had tried to undermine the popularity of some emperor by associating him with monstrously distorted rumors of Ambrosia, Morlock, or even Merlin. Now Urdhven understood why all those attempts (including his own) had been failures. The more the dangers of the Ambrosii were exaggerated, the more fearful a weapon the Imperial House had in them. Urdhven promised himself he would not forget that lesson, if he lived.
    If he lived? It was only when that phrase came into Urdhven's mind that he knew how deeply fear had infected him. And in that instant he heard the scream again.
    It was nearer now, and louder. It raised horrible indistinct pictures in Urdhven's mind. It sounded fierce, pitiless, triumphant, inhuman. Urdhven could not keep from his mind the knowledge that Morlock had first appeared from the direction of the Old City, and that the three had retreated the same way. Urdhven had special reason to fear that place. Was the scream coming from some monster of the Old City that Morlock had befriended or controlled? Was it a demon summoned from yet farther away? Why had they waited until nightfall? Was their dreadful ally some ghoulish creature that could walk only by night?
    “Draw your swords,” Urdhven said aloud, coolly. “Form a ring around the King and Steng.”
    The soldiers performed the maneuver instantly, seemingly relieved to be taking any positive action. Urdhven was racking his brains to think of something more for them to do when he saw a furtive shape flit across the pockmarked face of the second moon, Horseman. Instantly he realized why the scream had been so difficult to locate: it was coming from the sky! Urdhven thought he could trace the progress of the flying figure as it briefly occulted stars. He could not discern its shape, but it was certainly getting closer. From the sound of the repeated horrifying scream he guessed that the creature was flying straight at them.
    “Ready, men!” he called out. “It's coming from the east, and in the air. When it appears, strike: for your lives and for the empire!”
    A dreadful silence swallowed this remark, for the screaming had halted again. Then three voices rang out from the dark sky, singing an awful cacophony of nonsense syllables.
    “The Ambrosii!” The Protector heard one of his men whispering. “They come for their own!”
    Then the enemy was upon them.

 
    round sunset Wyrtheorn had been saying, “But won't the horseshoes catch fire? We've imbued them with many times their natural quantity of phlogiston.”
    Morlock, hanging upside down from Velox's saddle, finished imbuing the front left horseshoe with phlogiston. Then he observed, “The shoes may catch on fire, I suppose, if we ride across a field of stones, or a paved road. But I put an aethrium plate under each shoe; Velox should feel no pain.”
    “What about the nails? Wait a minute—they're not—”
    “Aethrium spikes. Yes.”
    “ Hurs krakna. Your Velox is the most expensive horse alive.”
    “It's worth it if it saves our lives,” Ambrosia, sitting in the saddle, pointed out. “Morlock, we are maybe twenty feet in the air.”
    “Are we headed up or down?”
    “A moment. Down, I think. Slowly.”
    “Just as well,” Morlock muttered.
    “Don't mutter,” his sister directed. “What are you saying?”
    “Morlock not mutter?” muttered Wyrtheorn. “Shall the dew not glisten? Shall the sun not rise in the west? And a diamond not be harder than a duck-sapphire?”
    “What are you saying, Wyrtheorn?”
    “I am muttering,” the dwarf said distinctly.
    “We're done,” Morlock said matter-of-factly. “Watch your seat, Ambrosia. I'm coming up.”
    Morlock shook out the aethrium box in his hand; the phlogiston rushed out in a vaporous glowing cloud that dispersed even as it flooded upward. Then he let the box fall