i on to his castle, leaving
most of his men behind to massacre us!"

Thal reined aside and Hoddan pounded on at the head of the tiny troop.
This was the second time in his life he'd been on a horse. It was two
too many. This adventure was not exhilarating. It came into his mind,
depressingly, that supposedly stirring action like this was really no
more satisfying than piracy. Fani had tricked him into a fix in which he
had to fight Ghek or be disgraced--and to be disgraced on Darth was
equivalent to suicide.

His horse came to a gentle rise in the ground. It grew steeper. The
horse slacked in its galloping. The incline grew steeper still. The
horse slowed to a walk, which it pursued with a rhythmically tossing
head. It was only less uncomfortable than a gallop. The dim outline of
trees appeared overhead.

"Perfect place for an ambush," Hoddan reflected dourly.

He got out a stun-pistol. He set the stud for continuous fire--something
he hadn't dared trust to the others.

His horse breasted the rise. There was a yell ahead and dim figures
plunged toward him.

He painstakingly made ready to swing his stun-pistol from his extreme
right, across the space before him, and all the way to the extreme left.
The pistol should be capable of continuous fire for four seconds. But it
was operating on stored charge. He didn't dare count on more than three.

He pulled the trigger. The stun-pistol hummed, though its noise was
inaudible through the yells of the charging partisans of the Lord Ghek.

[Illustration]

V

Hoddan swore from the depths of a very considerable vocabulary.

"You (censored)--(deleted)--(omitted)--(unprintability)", he roared.
"Get back up on your horse or I blast you and leave you for Ghek's men
to handle when they're able to move about again! Get back on that horse!
One--two--"

The man got back on the horse.

"Now go on ahead," rasped Hoddan. "All of you! I'm going to count you!"

The dozen horsemen from Don Loris' stronghold rode reluctantly on ahead.
He did count them. He rode on, shepherding them before him.

"Ghek," he told them in a blood-curdling tone, "has a bigger prize than
any cash you'll plunder from one of his shot-down retainers! He's got
the Lady Fani! He won't stop before he has her behind castle walls!
We've got to catch up with him! Do you want to try to climb into his
castle by your fingernails? You'll do it if he gets there first!"

The horses moved a little faster. T