The Asutra by Jack Vance

on the whole, been happy to make."
    Srenka tugged at his nose ring, uncertain whether or not Ifness had spoken in disparagement. He looked at Gulshe; they gave each other shrugs of perplexity, then went to their beds, where they muttered together for half an hour. Srenka seemed to be urging some action which Gulshe resisted; Srenka grumbled raucously; Gulshe made an ameliorative statement and both fell silent.
    Etzwane sought his own blankets, where he lay wakeful, uneasy for reasons beyond his understanding. "Perhaps," he told himself, "my mentality is primitive and credulous."
    During the night he awoke often to lie listening, and once heard the bickering of distant ahulphs. Another time a far mellifluous hooting reverberated through the stone defiles, to send eerie shudders along Etzwane's skin; it was a sound he could not identify. He had no awareness of returning to sleep, but when he awoke next, the sky glowed lavender to the approach of the three suns.
    After a glum breakfast of dried fruit and tea, the four set forth again, passing through a series of limestone defiles, then out upon a high meadow. They rode through a forest of gallows trees, then up a barren valley. A five hundred foot crag loomed above them, with the parapets of a ruined castle at the crest. Gulshe and Srenka halted to consider the trail ahead. "Is the castle inhabited?"
    "Who knows? " growled Gulshe. "Enough such places exist, with rogues and murderers waiting to roll down a rock, that the traveler must take care."
    Srenka pointed a crooked finger. "Lyre birds fly above the stones; the way may be considered safe."
    "How far now to the battlefield? " asked Ifness.
    "An hoar's ride, around the root of yonder mountain.... Come now; at a fast pace. Lyre birds or not, I mistrust these old bandit dens."
    The four rode forward at a smart gait, but the ruined castle offered no menace and the lyre birds soared as before.
    They rode down from the pass. Gulshe pointed toward the great mountain, hunching like a sullen beast over the plain below. "Thence the Red Devils came, on their way to Shagfe—there, to the north, you can barely see the Shagfe stockade. Early in the morning the men attacked, from positions they had taken during the night, and the Red Devils were encircled. The battle lasted two hours, and all the Red Devils, with their captive women and imps, were dead; and the band which had destroyed them marched south and was seen no more: a great mystery . . . There! The place where the Red Devils camped. The battle raged in this vicinity. Ah! Smell the carrion! "
    "What of the bones? " inquired Srenka with a sly grin. "Do they meet your expectations?"
    Ifness rode forward, across the scene of carnage. Roguskhoi corpses lay everywhere, in a clutter of twisted limbs and contorted postures. Decomposition was far advanced; ahulphs had toyed with the idea of devouring the black flesh and some had died from the experiment; these lay curled in furry balls down the slope.
    Ifness rode in a great circle, gazing intently down at the corpses, sometimes halting to study one or another of the stinking red shapes at length. Etzwane halted his pacer somewhat to the side, where he could watch the Sorukhs. Ifness rode up and halted beside Etzwane. "What do you make of the situation?"
    "Like yourself, I am puzzled," said Etzwane
    Ifness looked sidewise, eyebrows disapprovingly high. "Why then am I puzzled?"
    "Because of the wounds, which are not those of swords or cudgels."
    "Hmmf. What else have you noticed?"
    Etzwane pointed. "He with chain bib yonder appears to be a chieftain. He has suffered damage to his chest. The asutra he carried was destroyed. I noticed another dead chieftain across the field with a similar wound. The men who killed the Roguskhoi, like ourselves, knew of the asutra."
    Ifness gave a curt nod of the head. "So it would seem."
    The Sorukh approached, wearing artificial smiles. "The bones then," Srenka put forward, "what of all these fine