Witches of Kregen by Alan Burt Akers

that we’d meet in the evening. There was to be a ceremony this night. They’d be there to enjoy the sacrifice, the torture, the blood and the horror and the orgy that followed.
    I’d be there, too, but I’d be there for a vastly different set of reasons...
    They expected a good turnout for the ceremony. A camp lay only a few dwaburs off, containing a goodly number of adherents. The cult was being brought into my Vallia by mercenaries from Hamal.
    This was a situation so intolerable that it could not be allowed to continue past this night...
    Of course, once I’d got over that initial burst of anger, I saw that just burning the temple — as ever — wouldn’t stop them. We must smash up this conspiracy, defeat Layco Jhansi and the Racters, unite all true Vallians. Then we could completely expunge all traces of Lem the Silver Leem.
    For a weak moment I contemplated taking one of their fluttrells and continuing my flight to Inch. The war could be helped along if I did that, and that was my first concern.
    Then I recalled the anguish of Kotera Minvila over her daughter Maisie.
    That settled that, then.

Chapter six
    The Chief Priest
    Waiting for the night to arrive turned out to be a cruel business.
    Numerous schemes flitted through my mind. The evil of Lem the Silver Leem was self-evident, at least to those who had witnessed its diabolical practices. If I worked myself into a feverish state, dwelling on the problems we faced and the hardness of the road that led to eventual success, I believe you will understand.
    At last Zim and Genodras sank beneath the horizon and the Maiden with the Many Smiles shone among the stars, with the Twins, eternally orbiting each other as they orbit Kregen.
    The dubious scheme I settled on at last did not call for me to walk out with either the two paktuns or the other people walking in from the camp. Back home in Vallia there were plenty of silver masks fashioned in the shape of the ugly faces of leems, trophies from successes of the past. There were also golden zhantil masks there...
    So it was necessary for me to creep out alone and unobserved and waylay one of the people walking in from the camp. I’d have a look at that camp as well, on the morrow, I promised myself. If I was still in the land of the living by then, that was.
    The fellow collapsed and I took his silver mask, his long brown cloak, and also his badge of brown and silver feathers. Mine had served its purpose, convincing Movang and Helvcin, but was clearly not as authentic as an original. Donning the cloak, arranging the longsword comfortably within the capacious brown folds, I strapped on the mask and set off for the temple.
    This, I saw, was merely the entrance tunnel to an abandoned mine.
    No chance, then, to set the place on fire. I might smoke a few of the rasts out.
    The cloak, the mask, the badge, gained me entrance without question or trouble. The foul stink of incense affronted my nostrils. Many tapers burned, and torches, and the glinting tunnel walls and roof loomed semi-circularly above, a blasphemous temple indeed.
    There stood the altar, a solid block of stone. They’d not carted that around with them but, most likely, had found it conveniently within the mine. The image of Lem, gleaming silver above, would be carried about, and I judged it to be fashioned from lightweight wood with a silver-gilt finish.
    To one side rested the cage, of split timbers, and within the cage, clad in a white dress and decked with flowers — Maisie.
    She was quite happy.
    Oh, yes, they knew how to handle their sacrifices, the damned Brown and Silvers.
    The new white dress.The flowers.The doll, the sweets and candies. She would burble happily to herself until the sacrificial knife descended. Her heart would still beat after it had been wrenched from her body; but before that she would have suffered tortures that could only make her death a release.
    Well, the bastards were going to be disappointed on that score, at least, this