Storm over Vallia by Alan Burt Akers

on the straps of her left boot.
    “When Sosie the Slop trundles in, she is down for four burs’ extra duty in the washroom. I’ll tell her Deldar on my way out.”
    “Washroom? Just as well. If she caught punishment duty in the kitchen she’d crottle [7] everything she touched.”
    A thin flicker of a smile touched Lyss’s lips. Silda would have laughed out loud in delight.
    Nandi took herself off, and Lyss, after a last quick look in the tiny oval mirror and a pat at her hair, followed.
    She stamped down to wriggle her boots on comfortably, and gave her weapons belts that familiar hitch that settled them comfortably about the swell of her hips. Never one to let herself be untidy or in discomfort, Silda, in the shape of Lyss the Lone, followed that maxim to the best of her ability.
    She headed directly for the nearest exit of the villa. Many of the massive and ornate statues had been removed merely to provide that amount of extra space. The marble floor looked paler and more polished in squares and star-shapes where the statues had stood for so long. Lyss moved with a sure easy pace, not swinging about too much, keeping in a straight line. People passed, going about their business. She felt a pang at the sight of slaves in their gray breechclouts and kept her face set in that stony mask.
    Raised voices, as of a group of people all talking at random, reached her from the hall leading to the exit. She walked on and saw the group entering the building, a gaggle of the new arrivals being led to take up whatever duties they had been assigned. If many more bodies were crammed in here the walls would burst.
    She stopped abruptly. She did not swear out loud; but the soft curve of her lips tightened.
    To herself, she said: “Oh, damn! Just my luck!”
    In the approaching group and laughing up at a tall Bowman of Loh, walked Mandi Volanta. Mandi had been through Lancival at the same time as Silda Segutoria, and it was sure that she would recognize her. Lancival, where the Sisters of the Rose trained their girls in many arts and educated them for life on Kregen, bred a very special kind of person. Silda was immediately aware of the stab of sorrow and then of anger that Mandi Volanta had turned against the majority of her school friends and against the emperor.
    There was nothing else to do but swing about and go marching off back the way she had come and by a circuitous route reach the next exit along, which lay past the Corridor of Bones.
    She looked neither right nor left and, with her nose stuck arrogantly in the air, strode on past the detail of Chuliks on guard. For all her attitude of haughty superiority, she was aware of the Chuliks’ yellow skin, of their green-dyed pigtails, their round black eyes, and most particularly of the upthrust tusks set in the corners of their mouths. They wore good quality armor and bright uniforms, and their weapons were clean and sharp. Born to be mercenaries, Chuliks, and highly prized.
    When she reached the outside air the suns were nearly gone.
    Crowds meandered about the streets waiting to gawp at the illuminations to be provided by the kov in this night’s contribution to the festivities of his coronation, and no doubt hoping that free wine would flow in torrents.
    A musky odor hung on the air, compounded of sweat and dust and the exhalations of many people. The streets echoed to the surf roar of the crowds, and the occasional shrill yells of laughter piercing through did not sound incongruous. Lyss hated it all.
    All these people should be shouting for Drak and the emperor. Still, she could hardly find it in her heart to blame them too harshly. Those ferocious Chuliks back there and all the other warriors under Kov Vodun’s command would quickly smash them back to their new obedience.
    Already there were drunks lurching disgustingly about the streets.
    Taverns were doing, in the liquid jargon of the profession, a Roaring Trade. Dedicated drinkers were not hanging about waiting for job