He stretched his eyestalks as far as they would go, a grasping-claw's length from his cephalothorax. He drew a knife and brandished it at the moon. "Soon everything you shine on will be mine."

"The Soft Ones may perhaps have something to say about that, my master," a dry voice beside him observed. He hissed in surprise. He had not heard Z'Yon come up. The shaman could be eerily quiet when he chose.

"Soft Ones," V'Zek said, clicking his scorn. "They did not save C'Lar, nor will they save T'Kai when we reach it. I almost wonder if they exist at all. So much open space makes people imagine strange things."

"They exist," Z'Yon said. "They are one of the reasons I sought you out tonight. What do you plan to do about them?"

The chieftain clacked discontentedly. Since C'Lar fell, he had known the Soft Ones were real, but had tried to avoid thinking of them. Z'Yon was useful, because the shaman made him look at hard questions. "I will deal with them, if they care to deal with me," V'Zek said at last. "Some of their trinkets are amusing."

He thought of the mirror some grandee had owned in captured C'Lar. It was his now, of course. He admired the perfect reflection it gave. It was ever so much clearer than the polished bronze that was the best even T'Kai made. He had not known what a handsome fellow he was.

But Z'Yon would not leave off. "And if they do not?"

"Then I will kill them." V'Zek was very straightforward. That made him a deadly dangerous warleader?he saw an objective and went right after it. It also suited him to lead the M'Sak, whose characters were mostly similar to his own, if less intense. Z'Yon, though, did not think that way: another reason he was valuable to his chieftain.

The shaman let V'Zek's words hang in the air. V'Zek suspected his carapace was turning blue with embarrassment. Who knew what powers the Soft Ones had? "No rumor has ever spoken of them as killers," he said, the best defense of his belligerence he could come up with.

"No rumor has ever spoken of anyone attacking them, either," Z'Yon pointed out.

V'Zek knew that as well as the shaman. He changed the subject, a chiefly prerogative. "Why else did you want to see me?"

"To warn you, my master." When Z'Yon said that, V'Zek grew very alert. The shaman had smelled out plots before. But Z'Yon went on in a way his master had not looked for. "When the moon comes round to fullness again, unless I have misreckoned, the great f'noi that lives in the sky will seek to devour it." The M'Sak were not as intellectually sophisticated as the T'Kai, but their seekers-after-wisdom had watched the heavens through the trees for many years.

The chieftain cared nothing for such concerns. A superstitious chill ran through him; he felt his eyestalks contract of themselves. "It will fail?"

"It always has," Z'Yon reassured him. "Still, you might spend some time warning the warriors this will take place, so they are not taken by surprise and perhaps panic-stricken."

"Ah. That is sensible. Claim yourself any one piece of loot from my share of the booty of C'Lar." V'Zek was open-clawed with his gifts; who would stay loyal to a chieftain with a name for meanness?

Z'Yon lowered and raised his eyes, a thank-you gesture. "I wish I could have told you sooner, my master, but the campaign has disrupted my observations, and I did not become certain enough to speak until now."

"It is of no great moment." V'Zek settled back on his walking-legs. "Fifty-one days should be adequate time to prepare the fighters. By then, if all goes well, we will be attacking the city of T'Kai itself."

"Yes, and that is why you will need to harden the warriors' shells against fear. Think on it, my master: When the f'noi in the sky wounds the moon with its claws, what color does the moon turn as its blood spreads over it?"

V'Zek thought. He had seen such sky-fights a few times, watching as Z'Yon and the other shamans beat drums to frighten away the sky-f'noi. "The color of bronze, more or less…" The chieftain paused. "You are subtle."

"You see it too, then: When the heavenly f'noi attacks the moon, it will become the color of the T'Kai banners. That is an omen which, without careful preparation, common warriors might well see as disturbing."

"So they might." V'Zek opened and closed his upper grasping-claws while he thought, as if he wished to rend something. His left lower claw was never far from the shortspear strapped to his plastron. "Suppose the omen means that T'Kai will fall to us. Suppose that, till the evil night, you put that meaning about."

"Shall I consult the moltings, to seek the true significance of the phenomenon?"

"For your own amusement, if you like." That lower claw moved closer to the shortspear; Z'Yon felt his small, fanlike tail, of itself, fold under the rear of his abdomen. He did not need the reflex to know he was afraid; he felt the fear in his wits as well as his body. His chieftain went on, "Of course, you will present it to our warriors as I have given it to you now."

"Of course, my master." Z'Yon backed out of V'Zek's presence. When?actually, just before?he had gone a seemly distance, he turned and hurried away.

V'Zek let the slight breach of etiquette pass. He glowered up at the moon. Nothing would interfere with his plans for conquest: not the Soft Ones, whatever they really were, and not the moon, either. Nothing.

Having made that vow to himself, he returned at last to his shelter. The ropes and poles were a poor substitute for the fragrant, leafy branches he was used to. He let out a resigned hiss and wondered again how the southrons bore living away from the forests. Maybe, he thought, they were such skillful artificers exactly because they were trying to make up for what they lacked.

The why of it did not matter, though. They had been making their trinkets and trading them back and forth for so long that they forgot claws had any other uses. C'Lar had fallen even more easily than V'Zek had expected.

He composed himself for sleep. C'Lar was only the beginning.

Up on the battlements, Marya giggled. Jennifer took the reader off her nose for a moment so she could watch T'Kai's army march out of the city. The host looked martial enough to her, if uncertainly drilled. She asked, "What's funny?"

"It's just that I've never seen such a lot of tin openers on parade," Marya said.

Bernard Greenberg said, "They're on the big side for tin openers," but now he smiled, too. Marya had a point. Being armored themselves, the G'Bur had developed an assortment of weapons reminiscent of those of Earth's Middle Ages: halberds, bills, and partisans. All of them looked like big pieces of cutlery on long poles. On L'Rau, piercing and crushing took the place of slashing.

Pavel Koniev swung a wickedly spiked morning star, but his expression was sheepish. He said, "When the locals gave me this, I had visions of smashing the M'Sak army single-handed. But if they're all toting polearms, I won't be able to get close enough to them to do any good."

Jennifer went back to her reader; if not being described in Middle English, archaic weapons held little interest for her. Greenberg was saying, "It's a personal defense weapon, like the shortspears they carry. If you're close enough to have to use it, odds are we'll be in a lot of trouble." Out of the corner of her ear, she heard him click off his translator, in case one of the natives nearby was eavesdropping. He also lowered his voice. "We probably will be."

Marya and Koniev followed the master merchant's example. Jennifer would have, but she was engrossed in her Heinlein again. Marya said, "They seem willing enough to fight?which is more than I can say for their prince."

"I'm afraid he knows more than they do," Greenberg said. Down below, a couple of K'Sed's warriors were clicking and clacking at each other loud enough to draw even Jennifer's notice. They had gotten the heads of their weapons tangled and were holding up their whole section. Greenberg went on, "They're amateurs?smiths and taverners and carapace-painters and such. The M'Sak are professionals."