The adjutant had called for another period of trotting. Maamo did it easily—he was, after all, the supreme, the epitomal ogre—but the others, tired as they were, found it difficult. With the exception of about two hours at the army post, they’d been trotting and walking almost continually since somewhat before noon the day before. Now the sickle moon stood well above the ridge to the east. The first light of dawn would soon show.
In the distance, Maamo could see a line of torchlights, motionless sparks on the wall of the Dzong. Just now, he judged, it was less than two kilometers to the edge of town, perhaps four to the Dzong’s Great Gate. There would be food for them in the yeti messroom; then they could go to their beds and collapse.
Just behind him he heard the adjutant call a halt, and stopped.
“Everyone dismount.”
That, of course, meant the humans. A yeti reached up and lifted the blind barbarian down; Jampa Lodro got down himself.
“We will rest here for ten minutes,” the adjutant said.
“I do not want the yetis stumbling into the Dzong exhausted. It would be unseemly.” He looked at Maamo. “I want you and your people to lie down and rest. When we arrive at the Great Gate, the three of you will go directly to your barracks. You’ll have no further duty today.”
Maamo nodded. It was what he’d wanted and expected to hear.
But it was not what the demon hidden inside him wanted to hear. As Maamo’s hidden tenant, he’d intended to accompany the captives to the emperor and hopefully the Circle. There to take control of Maamo, and through him the other two ogres, to destroy first the Circle, then the emperor. To follow the adjutant’s order would ruin that plan. Therefore—
He struck!
Maamo fell thrashing to the roadway, growling and gurgling, while the others, humans and ogres, stared thunderstruck. But in brief seconds he got slowly up again. “Excuse me, my lord,” he said to the adjutant. I am all right now.”
The man’s mouth was a slack O, his brows high, his eyes as nearly round as they could get. “What happened to you?”
It was Demon-Maamo he faced, the ogre elemental possessed. He sensed a difference, but not what it was. “It is something that happens when I am greatly tired,” said Demon-Maamo. “I’ll have no further trouble when we’ve had our break.”
The adjutant nodded dubiously and turned as if to speak to the soldiers. At that moment, Demon-Maamo spoke in the ogre speech—“Kill the soldiers, now!” and drew his huge sword. In a continuation of the movement, he struck the adjutant with it, halving him at the waist. It caught the man in the act of turning—he’d heard the hiss of the sword being drawn—and the torso continued a quarter turn before it fell to the road beside the tumbled legs. By that time Demon-Maamo was striking the human sergeant. The other yetis were slow to respond, even to the compelling personality of the elemental ogre, for the order was counter to their conditioning. By the time they acted, Demon-Maamo had killed a second and third soldier. The horses were stamping nervously, snorting, but they’d been trained to stand while cattle were killed around them, and did not panic. In less than five seconds, all the soldiers were dead.
“Do not harm the captives,” said Demon-Maamo then. And knowing the loyalty conditioning the yetis had been given, added, “They belong to the emperor. We must get them to him safely. This one”—he gestured at the bisected adjutant—“was a traitor. He planned treachery.”
He turned to Jampa. With a sword at his back, the old man could be no threat. And he could prove useful, if the emperor valued him so greatly. The same should be true of the blind man. “Do not move,” said Demon-Maamo. “Tell your blind friend not to move.” Then, to the other ogres: “Drive the horses into the hay field; all but theirs.” He gestured toward the captives. “Take out their bits, and they will stay to graze.”
While the other ogres moved the horses, Demon-Maamo threw the bodies into the ditch, ending bloody to the elbows and beyond. In the darkness the tall grass hid the bodies. By the time it was light, it wouldn’t matter. There was water there, too, and he washed the blood off as best he could. It would do by torchlight, he told himself. It would have to.
Now the die was cast. He did not give his ogres the ten-minute break the adjutant had intended. For all he knew, the Circle might be checking them intermittently, and if they checked now . . . It seemed imperative that they get inside the Great Gate as quickly as possible, or it might be shut to them.