The book is an apparently-truthful gloss of much of what the Dwarves must
have slowly learned over hundreds of years and it concerns travels into the East
Kang and the Eastern
Horsemen
Of all the changes Minaria has experienced in the last two decades, few have
been as profound as the appearance of horseback nomads in the passes of the
Barrier Mountains. That human life exists in the East at all comes as a surprise
to many Westerners, though scholars have long theorized that barbarian tribes,
and perhaps even advanced civilization, existed there at one time. This land,
apparently never visited, was known as Trazig, which simply means "the East"
in the Dwarven speech.
The Dwarves have been, in fact, always the Minarian experts on the Eastern
territories, sending mining expeditions into unknown territories for centuries.
But they have deliberately encouraged the commonly-held idea that the East
was an empty waste with no water, with soil poisonous to crop growth, and
many monsters with hide or scales too dense for the stoutest axe to break. One
critical geographer, Oliphus of Lerna, has put the question: what do these well-
populated Eastern monsters eat in such a barren, unpopulated land as the
Dwarves describe? Perhaps, he suggests, they subsist solely upon the flesh of
non-Dwarven adventurers who, quite unwisely, go looking for the secret mines
which the Dwarves have no doubt spread far and wide.
But the learned men of Minaria may now put such stories aside, for events have
proven that men do live in the East and, more importantly, they are men of a
type that poise an immediate threat to those kingdoms lying close to the Eastern
Marches. Minaria calls this new type of barbarian the Eastern Horsemen, owing
to their superb horsemanship.
They are still largely unfamiliar to the men of the West. Thus far it appears that
they are clever and courageous, very avaricious and cruel, and as hard to catch
as the devil winds that swirl through their dusty, parched border homelands. In
less than two decades these outsiders have remade the quiet tempo of the East
into what is now a harsh staccato of danger and violence.
The old books tell us nothing of the Orient, yet should we be surprised that men
exist there in numbers? Didn't Khersemo, whom some call "The Father of
History," write that the Lloroi came out of the East two thousand years ago?
Should we assume that their migration left their homelands an empty waste-
land? Isn't it far more likely that they abandoned their homes in the face of
attacks by a race even greater than theirs?
When the great Cataclysm at last ended Lloroi rule, one did not have to look to
the East for barbarians, because all men were barbarized, forgetting learning,
forgetting city-building, and forgetting what existed just over the first mountain
looming beyond their rude huts.
The Dwarves would be secretive, if they could, but just as the Miviorans found
out when Arnult betrayed their state secrets concerning their voyages to Reiken,
the Dwarves have learned that the knowledge will eventually come out. Exactly
how the surreptitiously-circulated document popularly referred to as "Adelof's
Chronicle" arrived in Herrot's court in Muetar in the year 1360 is not known.
What we know is that the Emperor's counselors believed it sounded credible
and recommended that the monarch pay the mysterious seller well. No doubt
the Dwarf who wrote it is enjoying his pay in some other land than Ghem, for
there surely must be a price on his head payable by the court of Rosengg.
1
and inhabitants the prospectors found there. According to Adelof's Chronicle,
the East is indeed populated by mortal tribes, but those who dwelt close to the
Minarian border in the days when the Dwarves made their first forays were
unwarlike primitives, mere hunters and gatherers leading a starveling existence,
tame primitives who never posed a threat to Minaria. Physically, they differed
little in appearance from Minaria's humans, though their speech was strange,
and they lived in a simple fashion with nothing in the way of luxury. Probably
they had advanced not at all since the days of the early post-Cataclysm.
Later the Dwarves also discovered minor bands of Trolls and Goblins, probably
cut off from their Minarian brethren since the Cataclysm. There is, in addition,
obscure references to non-humans of types unknown in the West, but the
writer's facts in this particular seemed sketchy in the extreme.
Exploring farther east, the Dwarves encountered somewhat more sophisticated
groups of people – bands of human herders without horses, pasturing sheep,
cattle, camels, and horses, as well as the so-called long-necked sheep that the
Goblins of Zorn use as a meat and pack animal. These aborigines, struggling
against the harsh climate and the attacks of wild beast, seemingly knew little or
nothing regarding agriculture. They were hearty fighters however, as shepherds
must be, but they were so primitively-armed and atavistic in their manner of
waging war that they, like the nearer wretches, were judged to be no threat to
Ghem.
From these herders the Dwarves learned of strange sort of non-human which
roamed on the fringe of their range and sometimes stole and devoured their
stock. These were the dragon-like wyrms. The Dwarves had nothing to gain by
fighting them, and so gave the wyrms wide berth. Because the creatures were
flat-landers the Dwarven explorers who preferred to travel by high ground rarely
ever encountered them. It did not occur to the Dwarves, apparently, that they
might engaged wyrms for military purposes, just as the Gazzholans of Girion
have done.
Try as they might, the Dwarven adventurers found no mineral deposits as rich
as those already known in Minaria and Girion. What metal and gems of value
they discovered did pan out good enough to justify the establishment of a few
dozen small mining colonies, but we are told that no great Dwarven cities of the
size of Aws Noir were ever built in the East. This is understandable, consider-
ing that the great distances required to bring the ore to market substantially
reduced its value.
The history of these mining settlements seems to hold no great interest for
scholars at this time. They were part of a familiar Dwarven pattern which has
been played and replayed across Minaria for the last several centuries. The
weakness of the tribes the miners found played into their hands, and so they did
not try to help them to advance. Why make a potential enemy more powerful
or better-armed?
Sometimes, though, Dwarven miners grew abusive and provoked trouble with
the nomads and then they became dangerous notwithstanding. An especially
unwise governor of the colony of Walth tried to punish certain barbarian pack-
train raiders by inviting the nearest tribe (which turned out to be the wrong tribe)
to a feast and then massacring them with heavily-armed axemen as they
supped. The barbarians rose in revolt, blockaded the colony, and Walth was cut
off from home and resupply.
After months of siege, the starving inhabitants were forced to attempt fight and
flight through the mountain defiles, hoping that their superior mountaineering
skills would help them outdistance any pursuers. The plan did not work well and
arrows fired from behind every rock, every canyon rib, took many lives. Every
wounded Dwarf captured alive was put to death by blood-chilling torture, so that
the Dwarves began to kill their own wounded who couldn't keep up out of sheer
mercy. Only because of the agility, great lung capacity, and astonishing strength
of the Dwarves did even one in ten miners return to Ghem.
Such was the state of things for a long while, the work and the isolation dan-
gerous, the mines barely profitable. Then, all of a sudden about twenty-five
years before this writing, Dwarven colonists reported yet more Eastern humans;
these were more advanced than any they had met before – horsemen driving
stock into the defiles of the mountains, coming West in great numbers, better-
armed than the horseless herders. The aborigines were swept aside and quick-
ly driven into the hills and mountains, while the newcomers took control of the
grazing lands. These newcomers were the people soon to be known in Minaria
as the Eastern Horsemen. They were soon judged by the Dwarves to be a cruel
people who never asked for mercy and rarely dispensed it, except at a high
price in tribute.
Increasingly, the Eastern Horsemen were drawn by the wealth and weakness of
the Dwarven colonies. Though the nomads usually avoided mountains, when
their acquisitiveness was peaked, they proved determined and adaptable. They
sacked some towns outright and placed such heavy imposts upon those that
they spared; many marginal colonies had to be abandoned and the more pros -
perous ones were reduced to mere sustenance. After a few years the Dwarves
decided to withdraw and wait for better times. They sealed their mines, hiding
the shafts cleverly, and then returned to Ghem by the safest routes they could
find.
According the sources which have become available to date, the martial
prowess of the Eastern Horsemen depends not only upon their already-noted
horsemanship, but also on their skill with the short, sinew-backed bow and their
disciplined obedience to a proven leader. Originating on steppes farther East,
they were used to riding great distances. The men affected haughty pride, dis-
daining riding herd over their own flocks and leaving this necessary work to
boys who have not yet passed the rites of manhood, and women, servants, and
slaves. Except for a small number of craftsmen, such as iron-workers and car-
penters, all men are expected to be warriors.
Misfits who fail to live up to the warrior norm are denied status and relegated to
being hanger-ons. Such men cannot voice opinions on public matters and are
given work that is more suitable for servants. They are allowed to marry no trib-
al women who have not themselves become outcasts for breaking one of their
taboos, or with common work slaves. On the other hand, if these men are weak
because they have been touched by the Sky God, they may enjoy the special
status that accrues to artists, weapon-makers, and shamans.
A woman is not considered the equal of a man of the best type, he who has
achieved his warrior status, but neither is she downtrodden. She may inherit a
half-measure in proportion to what her warrior brother receives, and the status
of a respectable woman is about equal to a craftsman's. Womenfolk common-
ly ride and hunt with the men, while wives are often judged worthy to manage
the affairs of their husbands in widowhood. A tribe is dishonored if it throws its
women into battle with enemies, but many nomad girls know the bow and the
horse and can ably protect their camps and herds if necessary.
The nomads shift camps frequently as the thin grass of the harsh country is
soon exhausted by their livestock. In the autumn the Eastern Horsemen settle
into winter quarters where hay may be gathered. The great event of winter
camp is New Year's Day, when a clan-chief is elected from among the senior
warriors of the most prestigious families.
This chief rules the camp as its absolute lord and only custom restricts his abso-
lutism. For example, he might order every man in three hanged, but by custom
he would soon be mobbed and murdered. By and large, though, absolutism is
necessary, since a strong hand is vital to the efficient direction of the tribes' com-
plex and arduous migrations and frequent and their frequent forays into war.
The clan-chief in turn owes homage to a still greater lord who presides over all
the clans of the tribe, and who himself owns allegiance to the "khan" or overlord
of several kindred tribes. This khan, despite his lofty title, dwells in a tent as his
followers do. His distinct status is displayed by his clothing, his many horses,
his large herds, his ornate saddles and bridles, and the traditional guard that
accompanies him, comprised of noble youths. When the khan dies he is buried
under a huge mound and entombed with the material fruits of a life of plunder -
- as well as a few slain servants and concubines intended to serve him in the
Afterlife.
Very occasionally a "great khan" is chosen, a man raised up in an emergency
to lead even unrelated tribes. This may be an institution similar to the "great
chief" of the Northern barbarians.
Though every man aspires to be a warrior, the tribes grade men into nobles and
commoners. In their society nobility issues from wealth and military distinction
as is common in the West. But a man, no matter how wealthy or how glorious
2
his battle record, is not always a nobleman. He has earned honor and status,
true, but it is his son who is ennobled by his accomplishments. Likewise, if the
son loses his inherited wealth and does not shine in battle, he remains noble
(though one of greatly-diminished status), but his son is degraded to a com-
moner should the father die poor and obscure.
Remarkably, warriors consider it an honor to be sacrificed on the grave of the
khan they have served and to have their corpses arranged wearing rich raiment
and seated upon impaled horses around the mound. Only the most depraved
of nomads would rob these corpses – an offense that merits the cruelest of
deaths meted out by a people widely-considered to be the cruelest in the world.
When the nomads found the passes through the Barrier Mountains in the early
1300's, they realized that they had discovered a rich land ripe for looting. The
Dwarves first felt their rapacity, but Pon suffered not long after. Fortunately, the
horsemen do not operate well in these mountainous countries, so as the
Dwarves and Ponese protected themselves better from the new menace, the
nomads increasingly they have bypassed these kingdoms and marauded in
Muetar and Shucassam where the lay of the land is more to their liking.
Inevitably, some Minarians got to know the Eastern Horsemen at close range,
often by being kept as a slave among them, or by being adopted into the tribe
for some worthy service. Then, too, there are always the merchants who come
to buy loot and slaves from the raiders. While the tribes' material culture is sim-
ple, they are great story-tellers and many of their songs and tales celebrate
famous chieftains, both living and dead. Of all the living chieftains, none is
more honored than Kang the Warlord. His deeds are recounted in every camp
of his tribe, and in camps of many enemy tribes as well, for even a foe may be
wise enough to attempt to learn from the well-lived life of a man such as Kang.
As the songmen tell it, Kang's story is both typical and atypical of his people.
Kang knew no family of his own but was a foundling taken into the tribe of a
minor clan chief, but one of wealth enough to assure his new son's noble sta-
tus. When Kang was only sixteen he had the strength and stamina of a man
come of age. When he did come of age two years later, a party of all the neigh-
boring clans was held, the boorah, in which Kang took first honors. Faithfully,
he also caught sight of a visitor, Devi, the brown-eyed daughter of Meerut of the
Kirtipur.
Young Devi had already heard of the best of this new generation of warriors and
was suitably impressed with the youth. Sensing a fate between them, Kang
asked his wealthy father to offer Devi's father a large bride price, but alas, there
was no love lost between their tribes, Kang's Patna and Devi's Kirtipur.
It happened that years before each had drifted West, the Kirtipur had been a
people who preferred to play the mercenary role for the city men of Trazig whom
the Patna disdained and frequently raided.
The Kirtipur did not like to be called hirelings and so called the Patna bandits in
payback. This set the two tribes at odds, but worse was to come. The Patna
robbed the pay wagons of the king of Pterak when it was on its way to the
Kirtipur to pay them for military service. In anger the Kirtipur warriors pursued
the Patna thieves.
But the Patna had planned well, hoping to shame their tribal rivals. So the pur-
suers were lured into a trap and found themselves against the whole Patna war-
rior muster. Ho'ien, Kang's foster father's grandfather, was then their war chief.
This man ordered each captured Kirtipur flogged with the horse whip – this to
show that one who worked for city men was no better than a slave. But their
chief Tukrut, Devi's great-grandfather, was singled out for different punishment.
The Patna heated a Trazig city coin to red heat and then branded Tukrut's palm
with it.
So the two tribes had been at dagger's drawn ever since. Only on such occa-
sions as the boorah, a sacred rite which forbids feuding, did the two peoples
mingle without bloodshed. Nonetheless, in the subsequent spring, Kang went
riding accompanied by his friends Sikkim and Loos. It was Kang's intention to
go robbing and raise such an unheard-of bride price that Meerut, who had a rep-
utation for greed, could not refuse it. A few days into their journey they sighted
the spoor of four enemy horsemen – Fatepur. The youths saw that the tracks
were deep, thus the horses were all heavily-laden. Undoubtedly the riders were
bringing back the loot of a raid. For a Patna, the robbery of a Fatepur was
almost as praiseworthy as robbing a Kirtipur, and so Kang and his fellows shad-
owed the enemy riders for the rest of the day, until, still unsuspecting, they
paused to rest.
Under the cloak of darkness, Sikkim crept in close and cut the tethers of the
enemy's horses, then drove the beasts away. The Fatepur chased the mounts
out into the open where Kang and Loos came riding at them full-tilt, scimitars
flashing. The Fatepur scarcely knew how to fight on foot and their slaughter
was completed in minutes. Afterwards, the boys examined the loot they had
come so far and killed so many to gain.
And they were not disappointed! Rings! Bracelets! Buckles! Necklaces!
Jewels! Beyond any doubt, the god of the Eternal Blue Sky loved Kang well.
Already they thought they could hear the praises of their people when the treas -
ure was brought home. The boys did not, however, want the booty to lead them
into the same grief that it had the Fatepur, so they hid their plunder near where
they found it. Alas, Kang, fascinated by a black gem that was the fairest part of
the horde, took it with him as a gift for Devi.
The next day they reached the Kirtipur camp and Meerut met them with bom-
bastic threats: "Patna rubbish! If you enter the land of your betters as hungry
vagabonds, you may labor among the slaves to earn a crust of bread. If you
are bandits craving loot, you will soon know the Kirtipur punishment for thieves!"
Holding back his temper, Kang explained that his honorable intention was to
wed Devi. In reply, Meerut only laughed and called Kang a beggar. At that
moment the proud young warrior ripped open a bag of jewels and threw them
at the feet of the Kirtipur chief. "Name any bride price your greed demands,
Meerut. There is no amount that I cannot meet for I am a Patna and heir of
Ho'ien's line. Or else face me off with champion whom I cannot vanquish. If
you can do neither, give me your daughter in honorable marriage!"
"Let me fight him, Father," pleaded Devi's brother Nathu, not a youth like Kang
but a seasoned warrior of twenty-five summers. "It would give me the greatest
of pleasures to take his Patna life!"
Devi pushed her brother aside and importuned her father, urging him to regard
the welcome suit honorably. This got Meerut to thinking. He had been more
impressed with the treasure than he would admit and so his crafty brain quick-
ly came up with a ploy to keep both the treasure and his daughter, as well as
see the Patna boy dead. He proclaimed: "Fight Nathu, son of Tukrut's lineage.
Should you win, we shall accept your bride price. Lose and both your life and
fortune is lost."
There was a mutter in the crowd as even some of Meerut's own kin gasped in
shame that their leader displayed his cupidity and malice so blatantly.
Kang only laughed, saying, "A good challenge. It will be sung at every camp-
site. The name of Meerut will be remembered even better is that of your grand-
father Tukrut. Let my victory be the brand that shall sear a spot on your honor
that you shall never be erased!" The insult was great, but not so great as to
make the terms of the combat more fair, and so the duel was arranged to take
place at sunset.
The men stood on a plank balanced over a pit in which two savage steppe
wolves were kept to eat the camp offal and as a threat to disobedient slaves
who might be bound and thrown in. Against all expectations, Kang proved the
better fighter and Nathu took a fatal wound after just a short but frenzied fight.
Though Kang had had no intention of killing Devi's brother, the man lost his foot-
ing and fell into the pit. His throat was torn out before anyone could rescue him.
It looked for a moment as though the whole Kirtipur camp would mob Kang and
hack him down, but the youth's friend Sikkim put a knife to Devi's throat and
dragged her toward their horses: "Let us be on our way," he cried, "or else I
shall slay the girl!"
Kang was dumbstruck at Sikkim's action, but the glitter in Devi's eyes told him
that she and Sikkim had worked out this ruse together.
"I may lose a son!" the headman said, but he dies in honor." "But I will not lose
3
my daughter to a milk-suckled stripling blade! Let them go – for now! But take
care, this affair is far from over!"
So the three Patna youths Devi fled the camp and made for the hills, where the
Kirtipur would have trouble following their tracks over the stones. When the four
thought that they had given their pursuers the slip, they made camp and Devi
cleaned and bound the wounds which Kang had taken in the duel with her broth-
er.
I did not want to injure Nathu," Kang sadly told his beloved. "Nothing I can give
you can be a match for what I have taken. But I have brought a gift because I
believed our meeting would be happier." He shook the black gem from his scrip
and showed it to his beloved.
"A necromancer's pearl!" cried Devi.
"A what?" Kang asked, never having heard the term.
Devi related the story that her sorceress mother had told her in childhood. Such
tokens had been made by mighty wizards in olden times, even before the great
Cataclysm, and each had its own secret power. He who divined what that
power was might evoke it and become a mighty one among his people.
Kang doubted the yarn, since he had never seen any magic that his keen eye
did not espy to be trickery, but he was pleased that his beloved liked his pres -
ent so much. Exhausted, Kang then spread out his blanket and slept soundly.
When he awoke, however, he found himself alone upon the hilltop. No, not
quite alone. Not far from the campsite he discovered his comrade Sikkim lying
dead on his bedroll, his heart ripped from his breast, as if by a savage beast.
Kang searched the ground and found a creature's tracks in the mud. He also
found the tracks of a laden horse, but not the tracks of Loos nor Devi. He did
find the youth's shoes however. Was Devi on the horse? If so, where was his
comrade? If Loos had followed the beast or Devi, why didn't he take a mount
of his own, especially if he had no time to put on his shoes? If he fled in panic,
where were his barefoot tracks? If near, why was he taking so long to come
back? If dead, where was his body? Kang shouted his friend's name, but only
the echoes replied.
Determined to avenge Sikkim and find Devi if possible, Kang followed the beast-
tracks, which seemed to be in pursuit of Devi's mare. They were odd ones, for
the beast had only two legs. This seemed very wrong and the longer he
pressed the pursuit, the more worried he grew that over the next rise he would
see Devi's dead body and the beast feeding on it.
By early afternoon the youth was elated to observe that the weeds were only
recently broken, so much so that their juices had not yet dried. With waxing
excitement, he hurried on until from a rise he at last saw a riding figure. His
heart leaped, for it was Devi, no doubt! But someone seemed to be running
along side of the girl, mostly obscured by her horse. Kang guessed it must be
Loos, protecting her. But on second thought, it made no sense for Loos to go
back in the direction of the Kurtipur camp. He should have instead led her back
to Kang if the beast had gone away and, besides, there had been no tracks
along the way which could have been made by the young Patna.
As Kang galloped down the slope shouting Devi's name, the slim rider turned
about in her saddle. Her glance, even conveyed over so great a distance,
shone cold and calculating. Just then the rider danced her mount sidewise,
deliberately, too reveal the companion at her side. It was not Loos! It was
Sikkim's killer – the beast that walked like a man!
The feral thing reeked like a wolf and the scent sent Kang's stallion rearing in
terror. The young hero, equally startled to see such a creature, was thrown into
the rushes and had only managed to struggle to his feet as the thing rushed
murderously upon him.
They fought for a few desperate minutes. The agile Kang found the right
moment to fall to his knee behind his scimitar braced upon the earth, causing
the creature to impale itself with its blood-mad lunge. He extinguished the
thing's life with his hatchet.
"Well done," said the girl from horseback. The tone she had used rang strange-
ly in his ears and it made him shiver. She sounded foreign.
"Where is Loos?" he asked harshly, not understanding what had happened but
somehow realizing that Devi had played him false.
"Loos? Why, I did nothing. It was you who killed him," the maid replied mildly.
"See?"
Kang turned back toward the dead beast, but it was no beast which sprawled
there now. It was the naked Loos with Kang's scimitar driven through his breast.
"You're not Devi!" cried Kang, furiously facing off with the girl. "You're pos -
sessed by a steppe devil!" At that moment he noticed the glitter of the black
stone upon her sun-tanned breast. With a lump in this throat he realized that
he was responsible for the evil things that had happened. "The necromancer's
pearl!" the youth rasped. "It did this to you!"
"You are astute, Kang," she lightly responded. "Had the armies I once led con-
tained men as clever as you, my enemies could never have taken me prisoner
or locked my spirit in the stone."
"Why did you take Devi?" he demanded.
She shrugged. "If I had taken you, all I would get is a strong sword arm. I
almost chose you, but I bided my time hoping to find a potential magician. I
have ever used magic and would not thrive well without it. Surely it is Fate that
led you to Devi. Her body radiated with potential for the Great Power. That is
to be expected, I suppose, since her mother is a witch."
"Some part of you is still Devi," Kang declared, hoping that he is was right. The
youth extended his hand up to the horsewoman. "Let me help you. We will find
a shaman to drive the ghost from your shell."
The witch laughed. "Ride with me, lad. I shall soon rule this barbaric land, and
you shall be my chiefest servant. Who knows? I may already be feeling some-
thing of what the girl felt for you. That is what happens when one takes anoth-
er's body. I think I felt something from the very start. That is why I didn't have
the beast kill you as you slept, as I had it kill Sikkim."
"You're a monster!" Kang shouted, debating whether he should try to cleave her
skull with a throw of the hatchet. But just then Kang heard the thundering
hooves of many horses. It was his Kirtipur pursuers bearing down on him fast.
"Go," said the witch, her tone agitated, without the hard-edged steadiness with
which she had spoken before. "I shall confuse your foes with a spell so they will
go in the wrong direction. But take heed, should you challenge me again later,
I will be forced to kill you."
Kang had no choice but to leap on his horse's back and spur away. But he had
no intention of letting his beloved remain possessed by a murdering fiend.
When he told his incredible story to K'ien back in at home camp, the old warrior
called out the Patna riders and the tribe's best shamans, then led them to the
Kirtipur camp, determined to take the witch Devi for exorcism and, failing that,
execution.
They first paused to recover the treasure that Kang had hidden, but only the
empty hole in the ground. "Somehow the witch knew where to look," Kang mut-
tered. His elders shook their heads, then all remounted and continued on their
way. It was not long before they were charging en masse into the camp of the
Kirtipur. Yet the dauntless warriors reined up short. Before their eyes was
spread out a scene of massacre so ghastly as to make their hard hearts quail.
All the men, women, and children of the Kirtipur camp had been slaughtered.
Some of them seemed to have died rendered by beasts, others had been
hacked by blades, and a few seemed to have run upon their own swords. It
looked as if the Death Moon's madness had overwhelmed the all Kirtipur at the
same moment. Even the beasts that they found nearby were all dead by vari-
ous means.
"This is no ordinary massacre," an old shaman said. "It is a holocaust to the
4
gods of darkness. Someone very evil desired to draw very great power very
quickly."
Meerut and his wife were soon located among the dead, both of them bearing
ghastly mutilations. Devi, whom they sought knowing that the demon inside
was the cause of this, was nowhere to be seen. In fact, neither she nor a magi-
cian wearing her shape has been reported anywhere that Kang's race roams,
yet the hero has always suspected that it is his destiny to meet the witch-woman
one final time. He knows that it had been he who had brought Devi into the grip
of darkness, hence it is his duty to free her or yield his own life in retribution.
If that day of confrontation comes to pass, no doubt it shall be a tale worth the
telling.
But Kang' life since that black day has been a full one and probably it has given
him but little time to brood. Great events were in the making even as the Patna
returned home. The tribes were soon to break out through the Barrier Passes
into Minaria proper. By the time they did so, Kang was Patna leader in place of
his late father.
Brilliant in battle, wise in judgment, generous in prosperity, dignified in poverty,
Kang has led many a raid into the West and has always returned with great
plunder. Sometimes, too, he has served as a hired war-leader to the very same
kings he had lately robbed. He must think that the Westerners are slightly mad,
but he surely doesn't mind plundering Minaria with the help of Minarians.
Time never stands still. Even as we write new tribes are arriving from the East,
tribes originating so far away that the Patna themselves scarcely have heard
their name. They bring news from the East and Kang has learned that a new
conqueror has arisen in Trazig. This great man has forced many of the nomads
to join him, and those who refuse have fled West that they might remain free.
Kang wonders whether this new warlord will be satisfied with the vast lands
available in the East to prey upon, or if he will follow the road West to addition-
al conquests.
If the latter, Kang knows his people could not stand alone, not if caught between
two great enemies. The day may come that Kang must side with either Minaria
or the conqueror. Which should he choose? The chiefs around him are less cir-
cumspect, less far-seeing. They carry on from day to day as if the world has
not changed before and will not change again. They are wrong, Kang knows.
Tomorrow will not be like today, not for the Eastern Horsemen and not for the
kingdoms of Minaria.
Kang is a fierce man from a fierce land. Can even song charm such a savage
breast? The poet who spun the following words hoped so:
Kang Rides to Alzak
Out of the shimm'ring waves of heat
Where vultures rise and glide
Kang traveled by a stony road,
His curved blade at his side,
Where the whispering rocks remarked
"Where does the warlord ride?"
The sun shone dimly through the dust,
At noon small creatures shrank
'Neath cactus growth at either hand
And desert trees grown rank --
Until at last Kang reached a hill
Just as the twilight sank.
He scanned the gates of Alzak and
Its flut'ring flags of red.
"This town must tumble into dust,"
The cruel-faced savage said.
He thought about the fight to come;
He thought about the dead.
He studied well those turrets strong,
Black shapes against the sky.
"Fights are lost and fights are won,"
He sighed and wondered why
Man and Dwarf must soon contend,
Why Man and Dwarf must die.

Then drifting on the wind he heard

The pearl of song and mirth.
He list to strains of poetry
Which charmed the stones inert.
Kang harkened to those unknown words,
His frowning brow alert.

The sun-glow grayed, the shadows spread

As Kang shook his head to say:
"For being rich and being here
This fortress has to pay.
Its fall must come through bitter fight;
Must come – but not today.

"It's fall must come through bitter fight;

'Twill come, but not this day."