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Kutven Ban tangled himself up in the rope. Quick! We must help.
Other voices joined in a chorus of disbelief. I was making a great play of unwrapping the rope from Ban.
He tried to hit me and I put my foot on his head, purely by accident, and he gobbled into the muddy
grass of the towpath.
Help us! I shouted.
The crone started to hit me with the frying pan.
I ducked and Ban struggled up, foaming, and I gave the end of the rope a kick and it slid into the water
like an eel. A big fellow with a red jerkin and silver earrings ran up. Two or three boys joined in and a
couple of girls danced about. Other people formed a ring.
Ban was purple.
He tangled in the tow rope and fell over, I shouted. I spread my hands. Look at the following boats.
The fellow in the red jerkin spun around as though I had kicked him in his breechclout.
Oh, by the mighty Vaosh himself! he moaned.
Men and women were tumbling out of the boats to get onto the bank, where the haulers were laying
back and being dragged on squeaking heels along the path. The next boat homed in on the boat wedged
diagonally across the cut and bumped in a great groaning of wood. The following boats began to pile up.
I looked around. Now boats were filling the cut in a series of zigzags and presenting a scene of utter
confusion.
I looked around with a certain satisfaction on my handiwork.
Then I looked the other way and sawDancing Talu andPride of Vomansoir gliding across the empty
stretch, and the other boats on the Ogier Cut calmly receding into the distance.
Ban glared up, spitting mud, struggling to rise.
You really should be more careful, I said.
I could not immediately run off and jump aboard Yelker s boat. There might be reprisals. So I started in
on a fresh series of explanations for the benefit of fresh arrivals.
Poor Kutven Ban! and: Ban shouldn t do it all himself.
I looked at Ban. He shook his broad shoulders and cocked his fists, spat mud, bristled, and started for
me.
I said, It is better that it was an accident, Ban. I do not think I wish to hurt you, but if it is necessary, I
will.
He roared, threw back his head to glare in hatred at me he looked in my face. He stopped. He
hesitated. His right foot scraped the towpath. He lowered his fists.
Maybe, at that, twas an accident.
By Vaosh, Ban, I said. You re a man after my own heart.
The clustered ring of people quite clearly were prepared to take their cue from the Kutven. He suddenly
began roaring and raving to such effect that the ring burst asunder, and men and women, boys and girls,
flew to their boats and a gang tailed onto the tow ropes of Kutven Ban s boat and began to drag her
parallel to the banks once more. I shouted in a very genial way, Remberee! and walked off.
Dancing Talupushed on southerly and I hauled with a will, but I was not so prideful or so foolish as to
wish to show off and haul by myself, although capable of it, and I noticed that Zyna would very often be
there with me, hauling with her slender firmly-rounded body thrusting into the rope. In the normal course
of events life on the cuts is leisurely, but now, because the cargo of hoffiburs might go rotten on Yelker,
he maintained a good pace and by nightfall we had leftPride of Vomansoir well behind. We pushed on,
the leading hauler with a lantern balanced in a lantern-hat, an arrangement of cradles and slings strapped
onto the head and around the chin, angled back so that the lantern swung horizontally, although the
hauler s head inclined down with the strain of pulling.
It was the next night we saw the headless zorcamen.
Yelker ran up onto the forepeak of the boat and yelled, and Zyna let out a shriek of pure fear.
Get back on board! roared Yelker. Let the rope go!
Zyna clasped my arm. Her fingers shook.
Drak! Drak! The headless zorcamen!
I slipped the rope off my shoulders, got a grip on Zyna, and plunged bodily into the water. A few quick
overarm thrusts with my free hand and I could heft her clinging body up with my other hand to the waiting
grip of Yelker and Rafee. I followed them up. I stood on the narrow catwalk around the sheeted cargo
space, dripping water, and stared narrowly into the blackness.
My eyes adjusted quickly and then I saw them.
A long line of cowled and cloaked figures they were, as I thought, dark against the sky where four
moons floated. Then a closer inspection revealed that, indeed, the cowls were merely hunched shoulders,
the cloaks trailing, and that the zorcamen rode headless across the moors.
Rubbish! I said. By Zim-Zair, a trick, a cheap trick.
Of course, Drak. They are men like you or me, dressed up to look horrific. But many men still believe
them to be supernatural apparitions.
I had had experience of headless horsemen, and the headless coachman, for in the land of my youth
smuggling was a fine art.
What purpose do they serve, then, Yelker? And why do we stop?
They are dangerous men. Those they do not frighten off, they kill.
Are we to stop, then, because of buffoons like that?
It is wise. So long as they believe they terrorize the district, we are safe. If they detected resistance,
disbelief carried to action, they would strike us mercilessly. He coughed, and added: And there are
Mother and Zyna, Sisi, and the girls to consider.
Yes, I said. After a pause, when I had sufficiently controlled myself, I said: Who are these kleeshes?
They ride the moors. Hereabouts is all the domain of Faygar, the Strom of Vorgan. He is a known
racter. But he owns allegiance to the Kov of Vomansoir.
So?
So the racters must show their strength in some way when all the usual ways are denied them.
There were twenty of them, riding head to tail, a long serpentine line of hunched shapes against the
moons. They looked eerie and menacing, completely horrifying to an untutored mind.
By Zair! I said. I have a mind to take my sword and teach them a lesson. And, come to that, I could
use a zorca.
Yelker passed no comment on my vainglorious boasting. He said: You would leave us, Drak?
My thoughts were turned to Vondium and Delia of the Blue Mountains. I had no wish to appear
ungrateful to Yelker or his family aboardDancing Talu. But I could not but speak the truth.
I would be in Vondium as fast as the fleetest airboat could take me, Yelker!
He sighed. We shall lose you at Vomansoir, then. I value your presence aboard mightily. We would
have lost much time crossing the Ogier Cut. By Vaosh, I would not have believed it!
Rafee let out a cackle.
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