Witch World Part 2

"Sorry," he spread his hands in gesture which he hoped she would take for apology. In some way he had offended, but it was through ignorance. And the woman must have understood that, for she made some explanation to the young officer, though he did not look at Simon with any great friendliness during the hours which followed.

Koris, showing a deference which did not match the woman's ragged clothing, but did accord with her air of command, mounted her behind him on the big black horse. Simon rode behind one of the other guardsmen, linking his fingers in the rider's belt and clinging tight, as they headed back into the river plain at a pace which even the dark of the night did not keep from approaching a gallop.

A long time later Simon lay still in a nest of bed coverings and stared with unseeing eyes up at the curve of the carved wood canopy overhead. Save for those wide open eyes he might have been deemed as suddenly asleep as he had been minutes earlier. But an old talent for pa.s.sing from sleep into instant alertness had not been lost with his entrance into this new world. And now he was busy sorting out impressions, cla.s.sifying knowledge, trying to add one fact to another to piece together a concrete picture of what lay about him beyond the confines of the ma.s.sive bed, the stone walls of the room.

Estcarp was more than the river plain; it was a series of forts, stubborn defensive holds along a road marking a frontier. Forts where they had changed horses, had fed, and then swept on again, driven by some need for haste Simon had not understood. And at last it was a city of round towers, green-gray as the soil in which they were rooted under the pale sun of a new day, towers to guard, a wall to encircle, and then other buildings of a tall, proud-walking race with dark eyes and hair as black as his own, a race with the carriage of rulers and an odd weight of years upon them.

But by the time they had entered that Estcarp Simon had been so bemused by fatigue, so dulled by the demands of his own aching body, that there were only s.n.a.t.c.hes of pictures to be remembered. And overlaying them all the sensation of age, of a past so ancient that the towers and the walls could have been part of the mountain bones of this world. He had walked old cities in Europe, seen roadways which had known the tramp of Roman legions. Yet the alien aura of age resting here was far more overpowering, and Simon fought against it when he marshalled his facts.

He was quartered in the middle pile of the city, a ma.s.sive stone structure which had both the solemnity of a temple and the safety-promise of a fort. He could just barely remember the squat officer, Koris, bringing him to this room, pointing to the bed. And then-nothing.

Or was it nothing?

Simon's brows drew together in a faint frown. Koris, this room, the bed- Yet now as he stared up into the mingled pattern of intricate carving arching over him, he found things there which were familiar, oddly familiar, as if the symbols woven back and forth had a meaning which he would unravel at any moment now.

Estcarp-old, old, a country and a city, and a way of life! Simon tensed. How had he known that? Yet it was true, as real as the bed on which his saddle-sore body rested, as the carvings over him. The woman who had been hunted-she was of this race, of Estcarp-just as the dead hunter by the barrier had been of another and hostile people.

The Guardsmen in the frontier posts were all of the same mold, tall, dark, aloof in manner. Only Koris, with his misshapen body, had differed from the men he led. Yet Koris' orders were obeyed; only the woman who rode behind him had appeared to have more authority.

Simon blinked, his hands moved beneath the covers, and he sat up, his eyes on the curtains to his left. Soft as it had been, he had caught that whisper of footfall, and he was not surprised when the rings of the curtains clicked, and the thick blue fabric parted, so that he looked at the very man who had been in his thoughts.

Freed of his armor Koris was even more of a physical oddity. His too-wide shoulders, those dangling, over-long arms overweighed the rest of him. He was not tall and his narrow waist, his slender legs were doubly small in contrast to the upper part of his body. But set on those shoulders was the head of the man Koris might have been had nature not played such a cruel trick. Under a thick cap of wheat-yellow hair was the face of a boy who had only recently come to manhood, but also the face of one who had had no pleasure in that development. Strikingly handsome, apart from those shoulders, jarring with them, the head of a hero partnered to the body of an ape!

Simon slid his legs down the mound of the high bed and stood up, sorry at that moment that he must force the other to look up to him. But Koris had moved back with the quickness of a cat and perched on a broad stone ledge running beneath a slit window, so that his eyes were still on a level with Tregarth's. He gestured with a grace foreign to his long arm to a nearby chest, indicating a pile of clothing there.

Those were not the tweeds he had crawled out of before seeking bed, Simon noted. But he also saw something else, a subtle rea.s.surance of his present status there. His automatic, the other contents of his pocket, had been laid out with scrupulous neatness to one side of that new clothing. He was no prisoner, whatever other standing he might have in that hold.

He pulled on breeches of soft leather, resembling those Koris now wore. Supple as a glove, they were colored a dark blue. And with them were a pair of calf-high boots of a silvery-gray substance he thought might be reptile hide. Having dressed so far he turned to the other and made gestures of washing.

For the first time a ghost of smile touched the Guardsman's well-cut mouth and he pointed to an alcove. Medieval the hold of Estcarp might be superficially, Simon discovered, but the dwellers therein had some modem views on sanitation. He found himself introduced to water which flowed, warm, from a wall pipe when a simple lever was turned, to a jar of cream, faintly fragrant, which applied and then wiped off erased all itch of beard. And with his discoveries came a language lesson, until he had a growing vocabulary of words Koris patiently repeated until Simon had them right.

The officer's att.i.tude was one of studied neutrality. He neither made friendly overtures, save for his language instructions, nor accepted Simon's attempts at more personal conversation. In fact, as Tregarth pulled on a garment intended to serve as both shirt and jacket, Koris shifted halfway around on the window ledge to stare out into the day sky.

Simon weighed the automatic in his hand. The Estcarpian officer appeared to be indifferent as to whether this stranger went armed or not. At length Tregarth slipped it into his belt above his lean and now empty middle, and signed that he was ready to go.

The room gave on a corridor and that, within a few paces, upon a stair down. Simon's impression of immeasurable age was confirmed by the hollows worn in those same stone steps, a groove running along the left wall where fingers must have pa.s.sed for eons. Light came palely from globes set far above their heads in metal baskets, but the nature of that light remained a mystery.

A wider hall lay at the foot and men pa.s.sed there. Some in the scaled mail were guards on duty, others had the easier dress Simon now wore. They saluted Koris and eyed his companion with a somber curiosity he found vaguely disconcerting, but none of them spoke. Koris touched Tregarth's arm, motioned to a curtained doorway, holding back a loop of the cloth in a way which suggested an order.

Beyond stretched another hall. But here the bare stone of the walls were covered with hangings bearing the patterns of the same symbols he had seen on the bed canopy, half familiar, half alien. A sentry stood to attention at the far end of that way, raising the hilt of his sword to his lips. Koris looped back a second curtain, but this time he waved Simon by him.

The room seemed larger than it was because of the vault of the ceiling which pointed up far overhead. Here the light globes were stronger, and their beams, while not reaching into those lofty shadows, did show clearly the gathering below.

There were two women awaiting him-the first he had seen within the pile of the keep. But he had to look a second time to recognize in the one standing, her right hand on the back of a tall chair which held her companion, the woman who had fled before the hunters of Alizon. That hair which had hung in lank soaked strings about her then was coiled rather severely into a silver net, and she was covered primly from throat to ankle by a robe of a similar misty color. Her only ornament was an oval of the same cloudy crystal such as she had worn then in a wrist band, but this hung from a chain so that the stone rested between the small mounds of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Simon Tregarth!" It was the seated woman who summoned him, so his eyes pa.s.sed to her, and he found that he could not take them away again.

She had the same triangular face, the same seeking eyes, the same black coils of netted hair. But the power which emanated from her was like a blow. He could not have told her age, in some ways she might have seen the first stones ofEstcarp laid one upon another. But to him she seemed ageless. Her hand flashed up and she tossed a ball toward him, a ball seemingly of the same cloudy crystal as the gem she and her lieutenant wore as jewels.

Simon caught it. Against his flesh it was not cold as he had expected, but warm. And as he instinctively cupped it in both hands, her own closed over her jewel, a gesture echoed by her companion.

Tregarth could never afterwards explain, even to himself, what followed. In some weird fashion he pictured in his mind the series of actions which had brought him to the world ofEstcarp, sensing as he did so that those two silent women saw what he had seen and in a measure shared his emotions. When he had done that a current of information flowed in his direction.

He stood in the main fortress of a threatened, perhaps a doomed land. The age-old land of Estcarp was menaced from the north and from the south, and also from the sea to the west. Only because they were the heirs of age-old knowledge were the dark people of her fields, her towns and cities, able to hold back the press. Theirs might be a losing cause, but they would go down fighting to the last blow of sword from the last living Guardsman, the last blasting weapon man or woman could lay hand upon.

And that same hunger which had drawn Simon under the rough arch in Petronius' yard into this land, was alive and avid in him once more. They made no appeal to him, their pride was unbending. But he gave his allegiance to the woman who had questioned him, chose sides in that moment with a rush of a boy's openhearted enthusiasm. Without a spoken word pa.s.sing between them, Simon took service in Estcarp.

THE CALL OUT OF SULCARKEEP.

Simon raised heavy tankard to his lips. Over the rim of the vessel he watched the scene alertly. On his first acquaintance he had thought the people of Estcarp somber and overshadowed by a crushing weight of years, the last remnants of a dying race who had forgotten all but dreams of the past. But during the past weeks he had learned bit by bit how surface and superficial that judgment had been. Now in the mess of the Guards his attention flicked from face to face, reappraising, not for the first time, these men with whom he shared a daily round of duties and leisure.

To be sure their weapons were strange. He had had to learn the sword for use in close melee, but their dart guns were enough like his automatic to cause him little trouble. He could never match Koris as a warrior-his respect for that young man's skill was unbounded. However Simon knew the tactics of other armies, other wars, well enough to make suggestions even that commander came to appreciate.

Simon had wondered how he would be received among the Guards- they were making a stand against high odds and to them any stranger might represent an enemy-a breach in the wall of defense. Only he had not reckoned with the ways of Estcarp. Alone in the nations of this continent, Estcarp was willing to welcome one coming with a story as wild as his own. Because the power of that ancient holding was founded upon-magic!

Tregarth rolled the wine about his tongue before he swallowed, considering objectively the matter of magic. That word could mean sleight-of-hand tricks, it could cover superst.i.tious Mumbo-Jumbo-or it could stand for something far more powerful. Will, imagination and faith were the weapons of magic as Estcarp used it. Of course, they had certain methods of focusing or intensifying that will, imagination, and faith. But the end result was that they were extremely open-minded about things which could not be seen, felt, or given visible existence.

And the hatred and fear of their neighbors was founded upon just that basis-magic. To Alizon in the north, Karsten in the south, the power of the Witches of Estcarp was evil. "You shall not suffer a witch to live." How many times had that been mouthed in his own world as a curse against innocent and guilty alike, and with far less cause.

For the matriarchate of Estcarp did have powers beyond any human explanation, and they used them ruthlessly when necessary. He had helped to bring a witch out of Alizon where she had ventured to be eyes and ears for her people.

A witch-Simon drank again. Not every woman of Estcarp had the Power. It was a talent which skipped willfully from family to family, generation to generation. Those who tested out as children were brought to the central city for their schooling and became dedicated to their order. Even their names were gone, for to give another one's name was to give a part of one's ident.i.ty, so that thereafter the receiver had power over the giver. Simon could understand now the enormity of his request when he had asked the name of the woman in whose company he had fled over the moor.

Also the Power was not steady. To use it past a certain point wore hardly upon the witch. Nor could it always be summoned at will. Sometimes it was apt to fail at some crucial moment. So, in spite of her witches and her learnings, Estcarp had also her mail-clad Guards, her lines of forts along her borders, her swords loose in many sheaths.

"Sa . . ." The stool beside him was jerked back from the table as a newcomer swung leg across to sit. "It is hot for the season." A helm banged down on the board and a long arm swept out to reach the jug of wine.

The hawk on the discarded helm stared at Simon gla.s.sily, its beautifully wrought metallic plumage resembling true feathers. Koris drank while questions were shot at him from about the table, as men might aim darts for more deadly purpose. There was discipline in the forces of Estcarp but off duty there was no caste and the men about that board were avid for news. Their commander banged his tankard down with some force and answered briskly: "You'll hear the muster horn before the hour of gate closing, in my opinion. That was Magnis...o...b..ric who prayed safe pa.s.sage from the west road. And he had a tail in full war gear. It is to my mind that Gorm makes trouble."

His words fell into a silence at the end. All of them, now including Simon, knew what Gorm meant to the Guards' Captain. For rightfully the lordship of Gorm should have rested in Koris' powerful hands. His personal tragedy had not begun there, but it had ended on that island when, wounded and alone, he had drifted from its sh.o.r.e, face down in a leaking fishing boat.

Hilder, Lord Defender of Gorm, had been storm-stayed on those moors which were a no man's land between Alizon and the plains of Estcarp. There, separated from his men, he had fallen from a floundered horse and broken an arm, to blunder on in a half daze of pain and fever into the lands of the Tormen, that strange race who held the bogs against all comers, allowing no encroachment upon their soggy domain by any race or man.

Why Hilder had not been slain or driven forth again remained ever a mystery. But his story was untold even after he returned to Gorm some months later, healed again of body and bearing with him a new-made wife. And the men of Gorm-more straightly, the women of Gorm-would have none of that marriage, whispering that it had been forced upon their lord in return for his life. For the woman he had brought with him was misshapen of body, stranger yet of mind, being of the true blood of Tor. She bore him Koris in due time, and then she was gone. Perhaps she died, perhaps she fled again to her kin. Hilder must have known, but he never spoke of her again, and Gorm was so glad to be rid of such a liege lady that there were no questions asked.

Only Koris remained, with the head of a Gorm n.o.ble and the body of a bog loper, as he was never allowed to forget. And in time when Hilder took a second wife, Oma, the well-dowered daughter of a far-sailing sea master, Gorm again whispered and hoped. So they were only too willing to accept the second son Uryan, who, it was plain to see, had not a drop of suspect outland blood in the veins of his straight young body.

In time Hilder died. But he was a long time in dying and those who whispered had a chance to make ready against that day. Those who thought to use Oma and Uryan for their purposes were mistaken, for the Lady Oma, of trading stock and shrewd, was no easily befooled female of the inner courts. Uryan was still a child, and she would be his regent-though there were those who would say no to that unless she made a display of strength.

She was not a fool when she played one lord of Gorm against another, weakening each and keeping her own forces intact. But she was the worst befooled mortal in the world when she turned elsewhere for support. For it was Oma who brought black ruin to Gorm when she secretly summoned the fleet of Kolder to back her rule.

Kolder lay over the rim of the sea world, just where you could find only one man in ten thousand among the seafarers who could tell you. For honest men, or human men, kept aloof from that grim port and did not tie at its quays. It was accepted everywhere that those of Kolder were not as other men, and it was d.a.m.nation to have any contact with them.

The death day of Hilder was followed by a night of red terror. And only one of Koris' superhuman strength could have broken from the net cast for him. Then there was only death, for when the Kolder came to Gorm, Gorm ceased to be. If any now lived there who had known life under Hilder, they had no hope. For Kolder was now Gorm, yes, and more than just the island of Gorm, for within the year stark towers had risen in another place on the coast and a city called Yle had come into being. Though no man of Estcarp went to Yle-willingly.

This Yle lay like a spreading stain of foulness between Estcarp and their one strong ally to the west-the sea wanderers of Sulcarkeep. These fighter-traders who knew wild places and different lands had built their stronghold by Estcarp favor on a finger of land which pointed into the sea, their road to encircle the world. Master Traders were the seamen of Sulcarkeep, but also they were fighting men who walked unchallenged in a thousand ports. No trooper of Alizon or shieldman of Karsten spoke to a Sulcarman except in a mild voice, and they were esteemed as swordbrothers by the Guardsmen of Estcarp.

"Magnis...o...b..ric is not one to ride forth with the summoning arrow unless he must have already manned his walls," remarked Tunston, senior under officer who kept the forces of Estcarp to the mark. He arose and stretched. "We'd best see to our gear. If Sulcarkeep cries aid, then we loosen swords."

Koris gave only a preoccupied nod to that. He had dipped finger into his tankard and was drawing lines on the scrubbed board before him, chewing absentmindedly the while at a flat-sized hunk of brown bread. Those lines made sense to Simon, looking over the other's hunched shoulder, for they duplicated maps he had seen in the muster room of the city keep.

That finger which ended with Sulcarkeep on its tip formed one arm to encircle a wide bay, so that across the expanse of water the city of the traders faced-although many miles lay between them-Aliz, the main port of Alizon. In the confines of the bay itself was cupped the island of Gorm. And on that Koris carefully made the dot to signify Sippar, the main city.

Strangely enough Yle did not lie on the bayside section of the peninsula coast, but on the southwest portion of the sh.o.r.eline, facing the open sea. Then there was a sweep of broken line southward, extending well into the Duchy of Karsten, all rock cliff with no safe anchorage for any ship. The bay of Gorm had been of old Estcarp's best outlet to the western ocean.

The Guards' Captain studied his work for a long instant or two and then with an impatient exclamation, rubbed his hand across it, smearing the lines.

"There is only one road to Sulcarkeep?" asked Simon. With Yle to the south and Gorm to the north, parties from each Kolder post could easily slice in two a peninsula road without greatly bestirring themselves.

Koris laughed. "There is one road, as old as the ages. Our ancestors did not foresee Kolder in Gorm-who in their sane minds could? To make safe that road," he put his thumb on the dot he had made for Sippar and pressed it against the age-hardened wood as if he were remorselessly crushing an insect, "we would have to do so here. You cure a disease by treating its source, not the fever, the wasting which are the signs of its residence in the body. And in this case," he looked bleakly up at Tregarth, "we have no knowledge upon which to work."

"A spy-"

Again the Guards' officer laughed. "Twenty men have gone forth from Estcarp to Gorm. Men who suffered shape-changing without knowing whether they would ever again look upon their own faces in a mirror, but suffering that gladly, men who were fortified with every spell the learning here could summon for their arming. And there has come back out of Sippar-nothing! For these Kolder are not as other men and we know nothing of their devices of detection, save that they appear to be infallible. At last the Guardian forbade any further such ventures, since the drain of Power was too great to have only failure always as an answer. I, myself, have tried to go, but they had set a boundary spell which I cannot break. To land on Gorm would mean my death, and I can serve Estcarp better alive. No, we shall not tear out this sore until Sippar falls, and not yet have we any hopes of bringing that about."

"But if Sulcarkeep is threatened?"

Koris reached for his helm. "Then, friend Simon, we ride! For this is the strangeness of the Kolder: when they fight upon their own land or their own ships, the victory is always theirs. But when they a.s.sail clean territory where their shadow has not yet fallen, then there is still a chance to blood them, to swing swords which bite deep. And with the Sulcarmen the war ravens feed well. I would mark my Kolders when and while I can."

"I ride with you." That was a statement more than a question. Simon had been content to wait, to learn. He had set himself to school with the patience he had so painfully learned in the past seven years, knowing that until he mastered the skills which meant life or death here he could not hope for independence. And once or twice in the night watches he wondered whether the vaunted Power of Estcarp had not been used to bring about his acceptance of the status quo without question or rebellion. If so, that spell was wearing thin now; he was determined to see more of this world than just the city, and he knew that either he rode now with the Guard or he would go alone.

The Captain studied him. "We go for no quick foray."

Simon remained seated, knowing the other's dislike of being towered over and willing to propitiate him by that costless courtesy.

"When have I seemed to you one who expects only easy victories?" he got a caustic bite into that.

"See that you depend upon the darts then. As a swordsman you are still scarcely better than a stall keeper of Karsten!"

Simon did not fire at that jibe, knowing that it was only too true. As a marksman with the dart guns he could match the best in the hold and come off a shade the winner. Wrestling and unarmed combat, to which he brought the tricks of Judo, had given him a reputation with the men now reaching to the border forts. But in sword use he was still hardly better than the gawky recruits with only boy-down to be scrubbed from their cheeks. And he swung a mace which Koris handled with cat-ease as if it were a shoulder-breaking burden.

"Dart gun it is," he returned readily. "But still I ride."

"So be it. But first we see whether or no any of us are to take the road."

That was decided in the conclave into which the officers under Koris, the witches on duty in the hold, were summoned. Though Simon had no official standing in that company, he ventured to follow the Captain and was not refused entrance, taking his place on the ledge of one of the window embrasures to study the company with speculation.

The Guardian who ruled the keep and Estcarp beyond, the woman without a name who had questioned him on his first coming, presided. And behind her chair stood that witch who had fled before the hounds of Alizon. There were five more of the covenanted ones, ageless-in a way s.e.xless-but all keen-eyed and watchful. He would far rather fight with them behind him than standing in opposition, Simon decided. Never had he known any like them, or seen such power of personality.

Yet facing them now was a man who tended to dwarf his surroundings. In any other company he might well have dominated the scene. The men of Estcarp were lean and tall, but this was a bronze bull of a man beside whom they were boys not yet come to their full growth. The armor plate which hooped his chest could have furnished close to two shields for the Guard, his shoulders and arms were a match for Koris' but the rest of his body was in keeping.

His chin was shaven, but on his broad upper lip a mustache bristled, stretching out across his weathered cheeks. And eyebrows furnished a second bar of hair on the upper part of his face. The helm on his head was surmounted with the skillfully modeled head of a bear, its muzzle wrinkled in a warning snarl. And a huge bearhide, tanned and lined with saffron yellow cloth, formed his cloak, gold-clawed forepaws clasped together under his square chin.

"We of Sulcarkeep keep traders' peace." Manifestly he was trying to tutor his voice to a tone more in keeping with the small chamber, but it boomed through the room. "And we keep it with our blades, if the need arises. But against wizards of the night of what use is good steel? I do not quarrel with the old learning," he addressed the Guardian directly, as if they faced each other across a trading counter. "To each man his own G.o.ds and powers, and never has Estcarp pushed upon others their own beliefs. But Kolder does not so. It laps out and its enemies are gone! I tell you, lady, our world dies, unless we rise to stem a tide together."

"And have you, Master Trader," asked the woman, "ever seen a man born of woman who can control the tides?"

"Control them, no, ride them, yes! That is my magic." He thumped his corselet with a gesture which might have been theatrical, save that for him it was right. "But there is no riding with Kolder, and now they plan to strike at Sulcarkeep! Let the stupid wits of Alizon think to hold aloof, they shall be served in turn as Gorm was. But Sulcarmen man their walls-they fight! And when our port goes, those sea tides sweep close to you, lady. Rumor says that you have the magic of wind and storm, as well as those spells which twist a man's shape and wits. Can your magic stand against Kolder?"

Her hands went to the jewel on her breast and she smoothed it.

"It is the truth I speak now, Magnis...o...b..ric-I do not know. Kolder is unknown, we have not been able to breach its walls. For the rest-I agree. The time has come when we must take a stand. Captain," she hailed Koris, "what is your thought upon the matter?"

His handsome face did not lose its bitter shadow, but his eyes were alight.

"I say that while we can use swords, then let us! With your permission, Estcarp will ride to Sulcarkeep."

"The swords of Estcarp shall ride, if that is your decision, Captain, for yours is the way of arms and you speak accordingly. But also shall that other Power ride in company, so what force we have shall be given."

She made no summoning gesture, but the witch who had spied in Alizon moved from behind the chair to stand upon the Guardian's right hand. And her dark, slanted eyes moved over the company until they found Simon sitting apart. Had a shadow of a smile, gone in an instant, spread from her eyes to her lips? He could not have sworn to it, but he thought that was so. He did not understand why, but in that moment Simon was aware of a very fragile thread spun between them, and he did not know whether he chafed against the thinnest of bonds or not.

When they rode out of the city in the midafternoon Simon discovered by some chance his mount matched pace with hers. As the men of the Guard she wore mail, the scarfed helmet. There was no outward difference between her and the rest, for a sword hung at her hip, and the same sidearm at her belt as Simon carried.

"So, man of war from another world," her voice was low and he thought it for his hearing alone, "we travel the same train once again."

Something in her serene composure irked him. "Let us hope this time to hunt instead of being hunted."

"To each his day," she sounded indifferent. "I was betrayed in Alizon, and unarmed."

"And now you ride with sword and gun."

She glanced down at her own equipment and laughed. "Yes, Simon Tregarth, with sword and gun-and other things. But you are right in one thought, we hasten to a dark meeting."

"Foretelling, lady?" His impatience ripened. For that moment he was an unbeliever. It was far easier to trust in steel which fitted into the hand than in hints, looks, feelings.

"Foretelling, Simon." Her narrow eyes regarded him still with that shadow smile somewhere in their depths. "I am laying no geas, nor quest upon you, outland man. But this I know: our two strands of life stuff have been caught up together by the Hand of the Over Guardian. What we wish and what will come of it may be two very different things. This I shall say, not only to you, but to all this company-beware the place where rocks arch high and the scream of the sea eagle sounds!"

Simon forced an answering smile. "Believe me, lady, in this land I watch as if I had eyes set around my head in a circlet. This is not my first raiding party."