'I am Prince Kene,' said the Nesak warrior, as he drew his sword. That meant only one of the Nesaks was properly equipped to parley, under Sword Law. Neither she, nor the priest, wore a sword. The princess had wide, green eyes, long hair that fell to her shoulders, and a floor length gown worn beneath a bulky cloak of plain velvet. He understood very little of Nesak political structure.

The warrior, priest and princess facing them were members of the Nesak ruling family-or so Di Mon had been told.

Hangst Nersal, of the Black Vrellish, stood large and menacing, backed up in space by the best standing fleet in all Sevildom. Beside him, young Vackal Vrel fingered his sword. Both sexes managed the children and both dressed the same, right down to the swords worn at their sides.ĭi Mon had been elected to speak for the Vrellish cause. The inhabitants of Cold Rock filled the rest of the seats around the Challenge Floor, seated on thick rugs with children on their shoulders or in their laps. Behind them were witnesses drawn from their battlewheels, all of them wearing their swords with pride, as if they had never participated in space-side massacres. He had talked his side into this meeting on the Cold Rock Challenge Floor in the hope that the Nesak survivors were as sick of grief and mad destruction as he was. Perhaps even some treachery with hidden weapons, meant to take the Vrellish leaders down. A duel to save face or a bargain to negotiate a safe withdrawal. And the Vrellish shared no liege with their enemies.ĭi Mon, of the Green Vrellish, did not know what the defeated Nesaks planned. But Sword Law required shared courts of honor. Vrellish clans had met on Cold Rock for a thousand years, coming from all across Red Reach to settle their differences by the sword, because swords were safer than space battles and habitat far, far more precious than any cause that might inspire battle. Emotions soaked the medium in which they traveled: grief and anger, and a pale hope, held out against the horror of one last, soul-numbing turmoil of destruction, if their leaders, down on Cold Rock, could not find a way to end the war. All about them, in ever-changing arcs, buzzed hoards of small, spherical rel-fighters manned by highborn pilots, the living weapons of the medium, who fought by interfering with each other as they flickered in and out of reality many times a second. Enough ships to tear reality.īattlewheels hummed in place, engaging just enough for skim-telemetry to reveal the firefly tracts of rel-ships on their nervecloth displays. 'S hips cluttered space surrounding the barren moon-base of Cold Rock, in Red Reach. PREVIOUS CATALOG PAGE BOOK LIST NEXT CATALOG PAGE EDGE Online catalog - Righteous Anger by Lynda WilliamsĮDGE and Tesseract are imprints of Hades Publications, Inc.