The duke's party rode on past the camp without stopping or even approaching the gates. A score of riders came out to join the duke's party as an escort-or guard. From the riders' plump, hairless faces, Blade assumed they were from the Corps of Eunuchs.

They looked like good soldiers. They rode well, and their weapons had the appearance that comes with careful maintenance over many years. Their helmets sat square and their armor fit well, with no odd pieces missing or laces dangling. Their horses looked alert, tough, and well fed. Like most of the other Imperial soldiers Blade had seen, the Corps of Eunuchs would be formidable opponents in battle. If Kul-Nam's judgment had been as good as his soldiers, the Empire would have been in no danger at all. As it was, Saram had an army that was worthy of better leadership than they were likely to get from their Emperor.

The eunuchs divided into two lines and flanked the duke's party, one line on each side. The camp vanished behind; the horizon ahead began to swell into a range of green hills. After another half hour they were riding along a road that wound through scattered estates, with whitewashed, tile-roofed houses laid out around lush gardens and artificial lakes. The breezes that blew across the road brought the smell of flowers and rich earth. They also brought the smell of too many hard-worked, unwashed people crammed together in the slave barracks behind each of the great houses.

At a crossroads stood a great pyramid of stone painted a glossy red, and on top of the pyramid rose a heavy timber frame. The frame was studded with spikes, and on each spike was stuck a human head. Some were fresh — Blade saw the head of a young girl, no more than twelve, that seemed still to wear an expression of agonized surprise. Others were blackened, rotting masses of decay, eyes and tongues plucked out by carrion birds, exuding foul stenches into the warm air. Still others were bare skulls, with only a few shreds of sun-dried flesh adhering to the whitening bones, the teeth bared in monstrous grins.