A Life for Kregen (23 page)

The room led onto another chamber of some refinement and luxury, with rugs and hangings and golden lamps on chains. A zhantil-skin pelt was strewn artfully across a couch whose strigicaw-head legs rested on ochre and white rugs. Long curtains at the far end parted and Ros walked in. She was in the process of buckling up a war-harness over her black leathers, and her face was tight with annoyance.

“Who demands to see me so intemperately?” She struggled with a bronze buckle which refused to close. “There can be no more messages to which I will listen unless they bring firm promises of gold.” She looked up, breathing hard, and saw the Bowman of Loh who stood ramrod straight but submissively before her, as she must have seen so many in her time.

“Voves,” I said. “So you bring voves into Vallia.”

She jumped as though I had struck her.

Her naked left hand struck up before her face. The fingers extended. She wore no rings. Her nails were trimmed and polished, unpainted, neat. That left hand clawed at the air in reflex so automatic it left her gasping.

“Yes, Ros,” I said.

To give her credit she did not gasp: “You!” like some ignoramus of a heroine from one of the operettas of the flea-pits of Vondium. I enjoy operetta. She lowered that lethal left hand, naked of its lethal weapon, and gazed on me and her look passed from astonishment through anger to a brooding puzzlement. Then:

“What am I to do with you?”

“Nothing. It is what I am to do with you. Boy!” I turned to the lad, who was not yet full grown, a dimpled handsome boy wearing a rose-colored tunic and with a pretty little dagger swinging from silver chains at his waist. His brown Vallian hair tumbled in locks about his ears. “Boy! Pull out that carpet — that long wide one with the silken tassels and spread it out on the floor.”

She knew at once.

“You would not dare!”

“How much do you hate me, Ros?” I kept to this name of hers, instead of Dayra, out of an instinctive feeling for the moment, where Ros the Claw was at home and Dayra not.

“Hate you? More than you can imagine — more than the whole world can encompass!” She had not moved since that first instinctive gesture. Her face — beautiful, ah, yes, beautiful and passionate, willful, stubborn, marked with a pride I could sigh over, and marked, also, with a vicious sadness I found desolating — her face bore now the high flush of a controlled anger. “Are you not deserving of all the hate and all the contempt of the whole wide world?”

“Yes.”

Her hand went to her throat, above the rim of the black leathers. She was surprised. “But—”

“Turn around, Ros the Claw, and I will fasten up your wrists. Stand, boy!” For the lad made to draw his toy dagger.

The footfall at my back was soft. It was not soundless. I should not speak to you had that footstep been soundless. I ducked and turned and the drexer was out and the giant who slashed a giant sword at me staggered on with the violence of his blow. He was quick. Off balance, before I could get back and the drexer into him he swung around, the giant sword sweeping. I hurdled it and landed cat-footed and so faced him.

Well, he was big. He was broad and wide and bulky and he went up and up and up, his thatch of straw-yellow hair overtopping me by seven good inches. He wore a bronze-studded leather kax, and arm-bands of beaten gold, and a war-kilt of ochre and bronze, pteruges which swung to his knees. His sandals would have carried a landing party from ship to shore. And his sword — massive, thick through and wide, with a solid pommel shaped like a zhantil-head — that sword was like no other I had seen on Kregen. I rather fancied it would be slow, even for him, even with his enormous muscles.

Dayra laughed her silver tinkle.

“You have not met Brun before. I think the meeting opportune.” She was enjoying this. “Do not slay him Hyr Brun. His mangy hide has a certain value in certain quarters. We will grow fat on his profit.”

Despite the gross proportions of that sword, Brun carried it one-handed and the hilt was close, not fashioned for two-handed work, not even for hand-and-a-half. I took three quick backward steps. Brun’s cheerful face, open, mellow, clean-shaven and with a few spots on one cheek, broke into a delighted smile. His reactions were those of a cat stalking a mouse. The drexer snapped away into the scabbard. I reached around.

“So, master, you give in?” Brun’s voice carried a clarity of sound amazing, until you realized the enormous cathedral-cavity of his lungs. “That is wise of you. The mistress is to be obeyed in all things.”

“I don’t know where you got him, Ros,” I said, as I put my hand on the hilt of the Krozair brand. “But I’d like to make friends with a thousand or so. What a bonny regiment they would make for Vallia!”

“For my Vallia!” she spat at me. “Never yours!”

“Well, my girl, you are going into that carpet, and this Hyr Brun is going to carry you out. You had best reconcile yourself to that.” I whipped the longsword out and it sparked a shard of light into that chamber as it swung out into line. “As for you, friend Brun. I shall not slay you, as you would not me. But carry your mistress in the carpet you will.”

He boomed a gigantic laugh and rushed.

The fight was not pretty — or extraordinarily pretty — depending on your personal viewpoint.

He had a knack of swinging the huge sword around in his fist as though it was a length of rope so that it wove a circle of light. The trick was effective. Besides demonstrating his strength it confused his opponent. Inch had a similar trick with his long Saxon-pattern axe. Again I do not wish to dwell on the fight. It was interesting. Brun wore a leather strap around his head which confined his thatch of yellow hair. The Krozair brand met the gigantic sword and the metal rang and the jolt belted up my arms and across my shoulders. But the Krozair Disciplines held and the blows slanted and glanced, and, like a striking risslaca, the longsword licked out and sliced neatly through the leather fillet. Not a drop of blood was drawn, the skin was not marked. But the leather fell away and Brun’s yellow hair dropped down before his face.

Before he had time to brush it away I stepped in and clouted him over the head with the flat.

He dropped. I do not think there can be many men born of women who will not drop when struck by a Krozair brand.

Before he hit the carpet I had leaped aside and swung the flat around horizontally and the boy was swept away, his toy dagger spinning up like a comet of diamonds in the lights.

Ros leaped for me and she wore her talons.

I ducked, put my shoulder into her stomach, clapped my left arm about her back and hugged her. Horizontally she thrashed her legs wildly. I felt the kiss of the talons against the back of my thighs, and so banged her — gently, gently! — on her bottom with the hilt.

“Stay still, daughter, or I shall tan you, but good.”

“You—!”

“Yes.”

Presently we were sorted out. Ros, with wrists and ankles fastened with the silken cords from the curtains, lay rolled in the ochre and silver carpet with the silk tassels. Brun said to me: “You would not really slay the boy?” I stood with a dagger at the boy’s throat, the rest of my armory scabbarded.

I said, “Do you wish to find out? Pick up your mistress and we will walk out of here, all friendly and nice. Boy, do you walk quietly and not wriggle.” I took the dagger from his throat and flapping a corner of the cloak over it, pressed it into the small of his back. “You walk before death.”

Well, it was detestable; but he believed me. And, believing, said, “You may kill me, master, if you desire. But I will not betray my mistress.”

“Well spoken lad. Your name?”

“I am called Vaxnik.”

I was astonished. Vax was the name used by Jaidur in the Eye of the World. And Jaidur was Dayra’s twin. I would ask the boy his history when we were safely away. Now, I said, “You have my word as a koter that no harm will befall your mistress. Despite her seeming hatred of me, I love her more deeply than you can understand. I would be cut down before harm should come to her. Now, lead on.”

Brun rumbled: “Do you speak sooth, master?”

“Aye, Hyr Brun, I do.”

“You are a Jikai, master, that is plain. And we do not do well in this evil place. But—”

“Carry your mistress out of here. All will be revealed.”

Cheap and easy words; but they were true, by Vox.

A serving man — for Brun was clearly no slave — carrying an expensive carpet, and an important boy to strut his office, and a dour professional mercenary to guard them, excited no attention in the busy warren. We saw parties of guards searching for those who had broken in. We walked solemnly on and were not challenged all the way down from the Pillars to the beginning of the mists rising and stinking from the niksuth.

Besides the carpet in which was rolled Ros the Claw, Brun carried a leather sack hastily stuffed with portable food, a few bottles of wine, and a curtain stuffed down on the top. He could, I thought, have carried a whole wagon-load of supplies without visible effort. So we walked on and passed parties of guards still searching and began to discern a pattern in the search for the intruders. I fancied we might run into serious trouble at the gates, and Vaxnik led on with an eager step.

Now it appeared to me improbable that the outpost guards would have an expensive carpet delivered to their blockhouse. So we would have to re-arrange ourselves for the next step. I halted us in the shadows of a half-ruined building fronting the open space before the gate Vaxnik had chosen, and stared out as Bowmen and churgur guards moved about, parties coming and going, with Deldars yelling and a group of totrixmen spurring across in a swirl of dust and blown leaves. H’mm...

There was a double enceinture here, where Vaxnik had led us, and I chalked a mark up to him, the cunning little devil.

Waiting until the open space was completely free of guards would take too long. Time pressed. Norgoth as Jhansi’s lieutenant would be raging with impatience that the intruders had not been found, and I suspected that some, at least, of those unfortunates who had been knocked on the head had recovered to add further to the alarm. So, once more, there was nothing for it. I settled the longsword more conveniently to hand. The shadows lay blue and bright. The suns shone. And then tendrils of oily mist wafted and the whole scene dulled to a dun mange, and a chill descended.

“March straight, Hyr Brun. And you, too, boy. I have a story for those guards yonder.”

A party of diffs wearing the gray slave breechclouts passed in a straggling line. They carried obese pots on their shoulders, no doubt water for the baths of those up in the palaces, if they’d run out of milk. I made a face, and we stepped out.

Two parties of guards approached. That to our right rear was composed mainly of Rapas, with a few apims and Brokelsh. They carried their spears all at the regulation slope and were mercenaries, skilled fighting men. The party advancing through the gate wore the ochre and white, and were armed with a medley of weapons which spoke again of mercenaries, although not the regimented and disciplined kind. I frowned.

Walking along a couple of paces in rear of Brun I readied myself. We attracted no attention from the guards with the spears. They were commanded by their Deldar and would do as he directed. We made a picture that held no menace for him.

A movement caught the corner of my eye and I looked forward again. The open end of the carpet was moving like the trunk of an elephant. How she had done it I do not know. Dayra’s head appeared, and an arm ripped free of the binding silks. Her face was flushed and her eyes looked murderous. She saw the guards. She yelled. She yelled good and loud.

“Guards! Guards! Here is the man you seek! Guards, ho!”

Her triumphant face bore on me, bright, vindictive, filled with passion.

Vaxnik squeaked. Brun dropped the carpet.

I saw the guards running on. Their Deldar bellowed and they turned toward us. The other party of guards, attracted by the shouts, also turned toward us. We were trapped between them.

“You’re done for, now, you villainous rast!” shouted my daughter at her father.

I ripped the longsword free. Two-handed I gripped the Krozair blade.

“Done for!” shrieked Dayra. “They will not kill you. But you may wish they had.”

“I do not hate you,” I said, stupidly, spreading my fists along the hilt of the longsword.

“Throw down your sword, cramph! Oh that I could get free and sink my talons in you!” And her left hand at last broke free from the swathing carpet and the suns shone through the drifting mist and glittered most vilely upon that curved and cruel claw.

I saw the spearmen charging toward me. I half-turned and saw the guards from the gate pressing swiftly on, their weapons drawn.

And I said, very gently: “I do not think your guards will take me, Dayra. But it was a nice try.”

Chapter Seventeen

Disaster

The spearmen ran yelling on their doom.

For a short space only I fronted them with the deadly Krozair longsword singing, and then Targon and Naghan and Dorgo and Korero were there, with the others of my choice band clad in their stolen ochre and white uniforms, and the blades clanged and rang. The spearmen were either cut down or ran. The fight was brief and bloody, swift and savage.

“Well met!” I bellowed. “Now back through the gate and into the swamps before they gather their wits.”

“You are safe?” demanded Korero, and blood dripped from his tail hand and the blade he bore.

“Aye! Now — move!”

So we ran.

Brun lifted the carpet and I stuffed Dayra back, whereat she squealed and tried to slash me. I looped the silk around her wrists and drew it tight, tight, and said: “Daughter. Bide you still or earn a father’s wrath.”

“And what else have I ever had?”

There was nothing I could say to that. Filled with a sudden and blinding sense of infamy, I ran with my comrades out through the gate and past the dead guards sprawled there, and along the causeway and through the other gate where the guards lay naked, and so out and into the bog of Trakon’s niksuth.

Well into the slimy stinking labyrinth we slowed down and caught our breaths, and I let them tell me the story as we pressed on. Inky the Chops had vanished when the risslacas attacked. My men had gone on, finding their own way through the boggy maze, half-blinded, choked with the miasmic stinks, but coming at last to this gate and so making their way through determined to rescue Lol and me or burn the place down. I said: “I regret we had no time to do that. It would have been — useful.”