Allies of Antares (16 page)

“I am not so sure. You do not know the half of it.”

Lobur’s dagger clicked as he loosened it. “You’d better explain what you mean.”

“I shall. But I would prefer to talk more privately.”

By the suppurating scabies of Makki Grodno! Here I’d expected to have to carve my way through a wall of living flesh and wade through drenchings of blood to free these two, and that would have been the easy part, by Krun. They were here of their own free will, anxious to help King Telmont, and in no need of rescue. It was enough to make a person turn to drink, or temperance, given your previous inclination.

Walking along between them as they led their zorcas quietly along we skirted past the voller lines. A little wind blew the serried flags. Telmont was short of vollers, and they were well guarded. Among them I noticed a courier flier, painted green, with the big yellow-gold word COURIER blazoned on her sides. She was number Jay Kay Pe 448 Ve and had been piloted by cheerful young Bonzo before Lobur and Thefi brought her away out of Ruathytu. I’d seen to it that Bonzo was all right and with that little swallowing laugh he’d said he was going to do what he wanted to do, and I’d told him that the war was not over yet. He flew Courier vollers for a time yet, did Bonzo. Any thoughts that I might once again steal that flier away vanished as I appreciated the strength of the guard details.

“Now then, Jak,” said Thefi as we walked on into an open space where we would not be overheard, “I gather you want to tell us something we do not know.” She shivered. “I feel it will be evil...”

“Not so, princess. Rather, good news. Splendid news.”

After a few sentences in which I tried to explain the new situation, Thefi burst out furiously. “I don’t believe my father or my brother would believe what the Vallians say! It can’t be true! We have to fight them—”

“No, princess, we do not have to fight them. We have to fight the Shanks, and I could wish we did not have to do even that.”

“I grant you we must fight the Shanks when they raid,” said Lobur. “But, as for the rest of this fabrication, why, it makes me think strangely. You have always been a mysterious fellow, first hailing from Djanduin, then Hamal, and now where?” He looked at me, his brows drawn down, and his fist on his dagger handle. “Vallia, perhaps?”

I took a breath—

A party of guards marched briskly along, their spears all sloped exactly, their helmets shining, for they were of the King’s Ironfists. No difficult calculation told me I could fight my way through them and probably seize a voller, chained down or not. I might even manage that with Thefi draped around my neck and shrieking blue murder that she was being abducted. Even, perhaps, with Lobur and his damned dagger to contend with.

Yes, I might have done all those things in the typical bone-headed way of your barbarian hero — but that would alienate Thefi. That seemed clear. She would struggle and scream and in the ensuing excitement some stray arrow or stux might kill her instead of me. That was a chance I would not take.

The truth of her father’s position as I saw it was not the truth as she saw it.

I said, “Your father, Prince Nedfar, is now the Emperor of Hamal and in alliance with Vallia, Hyrklana, Djanduin and other forward-looking countries.”

Lobur looked disgusted.

Thefi blanched.

“You have been deceived, Jak! You must have been. My father would never join hands with Vallia. Tyfar has told me. He and father would never do it.”

“But they have—”

“No! Never! Treat that great devil Dray Prescot as a human being? It is unthinkable.”

“But he
is
a human being, princess.”

“I wonder!” Her head was up, her chin in the air, and her eyes held a look of haughty imperiousness — and, also, of doubt?

“You know what happened to the Hyr Notor, Jak?” Lobur hauled his zorca along to keep up, for the beast wanted to have a quiet crop at the sparse grass. “Down the Moder we met Ariane nal Amklana, of Hyrklana. She came to the Empress Thyllis for help, we saw her again, and she was with the Hyr Notor when he died.”

“I did not know that.”

“It was some devilish trick of Dray Prescot’s that did that mischief. Now we must resist with all our willpower.”

“We must resist the Shanks, the leem-lovers.” I spoke firmly, and Lobur jumped, and looked mean.

“You—”

“There is no time left for me to explain it all again. Hamal and Vallia are now in alliance. Did you know, Thefi, that Prince Tyfar and the Princess Majestrix of Vallia are—”

“No!”

Her cry broke forth as an anguished wail. “No, no. That cannot be so!”

In these matters of the convoluted affairs of state and the heart there is no need to spell it all out for a princess. Thefi understood at once, and was horrified, shattered, degraded in her own eyes.

And I’d had enough.

“You misunderstood me, princess. This is no state-arranged marriage. Tyfar and the Princess Majestrix love each other dearly — although they somehow manage to skirt around the subject. It was thought you would help in this.”

She put a hand on my arm and looked up into my face.

“Jak, you bring such strange news. And Tyfar... Why, he and this horrible Vallian princess have never met. How could they love each other so soon?” She shook her head, and her hair gleamed. “We must resist the Vallians. King Telmont says so—”

“Old Hot end Cold? Surely you mean Vad Garnath?”

“Maybe.” She looked away, “I do not like him. But, Jak — you are strange — and Tyfar and father — it is all—”

“It is all very simple,” cut in Lobur. “If we are not to lose everything, we fight the damned Vallians and their allies.”

“You, Lobur, were Nedfar’s aide-de-camp. Would you obey him if he told you?”

All the forthright candor fled from Lobur’s eyes.

“Treachery—?”

As I say, I’d had enough.

“I must leave you to think this over. I repeat, Hamal no longer stands in enmity with Vallia. We have great enemies, greater foes even after the Shanks have been dealt with. Now I must see to my animals and eat and bathe. I shall see you when the suns have gone.”

Before they had time to remonstrate, I turned away and marched off. I was fuming. But, then, how else had I expected them to react?

Chapter fourteen

Chained Like a Leem

The eating and the bathing were accomplished easily enough on payment of a suitable sum; the nonexistent animals no doubt took care of themselves. My voller waited in her clump of trees. I spent the rest of the day moving about and discovering all I could. Telmont had a formidable little army, not over-large but of high quality, and he even had under command a number of regiments of the old Hamalian army, all of whom believed they were acting in the best interests of Hamal. It was those regiments who had allied with Vallia that were the renegades and treacherous werstings.

Try as I might, I could find no other solution to this pretty problem than simply taking Thefi to see her father and letting her see the truth for herself. As for Lobur, he might not wish to face Prince Nedfar, now the Emperor of Hamal. I would not drag the Dagger along by the scruff of the neck, but he ought to be given the chance of making up his own mind about coming with us.

That was it, then.

There were four regiments of swarthmen in whom I took an interest, for the swarth, a dinosaur-like saddle animal of great power and lumbering strength, was often regarded as a mere appendage to the cavalry arm or as the battle-winning strike force, depending on the viewpoint of the riders. These fellows in their harsh scaled armor and blazoned blue and gold looked useful. Also, Telmont had a fine corps of crossbowmen. His churgurs, the solid heavy sword and shield men looked to me to be somewhat thin on the ground. But this army would prove a tough nut to crack.

So I wandered about, spying away in the best cloak and dagger fashion, until the suns set and the first of the night’s moons rose. She of the Veils shone refulgently down, all rose and gold, and I took heart. Although claiming to have no favorites among the seven moons of Kregen, I rather fancy I take to She of the Veils just a trifle more than the others...

This was not unimportant, as you shall hear.

By the time the Maiden with the Many Smiles rose over the horizon, I wanted this frustrating business with Lobur and Thefi over and done with.

They had been given a tent of some magnificence by King Telmont, and rather to my surprise I discovered that Lobur was no gilded appendage to the king’s retinue, having taken command of a totrix regiment which he strove to improve and turn into the best in the army. With gold and rose moonlight dropping over the lines of tents and animals, I nodded to the sentries at the tent flap and went inside. The information that would have been startling to anyone here, that Jak the Shot was in reality Dray Prescot, had not reached the camp and Nedfar had kept that business on the quiet side. Very few were privy to that item of hot gossip. I wondered, as I watched Thefi approach in the lamplight over the carpets, whether I should tell her.

She looked pale. Her eyes were brilliant.

“Jak! I have been thinking over what you said. It is terrible, terrible—”

“Agreed, princess. Everyone is heartily sick of wars and fighting. But we must brace ourselves. We have to face the Shanks, for they will destroy us if we do not.”

“I did not mean that. Everyone knows that. I mean about my brother and that awful princess of Vallia.”

I just couldn’t help myself. “Oh,” I said. “So you’ve met her then.”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Then, princess, how do you know she is awful?”

Stupid and petty vindictivenesses like that can be quickly and firmly put down. She stared at me. “She is Vallian, isn’t she?” That, of course in her eyes, was explanation enough. I, clever Dray Prescot, was quickly and firmly put down.

“Where’s Lobur, princess?”

“Seeing to his regiment. And I have made my mind up. I will not — I cannot — return to Ruathytu. My father would be — would be unkind to Lobur. And I could not bear that.”

I studied her. She breathed passion and fire and all the delightful and worthwhile things of dreams, and I could not ask her again to think a second time and, perhaps, to betray her lover. As always, my thoughts of Delia gave me what I hoped was a better understanding in delicate affairs. How would Delia react in these circumstances? That is a touchstone that never fails me.

“Very well — but Telmont bears your father no good will.”

“Oh, Jak! Telmont is fighting for Hamal. Once we throw off the yoke of oppression—”

“Vallia does not—”

She half-turned away and her frown pained me. We still stood. She had offered no seat, no refreshments.

“We are taking a big swing down into the south and east, to gather more men. Just north of He of the Commendable Countenance, Telmont has good friends.”

The river marking the southern boundary of Hamal, the River Os, divided before it reached the sea on the east coast and the two arms enclosed the independent country of Ifilion. Much of the river and deltas were called the Land of Shining Mud. You could scrape up thousands of levies there, who might fight if they were chained and stapled to the ground. There were other troops to be had. Chido’s estates were in that part of Hamal. And, so Thefi said, some of the realms south of the river in the northern sections of the Dawn Lands still would fight for Hamal, since they had been in thrall for so long. I thought of our abject performances in the Peace Conference. This was one result of shilly-shallying when we should have been making decisions and implementing them.

Lobur walked in with a swing and a swagger, shouting that he could only stop for a stoup of ale — no wine for him tonight on guard duty — before he saw me. He halted, his helmet swinging by its straps from his fist, and his face congested. He wore a smartly ornate uniform, but he was a fighting man.

“Lahal, Lobur.”

“You are not welcome, Jak. It pains me to say that, after all you have done for us. But—”

I interrupted and made a last attempt to persuade them to see that Telmont might protest his honest intentions but that Vad Garnath pulled the strings. “Between them, and Rosil, the Kataki Strom, they will try to destroy your father, princess. It was Rosil who shot Thyllis.”

But they would not listen, and Lobur, flinging an impatient glance at the clepsydra, said he had to be off or those lazy good-for-nothings would be snoring instead of standing watch. He left, with a warning look at Thefi which I ignored. He did not say the remberees.

“Princess—”

“No, Jak. My father is held by the Vallians and we must fight them to free him. My mind is made up.”

Seeing I had failed, I hitched up my sword belt — which is a useful if redundant preliminary to action — and started to walk quietly toward Thefi. I picked her up and bundled her under my arm and walked out of there.

Ha!

The only real bit of luck I had was that Vad Garnath and Strom Rosil were not in the camp — oh, and that the guards didn’t knock my brains out there and then. They flung iron nets over me in the evilly efficient way Kataki slavers have, and iron nets will hold a leem. I fell to the ground, tangled up, cursing away, struggling to draw a sword and break free. The nets enfolded me. Katakis with their tails swishing bladed steel hauled me out. Nasty are Katakis, a race of diffs with habits that set them apart from the normal run of humanity. Low-browed, dark, snaggle-toothed, and with those sinuous whip tails to which they strap six inches of bladed steel, Katakis are man-managers. Thefi screamed and I cursed and rolled over, and a Kataki hit me on the head and the night of Notor Zan enfolded me in darkness.

I woke up, chained and stapled to the ground like some poor devil of a levy swept up into an army for which he had no desire whatsoever to fight.

The stars sparkled above, the Maiden with the Many Smiles performed her serene pink smile, the night breeze rustled the bushes, and I struggled and was chained like a wild beast.

Two guards stood watch over me.

One said, “You’re awake, then?”

His companion said, “When the king sees you, you’ll—”