Allies of Antares (3 page)

“I’ll fly out, Jaezila,” I said.

Drak looked cross. “I do wish, Father, you wouldn’t call Lela Jaezila all the time. She is my sister, and your daughter, and she calls you Jak and you call her Jaezila. Most unsettling.”

“We were blade comrades, Drak. I know Jaezila as Jaezila more than I do as Lela. Anyway, Tyfar must be told.”

Jaidur swallowed his drink and said, “And where was this Prince Nedfar during the Taking of Ruathytu?”

I said, “I do not know. But I give thanks to Opaz and to Djan that he was not here. I do not like to contemplate what would have happened had we met in battle.”

Kytun’s fierce Djang face contained an amazingly placid look as he said, “I am glad we did not meet in the fight.”

There was no mistaking his meaning. My Djangs would allow no harm to come to their king. I did not make the mistake of assuming I could overrule their loyalty by my desire to promote a new emperor in Hamal, for all my admiration of the emperor-elect and my affection for his son.

“Well, then, Jak,” Jaezila stood up, tall and graceful and superb in her hunting leathers and in no mood to stand any nonsense from her father. “If you’re flying out with me, let’s get started.”

“Lela!” exclaimed Drak, outraged.

“We can’t shilly-shally around. Tyfar is stuck out there by the Mountains of the West and being attacked by those confounded wild men, I expect, and getting all kinds of garbled messages about what’s happened to Ruathytu. What do you think he’s imagining, feeling? By Vox! Have you no heart!”

Not one of those fighting men who swore allegiance to me even thought of saying that, well, Prince Tyfar was a Hamalese, after all. They had fought the Hamalese; now they understood my dreams and desires for the future.

I stood up. I put the wine glass down.

“Wenda!”
[1]

So, when we’d sorted out who was going and who staying to attend the tiresome Peace Conference, we all went up to the most convenient landing platform where a selection of captured Hamalian airboats rested.

Drak could not be released from his lynch-pin position in the conference. Lildra was reluctant to let Jaidur go as they were comparatively recent newly weds, and this appeared to be just. Ortyg was not too keen on Kytun going, preferring him rather to stay to keep an eye on the unruly elements here.

Seg said, “I’m going, my old dom, and joy in it.”

I admit I felt a leap of my spirits as Seg spoke. What it was to go off adventuring with a blade comrade, a true friend, the greatest bowman in all Loh!

Drak looked stern. He could have stood for a portrait of an elder judging a tribe, a statesman adjudicating on empires — well, he was all those things, of course; but he so looked the part. “I do not like the idea of you going haring off all over the place, Father. It is — it is undignified.”

“I’ve never, save in one instance, bothered about dignity.”

“But you are the Emperor of Vallia! Emperors do not go off flying—”

“This one does. Oh, and don’t forget to mention when Kytun and Ortyg are here, the King of Djanduin. Anyway, Drak, you will have to shoulder the burden of being Emperor of Vallia soon.”

This, as you will readily perceive, was one of my very good reasons for leaving Drak. He had to be made to understand I meant it when I said he was to take over. He was perfectly capable. It was only his damned rectitude and sense of what was fitting that made him declare he would never become emperor while his mother, Delia, and I lived.

“You know my thoughts on that—” he began.

“Enough! Let us take off—”

Drak went doggedly on. “And we are supposed to be concerning ourselves about this Prince Nedfar you have selected to be the Emperor of Hamal. Where is he? He is who—”

“Listen, Drak! It is my guess Nedfar has flown to the Mountains of the West. He’s visiting his son, Tyfar. That’s what I think. If we hang about he will be rushing back here and no doubt become embroiled with some stupid idiot from the Dawn Lands, or this King Telmont, or anything untoward—” I finished speaking somewhat more lamely than I’d begun. I could hear myself talking, and that is always fatal to ordered thought.

Over our heads a few clouds scattered pink and golden light from their edges, radiant whorls of darkness, as they obscured the face of the Maiden with the Many Smiles. The stars clustered thickly, fat and bright and twinkling merrily, and a tiny night breeze blew the scents of moon blooms festooning the walls of the landing platform. I breathed in deeply. The air of Kregen is sweet, sweet...

Everything had been prepared. Now that the decision had been made I was anxious to be off, for I well knew what would happen if word of this got around to my people. There would be an instant outcry. To tell the truth, I found it uncanny how well my decision to fly off was being taken. If my lads of the Emperor’s Sword Watch, or the Emperor’s Yellow Jackets, got wind of an adventure in the offing — well! And Delia’s warriors of the Empress’s Devoted Life Guard — they’d want to come, too. And, I saw, if we didn’t get off sharpish, nothing was going to stop Kytun from leaping aboard the flier and joining us.

Drak looked up at us three lining along the rail of the airboat. He gave us a smile. Suddenly, I wondered if he was pleased to see me go, to get me out of his hair. Well, if that was the case — and I doubted it — then it would be mutual only in the sense that what I was going to do where we were going was all a part and parcel of what had to be done for Hamal and Vallia.

Deft-Fingered Minch stared up at us, his bearded face as crusty and concerned as ever, for he was a kampeon I counted as a comrade, and I have no doubt at all that he was running over in his mind the preparations he had made for us. We had given him little time; but Minch was not called Deft-Fingered for nothing. I had no doubts that the airboat had been stocked, and fully stocked, with all that we would need.

Seg suddenly leaned even farther over the rail and shouted down to a fiery-haired fellow with wide shoulders clad in sober russet who looked up in just such a way as Minch.

“Lije!” shouted Seg. “Did you put in that knobbly stave I have in pickle?”

“Aye, I did that. And you shouldn’t be flying off alone without me—”

“By Vox!” said Drak, as though struck by a shaft from Erthyr the Bow himself. “That is right! What am I doing allowing you and Lela to fly off—”

“By the Veiled Froyvil!” sang out Seg. “Your mother and father, and Thelda and me, walked all through the hostile territories of Turismond together—”

“And Jak and Tyfar and I have gone adventuring, Drak,” called Jaezila who was Lela to her brother. “So stop worrying.”

I shot a hard look at Seg. He had the grace to brace his shoulders back and tilt his head, but he knew he had roused a storm that might delay us. “Get her up, Seg!”

“Aye, my old dom. Let’s get away from all these nannies.”

As the remberees were shouted and our voller lifted up into the night sky, I looked closely at Drak. Already he was swinging away, cape flaring, to bellow at his people standing further back on the landing platform.

“Make it fast,” I said to Seg at the controls. “Drak will send half the army after us.”

“More likely your Sword Watch,” said Jaezila.

“If that rapscallion bunch get half a chance to go off aroving you won’t see their tails for dust. And,” I said, feeling the injustice of it all, remembering Delia’s father and his complaints about the way his pallans and guards cramped his fun, “and they’ll stop us enjoying ourselves.”

The flier sped swiftly into the moonshot darkness, speeding above Ruathytu, heading due west.

ESW and EYJ had been formed to protect the emperor. They did this with such devotion that a wall of bodies stood between me and danger. Only by an impassioned call for their loyalty to Drak, who was doing the fighting, and to Seg, who led the major portion of Vallia’s forces, had I managed to keep my guards off my neck. Delia had given Nath Karidge permission to take three quarters of the Empress’s Devoted Life Guard off to the war against Hamal. Nath wouldn’t hang about if he could follow me, well knowing he’d see action. Into the equation I must add the crew of
Mathdi,
the voller used to such good effect in the days leading up to the Taking of Ruathytu.

So we slammed the speed lever over to the stop and we hurtled beneath the Moons of Kregen, for now there were four shining between the clouds, the Maiden with the Many Smiles, the Twins, and She of the Veils.

In an attempt to shake off these forebodings — which were selfish and ungrateful, to be sure — and lighten our mood, I said to Seg, “Why bring a bowstave you have in pickle, Seg? Surely it is better to keep it in a vat?”

“So some bowyers claim. You know I’ve been used to pickling ’em on the move.” Here Seg glanced sideways at Jaezila, her face flushed in the rose and golden light of the moons. “And this is a very special stave. I want to keep an eye on it.”

“Oh?”

“It is not yerthyr wood. I’ve learned a very great deal since I left Erthyrdrin, believe me. For one thing, the rose-colored feathers from the zim korf of Valka are as good as the blue feathers of the king korf of my own mountains.”

“As good as?”

Seg laughed. “Well, my old dom, you can’t really expect me to admit they are better!”

“And the other thing?”

“Why, that the wood of the lisehn tree of Vallia is as good as yerthyr wood—”

“As good as?”

And Jaezila laughed.

Seg composed himself, for we all knew we’d tease him over these arcane points of archery and bow-building. “This brave young prince of yours, Lela — you say he is a bowman?”

“Yes, Seg, but—”

“For a Hamalese,” I said, and ducked away in mock reaction as Jaezila struck out in mock buffet. “He is an axeman, Seg, superb. Not like Inch, though. But Jaezila can best him with a bow.”

“She can best just about anyone,” said Seg. “I know. I trained her.”

“Then, Seg,” I said, speaking comfortably. “Tyfar owes you his life, for Jaezila — Lela — feathered a thing all fangs and jaws in a swamp. It would have chomped Tyfar’s head for dinner; but Jaezila’s shot was precisely through one red-slitted eye.”

Jaezila looked at me over a shoulder, all round and firm under her russets. “Aye, Jak! And in the next heartbeat you sworded the monster’s mate that would have had me for its dinner.”

“I remember. You asked me if Tyfar was my son—”

“I did. And you were my father all the time! Opaz plays strange tricks on us, to be sure.”

Seg laughed, turning back to the controls. “And if all I hear and see is true then this Prince Tyfar will be your son Dray, after all.”

“If he has any sense,” I said in more of a growl than I intended.

The airboat bore on marvelously, for to Seg flying a voller without constant fear that she’d break down at any minute was liberating. We rummaged in the wicker hampers provided by Minch and Lije and munched and talked and ate and talked and drank and talked. Seg expressed himself as of the opinion, by the Veiled Froyvil, that it would be capital if Inch was with us.

“But I knew he had a stern task up in those Black Mountains of his. He has done very well to clear out the mercenaries and slavers. With Korf Aighos to the south clearing out the Blue Mountains, and Turko to the east managing to make something of Falinur—” Here Seg paused, and Jaezila started to say something and, behind Seg’s back, I cautioned her to silence.

Presently, Seg went on speaking. “Turko will make those Falinurese understand what is required of them. But, had I to do it all over again—”

“You did the right thing, Seg. Turko will be harder than I could wish for; but we must work with what we have. In Hamal, for instance, do you think we can stamp out slavery even when Prince Nedfar is emperor?”

This was a stumper of a question, and we ate in silence for a time. Slavery at the moment was an intractable problem. One day, in the light of Opaz, one day, we’d be free of the blight.

Jaezila said, “And as well as our friends what of our foes?”

Well, there was enough of them about, by Krun!

We flew this leg of our course a few degrees south of west and, to the south of us and about halfway to the River Os, rose the Black Hills. From this range of heights flowed the River Mak, to empty into the Havilthytus at Ruathytu. King Telmont, then, must be marching along from the kingdom, a part of the Empire of Hamal, which gave him his name. Jaezila mentioned our foes; there was a man down there, a vad from Middle Nalem to the west of the Black Hills, who would as lief put me in an oubliette as kill me out of hand. This fellow, Garnath ham Hestan, Vad of Middle Nalem, had been associated with two other scoundrels, the Kataki Strom and Phu-Si-Yantong. Well, Yantong was dead, blown away by the Quern of Gramarye. Now, I suspected, Vad Garnath had transferred his evil allegiance to King Telmont.

Jaezila lowered her goblet and the wine shone on her lips.

“Jak — would you think it weak of me if I said I wished Shara was here?”

“Not in the least,” I said at once. “I always feel more at ease when Melow the Supple goes with your mother, and Kardo with Drak.”

Melow the Supple and her twins were safely out of Faol. They were Manhounds, horrific beings genetically structured to run on all fours and to rip and rend and destroy, more fearsome than hunting cats. Yet they were as essentially apim as I was. Chance had given Melow the opportunity to win free of her malign masters, and now she, and Kardo and Shara, were our friends. And the truth was that with a Manhound at your side you could wish for very few better comrades in a fight.

The voller proved a swift craft and we took turns to sleep, and before dawn threw ruby and jade sparks onto the lesser heights we closed with the Mountains of the West.

Not as lofty or awe-inspiring a range as the Stratemsk, but the Western Mountains of Hamal present a solemn and splendid spectacle. Probably not every hidden valley has been trodden by the foot of man. There are secrets in those interleaved folds of crag and scarp still. We aimed our flight for Hammansax where Tyfar had said he could be reached.

Color throbbed in the early morning. The air held a tang. Seg knuckled his eyes and stared all around and stretched, elbows back, spine arched, chest expanded, all the physique of a master bowman eloquent of his strength and skill, I clapped him on the back.