Savage Scorpio (2 page)

Pyvorr gestured to his Council of Elders, all standing gravely to one side, waiting for the proceedings to open. The few guards needed to keep the more importunate of the crowds away from the railed off space at the foot of the dais had no trouble. They were Pachaks, and they were every one a picked man, and they were the first bodyguard of the Brotherhood, not as yet fully inducted into the secrets of the Order; but devoted and loyal and soon to become acolytes. They were not mercenaries, having homes and steadings on Zamra.

The Council Elders all lifted their right hands.

Pyvorr turned heavily back to face me and lifted his own right hand. He glanced across at the rank of nine Womox trumpeters. Their horns were gilded and garlanded with roses above the fierce bull-like faces. Their tabards shone with silver thread. They lifted the long straight silver trumpets.

Each massive chest expanded with air sucked into powerful lungs. The trumpets caught the streaming mingled lights of the suns and glittered with silver starpoints.

The trumpeters pealed their fanfare. High and ringing, shrill, imperative, demanding, the silver notes pierced above the hubbub.

Silence did not fall at once. Rather, gradually and with ebbing and flowing disturbances, the uproar slowly faded. People ceased what they were doing — bargaining, buying, selling, eating, drinking, skylarking, testing their strength, having their fortunes told — and drifted out from the booths and tents into the open spaces and alleyways where they might see and hear what went on upon the high dais. The noise persisted as the people settled down in the suns shine for the ceremony.

Two dirty, raggedy figures darted out from the mass, pushing and shoving to make their way through to the front where the Pachaks stood on guard with the steel winking in their tail hands, upflung past their shoulders.

The boys shouted; but their shouts were lost in the bellows of outraged anger from some of the crowd. Others in the crowd began to shout, but in a different key, and to push and shove away, trying to escape the pressing throngs.

The boys burst out into the little cleared space at the foot of the dais. The Pachaks, veterans all, eyed them cautiously.

Amid the confusion of shout and counter shout some words jumped up from those in the crowd trying to push away.

“. . . all riding sleeths!” and “. . . leaving us defenseless, open to massacre or enslavement!”

And, coinciding with the two boys’ impassioned shrieks as they darted past the Pachaks and halfway up the steps, a word that grew and rolled about the Fairground and drew into itself much of the dark evil that festers on Kregen—

“Katakis!
Katakis!”

“Slavers!
Slavers!”

Somehow, my sword was in my fist.

Not all slavers are Katakis, that tailed race of devils, but almost all Katakis are slavers — given half a chance.

I swung about to face that band of brothers there on the high dais. Resplendent nincompoops we looked, decked out in all our finery. But each man wore a sword — except Turko — and each man was a comrade in arms, a bonny fighter, a veteran.

“Brothers!” I bellowed. I lifted the sword in a deliberately theatrical gesture, the long slender rapier blade glittering high. “This is work for the Order! For this we are created.” I yelled at Turko direct. “Turko — fetch me up those two lads — and treat them gently. Oby — the zorcas. Seg, Inch, Balass—”

But my friends were already running, leaping down the steps four at a time, pouring out to belt across the flattened grass to the zorca lines. And Young Oby raced ahead of them all.

Turko appeared with a squirming tattered figure under each arm.

“And keep silent until the prince speaks to you, you Imps of Sicce!”

They slammed onto their feet, and Turko held a scruff of the neck in each ferociously powerful fist. I bent down.

“You have done well,” I said. I spoke evenly but firmly, well knowing the kind of impression I could make if I was clumsy. “Where away are these Opaz-forsaken Katakis? You will lead us?”

“Yes, koter—”

Turko shook them.

Koter is the equivalent of gentleman, mister, and it was clear these two ragamuffins had encountered koters as the highest form of life. Not that I put store by ranks and titles, as you know, except as artifices to get things done.

“Address the prince as prince, famblys!”

“Yes, prince—”

As useful to ask these two if they could ride a zorca as ask them if they had a pocket full of golden talens.

“You take one, Turko. I’ll take this rascal.”

Seizing up my lad, who had a shock of brown hair that was probably more alive than many a languid noble of the court, I leaped off down the steps. Turko followed. Tom Tomor ti Vulheim reined past on his zorca, kicking dust as he slewed around and so pushed back the crowd. Vangar ti Valkanium did the same on the other side. Dredd Pyvorr appeared leading a zorca and Turko would have given her to me; but I waved him on and caught at the reins Oby flung at me. Up went my urchin across the saddle, my left boot went into the stirrup, and with a flick of my hand I was seated. My lad squirmed around, for the zorca may be the most beautiful of mounts, with four tall spindly legs, a marvel of grace and stamina; but the zorca is remarkably close-coupled and there is barely room for two.

“Your name, lad?”

“Tim, if it please you, ko— prince.”

“Right, Tim. Which way?”

He pointed.

The wide expanse of Arial’s Mound covered with the booths and stalls and wild-beast pens and stabling lines, with the now more than a little ludicrous high dais at the center, was rapidly clearing of people. They were running off in all directions. Some, at least, must be heading straight for the viciously-waiting arms of the Kataki slavers.

Tim pointed to the east, a direction that paralleled the coast, distant some two ulms.

Dredd Pyvorr reined across, his face furious, highly colored, intense.

“Briar’s Cove, lad? Am I right?”

“Yes, prince, you are right!” sang out the lad with Turko.

“Fambly!” said Turko, incensed. “Only the prince is the prince.”

“For the Order!” I bellowed. As of its own volition, it seemed, my rapier had appeared in a twinkling at the first mention of the Katakis, and had scabbarded itself when the lads had run up, so now, once more, the glittering blade snapped out. I waved it high and pointed forward.
“Ride!”

As a group we rode out, past the last scattering fugitives, screaming and wailing, out along the narrow track that led through this neck of the forest, to curve down to Briar’s Cove.

It appeared to me the Katakis, with the Fair as cover, had struck inland to take the chief town of Nikzm by surprise. Once they had possession of that, they could sweep up the people as they arrived. Long memories of pirate raids, of slavers and aragorn snatching away whole families, dictated that only those villages that needs must, say by reason of the fishing, would be built on the coast. In this, this section of the Outer Oceans resembled the Inner Sea, the Eye of the World of Kregen.

As we rode furiously along, a fresh thought rose to torment me. The Katakis are a race strong and powerful, with a tail that, equipped with bladed steel, makes of them formidable opponents. They are also low-browed, dark, with thick black hair, oiled and curled, with gape-jawed mouths fanged with snaggly teeth, and generally of an evil, pestiferous nature. But we had met and bested them before. The thought that occasioned me some agony was simply this; no force of Kataki slavers would raid here, in the very shadow of the puissant empire of Vallia, for all the empire’s internal problems, unless they raided in strength. They must be a strong and determined band.

And we were few.

I led my men into a battle that could easily end with us all dead or enslaved.

Yet no one had thought to count the cost. No one had thought to reck the consequences. Katakis had had the nerve to land on one of my islands to raid and enslave; therefore my band of brothers followed me into headlong action.

Through the coldness of these thoughts the warmth flowed that we were a band of brothers, we fought together as comrades in arms. This would be the first real test of the Order, for every man who rode with me had been invited to become a member, and had joyfully accepted. He had accepted the strictures laid on him, the demands that membership of the Order would entail. The simple, pure-minded and naive chivalry of the first rules of the Order may make me smile now; but they remain as true as ever, despite all that has happened since. We were idealistic, believing that too much violence on Kregen was being used by the wrong people, that we should do what we could to redress the balance. And these Opaz-forsaken Kataki slavers had turned up, right on our doorstep, to present us with our first challenge, our first test.

Certainly, as we thundered along the forest trail, kicking dust and twigs, a bright and colorful company, I did not count the discomfiture of the Black Feathers of the Great Chyyan. That evil creed had been bested in Vallia, for the time being, and the beating of it had not been at the hands of the Order as an Order. If I am a credulous man, that is understandable, seeing the marvels I have witnessed in my life. But I detected a fundamental and powerful current of fate in this meeting between slavers and the Brotherhood.

Ahead the track twisted around a giant lenk, the oak-like tree growing to an enormous girth and shedding a deep and somber shadow upon the trail. We roared around the angle and beyond a sharp declivity the trees ended and a long greensward opened up. I reined in, my hand upflung, my zorca skidding and sliding.

Slowly, I cantered out into the open.

The others followed.

We stared.

The ground was littered with color, with steel, with bodies and with blood.

Slowly, we walked our zorcas through the shambles, the animals restive, not liking the stink of fresh-spilled blood, but obedient and going on, well-trained to the stark realities of war.

“So here are your Katakis, Tim.”

Tim was being sick.

The ground was littered with bodies and with blood — Kataki bodies and Kataki blood.

I dismounted. As I looked up I saw for the first time that Young Oby had snatched up the scarlet flag with the great yellow cross upon it, my flag, the battle flag that fighting men call Old Superb. It shone in the mingled suns-light.

“These devils have been killed handsomely,” observed Seg. He bent over a corpse, kicking the limp tail away so that the bladed steel strapped to the tip clinked against a fallen helmet. He picked up a bow. Oh, it was not a great Lohvian long bow; being of a compound reflex construction; but in Seg Segutorio’s hands any bow is a deadly weapon par excellence. He smiled up at me. “I feel only half naked now.”

The Katakis had fought hard. They lay in windrows at the end, piled high. Their wounds were all in front. But they were all dead, methodically butchered.

“Who could have done this?” said Dredd Pyvorr. He looked pinched of face. “Katakis are notorious — Chuliks?”

Chuliks and Pachaks command the highest fees as mercenaries, for different reasons. Our small guard of Pachaks remained mounted, instinctively carrying out soldier’s work, scouting ahead, sniffing out the devils who had slain devils.

The body of one Kataki intrigued me. He was a big fellow, although Katakis are as a rule not overly tall. His helmet had fallen off. His face reminded me of that of Rukker. The arrow had punched through his bronze-studded scaled corselet.

At my side, Seg whistled.

“A goodly shaft. . .”

He bent to pull it out.

I said: “You’ll find it will come hard. As a wager, I’ll venture there are six or seven barbs a side. That’s no Lohvian shaft, Seg.”

“But it is as long — what bow is there that — oh!”

“Yes,” I said. And I nodded and felt the anger in me, and the despair, the sorrow, and the vengeful fury.

“I have never met an archer who can best a Bowman of Loh,” said Seg Segutorio, speaking softly. “But you have told me of these devils, and it seems we are to meet them, now.”

“They must be devils indeed to destroy these Katakis, who are devils spawned from Cottmer’s Caverns,” said Dredd Pyvorr, feelingly.

“From around the curve of the world,” I said. “From whence no man knows. They sail in their swift, magical ships, raiding, destroying, looting, burning. They are diffs unlike any in the whole of Paz. They are not men like us. They are the Shanks, the Shants, the Shtarkins, Leem Lovers, vile, to be destroyed, vermin — and yet, and yet, I know they are courageous to sail their ships all those untold dwaburs across the open seas. They are not men like us; but they are men.”

“And they’ll slay us all as soon as look,” said Inch, sourly.

Dredd Pyvorr gripped onto the hilt of his rapier. His pinched mouth shook; then he had control of himself.

“I know of whom you speak, prince. We call them Shkanes — they have many names, all vile. Fish-Heads — yes, their horror goes before them.”

I turned to young Tim, who had recovered and was now busily plundering the dead bodies, a most sensible occupation.

“You said they rode sleeths, Tim.”

“So they did, prince,” Tim looked up, his hands full of rings and chains and brooches, with a wicked-looking dagger stuck into his breechclout. I winced. He could do himself a permanent and most unfortunate injury if he were injudicious.

“There are no sleeths here, you imp of Sicce!” roared Balass the Hawk. He was prowling about looking for a sword more to his liking than a rapier, and hoping vainly to come across a shield. “Sleeths are stupid reptiles, at best, but they’d stick to their dead masters.”

“That means, brothers, that the Shanks have ridden off on the Katakis’ sleeths.”

Oby ran off.

The sleeth is a saddle dinosaur, variously scaled and marked, which runs on two legs, the fore claws stunted and in a way pathetically stupid, and with the long thick tail outstretched to the rear to provide balance. They are an uncomfortable ride and I have nothing to do with them. I am a Zorca and a Vove man. I ride a Nikvove when I cannot saddle a Vove, and I like the superb joats of my Djangs, and I have some time for a few other of the riding mounts of Kregen. But sleeths — no, I do not fancy them.