Witches of Kregen (11 page)

The aerial combats could be seen easily enough and our flutduins overmastered the enemy’s fluttrells and mirvols. Our force of vollers smashed his. Seg did his usual competent job and cleared the front so that we had the main of it from the beginning. Then he went off to make sure his archers — I will not say beloved archers, for Seg was as intolerant of his bowmen’s shooting as Nath was of his brumbytes in the files — added to the carnage.

Charges went in and were successful or were repulsed. The old barn door stratagem, by which one end of the line is firmly anchored and the whole then pivots about this fulcrum, smashing everything in the way, once again proved itself. Jhansi, at any rate, was caught by it. He no longer had the advantage of being counseled by experienced Hamalese Kapts.

Nath na Kochwold judged his particular moment to perfection and when the enemy swarths charged the Sixth Kerchuri received them and broke them as a wave is broken upon rocks.

When it came time for the guard brigade to charge, we went in with a whoop and a holler and slashed into the fleeing flanks of the mobs who were attempting to run away from the charge of the Fourth Phalanx.

Oh, well, the battle went our way and the poor crazed idiots fought well, and died, and then, suddenly they were all running. The paktuns employed by Jhansi fought redoubtably for some time and then, being professionals, and seeing the way of the day, they sought to make good their escape.

We let them go.

After it was all over and the gates of Vendalume shut in our faces, we imagined that a siege must follow.

“Look!” Seg pointed, tall in the stirrups.

The gates of the city opened. A party appeared with flags of truce. Among the flags were three tall poles with bundles at their tips.

Nath said: “I think we can judge what this portends.”

“Aye.”

All over the stricken field the wounded were being collected and cared for. Fundal the Pestle-Breaker, an experienced doctor, reported that the crazies were crazed no more. They had returned to their senses and were bewildered by their situation and what they could not remember doing. There was a deal of wailing and yelling, I can tell you, and not all from the wounded.

“There’s your reason.” Turko indicated the bundles at the tips of the poles.

I suppose that of treacheries like these, empires are made.

Rovard the Murvish’s head still stank, even stuck on top of a pole. Alongside him the head of an extremely ugly woman even in death half-turned away. She had been called, I believe, the obi-stromni Dafeena Norgoth. These two heads dribbled blood down the shafts of the poles. Alongside them the sightless eyes of Layco Jhansi showed pits of reddened black horror. Little blood dripped down his pole.

The fellow who had torn his clothes and smeared mud upon himself yet wore a silver and gilt chain about his neck. He was the mobiumim, the chief representative of the civil power, equivalent in many ways to the mayor. He went into the full incline, nose in the dirt, rump in the air.

I let him.

The three heads moved against the sky, their bearers trembling beneath, faces pinched, hardly daring to look at the emperor. The other dignitaries all flopped down, following the example of the mobiumim, so that I was presented with a sea of rumps.

This was too ridiculous.

“Get up, famblys! Stand on your own feet!”

They scrambled up as though red hot irons had tickled them up.

I said: “Where is Ralton Dwa-Erentor?”

He was the son of a minor noble, a great sleeth racer, and I knew he had been forced against his will to follow Layco Jhansi. With him, I would deal.

“He has been gone from Vennar for many seasons, majister,” spluttered out the mobiumim. “Gone overseas to be a paktun.”

“Your name?” I was disappointed; but there would be god-fearing and good men to be found here.

“Larghos Nevanter the Lace merchant, majister, an it please you.”

“I do not know this name of Vennar you use. Half of the city of Vendalume stands in Kov Turko’s province of Falinur, and the other half in Kov Inch’s province of the Black Mountains. I am sure you know that.”

“Oh, yes, indeed, majister, oh, yes, I know!”

“Good. Now report to my people and do as you are told.” I urged Tuftears around and then turned to bellow over my shoulder: “And give those disgusting objects a decent burial, for the sweet sake of Opaz!”

Cantering off I wondered if Tarek Malervo Norgoth had already been dead or if he had escaped. Well, we’d soon find out. Khe-Hi and Ling-Li were just riding across to me, and as I saw them I felt a distinct glow of pleasure.

“Vondium!” I shouted to them. “We’re off to Vondium first thing to see you two safely married!”

That activity was far more preferable than battles!

In this wise ended the Battle of Vendalume and the death of the traitor, Layco Jhansi.

Chapter eleven

An Occult Wedding

The first rats ran swarming between the legs of the people just as the wedding procession left the Temple of Opaz Unknown.

The edifice had not been damaged during the recent Times of Troubles, and folk whispered that this was because the temple was dedicated to the manifestation of Opaz in his guise as arbiter of all things magical and arcane — Unknown and therefore awful — and no sane man or woman brought
that
kind of trouble on themselves.

The temple glittered with gold and ornamentation beneath its jet-black dome, music soared, and the flagstoned square pent between canals flanking the temple’s entrance stairway was carpeted with thousands of yelling citizens of Vondium cheering for the wedding of Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling.

The day, also, was the Day of Opaz Unknown.

Everybody was pleased for the wedding and that Khe-Hi and Ling-Li had found happiness together in their magical way. For, to be honest, no one was going to chance not cheering for them or wishing them well.

This lavish wedding ceremony should be the culmination in Vallia of the Occult Romance between these two mages. They both looked magnificent, gorgeously dressed, and no expense had been spared. Well, again, who was going to chance sparing an expense when a Witch and a Wizard of Loh got married...?

Between the hordes of rats ran leepitixes, wriggling on their twelve legs and unhappy at being out of water. Thousands of schrafters, millions of these creatures who infest dungeons and sharpen their teeth on the bones there, ran and chirruped through the throngs. And rasts — the six-legged animals dragged from their dung-heaps — ran crazily over the flagstones, leaping upon people’s backs, clawing at them, fastening their claws into flesh and blood.

Rasts — running in their millions along the avenues and boulevards of Vondium!

For the wedding ceremony, Deb-Lu-Quienyin had put in an appearance. He’d been working his magics to defend Vallia. Now, standing in the position occupied by what on Earth would be called the Best Man, he looked furiously angry. He wore a brand new turban, and I’d insisted that it should be properly festooned with pearls and precious gems and gold bullion. Also, we had fixed it so that it wouldn’t keep slipping off — or so we imagined.

“Just give me a mur, Khe-Hi,” he said. “I do not think you should be troubled on your wedding day.”

Ling-Li stood there, calmly, very lovely in her wedding gown, and seemed to soar above the problems. She simply waited for Deb-Lu to fix the problem, as though he was looking for a dropped glove.

She had surprised me vastly by asking me to take the position which, again on the Earth, can best be described as Father of the Bride. I had given her away.

Delia had laughed fit to bust at this, and, the most perfectly beautiful and most perfectly devious woman in two worlds, had helped wholeheartedly. Now Delia said: “This is disgraceful. Poor Ling-Li — oh, Deb-Lu, dear, do hurry!”

“Of course, majestrix!”

Delia’s rapier flashed into her hand and she twitched away a rat that tried to climb Ling-Li’s wedding gown.

I was wearing a whole wardrobe of popinjay finery, and somewhere in there I had a rapier. I groped among all the folderols for the hilt. Come the day when Dray Prescot couldn’t grip his rapier and draw in a twinkling!

The blade came free in time to slash a schrafter from Seg’s shoulder where the thing was about to try to gnaw on Seg’s skull. His own blade flickered in return and I felt the body on my shoulder flicked off. The tall collars we wore, highly ornate, called mazillas, gave us some protection; but if the rats started climbing up inside all our gorgeous clothing...!

Khe-Hi held Ling-Li’s arm. But his eyeballs swiveled to regard Deb-Lu with great concern.

“Yes, yes,” said Deb-Lu. “I can manage, thank you.”

Shortly thereafter the swarms of sewer-rats and schrafters and leepitixes and rasts vanished.

The square, a moment before a torrential mass of people running and slapping and shouting, slowly began to quiet down.

Contrary to popular opinion there had been no greatly unpleasant lot of stinks from this infestation.

By dint of a great deal of exertion we got the wedding procession formed and moving again. The happy couple proceeded to their waiting narrow boat, hugely freighted with flowers, and the volunteer crew sent the boat smoothly along the canal. The cheers were far more muted than I cared for; but they picked up as the boat glided along between the throngs clustered on balconies and jetties, throwing petals, singing, and generally realizing that the excitement of an unpleasant variety was over and the excitements far more to their taste could now begin.

The reception — to give an Earthly name to the wild party it truly was — was held in one of the better-preserved chambers of the palace. Some of the windows were still boarded up; but the carpets were new and the tapestries had been collected from here and there to hide the burn marks on the walls.

We seldom used this chamber — the Hall of Drak Exalted — because it was pretty big and draughty, preferring the more cozy rooms where we ate and worked. Still, on this wedding day it served admirably.

As for foods and wines — we fed all Vondium this day and never recked the cost. I, for one, and there were many like me, was glad to see the happiness in the faces of Khe-Hi and Ling-Li.

And that had nothing to do with the fact that they were mages, a Wizard and a Witch of Loh.

During a moment when the dancers were changing places and people were buzzing with joy at the way we had managed to extricate ourselves from a nasty situation, Khe-Hi came over to me. He was carrying a wine goblet. His bride was dancing away with Nath na Kochwold. Everyone had come to Vondium for the wedding.

Khe-Hi lifted the glass.

“To you, Dray. In thanks.”

I smiled and replied in proper form, and then he went on: “If we have a child, or children, they will have to be born and raised in Loh if they are to be Wizards or Witches of Loh. There are certain arcane matters to be attended to.”

“I can well believe.”

“I would ask your permission and that of the empress to call our eldest son Dray and our eldest daughter Delia.”

Seg laughed.

“I didn’t ask permission. But, then, I thought my old dom was dead.”

Inch, towering above us, and being the subject of the sternest admonitions from Sasha not to eat squish pie, said: “My eldest is Dray, too. I think there will be a plethora of Drays in Vallia before long.”

Delia was out on the floor dancing with the Lord Farris.

I said: “I know I am delighted, Khe-Hi, and it is to me you do the honor. As for Delia, I am sure she will feel the same. Still, you’d better ask her.”

As I spoke I saw Nath na Kochwold and the Lord Farris, in their dancing, glide closely alongside each other. The two women dancing with them, for a moment in the whirling gyrations to the beat of the music, paused.

Khe-Hi smiled and said: “Ling-Li is pleased, too, for there is no more gracious lady than the empress.”

My Val! Here in the dilapidated although decked out Hall of Drak Exalted, in the palace in Vondium!

Sorcery at work, clearly, for Delia had given her acquiescence to the request.

I suppose we’d be the Earthly equivalent of God parents, too...

The music and the laughter and animated chatter enveloped everyone then and so, for a space, I was able to lean up against a curtain-shrouded pillar, in a trifle of shadows, and look out on the spectacle. Scents and perfumes were discreetly in evidence, for all the ladies were well aware of the empress’s views on scents. Many and many a face I saw there, in that throng, I knew, and of them you have been introduced in my narrative to, what, ten percent? If that. A planet is a large place, inhabited by millions, and a thousand years is a long time.

Often at functions like this I had seen, perhaps, a scuttling red-brown scorpion, or a scarlet and golden raptor flying above my head, and I’d been whirled up by that enormous phantom blue Scorpion of the Everoinye to do their bidding. I now experienced a most weird sensation.

For I was seriously worrying over the lack of communications from the Star Lords. I had things on my mind, problems of which I was aware through what the Star Lords had revealed to me. I wanted to know more. When you have been snatched up by a phantom Scorpion, or indulged in slanging matches with a speaking bird, you tend to think of the immediate items first, you do stand in awe. My questions, wrong though they might be, were for quieter moments. And so, the weird sensation? Why I, Dray Prescot, seriously considered how I could get in touch with the Star Lords, how I could originate that fearful communication between us.

I actually, really and truly, wanted to see a scorpion, or the Gdoinye. I wanted to be snatched up by the phantom blue Scorpion of the Star Lords.

Thinking these surprising and, if the truth be known, fractious thoughts, I saw Marion walking up to me, half-smiling, with Strom Nango in tow. They were both, as befitted the occasion, resplendently dressed.

I roused myself.

“Not long now, Marion, before you and Strom Nango give us all this same pleasure.”

“We look forward to the day, majister. I trust no unfortunate happening will upset
our
day.”