Star Axe

by Duncan McGeary

  CHAPTER XIV

  For two dry and horrid days the ship of Lahar sailed through the dismal wasteland of the Desolation. Far in the distance they beheld the heavy clouds drifting over the giant expanse of the Sea of Dead, source of the River Danjar and port of the Warlord’s fleet. At the head of the river they espied the Qreq anchorage—Cralock Bere, its tall spires, like sharp daggers, visible for many miles. A haze floated over the stronghold, a shimmer of heat from its forges—for the city was the foundry of the Warlord’s hordes. The black fume of its furnaces billowed out of smoke shafts day and night, tainting everything near the stronghold.

  Balor reflected, to his horror, that Sanra and Jonla were somewhere in that netherworld. He had been avoiding thinking of what they must be going through, but the sight of the Qreq hell had prodded his awareness. Yet he could not just blithely sail into the stronghold and pluck them free! It was a city of Qreq, and only Qreq walked its streets; there was no way of passing unnoticed among its denizens.

  The ship had caught a good wind before dusk and they were sailing rapidly toward the evil port. The crew began to mutter among themselves as Balor delayed his orders to turn back or aside. Kalese came to stand beside him as he stared at the looming sight of the foul lairs. Soon she realized, as did the crew, that Balor did indeed intend to sail boldly into the harbor. He ordered most of the nearly rebellious men below the decks. The few that remained were told to garb themselves in heavy cloaks, though the night was hot and humid. They were the tallest and largest of the crew, and Balor thought as, he looked over them, that they could pass for Qreq—if only because the Qreq would assume that they were.

  Kalese, for one, agreed that there was no other way of penetrating the enemy city. The Qreq would feel safe in the middle of their own domain, she said. They would never suspect that anyone would be mad enough to dare invade their stronghold. She agreed to stay in the shadows, but refused to go below.

  The ship hobbled into port with few of its men available to manage its course. It seemed to Balor to take an eternity, and he felt flagrantly obvious in his deception. But Kalese’s surmise had been right—the Qreq paid no attention to just another Qreq warship, for there seemed no end to the ships, or the piers attendant to them. Balor saw that the Warlord had not sent even a fraction of his strength against the House of Lahar. The Warlord was plainly interested in more than the tiny little Island of Laharhann.

  Perhaps Kenlahar would find no help in the Outside, Balor thought. Perhaps it had already been conquered and there was no help to be found. And perhaps the House of Lahar stood alone against the Warlord’s dominion. It seemed that, at the least, Kenlahar would find the Outside already fighting the Qreq, and unwilling to send help.

  The trespassing warship had no difficulty finding a place to moor, or any trouble blending in. The docks seemed deserted, and the fog rolling in served as cover. Balor stepped off the gangplank with five men at his back, feeling dangerously foolish, but putting on a heavy show of assurance for his even more frightened men. Behind, he left Kalese, with orders to sail if he had not returned before dawn, and escape if she could.

  It was eerily silent on the docks, and Balor soon had a sense of passing through the same area over and over again. The ships were strangely alike in their ordered rows, with the streamers of fog drifting across the bows, and their sterns extending into the darkness. Few Qreq walked the docks, and those they passed did not acknowledge the bundled intruders. For once, Balor was glad of the hostile and sullen nature of the Qreq warriors.

  For hour after hour, the small party scrutinized the wharfs, searching for some sign of their comrades. As dawn neared, Balor decided to continue the hunt until light and then stow away somewhere on the piers. He would not leave the stronghold without Sanra or Jonla and the other men, he vowed. But he could not ask the men following him to risk almost certain detection. He sent them back to find the ship, and emphasized that Kalese was to cast off without him. He could not begrudge their chance at escape, though he suspected that Kalese would not leave unless she had to. The men started back without argument.

  Balor continued his frenetic exploration long after he should have been looking for cover. Finally he was rewarded with the striking sight of a man pacing the deck of one of the many ships. The man had his head down, but there was no mistaking him for a Qreq. Balor saw that he still wore the dark rain cloak of the House of Lahar. There didn’t seen to be any guards around the man, so Balor took the risk of hissing at him. The man jumped and Balor saw his face peer out into the dark—it was Jakkem! Balor hesitated, but there was no help for it; he could not choose whom he would contact first. “Jakkem!” he said, this time with an audible clearness.

  Jakkem started again, and stared right at Balor, but he still couldn’t seem to see who was addressing him. “Balor! Is that you?” Jakkem almost shouted, then hushed his volume and looked furtively about him. “How did you get here?”

  “Yes, it’s Balor,” he answered tensely. “I have no time to explain. Where are the others?”

  A sly look seemed, for a moment, to cross the big man’s face. But Balor thought he must have imagined it, for there was no mistaking the joy that filled Jakkem after that. “They are on this very ship,” he said eagerly. “The Qreq let us out one at a time. But how will you save us? Where are your men?”

  But Balor had already slipped away. Walking with what he hoped appeared calm, he mounted the ship’s gangplank. As he thought, the guard was just about asleep. It was a simple matter to overpower him, for he was not looking away from the ship but toward it.

  The thick fog was aiding him now, and Balor was sure that he could not be seen from very far away. He ran up the gangplank toward the hold, ducking away whenever a Qreq form started to materialize in the murk. The entrance to the hold was mysteriously unguarded and he plunged into it. The knowledge of the desperateness of his goal only inspired Balor to speed through the hatches. With his new knowledge of the Qreq warships he ran toward the area where he hoped he would find the captives.

  He rushed around another corner, into a sleepy guard with his weapon bared—but the Qreq never had a chance to respond, and went down. Balor sliced at the leather straps holding the door, and threw it open. Jonla was already at the door, alert and ready as usual. Two of his men lay sprawled on the filthy floor of the room, unwilling or unable to get up. Sanra stared at him from a corner with frightened eyes. Balor was shocked silent for a few seconds by the sight of their condition. They were pale and filthy, and their hair seemed to be falling out in patches. Balor tried to conceal his shock, and his aversion to the odor. For a few moments the image crossed his mind of the ghostly Qreq.

  “Balor?” Jonla whispered uncertainly.

  “Yes, Captain Jonla, it is I,” Balor said, recovering from his shock. “Are you able to walk? We have just seconds before they discover the missing men. And it will be only minutes before the fog lifts and it becomes light enough for us to be seen by all.”

  “I can walk,” Sanra said in a hoarse voice, rising to her feet shakily. Jonla reached down and pulled one of the men to his feet and leaned him against his shoulder. The man seemed to be in an uncomprehending daze. Balor helped up the other half crippled man, and they hobbled out into the corridor. When they reached the deck, Balor glanced out. It was a little lighter out, but the fog was thicker than ever, and more of it was rising from the lake’s surface.

  The prisoners blinked dazedly in the morning air, while Balor held them back, for they were in a quandary. One large man, heavily cloaked, passing as a Qreq in the dark and haze, had with surprise and luck, managed to get aboard the prison ship. But Balor had no illusions how all five of them, some weak and injured, could escape the same way. The only possible route, he thought, was by water. He spied a small boat tied to the stern. He pushed them toward the boat, and the wounded were lowered by their arms into it. “Hold here for a little while,” he told Jonla. “I must try and find Jakkem.”

  “Jakkem!” Captain
Jonla exclaimed. “Does Jakkem know you are here? Then we are already caught, for Jakkem has joined the Warlord—if he wasn’t always his agent.”

  Balor asked just one more question as he slid down a rope into the rowboat next to Jonla. “Why has he not raised the alarm?”

  Jonla had no answer, and pulled at one of the oars. Balor joined him, pulling at the other. They rowed between the sterns of the Qreq ships and steadily approached the place where Balor had left his captured ship. Dawn was breaking now, but he began to hope that they would reach the ship before it was too late. It seemed too easy—against all the odds, he had sailed into the Warlord’s very headquarters and taken his prizes and was about to get away with it. He wanted to shout in triumph.

  Then the night erupted with the cries of the Qreq, and Balor knew that their escape had been discovered. His heart sank. Once the Qreq started looking, the little group would be quickly found. One of the sterns of the Qreq ships pulled out in front of them, blocking off their escape. On the deck of the ship Balor saw Jakkem, with a grotesque smile on his face. Qreq warriors swarmed down its sides, and the traitor directed Qreq to bring them to him. In the distance, to near that it hurt, Balor saw the familiar lines of his ship, still quietly moored beside the others.

  The Companions did not try to escape for there was nowhere to go. They were surrounded by three other rowboats, and put up no resistance as they were towed to the Qreq ship. They were hauled roughly up the bulwarks and placed before Jakkem.

  Jakkem was pleased. “I was hoping you would free them,” he said in an undertone to Balor. “Now, perhaps the Warlord will listen to me about what I have brought him. Surely this will reach his ears! He’ll finally hear what I’ve been trying to tell him—that if he doesn’t yet have the Axe-bearer, he does have Kenlahar’s best friend, and his woman.”

  He turned and ordered the Qreq to set sail for the Warlord’s Haven. Before he commanded them to be taken below he said, “What I don’t understand is how you hoped to get far—but I’m sure the Warlord has ways to finding that out. Tomorrow I will present you to Toraq, and I—I will be rewarded.”

  “So you were the spy all the time!” Balor said. “I should have known. That is why you accused Kenlahar, to cover your own tracks.” The ship was already underway, and with a start of surprise that he tried to conceal, Balor saw his warship coming up. There did not appear to be anybody aboard, and it could have been deserted. Balor raised his voice as they passed the ship and attempted to make himself as visible to the warship as possible. “Well, Jakkem! Where are you taking us now?” Meanwhile he was silently cursing Kalese for her stubbornness in not leaving. Perhaps the sure knowledge that he had been captured, and could not escape would frighten her away at last. He didn’t think so, though she would have trouble with the crew.

  “The Warlord had already commanded me to bring you to him. He was very angry that he was not told before, and grateful to me. Now I have you also, Balor!” Jakkem was excited and Balor could see that he was also scared. They passed the ship now, and out of the corner of his eye, Balor thought he saw the slight figure of Kalese in the shadows.

  “If I had known Kenlahar was the Axe-bearer, I would have killed him that day,” Jakkem said, obviously regretting the missed opportunity. He walked over to Sanra and began to run his hand across her face. “I should have killed him anyway.”

  Captain Jonla reached across and knocked the traitor’s hand away. Jakkem just smiled, and then ordered two Qreq to take Jonla below. “Teach him not to get in my way,” he said. “I will teach Sanra to obey, myself.”

  “I thought that you loved Sanra. Why have you betrayed her?”

  “She means nothing to me now,” Jakkem answered, and Balor saw the depths of his hate, the dregs of his love. Spite dominated Jakkem now, and Balor remembered how the traitor had been shunned at the House of Lahar. But so had Kenlahar, he reminded himself, and he had not become a betrayer. He appealed to Jakkem’s greed.

  “Remember that you are going to present them to the Warlord. You don’t want to harm them. Toraq may not like it.”

  Jakkem hesitated at this, and then nodded to the guards. Before Sanra and Balor were taken below, he gestured at the ships. “I want you to see the might of the Warlord, that you may despair. Up to now, he has sent but a pittance of his power against the puny navy of the House of Lahar. He has larger, greater prey. Soon we shall sail to the Kingdom of Kernback!”

  Later, Balor was brought back up on deck to listen to more of Jakkem’s gloating. They sailed past pools that boiled with noxious fumes, and cruised up and along the coastline. Balor did not know what to expect of the Warlord’s Haven, but after the Desolation he was uneasily sure that it would be more evil. He was astonished when distance away he saw the lush greenery of the Havens. As they drew near, Balor saw that it was a well-tended forest, breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful.

  The Warlord had created a Desolation for his subjects, and was striving to expand his destruction. But for his own home he had designed a paradise. They were met at the single pier by clothed Qreq, the first time Balor had ever seen that phenomena. They appeared almost human, he thought. Sanra and Jonla and the other prisoners were brought up, dazed and sluggish, and marched up the dock onto a path of soft green grass that wound up the steep hill to the citadel. It was like something out of one of the books Kenlahar always read, Balor thought. A fairyland.

  The castle was of eldritch grace and fragility, yet seemed possessed of an inner strength. They walked down its narrow, confusingly twisting passages into an inner, sunlit court. This was the center of the Haven’s beauty, Balor thought. This is where all the allurement emanated from; the masterpiece of its designer. It was shaded and restful, a miracle among the ruins of the Warlord’s rule. Somehow it was cool, and sweet smelling. A few hundred feet away it was sweltering.

  The beauty of the delicate white spires, and translucent walls confused the Companions. This could not be the abode of Toraq! Banners flew from each tower, battle-scarred and stained. Balor saw the tattered remains of a flag from the Island Laharhann flapping prominently among them, and knew then that this was indeed the Warlord’s creation. An entire crew would have had to be slaughtered to capture such a prize, he knew.

  The master of the garden destroyed the illusion of beauty. By a serene pool was a giant throne. On the throne sat a huge, enormously fat Qreq warrior, with a horribly ugly visage. The huge Qreq had wide eyes set deep in his skull, and puffy jowls bunched up beneath them. The veins of his arms and head stood out in a blue network.

  “What have you brought me,” the creature demanded in a booming, menacing voice. Smaller, agile Qreq scrambled about him like maggots. Off to one side sat a radiant appearing man, with one hand skimming the water of the pool. He was a small man, and dark, with heavy curls in his black hair. His eyebrows were raised in a quizzical expression, and there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. But the man said nothing.

  Jakkem seemed unnerved by the sight of what he took to be the Warlord, and was stammering. “I have brought the prisoners you requested, my lord.”

  “Who are they?” It asked in a bored, and disinterested manner. He seemed to be concerned only with the food the Qreq servants were bringing to his side.

  Jakkem stuttered even more. “They are the friends of the Axe-bearer.”

  “Ah, yes,” the giant Qreq said. “You will be rewarded—by becoming my servant.” As Jakkem’s face paled, and Qreq turned his huge head partly toward the man by the pool. “Take them away and care for them,” he said, apparently dismissing the whole matter from his mind.

  “Yes, mighty Warlord,” the man said, coming close to mocking him, but the huge Qreq did not appear to notice. Balor almost laughed at the look in Jakkem’s face. The man smiled at the Companions and led them into the castle. They were given rooms more luxurious than any they had seen. The man chattered the whole time, in a richly scornful voice, as he described the significance of one object, the history of another. The
Warlord had plundered the kingdoms for centuries to collect this beauty, he explained. The man seemed to know everything there was to know about the Warlord’s domain.

  But he would not answer questions, replying when they asked him for his identity only that they must eat and bathe and rest before he would think to answer any questions. The Companions gladly did as he requested. The dark man was the only help they had, but he moved so quickly and surely that he always seemed to be where he was needed most.

  They were given new clothes and a meal, and, finally, they were all seated at last. The three Companions were lost for a while in the enjoyment of the luxuries—the rich textures of the new clothes, the grainy feel of the wood table, the sensual smoothness of their glass goblets. The dark man laughed happily as he looked upon the satisfied faces of the men of the House. Only Sanra seemed uncomfortable, and Balor caught her warning look.

  “Now then,” the dark man said. “Tell me of your journey!”

  Balor answered for the prisoners. “We will tell you of us, if you will then tell us who you are and how you came to be here.”

  “Of course,” the dark man readily agreed.

  So Balor told of his long pursuit and of the hell the captives had endured. But he left out all mention of Kenlahar or the Star Axe. When he had finished, the man said, “Tell me everything or I cannot help you!”

  “Help us?” Jonla broke in eagerly. “Will you help us escape?”

  “I have some sway over the Warlord’s edicts,” the dark man said mysteriously. “Come! You said you would tell all. What of Jakkem’s report—and what was the reason for your wanderings through the Tream? I have to know all.”