“The princess will not drink your gunk today, kleeshes,” I said, and jumped into the room — fast.
The Kataki fell down with a broken nose. I kicked him as he lay there as I grabbed for the Rapa to silence her. I got a hand wrapped around her mouth and her big beak clashed and she tried to nip me so I hauled her in, still gripping her tightly.
“I do not, princess,” I said, “much care for striking women. But sometimes—”
“Let me,” said Princess Lildra.
Chapter fourteen
Princess Lildra
She stepped over the Rapa woman and started to run for the door and I took her arm and said, “We can’t just run out like that, princess. There are guards.”
“Of course there are guards. There are always guards.” She looked puzzled, hurt, not afraid but withdrawn. “I have planned long and long what to do when my prince rescues me. So I know. We—”
I didn’t listen to any more. I was too wet and in too foul a temper. She carried herself well and was young although fully formed, and her long white nightdress would be no garment for a night like this. In her face the lineaments of her mother, Lilah, could be plainly discerned. Also, there was more than a hint of the startlingly fair beauty of Ariane nal Amklana, her aunt who had ordered her killed.
“Are you a great Jikai or are you not? Who are you and why do you seek to rescue me if you are not my prince?”
“I see they allow you books to read in your imprisonment.”
“You dillydally, fellow!”
“I am called Jak and have been called Jak the Sturr and Jak the Shot and Jak the Sudden. You may call me Jak the Onker, if you wish. Now, lady, put on some suitable clothes for a wild night.”
She didn’t care for my tone. I judged that before her parents had been murdered she’d led a life of some privilege, and these dolorous surroundings were relatively recent. As for her aunt, Queen Fahia, some credit — if credit is the right word — had to be given to that fat unhappy queen for refusing to slay her sister and sister’s husband and child. And if we stood lollygagging around now we’d all wind up arguing on the way to the Ice Floes of Sicce.
“Get changed, lady. Move!”
She jumped and the flush stained her cheeks. But she went behind a holey curtain and rustles and clickings indicated she was putting on clothes better able to withstand the rain than her flimsy nightdress.
She still wore a dress, whereat I sighed. But perhaps she did not have anything else. I dragged a blanket from the bed and draped it across her head and shoulders. Her hair gleamed liquid gold in the lamplight.
“Keep your head down, keep behind me, and do not scream or run. Only run when I tell you to. And then, lady, run!”
She drew a breath and I took her shoulder, twisted her toward the door and started off.
The conventional view of a young girl in these circumstances did not require an intense imagination to visualize. Sympathy and a lively determination to escape safely with her might be all that was required of the average rescuer. But I fancied that her long absorption with the details of the rescue she was convinced would one day occur had acted as a kind of pre-sensitizing agent. Now that the long-awaited rescue was taking place the whole process acted on her as a drug. Her calmness, her decisiveness, the way she wanted this affair to run, all convinced me of her condition. As to my own expected feelings of sympathy and compassion — of course I felt them, as who, apart from those I have mentioned, would not? But Lildra’s actions and ready acceptance of this rescue as a mere acted-out appendage to dream-planning afforded me the opportunity to move fast and not to fear she would collapse.
At the door she said, “The birds are stabled in the White Tower. They do not have them here. We must—”
“I do not think birds will relish flying tonight, lady. It is the rope for you.”
Her eyes regarded me with a look I took to be incipient annoyance that her dream-plans were not going as expected.
There was little time before the guards below aroused themselves, but I said — and I own to a genuine curiosity:“How do you plan to reach the White Tower from the Jasmine Tower?”
Her head went back. “Why, that is simple. You will fight your way through and I will follow you.”
The hound dog on the landing below sent up a throat-growling sound, very hackle-raising. Poor Zarpedon was feeling sorry for himself. The guards in the adjoining room gave no sign of alertness, and Lildra and I padded softly up the last little flight of stone steps to the roof of the tower.
She saw the rope and she understood. The rain pelted down. Her dress melted against her body in moments. I fastened the bronze hook on the stone and lowered the rope down, not dropping it. There seemed no point in explaining to her that if we could not find an arrow slit, and if we could not wedge ourselves into it, the last part of the descent would be ropeless through thin air.
She said, “When you burst in and knocked Charldo over I took you for a Jikai. But you refuse to follow the plan — I am not sure—”
“Just hold onto my harness. Grip tightly and do not let go.”
I had to take her arms, wet and shining with rainwater, and place her hands on my leather gear. I cocked a leg over the parapet and let her weight come on me. The rope was like bristly butter under my fingers. Thank Zair the knots held! Carefully, with Lildra hanging from me, I started the descent.
My head was level with the crenelations when I felt a sudden and totally unexpected jolt and I slid down a hand’s breadth. I looked up. The rope was slipping down the wall. In the rain the bronze hook looked a golden-brown smear against the stone. It opened. The bronze hook was bending open, the rope was slipping down the wall, and we dangled on the rope. In only a couple of heartbeats the bronze would straighten and we would plummet down.
One chance — just the one. My hands gripped the rope, found a knot, and hauled. The rope slid down and the bronze screamed on the stone. I got my left hand on the lip of the parapet and held. I dangled, twisting away, and the fire raked all through my arm as the muscles corkscrewed. We swung back. Lildra started to struggle.
“Keep still, girl!”
She quieted instantly, shocked into immobility.
Hanging from one hand, with a girl draped around my neck, I heaved up with my right hand. The rope fell. The rain hit me in my upturned face. Fingers scraping over stone, over rain-slick stone, I found a purchase, gripped, held. For a moment I just hung, dangling. Then I started to chin myself up.
At that moment the sky shattered itself into shards of jagged fire and vomited noise about our ears. Lildra jumped. The thunder and lightning sizzled and smashed again. Everything stood out in momentary flashes of light, the marching lines of rain glittering like the spears of a host. Then the night crashed us again in darkness.
Getting a knee over was difficult with the soft wet form of the girl in the way. But eventually, with cracking muscles and a final heave, we tumbled over the parapet.
Lildra sat up. She was a mere dark shadow, but the way she held herself told me she was furious.
“You should have done as I said, Jak the Onker! My mother told me about being rescued. I know. You seem to be very new or unskilled at being a Jikai.”
Laugh! Of course — but later on, later on.
“You seem to have the right of it, lady. Just make sure you do not get yourself chopped.”
“I will take Charldo’s sword.”
So, down the stone steps we went and back to her room. Charldo still slumbered, so rapid had been the fiasco on the walls. Lildra picked up his sword, and swished it about. I jumped out of the way. She had mentioned her mother. This time, this time I’d see the whole thing out, sorry farce though it might be. This time I was doing what the Star Lords wanted.
“Get those wet things off. The blanket was useless — put on some of your friend Charldo’s gear that will fit.”
Again the flush stained along her cheekbones.
“It will be wet again when we fight our w
ay out.”
“True. But all the same — do it.”
“I—”
“You will find it more convenient not to have a dress encumbering your legs.”
“In that case — very well.”
Very much the great lady in her poise, upheld by the drug of her rescue, this princess, and yet heartbreakingly unversed in the ways of the world outside her stone walls. By the way she held the sword I saw she had had some lessons but was unskilled in the unpleasant arts of actually using the weapon to kill anybody.
She went behind the screen to strip off the dress and I unbuckled Charldo’s gear. It would wrap twice about Lildra, but she would find it more convenient. And the door burst open.
The guards from the adjoining room broke in, cursing and swearing, swishing their swords about, raving to get at me. They had heard our quick conversation, no doubt of that, and I had been lax in not anticipating that they might be required to make regular rounds.
The blades crossed in the lamplit chamber and the first of them was down with a severed neck — a judicious slicing blow that kissed his skin — even as my sword leaped away to parry the oncoming blows. The metal rang and clinked. They were in no doubt that they would overpower me and we crashed across the room in a furious bundle of smiting blades and striking limbs. Two were Katakis, and one of the tails was chopped off from a neat little backhander. Its owner looked horrified and drew back, clasping the bloody stump in his hands. I wasted no more time on him but flashed my sword blade in the lamplight, dazzled the next long enough to sink the steel into his guts below the corselet.
The others still came on and I backed to make room and collided with the screen. Only by a reflex hop and skip was I able to clear the tangle. A sword swept down at Lildra’s head. She was attempting to claw out of the screen and the racks of clothes, shouting not in terror but in fury. I parried the blow, twisted and sank a goodly length in Kataki flesh.
One of them, a bristle-pelted Brokelsh with the rank markings of an ord-Deldar, thrust past a stumbling Rapa to get at me. I parried his blow.
“Well, Ortyg the Bristle,” I said, cheerfully, “either you back off and run or you spill your guts on the floor.”
He showed his teeth and feinted cleverly and hacked back, but I wasn’t where he expected me to be, and my sword was. So Ortyg the Bristle followed my prophecy in all things.
A sword flickered around my legs and I leaped away, swiveling, and Lildra slashed again, blindly. Her wet dress smothered her head. She had leaped up to get into the fray and the screen had gone over and now, here she was, raging and blindly slashing with the wetness gleaming silver and gold over her naked body. I said, “They are all gone.”
She pulled the dress away from her head with a squelching sound. She flung it on the floor. She was mad clear through, panting, like a zhantilla aroused to magnificence.
“Why did you push into me, oaf! You knocked the screen all over me, old clothes and all!”
I pointed my blood-dripping sword. “Get yourself dressed. And be quick. They must have heard that racket by now.”
She gave me a look that ought to have shriveled me and pulled on a tunic. She strapped up Charldo’s leathers as I had said. Then, grasping the sword, she stormed toward the door.
She waited by the door, turning to glower across.
“You seem to forget I am a princess. I would not mention it ordinarily, particularly as you are supposed to be rescuing me and my mother was strict about that, but really—”
“Later,” I said, going past and padding out onto the top landing. One thing gave me some hope; she had not fainted clean away at the sight of blood and dead bodies. Metal clanked below.
“They’re on the way. Hurry, girl, we must reach the next landing before they do.”
Her face expressed conflicting emotions, but there was no time. I seized her arm and hurried her along.
“Zarpedon,” she said, on a breath. “He is fierce and will—”
“I sent him to sleep before, and will do worse if he tries to stop us now. Hurry!”
Down the stone steps we plunged and there was no need to steady Lildra. She ran fleetly. The shaggy hound dog glared with his demonic eyes and I jumped in, saying, “Good dog!” and clouted him again. He rolled over, stiff.
“You!” said Lildra.
“In here!” I pushed open the door to the adjoining room, which I expected to find deserted. There was no chance of making a stand. We had to get away. It is said, and with some truth, that a large number of lesser men may drag down one powerful man. True or not, I did not fancy our chances of fighting through the pack below with Princess Lildra to be guaranteed safe. The room was not empty — rather, as we entered it was empty, but the opposite door leading out to the ramparts opened and a crowd of guards from the next tower along broke through. They had come to find out what the disturbance was all about. It was possible they had witnessed my attempts at climbing down the rope.
In an instant we were at hand strokes.
The closeness of the room, the chill dampness of the stone, the stamp of bronze-bound sandals on the floor and the clangor of combat brought instant bedlam. It was not easy to keep Lildra out of it. She insisted on jabbing her sword at the guards from under my arm, or around my side, and there was a fair amount of skipping and jumping. These men were hired warriors, I judged, mercenaries and not soldiers of the Hyrklanian army. Fahia preferred this, for she could control absolutely any rumor or news of the imprisonment of members of her family. So these paktuns were fighting men all. We had a right to-do, slashing away, and with the occasional short jab sending men screaming and, retching, staggering out of the fight.
Working around and with my left arm curved back and holding Lildra, I managed to maneuver so that we had the door through which the guards had run at our backs. That way lay the ramparts.
“The way is clear, lady,” I said, and took a Rapa’s beak off. “Run out onto the ramparts—”
“And leave you? Never!”
“Run out and see if anyone else is coming. I don’t want cold steel at my back, girl!”
She saw the logic of this and darted back through the doorway. I own to a sense of freedom when she went, not having to spend most of my efforts keeping her out of trouble. I leaped headlong into the guards, smiting with an excess of fury which I thought, coldly and calculatingly, would deter them more than mocking words. Two fell, not screaming but in the resigned way of the true professional at the moment of truth. The others drew back a space and a hulking great shaven-headed Gon bellowed: “Fetch bows! Bratch, you rasts.”
If they were going to start shooting it was time for me to collect Lildra and depart.
I dodged back through the doorway and slammed the heavy oak.
Lildra crouched by the stone wall, dripping wet already and her new blanket sodden, staring along the rampart. More men were running up, presumably from the next tower along — although I had thought that clear. So there was nothing else for it.
The sky burst apart again with an almighty flash and bang; the Castle of Afferatu burned in limpid fire. The noise concussed and the light blinded, and in the ensuing darkness, blindly, I snatched up Princess Lildra, jumped onto the battlemented wall and leaped out into space.
We hurtled down through the air. Faintly and far off a voice shouted. The water hit us shrewdly, but we had twisted in our headlong fall and cleft the water not like two arrows but not like two tumbling carcasses, either. A few powerful strokes, and the surface broke around my ears and I started to swim across the moat with Lildra supported with her head out and in the air. She said nothing and I just hoped nothing was broken. Even then I was concerned for her reactions when the drug of her rescue wore off.
Climbing out on the other bank was a wet and muddy business. Halfway up we slipped and went sprawling into oozing slime. When we staggered up and started to run across the grass we were plastered head to foot with mud. We must have looked a doleful pair. Still Lildra said not a wo
rd; her breathing came fast and evenly, and she held herself as though restraining a fury that would undermine the pillars of the world.
So we ran off into the darkness. Thus was Princess Lildra of Hyrklana rescued.
The whole business was just atrociously wet.
Chapter fifteen
Vampires of Sabal
In the days that followed, filled with suns’ light and warmth, I began to believe I might feel dry once more. Lildra developed a snuffly little cold that annoyed her, and which made me feel sorry for her, the Savanti nal Aphrasöe having cured me of ailments of that troublesome kind. We joined up with the rebels and their numbers swelled so that soon we were a little army, ragged and ferociously ill-disciplined, but still the beginnings of the force that would topple Queen Fahia.
We cleared the area around the Castle of Afferatu and marched on, gathering strength. The news that Princess Lildra was come to liberate the country spread with the rapidity of sky-zorcas, and we found welcoming crowds of the poor folk everywhere we went, and the more cautious acceptance of the wealthy and lordly of the land. Orlan Mahmud nal Yrmcelt, the queen’s chief minister, sent down a general to take command. The rebellion gathered momentum, for everyone awaited the arrival of Princess Lildra. She was the focal point. Without her, I now saw, the rebellion would never begin on any scale likely to succeed.
Orlan’s general, a man whose parents had been brutally driven into the Arena because Fahia believed they plotted against her, was a quiet, thoughtful fellow with a bent nose. He called himself Nath the Retributor, although that was not, I judged, his real name. He tried to bring some kind of order to the ragged mob we had with us. I stayed discreetly in the background and kept an eye on Lildra. She, I knew, was the reason I was here, and her welfare was my first priority.
So we progressed northward through the island, our ultimate goal Huringa, the capital city itself. The locals would give up news of troop movements, and we avoided confrontations, garnering our strength. I was content to leave all this to Nath the Retributor. Soon enough our motley collection of rebels would be found by a force of Queen Fahia’s soldiers, and then we would have to see just what the rebellion was made of.
Rebel of Antares Page 15
