Scorpion Mountain

by John Flanagan

  But not quite.

  “You! Northman!” A stocky Tualaghi man faced him, recognizable as an officer by the superior quality of his robes and veil, and the jeweled scabbard and sword belt around his waist. Although Hal didn’t know it, it was Dhakwan, insane with rage over the total defeat and destruction of his elite Khumsan. He saw the young Skandian now as one of the agents of his defeat. He’d noticed him at the helm of the Ishtfana when she’d run alongside the wharf. Now, here he was, exhausted, sword down, its tip resting on the cobbles—at Dhakwan’s mercy.

  “Prepare to meet your gods!” the Tualaghi leader screamed. Hal began to raise his sword in defense, and realized he would never make it in time.

  Then a sword flashed over his left shoulder, its point sliding into Dhakwan’s exposed upper body. The Tualaghi officer’s eyes showed first surprise, then pain. Then they glazed over as his knees buckled and he sank to the cobbles.

  “Never shout out a threat like that in the middle of a fight,” Gilan said calmly, withdrawing his sword and letting the dead Tualaghi officer topple to one side. “It’s bad tactics and it gives your enemy time to defend himself. Or to kill you.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind,” Hal said. He looked at the Ranger with admiration. That sword thrust had been lightning fast and it seemed to have come out of nowhere. And it definitely had saved Hal’s life.

  Around them, the few remaining Tualaghi were throwing down their weapons or escaping into the narrow side streets that ringed the plaza. Thorn’s voice boomed out, echoing off the buildings surrounding them, calling on the Herons and Arridi to re-form.

  “Come on! We’re not finished. Selethen will be in trouble at the gate! Let’s go!”

  “What about these men?” Edvin called.

  Thorn looked around. There were a dozen or so Tualaghi standing weaponless, their hands raised in surrender, their faces shocked and numb at the sudden turn in their fortunes. Thorn gestured to the former galley slaves surrounding them.

  “Leave them as guards. I’m sure they’ll enjoy the irony of the situation. Now let’s go!”

  He led the way to one of the larger streets out of the plaza. This one headed south, which was the direction of the main gate and allowed the landing party to run four abreast. The Heron crew followed him. Behind them, the Arridan cavalry troopers ran, keeping up the brisk pace. Their weapons were blooded now and they were eager to fight again.

  They encountered no opposition on the way. That was logical, Hal thought. The majority of Iqbal’s men would be defending the gate, with the rest engaging the landing party. Both he and Thorn had studied a map of the town and the old sea wolf led the way unerringly to the main gate. As they burst into the large square facing it, the defenders turned to see them, assuming at first that they were reinforcements, then realizing that the enemy had somehow got inside the wall. They turned, too late, from their defensive positions at the gate, as the combined force of Skandians and Arridan troopers surged forward.

  As the two forces came together, Gilan looked up to the wall. He saw a group of half a dozen archers firing down at the attackers outside the walls. He unslung his bow and within half a minute the half dozen had become two, who turned and ran.

  Selethen was still on the catwalk. His two companions had fallen and he had been fighting alone for several minutes. His normally immaculate robe and burnished mail were stained with blood—his own and that of his enemies. As Gilan’s shafts sliced into the archers on the redoubt, some of the Wakir’s men took advantage of the fact and raced up the ladder to join their leader. He sank back gratefully against the battlements behind him. He raised his sword to his lips in salute to Gilan, standing in the square below.

  “Just in time, my friend,” he called.

  Gilan inclined his head. It had been a close-run thing.

  At that moment, there was a burst of cheering as Thorn, Stig, Hal and the twins led a final charge, battering into the defenders at the gate, sweeping them aside. Half a dozen Arridan troopers reached up and lifted the massive locking bar from its sockets and the gate, under the pressure from their comrades outside, swung inward to admit a howling, vengeful group of one hundred cavalrymen, all eager for blood.

  They surged forward, sweeping the Tualaghi defenders back, trampling them underfoot. Some of the desert warriors threw down their weapons immediately, claiming mercy. But others stood in small, defiant groups and fought to the end.

  Which wasn’t long in coming.

  Hal wiped his sword on a discarded Tualaghi veil and replaced it in his scabbard. Now it really was over, he thought. He had never felt so exhausted in his life.

  Two of Selethen’s men were helping the injured Wakir toward the ladder leading down into the courtyard.

  Perhaps it was Lydia’s hunting instincts that kept her alert. She was the only one to see a blue-robed figure rise from the pile of bodies around the spot where Selethen had held out for so long. The Tualaghi had lost his headdress and veil in the fighting. She could see he was totally bald, with a hook-shaped nose, reminiscent of a hawk’s beak. He was badly wounded in the left arm, but his right held a gleaming scimitar and he raised it now against the Wakir’s unprotected back. Something alerted Selethen and he half turned to face the man.

  “Iqbal!” he said. He hadn’t recognized his enemy when they had been fighting earlier. Now he could see death staring him in the face.

  Lydia’s dart flashed past him and took Iqbal in the center of his chest, the force of the missile hurling him backward against the wall. He sagged down to the catwalk.

  “That family don’t have a lot of luck with women who throw things,” Gilan observed.

  Lydia turned to him, frowning slightly.

  He shrugged. “Well, Cassandra walloped his brother with a sling. Now you’ve skewered him with a dart.”

  “He deserved it,” Lydia said.

  But before Gilan could reply, they were interrupted by a terrible wailing cry from the square in front of the gate.

  Wulf was kneeling, tears streaming down his face, beside the still, white-faced body of his brother, Ulf.

  chapter twenty-nine

  Ulf was lying on the cobblestones, his head resting on his twin brother’s knee.

  His eyes were shut and he was barely breathing. His face was pale with loss of blood, and it continued to seep from a large wound in his side, soaking into his shirt and spreading in a pool on the ground. Wulf looked up at his friends as they gathered helplessly around. He was distraught, with the tears flowing unchecked and his words coming in ragged, disjointed phrases as they fought with the heart-wrenching sobs that burst from him.

  “I couldn’t get . . . to him . . . in time,” he cried. “That coward had . . . surrendered to him and . . . thrown down . . . his sword.” He indicated a Tualaghi warrior who was lying several meters away, staring up at the sky with unseeing eyes. “Then, as Ulf looked away . . . the treacherous swine drew a knife and . . . stabbed him in the side!” He bent over his brother, crooning wordlessly, his tears falling onto the blood-soaked shirt.

  Edvin pushed through the small crowd and knelt beside Ulf, ripping open his medical pack as he did. He looked at the amount of blood on the ground and on Ulf’s shirt and gave a small cry of despair. Then he cut the shirt away from the wound and began swabbing at the slowly seeping blood with a wadded-up piece of cotton.

  “At least he didn’t hit an artery,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

  “How can he tell that?” Stig asked.

  Hal glanced quickly at him. “The blood would be pumping if an artery was severed. It’s just seeping out.”

  “Maybe, but a lot of it has seeped,” his friend replied doubtfully, and Hal could only nod in mute agreement. Ulf had lost a lot of blood—and he was continuing to do so.

  “Will Ulf be all right, Edvin?” Wulf asked, his voice breaking with fear and grief. �
��Can you fix him?”

  Edvin, his head down, was cleaning the wound with a special salve. Then he packed a thick bandage pad against it. The blood continued to flow, rapidly staining the bandage red.

  “I’ll do my best, Wulf,” he said. Until Wulf had mentioned his brother’s name, he’d had no idea which of the twins he was treating. “But he’s losing a lot of blood.”

  Selethen slipped through the ring of Herons surrounding their fallen brother. He took in the situation at a glance.

  “I’ve sent for my Tabibs. My healers,” he said, explaining the word. “They’ll help you.”

  Wulf looked up quickly, his face a mask of rage. “No!” he shouted vehemently. “Nobody touches him but Edvin! Nobody!”

  Edvin looked up from what he was doing, his hands keeping the bandage pad pressed hard against the wound in Ulf’s side.

  “Wulf, don’t be crazy. Selethen’s men are trained healers. Compared to them, I’m little more than a glorified bandage roller.”

  “I trust you,” Wulf said. “I don’t trust them. I don’t know them!”

  At that moment, two green-robed Arridans made their way through the growing throng to stand over Wulf and his fallen brother. From the fact that they were unarmed and unarmored, Hal deduced that these must be the healers. But Wulf dropped a hand to the hilt of his saxe.

  “Keep back!” he warned. “Nobody touches my brother but Edvin!”

  The older of the two ignored the threat. He went down on one knee beside Edvin, who looked round at him.

  “He’s losing blood,” the Skandian said. “He’s losing too much blood.”

  The Arridan nodded. He placed his hand over Edvin’s, applying more pressure to the wound. The blood flow seemed to lessen. Wulf moved threateningly, half drawing the saxe. But as he saw the slackening flow of blood, he stopped and slid the big knife back into its scabbard, uncertain what he should do next.

  “Can you help him, Tabib?” Selethen asked.

  The healer looked up and nodded. “I think so, lord. We have a salve that can thicken the blood and slow the blood loss. That’s the main problem. I’d like to get him to our hospital tent right away. We need to check and see that no vital organ has been damaged. But it wouldn’t appear to be the case.”

  Selethen leaned down and placed a hand on Wulf’s shoulder. The young Heron went to shake it off, glaring resentfully at the tall Arridan. But Selethen maintained his firm grip.

  “Wulf, the Tabib is a very wise and very skilled healer. And this is his student. They are two of the very best healers in my country. Please let them help your brother.”

  “Do it, Wulf!” Edvin urged. “I’m way out of my depth here!”

  Still Wulf hesitated, his eyes flicking from Edvin to Selethen and finally to the Tabib. The latter’s face was calm and composed and Wulf saw a depth of confidence and knowledge in his eyes.

  Gilan joined the discussion. “Wulf, the Arridan healers are among the best in the world. They study in the east, in medical colleges that have been teaching for centuries. They’ve preserved the best of the old wisdom, and they’re constantly discovering new ways—new salves and potions and healing compounds. I know of only one man in Araluen who might be their equal. Let them help you.”

  Again, Wulf’s eyes flicked between the men gathered round him. As before, it finished on the older Tabib. The man was calm and composed still. He nodded reassurance to the young Skandian, and Wulf’s irrational resolve faltered.

  “Do it, Wulf,” Edvin said quietly. “I’ll stay with them. I’ll watch over Ulf every step of the way. I promise. But you have to agree to it quickly. We’re losing him here.”

  That seemed to do it. Wulf leaned back on his haunches, closed his eyes for several seconds, allowing the tears to course down his cheeks unchecked. Then he opened them and nodded slowly.

  “Very well,” he said. There was a collective sigh of relief from the people around him.

  “Clear a path,” the elder Tabib said, gesturing for the onlookers to move aside and allow two of his orderlies through with a litter. Gently, they lifted the stricken Heron onto the litter, with Edvin and the Tabib maintaining their pressure on the wound the whole time.

  At the Tabib’s count, they lifted the litter and began to move carefully toward the gate.

  “Where are you taking him?” Wulf said, hurriedly rising. The younger Tabib held up a reassuring hand.

  “We have our hospital tent set up outside,” he said. “It’s cleaner and better suited for healing than some dark, dirty room in the town.”

  Wulf nodded and fell into step with the litter bearers. The young Tabib walked beside him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “My master will heal your brother. He has no equal in any country along the Constant Sea.”

  There was a certainty in his voice that did much to allay Wulf’s fears, and calm the panic that had seized him when he saw his brother cut down. He looked at the young healer.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The young Tabib shrugged. “It is what we do,” he said. “And none does it better than Master Maajid. His name means ‘The Excellent One.’”

  The rest of the group milled around uncertainly, not sure whether to follow the servants carrying Ulf’s still form on the litter. When it came down to it, most of them were reluctant to—none of them liked being in a hospital or healer’s tent. They lived a violent life and such places were too vivid a reminder of what could happen to each and every one of them at any time. Finally, Hal made the decision for all of them—which was only fitting.

  “I’ll go with them,” he announced. “Thorn, Stig, organize the crew and help Selethen’s men round up any Tualaghi who might still want to make an issue of things.”

  His two lieutenants nodded. Thorn touched the body of the dead Tualaghi with his toe. The man still clutched the blood-stained dagger with which he’d attacked Ulf and the old sea wolf gently nudged it out of his fingers.

  “No sense in taking chances,” he said. But Stig shook his head.

  “He won’t be attacking anyone again,” he said. He looked around at the others. “Anyone know who settled his hash for him? I assume it was Wulf?”

  Jesper shook his head. “Wulf was too far away. And when he saw Ulf go down, he was frozen to the spot. Ingvar took care of it for him. Now that he can see, he can really move like lightning.”

  Thorn and Stig exchanged a meaningful look.

  “Hal’s created a monster there,” Thorn said, looking to where Ingvar was leaning on the shaft of his voulge, out of earshot. In fact, the two dark circles that covered his eyes made him seem like some apparition from another realm.

  Stig nodded. “You didn’t help, giving him that overgrown toothpick. He’s a regular terror with that! Did you see him during the battle?”

  “I did. Hook, chop, stab. And then some.”

  Thorn clapped the younger man on the shoulder, then began calling orders for the Herons to reform.

  “Come on. We’ve still got work to do.”

  • • • • •

  The interior of the medical tent was shady and cool. The sides were rolled up to allow fresh air in, although in the event of bad weather or wind-driven sand, they could be rolled down in a matter of minutes, keeping the interior clean and dust free.

  Ulf was placed on a table covered with a white linen sheet and the two Tabibs began to go to work on him, standing either side of the table and speaking to each other in lowered tones and in their own language.

  At least, Hal assumed it was Arridan. It may have been some secret healers’ language. Wulf stood close by them, watching events like a hawk. From time to time, Tabib Maajid would pause and switch back to the common tongue to explain some point of procedure or the use of a salve or potion to Edvin, who took copious notes as they went.

  “This is amazing,” he s
aid softly, on more than one occasion, shaking his head in wonder. The more they worked on Ulf, the more he realized that these were men of enormous skill and knowledge.

  Hal noted that the blood was flowing less freely now, and when the healers changed the bandage for the third time, it no longer seeped through immediately. He assumed that was the result of the salve they had mentioned.

  Or perhaps, more ominously, the blood flow was slowing because there was less blood in Ulf’s veins.

  They had been in the tent for twenty minutes or so when there was a commotion at the entrance and another litter was carried in. Its occupant was a tall Tualaghi warrior, recognizable by his blue robes, although without the headgear and face veil. Hal could see that his skull was shaved and his dark eyes burned in his face with an intense hatred. He was shouting incoherently and waving his arms and Maajid looked up in annoyance. His pupils left the table beside Ulf and moved quickly to examine the newcomer. After several minutes, he returned, caught his master’s eye and shook his head.

  “Nothing we can do for him,” the Tabib said, and Maajid grunted philosophically. They were sworn to preserve life and ease pain, but sometimes there was little they could do to defy fate. As he went back to work on Ulf, the Tualaghi mustered his strength and called out to the orderlies around him.

  “Get the Ranger!” he said. “Bring the Ranger to me! Tell him Iqbal bin Ha’rish has important information for him.”

  chapter Thirty

  The orderlies stood uncertainly, not sure whether to obey the Tualaghi’s command. But Hal, recognizing his name, moved toward the litter where the mortally wounded bandit leader lay.

  “Do as he says,” he told the orderlies. “He may have vital information for us, and we don’t have a lot of time.” One of the orderlies turned and ran out of the tent to find Gilan.