He paced slowly toward me, readying himself for the spring, no doubt already imagining himself settling down with me between his front paws to satisfy his appetite.
Leems are able to spring for enormous distances.
I moved away, making the crowd screech. I wished to clear that treacherous unraked area of sand. If the crowd did not wonder why I was not running like a crazed loon around the arena I put that down to the fraught feelings of everyone there. They all knew this was a confrontation.
I heard the odd single comment, spurting through the crowd's noise. The leem advanced. I set myself. The sword went up over my right shoulder. The crowd slowly fell silent. The suns shone, there was no wind down here in the arena. I was sweating a little, and the leem stalked forward. His head was low, his eyes upturned to me, and his jaws opened as his tail flicked from side to side. One after the other with menacing precision he put those eight great claw-armed pads down, the talons extended and gleaming brilliantly.
The leem sprang.
So fast it all was. So fast and deadly.
He soared into the air with his four front paws extended, his rear paws trailing, and his tail rigid. So fast ... I went for a knee-bending roll one way and then came back the other and as he went past cut the great sword down. I put tremendous effort into that blow, an effort more of aim and precision than of mere muscular strength, knowing the Krozair longsword would do the work if it was handled correctly.
I am a Krozair of Zy, and in all humility I may say that, indeed, I do know how to handle a Krozair longsword.
The brand sheared through the leem's front foreleg. He went on and rolled in a great swashing of ocher fur, yowling, splattering blood from the stump; but wrenching himself around and standing on his remaining seven legs. Blood pumped thickly from the stump. I regarded him gravely. I decided not to pick up the severed leg and hurl it at him. He was a beast, and for all that we detested leems on the great plains of Segesthes that would have been an indignity to him, for a leem, like any other animal, man or beast, must follow his nature.
Also, the blood might have made my hands slippery.
He rushed again, and he sprang with as much sheer feral verve as before, having four back legs from which to make his spring. I removed the other front foreleg.
This time he came around more slowly. He was not weakened by loss of blood yet; that would take, in a leem, a little time. They are not easy to kill. When he charged me this time, I fancied, he would act differently, and not just because he had lost two legs.
He came in again. This time I leaped for him, got under him as he passed above me, and, ducking, I severed his rear hind leg. He went on, rolling, and this time he came back so fast, springing from his uninjured side, that a claw raked down my side and my blood dropped to mingle with his on that bloodstained silver sand.
But if he was taking the fight to me, I took it to him. He sat back, as a cat does, for an instant. Then he swiped at me with his second foreleg. I did not strike back but ran sideways, turned and feinted to hit him from that side. He pivoted and I went the other way—fast, fast!—and got six inches of steel between his ribs. That was not enough to reach his heart, of course, his main heart, and I had to skip back most circumspectly. I had missed my aim, but I did not curse. This was a game of life and death we played, this leem and I beneath the Suns of Scorpio in the arena of Huringa. He would not waste time spitting at me.
He did hunch his back, though, and I saw the way his stumps bled, and I knew the thing was really over; but before that he could squash my head with a single blow. I leaped again and swung and gashed a great slice across his shoulder. He tried to take me in his mouth and I drove the Krozair longsword at him, and again I missed and merely succeeded in slicing alongside his nose. The blade was sharp. Had it been blunt, as was the blade with which I fought the shorgortz, I believe I would not have been as quick as I was; I do not think the leem would have got me, for the blunted longsword is a great bone-smasher.
The crowd had been silent. Now they began cheering again. I banished the noise; but I did notice the shouts and calls came when I attacked the leem. So, being a show-off in some things, I made a great point of attacking the leem, of charging him, and of smiting and hacking. He lost another leg—and now he did not want to know anything at all more about this man-monster with the brightly shining metal tongue who so tormented him.
He backed off, hissing.
I do not like leems, as I told you, for their ways and damage they have done me. But I could feel it in my heart to feel sorrow for this great beast. He was done for, and I think he knew it. Blood fouled his ocher fur. His eyes did not glare with so much bestial ferocity. He hissed and he slunk away, his ears low, his tail dragging.
I had an idea.
The leem was hobbling—for him—on four legs, but he could still run. I herded him. I wove a net of steel about him and drove him back and back, chivying him from the side, making him go where I wanted. His muzzle was a mask of blood. He slunk back, hissing, and tried to leap aside, and I thrust into that flank and so forced him back. When he was where I wanted him to be, and he attacked again, I leaped and sliced the great sword and so took off his fifth leg. Now he would limp in very truth. He spat now, and hissed, and then he began to shriek. I circled him. He tried still to get at me.
When the moment came I sprang.
I landed with both feet on his shoulders—those beautifully articulated shoulders that swing two pairs of legs—and got my left arm around his head and under his throat, and so passed the sword downward and through his heart—both the main heart and then, unnecessarily, the subsidiary heart. I leaped clear, and I leaped clear backward, deliberately. In death he writhed and slashed and screamed and foamed and bled—but he died.
Anyone or any beast tends to die if a Krozair longsword passes through the heart.
I cut off his tail. I held it at my right hand, by that tuft, and I sloped the bloody longsword over my shoulder.
The place I had herded the leem to was exact. I looked up, and there, sitting regally in her royal box, directly over my head, Queen Fahia looked down, her golden hair and white face unmistakable in that colorful brilliance surrounding her.
Absolute silence.
“Here, queen!” I roared. “A token from a Krozair!"
And I hurled the bloody leem tail full in her face.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
"Drak the Sword! Kaidur! Kaidur!"
Defiant, theatrical, ridiculous, that gesture.
As soon as I hurled the bloody leem tail I leaped nimbly away and to the side. Eight stuxes and half a dozen crossbow bolts pierced into the sand where I had been standing. If this was the way I, Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy, was to die, then I would make of it a great Jikai, and die well, by Zair!
I started for the tall wall festooned with silks and carpets and flowers supporting the royal box. I held that marvelous Krozair longsword before me, double-handed, as I had been trained and as I knew how, and as I went forward so I flicked and batted away flying stuxes and crossbow quarrels. The whole crowd remained absolutely silent. That silence hung eerily over the enormous amphitheater. Every eye, I knew, was fixed in a hypnotic gaze upon that macabre scene, a half-naked man clad in a brave red breechclout, advancing with a monstrous brand in his fists, forging through a flying hail of death. I picked the way I would climb up where no man believed a kaidur could climb. I seized on the flying stuxes and bolts and swatted them away with the wrist flickings that are the joy of a Krozair.
Queen Fahia looked down and saw my face.
She flinched back.
I think she recognized that I would reach her.
She stood up.
Tall and regal, her pile of golden hair ablaze with gems, she lifted her white arms upward, and spoke harsh words that instantly halted the flickering streams of bolts and stuxes.
She lowered her arms and placed her hands on her breast, crossed, and she looked into my eyes and I stop
ped and waited for her to speak.
“You say your name is Dray Prescot. You cry upon unfamiliar spirits. What token is it that smears blood upon a queen's face.” And, indeed, her pale face showed daubs of leem blood, spots splattered across her gown and hair. She stared at me with wide and brilliant eyes, willing me, I knew, to submit to her beauty and authority.
I threw my head back, challenging. “What queen is it that sends a man to his death in the paws of a leem?"
“You merited that death."
“You merit a death no different."
Some hot-tempered young mercenary of her guard could not contain himself longer at this and he let loose. I flicked the bolt away and stared evilly at this Queen Fahia.
But she was a queen, long used to absolute authority.
“You are very clever with that monstrous steel brand. What if I order two of my guardsmen to loose together?"
“Order them."
I think she had now reached a conclusion I had already come to—and the crowd, in the way of crowds who sense these things, already guessed. She did not wish to have me killed until she had satisfied her feminine curiosity and slaked her pique. But the challenge I had issued was direct. She nodded curtly to her guard Chuktar. He was a Chulik. I had seen very few Chuliks so far in Havilfar. I guessed he was a most expensive paktun, hired to train and command her private bodyguard.
Two crossbowmen lifted their weapons and, at the Chuktar's barked command, let fly.
At the moment of this word "Loose!" I took three neat little side steps. The bolts whistled through thin air.
Every throat in that vast amphitheater roared out—a great volume of raucous noise—for they were laughing!
Only Queen Fahia and those about her did not share the jest.
Fahia spoke again, swiftly, to the Chulik Chuktar. He nodded and sent a file of his men running down the concealed stairs that would enable them to pass onto the sand of the arena through doors solidly bolted only on the inside. I braced myself.
“You will not be harmed, Dray Prescot. I wish to talk with you, before I decide what is to become of you."
I knew that part of it. I considered what was best to do.
The dead leem lay bleeding in the sun. I walked across to it and looked down. The flies were already gathering and I swatted the sword about, aware that this was not a lowly task for that marvelous brand. The leem was wearing a silver collar. During the fight I had not thought about it, for the Krozair steel would shear through silver as though flesh and bone. Now I bent and unlocked the silver collar, lifted it up so that it glittered in the mingled rays of the suns.
The queen's guardsmen appeared from the hidden entrances onto the arena, other guards always alert and vigilant there.
And then—I suppose Naghan the Gnat started it, for he was a quick-witted rogue, and cunning, and yet a staunch armorer-kaidur—from the red benches a great storm of cheering rose. The kaidurs there, the apprentices, even the coys, were jumping up and down and yelling and shouting and, almost at once, the whole red corner of the amphitheater began to erupt in a bedlam of victory shouts.
“Drak the Sword! Kaidur! Kaidur! The red for the ruby drang! Drak the Sword!"
So they had at last recognized me. I felt a fitting further gesture might be in order, for I much disliked the queen's new silky approach. I walked slowly over to the red corner and I lifted the silver collar taken from the dead leem and I hurled it high. It spun and glittered in the sun as it fell among the trophies of the reds, proudly displayed in their sacred prianum under the red and gold awning. Absolute silence from blue and yellow and green. Rapture unbounded from red!
Then the two files of mercenary guards closed up and I went with them, out of the arena with its blood-soaked silver sand and down the long secret tunnels and up the secret stairs into the regal presence of Queen Fahia of Hyrklana.
They made me wait, all blood-splashed and sweaty as I was. Wishing to reinforce my advantage and to consolidate what little hope I might have, I had given up the sword. A Rapa had placed his curved dagger at my ear at the time. I could have fought the lot of them, and slain them, and so raced from the secret passageways. But life thereafter in the Jikhorkdun would have been impossible. And I did not forget the great storm that had first thrown me into contact with this catlike Queen Fahia and her black neemu pets.
More and more I was understanding that it was well-nigh impossible to anticipate the wishes of the Star Lords. They had been patient with the escape I had made with Princess Lilah, and they had—even then—been storing up that information against a later day. I wondered about the other people I had rescued on Kregen at different times and places, and wondered how they were destined to fit into the pattern of the future.
All the time I waited I guessed Fahia would be taking the baths of the nine, no doubt in ponsho-milk, relaxing and preparing for an interview she would be absolutely without doubt must go her way. She would be perfuming herself, and donning marvelous clothes of fabulous value, adorning herself with gems and feathers and silks and furs, her face painted and powdered and perfumed, her fingernails lacquered green, her eyes heavy with kohl, her lips rich and moistly red. And her hair—hair of that brilliant gold would be coiled and coiffed to display all its luster and brilliance, and sprinkled with gems so as to bring out with great artifice every last beauty.
When, at last, the Chulik Chuktar with a bodyguard came for me and I was ushered into her presence I felt cheated.
She knew her own power, did Queen Fahia. She sat in that curule chair with its zhantil-pelt coverings, and the barbaric furs and jewels and feathers and silks were all there, each adding its contribution to the gorgeous spectacle filled with light and color. She herself sat there in a classically simple red gown, slit to the thigh on both sides, girdled by a golden belt. Her golden hair, her face, retained still the splotches and stains of the dead leem's blood.
The black neemus yawned and opened their lambent golden eyes, and stretched, tinkling their silver chains. The slave shishis huddled in their transparent silks. There were no councilors or pallans present, but Orlan Mahmud was there, and a few other young men I did not recognize. Women also were there, and at least two Fristle women of exceptional beauty and power in their looks, not slaves but free halflings at the queen's court.
The Chulik positioned his crossbowmen in a single line to the right and left of the curule chair, facing me. I noticed the way the courtiers moved out of the area that could be turned into a sieve of death.
“You told me a lie, Drak the Sword.” Those were her first words.
I did not reply.
Her color was still pale, still wan; she had had a nasty fright. I knew the way the crowd's fickle behavior would be read by the queen, how she must seek to placate them as she detested them, despite her power.
“You are a kaidur, and now, after the exploit today, a hyr-kaidur. Your name is Drak the Sword. What, then, this nonsense about a fanciful uncouth name like Dray Prescot?"
“A man may have a name before he gains a name in the Jikhorkdun."
Her eyes regarded me. “Aye, that is true. And my Jikordun divides the leems from the ponshos."
She said Jikhorkdun as Jikordun, as many people did, slurring the word for ease of pronunciation. Few kaidurs spoke it that way.
“Had I known you were a kaidur, Drak the Sword, perhaps I would not have been so swift in my just vengeance."
There was a very great deal to be read into that statement.
I decided to play the most obvious reading, the one most likely to reflect the state of the game. I said, “I believe I did not express my very real sorrow at the destruction of the neemu.” I was deliberately refraining from calling her queen or majestrix or any other of the many terms for referring to royalty I spare you. “I feel I am able to make restitution."
“Ah!” she said, and she sat forward, and again her chin settled onto her upturned fist. Her eyes regarded me now with a look reminiscent of the look that leem
had first given me. “Yes, Drak, I think you may!"
Again pushing what I fancied the Star Lords, in their usual obscurantist way, were urging me to, I said, “You have but to command."
“I know that!” Her chin went up, off her fist, and her eyes blazed at me. “My commands are obeyed. But before that, Drak, I would talk of your great victory, for the leem was a mighty and powerful beast, and notable for its kills."
So we spoke for a space, of this and that, and presently she motioned for me to come and sit on a stool brought forward by a flunky—a little Och in embroidered livery—and placed at her feet. I sat down and told her a pack of lies, about swinging the sword as one would an ax, and of how I rather fancied I would use it again, Havil willing, in the Jikhorkdun. She nodded and sucked in her breath, her bosom rising and falling, her eyes bright and leechlike upon me as she heard talk of other combats, some she had seen and some not. Her passionate interest in the arena was not faked. Statecraft, love, food, money—all were of secondary interest to her beside this consuming passion for the Jikhorkdun.
Knowing this, thinking I knew what the Star Lords were about, I forced down my desires to smash them all up and get out of here and aboard a voller and make for Valka—for I knew another great supernatural gale would brutally beat me back.
This game here must be played out first.
As a queen and a despot she had her pick of the kaidurs. Her chambermaids would bring them to her chambers at night, and she would use them as she saw fit, and so send them back to fight for her in the arena. I already knew that apart from the four color corners, there existed a small and select band of kaidurs devoted to the queen—Queen's Kaidurs—and on special occasions these would fight wagered combats of phenomenal value. Usually they won, and would dispose of the opponent fighting them, no matter what color he happened to be. Much later, long and long, I discovered just why the Queen's Kaidurs almost invariably won.
She did not make me an offer to become a Queen's Kaidur. She had said, though, “You are a hyr-kaidur now, Drak. And as a great kaidur you may wander the streets of Huringa. Would you seek to escape? I remember the flier..."
Arena of Antares [Dray Prescot #7] Page 15
