by Laurence Yep
“You really don’t like visitors coming this way, do you?” Sulu asked.
“This bridge has been cut down when necessary,” the prince said.
A hill person like Urmi had no trouble negotiating the bridge, though it rocked alarmingly from side to side. Sulu, however, felt less than enthusiastic when he felt the cables. The spray rolling up the sides of the steep gorge made the ropes slippery.
Behind him, the prince couldn’t help teasing, “Come now, Sulu. A fencer such as yourself must have nimble feet.”
Sulu stared down at the sheer drop. The river looked very far away. “I’m used to having a floor underneath my feet.”
“Just keep your eyes on Urmi’s back.” The prince laughed and gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
Sulu smiled weakly at the prince. “I think you’re enjoying this more than you should.”
“And you may laugh at me the next time I try to helm a starship. Please go on, Sulu.”
Taking a deep breath, Sulu stepped out onto the [190] bridge and found his foot sliding off the bottom cable. He gripped the cables tightly and managed to keep his foot on the rope.
“I’m right behind you, Sulu,” the prince tried to reassure him.
“And will you be right behind me if I fall?” Sulu tried to joke. He shuffled several steps along the bridge.
“Let’s not carry friendship too far.” The prince laughed.
But Sulu was already getting the hang of the swaying bridge. So he comforted himself with the thought that while he might not move with Urmi’s grace, at least he was getting across.
By now Urmi had made it almost to the end of the bridge. “Come on,” she encouraged them. “I can smell the cooking fires over at the guard post. We’ll be eating a hot meal soon.” She turned around again. “Or not,” she added as a half dozen sinha rose from behind the rocks in front of her. One of them deliberately stepped up to the foot of the bridge so that the way was blocked.
Sulu and the prince twisted around to try to retreat but saw another half-dozen sinha slipping down the rocks to cut them off. Lord Bhima himself straddled the path. “Welcome, Your Highness. I wonder if we could continue that little chat we were having back at the palace.”
“Get ready to run when I tell you,” the prince whispered under his breath to Sulu, and then he lifted his head to help himself shout better to Lord Bhima. “Indeed? I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”
Lord Bhima sheathed his sword and started toward them eagerly. “It’s never a waste of time when you take in this lovely scenery. Now would you be so kind as to [191] throw your weapons into the river? I promise you that you’ll be well treated.”
“What makes you think I’d trust you?” The prince adjusted his grip on one of the support ropes.
Lord Bhima paused by one of the posts from which the cables hung. “Because you would have my word. I had nothing to do with the massacre, Your Highness. I was as surprised as you were when it happened.”
The prince spread his feet apart. “If that’s true, why are you helping Rahu now?”
Lord Bhima slapped his hand unhappily against the post. “I couldn’t bring the dead back once the massacre had happened. And I think Rahu happens to be right.”
“Then,” the prince announced, “your name will be recorded in the history books along with those butchers.”
Lord Bhima looked a bit sick, as if the prince had just struck him in the stomach, but he drew himself up shakily. “I might take the cynical view and say that history is written by the winners, not the losers. It’s surprising how many euphemisms can be found for ‘butchery.’ But,” he added, and the words came tumbling out of him as if he had repeated them to himself often enough, “in point of fact, it was your father who was the first to act dishonorably.”
“It’s a lawyer’s way to quibble over words rather than deeds.” Lifting his hand, the prince waved at Sulu. “Now,” he said. When Sulu had started to run, the prince called to Urmi. “Go on, Urmi,” he urged her.
Drawing a dagger and her sword, Urmi thrust at the sinha barring the way.
“Stop,” Lord Bhima shouted desperately—almost as [192] if he was the one who felt trapped and not the prince. But when Sulu and the prince went on, he gave a surprised shake of his head. “Then you leave me no choice,” Lord Bhima yelled reluctantly to them and, after a pause, he instructed his own men. “Either take them prisoner or make sure that they never leave the bridge alive.”
A wind suddenly swept into the gorge, making the bridge sway even more. Sulu skidded once as the rope bridge seemed to take an unexpected twist to his left. Desperately he threw his arms around one of the cables as his legs fell through one of the openings.
The prince, though, had a hold of his robe’s collar. “Up you go, Sulu.” With the prince’s help, Sulu got his feet back on the bottom cable.
Sulu nodded his thanks and took a tight hold of one support cable. “We’re not going to be able to fight our way off this bridge.” Though Urmi had already wounded one sinha, two others had taken his place.
The prince glanced over his shoulder as the bridge started to buck and writhe. Two sinha were trying to follow. “Well, we can’t go forward and we can’t go backward and since none of us has wings, we can’t go up. That only leaves down.”
Though the robe he still wore made it difficult, Sulu managed to draw his sword. “Are you out of your mind? From this height, a dive would kill us.”
Bracing his back against one cable, the prince hitched up his robe and slid his sword out. “But if you cut one of the support cables, it should take us much nearer the river.”
Keeping one hand on the cable as a kind of guide, Sulu started to move toward Urmi. “Assuming we time [193] it right and don’t get bashed against the gorge itself.” He started on.
“Details are the playthings of lesser minds. Do you have a better suggestion?”
“No, but I sure wish that I did.” Sulu slipped twice more on the swaying bridge, but each time he managed to catch himself. When he was about two meters from Urmi, he stopped. “Hold onto the bridge when I tell you,” Sulu instructed her.
“What?” Urmi half turned so she could look at them and saw Sulu take a sharp whack at one of the cables with his blade. “Sulu, are you mad?”
“Sulu doesn’t like the bridge.” The prince raised his sword to engage the sinha behind them. “He thinks we should remodel it.”
“Not while we’re on it.” Urmi had to whirl around so her dagger could stop a vicious slice.
“We’re going to cut a cable so we won’t have as far to dive into the river.” Sulu chopped at the cable again and saw the first strands part. The cable was thicker than he thought. “This is almost as bad as a steel cable. What’s it made out of?”
“Fibers from the stalk of the amma you admired so much.” The prince’s blade rang as he engaged a sinha.
Sulu spread his feet and gripped the cable in one hand to balance himself as best he could while he brought his sword down. But it only severed a few more strands. From in front and behind him, he could hear the clang of Urmi’s and the prince’s blades as they tried to fight off the sinha.
“Tell your clan to use thinner ropes next time.” Sulu gave a grunt as he kept on hacking at the cable.
He tried to ignore the scream as one of the prince’s [194] opponents fell from the bridge but he could not help noticing how long it took the man to splash into the water.
“Sulu, maybe you’d better let us brace our legs to take the impact,” the prince said. “And remember to let go as the bridge begins to swing back over the center of the river. Wait too long and you’ll go onto the rocks on either side.”
“Great,” Sulu grunted as he continued to hack at the cable.
A fraction of a second later the prince’s other opponent gave a yell as he plummeted toward the river. Sulu looked behind him and saw the prince standing alone, his sword still thrust out in the lunge that had cleared the bridge.
>
The prince straightened up and turned to help Sulu. “Well, at least our rear’s safe.”
But Lord Bhima looked at another young sinha. “You will atone, lieutenant,” he said in a loud voice.
And without a moment’s hesitation, the young officer drew his sword and started to slide his feet along the bridge.
“Stop it, you fool.” The prince waved his sword at the sinha. “Get back while you can.” But the lieutenant just kept coming. There was only determination in his face, not fear. “Rahu’s turned them into a pack of fanatics,” the prince grumbled, and got ready to meet him. “They’re almost as crazy as we are.”
“That takes some doing,” Sulu said and then tried to concentrate on his one task while the fighting went on both before and behind him.
It seemed like hours—though it was probably only a few minutes later that the prince asked the officer out of [195] sheer exasperation, “What’s the point of fighting anymore, you fool? Tell your men to get back. Can’t you see we’re probably going to do your job for you?”
“I must atone to the Lord Bhima,” the lieutenant said cryptically, and slashed at the prince’s sword wrist.
The prince parried, locking his blade with the other’s. And then, before the lieutenant could say or do anything, the prince swung the pommel of his blade up so that it caught the lieutenant on the chin. His head snapped back and his eyes closed as he tumbled after his men.
“The only way to stop them”—the prince got his breath back—“seems to be to kill them.”
“We may be joining the dead soon enough.” By now, Sulu had chopped through all but the last strands. Wrapping his free arm around the cable, he swung his sword up, ready for the final cut. “Get set,” he said.
“Wait,” Urmi called. “Let me fight my way onto solid ground.”
“Whatever for?” the prince demanded.
“I can’t swim.” Urmi parried another desperate slash from a sinha.
The prince made his way around Sulu so he could be nearer Urmi. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
“I didn’t think we’d live this long,” Urmi said. Despite her best efforts to control her voice, she sounded frightened.
The prince glanced at Sulu. “You can swim, can’t you?”
The sword felt heavy in Sulu’s hand. “I won’t drown, if that’s what you mean.”
“Good, then between the two of us we should be able to keep Urmi afloat.” The prince hooked his arms [196] and legs around the cable so that he looked like a bony sloth. The cable began to sag heavily. “Come on, Urmi.”
“I’d rather die with a sinha blade sticking in my gut than with water filling my lungs.” Urmi made a series of determined lunges but her opponents stood their ground and would not let her off the bridge.
“We either go together, Urmi,” the prince insisted, “or we don’t go at all.”
“Go on. I’m just some dirty peasant, after all.” Despite her best efforts, the sinha began to press her back.
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’ve helped convince me to stay.” The prince started to swing his legs down. “Now you’re going to help me change this world. I didn’t think you’d be the one to take the easy way out.”
“You call this easy?” Urmi grunted as she nearly avoided having her head split in two.
“Simple then. A swordfight is child’s play compared to reforming Angira.” The prince’s feet found the bottom cable. “I’m asking you for help, Urmi. Trust me as I trust you.”
Urmi smiled and then pretended to grumble, “Well, I guess I’d better stick around to make sure you don’t botch things.”
“That’s right,” the prince agreed cheerfully. “You know my family has a penchant for mishandling Angira.” The prince raised his legs to the cable again.
“I’ll warn you right now: You’d better be down there to keep me floating, or I’ll come back to haunt you. And a wet ghost isn’t a pretty sight.” Tucking her dagger back into her sash, she swung her sword back [197] and forth in several savage cuts to clear a space between herself and the sinha before she retreated two paces. Then, flinging her sword away, she gripped the cables and lifted her legs up around the rope. “All right,” she called to Sulu.
“Hold on,” he shouted and swung his sword down with all his strength, his face grimacing with the effort. This time the blade sliced through the last strands cleanly.
As they began to fall, Sulu dropped his sword and brought his other hand up to cling to the cable. They whipped through the air toward the river and the spray rose about them so that Sulu had to squint to see. The water looked chillingly blue as it slid by at an alarming rate. And then it seemed like the jagged rocks at the side of the gorge were leaping up to meet them like fangs. Sulu tensed as the rocks grew nearer and nearer. And then they were arcing over the stones; but before Sulu could feel any relief, he found himself rushing toward a new peril as the rocky wall of the gorge loomed before them.
Below him, Urmi and the prince had braced their long, well-muscled legs. And for a moment, it almost seemed as if they were standing still and the stone wall were rushing at them. Sulu was almost sure they were going to smash into it. And suddenly he heard the slapping of the Angirans’ sandals and they were swinging away from the wall, back over the rocks on the side of the gorge.
“Now,” the prince called.
And Sulu let go.
The water gleamed beneath him and he couldn’t be sure if he spotted a shadowy outline underneath the [198] water or not. Was it an animal or some Angiran predator, or just his own imagination? And then he was plunging beneath the water. He almost lost his precious lungful of air at the shock of meeting the icy cold water. But he managed to hold onto his breath somehow.
When he had finally slowed, he could not see anything but the columns of bubbles raised by his own descent. Don’t panic, he told himself, and forced himself to wait long enough to watch which way his bubbles were rising. That would help orient him to the surface. The river currents, though, were swift and deep; he could feel them pulling him along even as he tried to angle up to the surface. And his heavy robe, soaked with water, was like a set of weights trying to pull him back down.
A huge rock suddenly loomed in front of him and he slammed into it, almost making him lose his precious supply of air. What if he met more rocks?
And then his head seemed to lift into the drier, warmer air above the water and he was gasping for breath. Three meters to his left, he saw the prince and a spluttering, thrashing Urmi.
“You see, Sulu.” The prince had managed to keep hold of his sword and Urmi as he tread water. “It worked out just like I said.”
Sulu spit out a mouthful of water. “Your Highness, after having just one of your tours, please don’t open up a travel agency.”
“But you can’t beat my tours for excitement.”
“No, I can’t.” Sulu’s arms and legs were already growing numb from the cold. The Angirans’ fur seemed to protect them a bit better from the icy temperature of [199] the water. Quickly Sulu shed his boots and robe. “Once is enough,” he gasped.
A swirl in the river currents had swept him closer to them and he took Urmi so that the prince could take off his robe. “Well,” the prince agreed, “I could use fewer surprises myself.”
Lord Bhima watched the dots that were the heads of the prince and his party until a bend in the river finally hid them from view. What excuses should he offer to Lord Rahu?
It certainly hadn’t been the fault of the fanatical young lieutenant. He had tried to atone for his mistakes. It was a shame that it had all been wasted.
No, it was the fault of an aging swordmaster who had underestimated his prince. He had thought the prince would surrender easily instead of taking such a desperate course. But apparently the prince was no longer the foppish boy whom Bhima remembered. There was a backbone to him now that had not always been there before. And he either hated or feared Lord Bhima very much now. Perhaps both.
He
had failed in his mission. Or had he?
One of the sinha worked up enough nerve to ask him, “Lord, do you want us to go after them? We can climb down and dive like they did.”
“We’ve lost enough lives today.” He waved his sword over his head to attract the attention of the sinha across the gorge. “Come on across again.”
“And what are we going to do, Lord?” the sinha asked.
Lord Bhima gave a sigh. “There’s no choice now. We’ll have to sneak into Guh.”
[200] “But why, Lord? The prince isn’t there.”
“There was only one offworlder with them. The other may very well have been left behind in the valley, either as a hostage or because of injuries.” Lord Bhima swung away from the river. “I don’t intend to go back to Lord Rahu empty-handed.”
Chapter Nine
They were swept along for nearly two kilometers by the river’s swift currents. By that time, Sulu was chilled to the bone and barely able to move his legs and arms enough to keep himself afloat, let alone help the prince with Urmi. He watched the steep sides of the gorge race by. A scraggly tree stood like a lone, dying sentry. And Sulu wondered if that was the last thing he would see before he drowned.
Suddenly the walls of the gorge fell away—as if the backdrops in a cheap play had suddenly fallen down and the icy mountain water no longer yanked and pulled at him. The river itself had broadened and on the right bank, Sulu could see houses and fences and small, aging wharves. Tied to the wharves were small boats some three meters long, with squared bows and sterns. More boats floated in a semicircle across the river.
“We made it, Sulu,” the prince called to him encouragingly.
[202] Urmi gave a shout and sprayed water like an outraged cat. “Hey, help me keep my head above water.”
Sulu thrashed his arms clumsily, trying to direct himself toward the shallows by the right riverbank-. He was so cold that he could barely speak through his chattering teeth. “I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”
“Have a look out where you’re swimming,” an angry voice yelled.
