Looking back at those infuriating days spent in Falinur trying to hold the border, to repel Layco Jhansi and to deal with the damned werewolves, I recall an oppressive feeling of bafflement. I was frustrated at every turn. We put out aerial patrols and we caught a number of raids. Everyone did their work well. The soldiers flew or marched and got stuck in. We held Jhansi, and even put in a few raids on our own account.
But — everywhere the Emperor of Vallia went, there went also the werewolves.
This became patently obvious.
We caught three more of the poor fellows. All three were from my own guard corps.
I began seriously to consider sending 1ESW and 1EYJ back to Vondium or to Drak.
Then a particularly nasty outbreak occurred when we were up north chasing a retreating raid. We’d surprised the devils as they burned a farm. Afterwards, when we rested around the ruins of the farm, no fewer than four of the local girls were killed in that nauseatingly familiar way. Their throats were uniformly ripped out.
We laid a trap. We caught the unholy ganchark.
And he turned out to be Nalgre the Rear, a member of Turko’s select body of personal guards.
Andrinos, the Khibil wrestler who was now on very good terms with Turko, shook his head, pursing up his lips as we stood looking down on the body.
“This bodes no good—” he began.
“Wait, Andrinos. Let us see if he speaks.”
But no other corpse than that of Larghos m’Mondifer opened his eyes and mouth and spoke to me — so far...
In those evil days much of the old Dray Prescot returned. I saw more than one man flinch away when I looked quite reasonably at him. The atmosphere grew strained. We were overstretched, true; but that was no new thing, that was almost always the norm.
By chance one rainy evening I overheard a conversation through a tent flap. Eavesdroppers never hear good, as they say.
Two soldiers out of one of Turko’s regiments were talking in that low-voiced rumble that indicates they are old friends, and have no fear of being overheard.
“I tell you, Nath, the land is accursed.”
“That’s true, by Vox. And all since this Kov Seg returned. He was thrown out before—”
“Aye. But Kov Turko is harsher against the slavemasters.”
“That may be, Mondo. But it is certain sure this Seg was infected by werewolves in his own kingdom, wherever in some foreign devil-land that may be. He said so himself.”
I rounded the corner of the tent-flap, stepped over the guy-rope, and said, “Stand up. Attention.”
They saw who I was. They scrambled up. They tried to stand to attention, and made a poor hash of it for the trembling fits that seized them.
“I shall not have you flogged, or beaten, or tortured, nor even have you neatly put to death. I will tell you this. Kov Seg Segutorio is not the cause of this plague of werewolves. He is not a sorcerer. Had he been, perhaps you would have been turned into little green toads for your stupidity.”
They stood there. They looked ghastly. No thought of trying to make a run for it entered their heads, and certainly no thought of trying to tackle me would even reach them — they knew what the Krozair longsword across my back could do.
That I would have used that superb brand was certain sure. These were the rumors that were doing so much to destroy the credibility of myself and my friends.
The two, Nath and Mondo, I dismissed with a few final words of caution. Then I added an admonition to cheer up, for we were bound in the end to triumph over the gancharks. They trailed off looking as though they’d fallen off a cliff onto the rocks beneath.
I hadn’t touched them physically, but that old face that transforms me, the face men call the devil face of Dray Prescot, must have flamed out in all its evil power.
The decision not to tell Seg what I had overheard could easily be made; implementing it was quite different.
As we flew back to Falanriel, Seg remarked in his deceptively casual way: “These rumors are flying thicker than flies around a corpse.”
“So it seems.”
The breeze blew in our faces, the suns shone, the air smelled sweet with that particular sweetness only found on Kregen, yet I felt the chill of unease.
“Yes, my old dom. Seems people are blaming you directly. I’ve had a few words with ’em.”
That I could imagine.
So I told Seg what Nath and Mondo had said.
“Oh, yes, sure. I’ve heard that, too. But they lay the blame on your shoulders, Dray, because everywhere you go the werewolves appear.”
“Just a coincidence.”
Seg squinted off at the horizon.
“Maybe, Dray, and maybe not.”
I remained silent. Seg, I knew, had had a thought.
He went on: “We may not know if this is true or not, but let us assume for a moment that it is. We may never know just why it is. But, if it should be so then surely it will give us a lead, a chance, a lever to use against the dratted werewolves. Yes?”
“If it be so, if this unholy thing you’re suggesting is true, then how do we use it?”
“I’ll have a few words on that score with Khe-Hi.”
I faced him. “Yes, Seg. Yes. Do that. I own the whole evil business is getting me down.”
A sad incident occurred shortly after we touched down.
One of the girls who had been so gruesomely slain by a werewolf — and, of course, we could not tell if the werewolves we caught were the ones who had committed the crimes — had been just such a young, carefree lass as to warm the heart of the crustiest old curmudgeon. Pansi the Song, that was her name. She’d worked in a tavern of good repute in Falanriel, and she’d been found torn to pieces in a back alley.
Her father, Nolro the Abrupt, a thickly built man with a luxuriant mop of brown Vallian hair and an abdomen rotund yet solid, took his daughter’s death ill. He must have heard the stories and rumors circulating so wildly. He must have brooded. His wife was long since dead. After Sasfri had been taken from him, all his hopes and affections centered on Pansi the Song.
And now she was dead, dreadfully killed by a werewolf brought to Falanriel by the emperor.
We walked from the voller and Nolro the Abrupt, crazed by grief, desperate, hurled himself through the ranks and bore down on me brandishing a thick iron bar.
Thank Zair there was nothing physical and immediate I had to do, save shout: “Do not harm him!”
My lads closed up and took the iron bar away.
Nolro was screaming hysterically, all his bulk shaking.
“Werewolf lover! Murderer! Death to the emperor!”
I said to Jiktar Vandur: “See to him, Vandur. Fetch a needleman. Try to treat him gently. When he is calm I shall visit him.”
“Quidang!” Vandur, as tough as they come, with a chestful of bobs, pulled his moustache. “Although I give you odds, majister, against his full recovery.”
“I hope you are wrong. But I fear you may be right.”
“If I catch these rumor mongers I’ll string ’em up and have their tripes out, by the Blade of Kurin!”
So, as you may easily imagine, I was not a happy man as we went up into the Fletcher’s Tower. It seemed to me that the werewolves and the rumors were alienating me from the populace. The very people who had cried for me as Jak the Drang and then as Dray Prescot to become their emperor and get them out of their troubles were now baying for my blood.
Later on Jiktar Vandur sent word that Nolro the Abrupt was quieted down. The doctors had stuck him all over with acupuncture needles, and he could hear and speak coherently. I went down to the little medical room where he lay in bed. His wrists and ankles were tied to the bed. At this I felt a leaden thump of my spirits.
“Majister,” he said. “As you can see, I cannot give you the full incline.”
As sarcasm it was lost on me. But it gave me an opening. I said in what I hoped was a cool yet friendly voice: “You should know, Nolro, that I do not care for
the full incline, and detest all this bowing and scraping. It seems you are deceived in your understanding of me.”
“I do not misunderstand that my Pansi is dead or that where you go the werewolves go—”
I did not so much argue with him as cajole as though he were a fever patient. I pointed out the obvious; that as the confounded emperor I was hardly likely to cause this kind of suffering to the people when it harmed us all. His face clouded at this, and I could see he was chewing this simple-minded piece of logic over in his mind.
Then: “But the werewolves appear wherever you go.”
“That I do not deny, Nolro. I deny I cause them.”
He shook his head fretfully. “But it is one and the same.”
I said, “You have the grief of a lost daughter upon your shoulders. I know how you feel.” And, by Zair, I did...
He pulled at his bound wrists, but I went on quickly, thrusting those old ugly thoughts away: “I have the grief of all the daughters, all the sons, upon my shoulders, Nolro.”
We talked for a little more. The doctors were there, hovering in the background, and the guard, and an old cleaning lady stood by the door, her hands folded into her yellow apron. I thought Nolro was still in a state of shock at the death of Pansi the Song; but that he now understood that the reasons were not as simple as he imagined.
“I promise you, Nolro, as Opaz is my witness, we shall discover the evil secret of the gancharks. We shall make sure they cannot harm anyone else. I pledge you this, Nolro, and all the people of Falanriel, all the people of Vallia.”
“I believe you, majister—”
I took out my knife, my old sailor knife I keep snugged over my right hip. I slashed his bonds. He looked startled and I was aware of a quick movement from the doctors, the guards, the old cleaning lady.
“Stand fast,” I snapped without turning around.
I extended the knife hilt first to Nolro.
“If you condemn me, Nolro the Abrupt, then use this knife. Strike home and deliver justice!”
Well, by the Black Chunkrah! That was a dangerous gesture...
Nolro took the knife. I was interested to notice it did not quiver in his broad red hand. He looked at it. He looked up at me. With a great gulp of indrawn breath he hurled the knife down onto the bedclothes. His face was so twisted that I felt my own spirit twist in response.
There was no need for anything further. Retrieving the knife, I sheathed it. I went out without another word.
There was no need to tell anyone to spread this story. The witnesses would rush out to tell everyone they met what had passed between the Emperor of Vallia and Nolro the Abrupt.
And, for all that, nothing would bring back the smiles and the music of Pansi the Song...
Chapter eighteen
Of a volunteer from the Jikai Vuvushis
The ugly truth was that I must be to blame. Somehow wherever I went the damned werewolves appeared.
This could not be mere coincidence.
And the corpse of Larghos m’Mondifer speaking to me. I trembled to think just who might have been using his cadaver to communicate with me. If the idea I did not wish to allow into my head proved true, then, indeed, Vallia was in deep water.
During this period, as we attempted to prosecute the campaign against Layco Jhansi, I decided it would be best if I did not frequent Falanriel, or any town at all. Spending days in camp or on the march I hoped would deprive any potential werewolves from preying on simple young girls. In this I was proved right. But the atrocities continued, and soldiers were ripped to shreds on guard duty. We caught the werewolves. Useless to place two men or a girl and a man on duty. One so often became a werewolf and destroyed the other. We mounted guard by audo, by a section of eight or ten men, and still, as is the awkward nature of humankind, the werewolves appeared and caught men on their own. Despite the strictest orders there were still those foolish enough to go off alone.
One example showed us the way of it.
Three men detached were all good comrades, men who had fought together in the files and trusted one another with their lives. One went to fetch the wine, keeping in full view of the tent, under observation at all times. When this man, Fonrien the Latch, returned to the tent he found one of his comrades, Nath Furman, dead with dreadful wounds, and the werewolf just running wildly off. When the pursuit eventually gave up, the third comrade, Nugos the Unwary, trailed in covered in blood with some story of chasing after the ganchark.
The case seemed open and shut.
“Suppose,” said Nath na Kochwold — for the men were brumbytes, “Suppose Nugos the Unwary is not the ganchark? How can we slay him in cold blood?”
“The proof seems very clear,” said Decor. He stood imposingly in his pikeman’s uniform, massive and bulging with muscle, his face hard as the edge of the kax covering his chest. Decor, as the Brumbytevax, shared Nath’s concern for the phalanx. “It is cruel. But it must be done.”
The marquee-like tent in which we gathered resounded in that dully flapping way of tents with the voices of the arguers. It seemed perfectly plain that the moment Fonrien the Latch, who was a brumbyte, had gone off to fetch the wine allowance, Nugos the Unwary, who was a Faxul, a leader of the file, had transmogrified himself into a werewolf. Then he had ripped out the throat of Nath Furman, who was the laik-faxul, and had sought to escape.
“This is a matter for the Phalanx,” declared Brytevax Decor. “Acting under the orders of the emperor direct.”
This was a typical hard-nosed attitude by a commander to keep his own affairs to himself. It implied the absence from the deliberations of Kov Turko and of Kapt Erndor. I fancied Turko would chafe at this, and then welcome the chance to distance himself from a nasty business. He was hard, was our Turko; but he was a man with a human heart, as I well knew.
The swiftly grown tradition of the Phalanx, inspired, guided, given impetus by me at a time when the fate of Vallia hung on the performance of untried troops using new-fangled weapons, had, indeed, blossomed into a marvelous growth. The Phalanx might not quite be a law unto itself, but it cherished its own ways, and fiercely defended its conduct, on the field and off. This is, I suppose, one of the prices one pays for creating an elite.
If one of the Phalanx was a damned unholy werewolf, then the Phalanx would deal with him. Queyd-arn-tung.
All the same — suppose Nugos the Unwary was not a werewolf?
Upon being asked simple leading questions, Nugos just shook his head. He replied openly enough; he remembered nothing from the moment Fonrien the Latch had gone to bring the wine to the moment he discovered himself, covered in blood, crawling along the ground. He supposed he must have chased after the werewolf, injured himself and lost all memory.
“That is a probability,” said Nath na Kochwold.
They all knew, these tough men in the marquee, that the Emperor of Vallia did not countenance torture as a method of extracting information. The temptation to use that disgusting system did not tempt me even now.
I said, when Nugos had been carted off to the guardtent: “We must try to use this to our own advantage. Set up a hut — not a tent — with two compartments. Let there be a spyhole. We will set Nugos in one half and keep an observation on him from the other. A strong guard at all times, of course.”
“And who will be the bait?” Seg in his fey way knew how to put his finger on the nub of the question.
“An audo of your lads with dudinter-tipped shafts should stop him. The guard ready to rush in. Yes, I think you might ask for volunteers from the Jikai Vuvushis.”
Well, distasteful though this was, it was done.
Poor Nugos the Unwary! Well-named, indeed!
A girl, lithe, splendidly formed, swinging along in her battle-leathers, stepped forward. Minci Farndion, a Deldar in the new guard regiment, unhesitatingly volunteered. She was by a half a heartbeat only quicker than her companions in the ranks
I expressed no wish to see the result of this nauseating experiment. T
he Phalanx, jealous of its position and privileges, handled all. Minci stepped in alone, carrying a tray with food. Poor Nugos transformed himself and was instantly pierced by shafts and slashed to ribbons by the dudinter blades of the guard who rushed in from their hidden vantage points.
Well, as I say, if I was the cause of all this horror and misery I’d reck little to the cost of clearing it all up — but I could do without scenes like these, by Krun.
Flinging ourselves into the task of dealing with Layco Jhansi, we kept up the aerial patrols, and caught two of his columns in ambushes. We felt a distinct sense that he was growing cautious. We planned for a bolder advance into the territory of Vennar.
At this time, too, news came that Natyzha Famphreon, the Dowager Kovneva of Falkerdrin, rallied against her illness. She still clung to life with the same stubbornness she had always shown. A tough and stringy old bird, Natyzha. Despite that she, as an avowed Racter, had stood against me, I owned to a feeling of loss in the world when she eventually passed on to wherever she was bound.
Khe-Hi reported that he, too, like Deb-Lu, was aware of these quick stabs of occult power from time to time.
“They come at random, San?”
“Yes, Dray. I think they must be connected with the ganchark phenomenon.”
“So do I. But who—”
“If he was not dead, I’d have no hesitation in knowing just who, by Hlo-Hli.”
“There is his wife and child.”
“So it must be them.”
“I fear so.”
Khe-Hi pulled at the crimson cord cincturing his waist. His clean-shaven face looked both sad and grim. He said, “Deb-Lu and I have fashioned over the seasons a powerful defense for Vallia — and for yourself, as you know. But any defense, I suppose, may be pierced if the thrust is hard and concentrated enough.”
“As for myself, I fancy the lady has taken to me. This is her misfortune. The child, the uhu Phunik, is the truly malignant power.”
Werewolves of Kregen Page 14
