Golden Scorpio [Dray Prescot #18]

by Alan Burt Akers

  * * *

  Eleven

  Sport for Flutsmen

  “No, no, jen,” quoth Targon, easy, assuming a superior attitude at my ignorance. “They have not troubled us so far—or, at least, no more than any rasts of mercenaries trouble honest men."

  “They'll have you all as slaves—"

  The other men of Therminsax made little attempt to conceal their amusement at my agitation. What a fuss I was making, and all over a patrol of flutsmen out scouting. It was clear enough that, detest the Hamalese and the treachery of Aduimbrev though they might, they had adapted and come to terms with the new order.

  The flutsmen steepled down through the thin air, seven of them, the clotted clumps of feathers streaming back from their leather flying helmets, their long toonon-like weapons slanting down. They did not intend to shaft us with their crossbows, then. Sport—that was what they were after, sport...

  Then I remembered just why I was here. The narrowboats! I was supposed to be scouting for Kutven Rordam and the canalfolk.

  Naghan ti Lodkwara pushed up from the wall. He stared up and scratched that black beard. “Flutsmen. They are very devils—"

  “Get your Hawkwas into the houses, at least, Naghan. I must back to the cut—"

  I started off running, waving my arms, haring along the towpath. The narrowboats were just in view. There were two parties of people and both claimed my attention.

  “Get inside and bolt the doors!” I bellowed. “Hurry! Flutsmen!"

  The haulers eased up and the tows slacked. Kutven Rordam appeared shouting questions. I bellowed over the uproar. “Bolt the doors. If you have weapons, use them,” Then I went pounding back up the towpath again past the concealing clumps of bushes toward that stretch of greensward.

  On the edge of the village I skidded to a halt. The flutsmen had landed. Naghan must have shuffled his men into the houses, for the colors in badge and favor of the men huddled into an apprehensive and gesticulating ring were all crimson and brown. The flutsmen prodded them with their long polearms, cunningly adapted to aerial work, the narrow blade and curved axe on a shaft that might be anything from seven to fifteen feet in length, the infamous ukra cowed these men of Therminsax.

  I had faced the toonons of the Ullars in Turismond and the ukras of flutsmen in Havilfar and I was in no mood to be cowed by these rasts before me now.

  Two of the flutsmen carried volstuxes, the aerial throwing spear. They were not all apim, there being a Rapa and a Brokelsh in their number.

  Reiving mercenaries of the skies, flutsmen, and they accept any man into their bands, apim, diff, it does not matter providing he swears allegiance to the flutsman band, and obeys their harsh protocol and discipline which, despite their savage ways, control their wild and barbaric way of life. I stepped out into the open and I did not draw my thraxter.

  “By Barflut the Razor Feathered!” shouted the nearest flutsman, an apim, with a volstux poised. “Here is one who gapes like an onker! Rast! Get with the others, whilst we decide how you shall die. Bratch!"

  “Barflut?” I said, not moving. “A cramph of cramphs, so I am told. A nulsh."

  They went mad at this, their enjoyable conversation on just how these onkerish prisoners were to die so rudely interrupted. Some had wanted to tie ropes to the wrists and ankles of a man and then fly aloft with him attached to two fluttrells. How long, the game went, how long would he last before he was torn asunder. Now they heard the name of one of their sacred patron spirits defiled. They foamed with rage.

  The apim cast his volstux. I stepped aside. The shaft flew and no doubt stuck somewhere into the ground. I did not turn around to look.

  The other one with a volstux, the Rapa, cast also, and again I moved.

  Leaving three of their number to guard the prisoners, the other four rushed on me. Two ukras and two thraxters whipped toward me. I drew the thraxter. The swordsmen first, for I slid past the long polearms and crossed steel with the Rapa. He came at me in fine fettle with his sword; but, somehow, his thraxter was not where it should have been, and mine was through his throat above the feather-adorned corselet. Withdrawing, I grabbed an ukra in my left hand and swung its owner around into his comrade. The other swordsman died as he tried to degut me and then I could turn my attention to the last two. One had the sense to drop his ukra and go for his sword; but he was too late and too slow. The other one tried to run and I had to do as I dislike and chop him from the rear. But, then, even as he went down, he would understand that if a fighting man runs then his back becomes the target.

  The remaining three shrilled their rage and raced for their fluttrells. They were going for their crossbows; they were not intending to fly away.

  And then—and then an arm reached out from the mass of prisoners and fastened on the neck of a flutsman. Targon the Tapster lifted him and shook him and the ukra fell, to be immediately snatched up by another Therminsaxer. The two flutsmen reached their birds. The crossbows came out of their boots with twinkling speed and the next instant they were leveled at me. The two bolts sped.

  Because flutsmen habitually shoot from flying birds their crossbow bolts are short and heavy. I had no Krozair longsword. So, not wishing to take any chances, I hurled myself forward and hit the ground. The bolts hissed past overhead. When I sprang to my feet again the two flutsmen were whipping out their thraxters, determined to finish me once and for all.

  A chunk of rock flew and hit the Brokelsh in the stomach. He grunted. Quite apart from his armor, his Brokelsh guts were strong enough to withstand a blow twice as hard. With his companion he charged for me, ignoring the rabble who were now throwing rocks with abandon.

  I bellowed, high and hard. “Targon the Tapster! Tell your men to capture the fluttrells—the flying birds—before they fly away! Hurry!"

  Then the two flutsmen were on me and it was a fine old skip and dance before I thunked them both down. I swirled away to the fluttrells and let out a yell of disappointment. Six great saddle birds winged high into the air, disdainful of the half-scared, ineffectual attempts of the Therminsaxers to arrest them. Only one remained, and he fluttered his wide wings and kicked up an enormous stink, tugging at his clerketer which was held by half a dozen of the men, all hauling as though they dragged a narrow boat up a vertical cut. I laughed.

  “By Vox! A single fluttrell, and you act as though you would chain a city down."

  “We know nothing of these outlandish beasts!” And, and I swear, one of them, a little squiffy-eyed fellow with a broken nose, snapped out furiously: “If Opaz had meant us to fly he'd have given us wings when we're born."

  In the end, more laughing than anything else, I got the fluttrell under control, and then an arrow winged in past my shoulder and buried its steel head in the fluttrell's breast.

  Outraged, I swung about. What my face looked like I do not know. But the canalfolk, running up, abruptly fell back. A tall limber lad, a good hauler, lowered his bow. He looked perplexed. Kutven Rordam, wielding an axe, strode up.

  “We saved you in time, Jak the Drang! By Vaosh, it was close."

  So, I couldn't flare out at them for onkers, for idiots, for hulus—I needed the fluttrell, and now the poor bird was dead, and these canalfolk thought they had saved my life. I shook my head. I would tell them the truth, by Krun, yes! But not right now...

  But Targon the Tapster had no such inhibitions. Panting, disheveled, with a raking claw scratch on his arm, he pushed up to Rordam. “You stupid calsany! We risk our lives to capture the bird—and you strut up and kill it! Onker!"

  I pass over the next few murs in painful silence.

  In the end they were sorted out, and their ruffled feathers soothed. I'd lost the fluttrell. But we had gained a small arsenal. And, more importantly, these people understood a little more of what was asked of them in the future, of what I would demand of them.

  Three different cultures were represented here. The canalfolk, fiercely independent, with a way of life peculiarly their own, reserved, withdr
awn from the hurly burly of the political life of Vallia, doing their job and proud of that and their heritage and traditions, the canalfolk formed, as it were, the powerful skeleton of Vallia.

  The Hawkwas, wilder than the general run of Vallian—if you excepted those howling Blue Mountain Boys of Delia's—driven from their lands just when they believed they had struck a blow for freedom, the Hawkwas harbored a savage sense of repression and injustice.

  And the Therminsaxers, townsfolk, for many years accustomed to city ways and an ordered existence, habituated to a way of life centered around their city and its trade, their guilds and societies, the full living of the good life in a wealthy imperial province of Vallia, these citizens were bemused by the catastrophe that had befallen them.

  When I had first come to Therminsax, flying in an ice voller, the place had been ranked as a market town. Now it was a city, the dignity conferred by the emperor in recognition of the place's growing size and importance and wealth.

  “Gather up all the weapons. You—” and I singled out the man I had first dragged out of the fight, Yulo the Boots—"go and find the volstux that went into the bushes. You—” and I gestured to the Hawkwa I had first questioned, he who swore over-abundantly, Foke the Waso, for he was the fifth child—"go and retrieve the two bolts.” They caught the urgency I felt, and all obeyed without question—at least, for the moment. This dominance, this habit of taking command and giving orders, is often hateful; but in the present circumstances a lead had to be given and I am, as you know, blessed or cursed with the yrium, that charismatic power that bedazzles men into total acceptance and loyal following—well, some men and some of the time, as you will have learned.

  “Naghan ti Lodkwara,” I said. “Targon the Tapster. Stand before me.” In the busy bustle of men scouting around finding the fallen weapons and collecting the gear from the dead flutsmen the two leaders did as I bid. “Now,” I said. “These ponshos."

  They both started in a-yelling and I quieted them and glared at Naghan. He scraped a foot. “We are hungry. My people have marched many dwaburs without provender. Anyway, the ponshos were wandering—"

  “That,” pointed out Targon, breathing deeply, “is why we are out here looking for them."

  “They are safe,” said Naghan. He looked up, half-defiant, half-abashed. “In yonder broken-down house."

  So we went to look. The ponshos were tied up with cloths around their heads. When we loosened the bindings the poor beasts set up a great baaing and bleating. Targon beamed, pleased to see his ponshos still alive and not eaten.

  “Your people?” I said to Naghan.

  “Aye, jen. We heard what the radvakkas mischiefed in the south and we came north. Some would have asked the burghers of Therminsax for food and help; but others preferred to take what we could and press on."

  By south he meant the southern borders of Hawkwa country. And by some who preferred to take what they wanted, he meant himself, I did not doubt.

  “You lead them?"

  “Aye, jen. They wait for the ponshos we would have brought a few ulms off—"

  There was no doubt in my mind of the correct course. So, in the fullness of time and loaded down with the gear stripped from the flutsmen, we set off for the city. It was not far; and, indeed, Therminsax looked mightily refreshing with its red and white houses sheltered behind the long walls. Those walls were in poor shape now, and suburbs had sprung up outside.

  “They will not welcome us, jen,” said Naghan.

  “Leave that to me,” I said.

  He and Targon, both, looked at me oddly.

  Foke the Waso had been sent off to fetch in the rest of the Hawkwas. The Hawkwas I had run across, down in Gelkwa, had been a tough wild raffish lot. I did not doubt that those living in Sakwara were just as hard-bitten. Their reduced circumstances spoke volumes for the impetuous overawing effect of the Iron Riders.

  When Udo, Trylon of Gelkwa, subsidized by Phu-si-Yantong with Hamalese money and arms, had set off to attack Vondium, the High Kov of Sakwara had sat still, biding his time. Now he was the acknowledged leader of the Hawkwas, in fact as well as by rank. So Naghan ti Lodkwara had not been involved in the earlier fighting. That, I admit, afforded me a little pleasure.

  In Therminsax I anticipated making the first real opposition to the radvakkas, as I was commanded by the Star Lords. There might only be a handful of Hamalese there; but there were many mercenaries, paid by that damned Wizard of Loh. His wealth would be colossal, seeing he controlled all of Pandahem as well as much of Hamal and what other lands besides Opaz alone knew. So the reality of what had happened hit me shrewdly. I felt the shock. We had all seen the dust clouds to the south and west, and marked their progress as we came into the city, wondering what they portended.

  Now I knew.

  The Vallian citizens of Therminsax stood about their charming city, wringing their hands, wailing and crying. I did not see any guards of the Hamalian Army, nor did I see any sign of mercenaries. The reason was simple. The Hamalian Army and their mercenary allies had taken every saddle animal, every draught animal and every cart, and had gone. They had marched out, to the safety of the Great River some one hundred and fifty miles due southwest. And long before the citizens could think to abandon everything they could not carry and hurry after the deserting forces, young Wil the Farrow had ridden in on a preysany with the frightful news that the radvakkas had closed in from the south, and had cut off direct escape. Even as we assimilated this information and Naghan's Hawkwas hurried into the city, almost unnoticed, so more dust clouds rose ominously from east and north. The city was ringed. We were cut off.

  Abandoned by all the professional fighting men, the citizens of Therminsax faced a future filled with horror, with sack and rapine and death. There seemed to them to be nothing else left to them in the whole wide world of Kregen.

  Doomed, they shouted, screaming, distraught, crazed. Doomed.

  * * *

  Twelve

  We Shut the Gates

  Useless to shout and attempt to calm the frenzied mobs who ran, shrieking and wailing, this way and that. Here and there men stood, alone, in groups, who did not scream but clenched their fists and scowled and knew not what to do. Pushing my way through and being buffeted about and trying not to retaliate unthinkingly, I led the Hawkwas to a central kyro I knew beside the Vomansoir Cut. This joined the Therduim Cut in a sizable basin, with wharves and slips, and here Rordam would bring his people to tie up. I headed for the palatial palace of the Justicar, the emperor's governor of the city.

  Damn these Opaz-forsaken radvakkas! The Iron Riders had drifted westward across North Segesthes in comparatively recent seasons, although it seemed we Clansmen had been resisting them for ages. Where they had come from no one could be sure, for most of Eastern Segesthes was completely unknown to us, save for a few coastal free cities and the islands of the east. Once Hap Loder had said to me that I could weld all the clans of the Great Plains together into a single mighty fighting force, and I had chided him, my right-hand man, my good comrade, asking of him who the enemy would be we would fight. Well, in these latter days we knew who that foe was, and rued the knowledge.

  The mobs thickened about the streets as I approached the kyro before the imperial Justicar's palace. I pushed through and worked my way toward the front. People were shrieking and tearing their hair, some had fallen onto their knees, their arms lifted imploringly to the facade of the palace. They shrieked to the imperial Justicar to save them, to find some way of salvation, to prevent their destruction at the cruel hands of the Iron Riders.

  There were no guards. I guessed the small honor guard maintained here in normal times had been suppressed by the Hamalese. I was able to push through the throngs who surged into the inner courtyards and up the ornate stairways and into every room and chamber. The noise would have been upsetting to a man of stone. And, still, there were these knots of citizens who did not scream out, but clenched their fists emptily, and scowled, and did not know what t
o do.

  Eventually I found the Justicar, standing with his back to a tall window where the crimson drapes shadowed the brilliance of the suns. He looked shriveled. I knew him. He was Nazab Nalgre na Therminsax—an honor title adopted on his appointment. He stood there, created a Nazab by the emperor, trembling, holding his head, surrounded by a few loyal servants and slaves, quite unable to answer the imploring shouts and frantic pleas of the citizenry.

  Without ceremony I ripped out the thraxter and angled it so that the light caught the blade and runneled an ominous glitter into the faces of the citizens. I bellowed over their cries.

  “Out! Outside! Stop this caterwauling. Let the Nazab have time to think and plan. Out—or I'll crop your ears."

  Dazed, abruptly panic-stricken in an altogether more personal way, the people in the chamber hustled to the door, pushing, crying that a madman had arrived, yelling—oh, it was all a bedlam, and not very splendid, either.

  I glared at the slaves.

  “Out! Schtump!"

  They scuttled.

  I was left alone with the Justicar of Therminsax, Nazab Nalgre. He recognized me. He stopped shaking. His eyes grew round. He put a hand to his lips. I slammed the door and, swiftly, yanked it open and bellowed along the carpeted corridor.

  “If anyone hangs about by this door I'll blatter him!"

  Slamming the door again I swung back to Nazab Nalgre.

  “Lahal, Nalgre. You know me. My name is Jak the Drang. Do you understand?"

  “Yes—No, my prince—"

  “Jak the Drang, onker!"

  “Yes, yes, majister—Jak the Drang."

  I lowered my voice. “Not prince, not majister. Jak. Now, Nazab Nalgre, we have work to do."

  “Work? We are doomed. The soldiers have all gone. The Iron Riders approach—what work can we do but pray to Opaz?"

  “I'll show you,” I said, and hustled him to his desk. “Write at my dictation. A proclamation. Have your stylors copy it out, fair, and have it displayed all over the city. By Vox! We're Vallians. We do not run screeching like a pack of witless vosks when cramphs sniff around our city! Write!"