“Up, man! Hurry.”
“But I cannot leave the empress—”
“Do as you are commanded. Escape and fetch help. Now, Larghos, when I open the gate, ride as though your hide depended on it. For by Vox, believe me, it does!”
“Quidang!”
The wooden gate opened easily enough and the faint squeal vanished in the increasing uproar beyond the other gate. Larghos bent his head, Delia gave the zorca the subtlest of taps, and the superb animal, responding, leaped through. Delia swung the wood closed. No time to lean against it for a gulp of air and a moment’s respite. Truth to tell, she doubted if she could have brought Vomanus safely through to the other stables in his condition. Larghos would care for Vomanus, stop him from falling off, and, the sooner the better, return with help.
By that time Delia planned to be long gone. Her confidence nerved her; she trusted in herself for a very long way, but what others might never see or suspect in her she was very well aware of herself. Her confidence and self-assurance were frighteningly thin. Her nerves had been scraped raw. By Krun! — all she had to do now was get across to the stables and select a mount and ride off. That was all.
She suspected she had just about enough courage left for that.
Through the open gateway ruddy light flared, like the single enormous eye of some diabolical pagan idol drowned in the jungles of Chem. Two guards catapulted through, to land with twin crashes on the flags. Furious bellowings reached her. The coruscating lights of the torches reflected in whirling radiance from the weathered stones of the tower. Iron studs gonged against the flagstones, and guards appeared. The two who had been thrown through staggered up. The group hesitated, and then with naked steel turned.
Clutching her bloody rapier, Delia peered about into the shadows, desperately seeking a place to hide.
Chapter eighteen
The Artistry of a Sword Mistress
Hunkering in the shadows next to a shed that contained something unmentionable — something best left undisturbed judging by the smell — Delia glared out into the ward. Torchlights cast ominous flashes and gleams of fire. Silhouetted and animate, the guards gathered themselves. Evidently a new coffle of slaves had just come in and someone retained spirit enough to resist. More than one slave was being loaded with extra chains and bashed over the head in the next ward. Delia had to cross that space and then get past the kitchens to the stables. Setting themselves, the slave handlers rushed back through the archway and the noise increased.
Delia glared. She glared in a veritable passion of frustration and sheer bad temper.
By Vox! By Krun! By Dee Sheon! By all the gods and goddesses and spirits of Kregen! Just when she’d got Vomanus away and at last — at long damned last — things were going reasonably well and she could envisage herself astride a zorca and speeding away, this maniacal crew of idiots had to come shouting and scattering torchlight and whipping on packs of yowling werstings.
As a man she knew might have said, it was enough to make her throw her hat on the ground and jump on it, by Zair!
The rumpus and the lights drew back from the archway. She waited, seething, feeling her temper boiling up and scalding away her doubts and uncertainties.
She could remember her mother in her strict yet loving way saying: “Now, Dilly, you will say you are sorry to Opaz every time you lose your temper, and no sweets for a week.”
This pack of rasts here in Veliganda led by Nyleen and Cranchar were like to have her off sweets for the rest of her life.
Her mother used to call her Dilly. That was a long time ago. At least Vomanus had called her Delia, even if, so distressed she had been, she’d called him Vom. They were the affectionate names of their youth.
If her mother had married her father first, instead of Vomanus’s father, then young Vom would have grown up to be emperor. That would have saved a very very great deal of grief for her and for the hairy clansman she had wed.
The snarling racket of leashed werstings made her react. By Krun! She felt invigorated, the action driving the blood through her. She felt capable of anything. At first, she had guessed the alarm to be raised because a sentry on the battlements had spotted Vomanus and Larghos riding off astride their zorca. Then she had fancied it must be because missing sentries had been found. But the torchlight, spilling in through the gateway and bouncing in lurid reflections from the stone of the tower, remained stationary. It did not advance menacingly. And the snarling growls of the werstings spat no nearer.
She took a breath, and spat. That shed reeked. Standing up, she hitched up the weapons belt. Gripping the rapier, she advanced out from the shadows.
The surge of confidence brought her to the gate. The flagstones glistened with the running fire of torchlight, orange and golden in the night. The diffuse pink lighting from the Maiden with the Many Smiles washed away, haltingly, before the harsh glow of the torches.
One of the male Fristle guards hovered by the stone arch. He was ill-at-ease. Like most Fristles who are not armed and armored by their masters, he wore a leather jack, brass-studded. The racial weapon of the Fristle, a curved scimitar, kept slipping up and down in its scabbard as the catman pulled and pushed. He looked ready to run, given half the chance.
Silently, Delia approached.
The uproar beyond the gateway markedly reduced. One or two words spurted up. They might have been key words, they might mean nothing. “Decadent... Take them away... screws... error... ways...”
Delia marched on. She angled her head so the torches threw deep shadows across her face. The rapier, unwiped, went back into the scabbard. She made herself take the long and exaggerated steps some Jikai Vuvushis affected. Her accoutrements jangled.
The Fristle jumped.
“Out of the way, man!” snarled Delia, and strutted on.
The pecking order of this fortress was made transparently plain, as Nyleen made it plain dealing with her brother, when the Fristle said nothing but shuffled away. He waited until the Battle Maiden had stalked past, and then he resumed his place. He, it was clear, would prefer to be very far away.
Apart from the noise going on around the group of people who were moving — spasmodically — away beyond the wall, another and altogether different species of noise emanated from the kitchens. This noise seemed to be, first: Nan the Bosom thwacking, second: Ornol the Rashers screaming ineffectually for obedience, and, third: Silly Nath bellowing that someone had stolen the bucket from the well.
The stables were so filled that some totrixes and freymuls were tethered outside. The animals did not care for the noise, and blew and stamped. Delia had her heart set on a zorca, for obvious reasons, although if she had to steal a freymul, the so-called Poor Man’s Zorca, she would do so. Saddle animals were scarce since the Time of Troubles. The general busy scene around her afforded some protection. The mob of people kicking up the most noise vanished into the fortress. The kitchen hullabaloo sounded louder. Then Silly Nath ran out, all awkwardly scrambling, and Nan the Bosom chasing him, with her largest ladle going like a slave-powered trip-hammer used to break stones.
“Give me back my bucket, Nath!”
“Shan’t! Need it for the well!”
“I’ll stuff you down your well, head first!”
With a smart side-step, Delia darted out of the torchlights. She moved fast around the edge of the yard in the shadows.
In the stables she drew in a breath redolent of straw and droppings, pungent with liniments and sweat. She put her hand on a zorca, gentling him. His single spiral horn jutted up to a fine length, well-proportioned. Not all first-class zorcas possessed large horns; some zorca-copers claimed it as an infallible sign of breeding. She put her hands on the animal, not bothering to saddle him, and a thin and scorching fire slashed around her legs.
She fell down, and was dragged to the door.
Struggling over, she tried to rise, and another whip joined the first about her, and tripped her. She lay there on her back, glaring up helplessly at Chic
a, who stared down in mocking triumph. Chica’s atra swung on its golden chain from her neck, and the little good luck charm glittered in distant torchlight. The amulet was of a particular kind, the golden ornament a miniature of a man in agony being transfixed most unpleasantly by a stake. Chica smiled.
“Alyss. So this is where you are! We did wonder.”
She snapped her orders and the two whips withdrew. Jikai Vuvushis seized Delia, stripped away her weaponry, dragged her up with her arms twisted behind her back.
“The kovneva sent for you, Alyss, and you were not there. Only poor Thafti with a bruised neck, all tied up. Why did you do that?”
Delia just stood there and said nothing.
“You were going to escape! Of course. That’s it. Poor girl. You were going to run away from the kovneva. How ungrateful.” The mockery was crude, heavy, and cut with the effect of a blunt wooden lath upon steel.
The grips the two Battle Maidens fastened on her were efficient; she could have broken them with a trick taught by the SoR. Then she could have started to run off into the darkness. Waiting at the side stood three Jikai Vuvushis. Each one held a bow. The bows were of the compound reflex type, short and sharply curved. Three arrows were nocked, three strings were partly drawn. Three steps, three arrows, no more Alyss the slave girl.
Chica flicked her whip. The black length of the lash, shining, thick at the butt and tapering to a thin and evil slenderness, writhed up. The tip struck Delia upon the thigh.
The Battle Maiden’s pteruges absorbed most of the sting; the shock remained.
“Bring her along. The kovneva is indulging us in a small entertainment tonight. This will add to her pleasure.”
Coiling her whip up along her arm, Chica swung about, a tall, agile and commanding figure.
Forced along by the guards, Delia considered this Chica. She was called Chica the Fangs. Her legs were long and sturdy, and she walked with a step lithe and free, almost bouncing. She favored dark clothes, with the silvered corselet shining bravely, and she looked very much like a desert reptile, quick and sudden and deadly.
With sword points at her back, Delia was woman-handled into the refectory. The tables were pushed away to the sides. Stakes were set up. The saw-edged barriers were in place. Nyleen was preparing another entertainment for her cronies.
Swathed in a profusion of gems and feathers, her silver hair glimmering in a net of emeralds, Nyleen sat in the high-backed chair where her brother Cranchar had sat for his entertainment. Her pallid face twisted with grotesque pleasure when Delia was brought in. Nadia, full-fleshed, lumpy with passion, half-drew her rapier.
“Ah, my dear,” said Nyleen. “So they have found you. I do not think you will play the harp for me this evening.”
Delia made no reply.
“No. No, I thought not. But we will find other amusements. Do not fret over that.”
Nadia pushed forward. She looked ugly. “This shif thinks she can handle a rapier, my lady. Let me teach her—”
“Tsleetha-tsleethi,” said Nyleen. “Softly, softly. Let us first enjoy a small spectacle.”
That small spectacle disgusted Delia. She closed her eyes. Presently the screams of the men faded, and their tortured bodies were dragged away.
“Ah!” said Nyleen, and she helped herself, daintily, to a handful of palines. “That has quite refreshed me. But then, of course, it is no more than men deserve.”
The keys jangling from her chatelaine, Paline Pontora walked swiftly in. Her green gown rustled. She bent and spoke urgently in Nyleen’s ear. The kovneva sat up straighter in her chair. She looked murderous.
“So the kov my stupid husband has run off! Well, the worse for him. He will soon be brought back and punished.”
She bent her gaze on Delia, who stood to one side of the table. “And you, Alyss the Harp. Did you know of this? Why else would you wear the armor of a Jikai Vuvushi?”
Delia just didn’t bother to answer the unpleasant woman.
“You—!” shrieked Nyleen.
Nadia drew her rapier. “Let me teach her, my lady!”
Nyleen slumped back. Her eyelids half closed, and she smiled. Her teeth closed over her lower lip. Then, slowly, she opened her mouth and half-turned to her Battle Maiden Hikdar. This Nadia quivered. She served in the office of cadade, captain of the bodyguard, and she was raging.
“Yes, Nadia, my fighting leem. Let us see what she can do.”
“Rather, my lady,” said Chica, and she spoke with some regret. “What Nadia can do. I would welcome a chance to claw her.”
“That chance will never come, Chica the Fangs!” Nadia drew her left-hand dagger. “I will cut her up artistically...”
They removed the armor Delia had donned. They thrust a rapier and main gauche into her hands. Wearing only a slave-grey breechclout, she was thrown into the center between the tables.
The feel of the hilts in her hands did, with the natural magic of any mistress of the sword, feel good. If she was to die, why, then, she would do so and seek to find the sunny uplands beyond the Ice Floes of Sicce. But, before that, this rapier and this dagger would no longer glitter pure silver.
She turned, almost casually, with a lazy movement, and lifted the weapons.
“I am ready,” she said in her small voice. “Bring on your vermin, Nyleen the Vile.”
A gasp ran around the watching women. For an instant Delia thought she had overstepped the mark, had overdone it. But Nyleen laughed her pearly laugh and waved her hand. This spectacle, it was clear, would excite her, would be wonderfully enjoyable!
Nadia did not waste time. She leaped forward with a parade, her steel flashing. She was determined to show to all that she was the greatest swordswoman there, and to cut up this stupid and impertinent slave girl with great artistry. She would make the silly shif suffer. She was supremely confident.
Whoever had trained Nadia had been efficient and thorough. Of necessity, for her to have risen through the ranks of the Jikai Vuvushis to become a Hikdar meant she knew her business. To be chosen to be the cadade of a kovneva’s bodyguard meant she also understood the management of women — and men, too. She fought with great competence and skill. But, very soon, Delia felt her out. She was wooden. She did not possess that spark, that indefinable transparency of the great sworder. Soon, dreadfully soon to the bewildered Nadia, her attacks failed, her cunning feints vanished, and blood stained along her arm, her thigh, over the rim of her corselet.
The sighing sound of the watching women susurrated, and faded. Entranced, unbelieving, they watched.
Delia was not cruel. Once she had the measure of Nadia she did not cut her up out of spite. And, too, she found that she had no interest in merely killing the overblown woman.
There was little need to exert herself unduly. The steel scraped and slithered, chiming with the unholy carillons of combat. Blood flowed. Nadia’s blood flowed...
Presently, with a sweet little passage she remembered with some fondness, she stuck Nadia through the thigh, and, withdrawing, instantly stuck her through the other. The armored pteruges could not deflect thrusts of that degree of skill.
Bleeding, in pain, unbelieving, Nadia sank down to the floor. Her weapons slipped from her hands. Delia put the point of the rapier at her throat.
“Yes, Nyleen?” she said, still in her small voice. “And?”
Silence for a moment, for two moments, and then amid a babble of expostulations, Chica leaped forward.
“Let me!” screeched Chica. She snapped her whip.
The lash snaked toward Delia. With a single contemptuous flick of her dagger, Delia checked the strike, lopped the tip off the whip. The women gasped.
Nyleen called above the hubbub. Everyone stopped to listen to the kovneva.
“Vile men have their Jikordur and their hyr Jikordur, in which the ritual of personal combat is sanctified. Well, and are we any the less? What is there a man may do that we cannot?”
The howls broke out then, women screaming for b
lood.
Delia stood, the rapier and dagger held ready, watching.
The kovneva motioned to two Battle Maidens, who stepped forward and leveled their bows at Delia’s breast. In this the kovneva showed her cruel streak. She joyed in her power, and what she could command. “Chica, you have been challenged, I think.”
“Aye, my lady! Let it be done!”
Chapter nineteen
The Whip and the Claw
Nyleen Gillois na Sagaie, Kovneva of Vindelka, torture mistress of untold numbers of men, would-be murderer of her husband, would-be wife and murderer of the emperor, had studied long and assiduously in the histories of Loh. With her lip caught up between her teeth, as a young girl in cold Evir, she had read of that mysterious continent of Loh and of the Queens of Pain.
To be a Queen of Pain of Loh!
She had never considered herself to be a cruel woman. She was merely the instrument chosen to redress the imbalance between the sexes. The witch Fiacola the Gaze had perhaps contributed more to her success than Nyleen cared to admit. But, in this coming confrontation, she saw more than mere revenge.
The satisfaction on her icy features reflected her inner joy that she had the power thus to test Chica the Fangs. Nyleen was always conscious of the necessity to preserve and display her power. This slave girl had skill with the rapier. Well, then, let Chica the Fangs discipline her, cut her, and let Nyleen take the frisson from Chica’s lash, from her Claw, and the risk the Fangs ran!
Nadia the cadade was carried out, groaning, wondering what cyclone had hit her. Delia was stripped of weapons. She regarded Chica the Fangs warily. She could feel a pulse in her temple. She well understood what was in store. Her chin lifted.
“Very well, then, Chica the Fangs. You stand challenged.”
“Give her a whip, and fetch my own old Fang. And bring the balass boxes.” She turned, a hard, bright, agile woman, to face Delia. She sneered. “You challenge me, you fool! It is not only whips.”
So, Delia knew.
Well, perhaps if she’d practiced more she wouldn’t have this fluttery feeling in her chest.
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