“Get down behind that busted wall, Naghan,” squeaked the smaller. “As soon as we’re outta sight of Deldar Righat I’m gonna take a good long swig.”
“Me too, and it won’t be from my water bottle, either.”
The moment the two scouts were out of sight of the main body and the deldar in charge they ducked behind a broken wall, driving up a green lizard who sprang away, a flash of green light under the suns. They hauled out squat bottles. Dopa. Well, dopa is a drink wise men steer clear of. But a man generates a thirst marching in armor and girt with weapons.
“By Vikatu the Thirsty!” said Naghan, wiping his mouth. “That feels better, Little Orlon.”
“Aye!”
I studied them from my concealment.
They were masichieri, among the lowest form of mercenary, yet they spoke like soldiers, like swods in the ranks. Perhaps the Great Chyyan could enroll people into his new religion and change them, turn an honest soldier into a thieving masichier?
I could believe that, which meant the new creed, through the leader Makfaril, could change other men and women, turn honest men into rogues. How far into the society of Vallia had the disease spread?
No arrogance in these thoughts of mine touched me then — or now. There were many religions on Kregen and some of the smaller were remarkable, seeking to do good, perhaps remaining small purely because their high ideals were too difficult for mortal sinful souls. But the simple basics of Chyyanism were plain. They were revealed as Naghan, sweating, stowing away his dopa bottle, spoke:
“When the Great Chyyan gives the word and it’s the Black Day — ah! — then I’m gonna take what is my due from those high and mighty lord muckamucks in Vondium!”
“Too right!” Little Orlon spat vindictively. “I’ve my eye on a shop run by a fat Relt. I’ll wring his scrawny neck and twist his beak until he stares over his shoulder blades! I’ll have his shop, and the Great Chyyan will bless me.”
If there was a more basic approach than that — excluding a purely sexual lure — then much of history would be falsified.
The quoffa carts lumbered on and the creak of their wooden axles and the grinding groan of their wheels drove the lizards away. The deldar — deldar Righat — bellowed his orders and the column broke up and helped guide the carts into the shade of a half-standing wall. There were the two scouts, the eight men of the main body, and the four drivers.
I fancied I’d test them.
So, hitching up the ragged blanket, I stepped out into the suns-shine and walked, a little slowly, a little unsurely, across to the group.
Hunching my shoulders I put on that old imbecilic look and prepared to act out my part as a wandering laborer.
“And what have we here?” said the deldar in that knowing, gloating kind of voice that immediately spells trouble.
“If it please your honor,” I said, getting a splendid wheeze into my voice, “I’m Nath the Gnat and I’m just passing through.”
“And why should you be passing through here?” The deldar drew his sword to show me how important he was. He gestured. “Grab him! Hold him fast and let me look at the rast.”
I allowed them to seize my arms. They held me and the deldar eyed me up and down, slapping his sword flat-handed, the steel smacking against his palm.
“A foul-looking specimen! Speak up! What are you doing here?”
“I’m just going through,” I squeaked, shaking my shoulders. If these men were ordinary soldiers they’d laugh and offer to share a cup of wine and a handful of palines with me. But I thought I recognized these masichieri. They were of the cruel persuasion. If they could not have a little fun with a broken-down old fellow, well, by Krun! what was the world coming to?
“Through? Through where to?”
“To Dinel,” I said, naming the next village where I’d thought to eat bread and cheese and quaff ale and ask questions. “There may be work for me there.”
“There’s work for you here, my lad!” said the deldar, and the soldiers laughed dutifully. I called them soldiers, for they aped military ways, but I had to remember they were mercenaries of the lowest sort, masichieri.
They did not beat me up there and then. But I was kept very busy unloading the carts along with the four drivers, who were slaves. They were all apims. We carried bales and bundles into the main roofed section of the still-standing temple. I managed to get a glimpse of the contents of one box when it was dropped awkwardly from a cart and the lid sprang open. A mass of rusty black feathers within told me what I wanted to know.
We worked for a few burs until everything had been carried in and arranged to the deldar’s satisfaction. More than once I staggered under the weight of a bale that I could have thrown one-handed. These men were convinced I was a simpleton, and they were pleased that they had found a pair of extra hands to help. They offered me no dopa as they drank; to have refused would have looked odd, so I was spared the expected fight breaking out before I was ready.
“All out!” shouted the deldar.
We went out into the declining rays of the suns and I expected that, if there was to be a fight, it would begin fairly soon. I said, “I left my sack in there, your honor,” and turned to go back. The slaves were drinking water and fighting over a crust of bread and a scrap of cheese. The masichieri were lighting a fire and preparing to cook a meal. I went back inside and no one offered to stop me. The knife over my right hip slid into my hand like an eel. I slashed open the bales, pulling the contents out. Yes. Black robes and cloaks fashioned from feathers, with fierce beaked headdresses in which the priests could dress to look like chyyans. The chests contained food and drink of a refined kind, reserved, not for the use of the guards. There was a little money, gold pieces of Pandahem among the golden talens of Vallia, and these I left strictly alone. There were weapons also. I left them. Everything pointed to this collection being the paraphernalia for a gathering of Chyyanists. An iron-bound chest was heavily locked. I did not attempt to open it, guessing it to contain the altar vessels and the more valuable impedimenta to be used in the rites of the Great Chyyan. While a certain amount of spying is great fun and serves to thump the blood along the veins, I felt I had accomplished enough. I have no truck with those imbeciles who consider all spies as rogues — many are, of course — and during my wartime experiences on Earth I had seen some incredible disasters through the disdain in which spies were held. But enough was enough. A quick glance outside showed me the masichieri around their fire, the shadows lying long in their twinned bars from the columns, the quoffas munching quietly, the slaves tied to the tailgates and trying to rest. Now was the time for me to walk briskly over to Dinel, find a mount and try to reach the nearest sizable town, Arkadon, where I might find a garrison in time to make it worthwhile to return here. Arkadon is a pleasant place, one of Delia’s nicest towns, but the garrison troops would be like most Delphondi, as I then thought, a lazy and inefficient lot. But we ought to be back here before dawn and in time to sweep up this little lot and the worshipers and the priests. I wanted to get my hands on Himet the Mak and find out what he was really up to. He most probably would not talk, but I had grown suddenly weary of spying. Enough was enough. We would at least lop off this branch of the Chyyanists. A flicker of movement in the tail of my eye caused me to spring abruptly and silently to one side. I glared into the shadows. An indistinct figure stood impassively staring at me. I could not make out the features, merely a vague blur with deep pits for eyesockets. Clad all in a long robe, dark in the shadows, the figure remained motionless.
I knew.
Phu-si-Yantong!
Yes, this had happened before and I knew it would happen again. As I spied on the Chyyanists so the wizard of Loh spied on me.
Somewhere in the forbidding world of Kregen Phu-si-Yantong had placed himself in lupu, in a trancelike state, and his incorporeal body had visited me, spying on me. I felt the chill in the air, the shiver as of millions of tiny needles pricking into my skin. As I started forward the a
ppearance vanished. There could be no mistake. The blurred figure did not move. It simply winked out of existence. This ghostly apparition filled me with a fury that was purely ridiculous, for there was nothing I could do about it.
Cursing the damned wizard and all his misdeeds, I took up my sack and my bamboo stick and prowled to the far opening, peered out, saw the coast was clear and so stalked out into the dying light of evening as the twin Suns of Scorpio sank toward the horizon.
There was no direct proof that Yantong was mixed up with the Chyyanists, although circumstantial evidence pointed to that eventuality. If he was, then I knew I was in for the fiercest struggle I had faced so far on Kregen.
In my ugly mood I positively relished the confrontation.
Poor fool, I, Dray Prescot, Prince of Onkers!
Seven
Koter Rafik Avandil, lion-man
The suns sank finally as I rode from the little hamlet of Dinel.
In the last of the light drenching the western horizon with shards of blood and washes of viridian I rode, cursing that the farmers of Dinel had no better mount to offer than this stubby four-legged hirvel, kicking him in the ribs to make him go faster. As I cantered on through the rich farmlands under the night sky, I reflected that even if the farmerfolk of Dinel had no fine zorcas or fancy sleeths to offer me, their work demanding the use of krahniks and calsanys and the occasional quoffa and unggar, at least this hirvel, whose name was Whitefoot, made some claim to be a quality saddle animal. He belonged to the chief man of the hamlet and was superior to a preysany. I could have done worse. So I kicked my heels in and away we went.
She of the Veils, Kregen’s fourth moon, rose to shed a fuzzy pink light, golden and glorious. I was in no mood to enjoy the wonder of the night sky of Kregen, even when two of the smaller moons went hurtling past close above. I had to reach the garrison at Arkadon, the marketplace for the surrounding area, rouse them out, select the best-mounted — for I doubted if they’d have any airboats — and then ride like the wind back to the Temple of Delia.
If everything went as ordered we’d catch the worshipers of the Black Feathers. I wondered what they did for a statue here. If Himet the Mak was the priest, as seemed probable, then one of his statues was unavailable.
An elongated black speck darted up against the golden disk of She of the Veils. The swirls of limpid color over the larger moons, evidences of some atmosphere there, confused sight for a moment. Then the golden gleam pulsed clear and I saw the hard black shape of an airboat lifting. It flicked past the limb of the moon and vanished among the stars.
I frowned.
I craned my head back to look along the way I had come. Roads in Vallia are usually atrocious, by reason of the superb canal system, but all country districts must have their roads for the quoffa and krahnik carts. Dust hung glittering in the light of the moon, raised by my hirvel’s hooves. I could see no pursuit. Airboats taking off, at night, close to me, always make me reach a hand down to the hilt of my sword.
I nudged Whitefoot along and we trended down past the edge of a cornfield with the somber mass of a wood on the far side. I’d have to get off and walk to rest Whitefoot in a moment or two, for the hirvel, although looking nothing like a horse, with his round head and cup-shaped ears and twitching snout, has a performance not unlike a good quality waler.
Dark figures showed at the edge of the wood.
Instantly I slowed the hirvel down. He had been pushed hard and now, at the time when I wished to walk him, he was faced with the imminent prospect of hard running.
The figures were mounted on zorcas. There was no mistaking those glorious close-coupled animals with their fire and spirit and energy. So even if Whitefoot had been fresh and in tip-top condition, the zorcas would have overtaken him as a cheetah overtakes a deer.
“By Zair!” I said to myself. “Phu-si-Yantong, a week’s wages against a sucked orange!”
I kept on. There are tricks and stratagems in encounters like this. We met as the dusty roadway curved up at the end of the cornfield to give way to a field of gregarians. I came over the slight ridge past a tumbledown fence and the zorcamen spurred out to stop me, very fierce, the moonlight glistening on their blades.
They wore the black and leather, and there were black feathers in their helmets. They were Rapas. The vulturine-headed diffs leered on me, completely confident. Mercenaries, like those apim mercenaries at the Temple of Delia, these Rapas with their predatory beaked faces were masichieri, without a doubt. I was absolutely convinced that they had been sent against me by Phu-si-Yantong after his apparition had spied on me. Now this puzzled me, before I reasoned that the Rapas would almost certainly have orders to take me alive.
I knew from an overheard conversation that the wizard with his maniacal and ludicrous ambitions wished to rule all Vallia through me acting as his puppet. Well, he might try. The effect of this was that I knew he had given orders that I was not to be assassinated, not to be slain. I spurred forward, yelling, whirling the bamboo stick about my head. A good rousing charge might carry me through, and I might knock one or two over and leave perhaps three to deal with.
They opened out, very prettily. The light grew as the Maiden with the Many Smiles rose over the horizon. Now there was no escape in the shadows.
The first blows struck down, the thraxters held so the flat of the blades smashed in at me. The bamboo stick could parry that kind of blow without being cut through, or not, given the nature of that stick. I stuck the end of the bamboo into a beak, heard the Rapa shrill his agony. I swirled around, chunked the stick into the guts of a second, ducked as the swish of a blade passed close over my bare head. The hirvel nudged up into the forequarters of a zorca and the rider swung back, for a moment off balance. Before he could recover my left hand gripped his arm and pulled and he came out of the saddle in a gyrating heap of black feathers and black cloak. He fell under the hooves. From nowhere a parrying-stick slashed at my shoulder. The jolt numbed my left arm. I kicked Whitefoot and he blundered ahead. Swords and parrying-sticks laced about me and I knew I’d have to unlimber the stick when a magnificent bellow roared out over our heads.
“Hold, you cramphs! Take on a man with a sword, you moldy villains!”
A glimpse I caught, a fragmentary glimpse of a man riding a zorca charging into the midst of the Rapas. He wore metal armor and a metal helmet, all burnished bright as gold in the radiance of the moons. He swung a thick straight sword, a clanxer of Vallia, and he cut the first Rapa down in a smother of blood. The Rapa nearest me let go of Whitefoot’s bridle and swung his mount away. He babbled something about: “You are not supposed-” And the clanxer curved down and went chunk into the leather armor over his shoulder. The man — he was a numim with golden fur under the armor and a bright golden mane
— bellowed, “I’m not supposed to beat off footpads, is that it, you tapo! I’ll have your tripes, every last one!”
I slashed the bamboo, and a Rapa collapsed over his zorca.
The numim, his lion-face snarling and his whiskers bristling, smashed his sword down onto the leather helmet of another Rapa. The vulturine-headed diffs had had enough. They reined away and set spurs to their mounts and galloped off. Two rode as though drunk, just managing to cling to their seats and rolling in their saddles.
The numim glared after them, golden, glorious, swearing that, by Vox! they were a poxy lot of scum.
“I must thank you,” I began, in the proper form.
He flicked blood drops from his sword.
“Think nothing of it, my man! A wayfarer is entitled to the protection of a koter of Vallia.”
He used the word koter in its meaning of gentleman, rather than of mister. He reached out and grasped the reins of a zorca from which a dead Rapa hung tangled in the stirrups.
“Llahal and Lahal,” I said in one of the prescribed forms for making pappattu, the first Llahal with that strong Welsh double-L sound, used in greeting strangers, the second with the softer single L, used for greetin
g friends. “I am Nath the Gnat.” I said this promptly, almost without thought. My cover as a poor old wandering laborer seemed valuable enough to maintain for the moment.
“Llahal and Lahal. I am Koter Rafik Avandil.” He appended no further information, but I did not mistake his deliberate use of the title. For a poor laborer koter was a gentlemanly rank that should impress. Moving slowly yet with sureness I dismounted from Whitefoot. The hirvel had served as well as he was able, not unlike a nightmare version of a llama, with that tall round neck and shaggy body. I took up the reins of the only other zorca left by the Rapas. Koter Rafik looked on. If he wished to claim both animals as his own he would have a fight on his hands. But he offered no comment. Numims are loud and boisterous, with their golden fur and golden manes and fierce bristly mustaches. Lion-folk are numims, and the lion-maidens are glorious under the rays of the suns. They are also extraordinarily seductive under the moons, or so I am told.
I mounted up with a sack and my bamboo stick. I took up the reins. “I am for Arkadon, Koter Avandil. I am in a hurry. I give you my thanks again for your assistance.” He was not to know that I’d been in no real danger. If the Rapa masichieri had turned nasty and attempted to use the edges of their swords I’d have been forced to unlimber the bamboo stick and settle their business. But he had come charging in like a knight errant and so deserved his due of praise and thanks. “I ride fast, Koter, so will bid you Remberee. May Opaz the All-Glorious have you in his keeping.”
“Eh?” he said, a little put out. Then, with a real numim bellow, “Oh, yes! By Vox! I don’t hold with religion! A man’s right arm and his sword, they are the gods of Vallia.”
He wore a rapier and a dagger, I noticed, but the clanxer, the cutlass-like weapon of Vallia that is so often derided, had proved a good choice against the thraxters of the Rapas. I set spurs to the zorca and took off. He followed, keeping pace, but made no attempt to engage in conversation which was, in any event, not too easy as we galloped along the dusty road. There was an odd, eerie sensation about that wild nighttime ride across Vallia under the moons of Kregen. Only the sounds of the zorcas’ hooves and the wind in our ears and the thumping feel of our onward passage kept us in touch with reality. With some thankfulness I saw the sharp-cut outlines of the fortress of Arkadon rising up against the star glitter, and soon made out the circuit of the walls and a few scattered lights from tower and window within.
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