Scorpio Triumph [Dray Prescot #43]

by Alan Burt Akers

Again, there is little need to detail our joyous reunion with Milsi and Seg. Satra's troops landed and marched to their appointed camping grounds. She and they were received with much pomp and circumstance. A large and of necessity formal dinner was held that night, and I more or less itched all the way through the tedious proceedings. We had a great battle to fight. All the same, functions of this kind formed an integral part of the political process.

  At a suitable point I stood up and lifted my glass. “A toast!” I bellowed in the old foretop hailing voice. “To the Nine Armies of Paz!”

  They drank it down without, as they say in Clishdrin, any heeltaps, and Seg and Inch stood up. Seg called out: “To our glorious victory!” and Inch shouted: “Coupled with the utter discomfiture of all our foes!”

  There was no hint of bad luck in this, on Kregen, and many more toasts were drunk in brimmers and bumpers.

  The singing was curtailed by the earlier length of the banquet. I insisted that we yodel out ‘The Bowmen of Loh’ which we did with full throats.

  After that we went to bed and the next morning the Shanks arrived.

  “They darken the sky!” exclaimed young Ensign Nalgre V'ron'v. He looked up, his face flushed. I did not detect any greater fear in him than was to be expected in these frightening circumstances.

  To be truthful, there were a lot of them. One hell of a lot of them.

  Our preparations were all long since made. Our fleets swarmed out to meet the Schtarkin airboats and all too soon flames and black smoke gouted hideous death across the sky.

  I'd told the chiefs: “We do not simply sit back and resist in a defensive role. We must go over to the attack. The Shanks will not like fighting on foot in the desert. Our biggest single problem will be a sharp and sudden raid into the city. Carazaar will probably send his phantom image to lead Shanks and Katakis. Whatever dweomer he may use, he can be foiled if his tools are eliminated.”

  To that end strong guards remained steadfast about the five gems, and we placed other guard formations at strategic points so as not to draw attention to the rubies’ locations. I remained in the city with 1ESW and 1EYJ under my hand to rush instantly to any threatened spot. The balance of my Guard Corps stood under arms to give support. Queen Kirsty and Rodders had their army within the city, manning the walls in company with a good proportion of Queen Satra's troops. Nath na Kochwold and his Phalanx with associated formations were ready to march out and bash any ground troops for they would be of limited use in the narrow alleys of the city.

  K. Kholin Dorn came stamping up the stairs to the high tower where I'd perched a temporary headquarters. Like any fighting Dwadjang he carried an arsenal of weapons. He pulled a bright orange kerchief from under a strap and wiped his lips where the wine shone from the goblet in his fist, he grasped a djangir, the short broad sword that is the racial weapon of Djanduin, and with his free fist he punched me lightly on the bicep. “Well, now, king—where are these Fish Faces marching in hordes across the desert whom we will show these Clansmen on their voves how to despatch to the glory of Djan Kadjiryon of the Bright Flame? Eh, where?”

  Hap Loder, just as ferocious although, like me, he had only two arms, following on, said: “By the lights of Zim and Genodras, Kytun, we shall turn the lesson the other way around. All the same, Dray, where are they?”

  Out over the dusty plains the aerial combats continued. The sandy floor remained barren of marching troops.

  “When you are dealing with a fellow as slippery and sly as Carazaar,” I said, “It behooves you to watch every direction at once.”

  “You mean they'll burrow under the ground and come at us out of tunnels?” demanded Kytun, and he took another swig at his goblet.

  “That is not at all impossible for Carazaar. By Zodjuin of the Silver Spear, not impossible at all!”

  That made them stiffen up their spines!

  Among the vollers swirling and rising and falling and—horrendously—bursting into flames, darted swift-winged shapes like clouds of annoying insects. Delia said: “Your young flutduinim are doing splendidly, Kytun.”

  He nodded, pleased. Such was his pride in his flyers, however, that he had to pass it off somehow. “That, my queen, is to be expected of Djangs. I give praise to the young people of Valka who fly quite well.”

  Delia laughed. That laugh can always run spider-fingers up and down my spine. I remembered my early days on Kregen when a laugh was a rare commodity, hard to come by and harder to produce.

  There was no doubt that Fleet Admiral Hilzim was holding the Shanks. A few vollers broke away, diving for the city, to be caught and snuffed out by the reserve squadrons of Hyrklese fliers. In the air, the battle was going our way. Our scouts had not reported a vast army on foot, nor had we expected them to, for had they done so our fleets would have sailed out to drop fire pots on them. The foot troops would have to land from the air.

  A small airboat came whistling over the desert, close to the ground, fleeting in from the opposite direction from the battle. Instantly a pair of fast patrolling fliers swooped on her. Without turning my head, I said: “Deb-Lu! Would you kindly send a message to those patrol craft—”

  “I have already done so, Jak. Look, they are escorting her in.”

  Shortly thereafter Mevancy climbed the stairs to headquarters.

  “Lahal all,” she said in a most prim and proper way. She was dressed in her mail shirt and her forearms were bare. Some of the little bindle sockets were empty. She looked somehow different. She'd changed in some subtle way. There was about her an aura of joy much subdued by sadness.

  Delia was the first to speak. She said: “We are glad to see you safe, my dear. And, too, I see you were successful.”

  Mevancy's face took on the color of the setting Zim. “Yes.”

  One or two other of the folk welcomed her; I didn't say anything until she spoke to me directly. Then I said: “Kuong is somewhere along the walls, trying to run the whole defense by himself. He'll be glad to see you.”

  “Of course. Thank you. When the battle is won I shall see you again.”

  After she had gone I realized that neither cabbage nor pigeon had passed our lips.

  Because on the beautiful and terrible world of Kregen women as well as men fight as soldiers, women rise to high rank in the military hierarchy. Many and many a Jikai Vuvushi's name is written in the histories of war. There were Lady Chuktars in our ranks. Mevancy's position was vague in our establishment order. I'd given instructions that she held the rank of Ord Chuktar, that is, she was eight grades up in the rank of chuktar which took her higher than the equivalent brigade commander and into the area of divisional command. Yet she had no command within our army. The most sensible course for her to follow would be to stand with Kuong. I hoped she'd picked that up from my few words.

  The observation I'd made concerning Kuong trying to run the show by himself was not strictly true, for Rodders with vastly more experience stood in command there. All the same, I'd wanted to stir Mevancy up a trifle.

  A sharp and quickly muffled cry splattered from the group of brilliantly clad officers and aides at our back. I half-turned, then killed my instinctive smile. An enormous four-armed Djang carrying Delia's shields carried on talking to Korero. He was completely oblivious of the fact his massive boot rested on Nissa's dainty foot.

  She gave him a sharp nudge into his armor with the end of her quarterstaff. Korero said: “Lift your foot, Tandu, if you wouldn't mind.”

  Dalki, Tandu's son, who carried Delia's personal banner, let rip a snort of amusement born of long experience of his father's little ways.

  The aerial combat out there claimed my attention. The locus of the fighting drifted away from Makilorn. I refused to think of the fine young men and women burning and falling and dying in the skies above the desert. Somebody called out: “We're winning! They're flying off!”

  Delia said: “I wonder.”

  As a matter of common sense before a battle I'd strapped on a harness of armor although
I'd not yet donned the Mask of Recognition provided by my people. I began to feel claustrophobic with all these folk clustered around. Also, it was hot.

  Delia said: “Look at Deb-Lu.”

  In a space apart to himself the Wizard of Loh sat on the stool we'd insisted he use. His eyes were closed and his face held the rapt look that indicated thaumaturgical processes were at work. We waited, uncertain what this might mean, and the buzz of conversation died away. At last Deb-Lu opened his eyes and looked at us. He used his staff to stand up.

  “The college we have formed is extremely powerful. Under the Seven Arcades I doubt a stronger has existed in Loh.” His face looked strained. “We now have definite intelligence that the Shanks have ceased their attempts to invade Mehzta. It is certain they have flown to join Carazaar.”

  No one spoke at this disastrous information.

  Deb-Lu went on: “Khe-Hi and Ling-Li have located Carazaar's main force. Just below the horizon diametrically opposite from the air fight. They will hit any moment—land troops inside the city.”

  “So the cunning devil has faked a withdrawal and dragged our air off. Now he has a clear run in—except for the Hyrklese and Djang vollers.”

  Almost immediately screeches of alarm burst up all along the walls and towers. Like a cloud of insects the Shank fliers swarmed across the desert to hurl themselves on Makilorn.

  They were cunning in their attacks. Our few Hyrklese and Djang pickets were swept aside. Fliers settled over the city like flies. Others disgorged troops onto the sands outside clearly with the intention of keeping our exterior forces engaged and so prevent them assisting in the city.

  There were all manner of Fish Heads represented—Shants, Schtarkins, Schturgins and many others, including those called Vakstirns who rode any saddle animals they could steal in the lands they invaded. Instantly, the whole city was enveloped in combat.

  Among the hordes dropping onto the city were many Whiptails. These Katakis would after their victory round up the population as slaves, that was their business. Until then they furnished the Fish Faces with invaluable assistance in dealing with the inhabitants of Paz, of knowing customs and of winkling out pockets of resistance and hiding places. The Chuliks in our ranks ran their thumbs up and down their tusks and promised dark deeds versus Katakis. The Yellow Tuskers were in the mood for a fight.

  All over the city along the banks of the river the fighting boomed. Seg and Inch and Turko were down there, and Loriman and Kuong and Mevancy and others of my friends and comrades. I began to fret.

  Delia said: “If you do, I shall.”

  How I hate all this business of fighting and killing! Battles, despite their undeniable academic and intellectual attraction, are anathema to any rational person. Yet we had to resist the Fish Faces. This was a doom and a destiny forced on me and not only by the Star Lords. If only the Makki-Grodno pus-loving Shanks would leave us alone!

  Thus kept summarily out of the fight I watched from the tower top. Mind you, I could see what went on and give orders and conduct myself as an emperor should. I'd always tried to be an emperor who looked after the folk in his care. Perhaps I should have employed paktuns to fight for Vallia.

  I was fidgeting about and gripping onto the hilt of the Savanti sword and then feeling to make sure the great Krozair longsword was securely at my back.

  “By Lingloh!” rasped out one of the aides. “We're winning!”

  “I believe we are at the moment,” said Delia in her equable voice.

  Certainly as the reports flowed in they were all of hurling the damned Fish Faces and their contemptible Whiptail allies back in bloody confusion.

  The Shank forces outside who drove on to reinforce their fishy fellows within the walls were met by Clansmen in earth-shaking vove charges, by Nath na Kochwold's Phalanx which drove in crimson and bronze through the trident-wielding ranks like an avalanche devouring a village. Oh, yes, we were winning.

  “I don't like this,” I said. At the startled looks flung at me, I went on: “That Opaz-forsaken Carazaar has something nasty up his sleeve.”

  “Yes, Jak, and it has started.” Deb-Lu spoke firmly, standing up from his stool. “He is casting. Very powerful. Very powerful indeed. Our forces will be driven back unless our new college can resist effectively. We can grip and hold him for a space—”

  “And then?”

  “They will roll over us.”

  “Then you must send me to—wherever in a Herrelldrin Hell it was.”

  “Last time he ran off—escaped to another plane.”

  “And that won the battle for us.”

  “Yes, Jak. If you go—”

  “Oh, I'm going!”

  Delia put her hand on my arm. Looking at her and devouring all her gorgeousness, as it were, in one huge draught, I said: “It's the only way.”

  “Yes.”

  The transition was swift. In the next heartbeat I was standing swaying about on insubstantial clouds. A silver sky encompassed me.

  Directly ahead across the cloudscape underfoot loomed the throne of Carazaar.

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  * * *

  Chapter twenty

  The throne bulked as I had seen it before, stupendous, barbaric, evil. Scale-covered draperies swept away, golden ornaments glinted in the silver light. The shadows lay at angles that corresponded to my own shadow—my own single shadow. Carazaar was here, then, on the same plane as myself. He was surrounded by his retinue, naked and half-naked girls of surpassing beauty. Monstrous shapes hovered vaguely at his back. The little scaled creature chained with the silver collar crouched against his right leg. N'gil, an obscenity of fish belly whiteness and gaping crimson mouth, huddled at the side, and the corpse-rotten thing hissed at my appearance.

  Carazaar himself brooded on me, apparently entirely unshaken that I had sprung from nowhere onto this private plane of sorcery.

  His face, scraped chalk-white, with paper-thin skin stretched gauntly over bones, with lipless mouth revealing a twin row of fang-like teeth, jagged as those of a shark, and with narrow nostrils pulsing, remained still a countenance from nightmare. And his eyes! Blue-black, they blazed with the mad red light of rhodopsin. His dark beard rested on his skeleton-like hands folded across the haft of his impressive and gilded axe. His gaze lowered on me. He did not speak.

  He had his bevy of round-faced and barracuda-sharp Bowmaids of Loh in attendance, bows half-bent, ready to loose those deadly shafts into my guts.

  They were not my immediate concern, for forward waddled the macabre shape of Arzuriel—Arzuriel with his four tentacles, each tipped by a fang-filled head. This multi-dimensional creature might be real or it might be a mere apparition. I had the strongest feeling the thing was real.

  Fish-man or man-fish, Carazaar leaned forward to watch the contest.

  The obscene thing waddled forward on bandy legs ready to rip chunks of bloody flesh away. I intended to stand no nonsense. With the smooth practiced movements of a Krozair of Zy I drew the great longsword. Arzuriel lurched forward, grasping for me, and I struck four shrewd blows.

  Four fang-filled heads rolled upon the clouds. Before Arzuriel let rip a single screech I brought the brand down vertically and cleft him. In the next instant and without thought I leaped violently sideways. Four long Lohvian arrows passed through the space I had just vacated.

  Without stopping, bounding from one foot to the other, I plunged on. Another bevy of shafts whistled past. These girls were good! There was really only one answer. I might bat arrows away as I had done in the Jikhorkdun of Huringa before I hurled a bloody leem's tail in fat Queen Fahia's face; that I'd surge forward to handstrokes was most doubtful.

  Arzuriel had collapsed and I swirled back to him and gave my sword two cleansing swipes on his body. Sheathing the sword and hauling the Lohvian longbow forward took a mere moment. It was vitally necessary then to deflect incoming arrows with the bowstave before I could spring aside and whip out an arrow and nock it. My first shot
struck the end Bowmaid. She just simply burst. Bits of skin and bone splattered through the air, a greenly-black cloud of nauseous gas sent a disgusting stench into my nostrils. The second shot did the same for the next of Carazaar's archers; the thing exploded in a gusting stink.

  By the time I'd dealt with two more the form of Carazaar and his throne and retainers began to shimmer. He did not offer to waddle down and confront me with his axe. He'd tried that before and been bested. Now he thinned above the clouds, thinned and dissipated and vanished.

  Yes, I admit it. As I stood there breathing lightly, there upon the clouds, slowly releasing the pull on the shaft I'd not loosed, I felt elation. Like any simpleton I experienced a great gush of joy. We'd done it!

  The return transit proved as rapid as my arrival and in a twinkling I staggered just a few unsteady steps along Makilorn's western wall. The air rang with shouts of triumph. All about me the swods of our armies were yelling their heads off in victory. Deb-Lu had not brought me back to the HQ tower; but in those heady moments with the battle won I gave that no thought. Away past the cultivations and over the desert the hosts of Carazaar fled. His fliers spiraled up and away—those who could escape the destructive fangs of our vollers. The Suns of Scorpio shone refulgently down in their glorious blazes of jade and ruby and altogether the scene made a wonderful picture.

  Turning to look back into the city I saw a number of fires had been started but that our damage control parties were hard at work to contain the blazes. In the general excitement I had gone unnoticed. A ferocious bellow brought me around and a giant vove of a fellow waved one arm in my face and pointed with the other three out over the desert. I didn't know him.

  “King!” he fairly erupted. “Look at the nulshes!”

  A single look told me the story. The Shank vollers swarmed back into the attack and our fliers recoiled. Hordes of Fish Faces and Katakis flooded towards the city. I looked more closely—and I saw the full horror of what Carazaar was accomplishing.

  A whole regiment of our churgurs swayed and toppled over. They fell lazily, like slow-motion dominoes falling. But they crashed to the desert sands, and immediately after their sister regiment brigaded with them fell.