— somewhat on the heavy and bulky side, to be sure — who had lived by wrestling. To any man the decision would be hard. But I had seen the way Duhrra had used his longsword in his right hand, all heavy swishings and smashings as though he cut down trees. With his great physical strength that method of using a longsword would serve, at least in the yelling confusion of a battle. He would not have lasted long against just one of the Chuliks with space to display technique and bladesmanship.
"The green sea-leems come on," said Duhrra. "I am no calsany in these matters. Why do you hesitate?"
"I would like to know you are resolved first."
"I am resolved."
The fires spurted closer; the green cramphs from Magdag approached with hungry weapons. Perhaps the choice was not as difficult as I had imagined.
From one of the corpses I ripped a strip of humespack and tore the cloth with vicious fingers. As I had seen the skilled doctors of Valka do so I bound a strip around Duhrra’s arm and knotted it until I brought a dinting furrow between his eyebrows, all the signs of pain this man-mountain would condescend to show.
I stepped back and took up my longsword.
He said, "Do not tarry, Dak. The rasts of Magdag are almost here, and the fire burns." The longsword slashed down.
I dragged Duhrra to his feet, leaving his squashed hand and a tiny portion of his wrist to burn away between the logs. The blow had been good, the aim true. Blood spurted, of course, but he would survive until I could have a doctor treat his stump.
The fires roared and crackled and the smoke beat down as the breeze blew. I held Duhrra. More figures appeared, men wearing the red. Now I deliberately moved away from a fight. A Hikdar shouted, high, triumphant: "We have the cramphs on the run!"
I did not grunt sourly at him that the Grodnim-gastas had done the work for which they came. Together Duhrra and I went from that scene of carnage and fire and blood to seek a needleman to tend Duhrra’s pain and stump.
He breathed a harsh intake of breath. "I do not think, Dak, that I would like men to call me Duhrra the Ob-Handed."
"If you insist they do not, they will not," I said peacefully.
"That is true."
So we walked away, and I ruminated that I had had the best of the bargain that night. For Duhrra had lost a hand and I had gained a name.
Chapter Sixteen
I come to my senses
I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of — No! No! I was no longer a Brother of the Krozairs of Zy. I must not forget that. I could not forget that. It was branded on my brain with a searing iron.
I, that same plain Dray Prescot who had born many names on Kregen under Antares, no longer a Krozair Brother, had to assume a fresh alias.
The reasons were plain and pressing: should a man calling himself Prescot be encountered among the army, here in the west, where there were many Krozair Brothers, then the word would pass, the retribution would be swift.
I obviously had to have an alias, and one had been given into my keeping. I would honor the name of Dak. The old white-haired man had proved a true Jikai. In my misery and determination I keenly felt the task of keeping the name of Dak unsullied.
The conceit must have moved me that I had used the name Drak many times before; it was the name of the mythical hero of Vallia, part-god, part-man, and it was the name of my eldest son. Drak and Dak. Yes, the conceit moved me.
The next day the wreckage of the base could be surveyed.
The Grodnims had wreaked great destruction, yet there was much left they had not touched. This had been a pinprick which, of itself, would not materially harm the armies of Zairians fighting in the west, but which, added to many other similar pinpricks, could place all that strenuous effort in jeopardy. Still, no longer a Krozair, what business was this of mine? I held warm affections for Mayfwy and for Felteraz. I could see the patterns of warfare out here plainly enough. But I held to my own destiny. My Delia had given me my orders, fully understanding my own agony of spirit, the tearing torture I must have experienced in leaving the Eye of the World with all I had held dear there in the Brotherhood of Zy blackened and ruined. And yet. . and yet. Was being a Krozair Brother so marvelously vital and important a part of my life when set against all that waited for me in the Outer Oceans? No. No, I was a fool, as usual.
For twenty-one miserable years I had not beheld my Delia, I had seen her for a mere bur, there in the fish cell of the fortress of Zy. Looking around at the ruined camp, seeing workers and soldiers hard at repairing, restacking and carrying away burned and ruined stores, I seemed to feel the scales drop from my eyes.
Pride.
That was all it had been. Mere stupid pride.
I had felt my idiot self-esteem hurt, because the single body of men I held in most regard on Kregen had turned me out, disgraced me. And I even understood why they had done it, why they had acted as they did. As the Savanti had thrown me out of the paradise of Aphrasoe and I had felt no real animosity toward them, knowing I had transgressed against their laws, so this time I held no animosity, for in the understanding of Kregen I had again transgressed. No amount of arguing or pleading could possibly change a single Krozair’s mind, let alone that of Pur Kazz, the Grand Archbold. No. The answer was simple.
I had come to my senses.
I would not deny myself or Delia what rightfully belonged to us.
And that, by Krun, was that!
How vicious and cruel those damned Star Lords were! They had banished me to Earth for twenty-one years. And in all that dolorous length of time my Delia had waited for me. When I had previously been banished from Delia — as when I fought in the arena of the Jikhorkdun in Huringa, or when I made myself King of Djanduin — she had spent only a fraction of time in waiting. The Star Lords had created a time loop by some alchemy of their own, so that when, for instance, I fought in Valka and cleared my island of the slavers and aragorn, I had been acting in the past, and my Delia had not even known. Because of that feeling that Delia was not at home pining for me — and the marvel of why so perfect a woman should ever bother her head over a bulk like me always escapes me — I had acted as I would have acted in a time loop. Then the agony of waiting had been for me alone. Now my Delia shared that agony.
I was worse than a mere fool, an onker of onkers. I was an ingrate, a tormentor, a prideful villain, and I deserved all I got.
The decision was made.
I went to say goodbye to Duhrra.
His stump had been cauterized and bound up and he was cheerful enough, considering.
"It is remberee, Duhrra."
"I found Naghan the Show. His head had been cleft in twain."
"It grieves me to hear it."
"I cannot wrestle with one hand-"
"Come now! You could lay most two-handed men flat on their backs without blinking. And think of the billing! The famous wrestler fights with one hand tied behind his back. You would make a fortune."
"It no longer appeals to me."
"So what will you do?"
"You say you are going to the west? That is where the army fights."
"Yes. But I do not go to fight."
He regarded me with a lift of one heavy eyebrow. His thick shoulders rolled as he eased his arm, favoring the stump.
"They are going to fix me up with a hook."
"Is it Duhrra the Hook, then?"
"No!"
I said, "I go to find a ship. Maybe I will have to go as far as the Akhram."
"I have been there."
"It is on the green northern shore."
"True. But the Grand Canal and the Todalpheme of the Akhram stand aloof. As they must." He still looked the same, still with that same heavy, doughy, expressionless idiot-face. His dark eyes looked at me with meaning. He could be highly useful.
I said, "The Todalpheme are very wise."
He said, "I think I will go with you. It will be strange not to stand with folded arms and a stupid expression and listen to Naghan the Show exto
lling my prowess. It will be strange to walk the world again. I am not a clever man, Dak. I know that. But, just perhaps, I am not quite as stupid as I once thought I was."
You couldn’t say fairer than that.
The lightness of my spirit astounded me.
Now that I had made the decision the whole world of Kregen appeared to me in new colors. I did not laugh, of course, and I cracked but the one smile for Duhrra — and that pained — but I felt liberated, free, all that weight of despond sloughed from me. I had made up my mind. The very Suns of Scorpio blazed the brighter.
"I have but twenty-nine silver zinzers left, for I spent this morning on breakfast, and ate like a king." How incredibly humorous that statement was. I was a king!
"Yes, Naghan always managed to welsh. He slipped you a smaller gold piece than the one he tossed up, I’ll bet."
"A nikzo."
Half a gold Zo-piece. Only thirty instead of the sixty silver zinzers I had won by hurling Duhrra flat on his back. He surprised me. He reached into the flat leather wallet on its strap over his shoulder and I heard the clink of coins. His left hand brought out, with a wink and a flash, another nikzo, brother to that one I had broken in the refreshment tent, paying a whole silver zinzer for tea and vosk-steaks, followed by palines, that would never cost a dhem in Pandahem or a sinver in Hamal. Still, silver coins varied in weights, just as did gold and copper ones. At sixty zinzers to a full gold Zo-piece, you were bound to get less than for the fatter sinvers.
Duhrra saw my expression and misinterpreted it. I was thinking that the damn war was sending prices skyward, the bogey of inflation as much a specter on Kregen in areas where men were stupid enough to fight wars, whereas Duhrra took it for a reaction of pride to his generosity. He held the nikzo out.
"This is rightfully yours. You floored me."
I wanted to be canny. "More by luck than judgment." I hoped that would pass. "Still, a bet is a bet, and I need the cash." I took the money. Pride and I had fallen out.
The truth of the matter was that I held for this big man the same admiration I held for a zhantil: the wild, untamed savagery on the Zhantil’s part matched by the controlled docility of the savagery on Duhrra’s. The apparent dichotomy is only apparent. The idea that he would accompany me pleased me. But that was all.
Duhrra lifted his stump swathed in bandages and stared at it critically. "I must wait for my hook. Tell me what you think best. There is Shazmoz ahead, but it is besieged. They could fix my hook there." My mind was made up in the time a zhyan strikes.
"We go to Shazmoz. There is a man there I must see. After that it will be the Akhram."
Chapter Seventeen
Of a Pachak hyr-Paktun and a Krozair
Making our way into Shazmoz was not going to be easy.
We eased our sectrixes on the rise and let them blow gently while we looked down the long slope toward the army of Zairians encamped below. The sea glittered blue to our right. Not a speck of sail broke that wide expanse. The sky lifted high, high above, blue and distant, and the radiance of opaline light streamed mingled down about us.
"I hear there are thirty thousand," said Duhrra.
"And how many have the Zair-forgotten Grodnims?"
He waved his stump, still wadded in bandages. "No one knows. Men talk. Uh. . sixty thousand."
"But they must lay siege to Shazmoz and at the same time front our field army. It is not easy for them."
"May Zair rot their bones and turn their livers green."
Shazmoz itself was distantly visible at the end of an inlet, a vision of white cupolas and towers, long white walls baking under the suns. Over there the bestial scenes of siege were being enacted; below us the camp seemed to slumber in the light.
I had heard that the general in command here was a certain Roz Nath Lorft.[5]Men spoke well of him. He was not a Krozair. His task, relieving Shazmoz, appeared daunting and I held the shrewdest suspicion that this Nath Lorft would keep his army in touch, feeling the enemy, keeping them in play for as long as he could. Then, when Shazmoz fell, he would fall back. It seemed the Zairians had lost the ability to meet the Grodnims in the open field with any hope of success.
Scattered parties of men were about the eternal tasks of soldiers. Very few people chose to live close to the shore of the Eye of the World; from time immemorial raids have devastated the inland coasts. If there was no secure fortress very close at hand, the coastline would lie empty and deserted under the suns, so these men were totally dependent on the supply trains. They might try to send forage parties inland, but the hated green ruled there by virtue of its greater numbers and this devil-inspired confidence of winning any open encounter.
Duhrra waited my commands. His assumption of my mastery irked me. I found him dour and taciturn as a rule, which suited me as I was alike in the matter. But I wanted him to feel and act the part of a companion. This he was either unable or unwilling to do. I shook the reins.
"Let’s go down and make a start."
The camp merits no detailed description, being an army camp, except for the one particular that it was a camp of men of the red southern shore of the inner sea, and therefore a camp of highly individualistic Zairians. I doubt there was one single straight row of tents. Higgledy-piggledy, set down in the best site available, to the Ice Floes of Sicce with regimentation — this was the attitude of the Zairians. Oh, they were formed up in formations as to title and number and function, and no doubt in some dusty office of the Pallan responsible papers were to be found with the details scribbled down. But the Zairians fought as they lived, sprawling, rambunctious, riotous, each man anxious to get to hand grips with his opponent. The cavalry would lower lances and charge the instant anything approached they considered chargeable. The footmen would rave and yell and boil over in their efforts to keep up. Only the varterists held some discipline, and this because the craft and science of their art demanded rule and order. Swashbuckling — aye, that is a good word for Zairians.
We trotted our sectrixes down the slope. Duhrra had come into all of Naghan the Show’s possessions, and the cash was used to buy what was necessary for our journey. I found I still did not like the sectrix. This was the first of that species of six-legged saddle animals I had encountered. The nactrix is found in the hostile territories. The totrix in the lands of the outer oceans. Poor Rees! What had happened to his regiment of totrixes? And to Chido? I must not think of them — twenty-one years must have destroyed the last vestiges of their feelings for Hamun ham Farthytu. I imagined Nulty at Paline Valley would be the Amak in all but name by now. These dusty memories enraged me, so I bashed the sectrix in the flanks and we went careering down the last of the hill and flying into the camp. A group of men were formed into a ring and as I went up and down in the saddle to the awkward, cross-grained gait of the sectrix, I saw dust flying up from the center of the circle.
"Stand away there!" I bellowed. The sectrix was maddened now, its head rearing up and sideways against the bit. On we thundered. The backs of the ring of men came nearer and nearer.
"Out of the way! Stand clear!"
Now one or two faces turned my way. The noise was really rather wonderful. The swods yelled. The ring of red backs switched around. Faces contorted, mouths yelled, arms and legs swayed up and out -
and I was rolling past in a bellow of noise. Then the stupid sectrix tangled all its six legs among the gang of men struggling over the open ground and down we all came in a whirling flurry of collapsing bodies. Head over heels and away, rolling among a welter of red uniforms and naked chests and a Pachak’s tail-hand gripping my arm and a pair of studded marching sandals beating a tattoo on my head and — I surged up, gulping for air, stood there with the Pachak bellowing angrily, the swods toppling aside, the dust and noise in the sunshine perfectly splendid.
"Silence, you pack of famblys!" I roared. I took my left hand to my right and removed the Pachak’s tail-hand. He coiled his tail over his head and glared about ferociously. His red uniform was torn.
He had a few cuts on his face. I saw the faces of the swods, so I knew what was going on here.
"Who in the name of Zogo the hyr-whip are you, you rast?"
I jumped for the swod who spoke, took his throat in my hand, squeezed — only a trifle — and bellowed: "Who I am is my business, you nurdling onker. But you speak to me with respect, or I’ll ring Beng Kishi’s Bells so loudly in your skull your brains will spout out your ears." A couple of the men liked that image. They laughed. I let the man go and stepped back. To the Pachak I said, "Now is your chance to walk off with dignity."
Pachaks are diffs of middle height, with two left arms, a whip-like tail equipped with a hand, straw-yellow hair, an intense loyalty and a fighting capacity that has caused great argument among the professionals of Kregen.
The Pachak said, "I shall stay and fight them with you."
I said, "I do not intend to fight them, dom."
"A pity."
Then Duhrra rolled up on his sectrix and started edging the animal in through the ring. The dust was settling. An ord-Deldar appeared and began bellowing, as all Deldars bellow, and the men shuffled off. They cast longing looks back.
"You," I said to the Pachak, "will have some recreation if those fellows get off early tonight."
"They are apims,"
I did not laugh. "So am I."
"True. But you have a heart that weighs its decisions."
The laugh was very near now, incongruously near. "If that were only so, then I would not be here."
"Nor me. I am Logu Pa-We. At the moment my nikobi is given to the Roz, Nath Lorft na Hazernal."
"I am Dak, and this is Duhrra." I let my glance dwell just long enough on the small gold zhantil-head he wore on a silk cord threaded through a top buttonhole. "You are a hyr-paktun, Logu Pa-We. We are honored."
His straw-yellow hair fell about him, ripped free of its braids in the fight. Now he swept it back over his forehead with a gesture of pride. Any man, no matter what race, who gains the coveted pakzhan, the gold zhantil-head that indicates his status as a highly renowned soldier of fortune, a notorious mercenary, will be proud.
The Tides of Kregen dp-12 Page 15
