Krozair of Kregen [Dray Prescot #14]

by Alan Burt Akers

  There remained to me now one course of action.

  As I prepared, hurriedly, bellowing for Duhrra and Sniz and Dolan, sending them scurrying about the things needful, I wondered if I was to be cast in the role of Pakkad. Whether or not he was merely a legendary figure—or if red blood had flowed in his veins, and he had been clothed in flesh, a real man of some distant epoch—neither I nor any other human of Kregen knew. But poor Pakkad had been cruelly treated by Mitronoton, the Reducer of Towers, the Destroyer of Cities, a very devil. Now his story formed part of the mythology of Kregen, and Pakkad himself stood as a symbol for the outcast, the downtrodden, the unwanted, the pariah. Well, I was to meet a latter-day incarnation of Mitronoton, as you shall hear, during the Time of Troubles, and if I do not speak often of that man-god-devil I follow only a general custom. One does not call lightly on Mitronoton, the Leveler of Ways.

  Fazhan bustled up, saying, “The swifter is prepared, Dak."

  'Then let all repair aboard. We have little time."

  We took the swifter brought in by Pur Trazhan, who no longer needed her, being dead. She was single-banked, with two men to an oar and fifteen oars a side, of the style called, in Zairia, chavinter. There are many and many names for the different sizes and styles of swifters of the inner sea, of course; I usually refer to them all indifferently as swifters to save confusion. Every oarsman was a free man, a warrior, and he pulled with his weapons ready to hand. The narrow central gangway extended aft into a quarterdeck by courtesy only, and I stood there ready to command the ship as Dolan the Bow conned her out through the Dikars.

  Nath the Slinger, cursing by Zogo the Hyrwhip, and fulminating against the zigging Grodnims, raced along the quayside and fairly leaped aboard, landing in a sprawl and a bellow of pain as he jolted his wounded arm. He staggered up, shouting, “And you would sail without me, Dak the Ingrate!"

  “Welcome, Nath—you may observe the fantamyrrh, if you will."

  On the quayside Nath Zavarin and Roz Janri watched us leave, puzzled even though I had sworn by Zair I was not deserting them. Queen Miam, attended by her people, came down to see us off. They all knew I was about a desperate enterprise, and they wished me well, casting my fortunes into the hands of Zair.

  They would see that the soldiers and warriors fought when the attack came in. I knew that. And, knowing that, I wondered only a little if I did this thing for Zandikar or for the memory of Velia.

  Since Trazhan had slipped through the channels in the night after Pur Nazhan had opened up four of the Dikars, we guessed the Grodnims would have reestablished patrols and probably sealed up most, if not all of them again. We had to sail through in daylight. We pulled so as not to lift a sail above the low-lying islands; and past the cliff-sided islands the wind would often fall away to nothing. We glided on and we waited for the attack we all felt certain would come, although I heartily wished to get through the ring without an encounter.

  “Mother Zinzu the Blessed!” quoth Nath the Slinger, lowering the goblet and wiping his lips. “I needed that."

  “You have a wounded arm,” I said, “and therefore cannot pull at the oars. I believe you to be a very cunning man, Nath the Slinger, by the disgusting nostrils of Makki-Grodno!"

  “Aye, Dak, that I am.” And he belched most comfortably.

  I thought of my old oar-comrade, Nath, and I sighed, and watched the openings of the myriad mazy channels as they passed away astern.

  The swifter was low and lean, and standing on the deck raised a man little more than four feet above the water. Her name was Marigold, and she was a dinky little craft and her ram was short and stubby and sharp, a vicious hacking tooth that would do a ship's business for her. The oars had been muffled and we glided as silently as a vessel ever can glide through chinking water. We crept along stealthily and we watched with alert eyes and even then were nearly caught. No one spoke an unnecessary word and then only in a whisper. Dolan the Bow up with the prijikers signaled with a smashing cut of his hand and we understood. Fazhan gave the signal to the oarsmen—we were not using a drum, of course—and they swung the ship away from the channel on our larboard bow. We glided into a deviating channel to the right and everyone heard the creak of oars and the splashing as a swifter prowled past. We went on, and if a swifter's crew can be said to have bated breath—we did, by Vox!

  Very softly, so that only I heard him, Nath the Slinger said, “By Zinter the Afflicted! I would welcome a few handstrokes. My arm pains me."

  I did not reply. Dolan came aft, walking along the gangway with the habitual grace of the swifterman. He, too, whispered.

  “We approach an area of great danger. An open reach. We will have to pull at top speed to get in among the rushes to seaward. If we're caught in the open—” He had no need to spell it out. Fazhan caught my eye and I nodded and he went along the benches whispering to the oarsmen. Free men. They would pull.

  This Fazhan ti Rozilloi had grown in stature since we had labored at the oar benches in Green Magodont. He was an oar-comrade. And yet he did not possess the superficial brilliance of character so many men have; he was quiet and contained, with nothing of the coarse virility of Nath the Slinger. He was a gentleman of Zairia. There are not many of them.

  So we dug in the oars and Marigold leaped forward. We burst from the narrow channel and a wide and open stretch of water showed ahead, reaching for perhaps three ulms. A damned long way to row. The water glimmered silver in the light as clouds passed over the Suns of Scorpio. There were very few wild fowl, for they had been hunted mercilessly during the siege. The water chuckled and ran past and the oars dug and pulled and lifted and so dug and pulled again. The men threw their backs into it. We foamed along.

  Just under halfway I heard Nath shout a short, sharp obscenity and so before I turned I knew.

  From the starboard side a channel opened and from the channel leaped a Magdaggian swifter. Lean and feral, with a single bank, she pounced down on us. She had twenty-five oars a side and I guessed four men to a loom. She was altogether bigger than Marigold. We swerved as the helm-Deldars threw their weight on the steering handles. Our starboard bank would have gone on pulling, blind and determined in their rowing; but I yelled, high and harsh, “Ship oars! Weapons! For Zair!"

  So the two vessels closed and the struggle began.

  We could not have escaped being touched had we rowed on, and we risked having our wings clipped. Also, although mail-clad men clustered on her forecastle and quarterdeck, she would be pulled by slaves and so we might outnumber her fighting-men. And, too, we might play the old Render trick and get among her oar-slaves and free them to fight on our side.

  Dolan the Bow flowered his shafts from the forecastle and I saw them like leaping salmon hurling into the men packed on the Magdaggians forecastle. Nath was cursing and slinging like a madman, screaming to Zinter the Afflicted that his arm felt like a dish of palines. The Magdaggian hauled off and tried to give us the ram; but our swerve eluded him and he fell aboard bow to bow. In moments we were at hand-strokes.

  The Grodnims took a nasty shock when the oarsmen rose in fury and snatched weapons and smashed back at them. But we were after all outnumbered. The Green cramphs poured aboard and our prijiker party battling back either went down or hurled themselves along the gangway where the oarsmen formed a solid wall. This was no time for me to skulk on the quarterdeck.

  “Zair!” I bellowed. “Zandikar!"

  The answering yells spurted up, brief and vicious. “Grodno! Magdag! Magdag!"

  The beautifully balanced blade of the Krozair longsword flamed in the cloud-broken suns-light. I whirled and thrust, and we cleared a space and saw the crossbowmen in the Grodnim swifter lining up. We had no shields. I would not have my men stand, however bravely, and be shot down without a chance to fight back. I yelled, coarsely.

  “To the quarterdeck! We smash them there!"

  My men understood instantly. With sixty oarsmen milling in so narrow and frail a craft, we'd all as likely pitch into the
water. In a solid clump we leaped the narrowing gap, clambering up and using oars and wales as toeholds, and ravened up over the bulwarks and the apostis down onto the gangway. The fight spread all along the Grodnims’ deck. There was time only to smite and smite again, and not ever think, but go on smiting, over and over.

  We reached the Magdaggians quarterdeck in a snarling mass of venom. We were outnumbered, for the Grodnim was packed with soldiers as a gregarian is packed with fruit-juice. I saw our men going down, and I raved on, for all this consumed time I did not have to spare. Nath and Fazhan and, miraculously, Dolan were there with me. Other men formed and fought and now the shafts could get at us. Dolan concentrated on the Green crossbowmen with the few bowmen he had left. We kept smashing forward into the Greens and then skipping back, trying both to use them as a wall of defense and to slay them at the same time.

  I fancy we would have come out on top in the end, for they had not completely cleared our men from their decks and we held the quarterdeck and their captain was slain. Occupied in the immediate fighting—and, although believing we would win, becoming concerned over the eventual outcome and the cost of this struggle—I barely noticed the jarring shock and the rocking of the Grodnim swifter. I took a glance at Marigold; she still floated and must have swung in to bump the side.

  The noise increased.

  Back into the fight I went, like a madman. The Krozair brand gleamed redly wet from point to hilt.

  The shouts and screams increased, the swifter rocked under the violence of the struggle, and now as the yells of “Magdag! Magdag!” and “Zair! Zandikar!” racketed up, above them all a new and powerful war cry blasted into the overheated air.

  “Zair! Krozair! Krozair!"

  I had struck down a Grodnim and had just reached out for the next when I saw his face. I saw the tightly clenched jaw, the staring eyes, the black down-drooping Magdaggian moustaches. And I saw the sudden appalled look of horror flash into that face as the fellow heard that deep and menacing war cry. “Krozair!” He never knew what hit him and sent him to Cottmer's Caverns, most likely. “Krozair!"

  I swirled my blade around and deflected a Chulik's blade. He pressed on with vehemence, for he, like everyone else, could hear those ferocious war cries blasting up at his rear. I clashed blades again, and looked past the Chulik for an instant, took in what I saw, and then went back to work.

  Beyond the bows of this Grodnim swifter a larger swifter had eased up, a double-banked vessel. She lofted over the fighting-men, and warriors poured from her—and, they wore the red, the glorious red, and at their head punched a tight and compact knot of Krozairs, their brands living flames in the speckled light.

  I took the Chulik with the old underhand and he toppled back, yelling, for even a Chulik may yell when he has been hurt to death. He fell. Now the decks were clearing. Grodnims were hurling themselves overboard. A few more sought to stem this fresh and sudden onslaught, and then saw that the fight was hopeless. Those who did not jump overboard were cut down. A crossbowman took a last shot at me. The Krozair brand, held in that cunning Krozair grip, flicked the bolt away.

  Blood ran across the decks. The slaves were caterwauling like men released from hell. Well, they were, of course.

  I stood lightly, holding the sword-point down so that blood spread from that sharp point across the deck. I looked at the men—at the man who led the newcomers.

  Yes, I recalled that moment with a mixture of pungent emotions. I remembered it often and I remember it today.

  They strode through the shambles toward us survivors. They looked magnificent. Their mail shimmered, their white surcoats blazed with the coruscating device of the hubless spoked wheel within the circle. They were Krozairs. Their hard mahogany faces with the harsh upthrusting moustaches, their helmets crowned with flaunting masses of scarlet feathers, their Krozair longswords held still at the ready, they bore down on us blood-covered men as beings apart, dedicated, relentless in their fanaticism, puritan in their Zairian zeal. And, of them all, the man at their head, their leader, most brilliantly illuminated all the superb qualities of a Krozair. This man was fit to lead.

  “Llahal, jernus,” he said in a strong, though pleasant voice, giving us the courtesy. “It seems we were just in time."

  “Llahal,” I said. “We had them on the run.” I made my voice flat and hard. I could not afford to waste a mur.

  “Indeed?” His voice took on the inflexible tone of harsh authority smelling out rank heresy. “Has the city fallen? Do you with the rough tongue flee from Zandikar, like a rast?"

  “The city has not fallen—yet.” I bellowed to my men. “All aboard Marigold! Schtump! Leave the shambles here.” The Krozairs went with us, for they sensed treachery. “No, the city holds. That cramph king Genod has brought up an army and flying boats. Your help will be warmly received."

  “So you scuttle from the last fight?"

  “Fambly,” I said, for I was anxious to press on and there was much to do. “Gerblish fambly! We go to prevent Genod—"

  His sword whipped up in a smoky flash of light and the tip hovered at my throat. His handsome face, young, strong, brilliant, glared in fury. His brown eyes bore down on me.

  “I am a Krozair and do not relish being called a fambly by scum who desert a despairing city."

  The sword could be slipped, Krozair though he was. I know more tricks than even the Krozairs teach. I stood. I said, “Your swifter—the golden chavonth as figurehead. I salute you as a great Krozair captain."

  I remembered how this Krozair vessel, Golden Chavonth, had so plagued Gafard, the Sea Zhantil, burning his broad ships and fleetly avoiding his war swifters.

  This young man looked resplendent in his youthful power. Strength and authority flowed from him. I knew he possessed a goodly share of the yrium. Resplendent ... resplendent...

  “You address me as Krozair, jernu or sir. I ask you again. Do you flee from Zandikar?"

  “No,” I said. “And I would like to know your name.” I thought I already knew, and the ache bit into me, bit hard and fearsomely, like a cancer in my breast.

  He did not move the longsword. He wore a solaik sword scabbarded above the scabbard of the Krozair longsword. He looked at me, and he looked puzzled.

  I said, “I am Dak. I would know your name."

  He shook his head. The sword did not tremble.

  “I am Pur Zeg."

  I hardly heard the rest. Pur Zeg, Krzy, Prince of Vallia, whom I had last seen as a shouting, laughing, tumbling three-year-old in far Esser Rarioch! Oh, how I cursed those damnable Star Lords. For I saw through all the splendid shimmer of power and gallantry in this young man the inner core of harsh bitterness. I thought then that his hatred of his father would make the hatred of Vax as the mewling of a kitten.

  Someone at my back said, not loudly but loudly enough for us all to hear, “It is the famous Krozair, Pur Zeg. The son of Pur Dray Prescot!"

  “Aye!” shouted Zeg. He whirled past me and the blade switched from my throat. I did not think there were many men who would have been allowed to keep a blade at my throat like that. “Aye! I am the son of Pur Dray Prescot. And if any man speaks the name again, I shall—"

  With the old venom cutting through my voice so that my son Zeg swung back, shocked, I said as I had said to Vax, “And do you hate your father so?"

  “If the yetch were here I would strike him down without another thought than that of justice achieved."

  I could see Fazhan, who had gone into the knot of Krozairs, talking away and nodding his head and pointing at me. He was a good man. Zeg, who had once been three years old and called Segnik, after my comrade Seg Segutorio, swung back to glare at me in a way I fancied I had seen in my mirror.

  “You who call yourself Dak! You do not address a Krozair with fitting respect. Do you not know the Krozairs are the only salvation of Zair? Only we can save you. You have been deserting and have been taken up. You will all hang."

  My men started yelling at this, and then a
Krozair Brother, an experienced fighter, stepped forward and spoke privately to Zeg. I had searched each Krozair face and knew none of them. Had one been present in the Hall of Judgment in Zy then I would have had a pretty dance before I won free. But none had. They had all been out aroving the inner sea, fighting-Krozairs. This Red Brother spoke to Zeg and Zeg turned to me and had the grace to say, “I understand you command in Zandikar, and that King Zinna is dead.” And then—and I swear Zeg was a Krozair first, last, and all the time—I saw the abrupt and brutal horror flower in his face.

  Before he could agonize too long, I said, “Miam is safe. She is the queen of Zandikar. I am about her business. Cast off your Golden Chavonth and pull up to her. Tell her you saw me and that all goes well—if I can get free of a pack of chattering Krozairs and go fight Magdaggians."

  Some of the Krozairs let rip gasps of outraged horror at this. But time was running on. If I didn't do what I intended to do pretty quick it would be too late to save Zandikar. Although even if the city went up in flames I would still do as I intended.

  “You speak with a big mouth, Dak."

  “Pur Zeg.” I said the word and savored it. One day he would tell me how he had achieved the coveted “Z.” If we both lived, that was. “I must go. For the sweet sake of Zair, clear your ship from my bows. Do you want the city to fall?"

  He glared; but already men were pushing the swifters free. I shouted a few short, harsh commands, for the seamen of Golden Chavonth handled out little Marigold as though she were a mighty three-banked zhantiller instead of a little chavinter.

  “I came straight here as soon as I heard the city was besieged. The Dikar was open; but I think you will find it closed by Green swifters by now."

  “Thank you for the warning. Now pull into Zandikar and bid them carry out my instructions faithfully. They are to concentrate in the strong places and resist. You know your brother Drak flies here with an aerial armada?"