EXILED Defenders of Ar

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EXILED Defenders of Ar Page 22

by Jack Lovejoy


  Cajhet looked bewilderedly at her for a moment; then a new thought struck him. “Say, won’t you be in danger? Even without an ear, Haggie could sell you out. You’re mean and tough, love, but you can’t take on an entire army by yourself. H they’d hunt us down, you know they’d also hunt down anybody who helped us. No,” he said firmly, “I’m not budging till I know you’re safe. Don’t ask me to do it, because I won’t.”

  She gazed fondly down at him, her big jowly face melting with tenderness. “Oh, Cajie-wajie, you really do love me. But don’t worry, pet. I’ll be all right.” She led him past the kitchen to a secluded room set on pilings directly over the water, and pointed to a trapdoor. “Haggle’s always been a back-stabber. I didn’t like the questions he was asking before we left Ravarbal, so I told him I was only going with you a couple of days’ march, to show you the way. That gave us near a week’s start, because he had to be sure I wasn’t coming back before he dared sell us out.” She savagely bit the air with her sharp, powerful teeth.

  Cajhet started instinctively to cover his own ears, but disguised the gesture by pointing to the trapdoor. “Haggie?”

  She nodded. “No telling where he’ll end up. They got something here called tangletides. A sailor told me it has something to do with the three moons acting at different angles. I don’t know about that, but I checked and found out that we’re getting bad tangletides tomorrow, starting just before dawn. Nothing will be able to get out of the harbor until late afternoon. So better get moving, and tell Severakh everything. The folks you left back at Ravarbal are in a bad way—the big reptile’s sent a whole army after them—but there’s nothing you can do for them now. They’re on their own, and you’d better be on your way.”

  This time it was Cajhet who did the hugging. “I’ll be back, love, and then I’ll never go away again.”

  She chuckled. “No, you won’t, my little Cajie-wajie. I’ll see to that. We’ll have a lot of nights to make up for when you get back.” Her return hug was an earnest for those nights, Cajhet had good reason for the sense of apprehension that overcame him—when he at last caught his breath, and his eyes stopped rolling in his head.

  “Where’re we going now?” lisped his half-sister, who had waited for him in a doorway across the lane from the Tangletide.

  “Home, and fast. I have to talk to Mother.”

  “Better wait till morning.” The kit spoke with the voice of experience. “Mama don’t like us to walk in on her when she’s entertaining....”

  “Can’t be helped this time. I’ve got to find old Severakh quick, and I’m told Mother knows where he is.”

  “Oh, she knows that, all right,” the kit said drily.

  But the first person Cajhet encountered as he burst into the apartment was not his mother. It was Severakh himself, clad in nothing but one of her fluffy pink dressing gowns. There was a look on his face that Cajhet had never seen there before, a look that quickly hardened from embarrassment into his old drillmaster’s glower. Arms akimbo, he seemed to defy his subordinate to make a single impertinent remark.

  Cajhet instead reported dutifully all he had just learned from Kizzlecosh. His mother entered the room at that moment, wearing a flouncy lavender nightgown, with a tray holding twin goblets and a carafe of wine. Her eyes twinkled merrily at the scene.

  Forgetting his effeminate garment, Severakh began pacing sternly back and forth. “They haven’t arrested us so far,” he muttered, “because they’re not sure yet who will win the siege of Ar. Damned fools! Can’t they see that if Ar falls, then! All the city-states of the mrem are doomed, including Namakhazar? Perhaps the very existence of the mrem….”

  Buppy saw only that all the fun in life would be doomed, and while Severakh sent Cajhet flying with orders to assemble the mrem at once, she sent her other children with messages to their older half-brothers and -sisters, to help with the escape, but cover their tracks. For if the great city of Ar was in fact doomed, there would certainly be reprisals afterwards against all who in any way aided its partisans.

  As Cajhet hurried through the streets, he thought about the last words his fierce old commander had given him: “Do not mention to anyone, and especially to young Branwe, anything about Ravarbal. He can’t help those we left there now, but he might foolishly risk his life—and our mission—to try.” He also thought about the last look Severakh had given him. It said clearly: “One word to anybody about pink dressing gowns, and I’ll have you pitched overboard.”

  A single moon shone low in the sky, as thirty armed mrem crept along a deserted wharf, where they were soon joined by teams of stevedores wheeling barrows and handcarts laden with provisions. The wharfinger was Cajhet’s half-brother.

  “See that magnificent argosy out at the very center of the harbor?” He pointed. “It’s the finest ship afloat. Here are the seamrem who have enlisted for your voyage. They didn’t expect to leave so soon, and you may have to carry some of ‘em aboard. But they’ll do their jobs—once they sober up.”

  “I’m sober already,” said Shimsham. This was obviously untrue, and whether his wild tales had any basis was still unknown. But no one else who even pretended knowledge of the Shadow Islands had been discovered. If they were to have a pilot at all, he was it. “And I’m ready to go. If somebody could just give me a hand with my navigational gear.... Careful! Don’t drop the box. What’s inside is precious.”

  The wharfinger shrugged. “Anyway, you might as well pirate the argosy. In your situation, the law doesn’t mean much anymore. So forget about the ship we were outfitting for you.”

  “I can’t forget about a whole fleet lying at anchor,” said Severakh, while his mrem descended silently into a pair of squat barges. “My mrem aren’t sailors. It’s going to take them a few days to learn the ropes. What if we’re pursued?”

  “So long as you leave before the second moon rises, there will be no hot pursuit all of tomorrow. Just be sure you leave before then—or you’ll be trapped in port. The tides are nasty all along this coast. As for being hunted down by this flotilla now being outfitted, they won t know which way to go. A number of witnesses—fishermrem, sailors, dock hands—are going to come forward and testify to having seen your ship head east along the coast. It’s the best we can do for you. May the All-Mother guide and protect you.”

  “Amen,” said Severakh. “And may she watch over your own mother. Many thanks for all you’ve done for us.”

  Zanira was the polestar; it was also the name of the magnificent argosy they were approaching across the midnight harbor. Shimsham, sitting protectively on his box of navigational gear, found this a good omen.

  “It’s Zanira we’ve got to watch,” he said. “Keep it three claws above the horizon, and sail due west. Trouble is, I’ll need somebody else’s claws.”

  “You’ll get mine, if you don’t shut up,” growled Severakh.

  “Easy now, lads. We don’t want any commotion. Even with these sailors telling us what to do, it’s going to take hours to get the ship ready to sail.”

  Branwe sat beside him, the Demon Sword in his hand.

  “Have you heard anything more from Ravarbal, sir? I can’t help worrying about, well, those we left behind.”

  “Srana, you mean? Are you saying that she can’t take care of herself?”

  “No, of course not. She’s as courageous as she is beautiful.” “Then what are you worried about? Didn’t I leave her twice as many mrem as we’ve got here? Well, then?” Severakh looked him straight in the eye. “We’re depending on you, lad. That sword was forged for a warrior as daring and able as your father.”

  “I won’t fail,” said Branwe, without noticing that his question had never been answered.

  As the most agile aboard either of the two barges, he led the scramble up the side of the Zanira. The two watchmrem on deck were swarmed over; the small crew below decks were mostly asleep in their bunks. They offere
d no resistance, and willingly helped unload the barges. They too had heard about the invasion of the Eastern Lords, and had been waiting only for the first voyage out—under anybody’s command, the longer the better. They rigged the ship to sail in remarkably short order.

  “Three hands and more above the horizon now,” Shimsham remarked, seated comfortably in the stern beside the huge steering oar, on his box of navigational gear. “That means a long voyage south, before it sinks to just three claws.”

  Severakh gazed thoughtfully out to sea, as the sails caught the offshore breeze, as the masts groaned under the strain, and the argosy hove faster and faster across the harbor. The second moon was just rising, and the tides were beginning to tumble chaotically in from the sea. Not for weeks to come would a conjunction of all three moons focus on one particular spot, in the major island of the Shadows, somewhere in the chartless western seas.

  Exactly how this peculiar focus of moonlight caused an evil dimension to conjoin their world was wizard’s business, not his. All he knew was that they had to be ashore on that island of islands, on that night of nights, or their voyage would be in vain, and the great city of Ar—perhaps their very race—lost forever.

  The Yozgat

  NOT SINCE her arrival in Kazerclawm, to tend her dying grandfather, had Srana’s danger sense so disquieted her. Not even during the weeks of pursuit and flight that had brought her at last to this remote pariah city, deep in the mountains. Was it something she had dreamed?

  The evil presence that seemed to lurk like a predator at the borderlands of her unconscious mind, as if waiting to pounce when she was most vulnerable, had lately not troubled her. Now she felt evil converging from all directions.

  She sat up in bed and listened. There was nothing but the settling noises of an old building. Her door was bolted on the inside; grilles covered every window; an armed guard slept on a bedroll across her threshold out in the corridor. The danger was not immediate, but the trap was closing. They had to flee at once.

  She pondered over the fragment of the Khavala for a moment, then shook her head. Attempting contact was too great a risk. Perhaps not for her, but for Sruss. After all, her strange disquiet might just be some insidious new snare contrived by the Evil One. Was she in fact in any real danger? Or was the probing intelligence now just trying to entice her with false warnings into doing something foolish, something that would leave her vulnerable to entrapment?

  Again she shook her head. No, her danger sense was too vivid. This was no phantom, and she rose and dressed and woke the guard sleeping outside across her threshold.

  The danger seemed less menacing to the south, in the direction that Branwe and the others had departed, toward the port of Namakhazar. They had in fact discussed the contingency of repairing there en masse, but in the end decided that so large a band could not possibly elude detection by the bandit gangs lurking outside the walls—perhaps tipped off by agents inside the walls. Nor was a dash for Ar feasible; it never had been. Troops of marauders ravaged the country between, and the city itself was reported to be now completely invested.

  The number of spies lurking in the streets around the Anglock Inn had quadrupled since Severakh’s departure for Namakhazar. There were also the bandit gangs outside the city to elude; probably dragons and other nasty reptiles as well. Was it her fragment of the Khavala the Evil One so desperately sought? Ever more power to work evil? To bring down the walls of Ar? She wondered now if she had been wise to keep it after all.

  Severakh had encharged the remnant of his guerrilla army to capable lieutenants. They well recalled how her danger sense had saved them again and again from being cut off or surrounded while harassing enemy camps and supply lines, and now heard her warning with apprehension. In minutes the Anglock Inn was a hive of activity, with scores of soldiers silently arming, packing, and provisioning for immediate flight.

  The spies lurking in the neighborhood had grown wary since Severakh’s escape; nonetheless they were taken unawares—all except one. But that one was enough to alert corrupt city officials that their guests were flying by night. Fortunately these officials dared not make their collusion with the bandit gangs hovering outside the walls too public, and had to be circumspect about alerting them in turn. This granted the fugitives a few critical hours’ head start on their pursuers.

  Over barren ridges, through mountain defiles, valleys, and dark forests, guided unerringly by Srana’s danger sense, they maintained their lead all that day, and increased it in the days that followed. A misty drizzle, and streamers of fog seeping down from the heights, helped conceal them; but they drew ahead mostly because their pursuers—scouts reported them a thousand strong, and increasing daily in number—were more and more reluctant to close on them. Not even when reinforced by regular troops, and enjoined by the magic of battle priests, could they be driven any nearer a particular range of mountains.

  Severakh’s lieutenants naturally took advantage of this strange reluctance. The land through which they now marched was so devoid of civilization that they feared dragons. But none appeared, and soon the various nasty lizards that had until now assailed them nightly also disappeared. It was a wilderness such as none of them had ever seen before, and through wooded valleys, up slopes and down, in mist and rain and sunshine, through dark silent forests and flowering meadows, they marched unharrassed all the fourth day.

  It was just when the most optimistic among them had begun to picture themselves snugly ensconced within the walls of some southern haven, that Srana sensed danger approaching from that direction too. Scouts were sent forward, and soon reported that a cohort of regular troops, with auxiliaries of bandits and desert marauders, were indeed marching toward them—although not directly toward them. Like those who had pursued them for the last week, these new enemies also seemed chary of entering this strange silent realm.

  Srana’s danger sense now so disquieted her that she could no longer determine whence they were most threatened. Danger seemed to be all around them, lurking in every shadow like the alien intelligence that again sought nightly to penetrate her subconscious. At her request, Severakh’s lieutenants and all sixty-some mrem were interrogated. Three mrem only stepped forward from the ranks.

  All had heard old wives’ tales about this particular region.

  Something called a Yozgat, or perhaps the Yozgat, was or were supposed to dwell somewhere in the depths of the mountains. Two of the three believed it to be a monstrous dragon that had depopulated the countryside; the third had heard stories about a mysterious lost race, whether of mrem or liskash origin he did not know, that only came out at night, when there was no moon in the sky.

  “I’ve heard two versions, my lady,” he added. “That these Yozgat are cannibals, which means they’re probably some nasty type of cave liskash, or that they skin their victims alive just for sport. One mrem I met years ago, a caravan teamster by trade, swore to me on oath that he’d actually seen a flayed carcass hereabouts. Twice, in fact. So he always gave the Yozgat plenty of room after that. He’d heard whispers about whole caravans that had just disappeared and were never heard of again, like they were swallowed up by the ground. Might be some kind of cave reptile at that,” he concluded.

  Two moons hung in near conjunction, one full and the other gibbous, directly overhead. Campfires burned arrogantly on a hilltop, visible from miles away—also miles away from the real encampment. Severakh himself could hardly have chosen a better defensive position, or posted his sentries more effectively.

  Hour after hour the scouts reported in, snatched refreshments on the fly, and slipped back into the midnight forest.

  “That’s the third squabble reported in an enemy camp, and they’ve blocked us in three directions,” one lieutenant commented, as the conference settled down in the shadows at the edge of a clearing silver with moonlight. “Seems their battle priests are getting pressure from Cragsclaw to round us up—at any cost�
�and right now.”

  “But for some reason the bandits and other ragtag are hanging back,” added another lieutenant. “That might give us enough leeway to wriggle out of the trap.”

  There was no agreement about this. The consensus was that the regular troops, at least, would soon begin tightening the noose. Perhaps tomorrow; certainly no later than the day after. There were so many of these now in the field that it no longer mattered whether the bandits and desert marauders superstitiously hung back.

  “We had better hang back ourselves until morning,” decided the acting commander, after all the scouting reports had been evaluated. “Whether this Yozgat really is a species of monstrous dragon, or flesh-eating liskash, or horrors that prowl only at night, we’d better wait right here until dawn. By ascending into the mountains, we might be able to slip past the troops to the south, and outrun them to Namakhazar. In any case, we have to move eastward tomorrow. We’re blocked in all other directions.”

  This was unanimously agreed to, and as the morning peaks first silhouetted blackly against the eastern sky, the sixty-some fugitives were already on the march. The first scout to rejoin them reported that the decoy campsite had been attacked just before dawn by hundreds of regular troops. Soon other scouts were reporting a great pincers fanning out across the lower slopes; by noon the last scouts to come in reported that the pincers had begun to close. Their trail had been picked up; the jaws of the trap were shutting.

  A barren defile, carrying icy meltwater down from the snow-capped peaks, ran due east like a highway. Bogs and debris cones made the going rough in places, but they had no choice except to follow as far as it led—which turned out to be not far enough. With a thousand troops closing in from below, concealment was no longer possible, and they clambered helter-skelter up the slopes toward what looked like a pass or saddle through the first towering range of mountains.

 

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