He thrashed. He quivered in the last frenzy before death. His hind legs caught me and knocked me head over heels. I smashed into the dirt and rolled and a bony skeletal object, loosely articulated with a few threads of gristle, wrapped about by a few shreds of flesh and skin, flapped about me as I rolled and I realized that ghastly blood-spraying flailing skeletal thing was my left arm. The bones of my arm clashed with the bones of my ribs, exposed, showing through the cut and lacerated flesh of my body.
The darkness that was beyond the darkness of Notor Zan flowed over me. I felt — I felt nothing. I saw the leem. He lay awash in his own blood.
Stupidly, I collapsed onto the dirt.
So I lay there, and my head sank down to the dusty blood-caked grass, and I slept.
Chapter Fifteen
Shadow
That I speak to you in these tapes is proof I did not die.
How close to death I drew I do not know. By my immersion in the Sacred Pool of Baptism my body had been endowed with remarkable powers of recuperation and recovery from injury. But my left arm had been stripped away, mangled, practically wrenched from the socket, destroyed. That would not be repaired. It might not kill me; it would never be a sound left arm again. Someone was shouting at me. The leem fight brought back ghosts.
“By Kaidun! D’you want the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax to do it all for you! Go in, you coys, you hulus. Go in and fight for the Ruby Drang!”
For the Ruby Drang! Aye! I would fight for the Ruby Drang.
And, another voice, leading on the war hosts: “For Vallia! Valka! Valka!”
And, again, yet another voice, shrilling over the war trumpets and the heart-pulsing pounding of ten thousand voves: “Felschraung! Felschraung and Longuelm! Zorcander! Zorcander!”
And, too, the voices bellowing joyfully: “For Djan! For Notor Prescot and for Djanduin!”
The surf-roar of a hundred ghostly voices beat about me, roaring in my head. Visions passed before my eyes. Flames shot up, smoke billowed, the horrendous sounds of combat flowered in my head. Demands were being made upon me. Urgent decisions were called for. There was no time for rest. Rest was a sin.
“For the Kroveres of Iztar!”
I groaned. The weight was too much. I was a mere mortal man and could not support the load. The voices, the demands, the urgency, beat and battered at me, and I moaned and rolled over and so, stupidly, sat up.
The last phantasmal voice roared, proud, defiant, ready to challenge a world: “For Zair! Krozair!
Krozair!”
I opened my eyes and winced, shuddering, and so looked about wearily, and remembered. I had not bled to death.
My left arm pained. The amazement that that was all it did must be pushed aside. A mere string or two of sinew, broken splintered bones, a few scraps of red meat — that was all there was hanging from my shattered shoulder.
What the hell Delia would say I shuddered to think.
My thoughts were not even as clear as that. It is a surmise from later. The disgusting remnants of my arm must be bound up and the gaping cavity in my side staunched, and I ripped away at the tatters of the flaxen tunic to make a sling and pads.
I was, I think, still reasonably coherent at this time. Later the delirium would seize me. If a fever shook me I’d have to fight that, too. I can recall hauling at the gnutrix and clumsily mounting. I had a filled water bottle. What else there was besides a remnant of an arm in a sling and a mangled side I did not know, do not remember. I started off, kicking the animal along, jolting cruelly in that damned six-legged gait. The corpse of the leem lay there bathed in shining blood, black and green with flies. I left him without a word, without a parting Jikai, left him to rot.
Although the long-term calendar of Kregen is based to a large extent on the precedence of the red or the green sun through the sky, and the forty-year cycle, plus the orbital movement of the planet itself, these give only the broadest outline to calendar measurements. Most immediate date measurements are made by months of one moon or another. For the journey I must now undertake I fancied I’d need a whole sheaf of months, culled from all the seven moons.
What passed along the way remains hazy. Blurred snatches of memory jag through the mists. I think I met a group of little Ochs, who tut-tutted over my arm and gave me potions. Ochs are funny little puff-chopped folk, with six limbs, the center pair used either as hands or feet. I have been helped before by Ochs, as well as being savagely beaten by them when a slave.
They gave me a piece of clear crystal hung on chains from a circlet they cautioned me to wear on my head. Drunkenly I put the thing on and the crystal hung down before my eyes turning the world into a phantasmagoria as though I peered through the bottom of a bottle. I thanked them — I think I did -
giving them a proper Remberee, riding on, lolling in the saddle like a man sodden with dopa and too far gone to fight.
The way proved long and tiresome. Go north, Zena Iztar had said, and I had obeyed. Now I crawled along with an altogether more dreadful reason. Now, despite all, I must win through. Forests, tracks, trees, streams, boulders, defiles. I staggered along, reeling in the saddle. Yes, snatches of it come back to haunt me in nightmares, now. I was growing steadily weaker as the dreadful injuries that surely must have killed any normal man fought against the healing properties my body had acquired from the Savanti. Of all that painful journey only a few incidents stand out at all clearly. Of them, the most vivid, if not the most evil, wrenching in its violence, occurred as the gnutrix lolloped down a slope toward a stream bowered in trees where I could quench the torturing thirst and soothe my burning lips. My thirst tormented and drove me insatiably.
By this time I must have been pretty far gone. Only the memory of the incident remains, like a child’s picture torn from a book and mounted in a frame, isolate, individual, related to nothing else. Katakis moved about the stream, making a camp, busy in the familiar tasks of creating a base for the night. To one side the bound slaves, hallmark of the Katakis’ trade, moaned in their winnowed lines of suffering. I stared, sick, almost falling off the gnutrix, glaring madly upon these devils who debarred me from the water. My whole body wracked with cramps, I burned, yet coldness brushed me with ice crystals. Shuddering, reeling in the saddle, I had to face the terrible fact that there was no water for me at this stream, not with the Katakis and their slaving habits in the way. One look at me, the instant summation I was useless as merchandise, and they’d whip up a tail-blade and finish me. Even now, I believe no single thought occurred to me that this might be a blissful end to all suffering. Low-browed and with a gap-jawed mouth filled with snaggly teeth is a Kataki. His thick black hair is oiled and curled in a fashion far different from that of the Eye of the World. His eyes are wide-spaced, narrow and cold. Evil, vicious and rapacious, Katakis, slavemasters, man-managers, batteners on human misery. Perhaps the thing that gives a Kataki his greatest pride is his tail, a long sinuous powerful tail to which is strapped a sharp steel blade. So, sickly, I stared down on these vile diffs and I could not summon a single curse.
Jerking the gnutrix away was bewilderingly useless. He scented the water, parched as was I, obstinately thrusting his blunt head toward the inviting stream in the darkling light. He started off and I sawed the reins and he resisted, disregarding the pain in his mouth for the lure of the water. We picked up speed jolting down toward the stream.
Had I had the use of two arms; had I been even a little stronger, I would have held him. But he ran away with me. So I did the only thing I could do, plunging down to certain death, trying to husk up the last of my voice, to make a good shouting show of it.
“Khirrs!” I shrilled, and my voice wheezed and cracked. “Khirrs all about you!”
Croaking though my voice was, the Katakis heard. Instantly, like the black-hearted reivers they were, they gave thought only to themselves.
The camp boiled with frenzied activity. Pounding down I went, catching a guyline in a gnutrix hoof and pulling the whole
lot down, knocking a cooking fire blazing, scattering pots and pans, bounding along like a scarecrow. Katakis were forming and each swung a crystal oblong before his face, so they knew about Khirrs. On lumbered the gnutrix for the stream. Katakis were running to the edge of the camp, their weapons bright, shouting in confusion, ferocious and malignant. The animal reached the stream and plunged in and I sailed over his head into the water. The sweet coolness helped. I lay for a moment, winded, and then tried to crawl, all lopsided like a beetle. The water sloshed about me and I sucked in thirstily. The far bank appeared dwaburs off.
The stream deepened. The current knocked me over and I rolled along banging against the bottom. I am not sure what I felt as what remained of my left arm scraped the gravel; but I expect some more pieces of me fell off.
Somehow the gravel oriented itself under me and I was staggering up out of the stream. But I was still on the same side as the Katakis and their shouts told me that no Khirrs had arrived and the Katakis wanted to know what was going on and to get their hands on the lunatic who had caused the furor. A zorca stood by the bank. He stood impossibly tall on those four spindly powerful legs, close-coupled. His magnificent twisted spiral horn stuck up arrogantly from his forehead. To his saddle were belted sword, bow, saddlebags. I grasped his reins in my one hand and tried to vault onto his back and landed on my belly, dangling across, and he snorted and bucked, so I kneed him, anyhow, and we went galloping off, bashing through the low bushes into the trees.
The next thing I recall, not so luridly, is trotting out into another glade with a rockface and a trickle of water and of falling off and still grasping the reins, of crawling until I could lash the reins around a broken stump and then plunge my head under the water.
I must have slept, for the shrilling of the zorca awoke me and I sat up, sluggishly, that awful dead feeling in my left arm and side reminding me my time was running out. I peered foolishly out into early morning suns shine.
They flitted out from the trees, their spindly legs twinkling, their harsh hairy bodies rotund and hateful in the mingled radiance. I blinked. Spitballs of Antares. Vermin. They crept upon me as I slept, eager to plunge their snouts into my body and drink of my substance and suck me dry. I tried to stand up and fell over. I was as weak as a woflo.
I was ripe game for these Khirrs. They would enjoy spitting at me, weak, feeble, barely able to crawl. With an idiot’s fumble I dropped the crystal rectangle before my face, and the world described whorls of distorted circular dizziness. The nausea had to be fought back, pushed away. The bow was useless, for I had but one arm. The sword, a solid, single-edged cut and thruster, somewhat too long for the balance, would have to serve — somehow. My scrabbling fingers fastened on the stirrup. Heaving and grunting I hauled myself up alongside the zorca. He was a fine animal, a fleet runner, strong, well-built. He shivered now and I could smell the sweat of fear.
That broad back of mine would have to be wedged against a support. I could not use the zorca, for the acid spit would burn into his hide. They’d spit their poison at his eyes and if he was done for then so was I. His tether twanged and he twisted and turned; but he remained steady as I pulled myself up, speaking to him, croaking.
“Hold on, my lad, my bonny zorca. Hold on and we’ll deal with these cramphs.”
I spoke as my father was wont to speak to his horses as he so patiently and skillfully doctored their hurts. The zorca quieted at the sound of my voice. But I lied to him, I lied. . Zorcas are animals of splendid intelligence. He was denied his usual method of dealing with foes. If he swung that magnificent head with the silky mane flying toward them and charged down with the spiral horn lancing to skewer and degut them, he would expose his eyes. And he knew that, he knew. . Holding to his saddle I slid the sword out awkwardly. Peering back owlishly through the crystal at the hideous advancing shapes, seeing their black hairy bodies, the crafty black beady eyes, the goggle effect of the protective rings of horn, the protrusions of the ridged snouts, I lifted the sword. Unsteadily, I slapped the zorca with the hilt and slashed on to cut through the tether. He sprang away. I fell against the tree stump. The fierce effort of turning about and wedging my back against the stump taxed me. I was gasping. But I stood up, shivering, plastered against the stump, and I lifted the sword and faced the shuffling advance of the Spitballs of Antares.
The ridged snouts quivered. They spat. The crystal smeared and blurred and a foul reek stank into the clearing. I felt the deep acid burn of the amber drops on my neck.
Alone, shaking, almost spent, I struggled to stand and face the loathsome menace advancing toward me, these Khirrs, all black and hairy and spitting, Spitballs of Antares, fit food for dogs. Around their small brilliant eyes each one had a horny ring, a protective circle of bone filmed with a membrane, for all the world like those heavy horn-rimmed spectacles that were once so fashionable on Earth.
The sword wavered. I tried to swash it menacingly and nearly dropped it. I, a Krozair Brother, to drop a sword! The spit hit the crystal square and splashed against the rags tattered about me and bit excruciatingly into the remnants of my arm and side. The reek bit into my throat like acid. That muck must be washed off the naked skin soon, or it would eat and fume away the flesh itself. I shouted. I bellowed. I croaked. “Stupid rasts! Foul kleeshes! Come on! Come on to your deaths!”
I almost slipped, then, and wedged back against the moldering stump, harsh against my back. The sword glittered as I hefted it. If the Khirrs were puzzled their spit did not blind me, if they were aware of the power of the sword — these things are imponderables. I did not expect to win free; but gradually as they shuffled and spat and did not approach any nearer, I began to think these Khirrs were cowardly at heart. They hesitated. I swung the sword so that it caught the opaline glitter of the suns and shot sharding reflections across the glade.
In all the world of Kregen I could expect no help. I was done for, truly done for, then, as I believed, as the Spitballs of Antares, scavengers, vermin, crept forward again, more cautiously, sending their spurting globs of spitting poison before them. I had to stand on my own two feet. Had to. Had to show them I was not defenseless. I stood. I swung the sword.
Their scarlet claws raked the air before them; vision was almost totally obscured by the streaming mass of amber poison smearing the crystal square. They could see I was weak and trembling and they advanced — cautiously, hesitantly — but with very deadly intent for the last time. One and one only of the Khirrs ventured within reach of the sword.
Him, I clove down the middle.
A sewer stench burst upward. His insides, all black and vile, glistening, spewed forth. He burst and shrank. The others drew back. Again I shouted, wheezing, taunting them with boastful words and lurid promises of their fate if they tried to molest me further. They drew back. They drew back and skittled away on their spindly legs, and their black hair draggled on their plump frames. The respite was only momentary. I could barely see for the spit streaming on the crystal square. I had a chance, a bare chance, a last chance to escape from being done for finally. If I fell over now I was done for. I peered about, dazedly choking, the ruin of a man. The zorca, his silky black coat very splendid in the lights, trotted back to me. He flung his head up, the spiral horn glinting. I took hold of the saddle. I was seated in the saddle. Do not ask me how. The sword, all smeared and foul, dangled beside the scabbard from the sword knot. The stirrups dangled until I thrust my bare toes into them.
I dangled, limp and broken, dangled as a strung collection of bones dangles, jangling. The zorca was superb. He broke into a canter. Then a lunging gallop that took us away from the sullen, cowardly contemptuous ring of Khirrs.
Nowadays I give thanks for that deliverance. Then I merely hunched on the zorca’s back and slumped, my head dangling on my breast, and went away without a coherent thought in my skull. Agony gripped my body. My arm was a mere scarlet branch of fire. And in my skull those famous old bells of Beng Kishi rang and resonated, clanging in time t
o the thudding to the zorca’s hooves.
Chapter Sixteen
A Draught to Mother Zinzu the Blessed
That cheerfully rubicund spirit of luck and good fortune, Five-handed Eos-Bakchi of Vallia, must have smiled on me, a mortal sinner. It was all my own fault, my own doing, and there was no one else to blame but myself. No blame could attach to the Krozairs of Zy, for their Disciplines might demand a Krozair Brother hurtle down to the defense of the weak and helpless; but they were chivalrous enough to weigh need against need. They understood when the odds were too great, the cost too high, the game not worth the candle. To throw one’s life away selflessly in the name of honor is all very well; but when a higher honor demands a different course the mad act of devoted courage is seen for what it is -
vainglorious selfishness.
My Delia, the fate of Vallia, set against an eloping lion-lad, a pretty Fristle fifi — no, never!
Of course, remembering so little of that horrific journey, I can only surmise what happened. No doubt I greatly exaggerated my own importance.
After all, why should the fate of all Vallia hang on me? So what if I had been nearly killed and had my arm just about ripped off? That would affect me and my family — but Vallia? I detest affectation. So I guessed with a somber foreboding that no matter how much I sought to evade the future I did not want and responsibilities that would be thrust upon me, the weight of Vallia would be mine. Only a foolish notion would uphold me. For Valka and Strombor and Djanduin and Azby and my Clansmen — and also to a lesser degree Paline Valley — I not only admit my responsibility and indebtedness, I struggle to prove myself at least half worthy of the trust of my own people.
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