“There has to be a way to get in, to rescue the princess, and get out with all of us alive.” I spoke commandingly.
A gap-toothed rascal looked across and unwedged his jaws from a cold ponsho chop. His gappy teeth showed as he spoke.
“We don't know you. You quote names at us—I say you are a damned spy come to trap us all without trouble."
“Aye!” shouted an apim with carroty hair and a spotty face.
The four Fristle fifis huddled under a blanket looked out wide-eyed. Pretty, they surely were. But now, they were wet...
“Which one of you organized Frandu the Franch?” At this there were squeals and giggling; then there were certain searching questions for me to answer. One of the fifis admitted to detaining Frandu, but: “Was no good. He didn't part with his keys."
“And we lost Naghan the Finger, and Ortyg the Lame and Hernon the Kramdu, all of them killed dead,” said Dogon. He was a bulky fellow whose belt circumscribed bulges, but he was useful with an axe. He wore an iron cap. Most of the others had some kind of body armor, mostly leather, and an assortment of weapons. I refused to let my hope sink or to allow myself to become disheartened. After all, it wouldn't be the first time I'd ventured into dark and dragon-infested towers to rescue princesses, now would it? But I would prefer company on this occasion.
“By Harg! If only this rain would stop!” growled gap-tooth. He was not Gap-tooth Jimstye, for which I was grateful, but his mistrust of me, while perfectly natural, could have been awkward.
“We wait until tomorrow night,” said Dogon.
I was fed up with waiting. I said so.
“Tomorrow we expect more men."
Gap-tooth cackled. “You could have more than a hundred men and you'd never bust in there. The castle's impregnated."
A girl with long fair hair started laughing. One or two others joined in. Gap-tooth glared about, not comprehending.
Then a blasted squall drove stinging rain onto us all and drenched us all over again. As I say, not a happy camp and not an auspicious start for a venture that should topple thrones.
The root words for impregnable and impregnated are not the same in Kregish either, but the minuscule jest remained, as if it were hovering in the rain-sodden air. I was still mentally dizzy from the encounter with the Everoinye. Superhuman beings of awesome power living God-alone knew where—yes, I feel I was entitled to be a little punch-drunk. There was no time for self-pity.
Circumspection marked Orlan Mahmud's dealings with people of this stamp, and I'd introduced myself to them as coming from him in his cover name of Klanak the Tresh. Tresh means flag, and Klanak is the name of a mythical hero of Hyrklana, so that Orlan was in effect saying, rise up and follow the flag of your greater past.
No, I could not wait around for this kind of rebellion. The rain pitter-pattered among the leaves and splashed among the huddled forms in their blankets. I looked hard at Dogon.
“What is the name of the guard commander tonight?"
“Now, by the belly and brains of Beng Brandaj, how am I supposed to know that?"
“Rebels have to know things like that."
Eventually, one of the Fristle fifis, not the one who had enticed Frandu, said it would probably be that lecherous Khibil devil with the big sword, Podar, who was a dwa-Hikdar now. Or, she added, her fur wet and bedraggled, or it might not be, and instead that passionate Fristle, Follando the Eye—and what an eye!—would have the Gate.
“If there are three guards in rotation, who has the third?"
“There is a Brokelsh called Ortyg the Bristle, and a Rapa called Rordnon the Andamak. They are ord-Deldars."
I did not chew my lip, for that would convey my own complete indecision. But I would not delay. They had no saddle animals, so I had to walk off in the rain to rescue the princess.
“Remberee!” they called. “We will try to rescue you from the dungeons only if—” I didn't bother to hang about to hear their stipulations.
Now the scarlet cloak and the armor I carried were not those of Hyrklana. A rapier and main gauche might be excused a dandyish officer who wished to be in fashion. The longsword was scabbarded down my back. There is a knack to drawing a blade from that position. But my equipment was clearly military and I was not inclined to toss it away and don a gray slave breechclout. For one thing, guarding a princess with your head forfeit if she escapes is vastly different from standing guard in a busy villa or palace; slaves would not be so free to move around in the Castle of Afferatu. I slogged on in the rain.
No handy soldier of the garrison popped up to be popped into the bag and his uniform donned. No one showed at all as I stood on the bank of the moat and helloed across toward the gatehouse.
The drawbridge lifted up, its bronze spikes very nasty. Lights shone from arrow slits. Everything looked gray and black and wet around those slits of light. The rain trickled down my neck. Among the vaguely discerned clumps of towers there was no telling which was the Jasmine Tower. As far as I could tell, I might have yelled my head off into Cottmer's Caverns for all the notice anyone took of me. There was no point in waiting further. The water of the moat rippled and danced in the slices of yellow light falling from the arrow slits. The rain pranced. It was all very wet indeed.
Only a few strokes took me across the moat. The water was not overly cold, for we were in Hyrklana. As for my weapons, during the time they had been in the care of the Star Lords they had been liberally coated with grease. Removing that protective covering from the hilts had been a thoroughly painstaking task. I hauled myself out under the rearing gray walls, running water between the stones, and unwound the rope I'd demanded and obtained from those miserable rebels. It was as slick as a buttered pole at a fair, so the knots would be vital. I looked up.
The rope would never reach the top of the wall. I crabbed along until I was below a slit in a tower. The first cast missed, the bronze hook clanging back with what sounded like an infernal din. No one heard. Or, hearing, took any notice. I cast again.
The hook lodged in the slit. Hand over hand, up I went.
Gaining the slit, I edged in sideways and braced myself against the smoother stone facings. Now for the tricky bit. The next upward cast would be blind. The hook swung below making a wide arc and then flew upward. I heard the bronze strike the stone, and down the thing plummeted. Seven times I cast upward and seven times the hook missed the arrow slit unseen over my head. Eight throws, and eight misses. I took a ragged breath. Nine...
On the ninth cast the hook caught and held. Not for nothing is nine the sacred and magical number on Kregen.
Dangling in the wind-driven rain over emptiness, up I went again and so wedged myself in the next arrow slit. Just before I gained that doubtful sanctuary I took a good though rapid look up and judged the remaining distance. Just, I estimated, just. This time the hook caught on the very first cast, for the top of the tower afforded a better purchase. The knots were hard-edged under my fists. The parapet bulged, with slits frowning down. I hooked a leg, crabbed out as though going up the Futtock Shrouds instead of through the lubber's hole, and so tumbled over onto the top platform.
A fellow muffled in a cloak stumbled out of the little canvas shelter the sentries had rigged up and tried to stick a spear into my throat. I swayed to the side, and as he rushed past helped him on his way. He went over the edge with a long wailing scream that was lost in the rush of the wind. I collected the rope and started for the head of the stone steps leading down.
Annoyance and regret over the foolish death of that fellow made me cross. Now I would have to find someone else to ask where away lay the Jasmine Tower.
The stairs curved down to aid defense and I paused at the landing to listen. The place might have been stuffed with corpses. At the foot the door was a tough oaken affair with iron bolts; they opened with not more than a regulation screech. The ward beyond lay rain-lashed, sodden and completely uninviting.
A few lights fell from interior windows, but most were shuttered.
The rain sluiced down and the storm grew and the stars were expunged. What a foul night! Mind you, the very wetness of the night aided me. I recognize that. But the water trickled down my neck and my feet were sodden and my hair was plastered down to my scalp like a devotee of Curdium-Ferang's mud-oil caked hairstyle when they scalp the sacrifices.
“By Krun!” I said to myself. “The first door it is, and no mistake."
The first door led onto a stone corridor with a few cressets leading to a maze of storerooms. No one was there. Useless. Fuming, I barged out into the rain and plodded through pools of water among the uneven flags to the next door along. This was shut and bolted. I hit it with my fist, and then drew the thraxter and hammered on the thick wood.
“Open up! Open up!"
After a space the bolts shot back and the door eased in a crack. I put my shoulder to it and barged in. A man staggered back almost dropping his lantern. His hair fell over his eyes. His mouth opened.
“What is it? What's all the racket about?"
Beyond him in the dimness lay an anteroom of sorts with tables and chairs stacked against the walls, and tubs and barrels piled in the corners. A bed to one side showed where the man had staggered from. I lifted him up by the nearest portion of his anatomy to hand and said, “Where is the Jasmine Tower? You have two heartbeats to tell me before I push your face in."
He told me.
I put him gently on the bed and closed the door after me.
The second tower along, he'd said, the one with the lantern in a niche over the door. The lantern was out, drowned, as I hove up. I eyed the tower lofting above me, lost in darkness. Up there, in some room and well-guarded, waited Princess Lildra...
So far I had not been detected, but this was a busy castle where other things went on, I did not doubt, than the detention of a princess. Despite the rain and the foul night, guards would be changed, sentries prowl. Time was running short. The door was locked and bolted. I fumed. I bashed the sword hilt against the wood. After a time it pulled back and a light glowed dimly.
Before the man could say anything I bellowed. I was just a dark shape to him, lacerated with raindrops, squelching, foul of temper and brutal of tongue. I advised him of his antecedents and probable destination and roared on: “The lantern is out! You know the regulations! See to it before your backside is roasted, rast!"
He started to mumble and I bellowed him to silence. “You bungling fool! Out of my way.” Then, pulling the name from the four given me by the Fristle fifi back at the rain-drenched camp: “Is Hikdar Podar awake, or does he sleep in a drunken stupor?"
“Hikdar Follando has the guard, notor, but, but—"
I was in. The light, weak though it was, dazzled. I squinted and took the fellow's throat between fingers and thumb. His face glared up. He was apim. The room was a mere box, pierced with arrow slits in three inner faces and with murdering holes above. I had little time to get out of this trap. The farther door stood open, with a wash of sorry-looking light across the stone walls.
Gently putting the man down, I stepped over him and went out of the door. The corridor led to the foot of the stairs in one direction. The other way the guardroom was open, without a door, and containing half a dozen men lounging on benches and half-asleep on tables. One shouted: “What was that infernal racket, Nath?"
I tried.
“The lantern is out—"
The man looked up from his folded arms. He was a Deldar, fleshy, an ale-lover, with an enormous mustache. His eyes went mean.
“Stand where you are, cramph.” He lurched upright, dragging out his sword. “Seize him, you idiots!"
They were slow. If they subsequently blamed the tempestuous night and the pervading dampness, they might be right; more probably they subconsciously relaxed after the previous attempts to rescue Princess Lildra had failed. They were still standing up and drawing weapons as I went into them. My thraxter whistled about merrily. I thumped them smartly, on heads, behind ears, turning and dodging a few return blows and kicking out to finish the job. The six guards slumbered. I went back to the outer door and closed and bolted it. Then I started up the stairs.
Two guards came clattering down, all a jingle of weaponry, swords in fists, to discover the cause of the uproar below. They were tripped and fell headlong—always a nasty trick on stairs, that—and I went on and up.
The stone stairs smelled musty and fusty and damp as everywhere else, yet into that depressing scent scenery crept a strongly pungent tang of a smell I did not recognize. I sniffed as I padded up—something like old socks? No—that was from another time and another place. The smell reminded me of damp fleeces hung before a fire. The first landing was bare and with a torch sputtering in its bracket. Without needing a light on, I went up the next curving flight, alert for the next pack of guards to come rushing down. They were the queen's men, and they could be excused much on a night like this, but the fact remained, I'd not get out of this without a fight, by Krun!
Almost certainly Princess Lildra would be quartered at the topmost section of the Jasmine Tower. The next landing contained an enormous animal whose coat gave off that distinctive aroma, whose jaws opened and whose fangs gnashed—and whose yellow eyes regarded me malevolently from a face that was a mere mask of hatred. Instantly I hurled myself back, slipping on the damp stone, and the beast's charge carried him over the topmost step before the iron collar and iron chain hauled him up fast. He slavered after me, his tongue lolling and those glistening teeth clashing together.
His gums glistened black and his teeth stuck up like needles. His mouth spattered foam. Shaggy hair dangled like tangled seaweed. He growled and barked and snarled and leaped against the restraining chain. He was thoroughly at home on a vile night like this, being a hound dog from Thothangir in South Havilfar, and if he fastened those jaws in me he wouldn't let go without taking his hundredweight of flesh.
Then—and even I find this hard to credit—I heard myself saying, “Good dog, good dog."
He nearly took my outstretched hand off in one gulp.
Someone called down from above—a rough voice, most unfriendly.
“Quiet, Zarpedon, you hound of hell!"
The hound dog yowled and nearly tore his head off trying to get at me. I looked at him and drew in my breath.
“It's you or me, Zarpedon."
Even taking him with the flat presented an interesting problem, for he was quick. But then, I have been accounted quick also, and the sword blade thudded alongside his head. His eyes rolled. He fell over on his side and lay there, for all the world like a friendly collie taking a rest. I stepped over him, looking down, moving gingerly. Then I went on up. Zarpedon could not be blamed. He had raised an outcry, and the oaf above had taken no notice. Well, by Krun, that suited me.
At the head of the stairs I paused for a moment outside the door. The dog-abusing oaf had left it partially open, no doubt to hear if the dog made any more fuss, and to come out and shout again. I listened before I went in. That is a useful habit.
There were two voices, a woman's and a man's, and the dog-abuser was saying: “...hellhound. Worse than the risslacas at the main gate."
“Poor Zarpedon,” said the woman's voice, a harsh, unpleasant croaking kind of voice. “You treat him shamefully."
“And you, you hag, treat him better than you do the prisoner."
“No worse than you, Charldo! No wors'n you!"
The sounds of a blow and a yelp were followed by dragging footsteps, and the woman's whining voice faded, mingled with the man's bad-tempered growlings. I pushed the door open and peered inside. Just an anteroom, with a few sleeping furs piled on a ramshackle bed and bits and pieces of furniture added to relieve the starkness. A light fell from a half-opened door in the far wall. Listening, moving soundlessly, I heard the man and woman grumbling again. But this time they had joined forces and were speaking in ugly tones to a third person.
The clank of iron and a heavy curse from the adjoining door made me realize that
in there rested the guards. How many were there? However many, they would be considered by the queen to be up to the job of guarding her niece. I listened thoughtfully for a few moments, considering the thunderstorm outside, the dampness of the night and the hellhound dog below on the stairs.
“Now, then, missy[2].” The woman fairly snarled the words. “No more nonsense out of you. Drink it up or Charldo will take the strap to you again."
[2 The Kregish word Prescot uses here is tikshvu, which I have translated as missy with that word's ominous connotations of reprimand and temporary superiority threatening a girl who, powerless, yet insists on rebelling. A.B.A.]
The sounds as of a leather strap being thwacked down into an opened palm made me almost instantly burst in. But I peered carefully through a knothole. Charldo was beating his palm with a leather strap. He was a most venomous-looking Kataki, a race of whip-tailed diffs with lowering faces and jagged teeth with whom I have had my fill of trouble over the seasons. Interestingly enough, he had unstrapped the bladed steel from his tail, and the flexible appendage coiled like a whip above the bed. The woman was a bent-over Rapa woman, missing a quantity of feathers, and her drab clothes bulged here and there, hiding the person who lay on the bed. The Rapa woman held a pottery cup in her hands. “Drink it, missy. Now!"
The Kataki's whip-tail flourished in time to the leather belt thwacking into his palm.
The girl on the bed spoke in a voice that trembled only a little, and the desperation in her and the low almost controlled words filled that dismal chamber with a courage anyone would respond to. Anyone except these two—and Queen Fahia and her guard.
“It is disgusting and I think it is taking away my reason. I will not drink it!"
Rebel of Antares [Dray Prescot #24] Page 14
