Renegade of Kregen dp-13

by Alan Burt Akers

  The interruption in my progress, the check as the crowd surged back making way, the shock of seeing old comrades again, all conspired to thwart my plans.

  Chido gesticulating violently, and Rees stalking on arrogantly, they passed through the crowd and on into the moonlight outside. I roused myself. The idiot Golitas would follow soon. After he had gone, would there be a chance to snatch Gafard and the king? "Ah, Gadak! Just the man!" I whirled about and my hand fell to my longsword. Gafard stared at me, and past me at the others in the canvas-walled anteroom.

  "All of you! Out searching! The king is most wrathful. The flying boat has been stolen and stolen by no less than Pur Dray, the great Krozair. Stir yourselves!" He saw the movement of my hand. "Yes, Gadak. It is a time for swords — but only when we find the flying boat"

  "Yes, gernu."

  How easily I slipped into the ways of Grodnim that had encompassed me these past months!

  My prime responsibility was to Delia. I had to get out of the inner sea and back to her. I had to get back alive, for she had warned me, long and long ago, that she would be cross with me if I got myself killed. Beside her anger at that kind of foolishness on my part, the anger of King Genod over the loss of his voller was as the mewling of an infant.

  There were many men, both apim and diff, in the anteroom of the king’s tent. A guard party of bowmen stood with bows held up and arrows nocked, a part and parcel of the king’s security. Word that the Lord of Strombor had been seen was enough to make every man stand to arms and tremble, sweating in anticipation.

  The events that had taken place since I had bluffed my way in here to hear Rees’s great Numim bellow to the moment when Gafard ordered me to join the search had taken practically no time at all. Words and thoughts and actions had tumbled one over the other.

  My plan had failed.

  There was no chance at all to take Gafard and less chance, even than that, to take the king. If I put a sword-edge to Gafard’s throat and forced my way in to the king the bowmen would feather me, and if Gafard died as well that was the price Grodno exacted. I remembered, here in the very Eye of the World, the callousness with which Prince Glycas, the embodiment of all that was evil in the overlords of Magdag, had told me that I could slay his guard-commander, but that he would surely slay me, anyway. The only life with which to bargain with King Genod was the life of King Genod himself.

  "Don’t stand about, you calsanys!" bellowed Gafard. No doubt he had had the rough edge of Genod’s tongue. His fierce face showed all the venom I might have shown in a similar situation. "Schtump!" He used that coarse and abusive word to these officers, the word that conveys in such a vivid way "Get out!

  Clear off!"

  "Schtump!" roared Gafard, the King’s Striker. "Find the flying boat of the king!" Even then, as the men elbowed out carrying me with them in the press and I saw the tall, scar-faced form of Golitas approaching Gafard, the King’s Striker had not made any evil promises as a reward for failure. He was canny enough to see the apparently obvious. If the flying boat could sail through the air faster than a galloping sectrix, then she would be away and gone and no torchlight search in the darkness would find her again.

  As we mounted up I had to stop cursing. My hands did not shake, but in all else I felt myself to be the greatest rogue in two worlds. My nerve had not failed me, for I knew it was Delia who had restrained my hand. But I knew what my conduct would appear to my comrades, to my Brother Krozairs — I had failed in my plans and had not taken the opportunity to cut down all in my path until I died still striking out with the cry of Zair on my bloodied lips.

  That, of course, was the maniac’s way, the battle-lover’s way, the berserker way I had renounced with disgust.

  But — would that not have been a Jikai?

  Possibly, but a damned little one in my view.

  I gave up making excuses for my feeble conduct and spurred off into the darkness with the others, the link-slaves astride preysanys lighting our way, and precious little chance we had of finding the voller, I can say.

  The torches flared their blazing hair over the shadows and we rode and men shouted and there was much hullabaloo. I took the first opportunity to ride off and lose myself in the darkness. The Maiden with the Many Smiles made that difficult, for the darkness was a matter of a pink-lit radiance, gloomy only in comparison with the glory of the daytime suns; the torches emphasized the darkness. I slipped away at last and cantered along to where I had left the voller. No one followed. I had miserably failed in the main elements of my plan. I did not return with the king and Gafard. But the second part of the scheme could still work. I would take the voller and we’d fly out over the inner sea and when the convoy bearing the supplies for the army appeared off the coast we would swoop down and sink and burn the lot.

  Yes, that would at least salvage some part of my Jikai.

  With a voller of the quality of the airboat we had captured under my command I would be master of the situation.

  Grandiloquent ideas burned in my mind. I felt the power of madness and of supernal power flowing through me.

  With the airboat I could be master of the coast, and destroy utterly all Genod’s plans. He had no varters that could deal with vollers. The armies of the Hostile Territories and of Havilfar contained high-angle varters, artillery designed to hurl bolts upward and so bring down the flaunting ships of the air. These devices were unknown in the inner sea. I would be unchallenged. I would be unchallengeable.

  So it was that with the hateful word "I" ringing in my head I reached the place where the voller had been hidden.

  Approaching cautiously, for there had been weapons aplenty in the flier and I did not want an arrow through me, I gave a low-voiced hail.

  "Duhrra! Hikdar Ornol!"

  The camouflage had been well done. The nik-nik bushes concealed all. My sectrix lumbered on, his hooves near soundless on the sandy soil. The pink and golden moonlight flooded down and away from the interference of the torches’ glow I could see well. I called again, louder. No answer. Nothing.

  The sectrix slipped and skidded down the incline. I was enclosed by the bushy walls. I looked about. The voller was not there.

  I looked again, and shouted, and spurred up and sent the sectrix crashing down into the bottom of the gulley.

  Nothing.

  The voller was gone.

  Just how long I rode up and down, flailing at bushes with my sword, yelling, bellowing, I have no idea. At last the realization reached me that, in truth, the voller had flown. I could not curse. For the last time I galloped lumpily across the sandy soil, flailing away, and bits of bush flew into the air, spinning in the moon-drenched darkness. The smell of night blooms hung strongly in the air. Nothing.

  No voller.

  Duhrra and the men from Zandikar had gone.

  I was alone.

  Now, if ever, was the time to remember that I, Gadak of the Green, was not and never could be Gadak of the Green.

  Chapter Fifteen

  My Lady of the Stars wields a dagger

  "The onkers rush upon their own destruction," said Gafard with great satisfaction. We sat our sectrixes upon a slight eminence in the nik-nik covered bluffs. The sea sparkled bluely away to our left. The land to the right trended, flat and uninteresting, to a far horizon where heat shimmer broke outlines into blue and purple ghosts. Blown by the wind, drifts of sand swathed the scene below. Below us and less than half a dwabur away marched the hosts of Zair, advancing to the west. How marvelous they looked, with their many red banners fluttering, the suns striking back in gleam and glint from armor and weapons. Sectrix cavalry trotted on the flanks. Infantry marched at the center. On they came, proud in their might, a splendid army gathered from the fortress cities of Pynzalo and Zimuzz, from the inland towns of Jikmarz and Rozilloi, and from many of the villages of the fertile inland territories. In all those brave banners of the Red I saw the proud devices, and recognized many of them. Justice and hope marched there, pride and honor. On t
he right flank, their sectrixes’ hooves sometimes cutting through the surf, trotted a contingent of splendid cavalry on whose red banners the device of the hubless spoked wheel within the circle blazed and coruscated.

  Only a small contingent of Krozairs of Zy there were. I guessed that the bulk of the Krzy would be far to the west, fighting with Pur Zenkiren and the two generals of the combined armies there. My heart lifted when I saw that grand and formidable array advancing toward the massed green banners before me.

  Gafard, the King’s Striker, sat his sectrix and chuckled and ever and anon he pulled that black hawk-beard of his. He had given no further orders after those that had drawn out the army of Magdag into its allotted positions.

  Two sennights had gone by since my disastrous debacle on the night the king’s voller had been stolen by the famous Krozair, the Lord of Strombor. Although a strict watch was kept against the flyer’s return, no more had been seen of her.

  I had hoped she would be flying over the host of Zair when they marched to the attack. The Zairians had worked like demons to collect this army to reinforce the armies of the west. Now we had appeared unexpectedly in their path. They attacked recklessly. This was the way they reacted to the descent upon their coasts of the Green of Grodno.

  The king and Gafard had been highly delighted.

  All thought of investing Pynzalo had been abandoned. The garrison of the city marched in the host fronting us. Gafard had said, "They save us much labor and casualties." He had slapped his thigh with his riding glove before throwing it to a slave and taking up the metaled war-gauntlets he would wear for the battle. "You ride as aide to me, Gadak. Nalgre and Nath and Insur, with Gontar and Gerigan, will be all I need. Once the battle is joined there will be little need for messages. The army of the king knows what to do!"

  "One wonders," said Gontar, who prided himself that his father was an overlord of Magdag who owned estates requiring ten thousand slaves to run, "if that cramph the Lord of Strombor is with the onkers this day."

  "One," said Gafard, Sea-Zhantil, "sincerely trusts he is not." They took that to mean the obvious, but I glanced at Gafard — and away smartly, to be sure — and guessed he meant he hoped Pur Dray would not be there to be slain by a casual pike-thrust. Gafard wanted to cross swords with the great Krozair in person, so I said to myself, pondering imponderables. I admit, in all fairness, that I was not only coming to share these damned Grodnims’ obsession with Pur Dray, Krozair, and regarding him in the third person, but also was still much surprised that his legend persisted so vividly after fifty years. I could scarce credit that no other Krozair had risen to a similar eminence in the Eye of the World.

  The truth was that Gafard so hungered after a similar renown his well-known obsession fostered the persistence of the stories and tales of the Lord of Strombor. Now that Pur Dray had returned to life, had been declared Apushniad by the Krzy and had actually been seen back at his old activities, no wonder speculation and rumor buzzed around the camp like flies over the carcass of a chunkrah slain by leems on the plains.

  Also in this fascination with a Red Krozair must be the dread knowledge in the minds of the overlords that Pur Dray had witnessed the private, terrible rites that went on in the utmost secrecy within the megaliths at the time of the Great Death, when the red sun eclipsed the green sun. I suppose, trying to think about it logically and restraining myself from taking the amused and cynical line that was too treacherously easy, there was a terrible and malefic aura about the name and deeds of Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor, Krozair of Zy.

  The hosts of Red marched on, their banners flying. The ranks of Green waited calmly, silent, and their green banners flaunted no less vividly under the suns.

  Gafard was eyeing the distances. We could all see the restiveness in the Red cavalry on the wings. They would charge at any moment, a torrent of mailed men bursting down on the ranks of Green footmen. Those footmen were fronted by a glittering, slanting wall of pike-heads. I knew the heart of that formation down there below us on the sandy soil. I had created it myself. The serried mass of pikes in the strong phalanx to take the shock of the cavalry change. The halberdiers and swordsmen to protect the pikes from swordsmen. The wedges of arbalesters shooting with controlled rhythm. And the shields — that cowards’ artifice — the shields to protect the men and deflect the shafts from the short, straight bows and the crossbows of the enemy. Oh, yes, I had designed that fighting machine to destroy mailed overlords of Magdag. And now those same devilish overlords used my fighting instrument, remade by them with their own swods, to destroy my comrades in Zair. I tell you, my thoughts were bleak and spare.

  I hoped that the Zairians would win.

  I knew the worth of my work and the genius of Genod Gannius, whose parents I had saved from destruction, and I knew, darkly and with agony and remorse, the inevitable outcome of the battle. What I would do was already worked out. I knew that despite all, I could not stop myself. The red cloth was stuffed again within the breast of my tunic. I would don the red, draw my longsword, and so hurl myself into the rear of the pikes as the charges went in. Perhaps there would be a little chance for the Krozairs, for the Red Brethren, for the warriors of Zair.

  That chance was slender to the point of nonexistence.

  But, despite all, I could not stop myself.

  Sharply, a shadow fleeted over the ground and we all looked up and there, skimming through the bright air, flew the two-place voller with Genod Gannius gorgeous in green and gold leaning over and encouraging his troops.

  If he had fire-pots up there. .

  The army of the Green let out a dull surf-roar of welcome and greeting to their king. Very pretty it was. And in defiant answer rose the shouts from the Reds.

  "Grodno! Zair! Green! Red!" The shouts rose and clashed. "Krozair! Ghittawrer!" The yells twined in the brilliant atmosphere. And, a new shout, a shrill screeching: "Genod! Genod! The king!" The Zairian cavalry charged, a torrential mass of steel and red bearing down on the massed pikes. I reined Blue Cloud a little way back of the other aides. They were all standing in their stirrups, craning to look down from our eminence onto the drama spread out below. Now was the time to don the red and so charge down and make a finish.

  It might not be a Jikai, but with those Krozair shouts ringing through the air and the brave scarlet fluttering I could do no other. .

  A shadow flitted into the corner of my eye and I turned, quickly, the red half drawn from my green tunic. A Pachak with only one left arm, and a bloody stump where the other should be, rode frantically up to Gafard, his hebra foundering. He yelled at Gafard. I heard his words, caught and blown by the wind; I saw Gafard’s hard mahogany face turn abruptly gray within the iron rim of his helmet.

  "My Lady — treachery — we were surprised — slain — black — men in black — my lord. ." The Pachak fell even as his hebra collapsed.

  Gafard lifted his head and screeched.

  I thrust the red away and kicked Blue Cloud over.

  "Gadak! You I trust! Find Grogor! Find Nath ti Hagon! Take men — anyone — ride, Gadak, ride! My Lady of the Stars — my pearl, my heart. . ride, Gadak! Ride as you love me!" I didn’t love the devil. But — my Lady of the Stars!

  What do I know, now, of my thoughts, my emotions, and my feelings? I know I knew the Zairian army below me was doomed, for I had wrought the instrument of their destruction. But there would come another time, another field, and another battle. Now all my blood clamored that I save my Lady of the Stars.

  I rode. I did not ride wearing the red. I rode not for my lord Gafard, the King’s Striker, the Sea-Zhantil

  — but for my Lady of the Stars.

  Even now, after all that happened, I do not regret that decision.

  If only some easy power of sorcery had been open to me!

  If only by some magic formula I could have prevented what was fated to occur. But I am a mortal man and the fantasies of wish-fulfillment belong to the myths and legends of Kregen, not to the hard reality of
that beautiful and terrible world beneath the Suns of Scorpio. Yes, there is seeming magic on Kregen, and the wizards practice mighty sorceries, but they are of a piece, following ordained paths. The wonder and mystery of Kregen can never be denied, but it is men and women with hope and courage who flesh out the true fantasies.

  I rode.

  Grogor, Gafard’s second in command, that surly man, did not hesitate a fraction. He screeched a savage order to a squadron of sectrixmen, all picked men-at-arms, apims and diffs, and wheeled his mount and was away with streaming mane and flying feathers. We picked up Nath ti Hagon, Gafard’s trusted ship-Hikdar, and then, in a compact body, we rode from the battlefield. Sand blew from our sectrixes’

  hooves. The wind of our passage blustered in our plumes and scorched into our faces. So we left the action, the battle, that debacle for the Red, which the mad genius king Genod called the Battle of Pynzalo.

  Wherever Gafard had hidden his beloved, the rasts of men in black had found her. I had one hope. The voller had been flown by Genod himself and it had flown over the battlefield. We had to deal with men mounted on sectrixes like ourselves.

  In one item of my reading of the situation I was wrong.

  We went flying through the near-deserted camp, sending the camp followers stumbling out of our way, only the green of our plumes and dress able to convince them they were not attacked by a raiding party of Zairians. We belted past the lines of tents. I had nudged Blue Cloud gently to the head of the pack, for although I wished to conserve him for what I thought would be a long ride, I still felt the mad desire to hurry on like a maniac and be the first there to rescue my Lady of the Stars. The Pachak of her guard who had escaped to warn Gafard must have been a most intelligent as well as a brave man. He must have fought until he saw there was no hope left and then, instead of going on fighting and throwing his life away, had turned and raced for the King’s Striker. Out past the camp we saw the flurry of green cloaks. I looked closer. A party of sectrixmen was picking its way down the sandy slopes toward the beach. A swifter waited there, her stern ladder erected, one end on the quarter and the other on the beach. Beneath the green cloaks I saw — instead of the expected white, or green, or the flash of mail — black.