The Tides of Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  "Hold, Jernu! Hold! I am with you!"

  And then — it was wonderful, courageous, bold; it was the true Jikai — this man, this old white-haired man called Dak smashed his way past the two Chuliks, ripped the guts from the last Rapa and so hurled himself at the two opposing his lord.

  He had no chance. He exposed his back as he struck shrewdly at the first. The blow was parried. I saw the slowness of this Dak’s reactions, saw that the strength had been drained from him. He knew his end was come and he flashed his longsword before his eyes and so drank for the last time of a foeman’s blood.

  As he fell beneath the slashing blows he shouted for the last time.

  "Zair! Jikmarz! Jikmarz!"

  He fell.

  The whole incident took practically no time at all, less time than it took me to scrabble up from the corpse and shake the infernal ringing of those famous Bells of Beng Kishi from my skull, take a fresh grip on my sword and leap forward.

  The young man screamed now, screamed high and shrill like a dying leem with the long lances of my clansmen transfixing its lean and evil body.

  "Dak! Dak! Sweet Jikmarz! Dak!"

  "Hold!" I bellowed, surging forward. "I am coming!"

  As I smashed into the Chuliks and the group of apims I had been pursuing, Duhrra came to my side. Together we fought against the foemen, seeking to save the young man. We slew until our arms ran red with Magdaggian blood, until the last Chulik fell with his body hacked and butchered before he would drop, but when we reached that young man, that Brother of the Red Brethren of Jikmarz, he was dead.

  Duhrra, his plated chest expanding and contracting evenly as he drew in enormous lungfuls of air, regarded me somberly.

  "You fight well, Dak. Yet is this boy slain."

  That be called me Dak was a mere mistake of the moment, a chance that he understood the Red Brother of Jikmarz to be calling on me when he screamed for Dak. The amazement was in his way of speaking, with no hesitation, no idiot’s repetition of the opening "duh" to every sentence, no slurring of speech. Was this only the result of battle?

  "Yes. It is the will of Zair."

  I looked up. The mass of lumber moved. A beam toppled, twisting, falling.

  "Stand clear, Duhrra!"

  I leaped back. Duhrra braced to spring and the side of the stack of timbers bulged as a grain sack bulges in the moment it is slit open. The enormous weight of the logs rolled smashing down on Duhrra. In the leaping dust I caught a single glimpse of his left arm outflung toward me with the moon-oval of his face glimmering pinkly through the shadows. I grasped his hand and pulled. His mouth opened, but in the rolling noise of toppling logs I did not hear him. He would not budge. A beam struck my legs away from me and I cursed and surged back, then, mercifully, the logs lay still. The dust plumed in the air and drifted down. There was a sickly smell of rotting vegetation puffing from the lumber. I looked at Duhrra.

  He was trapped.

  His body lay on the ground, with his right hand caught between two squared beams of timber. I knew, looking, that his hand would be squashed flat, ironed out, ground into a flat and useless pulp.

  "I cannot move, master."

  Bending to look closely, I was aware that I could see very well. A quick glance back showed me that the loose timber among the stacks was on fire, burning fiercely. The beams, thick and massive though they were, were tinder-dry. They would burn.

  And Duhrra lay trapped in the path of the flames.

  "It is finished for me, Dak. You had best leave—"

  "Shut up Duhrra! I will not leave you."

  "Then you too will burn."

  Down past the spouts of flame shooting horizontally from the crevices in the stacks a shimmer of movement came closer, the wink of firelight on steel. I peered. In the red firelight the colors down there looked black. Green.

  Turning his heavy round head Duhrra saw too. He licked his lips.

  "Put my sword into my left hand, Dak, my master. I would die well."

  "You are an onker, Duhrra! There is no need to die. I cannot move the beams—"

  "Aye. I could not move one. Together we could not move one. And they are piled up on my hand."

  "Yet is there a way, if you will take it."

  His heavy-lidded eyes regarded me with the shock of a new idea forcing its way into closed and resigned determination.

  "Another way? Besides striking until I can strike no more and so go down to the Ice Floes of Sicce?"

  "Aye. If you will take it. Many men would prefer to die . . ."

  "I see, Dak, my master. It is clear now."

  "Well?"

  He regarded me with a maddening slowness, almost complacency.

  "It is for you to choose, Dak, my master."

  "I’m not your damn master! And there is a saying where I come from: Where there’s life there’s hope. So that’s settled."

  Don’t think I was unaware of what the decision meant to a man like Duhrra, a superb physical specimen — somewhat on the heavy and bulky side, to be sure — who had lived by wrestling. To any man the decision would be hard. But I had seen the way Duhrra had used his longsword in his right hand, all heavy swishings and smashings as though he cut down trees. With his great physical strength that method of using a longsword would serve, at least in the yelling confusion of a battle. He would not have lasted long against just one of the Chuliks with space to display technique and bladesmanship.

  "The green sea-leems come on," said Duhrra. "I am no calsany in these matters. Why do you hesitate?"

  "I would like to know you are resolved first."

  "I am resolved."

  The fires spurted closer; the green cramphs from Magdag approached with hungry weapons. Perhaps the choice was not as difficult as I had imagined.

  From one of the corpses I ripped a strip of humespack and tore the cloth with vicious fingers. As I had seen the skilled doctors of Valka do so I bound a strip around Duhrra’s arm and knotted it until I brought a dinting furrow between his eyebrows, all the signs of pain this man-mountain would condescend to show.

  I stepped back and took up my longsword.

  He said, "Do not tarry, Dak. The rasts of Magdag are almost here, and the fire burns."

  The longsword slashed down.

  I dragged Duhrra to his feet, leaving his squashed hand and a tiny portion of his wrist to burn away between the logs. The blow had been good, the aim true. Blood spurted, of course, but he would survive until I could have a doctor treat his stump.

  The fires roared and crackled and the smoke beat down as the breeze blew. I held Duhrra. More figures appeared, men wearing the red. Now I deliberately moved away from a fight. A Hikdar shouted, high, triumphant: "We have the cramphs on the run!"

  I did not grunt sourly at him that the Grodnim-gastas had done the work for which they came.

  Together Duhrra and I went from that scene of carnage and fire and blood to seek a needleman to tend Duhrra’s pain and stump.

  He breathed a harsh intake of breath. "I do not think, Dak, that I would like men to call me Duhrra the Ob-Handed."

  "If you insist they do not, they will not," I said peacefully.

  "That is true."

  So we walked away, and I ruminated that I had had the best of the bargain that night.

  For Duhrra had lost a hand and I had gained a name.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I come to my senses

  I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of — No! No! I was no longer a Brother of the Krozairs of Zy. I must not forget that. I could not forget that. It was branded on my brain with a searing iron.

  I, that same plain Dray Prescot who had born many names on Kregen under Antares, no longer a Krozair Brother, had to assume a fresh alias.

  The reasons were plain and pressing: should a man calling himself Prescot be encountered among the army, here in the west, where there were many Krozair Brothers, then the word would pass, the retribution would be swift.

  I obviously had to hav
e an alias, and one had been given into my keeping. I would honor the name of Dak. The old white-haired man had proved a true Jikai. In my misery and determination I keenly felt the task of keeping the name of Dak unsullied.

  The conceit must have moved me that I had used the name Drak many times before; it was the name of the mythical hero of Vallia, part-god, part-man, and it was the name of my eldest son. Drak and Dak. Yes, the conceit moved me.

  The next day the wreckage of the base could be surveyed.

  The Grodnims had wreaked great destruction, yet there was much left they had not touched. This had been a pinprick which, of itself, would not materially harm the armies of Zairians fighting in the west, but which, added to many other similar pinpricks, could place all that strenuous effort in jeopardy.

  Still, no longer a Krozair, what business was this of mine? I held warm affections for Mayfwy and for Felteraz. I could see the patterns of warfare out here plainly enough. But I held to my own destiny. My Delia had given me my orders, fully understanding my own agony of spirit, the tearing torture I must have experienced in leaving the Eye of the World with all I had held dear there in the Brotherhood of Zy blackened and ruined. And yet . . . and yet. Was being a Krozair Brother so marvelously vital and important a part of my life when set against all that waited for me in the Outer Oceans? No. No, I was a fool, as usual.

  For twenty-one miserable years I had not beheld my Delia, I had seen her for a mere bur, there in the fish cell of the fortress of Zy. Looking around at the ruined camp, seeing workers and soldiers hard at repairing, restacking and carrying away burned and ruined stores, I seemed to feel the scales drop from my eyes.

  Pride.

  That was all it had been. Mere stupid pride.

  I had felt my idiot self-esteem hurt, because the single body of men I held in most regard on Kregen had turned me out, disgraced me. And I even understood why they had done it, why they had acted as they did. As the Savanti had thrown me out of the paradise of Aphrasöe and I had felt no real animosity toward them, knowing I had transgressed against their laws, so this time I held no animosity, for in the understanding of Kregen I had again transgressed. No amount of arguing or pleading could possibly change a single Krozair’s mind, let alone that of Pur Kazz, the Grand Archbold.

  No. The answer was simple.

  I had come to my senses.

  I would not deny myself or Delia what rightfully belonged to us.

  And that, by Krun, was that!

  How vicious and cruel those damned Star Lords were! They had banished me to Earth for twenty-one years. And in all that dolorous length of time my Delia had waited for me. When I had previously been banished from Delia — as when I fought in the arena of the Jikhorkdun in Huringa, or when I made myself King of Djanduin — she had spent only a fraction of time in waiting. The Star Lords had created a time loop by some alchemy of their own, so that when, for instance, I fought in Valka and cleared my island of the slavers and aragorn, I had been acting in the past, and my Delia had not even known.

  Because of that feeling that Delia was not at home pining for me — and the marvel of why so perfect a woman should ever bother her head over a bulk like me always escapes me — I had acted as I would have acted in a time loop. Then the agony of waiting had been for me alone.

  Now my Delia shared that agony.

  I was worse than a mere fool, an onker of onkers. I was an ingrate, a tormentor, a prideful villain, and I deserved all I got.

  The decision was made.

  I went to say goodbye to Duhrra.

  His stump had been cauterized and bound up and he was cheerful enough, considering.

  "It is remberee, Duhrra."

  "I found Naghan the Show. His head had been cleft in twain."

  "It grieves me to hear it."

  "I cannot wrestle with one hand—"

  "Come now! You could lay most two-handed men flat on their backs without blinking. And think of the billing! The famous wrestler fights with one hand tied behind his back. You would make a fortune."

  "It no longer appeals to me."

  "So what will you do?"

  "You say you are going to the west? That is where the army fights."

  "Yes. But I do not go to fight."

  He regarded me with a lift of one heavy eyebrow. His thick shoulders rolled as he eased his arm, favoring the stump.

  "They are going to fix me up with a hook."

  "Is it Duhrra the Hook, then?"

  "No!"

  I said, "I go to find a ship. Maybe I will have to go as far as the Akhram."

  "I have been there."

  "It is on the green northern shore."

  "True. But the Grand Canal and the Todalpheme of the Akhram stand aloof. As they must."

  He still looked the same, still with that same heavy, doughy, expressionless idiot-face. His dark eyes looked at me with meaning. He could be highly useful.

  I said, "The Todalpheme are very wise."

  He said, "I think I will go with you. It will be strange not to stand with folded arms and a stupid expression and listen to Naghan the Show extolling my prowess. It will be strange to walk the world again. I am not a clever man, Dak. I know that. But, just perhaps, I am not quite as stupid as I once thought I was."

  You couldn’t say fairer than that.

  The lightness of my spirit astounded me.

  Now that I had made the decision the whole world of Kregen appeared to me in new colors. I did not laugh, of course, and I cracked but the one smile for Duhrra — and that pained — but I felt liberated, free, all that weight of despond sloughed from me. I had made up my mind. The very Suns of Scorpio blazed the brighter.

  "I have but twenty-nine silver zinzers left, for I spent this morning on breakfast, and ate like a king."

  How incredibly humorous that statement was. I was a king!

  "Yes, Naghan always managed to welsh. He slipped you a smaller gold piece than the one he tossed up, I’ll bet."

  "A nikzo."

  Half a gold Zo-piece. Only thirty instead of the sixty silver zinzers I had won by hurling Duhrra flat on his back. He surprised me. He reached into the flat leather wallet on its strap over his shoulder and I heard the clink of coins. His left hand brought out, with a wink and a flash, another nikzo, brother to that one I had broken in the refreshment tent, paying a whole silver zinzer for tea and vosk-steaks, followed by palines, that would never cost a dhem in Pandahem or a sinver in Hamal. Still, silver coins varied in weights, just as did gold and copper ones. At sixty zinzers to a full gold Zo-piece, you were bound to get less than for the fatter sinvers.

  Duhrra saw my expression and misinterpreted it. I was thinking that the damn war was sending prices skyward, the bogey of inflation as much a specter on Kregen in areas where men were stupid enough to fight wars, whereas Duhrra took it for a reaction of pride to his generosity.

  He held the nikzo out.

  "This is rightfully yours. You floored me."

  I wanted to be canny. "More by luck than judgment." I hoped that would pass. "Still, a bet is a bet, and I need the cash." I took the money. Pride and I had fallen out.

  The truth of the matter was that I held for this big man the same admiration I held for a zhantil: the wild, untamed savagery on the Zhantil’s part matched by the controlled docility of the savagery on Duhrra’s. The apparent dichotomy is only apparent. The idea that he would accompany me pleased me. But that was all.

  Duhrra lifted his stump swathed in bandages and stared at it critically. "I must wait for my hook. Tell me what you think best. There is Shazmoz ahead, but it is besieged. They could fix my hook there."

  My mind was made up in the time a zhyan strikes.

  "We go to Shazmoz. There is a man there I must see. After that it will be the Akhram."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Of a Pachak hyr-Paktun and a Krozair

  Making our way into Shazmoz was not going to be easy.

  We eased our sectrixes on the rise and let them blow gen
tly while we looked down the long slope toward the army of Zairians encamped below. The sea glittered blue to our right. Not a speck of sail broke that wide expanse. The sky lifted high, high above, blue and distant, and the radiance of opaline light streamed mingled down about us.

  "I hear there are thirty thousand," said Duhrra.

  "And how many have the Zair-forgotten Grodnims?"

  He waved his stump, still wadded in bandages. "No one knows. Men talk. Uh . . . sixty thousand."

  "But they must lay siege to Shazmoz and at the same time front our field army. It is not easy for them."

  "May Zair rot their bones and turn their livers green."

  Shazmoz itself was distantly visible at the end of an inlet, a vision of white cupolas and towers, long white walls baking under the suns. Over there the bestial scenes of siege were being enacted; below us the camp seemed to slumber in the light.

  I had heard that the general in command here was a certain Roz Nath Lorft.[5] Men spoke well of him. He was not a Krozair. His task, relieving Shazmoz, appeared daunting and I held the shrewdest suspicion that this Nath Lorft would keep his army in touch, feeling the enemy, keeping them in play for as long as he could. Then, when Shazmoz fell, he would fall back. It seemed the Zairians had lost the ability to meet the Grodnims in the open field with any hope of success.

  Scattered parties of men were about the eternal tasks of soldiers. Very few people chose to live close to the shore of the Eye of the World; from time immemorial raids have devastated the inland coasts. If there was no secure fortress very close at hand, the coastline would lie empty and deserted under the suns, so these men were totally dependent on the supply trains. They might try to send forage parties inland, but the hated green ruled there by virtue of its greater numbers and this devil-inspired confidence of winning any open encounter.