“You’ve got to break out, Hwang, before you are all cut to pieces!”
He started again to say, “Perhaps,” when Seg approached followed by Thelda. She looked dreadful, the tearstains shining on her cheeks. Seg looked mean.
“You can’t stay here,” he began at once. “We’ll all be chopped. Mount and ride! The longbows of Loh can ride through granite walls!”
Hwang looked from Seg to me, and back. He took a grip on himself, and I could fully sympathize with his position. As for myself, I was perfectly content with what I must do. Then Thelda took my arm as Seg and Hwang, arguing hotly, moved off to confer with Hwang’s staff officers.
“Dray-”
I found a scrap of cloth and wiped her face.
“You’ll get out all right, Thelda. Seg will see to that.”
“Dear Seg-”
“He is the finest man you’re likely to meet, in Vallia or elsewhere, Thelda.”
“I know. And I’ve treated him so badly. But, Dray, I had to! Surely you see that? I had to!”
“I don’t see it.”
Above the bending ranks of bows and the nodding plumes of Hwang’s men sudden onslaughts of the Harfnars boiled up to the lines and then the long lances thrust in drilled precision, the slender swords disemboweled, and the onrush turned once more into a retreat. But every mur that passed thinned the ranks of the soldiers of Hiclantung. Unless Hwang broke out soon the end was very near. Thelda gulped, and her hands gripped and twisted together. She looked as though she had reached the last of her strength.
“But I had to! I was ordered to-”
“Ordered?”
“Yes, Dray. You know how the proposed marriage between yourself, a mere Lord of the Clansmen, and the Princess Majestrix is viewed in Vallia? Even the Presidio could not agree on a complete approval. Each member has his own rapier to sharpen.”
I did not smile at her — we would say “ax to grind” — but I had already guessed what she would say. Indeed, only a credulous idiot like Dray Prescot would have missed the unmistakable signs before. “Go on, Thelda, my Lady of Vallia.”
“Oh, Dray! Say you don’t hate me, please!”
“I don’t hate you, Thelda.”
She regarded me with a wary misery through her tears.
“When Delia insisted on flying out herself I, as her hand-lady, also would go. The Ractor party gave me my instructions and they are very strong, Dray, terribly powerful!”
I nodded.
“They have their own candidates for the princess’ hand. They are determined you shall never marry her-”
“So you were told to deflect my interest from Delia — to yourself.”
Poor Thelda! How could she imagine that any woman in two worlds could prevent me from thinking of Delia for a single instant? Even Mayfwy, dear, loyal, wonderful Mayfwy, had not deflected me. The battle could not go on for very much longer. The lines of wounded stretched now past the uneasy nactrixes. I fancied Hwang would not abandon his casualties and he would need every man in the ranks who could wield a sword. I reached down a hand to Thelda, to touch her shoulder and reassure her, but she gripped my hand and pressed it to her face and I could feel the tears, hot and sticky.
“I had my instructions, and I tried to follow them. And, in truth, Dray, I did fall in love with you. I believe any woman would. But Seg — he is-”
“For your own sake, Thelda, forget me. Care for Seg Segutorio. He will afford you all the love and shelter any woman could desire.”
She lifted her eyes to me, and the tears brimmed there, silver and shining.
“But, Dray — I have been foolish, for I have been brought up to obey. The Ractors demand instant and total obedience in their schemes. But, Dray-”
She was trying to tell me something extra, a fact she had to force out. Seg shouted and I turned. He waved an arm. In all the uproar of shouting and screams, of the shrieks of wounded men and beasts, the incessant clang of steel on steel and steel on bronze, I just caught the tag end of his words.
“. . now and not a moment to lose!”
Hwang’s men were going through their drill with the precision of English Guards. Now the missiles were flint-tipped arrows. But they could strike through the bronze we wore, they could slice into the heart through the interstices in our armor, gaudy and beautiful as it was.
“We’re leaving, Thelda. Up you come. And mind you stick close to Seg!”
She came up softly into my arms, limp and trembling.
“But, Dray — I must tell you! I must!”
I held her as the roaring battle smashed and boomed about us.
“Dray — Delia did not fall into the tarn. I did not see that. I said that to make you forget her-”
The roaring was in my head now. This story, this falsehood of Delia tumbling into the tarn had been the single dominant fear, bringing on all the rest; if she had not died then, she would still be alive now. I knew it. I felt it with every fiber of my being. No cynicism could deter me, now. Delia lived — I believed that. Delia lived!
The Lohvian soldiery of Hiclantung ran smartly to their nactrix lines, mounted. Detachments maintained a covering shower of arrows. With an excess of energy like the release of icy water in the spring thaws of the north, I flung Thelda up into her saddle. I straddled my own mount. Seg was with us. Hwang shouted. The emptied supply cars were loaded with wounded. A wedge formed. I thrust my way to the apex — thinking ironically that this was the spot Queen Lilah had wished me to occupy, a spot in which my own foolhardy valor would spur on and encourage her army. Now I obeyed her wishes in order to save a paltry remnant of the Lohvians of Hiclantung.
Like some bursting summer storm cloud we broke away down the grassy slope. The nactrix hooves pounded. Arrows crisscrossed. Men and beasts shrieked and reared and fell away. We went bounding on, bouncing in our saddles, and yet maintaining that incredible accuracy of shooting that is the pride of the Lohvian.
Seg spurred up with me, his bow bending and releasing with a smooth inflexible rhythm. He controlled his mount with his knees, as did most of the men of Erthyrdrin, although some cavalrymen of Hiclantung tended to gather up their reins in the hands that grasped their longbows. I had followed the example of Seg, although my training stemmed from those far-off days riding with Hap Loder and my Clansmen across the Great Plains of Segesthes. Had I a phalanx of voves at my back now — we would smash like a roller of the gods across the Harfnars of Chersonang!
Seg turned his tanned flushed face toward me. Every thing about him was instinct with the passion of battle. I saw his face change; the expression of absolute horror and then of fanatical determination that crossed his features told me, without the need of personal verification, what had happened. With a tremendous shout Seg swirled about. He thrust his great longbow away as he spurred cruelly back.
Back there Thelda’s nactrix had taken an arrow in the belly.
She was sprawled across the grass to one side of the following wedge of cavalry. Arrows nicked the air. Arrows feathered into men and beasts. The carts rolled and bucked as they bounced after the cavalry wedge, their wounded occupants shrieking in time to the jouncing. Dust spurted. In all the crazed uproar I knew Seg could see only Thelda.
As he reached her a flying wing of Chersonang cavalry swept over them. I saw his long sword shining red; then he was down.
Somewhere in that melee of spurring beast-men and trampling nactrixes, of cutting steel and thrusting lances, lay Seg and Thelda.
I thought of Queen Lilah, and of my place at the apex of the wedge — but we were in retreat, we were not charging to victory. I brought the nactrix around with as much cruelty as Seg had shown, dug in my spurs, sent the half mad beast crashing back.
Harfnars with their flashing weapons reared before me.
Arrows cut the plumes from my helmet. Arrows clanged away flintily from the armor. One sank deeply into the neck of the nactrix. It went on and over in a somersault. I flew from its back, turning over, still grasping my
long sword. I did not see Seg and Thelda again in that maelstrom of barbaric savagery. Then, for a space, I did not see anything at all save a red-flaming blackness. During this period of misted movement and dulled perception I was aware of a voice speaking in the common language of Kregen, so I knew it would be an indigo-haired Ullar talking to a Harfnar of Chersonang.
“Bring him. He will furnish sport for a while.”
There followed movement and the sensation of flying and the thrashing sounds of great wings beating the air. The ache in my head diminished to proportions just short of bearable and I came back to my senses chained and bound and strapped up to a granite wall in a dark dungeon. Dungeons are dungeons, as I have remarked before, and some are worse than others. This particular specimen contained all the unpleasant features a human-operated dungeon would have, plus a few the Harfnars had thought up out of their own culture of bestiality.
A groaning and moaning sound told me there were others of the men of Hiclantung with me, reserved for sport. There was no need to elaborate on what was in store for us. Cultures approximate, given the original dark impulse that began the gene trail.
By the time the first set of jailers flung open the lenken door and descended the greasy steps toward us I had freed my left wrist and partially broken away the links chaining my right. Under the impression that it was now or never I exerted all my force. My shoulders are not only wide, they are blessed with roping muscles that can surprise even me. The last link parted with a ringing ping. In the fresh dazzlement of light I blinked and caught two of the Harfnar jailers about their throats and squeezed and flung them into their companions. All the time a low bestial growling rumbled and raged in the dungeon. The Harfnars hoisted themselves up, yelling, and their swords flicked out. They approached me warily. I was still securely fastened by my legs, so that between fending off the beast-men with swung chains I bent and tried feverishly to unfasten my legs, only having to straighten up and lash out again to make them keep their distance.
“Put down your chains, you Hiclantung cramph!”
“I’ll slit your belly up to your throat, rast!”
At first I did not deign to answer them as they yelled at me and I worked on my bonds and swung the chains and all the time that sullen bestial roaring boomed and thundered in the dungeon.
“Keep them occupied!” shouted a Hiclantung cavalryman. The other captives were attempting to break their bonds, but they could not succeed. I still do not recall the exact strengths I exerted to snap those chains.
“Smash him over the head!” screeched the guard commander.
They danced in, one went down with his face ripped off, then they had entangled the chains, were bringing up spears to strike at me.
“Come on, rasts, and by the Black Chunkrah, come to your deaths!”
As I shouted the words, that bestial roaring stopped in the dungeon. Only then was the realization borne in on me that it was I, Dray Prescot, who had been roaring and thundering in so savage a fashion. The shock sobered me.
In that instant the dungeon door was blocked off by the entry of a bulky half-man and the guards finally lost their patience with me and one thrust hard and in deadly earnest. His spear point darted for my breast.
I smashed it away and took him by the throat with my left hand, held him squirming and kicking in the air as I snap-reversed the spear and de-gutted the next guard. Then I hurled the one I held into their midst and swung the spear down again in low port.
“What are you waiting for, offal and dung feeders?”
They hesitated. They were splashed with the blood of their comrades. They could see the dead bodies sprawled on the dungeon floor, dreadfully mutilated. And all this from a man chained up by his legs!
The newcomer shouted, harshly, loudly, angrily, beside himself with fury.
“Dunderheaded dolts! By Hlo-Hli the Debased! I’ll flog every man of you! Take him! Take him now! ”
Goaded by twin fears, the Harfnars flung themselves upon me in a body. They entangled my left arm in flung ropes and dragged me down cruelly. I gasped and forced myself upright. A spear blade slogged down on my temple and I only half broke its force. But I slashed through the ropes — the flint-headed spear was sharper than any cheap steel — and reared back, blood obscuring my vision, my legs clamped as though trapped by a chank of the inner sea.
The man giving the orders moved closer. He peered at me in the light streaming down the dungeon steps. He put both hands on his hips and jutted his head forward, so that his indigo-stained beard shot forward like the ram of a swifter.
“You must be the one they call Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor.”
“And if I am, much good it will do you!” I shouted and hurled the spear full into his stomach. He gobbled and fell back, his hands clawing himself, seeking to stem the dark rush of blood welling past the neat flint-knapped semicircles of the blade.
His opened mouth sought to shriek, but only blood poured forth.
He fell.
And then I, Dray Prescot, laughed.
It did not last long after that.
The other captives were taken out one by one and when it was my turn I was tightly wrapped around in chains and ropes and carried up the dungeon steps. I saw clearly on the square boxlike faces of my captors a gloating kind of good humor. They knew what lay in store for me and they joyed in their dark fashion for the horrors I must endure. Indigo-haired Ullars met the cortege — an apt word, I remember thinking, wryly — at the entrance of arched brick where the brilliant hues of the suns of Scorpio flooded down in topaz and opal and incandescent light.
We entered an open area rather in the fashion of a theater or arena. The anti-flier defense had been rolled away, and hung in nets at the sides, rather after the style of a Roman velarium not paid for by the gladiatorial promoter presently putting his show on and awaiting the next one, who had. The amphitheater-like atmosphere continued in the storied series of seating terraces, all jam-packed with spectators. Dark blood lay seeping into the sand. Ullars moved about officiously. I looked for Umgar Stro. He must, I considered, be the chief man among the lolling group of dignitaries and nobles gawking down from an awning-draped box over the arena steps.
In the air and cutting through the familiar reeks of spilled blood and dust and sand and sweat a new and strangely disturbing odor laid a nasty taste in my mouth.
At the far end of the stretch of sand a monstrous erection of red brick reared. It was barred down the front. Beyond I caught the vaguest of glimpses of writhing motion, a flicker of evil eyes, the sway of tentacles.
And then — and then!
A wooden stake reared from the sand, surmounted by a triangle of logs, all bound together with thongs. Naked she was.
All naked and white in the suns-light.
Thick and heavy ropes bound her to the triangle of logs, their rough bark harsh upon her soft skin. All white, her body glowed in the suns-light, bound by the constricting ropes that crossed over her spread-eagled legs, cutting into her thighs, her stomach, her arms, her throat. Openly displayed, she hung there naked before the taunting gaze of the Ullars and the Harfnars, hung there by express order of Umgar Stro, baffled of a willing conquest, victim of his lusts for sadistic pleasure as much as the sweeter pleasure of voluptuous surrender. White and virginal and hanging, Delia, my Delia of Delphond, hung there awaiting the doom that writhed beyond the iron bars. And I stood stupidly before her, bound head and foot, helpless.
Chapter Eighteen
On my own two feet, then
Some little Ullar with his silly blue-dyed hair was prancing and yammering on the sand before me, but I could not pay much attention to him, even when he jabbed a spear into my stomach, because I was looking and looking at Delia. She hung there in her bonds, roped to that blasphemous triangle of rough-bark wood. Her head was raised in defiance, her chin high, and her glorious brown hair shone radiantly with those outrageous auburn tints beneath the suns of Scorpio. She saw me.
She did not
scream out.
We looked at each other, Delia and I, we looked, and between us passed the knowledge that if we were to die now, at least, we died together.
The Ullar was shouting and his flint-headed spear was becoming decidedly uncomfortable. I managed to fall sideways against my chains and the Ullar on my right side, and as his arms automatically constricted about me to support me I lifted myself against him. Like a jackknife I doubled up in the chains and my feet shot out and crashed into the Ullar’s face. He yowled and went over and I heard the answering roar from the massed spectators.
Yes, we were a spectacle, staked out for the enjoyment of the half-men peoples of Chersonang. Well-divided they were, I noticed; Ullars to my right and Harfnars to my left. The ornately canopied box of Umgar Stro frowned over the assemblage. The Ullar picked himself up, clasping his nose from which the blood poured. He would have done for me with his spear then, but a shout arrested him and he swung away under orders from Umgar Stro.
All around the walls of the stadium perched giant impiters. Their coal-black plumage cut stark arabesques against the bright sky. The heat stifled down, intense and sweaty. I went on working with the chains, testing, seeking, straining.
Was that a link, thinner than the rest? Malleable? Subject to a straining twist? Surreptitiously I pulled and levered, feeling the thinner link distorting its shape.
We prisoners to be offered up as sacrifices had been fed some nauseating swill so as to keep our strength up to prevent us from fainting and so cheating the populace of their spectacle. If ever I had needed strength in my life, I needed it then.
Now the noise from the rows of seats began to settle into a rhythm and recognizable words beat out in a roar of sound.
Warrior of Scorpio dp-3 Page 19
