The mountains became ever steeper and rockier and grimmer-looking. The morning was well advanced when they entered a prodigiously long, deep, and narrow defile that wound south and up into the very heart of the Belemian Mountains. They rode on and on, winding between the rough steep skirts of the slopes on either side, the rocks sometimes brushing against their legs, the hoof-falls echoing loudly. After a long ride they pulled up for a breather.
"This seems to go on forev— What's that?" said Vakar, whose ears had picked up the echo of the sound of many men moving. "Are some more of our unwashed friends coming to greet us?"
He set his horse in motion at a walk, peering ahead. The sounds grew louder. After an interminable time the source of the sounds came in sight, and both Vakar and Fual gave an involuntary cry of astonishment and horror.
The noise came from a group of twenty-odd izzuneg— the headless zombies that served Lord Awoqqas. These were dog-trotting three abreast down the road, carrying copper-headed spears. Behind them a pair of men rode small horses, like sheep-dogs herding their flock. These men shouted and pointed at the travellers, and the izzuneg broke into a run, their spears raised and their single pectoral eyes staring blankly ahead.
-
XIII. – THE KINGDOM OF THE HEADLESS
Vakar wheeled his horse and started back down the defile. As he turned he saw that Fual had already done so, and was going at a reckless gallop, though the little Aremorian was usually afraid of anything faster than an easy canter. Vakar could hear the slap of the bare feet of the izzuneg on the trail behind him. A glance back showed that he was gaining on the pursuers, and after a few more bends in the defile they were out of sight. Vakar kept on at an easier pace as Fual called back:
"Do they wish to kill us too, sir?"
"I know not. How can you judge the expression on a man's face when he has no face? But that charge looked hostile. It seems we are not welcome in Belem."
"What shall we do now, sir? Try to find another road to Niowat?"
"I'm cursed if I know. If somebody in this accursed land would only stand still long enough to talk to him ..."
They rode on until Vakar began to look for the lower end of the defile. And then—
They came around a bend in the road and almost ran headlong into another group of izzuneg with a single mounted man behind them. Again the horseman pointed and shouted, and the headless ones rushed.
Vakar and Fual whirled again and galloped up the trail down which they had just come. Behind him Vakar heard Fual's wail:
"We're lost! We're caught between two armies!"
"Not yet lost," grunted Vakar. "Keep your eye peeled for a place to climb."
He remembered Kurtevan's remark that the izzuneg could not look around or up, and the sides of the defile, while steep, were not unscalable. After several minutes of hard riding he sighted a suitable place. With a warning cry to Fual he thrust down upon his horse's back with his hands and threw himself into a crouch, his feet on the saddle-pad. Then before he could lose his balance he leaped up and to the side:
He landed on a ledge six feet above the roadway, skinned a knee, and then went bounding and scrambling up the hillside, sending down a small landslide of rocks and pebbles. Fual panted and clawed after him. Below them the horses trotted a few paces further, then stopped to eat the scanty herbage.
"Hurry up there," gritted Vakar. "And no noise!"
They clambered on up but had not yet reached the top of the slope when Vakar heard the sound of the approaching enemy. The horses snorted and ran off to southward, but in a few minutes were back again. Vakar said:
"Flatten out on this ledge and keep still."
The horses snorted and whinnied as the two groups of izzuneg converged. The animals collected in a solid group, rolling their eyes and showing their teeth. The headless ones trotted from either hand and met right below Vakar, milling witlessly and accidentally pricking each other with their pikes. As they brushed against the horses, these lashed out with teeth and hooves. One headless one was hurled flat and lay still.
The horsemen shouted back and forth over the neck-stumps of their strange force, carrying on a conversation in which Vakar could sense astonishment and frustration. Finally one of them dismounted, gave his bridle to an izzuni to hold, and pushed through the crowd toward the horses. He reached for the bridle of Vakar's own horse.
Watching from his ledge, Vakar felt red rage rise within him. It was bad enough to be attacked and chased by everybody whom one saw in this wretched country; to be stranded afoot and destitute would be worse. And the disparity in numbers would not much matter if he made use of his altitude ...
"Come on," he muttered and rose to his feet. He seized the nearest stone of convenient size and sent it crashing down the slope; then another and another. Fual joined him.
The rocks bounded and plowed into the milling mass below. Some struck other rocks and started them too rolling down. Horses screamed; the three men with heads yelled and pointed to where Vakar and Fual, working like demons, were hurling every stone within reach. The bigger stones plunged in among the izzuneg, who did nothing to avoid them, with a sound of snapping spear-shafts and breaking bones. Several of the creatures were down. The man who had tried to take Vakar's horses in tow started to push his way back out of the crowd towards his own horse.
Vakar found a precariously perched boulder as tall as himself. He called to Fual, and both put their shoulders against it and heaved. It gave a Utile with a deep grinding sound, then rolled down the hill after the others. The ground shook with the vibration of its passage, and as it went it started more stones rolling until the entire hillside below Vakar and Fual came loose with a thunderous roar and slid down upon the enemy. Vakar was reminded of a pailful of gravel being poured upon a disturbed anthill.
When the slide stopped, the mass of izzuneg was nearly buried along with the officer who had dismounted. Limbs and spears stuck up here and there among the rocks, and all four of Vakar's horses were more or less buried. At the north end of the slide the izzuni to whom the dead officer had given his reins still stood holding the horse, while at the other end the remaining two mounted men still sat their horses.
As Vakar started down the hill, these two leaped off their animals and began climbing up towards him.
"Come on, Fual, your sword!" said Vakar, unslinging his buckler.
He leaped down upon the first of the two. The man bore a small shield of hide and brandished a copper battle-adze, while his fellow swarmed up behind him with a stone-headed casse-tête.
As the man and the adze swung his awkward weapon, Vakar slammed his shield into his face. The adze clanked against the thin bronze, and Vakar made a low deep thrust with his sword under both shields. The blade ripped into the man's belly, and he screamed and fell backwards in a tangle of his own guts.
Vakar started for the other, the one with the club, but a stone thrown by Fual flew past his head and struck the man in the chest. The man turned and bounded down the slope that he had just climbed. At the bottom he took ofi in a great leap that landed him on the back of his pony, and seconds later he streaked out of sight up the gorge to southward.
While the sound of his hooves still drummed in his ears, the Lorskan turned towards the remaining izzuni. The creature had not moved, and did not move even when Vakar climbed over the landslide and faced it. The single eye looked calmly out of its chest as Vakar approached.
"Can you hear me?" said Vakar to the thing in his rudimentary Belemian. Nothing happened.
"Let go that bridle." Still no action.
"Well then, don't!" cried Vakar, and drove his bloody sword into the creature's chest.
The body swayed and collapsed. Vakar snatched at the bridle and caught the horse before it had time to shy away. He tethered it and went back to the rock-slide.
Three of his horses were dead and the remaining one had a broken leg. Vakar cut its throat and then chased the remaining horse, the one belonging to the officer he had kil
led, until he had backed it up against the rock slide and caught its reins. With both animals secured he went back to the slide. A few of the projecting members of the izzuneg still twitched, but none seemed dangerous. The corpses of the whole men, he noted, were well-dressed in turbans and knee-length tunics of fine wool with elaborate girdles of woven leather set with semi-precious stones. They also had golden rings in their ears and on their fingers (which Fual promptly took) and were evidently men of substance by the standards of these mountains.
Vakar and Fual sweated for an hour moving the rocks that had half buried their horses so that they could get at their belongings. With his sword Vakar cut a haunch off one of the dead horses for food, and by main force they pulled and pushed the live horse at the north end of the slide over the rocks to the south end. Fual said:
"My lord, aren't you going to give up this mad enterprise now?"
"And have Kuros taunt me for cowardice? Never! Get on your nag and we'll go on to Niowat."
Vakar did not like his new mount, for it was smaller and, being unused to him and his style of riding, skittish and recalcitrant.
"All the same," grumbled Fual, "there's a word for a man who attacks a hostile kingdom single-handed, and it isn't 'brave'."
Vakar grinned. Though tired, he was proud of having come through one more trial. He said:
"That's all right; some of the greatest heroes have been mad too. As in The Madness of Vrir:
"Foaming with fury he hurled the hatchet
At his helpless helpmeet, whose brains bespattered
The wattled walls; a dreadful deed . „."
Fual shuddered but said no more.
-
Next day a man rode out of the mountains ahead of them and held up an empty hand in a gesture of peace. Vakar let him approach but kept his hand near his hilt. The man spoke a little Tritonian and Vakar a few words of Belemian, so that with effort enough they managed to make themselves mutually understood. The man said:
"I am Lord Shagarnin, and I have been sent by King Awoqqas to welcome you to our land and guide you to Niowat."
"That is kind of Awoqqas," said Vakar. "Were those his servants who gave us such a boisterous reception yesterday?"
"Yes, but that was an error. The gods had warned Awoqqas that a certain Vakar Lorska was approaching from Tritonia, and that the interests of gods and men required that he be destroyed. You are not he, are you?"
"No, I am Thiegos of Sederado," said Vakar, giving the first name that popped into his head.
"That is what the king thought when report was brought to him of what a mighty magician you are, for the gods had specifically described Vakar as an ordinary man of no fearsome powers. So when the lone survivor of this unfortunate attack told how you flew straight up in the air on bat's wings and hurled a mountain upon your attackers by your spells, he thought there must be some mistake. He hopes you will pardon his fault and accept his hospitality."
"I shall be glad to do so," said Vakar.
He understood what had happened: The surviving officer had galloped back to Niowat and, to avoid blame for the disaster, had told a highly colored tale of the battle. Vakar was not sure that Shagarnin or the king would be taken in by his denial of his identity; this looked like an effort to lure him to destruction. Having failed to kill him by brute force they would now try guile. His previous narrow escapes had made Vakar suspicious almost to the point of mania. He said:
"This is the most remarkable land I have seen in my travels. For example, the day before yesterday we were also attacked, but by savages with heads."
"That is unfortunate," said Shagarnin, eyes opening in something like fear. "It must have been some of our commoners. The disorderly beasts attack the better sort of people whenever they catch one or two alone, so that it is unsafe to travel away from Niowat without an escort. We shall have to send a detachment to wipe out this band."
"Why do your commoners attack you?"
"Because the fools do not wish King Awoqqas to make izzuneg of them. As if such filth had rights!" Shagarnin spat.
"Does he plan to make your whole commonality into these—izzuneg?" asked Vakar, keeping the astonishment out of his voice.
"Yes; it is his great plan. For our king is the world's greatest magician and has learned that izzuneg make ideal subjects: docile, tireless, fearless, orderly, with no subversive thoughts of their own. He has even found it possible to breed them, though the chldren have heads like normal folk. Come back in a few years and you shall see an ideal kingdom: The ullimen, that is to say us, ruling a completely headless subject population, and everybody orderly and happy."
"It is an astounding idea," said Vakar.
"I am glad you think so. Meanwhile we have trouble rounding up our subjects for decapitation. As if heads did the rabble any good! And since the making of an izzuni requires a mighty spell, this great design cannot be accomplished all at once. Our poor king labors day and night, so that we who love him fear for his health."
Vakar nodded sympathetically. "The rabble never know what is good for them, do they? I think I understand, however, why that mob attacked us."
"I am glad. But, Lord Thiegos, what is your purpose here?"
"I travel for pleasure."
Shagarnin looked at Vakar curiously. "I cannot imagine travelling for pleasure; but perhaps in your country things are different."
Vakar shrugged. "I understand Awoqqas owns a fallen star?"
"The Tahakh. Yes, he does, but you will have to ask him about it."
As they neared Niowat, Vakar saw more of the round stone huts, but few people. Those whom he did see darted into huts or behind rocks with the speed of a lizard fleeing into a crack in the wall. Once he saw a little group of filthy faces peering around a hut with an expression of such concentrated hatred as to make him shudder. As they rode higher up the road they passed substantial stone houses which Vakar took for those of the aristocracy.
"Here is the palace," said Shagarnin.
Vakar did not at first see what the Belemian meant. Then he observed a hole in the side of a craggy hill that dominated Niowat. A bridge of logs with a straw paving crossed a deep ditch in front of this opening, Several izzuneg stood about the entrance with spears.
As the party trotted over the bridge, the hooves of the horses sounded like muffled drums. They dismounted, and an izzuni led the horses away. Shagarnin parleyed with a whole man inside the entrance to the tunnel, then said: "Come."
He led them through a maze of tunnels. Vakar whistled: If the palace was a rabbit-warren of holes dug out of the inside of the hill, Awoqqas had spared no trouble to make it a handsome warren. The walls were plastered and painted with geometrical patterns outlined with nails of gold and silver; no representations of living beings as in Ogugia and Phaiaxia. Every few feet a yellow oil-flame danced on top of a great copper torchère. Vakar passed an izzuni lugging a copper kettle along the corridor and pouring oil into the lamps as he went. Vakar tried to remember the turns and cross-tunnels, but soon gave up, saying in Lorskan to Fual:
"I hope we shan't have to leave in a hurry, because we should never get out without a guide."
After much winding and waiting and passing of passwords and pushing through massive doors ornamented with gold and precious stones, Shagarnin led them into a room where several izzuneg stood guard. The nobleman said:
"Take off your weapons and hand them to this izzuni."
As this was a standard regulation for visitors to royalty, Vakar complied. Another izzuni opened a door on the far side and Shagarnin said:
"The king! Prostrate yourselves in adoration."
Coming from Lorsk with its free-and-easy manners, Vakar did not like prostrating himself for any mortal and would have even been choosy about which gods he so honored. However, not wishing to become an izzuni over a matter of protocol he did as he was bid until a squeaky voice said:
"Rise. Shagarnin, show our visitor's slave to the chamber they will occupy, so that he shall prepare i
t for his master. You—what did you say your name was?"
"Thiegos of Sederado," replied Vakar.
"Fiegos, remain where you are and be quiet, for I am about to perform a divination."
Vakar looked around. The man speaking to him sat on a throne cut in the stone of the side of the chamber, six steps above the floor-level. He wore many-colored robes of that shimmery stuff called silk, which Kurtevan had also worn, and which Vakar had been told came from the land of Sericana beyond the sunrise. Awoqqas was a slim yellow-skinned balding man with deep lines in his careworn face— commonplace-looking enough except for his size. He was, Vakar judged, less than five feet tall.
In a flash of insight Vakar realized why Awoqqas sat upon a throne six feet up, and why he was beheading the entire commonality of his kingdom. He could not bear to be smaller than his subjects, and therefore was employing this drastic method of reducing their stature so that they should no longer look down upon him in any sense of the phrase.
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales Page 15
