Golden Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  All over Vallia as the days passed there would be slaughter. Vallians are accounted a rich people, and most of their wealth comes from trading. They are great seafarers. Inland they are farmers and stockmen and woodsmen. When Vallia needed an army to fight some war or other she would hire mercenaries, and the mercenaries would be secure in the knowledge that Vallia could transport them safely in her fleets of galleons. But as for indigenous fighting men, warriors, they were few and thin on the ground.

  That enormous wealth existed within Vallia herself was undeniable. The forests, the mines, the broad cornlands, as the emperor had once told me, they are the sinews of wealth and the muscles of power.

  At Lykon Crimahan’s request we dropped him off near his provincial capital of MichelDen. MichelDen lies a hundred dwaburs northeast of Vallia’s capital Vondium. The provincial capital of Forli stands on the River of White Reenbays, an eastern tributary of the Great River. The kovnate of Forli extends from the Great River to the eastern coast opposite the Thirda Passage between the islands of Arlton and Meltzer to the north and Veliadrin to the south. We had taken a dog’s leg passage to Valka in order to let Crimahan off at MichelDen.

  He stood with one hand on the coaming of the flier, looking up at us before he jumped down onto the grass. The stars glittered. She of the Veils cast down a sheening diffused golden light and the night was very still.

  “I give you the Remberee, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia. I—” And here Crimahan paused, and swallowed.

  I own it, the sound of my name coupled with the emperor’s landed with a strange sound in my ears, a leaden sound of doom. But Drig take me if I would let this fellow see all the hesitation and indecision tormenting me. I nodded; with a hard and curt gesture of my hand I hoped he would not mistake, I ground out in the old hateful way: “If I am the emperor, Kov Lykon, then your fealty I take and welcome. Now you will do what you can against these cramphs. I shall contact you.” His face bore that pained expression of unwelcome comprehension. I finished, surly and domineering: “And mind you don’t get yourself killed. May Opaz go with you. Remberee.”

  The others called their Remberees as Crimahan dropped from the airboat and vanished into the uncertain shadows.

  “Up,” I said to Farris. “Valka.”

  The voller rose into the air as Farris hauled on the levers. “He may be going to his death, majister—”

  “Very likely, Farris, very likely. But he wanted to go home and I forbore to prevent him. I know how he felt.”

  “As do we all. I do not need to be told what has overtaken my kovnate,” went on Farris in his dogged way. “Vomansoir, like your estates, like Lykon’s, must have been marked down for destruction. All those about the emperor and who gave him their loyalty will find only grief in their homes. Once the structure of empire creaks and bends, once the first blows succeed, the collapse is swift.”

  “There will be fighting and bloodshed all over the land,” said Delia, and her lovely face shadowed with the horrors we had seen and the fresh horrors to come.

  “Not always,” I said in my intemperate, vicious way. “Sometimes an empire will hold out tenaciously. But, Farris, I hope you are right in your estimation when we return.”

  I said this, and all the time I was totally unsure if I had the right, the moral right, to return to Vallia. But I went on speaking in that old savage way.

  “So,” I said, only half-believing my own words. “Before we can do anything we must secure a base and see about men and resources — and that means Valka.”

  The voller rose against the stars and sped eastward.

  “Only,” I told Delia. “You will take Didi and Velia and Aunt Katri and fly to Strombor. The continent of Segesthes is far enough away from Vallia and these troubles. There they will be safe.”

  “But—”

  I shook my head. Delia did not like the idea of leaving Vallia at this time, even for a short period and even for so important a mission; but she saw the sense of it and agreed to go.

  Below us under the glinting moonlight the coast passed away. We struck out across the sea.

  We flew across the Rojica Passage that separates Vallia from Veliadrin. We flew along the Thirda Passage, eastward, to the north of Veliadrin. We did not fly over the land. To the south we could see fires burning in the night.

  Delia took my arm and I could guess her thoughts.

  “Veliadrin is attacked, like all our lands. No doubt the Qua’voils have stirred their prickly selves again. But there are good men down there, as well as evil. Our duty lies elsewhere this night.”

  It was hard. No doubt of it. We could only guess at what deviltry was going on down there to the south. But little imagination was required to understand that all of Vallia was in turmoil, with old grudges being paid off and with rapaciousness leading men and women on to blood-soaked excesses.

  From MichelDen to Valkanium is about two hundred dwaburs in a straight line, what the Havilfarese call ‘as the fluttrell flies’. But we circled around over the sea to the north and so took longer over the aerial journey. The Maiden with the Many Smiles joined She of the Veils and although the night was cloudy the two moons shed their fuzzy golden pink light upon the sea.

  In the sheening water sparkle below in the light of the moons the dark shadowed mass of Valka rose before us out of the sea. Valka. Valka, the place I had made my home on Kregen. The place that, along with Strombor and the Great Plains of Segesthes and Djanduin, meant more to me at that time than anywhere else. Valka...

  “Dray—”

  I held her gently, for I knew what Delia intended to say, what pained her to say, how she had struggled and sought for the right words.

  “Dray — Valka. All our lands have been attacked, we know that Phu-si-Yantong would not overlook Valka.”

  I spoke cheerily, and with a certain confidence, for Valka was not quite as other lands of Vallia, because the island had fought its battles and won. “I would not expect that villain to do so. One day he will be chopped. But Valka is not the same easy prey to mercenaries and aragorn and slavers as the rest of Vallia. We have regiments of strong fighting men—”

  “But Phu-si-Yantong is a Wizard of Loh. He will have employed sorcery—”

  “Yes.”

  That was, indeed, an unpalatable thought. This damned Wizard of Loh sought to make himself the supreme lord of Paz. He didn’t care what he did to achieve that insane ambition.

  “If only Khe-Hi-Bjanching was with us — or had been in Valka.” Delia’s hand trembled against mine. I did not think she trembled in fear. “But he will have been sent to Loh as all our other friends were sent home from—”

  “There are other forces of superhuman help,” I said, cutting in briskly, over-riding Delia’s words. I did not want Farris — or anyone who need not know, for that matter — being apprised of what had happened to our friends. They had all been incontinently hurled back to their homes from the Sacred Pool of Baptism. So far they had not found their way back. That was a contributory cause to the misfortunes that had overtaken us; but we would have been overwhelmed even if all my friends had surrounded us. That I knew with a somber chill.

  The dawn would soon be with us, and I suggested that Delia try to sleep. It was not so stupid a suggestion, for she was exhausted and despite her feelings, despite the grief for her father, she did sleep. I could soldier on for a space yet.

  I fancied, in thinking of Yantong, that the cramph no longer cared if I lived or died. I had to examine the notion with great care. He had given orders that I was not to be assassinated. I did not know if he had canceled those instructions. Yantong had contrived the death of an empire. His tools fought in Vondium and over the land against the armies of other men, highly placed nobles and demagogues, who sought the throne for themselves. Of all those ambitious and greedy would-be-emperors, I fancied Phu-si-Yantong would be the eventual victor.

  And, among his instruments, numbered in the ranks of those who fought for him, was our own daughter Dayra
. Unwittingly, perhaps, she served the Wizard of Loh, thinking in all honor that she fought for the rights of self-determination for the North Eastern section of Vallia and this damned fellow Zankov; but she had served Yantong well. Dayra. I would have to tell Delia about her, tell Delia about Ros the Claw, and of her entanglement with Zankov, that same cramph Zankov whose bloody brand had struck down the emperor, Dayra’s grandfather.

  This was a tangled web, and there was more, and I could not see a clear path to steer.

  “Well,” I said to myself, and if I had spoken aloud my voice would have cracked out harsh and ugly under the moons, “we will take Didi and Velia and Aunt Katri out of Valka if the place is closed up as tight as a swod’s drum. We will see them safely to Strombor. And then—” And then — what?

  If I did what I had said I would do, speaking in the heat of the moment and out of anger and foolish pride, there would lie seasons of campaigning ahead. Vallia would run as red with blood as ever it had. How could I justify this? I had pushed these thoughts away before, but they recurred. What moral right had I, what morality was there in it, if I raised armies, fought the usurpers, destroyed their armies, restored the throne of Vallia to its rightful heirs? Did my honor demand that? Can honor ever justify the deaths of thousands of honest people?

  Perhaps, as I had wistfully half-suggested to myself, perhaps I would just stay quietly in Strombor, that beautiful enclave of the city of Zenicce, and live life the way life is intended to be lived and enjoyed.

  We had taken all night over this flight. The flier was reasonably fast, having covered three hundred dwaburs, about fifteen hundred miles, and it would be full daylight before we reached Valkanium and the Bay and the high fortress of Esser Rarioch.

  Below us Valka fled past. Farris had gone back to sleep and as I cogitated with such melancholy with my tormented thoughts and watched the suns rise off to our larboard, I felt the soft warm hand creep into mine and felt again all the magic of my Delia enfold me.

  “Dawn,” said Delia.

  “Aye. And the Suns are rising on a sorry land this day.”

  “But it is a new day, my heart. A new beginning. A new chance. In Valka—” She expected me to interrupt; but I did not. “In Valka we must find help. We must.”

  “If we do not, if we do, it makes no difference. You and the children are for Strombor.”

  The Suns of Scorpio, Zim and Genodras, rose into the clear air. The day would be fine, with perhaps a little rain after the Hour of Mid. Delia sighed.

  “I have been thinking of your blasphemous suggestions of a world with one little yellow sun and one silvery moon. It is possible, I grant you. But where is the sense in it? Why do you raise a philosophical point? Is there anything more?”

  “Oh, aye,” I said, turning so she could nestle into my free arm. “A lot more.” I spoke slowly and carefully, trying to make what I said sound sensible, which, to a Kregen, it did not, could not.

  “Only apims?” She stared up at me blankly. I leaned down and kissed her. For a space nothing else mattered. Then—

  “Only apims. People like us. No diffs, none at all.”

  “Now I know you make fun. Such a world would be — would be flat, would be — dull!”

  “Well — no,” I said, defending this our Earth which is so marvelous a world in its own right. “Not flat or dull. Just that Kregen is so much — so much — more,” I finished lamely.

  She drew a deep breath.

  “Very well, husband. Since you choose to mock all the religion and the learning of the wise men — suppose, just suppose a world could exist like that. Then what?”

  It was my turn to swallow.

  Below us Valka began to show all those myriad colors of her forests and lakes, the mountains of the Heart Heights, the wide open spaces, the serene areas of ordered cultivation, the thread of rivers and the glint of waterfalls. The air breathed sweet and clean, that glorious air of Kregen. This was my own island of unsurpassed beauty, wild and rugged, tranquil and fertile, rich with the goodness of the earth. I drew another deep breath and the fragrant dawn air of Kregen dizzied my senses. For this I would give much, give very much...

  Delia looked up at me, her brown hair catching the radiance of the suns so that those outrageous chestnut tints glinted. The richness of her lips, the clarity of her brown eyes, the perfect purity of her face and form — I swallowed again and opened my mouth.

  “From such a world, distant a long long way, my heart, I—”

  She broke away from me and her chin firmed and the danger signals flashed from those brown eyes that changed from melting tenderness to hard authority. “Flyers! Hamalese! They see us!” I swiveled about, checking my words, stared out Flyers lifted toward us, their wide wings spread against the light, the flyers on their backs shaking their weapons.

  “Not Hamalese,” I said after that first flashing glance. “Flutsmen.”

  The mercenaries of the skies wheeled their flying mounts up toward us like a gale-driven whirlwind of leaves.

  Ahead of us the Bay opened out, and the City of Valkanium spread in beauty up the slopes where vegetation bowered my home in verdant beauty. The massive pile of Esser Rarioch reared above the city and the Bay. The light picked out every detail.

  Our own flags of Valka still flew from the battlements of Esser Rarioch. But ugly smears of smoke rose from the city. There were sunken galleons in the Bay. Flames spat spitefully from warehouses and from the villas along the shore and overhanging the water. A confused mass hurled up and forward against the fortress and the wink and glitter of weapons splintered shards of light into the morning.

  “Esser Rarioch is attacked,” I said, and the bitterness choked me with bile.

  “But it still holds out.” Delia leaped for a crossbow. “We must break through these flutsmen and reach the fortress.”

  Feathered wings flickered about us. Feathers streamed back in those clotted clumps from their helmets that give to flutsmen their devilish, reiving, headlong appearance. True mercenaries, Flutsmen of Kregen, hiring out to the highest bidder and ready to betray him for a price. They share nothing of the high honor of nikobi that give Pachaks their unmatched reputation as paktuns. Flutsmen often band together and simply reive on their own account. Now, with Vallia torn by strife, these aerial devils struck out for themselves.

  I slammed the control levers over to full and bellowed for Farris. The voller lanced up into the air, spraying flutsmen away. Delia, braced against the coaming, loosed, and bent at once to respan the bow.

  Some remnants of honor still cling to some flutsmen. I had no way of knowing of what calibre were these aerial foes; but I knew with everything I held precious that I would never allow Delia to fall into their hands.

  Farris lumbered out and belted up the deck to the controls. Flutsmen were urging their flying steeds on. For a space we outclimbed them. I shoved my head over the side and looked down. The dark mass of men attacking Esser Rarioch had broken through the first portals of the long stairway and were forcing their way up. The pavises borne before them bristled with arrows. Esser Rarioch was due to fall soon. And the flutsmen bore in toward us, screeching, their weapons glittering.

  “Down, Farris!” I bellowed. “Straight down — straight for Esser Rarioch!”

  The Lord Farris flung me a single questioning glance. He saw my face, that ugly, demoniac, headstrong old face of mine with the look of the devil, and he thumped the levers over.

  Straight through the whirling cloud of flutsmen we plummeted, down and down, hurtling toward the fight raging on the long stairway leading up to Esser Rarioch.

  Two

  The Folly of Empire

  The brave red and white flags of Valka still flew over the battlements, the treshes bright and defiant in the morning light. Down we plummeted. Flutsmen screeched and drove in and were buffeted away and left, trailing far above us. The wind scorched about our ears.

  No flyers attacked Esser Rarioch. I smiled. I, Dray Prescot, smiled at the grim
and bloodcurdling thoughts — for my Archers of Valka must have remembered and put to good use the techniques they had been taught of repelling aerial cavalry.

  So we roared down toward the fight and I peered about intently. Birds and flying animals used as steeds had been virtually unknown in Vallia until the confrontation with Hamal had forced the unwelcome information upon the Vallians. Down south in the magnificent continent of Havilfar there were many and many a variety of flyer, and of them all, I fancied — aye! and still do! — that the fabulous flutduin of my ferocious four-armed Djangs is the finest. A corps of flutduin mounted flyers had been formed in Valka, trained by Djangs brought to my island for the purpose. Where were they now?

  Why was not this assaulting mass of infantry being harassed from the air?

  These thoughts had to be banished as with the wind blustering past we dropped headlong into the attack.

  Queen Lush staggered out, almost falling down the steeply canted deck.

  “Take up a crossbow, queen, and let us see how you shoot!”

  “I’ll shoot, ma faril, I’ll shoot—”

  So we had three crossbows to loose and Delia and I spanned a half dozen more as we rocketed down.

  White and colored blobs showed as the faces of the men in the ranks below looked up. Their wide pavises were studded with arrows. Varter-hurled bolts splintered off the rocky sides of the stairway, and chunks of stone ricocheted away. I judged that there were few Valkans left in Esser Rarioch to carry on the defense.

  Time, time... There is never enough time...

  Up the stairway the infantry struggled in the shelter of their large shields, and down we plunged at them. At intervals in the long flight of steps there are generously proportioned landings, places where a fellow might pause and catch his breath as he climbs to Esser Rarioch. The head of the assaulting column had reached one such landing and now it halted. Bows bent against us and arrows flew. The voller was of good Hamalian construction, built soundly of stout wood, mostly sturm, with lenken bracers. The arrows either failed to penetrate or missed and fell away.