I ducked in back of a rock out of the way of the fugitives, guessing my task lay at the interface of pursued and pursuers.
Usually I was projected onto Kregen stark naked and headlong into action. Not always — usually. This time the Star Lords had seen fit to give me a little preparatory time. Of course, they did not deign to provide me with a helmet or spear, sword or shield, and we had struck our reactions to that idea. They would guess I would regard them with less estimation — although, truth to tell, I fancy that as I grew older I might come to regret that hot and impassioned surge of pride of my youth. I had not aged a day since the dip in the Sacred Pool of Baptism; but although my body remained young I know my brain had, slowly and painfully, accreted a trifle of wisdom in the intervening years.
Drawn by six piebald nikvoves the coach lumbered into view. Its felloes shrieked as it skated over the rocks. It kicked up one helluva dust and I could see nothing down the back-trail.
Most of the fugitives were apims, but there was a fair sprinkling of diffs, and a Rapa sat up on the box and flogged the nikvoves on. This coach, these six laboring animals, the dust, the racket — well, it caught at my throat, so like and yet so fantastically unlike the scenes I had just left. Had those different alien riding animals and the draught animals all been horses, had there been no diffs — this would still be Kregen. The smell, the feel, the empathy of the world was uniquely Kregen under Antares.
I saw what must be done. Had those crazed fugitives taken a mur to observe for themselves they must have seen it, too. I was just a lone, naked man. But if I did not do what had to be done I knew what would happen. So I got on with it.
The rocks at the lip of the draw scattered away in a detritus to either side. Starting a likely-looking boulder moving started two or three others. Pebbles rattled. Dust smoked. The rocks tumbled down. I cut it fine, and a couple of fist-sized pebbles bounced into the polished varnish of the coach. But the main mass of sliding rock rumbled down, spreading, filling the bed of the draw. So much dust hung about that it was impossible to see beyond and so I still did not know who or what pursued these men and scared them half to death.
Who or whatever — they or it were not going to ride over that still-quivering wall of rock.
The coach slewed and skidded. A wheel flew off, spinning gracefully, the spokes and hub never designed for this kind of hard hacking cross-country work. In a screech the coach bedded down canting onto its for’ard larboard axle. Slowly, I walked down toward the coach, watching the Rapa, who wore a gaudy uniform, watching the painted and varnished door swing open.
No one down there took any notice of me. The distance was too great to make out features. A woman jumped energetically down from the coach and shook her fist at the Rapa. At once he began unhitching the nikvoves. Two other women and a man got out of the coach. They all stood arguing, waving their arms, looking back at the still-smoking mass of rock barring off the pursuit. I stopped walking down, fascinated by this display of human emotion and character behavior.
Presently, the whole group mounted up on the freed nikvoves and took off, hitting their mounts with the flats of their swords, galloping hell-for-leather. I stood and watched them go. I had carried out the commands of the Star Lords. I had no further interest in those people I had saved. I did not recognize any insigne, colors — the whole assemblage had been liberally covered in dust — or, more importantly, the country I was in. The coach looked to be of the kind I had seen in Zenicce, Vallia or Pandahem. I needed to know where I was to set my course for Strombor.
The Rapa coachman had freed only five nikvoves. So there was one left for me. I felt pleased. I walked down to the coach.
There are very few voves in Vallia, for that magnificent russet-coated, eight-legged king of saddle-animals is a native of the Great Plains of Segesthes. Yet Vallians and other people call his smaller cousin a nikvove, which always amuses me. This piebald specimen looked alertly at me as I walked up to him and stroked his neck, speaking soothingly. He and I would get on capitally.
The coach had been stripped of its interior fittings; but in the box at the rear was to be found a mass of clothing, and from its style of buff and shirts with colored sleeves I judged I was in Vallia. I felt dizzy. The Star Lords might have dumped me down anywhere on Kregen — apart from being put down somewhere near Strombor — or, even, Djanduin — Vallia was the next best place for me in my ugly old mood.
I found a piece of russet cloth, for there was no scarlet, and twisted it around my waist and pulled the free end up between my legs and tucked it in. A broad belt — not, unfortunately, of lesten-hide — held the breechclout in place. The only weapons I could find were two small daggers, half kicked under the seat. They were of reasonable manufacture, with far too much gewgaw imitation jewelry; but they’d serve.
Despite all the cunning expertise of unarmed combat taught in the Disciplines of the Krozairs and of the Khamorros, Kregen is no place to wander around unarmed. Mind you, Turko the Shield would scoff with enormous gusto at these two ridiculous daggers, by Krun!
A number of the white shirts bore banded sleeves of gold and black. There were others in different color combinations; but the gold and black predominated. Thoughtfully I went back to the door and slammed it shut and brushed off the dust coating the varnished panel. The painted and gilded representation of a butterfly upon the gold and black blazon confirmed the view that I was in Aduimbrev. At least, the butterfly on gold and black was the insignia of Aduimbrev. If I was in the kovnate I knew where I was. Poor old Kov Vektor who had aspired with the emperor’s blessings to the hand of Delia was long since dead, having got himself foolishly killed in the Battle at the Dragon’s Bones. The memory of that famous old conflict heartened me.
A collateral line of the family had inherited, with the very necessary emperor’s confirmation of their claim, and the present kov incumbent was Marto Renberg, whom I knew only to nod to politely. The Aduimbrevs had reckoned on being emperor’s men; I had no way of knowing how their allegiances had fallen in the recent struggles for power.
I was pretty well near the dead center of Vallia. Across the Great River to the south lay Ogier. Across a tributary of the Great River to the west lay Eganbrev. And, eastward, the Trylonate of Gelkwa barred my path. Trylon Udo had led the uprising of the whole North East, or so I believed, and the mischief they had caused me with their damned revived corpse and the damage they had done to Vondium would long be remembered in the land. It had been that cramph Zankov from the North East who had slain the emperor. I thought of Dayra, Ros the Claw, and a great deal of my good mood vanished.
It was necessary for me to travel east. The best plan would be to swing across to Thengelsax and in that city discover what had transpired during my absence. From there I’d have to find faster transport and take myself off to Zamra, or Valka, and from thence fly east across the sea to Zenicce and Strombor. Yes. I decided, then, spitting dust, that that was what I would have to do.
Well, as they say, man reaps for Zair to sickle.
To the north spread the emperor’s province of Thermin, and in its chief city of Therminsax I might find what I needed. But the obsession was on me to take the shortest route. East, then...
The rout of fugitives had headed south down the draw. I fashioned a saddle cloth from the clothes and cinched it tight with ropes. I took what clothing I thought necessary and then, being a canny old paktun, a soldier of fortune, I broke a long length of hefty timbering from the coach. That would serve as a lance, and a shorter length as a wooden sword. Once or twice before a length of lumber had served me as a weapon, and on Kregen a man needs weapons as he needs food and water.
The piebald nikvove rumbled off with that special smooth elongated rhythm of the eight-footed. I cocked an eye back at the freshly created wall of rock. Nalgre ti Liancesmot, the long-dead playwright whose work is known over many areas of Kregen, is often quoted. “Better to know the smile of the friend who stabs you in the back than the scowl of the enemy wh
o assails you in front,” which comes from his cycle “The Vicissitudes of Panadian the Ibreiver” and contains a thought with which I do not always agree, allowing it to have a cogent point. It struck me I ought to find out just what that crazed mob had been fleeing from.
There was every chance now, that, their dirty work done, for them, the Star Lords would let me alone. I was coming to the conclusion, not as clear-cut as I may have made it appear, that there was strife among the Everoinye. If this Ahrinye really wanted to run me, as he so elegantly phrased it, with so much more force, I might find myself being run pretty sharpish in the future, and without recourse to any of the fragile obstructions I had erected to resist the Everoinye.
So, feeling pretty mulish and bloody-minded, I guided the nikvove up out of the draw. The land spread away in an opening panorama, superb under the suns, lightening from the dusty ochre near me to a fresher green along the horizon. And, in the middle distance, sparkling in the mingled radiance, the waters of a canal ran dead straight, northwest, southeast. I fancied this might well be a direct link through to Thengelsax. Certainly, the Ogier Cut ran east-west some way south of my present position. So, I turned the nikvove to follow the canal.
When I reached the towpath I frowned. So this was one of the results of the chaos destroying Vallia. For the cut was in vile condition, half-choked with weeds, the banks fallen away here and there, the water, although sparkling as the light of the suns glinted from it, sullen and barely moving.
A thin strip of vegetation grew along both banks, trees and bushes breaking the flatness of the land. From the shadows of a missal tree I looked back and saw the dun-colored dust clouds rising. I stared closely. A body of riders broke into view, rising up like a succession of trap-door devils. They appeared in no hurry. They trotted on. Probably the rock-fall had caught a few of them and time had been spent assisting the injured. For whatever reason, only now were they resuming their pursuit. Or, and what was far more probably the correct explanation, the fugitives had been in such terror they were fleeing from these riders when the pursuit was a long way off. Only now had the pursuit caught up with them.
At this unpalatable thought I frowned.
But the people of Aduimbrev ought to be clear away by now. Should I follow them and make sure? They were headed south. Damn those blasted Star Lords! So, undecided, I stood there and heard the splash of water at my back.
Without thought, without looking back, I rolled off the nikvove, hit on a shoulder, rolled under a bush and came up, quivering, ready to defend myself against — against a slender slip of a girl who climbed out onto the bank, half-naked, dripping, shining — and laughing at me with a rosy face beaming rapturous amusement at my antics.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, ven. I won’t hurt you—” she started to say. Then she stopped and all the amused enjoyment fled from her face. She saw the dust cloud, she saw the riders, and she seemed to shrivel there in the streaming light of the suns. “Radvakkas.” She spoke the word with so much fear and loathing it was instantly clear these riders were a real and terrible threat. “The Iron Riders.”
Standing up I put a hand on the piebald’s neck, soothing, and looked again at the men out there trotting along with the dust spuming and the light striking sparks from their armor and weapons.
“The Iron Riders?”
“Yes — and keep you still and silent until they are gone. I pray to Vaosh they do not see us.”
“We can swim across the canal — they are not of the canalfolk—”
I chanced my arm there; but I was right. She nodded, swiftly, her brown hair gleaming, her water-drenched tunic plastered to her. Her face was small and elfin, and her eyes were very frightened.
“That is true. But their benhoffs would swim the cut with the radvakkas safely clear of the water.”
So we kept silent and watched and I digested what this girl had said. For I knew about benhoffs. The benhoff is a shaggy, powerful, six-legged riding animal from North Segesthes. The barbarians up there use them as my clansmen use the vove. And from short and ferocious wars the various tribes and confederations of the North Segesthan Barbarians had long learned never to tangle with a Clansman. They kept themselves well to the north of Segesthes and the continent is large enough for barbarian and clansman to live separately. Although, mind you, it is a truism to say that any honest Clansman is far more savage and bloodthirsty than any barbarian...
But, here, in Vallia — benhoffs? To the best of my knowledge the benhoff was as little known or used as the vove in Vallia. I swallowed down what I was about to say, and instead, said: “You know these Iron Riders?”
“Aye, may Gurush of the Bottomless Marsh take them and suck them down and never spit out their diseased bones!”
“I am a stranger here, just riding through — tell me of these radvakkas.”
She lifted one brown eyebrow at this; but let it pass.
She told me her name was Feri of the Therduim Cut. This canal connected Therminsax and Thengelsax. Before I could urge her to tell me of the Iron Riders, other canalfolk appeared. They had no narrow boat; they walked along the towpath, and I prepared for unpleasantness even though I was well aware of the hospitality of the canalfolk. In the event Llahals were exchanged and the pappattu made in a proper civilized way. We all waited quietly until the radvakkas had ridden out of sight.
Then a load was lifted from these people, and they began to smile and chatter again. Very briefly, I learned that trade had been thoroughly disrupted by the troubles, and these people had lost their two boats and, perforce were compelled to walk carrying what belongings they could, until they could reach one of the towns along the cut where they had friends. The Iron Riders had come sweeping in from the northeast and terrorized the whole countryside. They roamed in bands, ravaging and looting and burning, and no one was safe.
Despite the smiles and the warm comradeliness, the impression I gained was that these canalfolk were mightily scared not only of the Iron Riders but of life in general. Vallia was no longer the empire it once had been. The country was split into warring factions. Vengeful townsfolk had sunk the two narrow boats. The town had been sacked by the radvakkas three nights previously; and the townspeople had vented their spite. No — I did not at all care for the truths I was finding out about Vallia.
This Feri had spirit. She had been out ahead scouting and had taken to the water to come up on me unseen. I suppose I’d satisfied her I was not an Iron Rider. But the rest of them were anxious to push on and after I had learned a little more of conditions — much of which I will relate when the telling is needful — I told them I must push on also.
“But the radvakkas went that way, ven.” And: “But you are a lone rider, Ven Jak.” And: “Come with us, ven.” And so on, for I had given them the name of Jak the Drang, conceiving Dray Prescot would be a name with much gravity attaching to it.
“I thank you, vens and venas. But mayhap we will meet again in more happy times.”
Amid the calling of Remberees, I mounted up and turned the piebald’s head. I waved to them, and guided the nikvove angling away from the Therduim Cut.
Deliberately, for I fancied I had not fully completed the task the Star Lords had set to my hands, I set off southwards, following in the tracks of the Iron Riders.
Five
Of a Rout After Breakfast
Night would soon bring the brilliance of the Moons of Kregen to brighten the sky and I could feel the first tendrils of tiredness. After all, I had begun the day astride a pony riding drag to a remuda heading for Santa Fe, and was now riding a nikvove in pursuit of a bunch of rogues more ferocious than anything the West had witnessed — and had, into the bargain, been pitchforked four hundred light years through space. Not, I hasten to add, that I was then aware of the real distance involved. But I could soldier on for a spell yet and decided to take a swing around the band of radvakkas ahead and catch up with the fugitives.
The level ground began to roll into a series of long ta
wny-grass-covered dunes as I went on, and presently stands of trees showed throwing long twinned shadows. I kept the Iron Riders under observation and was somewhat surprised to see them pitch camp for the night and settle down. Anxious to press on I skirted their camp and rode on into the darkness as She of the Veils rose luminously over my left shoulder.
If I was on the right track then the fugitives had galloped fast and without let-up. Just before midnight the lights of a town showed ahead. I had only a hazy idea of the detailed geography around here; it seemed likely, if I was right, that the smot ahead was Cansinsax. In a long chain surrounding the North East the forts had been built in the old days against the reivers. The Therduim Cut was a later construction, running mostly along the borders between Aduimbrev to the south and Sakwara to the north. The saxes were not always built directly on the frontier, and, sometimes, the borders had been shifted by imperial decree.
I bedded down outside the town and saw to the nikvove and caught a little sleep, being up well before Zim and Genodras broke over the horizon. My urgency was being channeled into doing what I believed right. If I was wrong, well, I would be the sufferer — for I was still firmly convinced that Delia was safe in Strombor. She had to be.
For breakfast I had a few deep lungfuls of fresh Kregen air. The nikvove chomped the grass and appeared content.
Had I chosen to ride north and cross the border out of Aduimbrev I would have come into the emperor’s province of Thermin. The odd thing was, I was in no way reconciled to the idea that I was supposed to be the emperor. Emperor of Vallia. By Vox! How empty could a title get?
Had I done so, I sourly wondered if, even there, I’d have found anyone willing to give me breakfast.
As the twin Suns of Scorpio rose and threw the land into that shimmering opaline radiance I saw a sight that astounded me. I put a hand to the piebald’s neck, soothing him. I remained very still in the little stand of timber, peering out under the leaves.
Golden Scorpio Page 6
