The argument, clearly, was what they were going to do to the girl. With the lake at my back, I had an idea of which argument would win.
So—here was the task set to my hands by the Star Lords. This was quite like old times!
When I saw the captive girl more clearly, and recognized her, I understood a little more. The first and last time I'd seen her she'd been haranguing a mob. The damned fool Scorpion had dropped me, fumble-fingered me down into a right old peccadillo. Now I saw he'd been on the way to the girl so that I could drag her away from the mob anger. She'd got away all right, how I didn't know, and I'd then followed my own destiny for a space. Now, here she was again, up to her ears in trouble.
The track ended at the lakeside about fifty paces away. By the time the mob reached the water they'd decided exactly what to do.
Moving with care I edged along towards them.
They were tying ropes to the girl's wrists and a weighted sack to the ropes. They screamed abuse all the time, and the women in particular jumped up and down in frenzied hatred. You could see their point of view and I admit at the very first I'd been surprised the Star Lords wanted this girl preserved for posterity. I edged closer.
In all the hullabaloo the girl was hoisted up and swung backwards and forwards. “Ob! Dwa! So!” the mob chanted to the swing. On ‘So!’ she flew up sideways. She didn't spin as she turned over and splashed into the water. I hadn't heard her scream once, although in the noise and shrieks of rage she might have been screaming as loudly as anyone else. Bubbles rose and broke. Ripples moved away in neat interlocked concentric rings.
The noise of the mob abruptly ceased. They clustered among the reeds and stared out across the lake. There was fascination in their faces, awe at what they had done. Only later would remorse set in—if it ever would.
The water closed around me, warm and caressing. A fat fish flicked near-transparent fins and lazed away. I finned towards the blue-tinged shape of the girl and the sack as they drifted to the bottom.
She had her mouth shut and was flailing away with her legs. Her hair twisted like a candle flame. She was hardly conscious of my presence. There was little time. She would not have long to live without breathing. I had no knife so I took the sacking material in both hands, gripping, and used my muscles. A resistance—I felt my muscles jump and bulge—the sack ripped open and a tumbled mass of pebbles spewed out.
Instantly I grasped the girl about the waist and dragged her down. Down. Savagely I thrust against the water, forcing myself along away from the bank, the girl clamped to my side.
She could not last much longer.
The dwaprijjer of the Star Lords would have flown back to wherever they garaged their conveyances. This bank of the lake was occupied by a hostile rabble, armed with cleavers and pitchforks. There was only one sensible alternative.
When I judged we'd gone far enough I rose to the surface.
She let out a huge gasp as her head broke free and whooped an enormous lungful of air. Still holding her I trod water and turned to look back. A great wet floppy stinging mass went squashily smack around my face and for a moment I could see nothing save a few thin streaks of light. Tangled strands choked my mouth. I felt choked.
The damned girl had shaken her head as one does and her hair had slapped smack about my eyes and mouth, near blinding and choking me.
I dragged the dripping hair free and snarled: “Can you swim, girl?”
It did not matter if she could not, for I'd swim with her; that was the most polite thing I felt I could say at the time.
The ropes around her wrists came off quickly enough. As I had let her go she sank down and then rose again.
The moment her head broke water she glared at me. “Yes.”
“Then swim to the other side before they run around.”
“They will not do that.”
She spoke with arrogant confidence. All the same, she turned and started a careful breaststroke, moving along in a series of sedate frog undulations. The people had seen us. They were jumping up and down and shrieking imprecations. Some started to run around the lake. Most of them stayed where they'd thrown the girl in. Very soon those who'd started to circumnavigate the water stopped, and then trailed back. She'd been right.
She had no need of my assistance as we crossed the lake. I did stay in the rear just in case, although from the little I knew of her from what I'd heard, I judged she was a capable woman.
She clambered out, all glistening and firmly brown, for she was as naked as I was. I was not prepared to let her know I knew who she was, for my own very obvious if devious reasons.
Just upslope from the bank blew a stand of trees and the land beyond was hidden by this slight eminence. She stretched her arms up, her body taut and firm, and swung them around a few times. She must have thought she was dead. Then she'd been saved. Tough though she must be, she'd need a little time and meditation to get over that experience.
“I thank you, walfger. I am beholden to you.”
The quaintness of her expression could not conceal her sincerity. I nodded. There was, it seemed to me, nothing appropriate to say.
“I am Mul-lu-Manting. Lahal. You are?”
“Drajak, known as the Sudden.Lahal.”
The last—and first—time I'd seen her haranguing the mob in the central kyro of Changwutung she'd worn fancy silken robes and curved leather armor across breast and hips, with swords and a Lohvian longbow. She had the red hair of your true Lohvian. My informants had told me a deal about her, and I had surmised more. I was not sure if she was a fully-trained Jikai Vuvushi, a Battle Maiden. She did not wear the veil which lent credence to the idea she was a Fighting Lady; she could just as easily be a Witch of Loh. Rather, had been, for she ranted against the Witches and Wizards of Walfarg, blaming them and the kings on the throne for the collapse and loss of the old Empire of Walfarg, the Empire of Loh. Her ambition, which she preached with fanatical fervor, was to recreate the old Empire of Loh, ruled as before by Queens of Pain.
She was studying me frankly. Her face, that hard strong face, womanly handsome, would not be called pretty. Like Mevancy, she drew her beauty from inner truths and strengths. To an addle-pated fellow she might be nothing; to a man with eyes to see she would hold undeniable attractions.
After a moment, I said: “Why didn't they chase us here?”
She made a brief gesture towards the tree-lined crest.
“Beyond there lies the enclosure of Scharn, an ibdrin. I knew you were a stranger when you asked me to swim to this side.”
“Ibdrins do not worry me, Mul-lu-Manting.”
“Nor me. Now I need something to eat, something to drink, and something to wear—in that order.”
I didn't smile; but I appreciated her priorities.
We walked up the slope together. She went with a loping stride, very free and lissom, and I knew I would need to discover more of her history. After all, the Everoinye had singled her out for salvation. Over the rise the land spread away in a sweep of moorland. The tall and lightning-shattered trunk of a single tree projected sternly a hundred paces ahead. This was the locus of the spirit land. Folk hereabouts believed that the souls or spirits of murdered or violently-killed people clustered here waiting for vengeance. You might never have murdered anyone in your life: you weren't fool enough to chance going near an ibdrin where a spirit might mistake you for the killer. Oh, no! By Lhun, no!
At the top she stopped stock-still, legs apart, fists jammed on hips, jaw outthrust, brow drawn down. She stared broodingly at the miserable landscape.
Half to herself, she said: “And that is Walfarg. Desolate, dun and dreary.Gone to seed.Producing no good.” She moved and a hard toe kicked the rank grass stems. “Give me the strength to go on!”
I kept quieter than a church mouse.
Her face beneath that flaring red Lohvian hair expressed bitterness, sorrow, anger. There was no scrap of resignation I could see. She became aware of my scrutiny and like a person suddenly
awoken from a deep dream-filled sleep, she started. Brusquely, she said: “I am for Shamfrin, a city where I have friends.”
“As you said, Mul-lu-Manting, I am a stranger in these parts.”
“You may, if you wish, Drajak the Sudden, accompany me.”
Deliberately, I did not reply at once. Truth to tell, now I had rescued her, saved her for the purposes of the Star Lords, my interest in her was over. She was still in the throes of coming to terms with the dreadful experience through which she had just suffered. She might need a friendly shoulder on which to lean and cry. She was tough, yes; she was still a human being. And, at the same time, I did feel a personal responsibility for her. That was one of the odd, and if I acknowledged it, infuriating things about my working for the Star Lords. I tended to feel partial towards those I rescued.
The other grand discovery here was obvious. I would have said, previously, that Mul-lu-Manting had been saved for the inscrutable purposes of the Star Lords. Well, by Vox! This time was different. They'd saved her because she wanted and preached a new Empire of Loh. The word inscrutable no longer applied. Then, because I am Dray Prescot with sometimes a mind like a flea on a griddle, devious to the point of re-entry, I considered the opposite. The Everoinye had saved her because her message about a new Empire of Loh was counter-productive. People gave her a bad time when she preached a new crusade, and in their apathy her attempts merely strengthened their hostility to her and her ideas.
As for myself, there was no immediate decision. I could see advantages and disadvantages to the rebirth of the Empire of Loh. The advantages would come in our fight against the Opaz-forsaken Shanks. The disadvantages were all too familiar, by Krun!
She pointed to a small black and white speck on the western horizon.
“There is Shamfrin. Those oafs caught me as I passed through their disgusting little village.” She cocked an eye up at me. “You do not ask why they tried to kill me, and would have, but for—”
“Their reasons and your business are not mine.”
“Oh!”
“Do not misunderstand me. I have problems of my own.”
Then—then, dear Zair, then! I realized. I felt myself shaking all over. I know I must have lost color, for Mul-lu-Manting gave me a most peculiar stare, and started back. I realized! The Star Lords had promised. I'd done their job for them, completed the task, saved this Mul-lu-Manting. And here I was, still, down here, here in the same spot. I gazed around in a dazed and stupefied way. The Everoinye had promised! They'd said they would return me in good time, back to burning Taranjin, back to save my Delia from those devils of Katakis.
And I was still here. I gazed about, like a lunatic. Delia! Why would not the Star Lords return me? Why?
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* * *
Chapter two
Madness hovered close. The Star Lords had promised! Why didn't they send down their phantom blue Scorpion as they had done so many times and snatch me up, to return me to Taranjin so that I might take all I loved in two worlds from those devilish slaving Katakis? Why?
“What is the matter with you, man?”
“What?”
“I said, what is the matter with you, man. You look awful.”
The scene around me swam back into focus. No longer were my eyes filled with the excruciating vision of Delia being carried off by Whiptails. Mul-lu-Manting was giving me that same peculiar stare, at once a look of questioning, of arrogant demands that I did not go sick on her, and of a smidgen—I believe—of genuine concern.
“It's all right.”
“Well, by Lhun, buck your ideas up. We have a way to march yet.”
There was only one explanation. There was more work here at hand. When I'd done what the Star Lords wanted with this demanding madam, then and only then would they return me to Taranjin and all that mattered in two worlds.
If that was the way of it, well, by the Black Chunkrah! I'd do it, do it damned sharpish, and then dare the Everoinye to welsh on the deal.
“Your feet are all right, walfgera?"[1]
[1 walfgera: feminine form of walfger. A.B.A.]
“I'll reach the city.”
If she was not really tough then she both acted and talked so. She quite clearly wished to be tough and appear hard and strong. I didn't know if she was. This little trip to the city on the horizon was scarcely likely to test her, although tender feet treading bare over prickly ground are devastatingly quickly rendered painful past walking.
So we set off. There was an element of the strange to me here; I'd been in similar situations before and not been truly comfortable. Oh, no. This had nothing to do with striding out without clothes with a naked woman matching me stride for stride. Nothing particularly odd about that, at least on Kregen. But, on Kregen, the true and uncomfortable oddness lay in thus marching on without a weapon, without a sword or bow, without a spear, without even a knife. That, on that marvelous yet horrific world four hundred light years from Earth, is likely to get you killed by someone who does have a sword or spear.
Then, again, that is true only of certain locations. You can find some spots of Kregen where you may walk freely and safely without a sword baldricked over your shoulder. Some spots. A few.
The moorland type ground offered precious little in the way of a stick to be used as a shillelagh or blatterer. Just for the feel of it I picked up the thickest stalk I could find and swished it about as we walked. I did not cut off the heads of the few flowers we passed. That cretinous behavior belongs to the stupid and unpleasant variety of so-called human. The same sort of sub-species who probably delights in pulling wings off flies.You meet ‘em, you meet ‘em.
Thinking of my lack of a weapon, to be fair, there are societies of Kregen who live in contempt of pointed and edged weapons. These are what on Earth are termed Martial Arts exponents. Of them all, I suppose to be honest and without boasting, the Krozairs of the Eye of the World stand in the forefront; but they do not despise weapons. For that, you must go to the people of my comrade Turko's home, the Khamorros. Many and many a poor wight has sought to stick a sword through the guts of a high kham and found his sword a hundred paces away and he himself tied in a knot with his hands and feet all mixed up. Then, too, the Martial Monks of Djanduin know more than somewhat of the arcana of facing edged and pointed weapons with only your own naked body to serve as your weapon.
We had marched some way in silence. Now Mul-lu-Manting half-turned her head as we went along and said: “You are not of Walfarg. Nor, I judge, are you of Loh.”
“That is true.”
“Well?” The single word held all of expectant arrogance.
“You have heard of Segesthes?”
“Of course.The easternmost continental mass of Paz.”
“Do you know aught of Segesthes?”
“Balintol is a mysterious place. There are many wonderful cities and strange races there.”
“The cities mostly fringe the southern coasts. To the north, inland, there are almost limitless expanses, the Great Plains.”
“Ah!” she said. “That makes sense. You are a Clansman.”
“Aye.”
I did feel a trifle of amusement. The Clansmen of Segesthes hold themselves aloof among the plains, yet their ferocious reputation had spread as far west and south as this.
She digested this information in silence for a handful of paces, then snapped out: “So, here in Loh, you are a paktun. You know why I have no clothes, for those shints of villagers stole them. But you?”
“I have been a mercenary in my time, yes.”
“A zhanpaktun, I do not doubt, a hyr paktun. And someone snatched your golden pakzhan from its chains around your neck, and stole your clothes into the bargain. Ha! By Lhun, that must have been a sight!”
“It wasn't quite like that—” I started to say when a flicker of movement from stunted bushes off to the left caught my attention. I stopped walking, and took the woman's arm into my grip, halting her.
“What—?”
“Keep still.”
“By Hlo-Hli, you onker! What d'you mean—” She was struggling to free her arm.
Curtly, I snapped out: “Look over there, and shut up.”
She looked. Whether or not she would have obeyed that more than churlish command I couldn't say; she stopped wriggling when she saw the fellow who came strutting over towards us. She gasped.
“A Kanzai Warrior Brother!”
“Precisely. And he's bad news.”
“But they don't—what's he doing—we must run! Hlo-Hli Herself have mercy on me! Run, you onker, run!”
“He will throw a Star of Death. You cannot outrun that.”
She was panting now, her breast going up and down like a gig in a seaway. Her red hair draggled forward, still wet despite the rays of Luz and Walig. She tried to twist her arm free of my grip.
“Stand still, Manting! We will just talk quietly to him.”
She moaned. “I know what is said of them...”
“Your virtue is safe, if that worries you. They are Warrior Brothers, Adepts, devoted to their Disciplines. Each has a mission. Generally, they try to rid the world of Kregen of vermin.”
“And he will consider me as vermin?”
“Unlikely.”
There are many weird and wonderful creeds and Disciplines on the equally weird and wonderful world of Kregen. Of the Kanzai Brotherhood I knew little. Their training is harsh. They are usually chosen from the more militant races. Their concept of honor may, to the ideas of an ordinary fellow like myself, seem a trifle warped. All the same, I'd dealt with them before and, Opaz willing, would do so again.
He strode on boldly, his laminated armor a mass of glinting points of light from rivet and studding. The wide brim of his helmet swept back over his shoulders, and the front was crowned with a skull. Dulled metal and polished leather clothed him. He wore swords, and he could produce an amazing variety of specialist weapons from the pouches strapped to his harness.
Scorpio Drums [Dray Prescot #42] Page 2
