Scorpio Drums [Dray Prescot #42]

by Alan Burt Akers

  We were not challenged.

  “They are confident, then,” commented Manting.

  The guards were Bowmen of Loh, so they had some right to be confident.

  I said, only half to myself: “Mul-lu, you may call me an onker if you wish.”

  “Oh?”

  “I should have taken a little gold from our Kanzai brother. Where are we to stay tonight?”

  “I have friends in Shamfrin—onker.”

  I did not smile; but I own I felt relief. Being stranded in an unknown and probably hostile town without cash is an unpleasant bore I've experienced before this, as you know; but I'd cope with it somehow. With a woman tagging along the problem is more acute. If this Manting ranter had pals here, well, they might be fanatical Empire of Loh advocates. I might be in for an evening of ear bashing.

  In that streaming moonlight we walked quietly along and, I can tell you, I walked lightly and with the drexer loose in the scabbard.

  Manting knew her way all right and we passed massive buildings with walls peppered with lights and with many people coming and going, and carriages twinkling along and the smell of evening on the warm air. A long prospect of arcades was broken by a square, and this kyro had been set out with many small canopied stalls. Here vendors were shouting their wares in strident voices. The variety was amazing, from shoes and shirts to cooking pots and cucumbers, and idols of Vutch-Ikar with pot bellies and staring eyes. Mul-lu-Manting glanced sideways at the mass of idols’ heads.

  “Vutch-Ikar.” She sniffed with vast contempt. “A male god and a false god. Yet he is not a false god because he is male.”

  I moved sideways sharply to avoid a calsany loaded with sacks whose driver simply let the animal blunder on, well knowing people would jump out of the way. The sense of moonlight streaming down overhead and the scatter of stars, was entirely lost. Now I felt enclosed and shut in by walls of vendors’ booths, by shouting people, by dust and the smells of commerce.

  Lanterns and torches flared in my face as Manting went on: “When the empire was lost, Vutch-Ikar was the fashionable god. People took the true Hlo-Hli too much for granted.”

  I felt compelled to say: “What about Raffi of the Lightning and Thunder?” I nodded to a stall loaded with idols of the god. “She was always a goddess of the pantheon, before and after the fall. And, anyway,” I added, “those statues are rather pretty. She looks quite nice.”

  She sniffed again. I hoped I was not consciously teasing her. “You pretend to know a vast deal of Lohvian history, remarkable for a barbarian clanner, Drajak!”

  “Oh, we barbarians have our hidden sides too, you know.”

  We pushed through the rest of the jangled confusion of the market into the balance of the arcades where quite soon Manting led off along a side street. The houses here were smaller and then we had reached the door she sought and she knocked. She rapped two, one, three. At this secret knock the door disclosed a small square aperture barred with black iron beyond which a moustached face glowered out, two gimlet eyes boring into Manting.

  What she said I didn't hear; but the door opened and we went in.

  A form swathed in voluminous robes like a bundle of laundry was topped by a round doughy face. The gimlet eyes sized me up. The damp mouth beneath that moustache opened and she said: “A man.”

  “Yes, Nola, a man. He has been useful.”

  This moustached lady, Nola, sniffed. I began to suspect this contemptuous sniffing was the trademark of these folk. She stepped aside and Manting led on along the dimly lit corridor to what was clearly a general living room at the end. Here a broad scrubbed wooden table at the centre was surrounded by bentwood chairs. The walls were covered by shelves and cupboards. A stove stood along one wall and washing facilities opposite. The smells were what one would expect—stale food, disinfectant, sweat—but mingled with them the unmistakable scents of expensive perfumes.

  There were four women sitting at the table preparing a meal and a fifth pottering at the stove. They were not all alike, and they were not all the same as Manting; they were, all five of them, near enough to fool one on a dark night. I guessed this was the coven headquarters acting as the powerhouse for ideas and energy for the new Empire of Loh.

  Introductions were made and I sat quietly and got on with a hunk of bread until the meal was ready, and I said very little, only politely answering questions with the most convenient lies that came into my mind and listening to what was said.

  The women and Manting had news to impart and gossip to exchange. The bread had gone down nicely, thank you, and intending to display no interest in what was being said, I glanced at a couple of books on the table. One made me think back to Sosie na Arkasson, for it was The Quest of Kyr Nath. The other book made my lip twist down wryly. The first words of the first chapter were: “A foot scraped in the shadows.” Oh, yes. The tall stories of the adventures of Dray Prescot had reached here, in uncaring Loh. And, of course, thinking back to the Black Feathers of the Great Chyyan made me sweat with terror afresh for new perils endangering Delia. What in a Herrelldrin Hell were the Star Lords doing keeping me hanging about here when I should be back there in burning Taranjin and seeing off those damned Katakis and taking Delia into my arms where she belonged?

  Foolish to imagine the Everoinye heard and answered my passionate internal demand. Yet one of the women, Lola the Assandra, was saying: “Yes, Mul-lu, I'm afraid we do stand in some peril since you left.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Ferlie was pelted with filth when she tried to speak, and she was followed back. They know where we live.”

  Nola sniffed. “Let ‘em come. I have my rolling pin.” The moustache looked fierce above the damp mouth, the gimlet eyes mean.

  Mul-lu-Manting looked more annoyed than apprehensive. “I had the word of the Kovneva Shernly, her personal word, that we would not be molested.”

  “The kovneva shares our views.” Lola cut slices of vegetable with precise tiny cuts. “The kov does not.”

  “Yes,” put in Ferlie, whose pronounced perfume was now explained. “And I'm sure he encourages the common folk against us. Because—”

  “Because he is frightened of his wife!” snapped Manting.

  The explanation for this state of affairs was simple enough. During the time of the Empire of Loh, the nobility, like this Kov of Shamfrin, were very much under the thumb of the Queens of Pain. A kov, which is more or less like the terrestrial duke, is the highest rank of nobility—apart from a hyr kov or arch kov—and nowadays in the relaxed atmosphere after the fall of the empire, the nobility exercised much greater authority. His wife, this Kovneva Shernly na Shamfrin, might quite like to see a return of the empire and the Queens of Pain, the kov her husband most certainly did not.

  The mineral oil lamp on the table cast shadows across Manting's face, as suddenly, out of the blue, she burst out: “When they tied that sack of stones to me, and I felt the water all about me, I—” She shivered, and put her palms flat against her face. Lola the Assandra stood up at once, dropping her knife, and went around the table. She held Manting's head against her bosom, stroking her hair, soothing her.

  A slightly-built, dark curly-haired girl with bright eyes, said: “If the barbarian had not been there, Mul-lu—”

  “Hush, Tilly.” But Lola spoke gently.

  By the time we'd washed and sat down to the meal, Manting had recovered her composure. Her cheeks were flushed. She spoke up sharply enough and between herself and Lola dominated the conversation. I felt a sneaking admiration for her. She had been through a devilishly unpleasant ordeal.

  The youngster, Tilly, seemed a bright spark. She gave me a slanting look from her dark eyes, and said: “For a barbarian he has nice table manners. Don't you think, Mul-lu?”

  Mul-lu-Manting did not look up from her plate. “Manners do not make the man in Loh, Tilly.”

  “Maybe,” said Tilly, pertly. “But they often make a woman!”

  “Tilly!” snapped out Lola, and Tilly
looked quickly down at her plate. She was quite unrepentant, that was obvious.

  As is my wont in these circumstances I offered to do the washing up, and was accepted for the job. In addition I was sent out with two buckets for water from the well at the cross roads at the end of the street, and then sent back for two more. After that they gave me a whole silver piece and I lugged back two bundles of firewood. I felt I'd earned my supper.

  Lola held out her hand. “Where is the change, Drajak?”

  In handing her the copper coins from the wood vendor I felt we'd come to an unspoken agreement. They'd trusted me with silver. I'd done what they asked, and had not run off. Had I done so, I wondered, what female trickery had they up their sleeves to thwart that dastardly male plan?

  After that, amid much clanking and clanging, they brought out weapons, spread them upon cloths laid across the table, brought out oil and rags, and went to work. There were harnesses of armor, curved to fit girls, and helmets of the Lohvian quoinrin pattern. The skulls were drawn and beaten with neckflaps and nasals, and although not a devotee of the quoinrin helmet, I'd used them in my time and found them serviceable.

  “Come on, Drajak, bratch!” snapped Lola, and I set to.

  “Brick dust and spit,” I said. “That's what I'm more accustomed to.”

  Tilly laughed at this. So we sat, talking desultorily, cleaning.

  Then Manting said: “I did not think Clansmen, being nomads, knew anything of bricks for building.”

  To stir her up a trifle, I said: “Only when we knock ‘em down.”

  “Oh!” said one of the women, startled.

  “Barbarians!” sniffed Lola the Assandra.

  So, as you can see, we were getting along like a house on fire, as they say in Clishdrin.

  When I felt it appropriate, I took up the drexer from the Kanzai and gave that a good clean and polish.

  Despite my good intentions, and the very real necessity of not doing so, I found myself more and more fretting in the direst terror for Delia.

  Like a ripsaw through knotty pine, Manting's words jolted me.

  “What's the matter with you, Drajak? Has the meal upset you?”

  “No, no,” I managed to say. The meal had been soup with ingredients of unknown provenance. “Very nice.” Then, speaking honestly as I had with Mevancy, I said: “I was thinking of a lady.”

  “I see.” Manting's nose pinched in and her mouth clamped shut.

  “A barbarianess!” said Tilly, with a little laugh.

  This was no good. I had to concentrate on what was happening now. So, back to myself, I heard the sounds first.

  I stood up.

  Lola tilted her head.

  Mul-lu-Manting said: “They know where we live, now, you said, Ferlie. Well, they have come for us.”

  Outside the house the sounds of trampling feet, the chink of weapons, drifted into the quiet room. Most ominous of all the half-bestial sounds of voices raised in chanting chorus, menacing, infinitely threatening, swelled closer and closer in a dire litany of vengeful destruction.

  Hastily, the women began to strap on their armor. I took up the drexer. This was going to be a nasty little fracas. If I got myself killed in the doing of the Star Lords’ wishes, and my Delia was not saved, then I'd never forgive the Everoinye, no, never!

  The women all looked determined. They handled their weapons in such wise that showed they knew how to use them, even if they might not be highly skilled. Overblown sentiments like dire litanies and vengeful destructions however melodramatically infantile were absolutely spot on here. Those crowds outside were out for blood.

  Mul-lu-Manting started to speak and I cut her off sharply.

  “Is there a back way out of here?”

  “Do what?”

  “You heard.”

  She was clearly taken aback. A stone rattled against the door at the end of the corridor. “You mean you'd run away, Drajak?”

  “Too right! By Lhun, woman! They'll rip us to shreds!”

  She swished her sword about. She only had two more strapped about her waist, so she was not heavily over-armed by Kregan standards. “Almost, Drajak the Sudden, almost, I gave you the jikai—”

  “Well,” I fairly snarled back, “don't bother. I'll shove some furniture against the front door. You lead off out the back.”

  “You are not in command here, man,” Lola told me, curtly.

  “Well, whoever is better unglue her wings—that is, had better put her slippery shoes on—before it's too late.”

  Whilst we thus stood jabbering, more stones rattled against the door and a resounding and meaty thud announced the onslaught of a battering ram.

  “That's it!” I fairly snatched up the table and hurled myself along the passage. The table, jammed against the door, wouldn't hold the mob for long. It might just give us time to nip over the wall at the back. If there was any damned back exit from this benighted place.

  When I returned to the living room the women were standing, rather like statues, glaring at me. Tilly giggled in nervous reaction to her own fear. “It takes four of us to lift that table.”

  “Where's the back way?” I shouted. I was growing warm.

  Mul-lu-Manting jumped at my tone. “Just the same,” she said, and her voice hardened. “Just as it was when we lost the empire. The women fought and the men ran away. Jikarna, the lot of you."[2]

  [2 jikarna: coward. A.B.A.]

  The noise outside resembled a circus of beasts just before feeding time. Now I was well aware I wouldn't run off and leave these stubborn women—and not just because the Star Lords wanted me to protect Manting, either—but they didn't know that. I started for the rear door of the living room. I exaggerated my stride to indicate I meant what I was doing.

  Tilly broke the impasse. She ran after me, dropped her sword, bent to snatch it up with a beautiful flowing movement, and squeaked out: “Wait for me, Drajak! I'll show you the way!”

  I looked back. Nola was running her plump hand up and down a spear shaft; but—and this is true—she did have a rolling pin thrust into her belt. Lola the Assandra was turning her head to look down the corridor and then back at me. As for Mul-lu-Manting, that fiery woman was about to march down the corridor, sword up, ready to chop the whole damned mob of ‘em out there.

  “Tilly! Lead on. You others, follow and make it sharp. And watch for any of the crowd out at the back.” With that I rushed across the room and dived down the passage.

  The table was jumping at each blow like a poor ill-used animal under the lash. I scooped Manting up with my left arm around her waist, feeling the lack of armor there, span about, and started back with her carted along like a roll of carpet, head first, feet last.

  She started in yelling at me, and hit me—fortunately she did not strike me with her sword. I just tightened my grip on that waist of hers and hurried along. No one was left in the living room so I went through the far opening and back-heeled it shut after us. A lantern glowed ahead, and moved up and down. Someone had waited for me, then. I took a mental wager, and when I saw Tilly by the back door holding the light I won my bet.

  “Mul-lu!” exclaimed Tilly, and I realized she was not horrified but amused at her companion's position. I wasn't going to put Manting down yet, no, by Krun!

  “Get on, Tilly. And thank you for waiting.”

  Mul-lu was raving on about a Walfargian's honor—I took no notice. If there did happen to be a crowd waiting at the back then she'd have plenty of opportunity to see how well her ideas of honor served her in a dirty street knock-down, drag-out fight.

  She of the Veils and Tilly's lantern revealed a shadowed courtyard. The so-called back door of these living quarters led onto a common yard along with other back doors in the block. Moonlight splashed down over the dilapidated arch over the gateway on our left side. Tilly led us quickly over the cobbles. I strained to listen and could pick up no sounds of a waiting mob.

  The wooden gate, somewhat worn away at the edges, stood half-open.
In the street outside the women grouped in a huddle. They reminded me rather of a forlorn group of birds huddling on a fence in the rain. Events had overtaken them. They weren't out of the wood yet.

  “Right, Lola. Which way now?”

  “It is for Mul-lu to say. She is our leader.”

  Mul-lu let out a squeak and a volley of oaths the burden of which was that I'd better put her down right this minute, or—

  “Or what, Mul-lu? I warn you, if you try to fight this mob single-handed again I shall stop you again.”

  I slapped her down on the soles of her feet—hard.

  Her red Lohvian hair, dark under the moonlight, flopped about her eyes. She brushed it away savagely, as though knocking me down.

  “Who appointed you my keeper, Drajak the Sudden?”

  The irony of that gave my lips a twitch.

  I said: “Lead on to somewhere safe, Mul-lu. Then we can discuss the mysteries of your future and fate.”

  “You're a damned impertinent man!”

  “For the sweet sake of Hlo-Hli Herself! Lead on, woman!”

  “He's right, Mul-lu,” chattered Tilly.

  Even Nola, holding her spear like a soup ladle, nodded agreement.

  Well, eventually we all trailed off along the street. We kept up a sharp lookout. The bestial mob sounds gradually faded.

  “They'll break in and wreck our house,” said Lola. She spoke with a deal of annoyance and regret.

  A woman of somewhat vulpine looks and wearing a heavily chased breastplate, Nan-ni-Oboling, spat out: “We couldn't have gone back there again, anyway. It is our possessions I'm furious about.”

  “As we were prevented from fighting for them we shall have to find more.” Manting shot the remark directly at me. I did not reply.