by Andre Norton
Ramsay acted half on instinct, dropping to the ground, rolling. A man with a drawn “sword of state” in one hand plunged past. The attacker was slightly off balance, mainly because he meant that sword to have gone well into Ramsay’s back.
That his treacherous attack had failed in the first blow did not appear to defeat him. The stranger whirled, to leap again. As he did so, he shouted: “Feud vengeance!”
Ramsay did not try to regain his feet. Instead, he rolled onto his back and waited, seemingly an easy prey. This fellow also wore a mask, only it was bright yellow. Through its slits his eyes glistened avidly as he leaped again. Ramsay’s back muscles tightened as he kicked out smoothly, felt his boots thud punishingly against the other’s body.
NINE
The attacker, unprepared for such a countermove, sprawled backward. With another roll, an upward push, Ramsay regained his feet. Falling, the other had lost his sword. Ramsay planted one booted foot on the bared blade. As the man lunged at him for the third time, Ramsay brought the edge of his hand into precise alignment, not to kill, but to stun. For the last time Yellow Mask wilted, face down on the pavement of the wharf, now to remain there. Ramsay, breathing hard, stooped, picked up the sword, wheeled with it bare and ready in his hand.
He discovered they had gathered a circle of spectators. However, if Lom had a police force of any kind, no such officer was present. Nor had any of the watchers moved to interfere. Among them Ramsay did not see the palace guard who had been supposed to see him safely to the waiting ship.
“A clever toss, that—” remarked one man, moving out a step or two from the rest.
He was lean, tall, his dark hair almost completely covered by a crested cap, not unlike the one Ramsay now wore, except that it lacked a face mask. His vest-coat was as short as that of a servingman, but he wore a wide belt that supported both a short sword of ceremony and a holstered weapon of some kind.
Also, there was no badge on his breast. Rather, a diagonal stripe of violet slashed dramatically across the uniform gray of the rest of his clothing.
As he addressed Ramsay, he raised one hand in a casual salute, as if in passing courtesy only.
“Dedan, out of Kental,” he introduced himself. “Free Captain.”
“Arluth of Tolcarne,” Ramsay replied. He was thinking furiously. The prompt disappearance of the palace guard from the scene led him to only one conclusion. He had been set up for murder! Someone had taken neat advantage of Ramsay’s cover as Feudman to do this. And he believed he need not have to search very far for the one, or ones, who had arranged the attack. All the Empress and Osythes had told him that had been meant to lead him tamely here, to his death. Perhaps the plan reached further back than their interview; perhaps even Thecla, in arranging such a disguise, had had this eventual end in mind.
His anger shimmered within him. They had played games with him. Very well—he owed them nothing from this moment on. He was his own man. And now there would not be any retreat to Tolcarne. Ramsay at this moment doubted very much that any ship bound there was really docked at Lom.
The Free Captain dropped on one knee beside the flaccid body of Ramsay’s attacker, rolled the man over on his back to strip off the yellow mask. He gave a low whistle and glanced up, appraisingly, at Ramsay.
“Someone wishes you very dead, stranger. Do you know him?” He jerked a beringed thumb at the inert fighter.
“No.”
“This is Odinal, a hired killer. And his pay comes high. Those whom you feud with must be willing to empty their pockets.” He brushed his hands together as he rose. He might have been wishing to rid himself of any lingering trace of the touch of the mask.
“I would suggest,” Dedan continued, “that you now cease to be the center of attention.” His fleeting glance right to left indicated the gathering crowd. “It may well be that Odinal had a shoulder man to back him.”
At that moment Ramsay felt lost. If what this fellow said was true, he might expect another attack. And, having surveyed Ramsay in action, any prudent back-up man would do his killing from a distance. He could see no one who looked suspicious among the crowd, but this life of constant peril was totally new to him, and confusing.
Dedan’s hand fell lightly upon his arm. “I believe prudence indicates a swift withdrawal. Retreat is often the right arm of valor, or so we are told.”
Ramsay nearly jerked away from that light touch. Why should he trust this Free Captain (whatever that meant!) any more than any other in the crowd? But the man was right! Ramsay had to get out of sight, hide until he could make some coherent plan.
“We are but a matter of strides from the Cask and Bowl—” Dedan waved down a street leading to the wharf. “Their fare is rough enough, but passable for a dock tavern. Shall we go?”
“Why—” Ramsay began.
“Why do I take a hand in this matter?” Dedan finished for him. “On two counts, stranger. First, I have a constitutional dislike of seeing an unaware man stabbed in the back. Secondly, I am very much interested in the strange ways you use your hands and feet. In my own profession every new defense adds to one’s capability, and eventually to one’s worth as a hired fighting man. No.” He shook his head as if he read Ramsay’s sudden thought. “I am not of Odinal’s cult brothers. I am a soldier for hire, not an assassin against one private enemy.”
No one moved to dispute their going. And Ramsay went, mainly because at the moment he could not think of anything else to do. The betrayal had been so sudden, had so completely altered the scene for him, that he was nearly at as big a loss of understanding as he had been on his first awakening as Kaskar.
Dedan waved him through the door of the tavern, where a strong mixture of odors suggested stale and ancient meals, and not much use of water and soap thereafter. The Free Captain continued across the large room where there were benches and tables, massive, much stained and rubbed smooth at the edges, as if generations had eaten and drunk there. There was a buzz of conversation, for the tavern had patrons in plenty. However, Dedan skirted even vacant benches, proceeding into an inner room where there was a measure of quiet, though the smells were stronger.
He kicked a stool out from under a small table, waved Ramsay to another opposite him. A girl, her upper tunic slit so extravagantly that one could see well up the plump swell of her thigh, her hair caught tight to her head by a tarnished gilt ribbon, pattered in.
“Isa, my beauty, two cups of the White, and whatever you have now stewing on the right-hand stove.”
She giggled and nodded, scuttling out as if Dedan were not one to be kept waiting.
“I will not ask who could have set Odinal on you.” Dedan eyed Ramsay. “Tolcarne you have claimed for a homeland, and you wear a Feudman’s hood. But it is not like the Houses of the West to reach overseas to pull an enemy down. And if you are a proclaimed Feudman, you should have been secure. Now, I wonder, whose boot toes have you bruised here!” The Free Captain spoke lightly. Whether he expected a quick answer or not, he gave no sign. Ramsay placed the sword he had taken from Odinal on the top of the table between them. Now Dedan leaned forward a little to study the weapon.
“Good workmanship, and a double threat, too—” “Double threat?” Ramsay was surprised into asking.
“Yes. Behold!” The Free Captain touched the hilt, pressing his thumb firmly on one of the ornamental bead bosses. From the point of the blade oozed two large drops of a liquid.
“I would advise you not to touch that,” Dedan warned. “It is not meant to nourish a man; quite the opposite. This is a sword out of Zagova, where they have some very peculiar customs. I am a little surprised at Odinal under the circumstances. Even a hired sword does not usually choose such tricks.”
Ramsay stared at those dark drops. He did not doubt in the least that Dedan was perfectly truthful. Perhaps the yellow-masked assassin need only have scratched his opponent. At the thought of what might have happened, Ramsay’s hand clenched on the edge of the table.
“J
ust so. You were far more fortunate than you guessed, stranger, when you escaped that. However, it is how you escaped that interests me most. I could judge your actions well enough to believe that you have trained in a new form of fighting.”
Though he did not make a question out of that, Ramsay nodded.
The girl Isa returned, balancing a tray on which were cups and bowls. Suddenly Ramsay was very hungry. She was about to set the tray on the table when she sighted the sword, those ominous dark drops.
She cried out, jerking away so sharply that the liquid in the cups slopped over. Dedan threw out an arm to steady her.
“Isa, my beautiful one, do you now find one of those foul rags Bavar keeps to wipe down those outside tables of his. I promise then all shall be well. Put your tray here—”
She did as he bade, then was gone and back again so quickly, a grimy rag flapping from her hand, that Ramsay could only believe unusual fear had driven her. However, she would not come near the table. Instead she tossed the rag to Dedan. Carefully the Free Captain mopped up the spilled liquid. Then, holding the cloth folded together, he went to the fireplace, tossed the wad into the charred ends of wood lying there. Going down on one knee, he brought a small box from an inner pocket of his tunic, spun a wheel on its side with his thumb. The resulting spark fell on the material, which flared angrily, giving off a puff of evil-smelling smoke.
Isa voiced a deep sigh of relief. Still she did not return to gather up the tray or serve them. It appeared she believed that the sooner she was out of the room the better.
Ramsay ate steadily; nor did his companion break the silence that filled the room now. While he ate, Ramsay’s mind was busy. He wanted to know more about this Dedan who had appeared so fortuitously on the wharf and had knowledge of unusual weapons. However, as a man of this world, how much would Dedan presume Ramsay already knew? And if Ramsay dared ask any questions at all, would he not then reveal that he was more than a simple stranger? He had a very complicated problem.
Dedan finished what was in his bowl. Now he nursed his cup between both hands, watching Ramsay across its brim. There was a lazy, engaging quirk on his lips that was not quite a smile but implied something amusing in this situation, though Ramsay gained no indication that such amusement was aimed at him.
“I have an offer for you, Arluth—” For the first time the Free Captain used Ramsay’s Tolcarnean alias. “If you teach me that trick with the feet, I’ll give you safe passage out of Lom and guarantee you won’t have to face another Odinal, or the same one recovered. You have hurt his professional prestige badly by that trick of yours. He will be prepared now to make your disposal a personal matter, you understand. I am not a merchant to bargain; my offer is a simple one. Teach me that trick, and leave Lom as one of my Free Company. We are due to sail up the coast tonight, land at Yasnaby, then proceed inland along the border there. If Odinal tries to follow, he will be as noticable as a rashawk in the open-sky, always provided he can find the means to travel. In addition, if you are oath-bound to the Company, your quarrel becomes our quarrel. And the world knows well that the Free Companies protect their own. What think you of my offer? I do not believe that you shall have a better one, at least not here in Lom.” Ramsay, remembering the sudden and doubtless well-rehearsed disappearance of the guardsman, could readily accept that.
“Your Company—for whom does it fight now?” He made a guess that these might be among those rootless mercenaries whom Ochall was gathering. That being so, he had no intention of leaping from a fire set by the Empress and Osythes into another stirred up by the apparently universally detested Chancellor.
“Not for Ochall. Is that your problem, Arluth?” Dedan studied him shrewdly. “Be that so, you have a right to look over your shoulder night and day. No, we have been hired by the Thantant of Dreghorn. He holds the Western Marches for Olyroun, and they have been invaded twice by the Lynarkian pirates. Those raiders grow bolder. This time they managed to sack Razolg and hold it for a full week, standing off a siege by the largest force Thantant could put against them. Olyrounians will fight attackers, but they are not trained to the field. Thus we are to join them. The pay is good, and there are bonuses added for each skirmish that puts those of Lynark underground or back to sea, licking wounds. Now, what say you—your knowledge for a safe passage out of Lom?”
Ramsay emptied his cup. As he set it down on the table, he said slowly: “I am no soldier. I do not even know how to handle such a weapon as this.” He touched the hilt of the short sword. He knew such frankness betrayed him, for how could a Feudman be so ignorant? But Ramsay saw no other way. He did not believe he could bluff a trained fighting man. Now he continued, raising a finger to touch his mask.
“Neither am I a Feudman from Tolcarne. Though, as you have seen, there are those who want me dead. I believe now that this very disguise they wished upon me was to provide an easier target for Odinal, or one like him. I cannot tell you who—or what I am. But Lom—Ulad—means death—”
For a long moment Dedan regarded him. Then the Free Captain said: “Truth may be a harsh lady to her liege men, Arluth, but when a man is frank, he deserves the same openness in answer. Do you flee some crime?”
“If you count the fact that I exist at all as a crime, yes. For no other reason am I a menace to others.”
“Ochall?”
“Among others, yes,” Ramsay returned. “I have inadvertently spoiled a plan in which he had a prominent interest.”
Now the Free Captain showed once more a faint quirk of smile. “That would fit well with what I have heard of that very unworthy Chancellor. So you are no soldier? Well, there is no lacking the means of making you one. And your own skill—that I wish to learn in turn. Hunted man or Feudman—what matters it? To me, the cases are more than a little equal. I owe no liege service to any within Ulad. Have you reason to believe that Olyroun would also close doors to you?”
Could Ramsay be sure that Thecla was not one of the prime movers in this intrigue? He longed to believe that she had been unaware of this last small refinement of plan someone had set in action to wipe him permanently from the playing board. But, Ramsay decided, he was going to take this chance.
“I do not think so,” he guessed. “Though if certain powers in Ulad pushed—”
Dedan raised his eyebrows. “Now you interest me even more, Arluth, who is not of Tolcarne. But will they seek you among a Free Company?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Well enough. Now—take off that mask. We shall make good use of the window yonder.” He indicated the grimy pane, cross-latched with strips of metal. Then he counted some small coins on the table top. “It is better not to risk passing through the outer room again. Who knows who may sit there snuffling into his cup?”
Ramsay hesitated only a moment before he tugged off the masking hood. Dedan was already at the window, using his strength to force up a latch which plainly had been long set in place. A moment later they slipped, one after the other, over the sill into a noisome side alley.
The hour was past sundown, and there were enough shadows to furnish some kind of cover. Dedan’s shoulder brushed against Ramsay’s.
“To the wharf. Our coaster sails with the night tide.”
Ramsay was very conscious of his unmasked face. The warnings, beginning with Thecla, that his features might mark him down to any spy, had deeply set in his mind. Still, he was not, he thought, even glanced at by the few men they passed. However, he gave a sigh of relief when he boarded the ship and passed down into the hold quarters of Dedan’s company.
Three days later, in midmorning, Ramsay grinned as he lightheartedly surveyed, with mock criticism, Dedan, who sprawled on the deck.
“You merely use a man’s own action and strength against him,” Ramsay repeated for about the tenth time within the hour.
Dedan gritted his teeth. “Well enough, when you do it! However, my turn will come. Your hand is not as sure on sword hilt as it is against my aching neck!”
; Ramsay had a half-dozen pupils out of the company of thirty, which was Dedan’s command. The rest shied off from this new method of fighting, being content to watch, and jeer at those taking ungainly tumbles across the planking. Dedan was also right in his statement, for Ramsay remained certainly far from mastering the sword. He could use to better effect the odd handgun that was the other close-combat weapon of the company.
That impelled darts of glass, nasty when they broke upon impact, slivering to enlarge the wound. He saw nothing akin to the glass tube with which Melkolf had threatened him. There were also larger, long-barreled weapons, meant to fire globes, which burst in the air, loosing upon the heads of the enemy a burning liquid. Though these arms were faintly akin to a rifle, the military of this world appeared to have nothing that shot a solid bullet.
In addition to personal arms, Dedan showed Ramsay several field weapons mounted on planes, which, properly controlled, floated a foot or so above the surface of the ground. Weighing far less than their bulk suggested, these could be towed into place, and, once aimed, they broadcast, fanning wide in a way damaging to enemies, waves of vibration which tormented all not equipped with ear plugs.
The mixture of weapons—the relatively primitive sword with the strange and much more sophisticated “rifles” and “vibrators”—puzzled Ramsay. He learned that side arms, rifles, and floating vibrators were very costly. Dedan’s company hire price went two-thirds into buying and maintaining these—while replacements could be found only at a metal market in the far north where another nation had rediscovered, and then copied, certain weapons from the Older Days.
These northern arms merchants were jealous of their monopoly, and the weapons they produced possessed built-in-destruct mechanisms. Thus anyone striving to decode their construction did not survive his curiosity. Or, if he did, he was not in such a state to enjoy life greatly thereafter. So far, no one had managed to circumvent this particular safeguard on a profitable trade monopoly.