The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers
Page 65
Watching him, the Moulokinese was at once awed and afraid. The distance between scientists and the sometimes destructive results of their science is often more terrifying to the average being than the inventions themselves.
Williams noticed the Tran’s expression. To his great horror, he discovered it made him feel good.
It was late afternoon and the temperature was falling with the sun when the Moulokinese fighters chivaned wearily back to the canyon. Blood had frozen in copious quantities between the two walls, giving the inlet the look of quartz littered with crystals of vanadinite.
“ ’Twill require much time and effort to clear our canyon so that ships may travel it again.” Landgrave Lady K’ferr looked quite magnificent in battle dress, Ethan thought.
“We shall rebuild the damaged outer wall,” said one of her officers from nearby, “higher and stronger than before, with the same stones that have crushed our enemies.”
“ ’Tis truth. We will have the help of our friends of Sofold.” K’ferr gazed fondly at several weapon-laden sailors from the Slanderscree as they returned with prizes from the massacre. “I wish only,” she continued, looking saddened, “that I could congratulate your Sir Hunnar Redbeard, friend Ethan. Of all who fought, he was bravest.”
Ethan stared down the canyon at the stragglers returning to the canyon. “He could still be out there, cutting down one last Poyo.”
“I’m afraid not, feller-me-lad.” September had skated over to join them. “I was out on the ocean with him. Saw him go down myself. He didn’t get up again.”
There was a wail from behind them. Ethan wished the Tran were capable of fainting. Then he wouldn’t have had to see the look of anguish September’s words had produced in Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata’s eyes.
September laid down his heavy, stained axe, pulled his beamer from his waistband and tossed it to Ethan. After inspecting the reading on a certain small gauge, Ethan nodded, handed it back to the giant.
“Mine’s dead too, Skua. I don’t know about Milliken’s, but I think he used it up drilling holes for the charges.”
“Well, let’s hope we won’t need ’em on the way back to Brass Monkey, feller-me-lad. We’ll take Trell’s body and the two peaceforcers back with us. Been thinkin’ on what we ought to tell the port authorities. No need to get complicated about it. Unfriendly native attack, wandering bandit types.” Ethan nodded slowly, eying the three gashes on the left side of the giant’s neck. Someone had patched the survival suit with local materials. Since September chose not to mention the wound, Ethan ignored it.
“They’ll accept that story because they won’t have a choice, lad. Just as they’ll accept the artifacts and new interpretation of this world we’ll bring ’em. The next Commissioner sent here won’t have any ideas about illegal profit skimming, not with a civilization to help organize. But we’ll play it safe and tell the padre first anyway.”
“Once the Church stirs a theological finger in here, the bureaucracy will monitor its people more tightly,” concurred Ethan. “Poor Trell. He created the conditions for his own murder.”
“Sorry, feller-me-lad. I got no sympathy for him. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen on too many primitive worlds. And he made the old mistake of forgetting that primitive folks can be just as crafty-treacherous as the most jaded technological sophisticate.”
“You said the portmaster and others will accept our story because they’ll have nothing to compare it with. What if Ro-Vijar managed to get away?” Turning his face away from the blast of ice crystals streaming down the canyon, he looked toward the distant frozen sea. “I didn’t go looking for his body, but I didn’t notice it among the dead.”
“Assumin’ he ain’t lying under one of these rocks, we’ll just have to deal with his lies when we get back to Arsudun,” said September. “Be our word against his. I’m inclined to think Xenaxis will side with us.”
“That’s not what worries me, Skua. Ro-Vijar’s clever enough to settle for maintaining the status quo on Arsudun. By telling some story about his last minute alliance with us, for example. Xenaxis may not believe him, but he hasn’t got the authority to prosecute a native leader on our word alone.”
“I hadn’t considered that, lad. Be tough to prove anything if he agrees with us instead of attackin’ us. Let’s worry about that on the way back to Brass Monkey. We’ve a long way to go. Maybe we’ll get lucky and overtake him.”
Far out on the ice ocean, five battered rafts hove to a halt. Thunder, natural this time, sounded to the northwest and the captains of the five rafts knew they would have a difficult time making headway homeward if the storm did not skirt ’round them.
Furthermore, not only were their crews depleted, but of those who remained many were wounded too badly to work the sails.
A small group of sailors and officers had gathered on the stern of one raft. A single figure stood in the center of the circle they formed.
“You cannot put me off here,” the Landgrave of Arsudun insisted, frightened for the first time since they’d escaped Moulokin. He looked over the side, at the ice now lit an eerie blue-white by the twin moons of Tran-ky-ky. “Not without food and weapons.”
“We have carried you far enough, Ro-Vijar of Arsudun.” Rakossa fingered the fresh scar running down his sword arm. “Mayhap you can make it back to Moulokin and your offworld friends.”
“They are not my friends! You know that.” Fear lent force to Ro-Vijar’s protests. “Did I not help kill three of them with you, among whom was one partly my friend?”
“Ah. Then you may throw yourself on the mercy of the compassionate people of Moulokin.” There were unfriendly laughs from the circle of sailors, few of whom wore no bandages. One of them jabbed viciously at Ro-Vijar, his spearpoint piercing the Landgrave’s vest and starting a trickle of blood.
Ro-Vijar clutched at the puncture. Looking now like a terrified cub instead of the leader of a powerful island state, he scrambled over the railing and onto the single pika-pina boarding ladder there.
“I beseech you, Rakossa, do not do this thing to one who befriended you! I ask mercy.”
“We are being merciful,” said Rakossa nastily, “by not killing you slowly this moment.” He spat at the dangling Ro-Vijar. “Because of you we have lost most of our fleet, all of our best fighting men and women. When we return home, we will be pressed because of this disaster merely to retain our rightful throne.
“But worst of all, worst of all, that woman is safe!” He was quivering with rage, his fur bristling from ears to feet. “Safe among offworlders, whose ‘irresistible’ weapon you had us put our trust in.”
“Who could foresee the magic they would use to bury us beneath the canyon tops?”
“We tire of your excuses, Landgrave-no-more.” Several sailors moved threateningly toward the rail. Ro-Vijar hurriedly slid down the ladder. As it was drawn back aboard he stood shaking on the ice, staring up at the equally cold faces lining the railing.
“You cannot leave me thus, you cannot! Give me a weapon. A spear … even a knife!”
“You fought well with words, Ro-Vijar of Arsudun. Do battle with them now.”
“Offspring of a k’nith!” wailed Ro-Vijar. “Your mother mated with a root! I will follow you all the way to Poyolavomaar and thence travel on to Arsudun, where I will mount a fleet to raze your unspeakable city! You will die a death more horrible than you can imagine!”
Rakossa made a gesture of disgust. “There is no death we cannot imagine.” He turned to the squire standing next to him. “We would not inflict this vexsome babble upon the creatures of the ocean.” He put a paw on the squire’s lance. “Best to kill him now and spare the roamers of the ice.” He tugged. The squire did not let go of the lance.
Rakossa regarded the wounded soldier with a stare of disbelief. “We will gift you with another spear, sub-officer, unless you wish to kill the thing on the ice yourself.” When the squire did not reply, Rakossa tugged again, harder. Still the Tran didn’t let loos
e of his weapon.
“You wish to join him?” Rakossa’s voice was touched with incredulity. “Give us your lance, squire, or we will—”
“You will do nothing,” a tight voice said. Rakossa spun, confronting the speaker of the unbelievable words. Surely he recognized the young officer. It was one who had not cheered as loudly as others when Rakossa had first announced their intention to pursue the escaped offworlders from Poyolavomaar. And had he not seen this one in council since that time …?
“I hight T’hosjer, son of T’hos of Four Winds, of a line who have served Poyolavomaar many generations.” The moonlight gave his youthful features a sinister cast, shone on the slim sword the officer held to the Landgrave’s chest.
“Be that so, T’hosjer, you are an officer no longer.” His voice rose. “You are not even a squire; you are nothing!” He reached up a paw to shove the point of the sword aside. T’hosjer leaned forward, penetrating the other’s chest just above the sternum. Rakossa froze.
Looking around the circle he saw the fixed expressions on the faces of sailors and officers, wounded and spared. No one spoke.
“What is this? Have you all gone mad?”
“No, Rakossa of Poyolavomaar. We have gone sane.” T’hosjer gestured with his free paw toward the slight, silhouetted figure of Ro-Vijar down on the ice. “You blame all that has happened on that one. ’Tis not his fault. We of Poyolavomaar always prided ourselves on making trade or war on our own, without the help or interference of others.
“You have sought the aid of those who are not even Tran, have taken the advice of one not of the Seven Peaks. Because of that my brother T’sunjer and many friends of my cubhood lie dead on the step of a strange city that meant us no harm, their hearts pierced by arrow or sword, their bodies broken by rocks.”
“You fought as fiercely as any other,” said Rokassa accusingly.
“I fought for the city of the Seven Peaks, for Poyolavomaar my home and for my friends and companions. I fought because the alternative was to run. An officer of Poyolavomaar does not run and leave his friends to fight and die without him. There will linger on us no disgrace from this defeat, for we fought blind.” A mutter of agreement came from the surrounding soldiers.
“We were blinded by your words and the position you inherited. We partook of your madness. This, and not the defeat in battle, is the shame we will carry with us to our own passing. It has been long said that you were mad, Rakossa of Poyolavomaar. Those who disagreed or argued too strongly with you disappeared too often these years past.”
“We are your Landgrave,” said Rakossa angrily. “We stand before you as rightful ruler and liege!”
“You are no longer ruler or liege. From this point,” and he mimicked Rakossa’s own words of a moment ago, “you are nothing.”
Rakossa studied the circle of glowering soldiers, male and female. “A thousand metal pled to the soldier who kills this traitor!” No one moved. “Two thousand!” Then, “I will mate and make my coruler the woman who kills this one!”
That produced the first sounds from the group—mewling laughs from several of the female soldiers. One said, “To live the life of horror you visited upon your concubine Teeliam Hoh? I believed not the rumors that came of what you did to her. Now I think they mayhap were understated.”
Rakossa still could not comprehend what was happening. “Officers, prepare to set sail. Soldier-sailors, to your posts.”
“Over the side.” T’hosjer jabbed a little harder with his sword. Blood trickled faster through gray fur. “Join your ally and friend.”
Dazed, Rakossa crawled over the railing. “We will follow. We will see all of you spitted over hot fires in the kitchens. We will have your mates and cubs disemboweled before you!”
T’hosjer leaned over the side of the raft, made certain the no-longer Landgrave of Poyolavomaar dropped to the ice. Then he turned, exhausted, to the mate who had become captain of the raft and spoke a single word.
“Home.”
As members of the circle moved to their posts and signals were exchanged with the four remaining rafts, T’hosjer slid his sword back into the scabbard tied to his right leg.
“What of Moulokin?” asked one of the sailors. “Will they not come seeking revenge?”
“When we have regained some of our pride, we will come back to the canyon of the shipbuilders and make peace with them, as should have been done long ago. There will be changes in the way Poyolavomaar relates to its neighbors.”
As the pitiful remnant of the once grand fleet began to gather wind and move northeastward. T’hosjer moved to the stern. Two figures were receding behind them, dark blots against the ice.
“What see you, T’hosjer captain?” It was the one of the female fighters who’d laughed at Rakossa’s bizarre, desperation proposal.
“I expect they started the moment we prepared to leave,” he told her. He squinted into the moonlit distance. “I believe Ro-Vijar of Arsudun is on top, but it is becoming hard to tell.” He grunted, turned away as the two flailing figures became merely another blur on the blue-white ocean.
In the canyon of Moulokin several shapes moved against the wind and cold. Scattered among the boulders and the dead, they gathered the personal effects of the soldiers of Moulokin and the weapons and armor of the enemy not already scavenged by the victorious soldiery.
One figure did not move. She sat on a wooden beam splintered from some shattered raft and stared out toward where black cliffs gave way to shining ice sea. Since the sun had dropped behind the west rim of the canyon she had been singing in a high, keening wail that was part growl, part rhyme, part something no human could put a definition to.
A voice sounding tired and a touch irritated called to her from among a cluster of stones which had been torn loose from the outer wall by the offworlder energy weapon.
“With all due respect, my lady Elfa, I implore you to have mercy on a wounded soldier and cease that awful caterwauling.”
Her head came around sharply, eyes strove to pierce the night.
“Who … who calls the Landgrave’s daughter?”
“And give us some help,” the voice added, ignoring her request. Two figures limped out from behind an enormous boulder. One promptly slumped to a sitting position. The other figure fell atop the first, rolled off to one side and lay panting on the ice.
“I have a broken leg and torn dan, and this soldier of Moulokin is sorely hurt. I sewed up his belly as best I could, but I am no seamstress or physician.”
“Hunnar? Hunnar Redbeard?” She slid off the section of ruined mainmast, chivaned recklessly toward the two shapes.
Tonx Ghin Rakossa did not die easily. The same forces that powered the demons within him refused to let him perish.
He snugged the too-small cloak more tightly around his torso, leaned against the howling wind. Curse the leperworm Ro-Vijar for the damage he’d done before he died! Rakossa’s dan were too badly torn to give the wind purchase, and his left arm dangled uselessly from the shoulder.
But the former Landgrave of Arsudun was worse off. Rakossa warmed himself with the memory of Ro-Vijar’s neck snapping beneath his fingers. The Arsudunite had been weak in the end, weak from the softness inflicted on him by offworld luxuries.
When we return to Poyolavomaar and reclaim the throne, he thought venomously, we will deal with these offworlders once and for all.
His return to the city-state would provoke much consternation on the part of T’hosjer and the other traitors. How he would enjoy that confrontation! His allies remained safe at court and his lineage as Landgrave was unchallengeable. His claim would hold, and his very presence make liars of the traitors. To salvage their own precious necks, many of the common soldiers who survived would suddenly have second thoughts about any tale T’hosjer could conjur. Then he would have the pleasure of watching those traitors toast over low coals, until their fur blackened and their bare skin began to peel away.
But first he had to get there.
Trading vessels should pass this way soon. He would hail one leaving Moulokin. Of his ability to pass himself off as a survivor of the battle he had no doubt, for words had always been his most effective weapon. While not clad in Moulokinese attire, his adopting of Ro-Vijar’s would not mark him as a dangerous Poyo either. The brotherhood of ice sailors being what it was, he would likely be treated kindly and carried to the merchant’s home port.
Once there, he could eventually buy, steal, or cajole a raft to carry him home to Poyolavomaar and revenge.
Something moved on the ice to the south. He froze, until he saw it was no roving carnivore but a ship, and a tiny one at that. Too small to be a merchantman, it probably held ice gleaners searching the cliffs for edible plants or animals. Simple hunters and gatherers, now able to ply their trade outside the secured city. In Ro-Vijar’s cloak he should not immediately be regarded as an enemy. If they were not of Moulokin he could retain his first plan. If they were of the city, he could feed them a formidable tale of shipwreck and woe.
Either way, he could gain their confidence long enough to give time to dispatch them, despite his one useless arm. That would give him a raft far sooner than he’d dared hoped. Why, it was not inconceivable that he could reach Poyolavomaar ahead of the traitors. How gratifying it would be to stand at the harbor front and greet T’hosjer upon his arrival!
The little raft drew hearer. He slumped to the ice. Let them think him more sorely afflicted than he was, the better to lull any suspicions they might have of him. Stone chiv braked to a halt nearby. There was the noise of someone stepping onto the ice. Slow chivaning sounds reached him, then stopped. He waited patiently, but no further indication of movement came. Only the everpresent wind, skipping and moaning over the ice like a mournful spinster.