by Laurence Yep
The little man paused two meters from the prince and puffed himself up with self-importance. “Kneel, you leeches, for Lord Tayu.” Urmi had been right. Apparently the scout had not gotten a close enough look at them to tell that they weren’t priests.
Urmi touched Sulu’s arm and then nodded her hat toward Mr. Spock.’ The three of them knelt on the rocky dirt, careful to keep their boots covered by the robes. But the prince was a bit slower to obey and the man in the cap tripped the prince so that he fell on his back. “Leeches that are slow to kneel get shortened by a head.” And he raised his sword over his head.
A monk’s robes, Sulu realized, were not the best [143] clothing to wear for a quick defense. By the time they had pulled up the robes and gotten out their weapons, the prince would be dead.
But the prince himself flung up a hand. “Wait. What’s happened to Lord Tayu’s hospitality?”
“It’s been a long time since anyone spoke of that.” A ragged man came toward them. His fur was as dark and lusterless as the rest of his men’s so that it seemed to blend into the leather vest he wore. The only bright bit of color was his short cloak of tattered if expensive silk, and some attempt had been made to keep himself cleaner than the others. “I had more monks visiting me in those days. They once praised my piety. Strange how the flattery ended at the same time as the donations.”
“You are welcome to share what I have.” The prince tried to sit up but the man in the cap jabbed his sword at him and the prince remained only halfway up.
“I had intended to anyway.” With an almost lazy arrogance, Lord Tayu motioned for the man in the cap to raise his sword. “It’s hard to collect what’s due to me.”
The prince sat all the way up. “Due to you?”
“My taxes, leech.” Lord Tayu snatched up the nearest sack and began to rummage through it. “You don’t think a piece of paper from the emperor can really take away lands that have been in my family for generations?” His hand reappeared, holding a small chunk of cheese. He bit into it hungrily, glancing away from the prince as if Lord Tayu were embarrassed.
The other bandits grabbed the other sacks, elbowing and jostling one another to get at what little food might be there. With angry shouts for the others to wait, the remaining bandits on the arroyo’s walls began to climb down.
[144] The prince gave a sad shake of his head. “I’m truly sorry for you, Lord Tayu.”
Lord Tayu lowered the cheese as if he were finally aware of the spectacle he was making. His fingers wiped at his mouth in a clumsy attempt to groom himself. “Wait till we have a real emperor like Lord Rahu.”
The prince’s spine snapped straight as if he had just been stung. “You don’t think you can rule over the valley again after what you’ve done to them?”
“They’re rebels who refuse to pay their taxes.” Lord Tayu handed the remainder of the cheese over to the man in a cap, who wolfed it down hungrily.
“And the caravan?” the prince said indignantly. “Were they rebels too? Or are you going to tell me that wasn’t your handiwork?”
Lord Tayu whirled around as his men began fighting among themselves over the sacks. “Try to remember who you are,” he shouted at them. He threw his own sack over to them and started a new, wild scramble. He looked back at the prince. “No, the caravan was my doing. They should have paid me what I asked. People had to be taught a lesson. I might not live on an estate anymore, but I am still the lord here.”
“But to slaughter them?” the prince demanded. “You’re no better than a mad animal now.”
Lord Tayu’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Spare me the sermons, leech. My men can’t survive on them.” He leaned his head back as a new thought came to him. “But where are your begging bowls? They say a monk without his begging bowl is like a viper without its fangs.”
“We were forced to leave our monastery hastily. There has been trouble at the palace.”
[145] Lord Tayu curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. “Or you’re scouts sent to trap us.”
With a violent shove, the prince rolled into Lord Tayu, bowling him over so that he went head-first into the pond. Mr. Spock was the first to get to his feet, but it took time to raise his robes so he could pull out his sword.
And even as the prince was trying to scramble to his feet, the man in the cap was raising his sword for a deadly slash. “You must sample our new style of hospitality.”
But then the little man gave a start as the dagger sank into his chest. Spinning around, he tumbled backward into the pond. Sulu had been so busy raising his own hem that he hadn’t noticed Urmi take the daggers from her sleeves.
Lord Tayu rose, spluttering from the pond. “Kill them,” he bellowed to his men.
Prince Vikram had his sword out by then. With a twirl of his wrist, he unfurled the ribbons from around the blade. The bells jingled as he met the first man, skillfully parrying the clumsy slash, and then let his blade slide down the other’s to sink the point into the bandit’s throat. The second bandit skidded to a desperate halt so he could take up a proper fighting stance; but he was so off balance that the prince easily countered the bandit’s awkward parry and stabbed him as well.
The other bandits stopped and stared as their comrades fell to the ground. Urmi ran up beside him, a dagger in her right hand. “If we can hold them off long enough, our sentries will hear the noise and the militia will come.”
“Let’s hope their hearing is sharp enough.” Sulu [146] stepped up beside the prince while Spock took his place on Urmi’s left.
“And let’s pray their feet are fast enough.” The prince flung his hat from his head.
Lord Tayu stared from the pond. “I know you from somewhere.”
Prince Vikram shifted his grip on his sword. “My father once said that the difference between a bandit and a lord was the title. I’m afraid that you’ve proven him correct, Lord Tayu.”
“Prince Vikram?” Lord Tayu started to wade through the water.
“We both seem to have fallen on hard times, Lord Tayu.” The prince smiled grimly. “Please meet my friends.” They each took off their hats, letting them dangle down their backs by the cords.
“Quite a menagerie you’ve brought from offworld.” Lord Tayu glanced down as the corpse of the little man in the cap bobbed against him. With a shove, he sent it drifting away. “But why the robes? You were never very pious before you left.”
The bandits had begun to circle round them and the four travelers shifted back to back to meet an attack from all sides. “One sees an interesting side to people when one travels as a priest.”
“That’s true, but you were never the adventuresome sort.” Lord Tayu rose from the pond, the water streaming down his clothes onto the stones. “I rather think you’re running away.” With a grin, he drew his sword. “So that means there’s trouble at the palace and you’re worth something to someone. Maybe even my lands.”
“I rather think you’ll have to take me first.” The prince smiled.
[147] Lord Tayu signed behind him and a bandit raised his spear. “Surrender,” Lord Tayu said, “or your companions die.” His face had already taken on a cheerful, absent look as if he were already on his estates once again.
Urmi threw her second dagger almost at the same time the spearman threw his weapon. It was Spock who knocked her down. The spear blade entered the flesh above his hip with a sickening, wet, smacking sound. They heard Urmi’s dagger clatter on the rocks. For once, she had missed.
“Mr. Spock.” Sulu caught him and lowered him to the ground.
Mr. Spock seemed surprised at how quickly his legs had collapsed from underneath him. He held out his sword to Urmi. “I think you’ll be able to make better use of this than I will now.”
Urmi sounded almost annoyed with Mr. Spock as she took it. “Why did he do that? I thought he didn’t have any use for me.”
The prince motioned for Sulu to rise. “Urmi,” he said impatiently, “the offworlders can still be loyal
to a comrade—even if they don’t agree with her. And, after all, you saved Mr. Spock’s life. He was only trying to return the favor.”
Urmi stared down at Mr. Spock. “It’s strange to think that someone born so far away would come here to save me.” Shyly, hesitantly, almost as if she expected him to turn her fingertips to ice, she patted his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“There were other reasons that brought me here, but”—he grimaced—“the effect was just the same.”
“Go on. What are you waiting for?” Lord Tayu pointed his sword at them. “Capture the prince.”
[148] “Alive,” the prince called playfully. “Don’t forget to tell them to take us alive.”
“Lord?” One of the bandits looked to Lord Tayu.
Lord Tayu nodded his head impatiently. “Yes, alive if you can.” He added with a meaningful look at the prince, “But dead if you have to. I think even his head will be worth something.”
“You always were the shortsighted one,” the prince grunted.
The first attack was more of a test. The bandits closed, crossed blades and then retreated warily. They had all seen how easily the prince had disposed of two of their number.
“Do you think we have all day?” Drawing his own sword, Lord Tayu rushed at the prince. The prince parried the first cut and then brought his blade down as Lord Tayu tried a backhanded slash from below.
“Your wrists have gotten stronger since we fought last time,” the prince grunted.
Lord Tayu stepped back. “We were boys in a tournament in those days. Swordplay was only a game then.”
Four bandits charged in then and Sulu’s own world instantly narrowed in focus as he turned to face two swordsmen. He was a little more confident this time, after having won the swordfight in the palace. He parried the first cut; but before he could even congratulate himself, he saw the sword darting in from his right. He deflected the second bandit’s thrust and then had to meet the first bandit again.
It was a strange, brutal kind of intimacy that Sulu found himself sharing with the two bandits. He could see the spots and tears on their soropas, hear the stamping of their feet as they shifted and lunged, smell their sweaty fur. The first bandit had even less of a chin [149] than most Angirans, so that his face had a mashed-in look. The second had a way of grimacing as he fought so that one side of his face twisted up, wrinkling the black skin around his nostrils. Sulu felt at that moment as if their images were fixed forever in his memory, so that he could have drawn every hair and every blemish. And he was sure they could have done the same with him. It was a far cry from reading the lights and meters of a control panel of the Enterprise.
There really wasn’t time for the niceties, he decided. He parried the first bandit’s slash close to Sulu’s body so that the first bandit was now leaning forward. It was a simple thing then to trip the bandit and shove him into the second bandit so that the two went sprawling. Two quick slashes disabled them both.
Two more bandits tried to close in with him even as the first pair were crawling away. Sulu fought on the defensive while his left hand fumbled to lift his hat’s cord over his head. Then he could grip the hat by its rim. The straw was too flimsy, of course, to be useful as a shield, but it did help mask his own blade.
He flapped his hat at one bandit so that the bottom edge raised and the bandit retreated cautiously. It gave Sulu just enough time to swing the hat around to deflect the sword blade of the other bandit and disable him with a slash across his sword arm. Then he brought his sword in front of him again as the first bandit tried to thrust at him. The blade ripped through the straw, sliding past his body by only a few centimeters. Sulu didn’t hesitate, but thrust his own sword through the hat. The point tore through the straw and he felt his sword jar against something and then slide onward.
The bandit yelled in pain and Sulu slid his blade free. There was blood on the point and he lowered the hat in [150] time to see the bandit stagger back, clutching at his stomach. From somewhere to his left, another bandit screamed—Urmi’s work. The prince himself was still busy with Lord Tayu.
Panting for breath, Sulu turned back to the other bandits. But they weren’t nearly as enthusiastic as they had been before. Finally, a large man with a huge cutlass started toward Sulu. And Sulu tensed. The man’s cutlass was large enough to break Sulu’s own blade if he wasn’t careful. But on the other hand, it ought to be a clumsier weapon. It would be a test of Sulu’s own quickness—and perhaps his luck.
Suddenly a smooth, round stone, about the size of Sulu’s thumbnail, rattled on the ground between them. Two more stones rattled and one of the bandits cried out, raising a hand toward his bloody head.
“It’s the villagers, Lord.” The large man fell back toward the other bandits. “We have to get away.”
Lord Tayu’s face took on an angry, frightened look—almost as if he had lost his estates a second time. “I’m not finished yet.”
“But Lord—” The large man broke off to curse as a rock hit his shoulder. A dozen more stones fell among the bandits and Sulu could see the slingers on top of the arroyo’s walls.
Lord Tayu dismissed them with a wave of his left hand. “Go on. Run away if you want. That’s all you’re good for anyway.”
“Hey,” Urmi almost crowed in delight. “It’s me, Urmi.” She waved a dagger over her head.
Gaunt men and women, half-skeletons themselves, began to run through the cemetery toward them. Their fur was just as dark and dull as that of the bandits, but [151] more of them had bald spots and the fiery, red-rimmed eyes. A few were armed with spears, but most held only rakes, shovels and knives—which they held in positions better suited for work than for fighting. Even so, they could kill the bandits by sheer weight of numbers.
Gathering up their wounded, the bandits were dashing down the same arroyo that the prince and his group had traveled. And the militia gave gleeful shouts as they streamed past the cheering Urmi.
“You’ve just condemned yourself to death,” the prince said to Lord Tayu. “Because if I don’t kill you, the peasants will.”
“I intend to take you with me—one way or another.” He swept his sword in one last, desperate slash designed to decapitate the prince.
But the prince simply squatted down, sliding his sword up across Lord Tayu’s stomach. Lord Tayu lowered his left hand to his stomach, trying to hold in his entrails. His eyes glazed with pain and still he fought to speak. “I’ll be waiting for you ... by the gates to the underworld.” He brought his right hand down in a clumsy cut that the prince easily parried. And then he fell forward over the prince.
Urmi and Sulu helped the prince slide out from underneath Lord Tayu. “It’s nice to know that one has something to look forward to in the afterlife.” When the prince rose, his robes were covered with Lord Tayu’s blood.
An earnest young man came over to them. On his head was a battered wooden training helmet and in his hand was a sickle. “Keep your mouth shut,” Urmi whispered fiercely to the prince. “Let me do all the talking.”
[152] “Urmi, what’s the news?” the young man asked.
“I’ll tell you back in the village, Schami. I want to tell the story just once instead of a dozen times.”
Schami pointed toward Sulu and Mr. Spock. “And just what sort of companions did you pick up?”
“Offworlders,” Urmi explained, and then paused before she added, “and my friends.”
“It’s a bad sort of joke, Urmi.” Schami frowned.
“It’s the truth,” she insisted proudly.
Schami made the sign against evil. “They say people change when they leave the valley—and not in the right ways either.” He nodded to the ragged prince. “And who’s this? Their keeper?”
“A bodyguard,” Urmi ad-libbed quickly. “And a fool who almost got us killed by leading us into a trap. You won’t get any bonus from us.”
“You’re not my employer. They are.” The prince jerked his head toward Sulu and Mr. Spock.
Urmi drew herself up in mock indignation. “And I’m the guide and they’ll listen to me.”
Schami laughed and clapped the prince on his shoulder. “You may be handy with a sword, but Urmi is handier with her tongue. A smart person gives up when he’s outmatched.” And he began to recall the rest of the militia.
Chapter Seven
They had been climbing steadily along the zigzagging track all that day so it was a surprise to Sulu when it suddenly sloped downward. “Steady,” Urmi called to the others who were helping to carry Mr. Spock on a litter improvised out of cloaks and spears.
They made their way around the other side of the mesa and Sulu could see, in the fading daylight, a series of sandstone shelves held suspended like the waves of a sea by some powerful magic so that they did not crash down on the valley below. A hundred kilometers long but only some twenty kilometers wide, the valley had been formed by a river that snaked its way between the mountain ridges before it plunged into a steep gorge.
Along the river’s banks, the fields showed as a smoky green. “After the badlands, I’d almost forgotten what the color green looked like,” Sulu said to Urmi.
“There are eleven villages in the valley,” Urmi explained. She pointed to a cluster of lights [154] immediately below them about five kilometers from the northern end of the valley. “That’s my village, where they raise the greenest crops and the brightest children.”
“And the biggest liars,” one of the militia women grunted. “My village has the best of everything.”
That touched off a heated, if friendly, debate among the militia. “It’s noisy,” Urmi said to Sulu and the prince. “But it’s home.”
Sulu was a bit surprised by the lush valley below. From what Urmi had been describing, he had been expecting drought conditions. “It looks like you grow enough crops to feed yourselves.”