Talons of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #30]

by Alan Burt Akers

  The Brokelsh sank down. For a tiny moment his voice reached me through the hubbub.

  “By Bridzilkelsh the Resplendent! I am done for!"

  Blackness gushed from his mouth.

  “Hold up, dom,” I said. “We'll carry you—"

  But the Brokelsh, Ridzi the Rangora, keeled over onto his side, the spear haft drawing up his knees in a rictus of agony. In the next heartbeat he was dead.

  In a heavy rush of bodies more of our fellows joined in from the fight up front. Quendur the Ripper cut down his man, swirled at another, called across in a high, bright voice: “They run in front, Jak! Now we have them here!"

  I did not reply, catching a heavy blow in a slanting glide on the dagger and thrusting with the thraxter. Recovering, I ducked and belted a blow sideways to take the knees from a Rapa who gobbled and, before he could fall over, had his beak removed by Murkizon's enormous axe.

  “Tromple all over ‘em!"

  “Hai!” roared Pompino, catching a Brown and Silver trying to get at the gherimcal. The man sank down in a puddle. My comrade glared about. Quendur was in the act of swiping at a Fristle who now clearly wished to backpedal. The fight was all but over. The remaining Brown and Silvers drew off.

  “Hurry!” I said in that penetrating whisper that cuts like splintered glass. “They'll be shafting us now."

  Quendur saw where Ridzi lay, doubled up over the spear, the black stain on the cobbles. He stepped forward, took up the handle of the gherimcal, the other three calsters took their handles. Tilda gave no sign of life. The chair lifted. In a bunch, weapons naked and stained, we ran for the palace.

  Unwilling to leave a comrade, I hoisted up Ridzi, breaking the disgusting spear off. I hurled the broken haft into the radiance of the Moons, cursing stupid waste. With the hairy bloody body of the Brokelsh over my shoulder I ran after the others.

  The avenue leading from that kyro where we had been ambushed led on for a couple of hundred paces and then opened out into the plaza fronting the palace. The building of itself appeared to be no great size under the moons. Some of its towers lofted to a goodly height, and one dome gleamed silky-sheened in the radiance.

  There was no moat or drawbridge. Instead a double gate flanked by watchtowers protected the entrance. I did not give that fortification a long life against an expert siege-master.

  Two apim guards in little sentry boxes, their spears slanted, watched us running up.

  As we approached in a rushing wheeze of panting breaths and staccato cracks of studded sandals, the gates creaked open. They creaked. Through the noise of our progress the wood and iron creaked loudly and distinctly.

  We did not stop but rushed straight through into a walled courtyard where torches flared.

  The gates creaked and closed at our backs.

  “Safe,” said Pompino. He looked wrought up. “We've done it!"

  “Aye,” I said, as they put the gherimcal down. “And here is some of the cost.” Over my shoulder, Ridzi lolled.

  There was no decent answer Pompino could find to that.

  Tuscurs Maiden's Ship Hikdar, Boris Pordon, appeared. He looked worried sick.

  “Thank Pandrite you are safe, horter!” He spoke to Pompino directly. “We were about to run out to your assistance—"

  Pompino brushed that aside. “The whole affair was over before you could have reached us. It was a hindrance only."

  The decoy party and the fake chair had made a simple, safe journey here, unmolested. The canvas and wood construction stood to one side and I looked at it critically. Well ... Seen like this it might have fooled the Leem Lovers. It had not done so, and that luck played against us.

  The torches streamed a ruddy light upon the folk clustered in the courtyard. Their faces wore apprehensive looks, they fidgeted and fingered their weapons. They hardly looked the people to defend a palace against determined onslaughts.

  In the light an Ift stepped forward, approaching the carrying chair.

  “I bid you welcome, horters, horteras,” he said. “Is the Kovneva safe?” He bent to the curtains.

  Pompino bristled up.

  “Just who are you, horter?"

  The Ift straightened. He was under man height, although some Ifts can grow to overtop a full-grown apim, so it is said. He was clad in clothes of varying shades and tones of green, and here in a palace he was out of his usual habitat, for Ifts are folk of the forest. They are accounted fine bowshots. Wayward folk, Ifts, with tall pointed ears reaching almost to the crown of their head, and with slanted, devious eyes. Now this Ift stared challengingly at Pompino.

  “Were it not for Hikdar Pordon, I would demand of you the same question, Horter Pompino. But he mentioned that we were to expect a Khibil."

  Here Pordon gave a little jump, so I guessed he'd told this Ift a little more about Pompino than he'd care to have the Owner hear.

  “I am waiting,” said Pompino in his menacing voice.

  The Ift reached a thin brown hand to his sword hilt. Then he nodded. “I am Twayne Gullik, the castellan here. My word rules while the kov and the dowager kovneva are absent."

  My foxy Khibil comrade wouldn't be foxed by that.

  “As the kovneva is now within her palace, you no longer rule. Make sure the lady Tilda is cared for. Summon her handmaidens. She has had a trying journey. She will, no doubt, in her own time, acquaint you with your future duties concerning me and my people."

  Twayne Gullik opened his mouth. Even in the radiance of the Twins, slanting into the courtyard, the color in his face darkened ominously. I was not going to step forward. This, now, had become a matter of will-power and of honor between these two. Of course, if they started the nonsense of a ritual fight in the ages-old dueling system of the Hyr Jikordur, I'd have to try to prevent that.

  Then Cap'n Murkizon's genial bull-bellow broke into the strained silence.

  “By the infested armpit of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! My throat is as dry as Golingar Desert dust! A wet, for the sweet sake of Pandrite!"

  That broke the tension. Larghos bustled forward, servants took the poor limp form of Ridzi the Rangora from me, Quendur the Ripper and the others yelped for wine, and so we were able to hustle along. The chair was carried off after Pompino took a look inside. The moment he withdrew, Twayne Gullik looked, also. As they both appeared satisfied, although saying nothing, I surmised Tilda was safe and asleep.

  We all trooped into a side corridor and thence to a hall where we sat at tables and the servants poured wine. We were thirsty, at that; but wine would never solve any serious problem.

  “That superior Ift,” said Pompino.

  “They are a haughty and fractious people,” said Quendur.

  “Twayne Gullik,” I said. “By Chusto! Whoever gave him that name marked him from birth."

  “Let him go back to his forests,” quoth Murkizon, lifting his goblet. “And take out his spite on the tumps, who, being shorter than he is, if broader, and just as mean, stand no nonsense from the Ifts.” A few smiles broke out, for the notorious antipathy between Ifts and tumps has been the basis of many a play and many a buffoonery-filled farce in Kregen's playhouses over the seasons. The tumps are, indeed, a race of diffs short of stature; but they are immensely broad and stoutly built, and the men folk grow beards down past their protuberant waists. They are a mining people, delving deep underground, and there is little they value above red gold. “The point is, my friends,” went on Murkizon, we have brought the lady Tilda safely home. So—now what lies in store?"

  “A few fires?” I suggested.

  Pompino clicked his compression tube. “Always ready..."

  They laughed.

  It would not be as easy as that.

  Mind you, nothing in this life is easy, by Zair, unless it be going astray—or shuffling out of life altogether. The itch between my shoulder blades I'd wanted to scratch when we'd hurried through the nighted streets of Port Marsilus persisted. It did not go away. They called this place the Zhantil Palace, for the kov'
s predilection for the zhantil. I knew why Pando favored that marvelous wild animal of the untamed ways, the golden mane and the superb air of dignified lethality. Something more within this palace caused that itch between my shoulder blades.

  And that was not caused by a mere irritating little Ift called Twayne Gullik.

  * * *

  Chapter seven

  Twayne Gullik

  Despite being quartered in a corner of the garrison's barracks within the Zhantil Palace, Pompino and I set watches for the night.

  The barracks was practically empty, the long rooms echoing to our voices and footfalls. The rows of bunks, each piled with bedding, lay dustily under the dusty beams. Of men at arms to serve the palace there were but twenty-four. Two dozen fighting men to guard the kovneva, and of these some were not fit to be called paktuns.

  The cadade, the captain of the guard, turned out to be a Fristle with patches of fur missing from both cheeks. At least, he saw to a proper burial for Ridzi the Rangora.

  For this I thanked him, and gave him a donation in thanks.

  “Kov Pando took most of the guards with him when he went to Pomdermam,” said Framco the Tranzer, pulling his whiskers, a little unsure at this arrival of a bunch of harum-scarum sea dogs. He took his duties as cadade seriously. “He could not know how things were going to turn out."

  “And,” said Pompino, “how have things turned out?"

  We spoke on the steps outside the mess hall, with the archway to the next courtyard and the more splendid buildings of the palace beyond. The night had passed uneventfully and I for one was anxious to speak to Tilda. We had to make a start somewhere within the city, and she ought to know the most likely places.

  “Things have not turned out well,” said Framco the Tranzer.

  Pompino just brushed up his whiskers with a gesture which said, more or less that, oh, yes, he was used to things not turning out well and that, by Horato the Potent, when he was around he soon had the things sorted out, or they'd know what's what.

  “The kov's cousin, the Strom Murgon, bears the kov a grudge. He has stirred up the city against him. It is very black.” Framco the Tranzer pulled his whiskers unhappily, frowning. “I have a few good men; but the rest are—"

  “Little better than masichieri,” stuck in Pompino, unarguably.

  “Yes."

  “But,” I said, feeling alarmed. “Surely the citizens would not make an open attack on their kovneva within her own palace in her own capital city? Surely that is not to be believed?"

  “You were attacked last night, Horter Jak."

  “Yes, but—” And then I stopped. We who knew of Lem the Silver Leem knew the way his followers organized their secrecy and their ways of wielding power. Would the cadade know this? I doubted it, but it was possible.

  So, I went on: “They seemed to us a bunch of brigands, drikingers who kill and rob wayfarers and who mistook our mettle."

  “That they did, thanks be to Numi-Hyrjiv the Golden Splendor. But I am mindful of my duty to the kovneva. I am from the kov's estates, and no hired mercenary."

  “Do you or do you not think the people of Port Marsilus will attempt to storm the palace and harm the kovneva?

  He jumped.

  “I cannot tell, horter. There is a cult abroad of which I know little, merely rumors and fearful whispers. I fear that the kov is mired in this evil, and I pray Odifor he is not. But it is certain sure that the Strom Murgon Marsilus will take every opportunity to strike against the kov through his mother the kovneva."

  It seemed to me, and I am sure to Pompino, that the cadade, Framco the Tranzer, probably knew a great deal more that he was not telling us. And fear of reprisals from an unknown hand held him. The sound of footsteps took our attention to the castellan, the green-clad Twayne Gullik, marching up with a group of his Iftkin about him. Gullik looked savage, and yet contained, as though biding his time.

  Now I have mentioned that the color green is splendid for certain purposes, and I would add to that list regimental colors and facings. At this moment on the steps of the mess hall in Tilda's palace I tried to remember that the green connotations here were of Robin Hood and Sherwood and not of the Grodnims of the Eye of the World. With Twayne Gullik's attitude thrust, as it were, under our noses, the effort required was considerable.

  He did not beat about the bush.

  “I thank you for your efforts on behalf of the kovneva.” He stood straight, one hand on his hip. This morning he wore a bow over his shoulder, a short compound-reflex weapon, and a quiver of arrows across his back. Each arrow was fletched green, glistening in the growing power of the Suns. “Now that you have delivered the kovneva safely home, your task is done. You may leave at once. I shall provide an escort for you to the jetty."

  Pompino started to let rip, and I said—sharply!—"Escort, Gullik? In daylight? Why do we need an escort in broad daylight in peaceful Port Marsilus?"

  He didn't like the way I'd called him Gullik. But he liked the question even less.

  “A mere precaution. You will recall you were attacked last night."

  Pompino burst out: “How did they know which way we were coming? And why did they not attack the Ship Hikdar and the chair he was protecting? Someone told them, Gullik. Perhaps you told them, hey?"

  Twayne Gullik's sword was out. His pallid face, sharp with those slanted eyebrows and those pointed ears, darkened with passion. A man of temper, this.

  “If you were not under my protection, Horter Pompino, you would answer for that. Any fool could see that contraption was not the kovneva's chair."

  Truth to tell, the thing did look ridiculous in the suns light. But it had been hurried along through moons lighted streets. The puzzle would remain.

  “There is no need to quarrel over this,” said the Fristle guard captain, hissing more than usual. His cat face reflected his own puzzlement and uncertainty. “We have enemies enough outside without making more within."

  Whatever relationship existed between the castellan and the cadade, these words did have the effect of making Twayne Gullik rein up a trifle, and of Pompino's immediate half-apology.

  “I meant no harm, Gullik. We are all on edge."

  I notched up one for Pompino. Not like a haughty Khibil to acknowledge anything to an Ift, just down from the trees, all green and dewy. Pompino felt the same unease over this situation as did I. We had a gross half-drunken woman to care for, and her enemies could strike as and when they liked. The responsibility sawed at our nerves.

  “Your apology is accepted,” said Gullik, and I stepped a little sideways and trod on Pompino's foot.

  He glared in hurt surprise.

  “The question is,” I said, in a voice louder than necessary, “why it is needful for us to leave so soon. I must speak with the kovneva—"

  Gullik broke in.

  “That is out of the question. The kovneva is—indisposed—and is being cared for by her handmaidens. And as for your leaving, we cannot feed you all comfortably. As it is—"

  “As it is,” bellowed Pompino, “a mere matter of gold, then we will pay for the kovneva's hospitality!” He lifted up his foot and rubbed it, half-bending down, kneading the soft leather boot. “Pandrite help the poor traveler in this land!"

  I said: “It is just after breakfast and I am thirsty, having drunk a mere six cups of tea. I'm for more. Are you with me, Pompino? You have, I recall, a golden zan-talen to spend."

  Before Pompino could answer, Twayne Gullik said with a snap: “You may swill your tea, and then you will all immediately leave the palace and return to your ship."

  Pompino just said: “Or?"

  “Or I shall have to ask the cadade to assist you."

  Framco the Tranzer looked decidedly unhappy at this, rolling his eyes at us and fair pulling his whiskers clean out of his furry cat face, it would seem. He, it was clear, wanted no part of any attempt to eject us.

  Pompino laughed. “Listen, Twayne Gullik. We are not leaving here until we choose to, until we
are ready. Do you understand that?"

  “I understand,” said the green-clad Ift, “that if that is what you choose you will sorely repent your choice."

  With his Iftkin about him he stomped off. Pompino watched him go, laughed, and twirled up his reddish moustaches.

  * * *

  Chapter eight

  Concerning the traitoress Ros the Claw

  The Zhantil Palace proved to be an odd sort of residence. Stately halls, winding staircases, cubbyholes, corridors lined with door after door leading to a maze of apartments beyond, lavishly ornamented windows, arrow slits, dovecots—oh, yes, Pando's palace boasted them all. And yet, the place seemed odd. There was a quantity of good porphyry from Molynux, carpets of Walfarg weave, ceramics—naturally—of Pandahem ware. And yet, it was scarcely a place in which to live comfortably or happily.

  If there had been no doubts about Tilda's safety, I'd have been overjoyed to get out of Pando's Zhantil Palace.

  “That pipsqueak Ift,” growled Pompino as we went along the north corridor toward the barracks. “If he thinks he can throw me out just like that he is vastly mistaken."

  “It did occur to me to wonder why they had not given us rooms in the main part of the palace. There are guest rooms there which, if mean and unwholesome looking, would perhaps be preferable to the barracks."

  “Perhaps, and perhaps not."

  “Aye, Pompino. You are probably right."

  He twitched that new rapier of his up and down in the scabbard.

  “We have yet to meet this person Mindi the Mad. And we must speak with the kovneva. Then we burn temples."

  “As I pointed out earlier, I devoutly hope we do not burn down too much of Pando's property. Or that of honest folk."

  “From what little we've seen, I doubt there are any in the whole of Port Marsilus, by Horato the Potent!"

  From which it was perfectly clear my comrade itched to get his fingers around a tinderbox or compression tube, with a sizable pile of kindling to hand.

  Despite the estrangement between him and his wife, the Lady Pompina, I judged he was deeply worried over the threat to her from the Leem Lovers. And if his pair of twins, four beautiful children, were harmed, he might lose his reason. Such an event, for a proud Khibil of passionate convictions, would not be impossible. He had hired swords to protect his loved ones while he went about to root out the evil at its source.