Armada of Antares dp-11

by Alan Burt Akers

  “You nurdling get-onker!” The Gerawin’s voice hammered close to my ear and I opened my eyes, feeling as sluggish as Tyr Nath after he’d drunk the sylvie’s poisoned cup in the Grotto of the Trell Kings. I was being carried along like a rolled-up carpet, swaying from side to side. I cocked an eye down. Below me lay a windswept, empty space beyond the slats and ropes; below that was the undulating mass of creepers and vines.

  So I knew that Gerawin were carrying me across the bridge that gave this volgendrin its name. We halted and the bandy-legged flyer thus addressed shouted something about no sane man having to cope with such a bar of iron. His yells were the furious and desperate shouts of a man seeing vast unpleasantnesses fast approaching.

  “You have only yourself to blame, Genarnin the Chank!”

  The chank is that vicious white shark of the Outer Oceans of Kregen, a somewhat smaller cousin of the chank of the Eye of the World. The nickname is often given to men who possess that swift and deadly ferocity that marks them for small-sized killers.

  Breeze fleered the trappings of the Gerawin, there on the bridge over the vine jungle far below. I felt the blood painfully pulsating in my body. My head rang with Beng Kishi’s finest reverberations. The bar of iron had caused trouble. I did not laugh, but the thought was in my head, somewhere, mixed with the woolly balls of fuzz that scrambled my brains. The Gerawin stopped and the leader bent his head to stare at one of the bracing rope uprights. It was slashed through, hanging by a single thread. So the old longsword still possessed an edge, then. .

  The Gerawin who carried the sword in so awkward a fashion looked properly horrified by what he had done. A mere single upright keeping the hand-rope fixed to the side-rope would never bring the bridge down, but I knew the laws of Hamal would be ferociously strict about the minutiae. The law would no doubt have already prescribed the very punishment he must undergo for exactly this misdemeanor. So, stopped as we were, I gave the Gerawin holding my legs a twisting kick, at which he fell back, yelling, grabbing for support above that windy height. The next Gerawin fell half through the slats of the bridge, over the edge, grasping it and screeching. The one with the longsword tried to run, but tripped. Then the familiar silver wire-wound hilt snugged into my palm grip and I turned, ready to slash them all -

  and the damned bridge, too, so ugly was my mood.

  The bridge swayed. Gerawin were running. I felt the breeze. The suns were declining now. Also, I felt most decidedly queasy. My legs trembled. My arms somehow brought the sword up with a speed I knew would mean my death in a fight. I shook my head and those old devil Bells of Beng Kishi rang and caroled, shooting silver and green sparks through my eyes. I felt as though a herd of stampeding chunkrah had trodden all over me.

  The Gerawin, no doubt completely unprepared for an unconscious man to recover and get into action as fast as I had — and I, a Krozair of Zy, knew just how slow I had really been — nevertheless went methodically about their man-snaring again.

  “Come on, you rasts!” I said. My voice sounded like a whistling faerling with an ague. “Fight like warriors!” That was pitiful, of course, but I threw it in as a player throws in his last charge of Deldars across the final drin at Jikaida.

  They sneered at me. They were professionals. But, for all that it was perfectly clear they did not wish to cross swords with me. The great longsword — that bar of iron — kept them back. The iron chains flew again. The loops snagged. I struggled to free myself, hampered by the swaying bridge and the ropes and supports. More chains settled about me. I knew that running, fighting, defiance itself, were over.

  With a last yell I stretched up tall, dragging on the chains. I whirled the longsword over my head.

  “For Zair!” I shouted, and hurled.

  The Gerawin flight leader was quick. He ducked. The longsword, a blinding bar of silver in the lights, for they had wiped it off, spun through the air. It arced high and then fell. Over and over it tumbled, glittering, a silver brand of silver fire falling away and away into the mat of vines far below.

  “Zair rot you for a pack of cramphs!” I said. And then the last loop of iron chain sledged into my head and, once again, I plunged into the darkness of the enveloping black cloak of Notor Zan.

  During all my sessions in relating my life on Kregen I have attempted to speak the truth. No matter how fantastic what I say appears to be, it is the truth as well as I can express it. For the next few days of my life on that terrible if beautiful world I feel it expedient to gloss. I will cover the events as quickly as may be until I found myself back in Ruathytu, under strong guard, heavily chained but back to strength. The attack of the Wild Men on the Volgendrin of the Bridge had been beaten off with loss; my recapture had been a mere small incident. The Kov of Apulad, bearing down with all the authority of a Kov, had asserted his prior claim to my carcass and had insisted on taking me back to the capital for judgment. After he was through with me, he had told Pallan Horosh, the Pallan might have what was left to send to trial for the deaths of the two Pachaks.

  So, here in Ruathytu, I was lodged in those grim, famous, horrific, and extraordinarily diabolical dungeons of the castle of Hanitcha the Harrower, the infamous Hanitchik. An unduly great part of my life has been spent in prisons of one sort or another. The Hanitchik was a most unpleasant specimen. Torture was a way of life. The food was atrocious, yet it always came up at regular intervals and was enough to keep body and soul together. The prisoners had the laws of Hamal to thank for that.

  Escape, of course, was the primary concern.

  Just in case you have forgotten — and I most certainly had never forgotten — it is written in the laws of Hamal that the nearest relative of a murdered person may choose between certain dire tortures which may then be inflicted upon the murderer before he is dragged off to be hanged. I fancied the Kov of Apulad would decide on the most unpleasant tortures the law allowed. The trial, with which I will not weary you, wound its way to its inevitable conclusion. Stoutly protesting that I was not Chaadur at all, I was indicted by the Kov. Now that he had taken up his new post under the Queen, his weight and prestige were fully sufficient to have me condemned. Even during the proceedings, which were carried out with a great attention to scrupulous fairness in every detail, even though the whole affair’s outcome was cut and dried before it began, thus making a nonsense of the very justification for laws at all, I mulled over Ornol ham Feoste and his new appointment. He had been in charge of a small voller factory in Sumbakir. It had all been very provincial. Now, after the death of his wife Esme, he was here in Ruathytu high in the Queen’s favor and even more strongly connected with the vollers.

  On Kregen two and two make four — sometimes.

  The Nine Faceless Ones who chose the high nobles to oversee the secrets of the vollers must have chosen this Kov Ornol ham Feoste. There seemed no other explanation. So as the guilty verdict was brought in by the three judges — they did not run to the jury system in Hamal for all the laws — I had found another piece of the jigsaw. It appeared it was going to do me no good at all. It certainly wasn’t going to stop what the Kov planned to do to my hide. Because like any normal human being I did not believe I was going to die just yet and that must mean I would escape in some way, I had refused to offer up the alias of Hamun ham Farthytu as an alibi for myself. If Rees and Chido were apprised of my plight they would be there to do all they could, and I fancied their testimony might shake the hard identification of the Kov. This was comforting. One of the turnkeys, an apim with one eye and a crippled left leg, smashed that bubble.

  “The Queen’s happier’n a vosk in swill,” he told me as I took my regulation one bur of exercise in the enclosed yard, roofed with iron bars, the suns invisible and only the streaming mingled opaz light falling across the grim stone walls. “The army o’ the north’s won the big victory we’ve all waited for.”

  I felt the chill. I swallowed.

  “Yes,” he went on, chewing his cham from one cheek to another. “Havil smiled on
us. Those rasts of Pandahem were all smashed up. It was a great victory.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Those foreign places is all the same to me. By Kuerden the Merciless! The stories! The army chased after ’em for three full days. The loot! If’n I had both my eyes and a sound leg I’d a bin there, believe me, with my sack stuffed with gold and jewels — ah! It don’t bear thinking of.”

  It certainly didn’t bear thinking of. But I had to think. And there was more.

  “The Queen — may Havil bless ’er! — is going to be crowned Empress! That’ll be a sight! Ruathytu’ll go mad. The procession will take all day to pass, an’ I’m going to see it, right from the top of the Hanitchik.” He chewed. “Well, that’s my right, ain’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Was it only the Pandaheem? Any other. .?”

  “Oh, you’ve heard the tales, too, have you? Yes, they say there was an army out of Vallia. Rasts of Vallians! May Hanitcha harrow ’em to hell!” He chuckled and spat. “All smashed up. Tumbled back to a place they call Jholaix — they’re hiding out there now. All we’ve gotta do is go in and finish ’em.” He spat again. “I’ve heard of Jholaix, not that I’ve ever bin able to afford to drink of it, never not once in my whole life.”

  Thus spoke Nath the Keys, my jailer and an enemy, yet just an ordinary man. One of the most telling indictments of the gul Chaadur had been that he had pretended to be a Horter. The official torturing was scheduled for three days away.

  I could delay no longer. Rees and Chido, and the others who had known me in Ruathytu as the Amak of Paline Valley, must be called on. Hamun ham Farthytu must be used as an alias. I should not have delayed so long. The remnants of the armies of the countries of Pandahem, and my army of Vallia and Djanduin, were penned up in the extreme northeastern corner of Pandahem, in Jholaix. One final battle would destroy them utterly and put the whole island into the power of Hamal. My place was with my army.

  Having reached that decision I called for Nath the Keys and he was there already at the cell door, swinging his lamp and jangling his keys.

  “Stop your bawling, Chaadur! Your time has come, there’s no sense in kicking against it, lad. You did a foul murder and now you must pay the price.” Soldiers with iron chains stood with Nath the Keys.

  “But,” I said stupidly, “there are three days.”

  “Naw. Naw, lad. The Kov’s in a hurry, like. It’s now.”

  They dragged me out and I fought, so they wrapped the iron chains around me and knocked me out. When I came to I was chained up to the stake in a small courtyard of the Hanitchik with an assembled party of gloating nobles and Horters, with the guards. . and with the black-and red-robed tormentors. Kov Ornol ham Feoste was in a jovial mood. He had brought a group of friends. He called out, “I have chosen well for you, Chaadur, murderer!”

  They had gagged me so I couldn’t yell back. I glared in murderous fury on this miserable Kov, but I could not break the chains.

  The fires banked red in their braziers, the hot irons glowing. The tongs, the knives, the scalpels, the screws, all were at hand. The Kov sat back on the front chair, upholstered in green brocade, and he lounged in fine style to enjoy the spectacle. Those with him, sitting on chairs placed in the spots reserved for them, perked up at the prospect of a bur or so of pleasure. I looked at them as the chief torturer advanced, holding a tiny knife. He wore a black hood and his eyes glittered at me from the holes cut in that ominously black material.

  I looked at the assembled nobles and Horters of Hamal and I considered once more that the country was evil, that this glittering, decadent city of Ruathytu was evil, and that the greatest evil of all was Queen Thyllis herself. There were one or two men there I had seen during my days in Ruathytu; but not one I had known well enough to imagine he would recognize me as the Amak of Paline Valley. My position was such that I would joy in being recognized as someone — anyone — other than Chaadur, the condemned murdering gul.

  My wish was so rapidly fulfilled I wondered if the Everoinye or the Savanti had a hand in it. But, apart from what I suspected they might have been doing lately, the Star Lords and the mortal but superhuman men and women of Aphrasoe left me strictly to my own devices on Kregen. They would let me be tortured and killed if they had no immediate need of my services.

  Sitting two places away from Kov Ornol, a man lounged in his chair. I recognized him as my gaze passed along the nobles. He wore a natty costume of blue, gray, and black stitched into a hexagonal pattern very like the hide of a chavonth. He looked a lot like a sleek, treacherous chavonth lounging back, this man I had rescued from the snows of the Mountains of the North at the behest of the Star Lords.

  So I stared at him as the little knife in the leprously white hand of the torturer sliced toward my skin for the first cut. I was stripped naked. My body glistened with sweat. The gag choked me. I know my eyes must have held all that old powerful look of the devil as I gazed at Naghan Furtway, he who had once been the Kov of Falinur.

  Now my comrade Seg Segutorio was the Kov of Falinur, and this Naghan Furtway a fugitive from Vallia, a man who must be riddled with anger and resentment. Once before he had unmasked and betrayed me, there at The Dragon’s Bones.

  Would he recognize me again?

  Naghan Furtway had once held enormous power as a Kov of Vallia. His passion for Jikaida had been inordinate; I had played him enough times in the Mountains of the North, waiting for him and his nephew Tyr Jenbar to regain their strength and for Genal the Ice to take his icy load down the mountains, to know he played as he lived, hard, ruthlessly, without mercy.

  Yet he had raged at the cramphs of Havilfar for selling us defective airboats. Clearly his disgrace and flight had changed his mind. He was here in Ruathytu for no good purpose. He had become a renegade. The knife pricked my skin, slid, cut, and withdrew with a sparkle of my blood on the tip. This would take a long time.

  I watched Naghan Furtway.

  The knife cut again, cunningly, painfully.

  Naghan Furtway stood up, drawing that chavonth-patterned cape back, resting his hand on the hilt of his rapier. The knife licked out and the pain stung. Soon that pain would coalesce from many tiny pains into an insupportable agony.

  Kov Ornol looked up, frowning.

  “Sit down, Horter Furtway. There is much to come.”

  So they knew, here in Hamal, who Furtway was.

  “I think not, Kov.”

  “What in Havil’s name do you mean! As Malahak is my witness, Horter Furtway, this cramph of a Chaadur suffers torment to my orders before he dies.”

  “I think not, Kov. This man’s name is not Chaadur.”

  Kov Ornol spluttered. “That is what he says, the lying rast! You believe his story?”

  “No. For I know him, aye, I know him well.”

  “That is nothing to me. He murdered my wife and has been adjudged guilty. I will have what the law allows-”

  “I have the ear of the Queen. I think she will not be pleased if you persist, Kov Ornol.”

  That was threat enough to make any man think twice.

  Between these two, the Kov and the ex-Kov, there was a great gulf. For all his bluster, cruelty, and evil, Kov Ornol ham Feoste was a mere blunderer, an oaf, compared with the refinement of cunning and calculation of purpose of Naghan Furtway. The sheer hardness of the man in the chavonth-patterned clothes blunted all Kov Ornol’s bluster.

  “The Queen must be informed at once.” Furtway was looking at me much as a leem stares at a ponsho.

  “If you persist, Kov Ornol, the Queen will order done to you what you do to this man.”

  “You cannot speak to me like that! I am a Kov of Hamal! I know-”

  “You know nothing, Kov. The situation between Hamal and Vallia is what concerns us here.”

  “You are a Vallian disgraced and thrown out of your own country!” Ornol blustered on, very plum-colored of face, struggling to rise and confront Naghan Furtway.

  “So I know what I a
m saying.”

  The tormentor and his little knife withdrew, thankfully. He wasn’t going to commit himself until the argument was settled.

  Ornol ham Feoste gestured with irritated anger at the torturer. “Get on with it! Take no notice of this fool of a man who thinks he is a Kov still! Cut him!”

  “I will tell you, Kov Ornol, since you are bent on running headfirst into mortal danger. The Queen will want to deal with this man herself, personally. She will excuse no one who balks her of that. I tell you, you foolish man, and you will not listen.”

  Kov Ornol puffed himself up and half drew his thraxter.

  If he set to with Furtway the latter’s rapier would spit him before he could call on Malahak as a witness.

  “Guards!” bawled the Kov of Apulad, this foolish, incensed, half-demented Ornol ham Feoste.

  “Then you will have to know and see the truth, and the error you fall into Kov Ornol. And once I tell you, the guards must seal this yard and the Queen must be told. At once! There is great danger here for us all.”

  “What in a Herrelldrin Hell are you talking about?”

  “This man, this murderer you call Chaadur, is a man the Queen will give great riches for. And I am the man — remember that, Kov Ornol, and you who sit here — remember, I am the man who brought this rast to justice.” He swung around, the chavonth cape flaring. He pointed at me, evil triumph lending him a spurious but frightening dignity.

  “That man is Dray Prescot, the Prince Majister of Vallia!”

  Chapter 19

  Empress Thyllis takes me for a stroll through Ruathytu

  King Doghamrei slashed me across the face and screeched: “You lie, cramph, you lie!”

  Queen Thyllis sat forward on her crystal throne, with the golden steps, the zhantil pelts, the Chail Sheom chained in their golden chains, and the manhounds lolling fearsomely below her. She propped her chin on one white hand and regarded me with those slanting emerald eyes.

  “Bagor ti Hemlad!” she said. “What you say cannot be believed, for you could not have survived.”