Despite all the comicality of getting through locals and their clannish close-mouthed remoteness, I suddenly began to fancy there might be something amiss, after all.
“Are you servant to Pompino, Chulik?"
“You had best leave, master. Go—now!"
He was speaking in a hoarse penetrating voice, as though desperate not to be heard. And, he did not sound like your true overpowering Chulik would sound like, telling a mere apim to do something. He sounded like a slave. I judged that if Pompino was as important a man as, suddenly, I conceived him to be, he would have Chulik servants, and, also, that very much could be amiss with him and his family.
Thinking that perhaps my kregoinye comrade Pompino was in serious trouble, and prepared to go barging forward to sort it out, I became aware of an absence.
I looked about, sharply.
“Ashti! Ashti!"
But the girl was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
Chapter six
Puzzles for the Brown and Silvers
No sign of Ashti in the gravel garden ... The left side of the path was walled off by a profusion of flowering shrubs twice man-height ... To the right the path led around the side of the house. That way, then...
The Chulik regarded me somberly. I started off, going along the path right-handed.
“Hold!” he called in a stronger voice. I looked back. He hefted the little spear as though about to cast.
“For a little girl, dom?” I said. “You would not try to stop me, surely?"
His one good eye rolled in its socket, making a hideous grimace. He rolled that eye toward the solid door. In the door and at about eye-level for a well-built man the slot of darkness suddenly winked silver. I paused.
The Chulik, in his small un-Chulik-like voice, said:” Aye!” Then: “You are a friend to Pantor Pompino?"
“Yes."
I have said many times that Chuliks are ferocious fighting men, and their women as well. I have also said that they know little of humanity. Well, I'd met a Chulik in a wrestling booth on the south coast of Pandahem, in Mahendrasmot, who approached a good long way to humanity. And his tusks had been barbarously sawn off. Maybe this Chulik also had glimmerings of humanity?
I said: “Your name, dom?"
“Men call me Chenunga the Ob-eyed—"
“Well, Chenunga the Ob-eyed, I must find the little girl. If you wish to try to stop me you must make up your mind to it.” I waited, glaring at him. I would not wait long.
He must have seen that in me. The spear lowered.
“I will cast.” His voice barely reached me. “You must run fast..."
Without another word, without a signal of movement, I took to my heels and belted around the corner of the house. I did look back as I passed the corner of the stuccoed brickwork. The little spear flew past. I smiled. So something was amiss...
At the side of the house a small arbor of climbing flowers, hung and limp in the heat, cast a welcome blue shade. A small green door showed, half-open. If Ashti had ventured in there I could well be at a serious disadvantage. If I knew the little minx, and I was coming to know her ways better each day, she was after sazz and biscuits, palines, anything sweet and sticky. I ignored the little green door and went on looking for an alternative way in.
A trap door in the gravel was flung back on its supports and two amphorae lay there, propped against a wooden tripod. Wine stained across the gravel from a third amphora smashed and leaking. I realized that if Ashti had seen that she, with her nose newly accustomed to the scents of a taproom, might well decide that down there lay the drink she loved. Sherbet drinks, sticky sweets, they would lure her on. She might be a child of the jungle, and trained already to take care of herself there, as a modern day child of Earth is trained to take care crossing the busy road and dodging traffic, but she would be lured on.
The head of a ladder thrust through the trap. I looked down, quickly, scanning what lay below and immediately withdrawing. Barrels, boxes, amphorae lay neatly stacked against the wall I could see. Also, there was an open door...
With a single bound I went up in the air, caught the ladder, slid down it as a sailor slides down a companionway. I was running the instant my feet hit the stones. The shadows engulfed me. I crouched beside the open door, unmoving, scarcely breathing, and I cocked an eye aloft to see if the Chulik had retrieved his spear and followed me. The trap gaped bright and empty against the sky.
The only other person in the cellar was a dead woman who lay against the far wall, half in shadows. She wore a decent blue dress and her face upturned in a hideous grimace. She was a Fristle, and her cat-face looked ghastly. Both her hands were clasped about the broken haft of a spear deeply embedded in her chest.
I looked away, through the open doorway. The corridor was just a corridor, with doors to either side and a staircase at the end. These were the cellars to Pompino's house. Up aloft, then, I judged the mischief—and, also, Ashti.
I unslung the narrow trident from my back and held it over my right shoulder, tines forward, my fist gripping comfortably at the point of balance, ready to thrust or throw. If I had to switch grips into a two-handed hold for some foining, that could be done in an instant.
Padding silently along, wary of each door, I reached the staircase and looked up.
The door at the top, over a small landing, did not look particularly inviting. Down in the cellar the coolness struck in gratefully, and the shadows up there concealed enough to make me wonder if the door was locked or not. Up I went, rapidly, silently, wondering if I was making a fool of myself. But one does not ordinarily find dead Fristle women in cellars unless there is something seriously amiss...
I kicked the door open and leaped through the opening, ducking away and to the side and colliding with a fellow about to open the door. He looked more surprised than I was. He carried a big sword—I say big, the thing was like a falchion, curved and single-edged, and he instantly slashed at my head.
The trident caught the sword. I twisted. If I made a mistake I could only take comfort in the thought that he might mistake me for one of the desperadoes causing the mischief. I put my left fist into his mouth and nose and knocked him over. He was an apim and went flying back.
Farther along the passage, which was paneled in light woods and with rush matting upon the wooden floor, two men appeared from the corner. They were armed and armored. They carried tridents not unlike the one I wielded. They wore brown tunics trimmed in silver.
They rushed on and then halted, staring in perplexity at my trident. The brown breechclout might not show much silver; enough did show to slow them down.
Now, therefore, I was certain.
“Hai!” shouted the first fellow. He wore a large black beard, and I say wore for it looked false to me. “Hai! In the name of Lem the Silver—"
He did not finish, for my trident took him in the throat. He pitched back, spraying blood. His companion shrieked and rushed, slaying-fury in his eyes. My sword snicked out, I slipped his first thrust and then the thraxter slid between his ribs. He sank down, gasping.
The stink of spilled blood gusted up.
I do not slay wantonly. The man at my back, his face a bloody mask, tried to stab me. I slashed back, and he fell.
The noise must have attracted attention by now.
Nothing else for it ... A straight bash on, sword whirring, a hefty charge into whatever lay around that far corner...
What lay around that corner and through the doorway was a tableau. There were four of them, an apim, a Brokelsh, a Rapa and another fellow whose race I did not then know. They brandished weapons and wore leather jerkins studded in brass. Their faces were mean. The Rapa's feathers bristled around his beak. The thick body hair of the Brokelsh gave him that particular spiky bristly Brokelsh look.
The apim said: “Stand still!"
I stood still.
In a chair sat a Khibil woman of exceptional grace. She was quite clearly in a long-gone state of fright. But sh
e held her head erect, her foxy features composed, and her hands were folded in her lap. There was a bruise beside her cheek, near her mouth, and her white dress was torn from one shoulder. She looked at me without expression.
I saw her—and then I saw past her and past the legs of the four hulking ruffians. Another white dress showed there, and two twinkling feet, and Ashti ran out, through their legs, yelling.
“Jak! Jak!"
I said, “You are the lady Scaura Pompina?"
She nodded. I do not think she could find the spit to moisten her mouth to speak.
The big apim with the whiskers and the scar down his left cheek snarled at me again as I went to move forward.
“Stay there, unless you want to see this woman dead."
“I do not know who you are,” I said, and I kept my voice down, kept it even, kept it un-Dray Prescot-like. “I have no quarrel with you.” This was not true. “Just let the lady go and walk away, and we may consider this thing finished."
They laughed. Well, they would, of course.
The Rapa reached out and caught Ashti by the dress and reeled her in as a fisherman reels in a catch. He held her most familiarly, and she writhed and kicked and yelled.
I held very still.
Ashti had come to mean a great deal to me in our stroll along the shore of Pandahem in the past days.
There had been a man at the front door with a crossbow bolt aimed at the Chulik. That seemed clear. The Chulik must be servant to Pompino. He had tried to warn me off, knowing that his mistress might be murdered at any moment if he did anything foolish.
I said, “The children? The two sets of twins?"
The bearded apim guffawed.
“Tied up in bed. Now, dom, before we kill you, tell us where this rast Pompino is."
I nodded at them. “You carry tridents and wear the brown and silver.” I put a snap into my voice. “By the Silver Wonder! Are you then all fools?"
They gaped, not grasping what was going on. If I leaped now—but Ashti squirmed and kicked and yelled, and the Rapa clouted her on the bottom. At this she let out an almighty yell and almost struggled free.
He took a fresh grip on her, and turned her so that her head lay inside the crook of his arm.
“What do you know of—?” said the apim.
“Lem must be witless to employ loons like you,” I said, and the snap in my voice lashed at them. “If you have harmed the children or the lady—or if you harm that child—you are all dead men."
The Brokelsh looked past me. I did not turn. I'd left three dead men there, and heard no one else.
“Where are Halki, and Nath?” he said.
Things were just beginning to get out of hand. If I did not leap soon I would be too late. Yet a single slash and Pompino's lady would be dead, and Ashti too. I looked at these four, and I held the thraxter at what must appear a negligent angle. I said, “Which question do you wish me to answer first?"
This puzzled them. While it was clear they were not over-bright, they were deadly dangerous. I moved forward a few paces, and I managed to summon a grimace that might pass for a smile. “Pompino, or Halki and Nath?"
The apim said, suddenly, high, screeching: “He is not one of us! Slay him!"
So they tried.
There were four of them. An apim, a Brokelsh, a Rapa, and the other fellow.
The big apim, all whiskers and scar, remained with the lady Scaura Pompina. The Rapa held Ashti. That left the Brokelsh and the other fellow to shriek and leap at me.
If I give the impression these lay brothers of Lem the Silver Leem were not over-bright, I do them no injustice.
Hard, they were, brutal and rapacious. Serving their masters who were the initiates of the cult of the Silver Leem, they aspired to no more than to bash a few skulls, skewer through between a few ribs, take a few purses of gold, get drunk a few times. They bristled and snarled and hurled themselves at me.
Just the two of them—the Brokelsh and the other fellow.
Descriptions of fights are not boring if you consider the circumstances. In this case, if I dealt with these two in too rapid and summary a fashion, the big apim might just slit the lady Scaura's throat before joining the fight. And the Rapa would have no compunction over Ashti, none whatsoever...
The whole affair had to be balanced on a pivot of exceeding smallness.
So, of course, being more than a trifle warm, I hit the other fellow on the nose. I hit him hard. His nose opened up like one of those gorgeous scarlet and orange and blue flowers of Balintol. He tried to blubber through his mouth, which was of a large, squarish, full character, highly purple in color—even before I hit him. His eyes were most prominent and affixed somewhat high on his face, so that his cranium partook of a very shallow dish. I left that alone. I didn't want to risk my knuckles on bone of that evident sharpness. The frills stuck up around the top of his head like the defenses of a dinosaur, or the frilled fins of a fish. As he carried on blubbering, I ducked away from the Brokelsh's blow.
The thraxter in my right hand clicked across. I had, of course, struck the other fellow with a left. The Brokelsh looked for me where he expected to see me, and I wasn't there. Well, of course I wasn't. Who wanted to hang about when swords whickered—as they say—for your guts? I gave the surprised Brokelsh a cheerful kick up his bristly Brokelsh rear and launched myself for the apim and the Rapa.
* * *
Chapter seven
The four terminations of the Lady Scaura Pompina
From somewhere the sweet smell of squishes wafted into the room. The taste twined in the warm air. For a single and scarlet moment, I recalled Mefto the Kazzur, who had featured in my life at the same time as Pompino. Mefto the Kazzur, who had bested me in sword fighting.
The headlong leap left me no time to brood on past misfortunes and mishaps. The apim's hairy face screwed up. He dragged back on the lady Scaura Pompina's head and his blade glittered.
The Rapa bristled. Ashti squirmed. I caught a glimpse of her face, golden, shining, furious, and then it seemed her face disappeared behind two rows of teeth. She opened her mouth and bit. The Rapa screamed.
“Good for you, Ashti,” I said and went full tilt into the apim.
My sword flicked away his blade. The hilt lifted and descended and thunked, and the man toppled and sprawled, his eyes crossed, his mouth glugging open.
Without pausing to see if the lady fell off her chair or not I whirled. Ashti was doing all right; but the feathered Rapa with his vulturine beakhead would soon master her. So I tapped him on the back of the head and snatched Ashti from him as he pitched onto his beak.
“Jak!” she said, chattering. “He hit me!"
'And you bit him."
“Serve him good—nasty man."
The Brokelsh, all hair and uncouth roaring noises, recovered from the kick up the backside, charged at me. He was brave if not over-bright. When he, too, lay slumbering with his three comrades, I took stock of the situation.
There was the fellow with the crossbow at the front door who, it seemed to me, must come running in to investigate the cause of the uproar. Cautiously, I poked my head around the other door and looked along the corridor. The light glimmered from side windows, fell across the floor and across the humped shape beneath the far door. That had to be the front door. The shape did not move—but the door jerked against it, opened and pushed, and then closed, only to open and push against the shape once more.
Very carefully—just in case there were more of these bandits—I walked along the corridor. The shape on the floor was the dead body of a Stroxal, with a spear through his face. I recognized the spear. I pulled the body away and called out.
“Hai! Chulik! You got him. It is all safe now."
You will observe I called Chenunga the Ob-eyed merely Chulik, and not by his name. Even then, after so many seasons on Kregen, I remained still bristly around Chuliks. As for Katakis, with the exception of Rukker—and he was a marginal case—I'd so far never met a halfway-d
ecent Kataki. Which was a tragedy, for all of Kregen. And Chuliks—the door opened and he came in, looking suspiciously around. He saw the body and he saw me.
“Yes,” I said. “The others are unconscious."
“The mistress—?"
“She is safe."
“The children?"
“Bound in their beds, so I am told. I have not seen them."
“I will attend them at once."
All the deference dropped away as he asked his questions. Something of the old coldly ferocious Chulik manner broke through, an echo of the time before he lost his eye and his tusk.
The quick light patter of feet along the corridor brought the Chulik around. His hand reached for the spear.
“All right, Ashti,” I said. “The Chulik is on our side. Don't bite him.’”
She turned her head. She looked sorry not to get the opportunity to fasten her teeth into the Chulik.
“They will wake up in there—” she said.
“Then we must tie them up."
Chenunga the Ob-eyed went off to find the two sets of twins and Ashti and I went back into the room where we'd had the fight. We stopped on the threshold. The stink of spilled blood gusted up, raw and vile.
Ashti looked quite calmly on the scene.
The lady Scaura Pompina was just about to rise from her knees. The front of her dress was a mere red shining mass. There had been four of them, an apim, a Brokelsh, a Rapa and the other fellow.
Scaura Pompina had slit all four throats.
Ashti wandered across and picked up a discarded trident. She started to poke at the Rapa's dead body.
“All right, Ashti. He's on his way to the Ice Floes of Sicce now. He can't feel you sticking him."
“But I can feel me sticking him."
Against logic of that kind it is difficult to argue.
The woman laughed suddenly, throwing her head back, letting her hair swirl, laughing.
“The child is right! Look at the four bullies now! Dead! May Horato the Potent thus destroy all scum like that!"
Fires of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #29] Page 6