By the time we neared the gate and saw the busy figures of Therminsaxers swinging the lenken portals wide I had more or less convinced myself that the riders who had so unexpectedly joined us were in truth Vallians. Riding as we were without saddles, we would have been easy meat for these men settled firmly in their saddles, booted feet thrust deeply into stirrups.
In a mob we avalanched through the gate. Nodgen the Potter was in charge of the gate detail, and he had sense enough to allow the following benhoffs through as I yelled to him. The three Moons now chose to shine forth at last free of the clinging clouds. We saw the mass of Iron Riders pelting along, the pink light gleaming and sheening on their armor, their shaggy pelts flaring in the wind of their passage.
The last free benhoff lumbered through and Nodgen the Potter yelled to his men to slam the gates and set the bolts and bars. He was a potter, a master of his khand, his guild, and violently resentful of being called Nodgen the Pots. The gates slammed in the furious faces of the Iron Riders. Some of the citizens on the walls above called down taunts and insults, catcalls that infuriated the radvakkas even more, and gave me heart. We'd do it, yet, despite the difficulties. If we did not, we'd all be miserably dead or even more miserably slave.
Half a dozen dark desperate figures dropped off the last free benhoffs. Before my men could start in prodding with their spears I yelled.
“Do not harm them! They are escaped slaves—welcome them."
Well, we sorted out that little problem. These men had chosen what was, in truth for them, a sensible course, and clambered onto benhoffs to ride after us rather than wander about outside, in the almost certainty of being taken up. I spoke a few heartening words to them and then turned my attention to the group of riders who had joined us.
They were a mixed bunch of apims and diffs—and one diff I recognized at once, now I could see them by the light of a torch bracketed to the wall of the guard tower. I knew him. He was unmistakable.
“Hai, Korero,” I said, walking across. “Lahal and Lahal. You are most welcome."
The Kildoi flexed his four arms and his wicked tail shipped over his head. His golden beard bristled. “If I am welcome, Jak the Drang, I would welcome an overflowing tankard of good Thermin ale. Lahal and Lahal. I joy to see you still alive, for I do not forget what passed in Nikwald."
“As to that, the joy was to me. How came you here? These others—” And I looked at them. Well.
Of course I had immediately noticed Korero. But the others—I had told them I was going to Therminsax, and they had shuffled that off, down by that stream outside Thiurdsmot with a crossbow bolt hole in my thigh. Cleitar the Smith still held his hammer, and the head was darkly stained. Dorgo the Clis, his scar livid, spoke for them all.
“We came to Therminsax, because you said so, Jak the Drang.” He shook his head, puzzled. “Although why we should do so is a mystery. “But you are in poor case, it seems. We bided our time out there, wondering how best to chop off a few radvakka heads, when you sallied. So—"
“And right welcome you are, Dorgo, all of you. We need fighting men here. And we have ale and wine—the city fathers will bless you and see you have full cups for tonight."
Two men rather in the background, holding zorcas with a bunch of diffs, now moved forward. Dorgo looked and said: “We met these paktuns on the way here. They tell us they are all that is left of an army sent against the radvakkas.” He shook his head again and I guessed he was wondering why on Kregen he had come to Therminsax instead of hightailing it for South Vallia.
Among the diffs were Khibils, Pachaks, Brokelsh, a Rapa and a Fristle. They were all hard-bitten professional fighting men, paktuns, mercenaries. One of them, one of the four Chuliks, stepped forward. He looked mightily impressive in his armor and military insignia, his tusks thrusting arrogantly up from his cruel curved mouth. He surveyed me.
“I am Shudor Maklechuan, called Shudor the Mak. I command here. If you wish us to fight for you, I will draw out a contract. Our fees are high, for we are mighty men."
“I might have expected it, by Vox,” I said. I'd been having trouble with the city fathers and the khands over similar monetary arrangements. “No doubt you are capable of bearing arms. As to payment, I am prepared to give you a trial period. I see you wear the mortilhead, so you are a paktun. How many other of your men wear the pakmort?"
“Me!” and “Me!” rose from his men. There were thirty or forty of them, and of that number no fewer than ten were real paktuns. There was not a hyr-paktun, however.
The two men I had noticed gentling the zorcas, caring for them, seemed to be arguing away over some private matter. Their fierce whispers were intended for their own ears; but the heat of the matter made them speak louder and louder. Shudor the Mak turned his head and bellowed: “You two arguing again? May Likshu the Treacherous be my witness! Zarado—cease mewling and leave well alone."
The two men withdrew and they did not stop arguing. They were shadows in the angle of a buttress and so I could not distinguish the details of their accoutrements or weapons. The Chulik paktun swung back to me, very grim, very fierce.
“As to a trial period, dom, that remains—"
“I am called Jak the Drang and you call me jen,” I butted in, very sharpish, very prickly. “I hold the commission of command from the emperor's Justicar here. I do not doubt you are lusty fighting rogues; but in these evil days one may be forgiven for suspecting masichieri calling themselves paktuns.” Before he could get another word in I went on forcefully: “Now take your men and the city fathers will find you quarters. We are in bad case here; but the radvakkas cannot break in. Soon we will sally out and defeat them utterly. In that day I expect you, Shudor the Mak, and your men, to earn your hire."
He took a good look at me, sizing up my mettle. Then he nodded. If I thought this confrontation was over I was mistaken. One of the Pachaks stepped forward. He wore the pakmort. He spoke in that precise, elegant and yet firm manner of the Pachaks.
“We may take nikobi, jen Jak, if the contract is drawn out properly. Our last nikobi was shattered on the field of battle."
“I welcome you, paktun. Your name?"
“I am Logu Na-Pe, paktun, at present tazll but willing to take employment in a good cause—if the cash is right."
“The cash will be right, and the nikobi, Logu Na-Pe."
So I saw them off to their quarters in a comfortable inn and felt a little cheered. They were hard fighting men, all of them, professionals. They were a valuable addition to our forces. But they were few, very few...
There was a great deal to be seen to; well, there always is, by Vox, but particularly so when you not only conduct the defense of a city but also seek to create an army from nothing. So I was kept busy. The saddle animals we had acquired would be useful in a sally; and if the time for the great offensive was long delayed and the fodder ran out, then we'd most likely end up eating these fine steeds. That would be a great pity. But it would be done, that was true, by Zair!
The great advantage of a citizen army is the habit of working together, of order and discipline, ingrained into city folk, as distinct from the wilder and more independent mind of countrymen. We were citizens arrayed against barbarians. Well, if we couldn't beat that illiterate mob outside we had no right to call ourselves citizens, or to inhabit so fine a place as Therminsax. Numbers, solidity, strength; these were our tools for the job, our weapons of war.
Toward morning, wandering back to the imperial Justicar's palace where I had set up headquarters, I passed the inn where the paktuns had been quartered. This was The Golden Ponsho. I thought a little quench would do me good before I turned in, and I might find some of the paktuns about to talk to and find out a little more of their history. So I went in, ducking my head under the old blackwood beams.
Two men in white tunics sat at a table, their slippered feet stuck out, arguing away. One, I knew, was Zarado. I helped myself to a flagon of wine and sat down near them. A few other paktuns were sti
ll drinking; most had turned in.
“Oh, yes,” this Zarado was saying. “The Iron Riders are a fierce-looking bunch, Zunder. I know, I know. But I wonder how they would fare, say, against the overlords—"
“I'd like to see it!” burst out this Zunder, a man with dark moustaches, fiercely-brushed up. “By Zim-Zair! I'd relish the sight of these Grodno-Gastas charging the Overlords of Magdag!"
* * *
Fourteen
News of Pur Zeg, Krzy and Pur Jaidur, Krzy
The flagon halted before my lips. I did not move—could not move.
“May Zantristar the Merciful smile on us! The city is filled with hulus—fambly ready for the reaping. We should never have left the ship in the first place—"
“And whose idea, by Zair, was that? If you'd listened to me we'd be snugly supping in The Fleeced Ponsho again, instead of in some outlandish place at the end of nowhere."
“Me! You were the one who said there was gold flowing out of the rocks in this place! I was for returning to Donengil!"
“And who said we should sign on with those rasts of Maybers? We're a damned long way from home, by Zim-Zair!"
I moved again. I drank. I spilled wine. They looked across and Zarado, his dark curled hair sheening under the lamps, said, “I do not wonder that you are frightened, by the disgusting diseased liver and lights of Makki-Grodno, dom. How came you people to be mewed up here?"
Zunder nudged him. “You great onker! That is the jernu, here, the lord. He was the one telling Shudor the Mak—"
“Oh! Well, I didn't see him—you were nattering away in my ear like two nits dancing in a ponsho fleece."
“Do you call me a nit, Zarado, the sweepings of a Magdaggian gutter? I'll—"
I think they might have wrestled a space then, for it was clear they were good comrades, and continually at odds, one with the other, over everything. And, if no real excuse for an argument could be found, then they'd fabricate one, and joy in the ensuing combat. But I stopped them. I stood up and taking my flagon moved across to their table.
“Lahal, koters,” I said. “How came you here?"
I saw their swords now, jutting under the table. Krozair longswords—by their words and their swords I knew they were Krozairs, and not ordinary warriors of Zairia.
By Zair! How I thought of my roistering days on the inner sea, the Eye of the World! My sons were there now; Pur Zeg and Pur Jaidur, both Krozairs of Zy, as was I. I wanted to know of these two—and yet to enquire, to ask the ritual words and forms, to shake hands, would betray me as a Krozair and that would lead to far too many complications.
But I had to know.
“I think,” I said, speaking companionably, “that you are from Turismond—"
“Yes, jernu,” said Zarado. “But you would not know of our homes, seeing this place is so far removed—"
Here Zunder nudged him again. A right tearaway, this Zarado, bellowing his head off without thought.
“You forget, the galleons of Vallia sail the oceans. They have sailed even so far as a place called Magdag."
They both reacted at this, swearing that they'd like to do certain unmentionable things to the Grodnims of Magdag—and then Zunder said, sharply: “And, jernu, you have been there?"
“Aye."
“And to Sanurkazz?"
“Aye."
They sat back. “Well,” said Zarado. “You are the first person we have met since leaving the Dam of Days who knows a little, who shows some knowledge of the world."
This was typical, this regard for the Eye of the World as the center of existence, and the greater outer oceans as being merely the frame. I well understood that. But I pressed on: “I met a man there who said he was a—” I paused, as though searching my memory. “He was a Krossur—no, a Krozair. Yes. Do you know of these Krozairs?"
They exchanged swift looks. I did not think they were Krozairs of Zy; there was something about them, small signs by which a member of the Order of Zy can tell.
Then Zarado laughed in his bluff Zairian way. Disorderly, harebrained, indisciplined, the Zairians. I suppose that very face has produced the mystic Disciplines that make of the Krozair Orders the fanatically disciplined institutions they are. And, I was attempting to bring some of the best qualities of the Krozairs to my Krovere Brotherhood of Iztar.
“What harm is there, Zunder? We will be fighting alongside him before long, and likely all to go down to the Ice Floes of Sicce."
“Or go to sit on the right hand side of Zair in the glory of Zim,” I said.
Zunder pursed his lips, let out a sigh, and drank deeply. Zarado merely looked at me. Presently, Zunder said: “So it seems you kept your ears open in Sanurkazz. I, myself, am of Zimuzz."
So that placed him. I turned to Zarado enquiringly.
“Me? Of Zamu."
I know I have a habit of letting rip with a few choice phrases every now and then, in the heat of the moment, and so I said: “I kept my ears open. Also, I may, from time to time, call upon Zair. I mean no disrespect by that."
“If I thought you did,” said Zunder, conversationally, “your tripes would be all over the floor before you could spit."
“Aye,” said Zarado, quite calmly.
I approved...
We talked a little more, and I intimated gently that I was interested only in their prowess as fighting men for Therminsax. I managed to progress no further in enquiries about my sons, until a chance remark threw up the name of Zy, at which I came quiveringly alert. But to ask outright would be foolhardy, for it was much like a man of Manhattan asking a Borneo headhunter similar questions, and not expecting to be credited with specialist and, probably, partial knowledge.
I had a happy inspiration, at last, for obvious reasons not even thinking of the ploy until Zarado, yawning, said: “By Mother Zinzu the Blessed! I needed that—but now I am for bed. I am not your Pur Dray Prescot, jernu."
The door was opened.
“He,” I said. “Is the prince majister of Vallia."
“So they say, so they say. But he is a Krozair of Zy and that is much more important. His sons carry on in fine style—” Here Zunder made a face. “I would not admit this if I was a flagon more sober. I would as lief have joined the Order of Zy—but fate decreed otherwise."
“Ha,” said Zarado.
“The welfare of the sons of the prince majister is of very great importance,” I said. I saw the quick way they looked at me, and knew my carved figurehead of a face was giving away more than I wanted. Neither of these two had ever seen Pur Dray, Krzy, obviously. “Are they well? Are they great Krozairs?"
“They do well, as you would expect—"
You may imagine how I listened as Zarado and Zunder between them gave me a rundown on the exploits and rogueries of my two sons on the Eye of the World. They lived. They fought the devils of Grodno, they prospered, and their swifters brought back prizes season by season. Zeg, as King of Zandikar, was growing to be a great power on the inner sea. His fleet was becoming a powerful instrument in the eternal struggle of Zairian against Grodnim. So I listened, and eventually, yawning again, Zarado said he was going to bed, or, by Zogo the Hyr-whip, his eyeballs would fall out.
I heard the shrilling of the trumpets from the walls, and so I said: “I think not, Pur Zarado. I think not. The Iron Riders attack. You and your sword may be needed on the walls or at the barricades."
Cursing most fearfully they snatched up their weapons and, clad only in their tunics and slippers, ran out. I was before them. The Iron Riders circled the city, screeching. They swung long weighted ropes, and as they swung them and released, the fiery brands tied to the ends brightened, and sparked, and sprouting flames fell rushing onto the roofs and walls of the city of Therminsax.
* * *
Fifteen
Firebrands
“Water! Water!” The yells bounced into the sky, which, luridly lit by the falling firebrands, pressed down darker than it should. Dawn was not too far off. But the habits of order in t
he citizenry saw to it that the men appointed by the city fathers to stand their watch at the dawn hour should be awake. Trumpets blew. Men ran with buckets of water. The pandemonium racketed on. People were tumbling out of bed and, half-dressed, rushing to join in the long human chains of bucket-passers and precariously leaning over the parapets to haul that sweet and treacherous water from the canals.
The firechiefs swiftly had the situation under control, for many of the barbarians’ brands puffed out in their swift passage, many merely spluttered and died on tiled roofs. Some burned up venomously and caught in combustible materials; and these were attacked with gusto, drenched with water, hammered into black-smoking quiescence.
The attack had come in from the west side of the city where the Letha Brook ran out through a battlemented gate and then, odoriferously, past the vosk-crushing mills and the waste-disposal plants. Downstream all the muck could be washed away from the city. Naturally, the radvakkas had established their main camp to the east, upstream. Their muck floated down to us. In addition, as we discovered with increasing frequency, they threw carcasses and offal and filth into the stream to poison us. Therminsax was provided with wells that produced crystal water, so we cursed the radvakkas, and drank deeply in safety. But with the extinction of the last fires, which took a bit of a hold on the water-mill outside the wall, protected by lesser outer walls and barricades, and a watch being set afresh, I figured that we would have to take steps to unblock the upstream end.
Sleep, then, would have to wait a little longer.
The excitement of the fires had brought the city to life early. As the suns rose with the promise of a fine day, with perhaps a little rain drifting across in the afternoon, perhaps not if the clouds were burned off by then, I paused to watch a group of men attempting to form up in lines. At this early stage I had weeded out all the men of Therminsax who had had military experience of some kind. In the city, to my disappointment, although common sense insisted I was lucky to find so many, there were just forty-three men who had once served in an army. There were ten men who had served in galleons, and these lived near and frequented the inn called The Swordship and Barynth. There were, also, over a hundred men who had served in the Vallian Air Service. This, being an imperial service, naturally would take many recruits from the imperial provinces. With these men, then, in the first instance, I had begun.
Golden Scorpio [Dray Prescot #18] Page 14