A Victory for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  He was abruptly intense, concentrated. He looked at me and those lines that had been vanishing on his face deepened and grooved. The force of his power shocked out.

  “You speak in a way that could offend a Wizard of Loh, Jak. I will not be offended. But it is necessary that you explain yourself.”

  Given the awesome powers of the Wizards of Loh, given their aloofness from the petty concerns of normal men, given that they regard others as, if not inferior beings, then beings without the same necessities of the inner life — what Deb-Lu-Quienyin said to me was perfectly rational.

  Any man of Kregen would tremble if a Wizard of Loh spoke to him thus.

  “By Hlo-Hli! Jak! Speak!”

  “If you seek—”

  “No ifs, Jak, by the Seven Arcades!”

  “Seek the truth of Yantong. I promise to speak then. Although—” and I glowered down on my comrade, Deb-Lu-Quienyin “—although, my friend, my words will then be unnecessary.”

  “You speak now in riddles.” He breathed in and then out, deliberately. This was an exercise in self-control. I waited.

  Presently he said, “I will do as you suggest — and only because of our comradeship, which is something precious to me because it is something I could never fully experience as a Wizard of Loh. This is a matter I do not expect you to understand.”

  “I do understand something, probably more than you realize. I have had dealings with Wizards of Loh before.”

  “Then let me go off a ways and try my newfound kharrna.”

  The shadows lay very short now, mere blobs of reddish and greenish discoloration under the thorn-ivy.

  Everything possessed two shadows. Quienyin and his two shadows went off to crouch down by the rock face. He took up a position which, although I had no idea of its significance, I recognized to be a position of ritual. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable, too.

  Four times during the course of the day skeins of flutsmen had sailed over us, high and distant, mere forbidding specks, potent with disaster. They worried me. I looked up now as Quienyin sat so uncomfortably, and up there another wedge of flutsmen winged over. Slotted like nits in a ponsho fleece as we were down here, we were not likely to be espied easily. But the worry remained. The flutsmen were active and I wondered what caused that. Something, of a surety, had stirred them up.

  Common sense indicated that I should try to catch some sleep. I did doze off for a few burs. I was awakened by Nath and Barkindrar coming off watch and the two Pachaks going on. I decided not to raise a ruckus over their waking me up; I know I sleep lightly, ready to leap up almost, it seems, before the danger that stalks me would leap for my throat. It is an old sailorman’s trick.

  The Shaft and the Bullet were not too sleepy, and were carrying on with great vehemence the argument that had absorbed them during their watch.

  “Jikaida! Now you can take your Jikaida and—”

  “Now, Barkindrar! What you say against Jikaida can be said against Vajikry. Do not forget that!”

  They wrangled on about the merits or otherwise of Jikaida, which is the preeminent board game of Kregen, and of Vajikry, which is of not quite so universal acceptance but which is, as I know to my sore cost, highly baffling and irritating and calculated to arouse the itch in any man or woman. Vajikry takes a special kind of twisted logic, I suppose, to make a good player.

  So, with that as a starter, I found myself running an old Jikaida game through my head, move and countermove, and so I closed my eyes and, lo! I was being shaken awake and the shadows were measurably longer. Thus does abused nature force her just demands on the physique.

  The hand shaking me, the footstep, the low voice, were all devoid of menace.

  I sat up.

  “Time to go on watch, Jak — notor.”

  I looked at Hunch.

  He licked his lips. “You said — you said you would stand a watch, Jak.”

  “Aye. I did and I will. And I could wish you and Nodgen did not have to keep up with this notor nonsense.”

  Nodgen said, “We have talked about this, Jak. We were all three slave together. You escaped. You have made something of yourself and have manumitted us before Prince Tyfar. But we think you are truly a notor, a great lord.”

  “That’s as may be. But your freedom is very real to you, because the word of Tyfar, Prince of Hamal, is worth much.”

  “Oh, yes, we will take the bronze tablets. But we still believe you to be a great lord, and therefore we do not mind calling you notor. Only,” and here Hunch screwed his Tryfant face up, “only, sometimes, Jak, it is hard to remember.”

  “By the disgusting diseased tripes of Makki Grodno! I do not care. But you will have the outrage of an offended princeling if you forget in his hearing.”

  “Aye, that we will.” They both sounded marvelously little alarmed. This special sense of comradeship developed between us, and the terror of the Moder worked on us all, paktun, retainer, escaped slave, wizard, and prince.

  And, as though to underline those thoughts, the voice of Deb-Lu-Quienyin, who was privy to Hunch’s and Nodgen’s secret, reached us. He sounded troubled.

  “Tyfar would overlook that lapse,” said Quienyin. “Jak, I must speak to you — and at once—”

  “Assuredly.” I stood up. Quienyin stood back in the shadows, so that I could not discern his expression.

  He wore his turban. A fierce bellow cut the air from the thorn-ivy.

  “Vakkas! Riders heading for us!”

  I spun to look. Tyfar was sinking down behind the thorns and the others were flattening out, steel in their fists.

  Beyond them, across the flat and clear in the slanting rays of the suns, a party of riders broke from a clump of twisty trunks, the crinkly leaves down-drooping and unmoving in the breathless air.

  The men rode totrixes, zorcas, hirvels. There was not a swarth among them. They rode hard, lashing their beasts on, and the dust rose in a flat smear behind them, hanging betrayingly in a long yellow-white streak. I looked up. Up there the flutsmen curved down, the wings of their flyers wide and stiff, and the glint and wink of weapons glittered a stark promise of destruction over the doomed party of riders below.

  Chapter four

  Dead Men Pose Puzzles

  Straight for the rocky outcrop and running at lung-bursting speed, the forlorn party rode on. They were making for the shelter we had chosen. There, it was clear, they hoped to make a stand against the reining sky mercenaries. Now the sound of the hooves beat a rattling tattoo against the hard ground.

  “They’ll never make it.” Tyfar stared hotly through the thorn-ivy.

  If that young prince decided to stand up and run out to assist those doomed jutmen, I, for one, would seek to stop him. He was become precious to me, now, as a comrade. I would not relish his death. I had seen too much of death.

  “Jak—” whispered Quienyin.

  “Yes?”

  “I have sought out—”

  “See! They shoot!” Tyfar was panting now, and his lithe body humped as though about to leap out.

  I said, “We cannot allow Tyfar to throw his life away. We will do what we can, but—”

  Quienyin looked vaguely through a chink in the thorns.

  “Those poor people will never reach here alive.” He looked back at me. “There is much we must talk about.”

  “I agree. But, I think, it will have to wait the outcome of this mess out here.”

  “You are right. But I will say I am — am shattered—”

  “So you descried a little, then, and understand more?”

  “Indeed! Indeed!”

  “Nath the Shaft!” called Tyfar in a low, penetrating voice.

  “My Prince!”

  “Shaft ’em, you onker! Shaft ’em!”

  “Nath,” I said. My voice jerked his head around, and his reaching fingers stilled as they touched the feathers of the shaft in his quiver.

  “Jak, Jak!” said Tyfar. “What? You cannot abandon them!”

  “
No. No, I suppose not. But they are done for — there are ten of them and twenty-five or thirty flutsmen. We can—”

  “We can shaft them from cover — and we must hurry!”

  His face blazed eagerness at me. I sighed. What can one do with these high and mighty princelings whose honor code rules them to death and destruction? And yet — Tyfar was a man of better mettle than mere unthinking bludgeoning.

  “You don’t have to let those flutsmen know we are here, do you?” said Hunch. His voice quavered.

  Nodgen hefted his spear. He could throw that with skill and power, even though it was not a stux, the stout throwing spear of Havilfar. “I have four spears,” he said. His voice growled. “That’s four of the cramphs.”

  “They are too far away for you, Nodgen, you onker!”

  “They’ll come nearer, once the arrows fly.”

  “That,” I said, “is true.”

  “I will not wait any longer.” Tyfar shouted it. He started to stand up. I moved forward. What I was going to do Opaz alone knows. I was confused, knowing I ought to help those poor folk out there against those rasts of flutsmen, and knowing, also, that my responsibilities were wider by far than this mere stupid little fracas in the Humped Land.

  The flutsmen swooped down.

  The great Lohvian longbow snugged into my grip. The blue-fletched arrow nocked home sweetly. I lifted the bow and stood up. By Zair! The stupid things I have done in my time on Kregen! But — Kregen is a world where anything may happen and frequently does.

  Together, Nath the Shaft, Barkindrar the Bullet, and I, Dray Prescot, prince of onkers, let fly.

  Three flutsmen sagged and dropped from their clerketers, the leather flying thongs holding their bodies dangling from the big birds as they struggled to stay aloft with the limp, dragging weight frightening them and hauling them down.

  Again we shot, and again. Someone of us missed the third time; who it was I do not know.

  Now the flutsmen were veering like gale-tossed spindrift, swirling over toward our rocky outcrop. The rear ten or so fell straight down, the fluttrells settling with a flurrying uproar and updriven billows of dust about the galloping jutmen. The fight sprawled over there across the flat.

  We shot again as the leading flyers chuted down toward us. The two Pachaks and Hunch brought the short bows taken from the Muzzards into action. Those damned flutsmen astride their fluttrells, all a mass of glitter and waving clumped feathers and brandished weapons, looked massive and indomitable. They looked as though they could fly right through us. That is the impression they seek to convey.

  The leading flyers were close enough for Nodgen to hurl his spear. The thick shaft burst through the leather and feathered flying gear of his target, and the flutsman screeched, a thin, high wail of despair cutting through the din. He went smashing back against his wicker saddle, slipped sideways, making despairing, jerking grippings with his hands, which slid off to dangle.

  “Where’s the next?” raved Nodgen.

  The flutsmen circled. We shot, a rolling flighting of steel birds that wreaked cruel damage on the flesh-and-blood birds aloft. Spears sliced down to rattle against the rocks. But, as so often happens when a man afoot shoots it out with a man aloft, the man on the ground has all the advantages. A barbed spear grazed past Tyfar’s arm, and he cursed, and shook his axe.

  We kept low, cocking our bows up steeply, using the rocks as cover, keeping in the shadows of the thorn-ivy. The fluttrells would not come near that, for they are canny birds when it comes to self-preservation.

  A flung stux whipped in toward me and I flicked it away with an outthrust arm. The men up there must have loosed their crossbows against the jutmen out on the flat, and thinking to finish the thing quickly, had not reloaded. In this they were poor quality flutsmen, quite unlike the band in which I had served.

  The dust smothered across the fight out on the flat and only a thin and attenuated yelling told us that men were still left to battle it out. We had taken the major part of the force attacking the vakkas and they would have to fend for themselves until we had seen off the reivers attempting to slay us. So — we fought.

  Now your true-blue mercenary of the skies knows when to fight from his natural perch, astride the back of a bird or flying animal, or when to alight and get on with handstrokes on the ground. We had seen off a sizeable gang of this bunch; now the rest forced their fluttrells in to haphazard landings and leaped off their backs, swords and spears brandished. They leaped toward us over the dust between the rocks.

  Nath the Shaft calmly shot two of them out even as they cocked their legs over the wicker saddles and the sheening feathers.

  The rest of us shot methodically, and then we were at the tinker’s work. The flutsmen they were close to proved to be a surprise. They were the usual mixture of diffs and apims, a Rapa, a Fristle, a Brokelsh.

  They were clearly still unaware quite of their losses. They ran in and started to fight bravely enough. But when half their number fell, screaming, with not one of us so much as scratched, they abruptly came to a realization of the situation. As I said, they were of poor quality. They were, if you will pardon the conceit, masichieri of the skies.

  When this raggle-taggle band broke back for their birds, I shouted the orders it was necessary to give and see obeyed instantly.

  The Pachaks raced forward first. They were, after all, hyr-paktuns, with the golden pakzhan at their throats. They were more used to what goes on in the aftermath of battles than Tyfar’s two retainers, or the Tryfant Hunch. But Nodgen, who had been a mercenary in his time — almost made paktun —

  understood swiftly, and was out of the rocks and running after the two Pachaks.

  Tyfar yelled to me. “The people out there!”

  “Let us go over, by all means.”

  So the rest of us ran past the end of the thorn-ivy and quitted the shelter of the rocks. We ran toward the boil of dust marking the fight. Long before we reached it, the flutsmen were lifting away, the birds’

  wings flapping with vigorous downstrokes to gain takeoff speed.

  Then I let out a roar.

  “The famblys! Come back! Come back—”

  But the jutmen, freed of the horror of the flutsmen all around them, simply clapped in their spurs and went haring away across the flats. They galloped in a string and they had their heads down and I do not doubt that most of them had their eyes shut, also.

  So we stopped running, and stood and watched the folk we had rescued simply flee in panic.

  “The stupid onkers!” said Tyfar. He breathed in, and then made a grimace of distaste, and spat. The dust drifted in, clogging our mouths, flat and unpleasant on the tongue.

  Among the drift of detritus of the fight — dead animals, dead birds, dead flutsmen, dead jutmen, and a scatter of weapons — an arm lifted.

  “One of them,” I said, “at least is alive.”

  We ran across.

  He had been a strong fighting man, clad in bronze-bound leather, with a neat trim of silver to the rim of his helmet. His face, heavily bearded, was waxen now, all the high color fled. His lips were ricked back.

  Near him lay a young man, dressed in clothes and armor of exceeding richness, and this young man’s neck was twisted and ripped, and he could have looked down his own shoulder blades, had his eyes still possessed the gift of sight.

  “He — is dead — the young lord,” gasped the bearded, dying man. “So — best — I die, too...”

  “Who was he?” said Tyfar. He spoke in a hard, contained voice.

  The bearded lips opened but only a gargle sounded.

  I bent closer.

  “Rest easy, dom. You are safe now—”

  “Flutsmen — lord, my lord — you must—” His head fell sideways, and those craggy, bearded lips gusted a last breath.

  I stood up.

  “I,” said Tyfar, “wonder who they were.”

  “It does not matter. They are dead or fled.”

  We stared about on
that unpleasant scene.

  Presently, Hunch said, “Can we go back to the rocks now, please?”

  “Not before you and Barkindrar and Nath have collected what is useful to us. And be quick about it.

  There may be other flutsmen about.”

  Hunch looked sick.

  “Do we have to?”

  “Assuredly you do. Now — jump!”

  Tyfar nodded. “Nath, Barkindrar, set to it.”

  I ploughed in to help select anything we thought would be of use to us. But, as a prince, Tyfar moved a little way off. He did not help us strip the dead of the rich armor, or rake through the satchels, or lift up the blood-caked weapons. But he did not walk away. He stood nearby, and if any further flutsmen showed up, why, then he would show what being a prince involved.

  The bulky, bearded man bothered me. He had given his life, and that had not been enough. His young lord was dead. I surmised they were part of an expedition out to venture down a Moder after treasure and magic, and had been separated from the main body by the Muzzard vakkas. Then the flutsmen, ever avid to pick up morsels like that, had attacked.

  Twisted under a fine zorca that had been shafted — I took a single look and then looked away. The vile things that happen to faithful saddle animals at the hands of men is a sore subject with me, as with many other men on two worlds. Twisted under this poor dead zorca, as I say, lay the body of a large man who had been pitched from the saddle. His neck had broken.

  I studied his face, calm, lined, filled with the remnants of a vigor that had sustained him in life and was now deserting him in death. He wore magnificent armor. It had not stopped his neck from being smashed. I sucked in my breath and went to work.