A tragedy of this dimension, one would think, would drive her crazy with grief. But, no, she remained calm and firm, taking control and organizing us for our flight through the desert to Makilorn.
Master Pandarun had found us, and the zorca riders from the queen had hauled us in. There was no chance, given the scene, that we would be thought guilty of the vad’s death. That, of course, would not stop Hangol; for a space he would have a free rein and he’d revenge himself. I, I may say, packed very smartly for the off.
We felt little surprise when Llodi the Voice said he would fly with us. Strom Hangol had Llodi marked for destruction just as we were.
We didn’t bother with the cart and Mevancy found a lictrix from somewhere for Llodi. We took plenty of water, enough food, our weapons and ourselves and we set off, running for our lives.
I do not know by how much we scraped clean away before Hangol’s cronies started vengefully to find us; it must have been by precious little, by Krun!
We rode hard and sharp into the night, heading west for the River of Drifting Leaves and the great city of Makilorn in which we would hide.
What had passed between Mevancy and Leotes was privileged to them; I had heard only scraps. If I couldn’t make head or tail of this information yet, that is not to be wondered at. Ideas drifted around in my skull; but nothing seemed to make sense. This concern must have been the reason that I completely missed the obvious. I failed to see what was going to happen in our lives with sudden and unopposed authority.
Poor old Llodi! He would, as I knew, probably see nothing.
In the event it turned out somewhat differently from what one would expect, given their ways.
The Maiden with the Many Smiles was up, shining refulgently down upon the waste of the Farang Parang. Stars glittered in their multitudes. The night was cool but not unpleasantly so and the hooves of our mounts thudded muffled in the dust. Ever and anon I threw a searching glance back.
Reivers of the Glitch Riders might be out on a night like this, hoping to take a caravan by surprise. Ordinary bandits operated in this area also. We might spot dark shapes under the Moons and not know who they were. We’d know only one thing; they did not wish us well.
Mevancy had said that San Hargon had laughed most cruelly when the other two villains had pushed her and Leotes over the edge. He’d looked down and at the obvious question had answered that the two victims should be left to fall on two counts: one that the deaths would be accounted accidental, and, two, that he would enjoy the thought of the suffering before death.
A cold, reptilian creature, this ascetic Hargon.
So, when it happened and I finally got the message into my stupid old vosk skull of a head, I let out a shattering bellow of mingled chagrin and rage.
And, as I have said, it happened as it had never happened to me before.
The phantom shape of the giant blue Scorpion bloated above us. Llodi rode on, head thrust down, completely oblivious; he might have been asleep.
I tensed, expecting the coldness, the rushing sensation of falling, the thump of landing elsewhere. Suppose, just suppose, the frantic thoughts cascaded through my head, just suppose they hurled me back to Earth!
The silent, invisible uproar ceased. Llodi still rode on ahead; there was no sign of Mevancy.
The blue Scorpion had vanished.
Instantly I reined up. Hell’s Bells! I’d have to ride back now.
I needn’t have bothered.
The blue Scorpion re-appeared, vast, filling the sky, leering down on me. Expecting, this time, to be snatched up and whirled end over end I was once more astounded to find myself still astride Snuffles. Together, we went up and end over end. Just what the faithful lictrix thought of this behavior I didn’t know; I damned well knew what I thought of it, by Krun!
We came down with a thump, not too demanding on Snuffle’s six legs.
Against the stars reared the dark outlines of Ivory Lorn. Directly ahead stood the rows of tents, the animals lines, the carriages. So, this proved the point absolutely. The Star Lords required Mevancy and me to protect someone in the caravan. Problem solved.
Ha!
Looking about carefully in the pink moonslight I saw no trace of Mevancy. Now, where would the girl go? Probably she would discard the idea of going to her tent or cart. She might sneak into the marquee where the body of Leotes lay in state. That would be dangerous; it would be like her. Then I took the notion that from what they’d said the corporeal body was of small importance once dead. Mevancy was not of Tsungfaril; I fancied she’d taken up with Tsung-Tan.
What a mess! Here we’d made a perfect escape, got clear away, and the damned inconsiderate Everoinye had just tossed us back into the fire!
Rikky Tardish — well, that was the best bet.
He’d be shaking in his shoes and not liking it one little bit; I thought he’d care for Mevancy, even if he turfed me out.
His girls lived in the eight-wheeled plains wagon and it suddenly struck me that Rikky might hide her there. The other performers lived in their own vans or in tents. I didn’t want to hitch Snuffles to the animal lines for a saddle would stick out like a sore thumb there and, just in case we had to gallop off hurriedly, I wanted Snuffles all saddled up. If we did ride off, this time I’d damn-well shout up that we were trying to preserve our necks for the sake of the fool Star Lords. So I pulled the reins over his nose, patted him, and said in his ear: “There’s a good fellow. Now, stay!”
We Clansmen of the Great Plains of Segesthes have ways with animals...
Leaving the lictrix standing still I crept off through the fuzzy pink moonslight towards Rikky’s tent. Two of the minor moons were up, hurtling low over the surface of Kregen. In the shifting illumination I saw shadows moving, and then, sharp, stark, poignant, a voice: “By Spurl! You cramphs all deserve to die, you Gahamond-forsaken bunch of shints!”
She sounded fierce and brave. A coarse laugh answered her, and then Strom Hangol, rich and fruitily unpleasant:
“Take the shishi to my tent—” He saw me in the instant I saw him.
He rode a zorca and his leg stuck out. His cronies surrounded him, bold, swaggering, ruffianly fellows who’d slit a throat more for the love of it than for the gold. “Take him,” he said, and he spoke quite softly.
Rough hands seized me. I struggled. That was like a bird in a wire snare. Mevancy called: “You onker!”
Hangol lifted above me astride his zorca. He carried a blatter, a nasty stick for hitting people, rather like the balass rod of office and chastisement carried by some foremen. The zorca curveted. Hangol handled the animal adequately and reined in beside me. He stared down.
The fists grasping me were not to be dislodged by muscles of milk and water. Hangol gloated openly. “Now,” he said, “now we can redress the balance. Bring him along with the girl. We shall listen to them scream for a long time, I think, by Lem, yes!” He lifted the stick. “And this to keep you quiet, shint!” The stick slashed down at my head.
I tried to duck and turn away. The blow smashed down on the back of my head. I felt it. I felt the stick strike down into the base of my skull and the top of my spine. I yelled; I couldn’t help that, and fell forward in the grip of the men holding me, unable to move.
As I toppled I saw as it were the stars going around in a circle, I saw the Maiden with the Many Smiles floating serenely away up there, I saw Mevancy with her arms cruelly twisted up her back, I saw Strom Hangol laughing and riding off, grand astride his zorca, swishing his stick.
Then I felt as though I had been tossed into a vat of boiling oil.
My body jerked. My mouth opened in a rictus of agony and no sound came forth. My limbs shook. I vibrated like the plucked string of a harp.
And boiling oil washed all over me and pain lapped me and exploded in my skull like a bursting shell of Earth. I shuddered and trembled, and then I screamed. I yelled. I shrieked. Silence came back as I forced my mouth shut, to be followed by the laughter of Hangol’
s cronies holding me.
Gandil the Mak and Nalgre the Frunicator stood in front of me as their two colleagues held me. I brought my arms in together, dragging the two men with the movement. I twisted my wrists. My hands were free. I took these two unhappy wights around each one’s throat and bashed their heads together. I dropped the bodies and started for the two in front.
Gandil the Mak just ran.
Nalgre the Frunicator was either slower or more stupid. I twisted his neck and dropped him and started off after Gandil the Mak.
So far the knowledge of what had happened was simply there, in my skull, not yet to be thought about, studied, gloated over. By Zair, though!
Strom Hangol’s tent was indeed a splendid affair. Well, naturally it was, since up until this evening it had been Vad Leotes’ marquee.
Two of his cronies stood guard before the flap of the opening as Gandil ran up, yelling. They were both armed with strangdjas. Gandil vanished into the marquee. The two guards leveled their weapons at me as I ran up.
I didn’t even bother to draw the rapier the Star Lords had so considerately left me. I ducked the first strangdja, kicked the other fellow betwixt wind and water, smashed the first’s face in, and turned back to finish the one who was doubled up and whoofling.
Without pause I went on past the flap and into a wide canvas-floored area, clearly the ante-room to the marquee where boots would be cleaned before stepping onto the Walfarg weave carpets and rugs of the interior.
Strom Hangol and Gandil the Mak were just emerging from the far curtained opening. They saw me. They moved forward over the canvas and Hangol unlimbered his rapier and main gauche, the only weapons he wore. Gandil drew his thraxter, the straight cut and thruster of Havilfar. They advanced on me.
“Your death shall be even more painful for you and edifying for me,” quoth Hangol, his dark eye bright, the silver mask glittering in the light of the samphron oil lamps. “You and the shishi will prove greatly entertaining, and, by Lem, you will be sorry!”
I suppose the old intemperate, hot-headed, headlong and harebrained Dray Prescot must burst out now and again, Opaz forgive me. I freely admit to a vice that I abhor overcoming me in this situation. I played to the audience — oh, the audience wasn’t either of these two bastards. The audience was invisible, in my head yet perfectly visible there all about me, watching what went on with small shakes and nods of the head, pursing of lips, murmurs of approval — or not, by Vox, given that they knew me, they knew me!
The old sailor knife over my right hip slid out with only the faintest of hisses of oiled leather. In the next heartbeat the knife was in the air and in the next its broad blade was buried in Gandil’s throat. He fell down.
“By Lem!” screeched Hangol. “You yetch! I shall teach you—”
Reflectively, as I drew my rapier, I said: “You nulsh! I have burned many temples to Lem the Silver Leem.”
He goggled at this, and then he cursed, vilely, and bore in determined to win quickly, to disable me, and then to enjoy his torturing fun at his leisure. I was not naive enough to imagine he cared a whit for his dead cronies.
Because I played to that invisible yet immanent audience I knew I would not slay this kleesh. He was a mediocre swordsman, and I do not care to slay in cold blood. I have signed Execution Warrants. I know. So I swirled a circle with my blade and we set to.
He was absolutely confident — well, he would be. Was he not a notor of Hamal? Was I not a clown? Did he not know the rapier and main gauche, the Jiktar and the Hikdar? Was not the rapier I wielded a weapon of ridicule?
Yet he must have puzzled over my reference to Lem the Silver Leem.
Mind you, I rejoiced in the feel of the blood singing through my veins, the sensation of muscles responding, the whole corpus proper to a fellow.
Truth to tell, I was disappointed that this evil rast Hangol was so poor a hand with a rapier. I would have welcomed a hard fought fight. Still, I have my own philosophy when it comes to the arcana of sword fighting. I know what I know. I wouldn’t deign to play with him, even though the feel of blade against blade and the screeching chingle of metal aroused all the fire in me: no. I’d just use a simple passage, twirl him around — like so, as his rapier flew through the air — then grasp his right wrist with my left, striking past his dagger — as the dagger in his right hand tried to degut me.
Because he was left handed, because he wore a silver mask on the right side of his face, he was kack-handed. Instead of a clean disarm, he suffered, through his lack of experience of fence, a blade through him. I withdrew at once, feeling annoyed. He did not immediately fall down. He stared at me, his one eyebrow drawn down, both hands holding his guts. No blood yet stained his lips.
I didn’t even bother to kick him as I ran past.
Three carpeted openings further in, Mevancy lay bound on a divan. There was no one else around. I breathed a shaky sigh, shook my head, and started on her bonds. Her eyes flashed enormously upon me above the gag. Studiously, I worked away at the ropes holding her wrists and ankles. Even then, even in that moment, I noticed the granular, smooth yet spikey effect of her forearms.
When her right hand was free she ripped the gag away.
“Oh, you! Cabbage!”
“You’re all right, then.”
She drew a breath.
“Strom Hangol?”
“He might be dead, he might not be. I’m not sure.”
“Oh? We’d better know, or else—”
“There was a deal of confusion outside,” I said, telling the truth and knowing I used it to lie. “You get ready. I’ll go and look.”
Before she could protest I hurried back to the entrance. Gandil the Mak still lay there and I put my foot on his face and pulled the sailor knife free. Hangol had gone. Thoughtfully I cleaned the sailor knife and sheathed it. The rapier had more than half-cleaned itself as I’d withdrawn from Hangol’s body on his clothes. Yet he was not here. Was the cramph still alive, then?
As I stared about, Mevancy joined me.
“Good riddance to offal,” she said, looking at Gandil’s corpse.
“Hangol was wounded,” I said. “I thought sore wounded. But he is not here, as you can see.”
“What army was it?” she said, in a half-joking fashion, half-serious. “Or did the drikingers attack again?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“And how did you get here so rapidly — or know where to come?”
“Easy enough to guess—” I began. Then I stopped. This was footling.
She was staring at me, hard, her face tight-drawn.
I said: “The Everoinye sent me.”
Chapter eleven
She reacted to that.
Her face, taut as it was, tightened still further.
“Well, you hulu! Oh, you!”
“There’s no time to explain now—” I began, using the time-honored formula. “We have to—”
“I agree explanations can wait.” She had had a shock. Well, that was easily understood. By Djan! When you found out somebody else besides yourself served the Star Lords, was a kregoinye, well, that came as a body blow, believe you me! “You’ve kept this from me all along. Still—” here she glanced towards the exit. “Still, it does explain a great deal. All right, cabbage. If the Everoinye have sent you along to assist me, then assist! We’ll have to clear out of here right now.”
With that I perfectly agreed.
I said: “The worry is Hangol. It seems we must remain with the caravan. That is clear. If Hangol—”
“I’ll do the thinking. What I cannot understand is why the Everoinye should employ a weakling, and why, by Spurl, they should saddle me with him.”
She gave me no time to answer. She padded over to the outside flapped opening, glanced through, didn’t turn her head as she said: “Come on, cabbage.”
Shades of Strom Irvil of Pine Mountain! At least Mevancy hadn’t thought to call me a body slave, as Strom Irvil in his bluff numim way had, and into the ba
rgain calling me Zaydo, as he called all his body servants Zaydo.
She slid through the opening and again I admired the slim suppleness of her, lissom and lithe, straight after being lashed up like a carcass.
She of the Veils had risen and washed down her pink and golden light as I followed Mevancy. The camp was relatively quiet, with the stamp and snort of beasts, the odd noises that seem to have their origins in no known source, a dog barking — that was Lady Floria’s obnoxious little white thing, all belly and jaws. She stepped over the two guards, daintily, without a word. The questions I wanted to ask her boiled up in my head as, clearly, the questions she wanted to ask fizzled in hers. Well, all that could wait. We had to decide what to do — rather, Mevancy the kregoinye was going to decide what to do!
In one sense the most important thing to know was — just who did the Star Lords wish us to protect?
Mevancy headed off to her own tent and cart, abandoned when we’d cut and run.
Over her shoulder she snapped: “Get your gear. We’ll take what we need and follow the caravan at a discreet distance. If anything happens we’ll be within striking distance.”
Yes, well, and of course. That was one solution.
For all her hoity-toity ways, this girl was a genuine; I sensed that. I liked her anyway. So I gave up any notion of a showdown to see who was boss.
“Right,” I said, and cut along to where Snuffles still waited.
Mounting up I swung his head around and trotted towards Mevancy’s tent.
Now I wouldn’t have been in the least surprised if, when we rode out, the blue Scorpion had arisen balefully over us and thrown us back into the camp.
That did not happen.
Maybe the Everoinye could understand what we were doing. Maybe they just trusted Mevancy far more than they had me. Although, mind you, that last was changing. I’d ask her if she’d been in that confusing place of metal boxes.
“This’ll do until the morning,” she said, reining up and dismounting. “If we stay behind this ridge they can’t see us. I’ll take the first watch. Get to sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.”
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