by Nathan Long
When a moon-crossing passed and Mopey still hadn’t come back we got too fidgety even to play games, so we just sat around doing nothing and looking up every time we thought we heard him coming up the stairs.
Finally, way into the third dark, we did hear steps on the stairs. Too many steps. There was somebody on the roof, too, and more on the back stairs.
Lhan drew his sword. “Friends, we are betrayed.”
The doors and the windows exploded as guys rushed in from the stairs and swung down from the roof. We were up to our asses in assassins, all wearing dark cloaks over their harnesses and leather masks that covered their whole heads.
Our rep must have preceded us, ’cause they brought the whole gang. There were more than twenty guys swinging steel in that tiny room, with fucking Captain Mopey on the sidelines whining, “The jewelry! You promised me their jewelry!”
It was a little tough getting busy at first. They were so tight around us I couldn’t swing my sword without backhanding Lhan or Sai. The assassins had the same problem. I decided to do everybody a favor and clear a little space. I picked up the three-legged table like a shield and bulldozed a handful of guys straight at the smashed-in window.
Damn place was such a shit-box that I didn’t just push them out the window, I pushed the entire window out of the wall. The whole frame, plus a shower of bricks, plaster and men smashed into the street below. I almost went with them, but I caught the broken edge of the wall and hauled myself back in.
Some joker took advantage of my precarious position and poked me in the backside. I yelped like wolf in a trap and spun around, swinging my sword blind. I cut the poor bastard in half.
That stopped the show. The assassins stood there staring from me to the body, bug-eyed behind the peep-holes of their masks. Sai and Lhan took the opportunity to get in a few free swings.
That’s all it took. The assassins ran like the devil was on their tails, that backstabber Mopey with them.
We stood in the ruins of the room, looking at half-a-dozen maimed and dismembered bodies as the sound of the assassins’ footsteps pitter-pattered away down the street. The guy I’d cut in two was turning one corner into a red lake. I spit and swallowed, trying to force down the queasy, swimmy feeling I still got after killing people. I’d cut a guy in half!
I put on my tough chick act to cover my hands shaking. “So... so who are these ninjas? The local vigilante gang?”
“Let us discover.” Lhan knelt by a guy who still had his head and cut off his mask.
Sai gasped. “Can it be? No!” He pulled aside the guy’s cloak, and peeked at the insignia on his shoulder armor. He turned pale. “I know this man. ’Tis Dal-Var, one of my sister’s household guard.”
Lhan and Sai checked the rest of them. Half wore Sai’s sister’s insignia, half wore Vawa-Sar’s.
Sai was all a-twitter. “But what means this treachery? Why does my sister try to kill me?”
“Only one way to find out.” I jumped out the window.
The tallest building around was across the street. I sprang to a first-floor balcony and monkeyed up to the roof. I leaped up on a little shack and scanned in all directions. Our assassins couldn’t be more than a few blocks away, but which way?
Finally, through a gap between two buildings, I saw some shadows flicker across a wall. I ran to the edge of the roof and leaped across the alley behind it, then started hopping from roof to roof like some super-villain from a Spider-Man comic. It cleared my head. I started feeling better. In fact, I felt great. What a blast. Without Lhan and Sai I could really travel. I was practically dancing, touching down with just a toe here, a heel there.
I spotted the assassins running down a side-street with Mopey wheezing behind them. I kicked off a brick chimney to change direction, then hopscotched after them. One of them seemed to be the boss, shouting at the others to hurry up. That’s the one I wanted.
Unfortunately, just as I caught up they crossed a wide avenue and I ran out of roof tops.
I screeched to a stop. I was a little leery about dropping down to street level. According to Mopey I was on Ormolu’s ten-most-wanted. Hell, even if people hadn’t seen my mug shot, they’d hunt me down based on my freak factor alone. Had to be done though.
I jumped down two stories and landed in a three point stance in the middle of the street. People turned, gaping.
I stood and howled like a redneck at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. “Yippie-kai-yay, motherfuckers!”
It worked. People ran like cats from a vacuum cleaner. Mothers grabbed their children. Women hid behind their men. Men hid behind their women.
“Monster!”
“Demon!”
I charged across the avenue into an alley after the assassins. The last two looked back. They shouted and scattered. The others turned.
I jumped into a flying kick and planted both boots square on the bossman’s chest. He skidded ten feet in the alley muck. I rolled and came up standing.
The assassins faced me, eyes wide, whiteknuckling their swords, on the knife edge between fight or flight. The boss man was behind me. I stepped back to haul him up. Bad idea. The assassins read that as a retreat and charged.
The alley was too narrow for me to get a good swing in, and I’d had my fill of cutting guys in half for one night. I sheathed my sword, heaved the bossman over my shoulder, then jumped up and grabbed a drain pipe. Swords chipped sparks off the brick wall all around my ankles. I climbed hand-over-hand to the rooftop. Good thing none of those fuckers had bows.
***
Back at the hovel Lhan tore the guy’s mask off. Sai gasped again. It was a big night for gasping. “Shao-Lar?” He turned to us. “’Tis my sister’s personal bodyguard.” Then back to Shao-Lar. “What is the meaning of this, villain?”
“I’ll never talk.”
I reached under his loincloth and squeezed. “You’ll never talk in that octave again.”
He squeaked, but kept his mouth shut. Brave man.
Lhan leaned in. “We know much of it already. We know Vawa-Sar has dealings with Kedac-Zir that hinge on his marriage to Wen-Jhai.”
Sai opened his mouth to disagree. Lhan elbowed him. “Come, Shao-Lar. Or shall Mistress Jae-En make a boy of you again?”
Shao-Lar groaned and turned to Sai. “It... It was your sister’s plan. Hers and Vawa-Sar’s.”
“My sister? You lie, sir. Shayah is a...”
Lhan interrupted. “A conniving harridan, and always has been, ever since she told on us to your father for plucking the tail feathers of his favorite krae. Say on, Shao-Lar.”
He nodded and turned to Sai. “Vawa-Sar covets your father’s land, since his is rocky and barren. He knew that unless you were dead Shayah would not inherit. Together they conspired to cause your death, so that when they married, Vawa-Sar would inherit your father’s lands as well as his own.”
Lhan spit. “Vile fratricide. I always did detest her.”
Sai waved at him to clam up. “And so they sent you here to kill me? They dared?”
“No Dhanan, this was but a desperate measure when it was discovered that you had escaped Kedac-Zir’s blade.”
Sai paled. “Kedac-Zir? He truly is involved in all of this?”
Shao-Lar blinked. “You said you knew of that.”
I laughed. “We guessed. Now spill it.”
He hesitated. I gave his nuts another honk. He spoke right up. “Kedac-Zir was key to it all.” He looked at Sai. “Knowing your... lack of martial prowess, and seeking a way to kill you that would bring no investigation or retribution, they concieved a plan where someone would bride-nap Wen-Jhai under protection of the Sanfallah and kill you in the process. But for the plan to succeed it must be someone so rich and well-connected that no political motive might be construed. They contacted Kedac-Zir and he agreed, in exchange for some favors, the nature of which they have kept secret even from me.”
I gave Sai an I-told-you-so look. “See?”
“No! I refuse to believe it. No Oran gentleman...
”
Lhan laughed. “Even now you defend him?”
“Perhaps he agreed to their plan, but only so that he might follow his heart.”
“Once again, Sai, your charitable nature does you credit, but with the evidence of Mai-Mar’s lies, implicating us in the kidnapping of Wen-Jhai, I begin to suspect...”
Sai stood, straighter than I’d seen him in days. “You are right, Lhan. If there is even a suspicion of doubt we must confront him. I would have the testament of his love from his own lips, that I might judge its fervor for myself.” He looked down at Shao-Lar. “Where stays Kedac-Zir?”
“He is billeted at the Naval barracks.”
“He keeps Wen-Jhai at a barracks?” Sai was outraged.
“No, she stays with Kedac-Zir’s cousin, at his townhouse.”
“See?”
Sai glared at me. “We shall see indeed. When is the ceremony?”
“Tomorrow, at dawn.”
Sai gasped again. I told you, lots of gasping. “Then we must leave at once. The forth crossing already begins.”
Lhan motioned out the window. “But we are wanted criminals. These cursed relatives of yours have made sure of that. We shall be stopped before we get half way.”
I looked around at the masked corpses. “Uh, guys. I hate to even suggest it, but...”
***
And so, for the umpteenth time on this planet, I had to play dress-up.
When we were ready Sai made to kill Shao-Lar, but Lhan reminded him that a true gentleman was merciful, so we mercifully tied Shao-Lar up and mercifully dumped him in the garbage heap behind the building with the other vermin.
Even though I’d suggested it, I wondered how inconspicuous we’d be wearing masks in the street. Lhan told me not to worry. Vendetta and assassination were a penny a pound around here. People were used to seeing guys running around dressed up like masked wrestlers.
We talked over ways to get into the navy stockade as we hurried across the city, but everything came up short. Lhan had served at this camp and knew how they ran things, which was tight as a drum. I wasn’t going to be jumping the wall here. Navy issue crossbows could stop a charging vurlak. I’d be a pincushion when I landed.
We couldn’t just disguise ourselves as airmen either. The gate guards had lists of who went in and out. Besides, an airman’s harness wasn’t going to cover my, uh, more recognizable features.
Our ideas got wilder and wilder; hide in a wagon full of supplies, ride in on the underside of an airship, start a fire, start a riot.
I groaned. “Why don’t we just get ourselves arrested. At least then we’ll be inside the damn place.”
Lhan stopped dead and turned to me with that crazy Clark Gable grin of his. “Mistress Jae-En, truly you are divinely inspired. You have found the way!”
“Huh? Whaddaya mean?”
“I mean we give ourselves up.”
“Lhan, I was kidding! It was a joke!”
Sai stared. “Truly, Lhan, are you gone mad? They will kill us.”
“Not on sight. We are not such barbarians here in Ora that the authorities would deny us the formality of a trial, even if only to parade us before our peers before they beheaded us. Convening such a trial would take several days. In the meantime they would lock us in the barracks brig.”
Sai rolled his eyes. “Ah, cast in a dungeon. Of course. The advantages are obvious.”
I wasn’t exactly catching on either. “Come on, Lhan. Where the hell does that get us?”
Lhan leaned in, excited. “I shall explain. While stationed here, I, on more than one occasion, became intimately acquainted with that brig. ’Tis not a dungeon. ’Tis but a wooden lock-up, the primary function of which is the punishment of junior officers who have been arrested for public drunkenness. ’Tis a homey, accommodating jail, which while more than strong enough to contain young fools who can’t hold their tisol, should be no match for a phenomenon such as Mistress Jae-En. And once free inside the camp, it will be nothing to reach Kedac-Zir’s quarters.”
Well, I had serious doubts it would be as cake-and-pie as all that, but it was the only plan that even got us to square one. “You’re the boss, Lhan. And I want you to know I wouldn’t go to jail for just anybody.”
Sai bit his lip. “It seems foolhardy to me.”
Lhan nodded. “Indeed. But have you a safer, quicker plan?”
“Er, well...” Sai shrugged. “Lead on, Lhan. Your follies seem to succeed more often than do mine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TREASON!
At the gate, Sai looked down his nose at the watch commander and did his prince-of-the-blood act. “Be so kind as to inform Kir-Dhanan Kedac-Zir that Dhan Sai-Far of Sensa wishes to meet him on a matter of honor.”
Guards were circling around behind us. That was fine. All part of the plan. I hoped.
The watch commander stared, dumbfounded. “My pardon, sir. Your name again?”
“Lout, I am Sai-Far, son of Shen-Far, Dhanan of Sensa and these are my companions, Lhan-Lar of Herva and Mistress Jae-En of... elsewhere.”
The guy was torn. You could see it. He was used to kissing ass to guys like Sai, but he was also looking at three walking wanted posters. “Your pardon Dhanans and—” He gave me the once over again, just to make sure, “And Lady, but I must place you under arrest.”
Sai stuck his nose in the air as the guards moved in. “You insult me, sir, but as you have an advantage of numbers if not quality, I will go quietly.”
He surrendered his sword belt. Me and Lhan did too. This was the part of the plan I liked the least. What if they put our weapons in another building? What if they didn’t just lock us up, but chained us too? I was strong, but breaking out of chains might be pushing it.
They marched us through the camp, a huge hexagonal layout of big, twelve-man hexagonal tents. One wedge-shaped sixth of the camp was filled with permanent buildings; a big stone joint with skelshas coming and going from its roof that Lhan said was Naval HQ and Kedac’s private quarters, a cookhouse, a stable, some other administration buildings, and the brig, which was a one-story wooden hexagon with tiny barred windows and guards outside the door.
It was pretty much like Lhan said, a front room with a desk, a burly jailer, and a door to the cells behind. It reminded me of the hoosegow in a TV western, except there were torches on the walls, and a little hibachi in the corner where the jailer was barbecuing lizard kebabs—I don’t remember Marshall Dillon ever barbecuing lizards. The jailer was a barrel-chested pug-ugly with a five o’clock shadow all over his skinhead dome. He gave us the once-over and curled his lip at me with the, you-ain’t-so-tough sneer I’ve gotten from lock-up bulls all my life. I just seem to bring it out in ’em. I don’t know why.
He threw our weapons and armor into a chest that was bolted to the floor and locked them up, then took us to the cells.
We had a surprise waiting for us back there. Lhan’s “sleepy little lock-up” was packed to the rafters. I counted eight thick wooden doors, four on each side. Each door had a narrow, barred window, and six of the eight windows were crammed with faces, all pushing and shoving for a look.
I recognized some of the faces. There was a big burly guy with a full beard looking out of one, and a swarthy chick with a square jaw and long thick eyelashes. It was Captain Kai-La and her crew! Guess they hadn’t ducked Kedac after all.
I almost said something to Kai-La as we passed, but Lhan nudged me. Smart boy. No need to let our jailor know we were all old pals.
The pirates didn’t speak either. They just stared. I locked eyes with Kai-La for a second. Her face was as blank as an unplugged TV.
Ugly put Sai and Lhan in one cell and me in another. Damn prudes, keeping boys and girls separate. Now I had to break out of two cells.
The room was built from the same heavy wood as the door, with one small barred window on the outside wall which looked just big enough to squeak through. I was pretty sure I could rip out the door or the window no p
roblem. The hard part was going to be noise. If I kicked open the door, pug-ugly would come running, which wasn’t a bad thing. It would save us going after him. But he’d probably send those guards outside the front door for back-up, and that was suicide.
As I was eyeballing the door up close, Kai-La’s voice echoed down the hall. “It grieves me to see you captured, friends. For I believe we were the cause of it.”
Sai snarled back. “Speak not to me, slaver.”
Lhan was more polite. “Mean you some other cause than selling us in Doshaan?”
“Aye. When we were captured, they tortured us to know your whereabouts. Not all of us were strong.”
I heard a thump from Sai’s direction, like he’d thrown himself against his door. “’Twas you who put Wen-Jhai in Kedac’s hands? ’Twas you who...”
Lhan cut him off. “Sai, you must stay quiet.” His voice rose slightly. “Mistress Jae-En, what keeps you?”
I sighed and looked up from the door. It was hopeless. The lock was buried deep behind hard wood and metal straps. “I can’t figure how to blow this joint without waking up Ugly. I can break down the door, but I ain’t gonna be able to get to him before he screams for help.”
“Hmmm, think you that you can open the door with one blow?”
“I’ll give it a shot, but it’s gonna make a hell of a racket.”
“Worry not. Just be ready to act.”
“When?”
“You will know.”
I sure as hell hoped so.
I jumped as Lhan started shouting. “You cowardly cuckold! ’Tis you who has gotten us into this fix. If you had even enough spine to stand upright we’d be celebrating your wedding now, instead of rotting in durance vile.”
Sai screamed back. “Blame me, viper that I was fool enough to once call friend? Who was it that lifted not a finger when I went to challenge my rival singlehandedly in his mountain fortress?”
“There was no challenge, you lying...”
They started to wrestle around, shouting and banging into the walls. The door to the front slammed open and Ugly rushed past my cell. “Belay that noise, you filthy ructuks, or I’ll flay you alive!”