Delia of Vallia [Dray Prescot #28]

by Alan Burt Akers

  Jaws and claws lived in the river.

  A few powerful over-arm strokes took her to the bank. She pulled herself out and lay on the mud, dripping, her wetness a cloak of benediction. The fourth Moon of Kregen, She of the Veils, rose to cast down her fuzzy pink and golden light. The woman lay on the bank, in the mud, her brown hair spread and shining and the glory of her body abandoned to wetness. Magnificent, she looked, lying there, rounded and lissom, abandoned, sprawled, her tanned skin glowing through the rents in her leather russets.

  Something hard squelched in the mud at her side.

  A voice said: “By Vox! I'll fight any man who says I'm not first!"

  Her eyes snapped open. She took a breath.

  “Well,” said another voice, thin and nasal. “She's not dead then, Hirvin."

  “Out of the Ochre Limits,” said another.

  No one offered to fight Hirvin.

  The woman turned and half sat up, leaning back on out-thrust arms. The clustered men, six of them, caught their breaths. They sat their mounts at the top of the bank. Moonshine glittered on their metal. Shadows ran and concealed their faces beneath the helmet brims.

  She had been concerned lest she encounter a wild and savage leem; what she had encountered was far more dangerous.

  Their lances spiked up from stirrup boots, the pennons indistinct and unrecognizable in the hazy half-light. They bestrode totrixes, and the ungainly six-legged riding animals stood docilely enough, proof of harsh discipline in their management.

  Hirvin cocked a leg over his saddle and dismounted.

  Automatically, he took a hitch to his belt.

  “Fetch her up here,” he said, and the order was obeyed with betraying alacrity.

  Three of the others dismounted and slid down the bank. They seized the woman, who did not resist. They brought her up to the top of the bank. The light of She of the Veils shone down. By that haloing golden light the hard hawklike faces came clearer, harsh with incessant patrols of the badlands, harsh with imposed discipline, harsh with unrealized ambitions and denied wish-fulfillments.

  “A Beauty,” said Hirvin, and he sucked in a breath. His face congested. An old scar shone lividly against the browned skin. He put a hand to the cheap and ornate clasp of the first of the belts girding him.

  The woman put out her tongue and—as though exploring forgotten territory—licked her lips.

  She swallowed and shook her head. She opened her mouth and a strangled cry changed to a wheeze. Then she could speak.

  She said: “Llahal. You should know that—"

  Hirvin bellowed laugher. He threw the first belt down and the axe it carried clashed against the hard packed earth of the higher bank. He roared.

  “Polite, this one! Trained, I don't doubt! By Vox—Llahal to you, shishi, and play your part well, and—"

  “I am not—"

  “That's of no consequence.” His voice sharpened. “Hold her!"

  She moved her arms, in a particular way, and the two fellows grasping her were grasping thin air.

  The rapier cleared scabbard sweetly. The main gauche slapped up, crosswise, in her left hand.

  “You would do well to go your ways. You are swods, soldiers to be ordered. You are not brigands, murderers—"

  “We are swods and we've had no fun for days on end—"

  Hirvin saw something, something in the way the woman held the rapier and left-hand dagger, that made him rip his own sword free. It was a clanxer, a straight cut and thruster. He rushed, with a yell, aiming to smash past with superior weight and strength and knock the woman down with the flat.

  He struck. The woman was not there.

  But her rapier passed through his upper right arm.

  “Do not make me kill you,” she said.

  “Howling Hakkachak the Hungry!” he screeched. His left hand clamped around his arm, pressing, and still a dark blot of blood stained out over his fingers. “Get behind her, you fools! Grab her! By Vox, I won't be denied my pleasure from this beauty—"

  The first fellow to grab her, the one with the broken nose and the silly sly grin, fell back, staring stupidly at the dark wet line across his forearm. That was blood. He looked up, starting to yell, and Hirvin roared again.

  “You miserable stupid onkers! Get around her! Trip her up! By Vox, do I have to do everything myself!"

  The other two men climbed down from their totrixes hurriedly. They fanned out in the moonlight, circling the woman. She turned at once and ran toward the bank, ready to dive in and chance the jaws and claws of the river.

  She was amazed at her own weakness. A hand clamped on her arm, and a fist grabbed her brown hair. Her head was cruelly jerked back. A foot struck and knocked her legs from under her. She was aware of realizing that she did have her legs, and that was interesting, as she fell. They dragged her up to Hirvin.

  A knobby fist hauled on her hair, forcing her to lift her face. She stared up at the man who looked down on her, gloating. He gloated as much from pride that he had won, as for any anticipation of what he intended. The scar moved as he spoke.

  “You stuck your sword into my arm. Two can play that game."

  The others—dutifully—laughed at the sally.

  “Lial, do you go up to the hut and get things ready. Hot water and bandages."

  The fellow with the freckles and snub nose ran off at once. The woman was dragged up by her hair. They held her, hard and harsh, and they took the rapier, main gauche and sailor knife away.

  “A pretty thing like you oughtn't to play with men's weapons.” Then Hirvin roared out again, his good humor restored, the sting from the rapier thrust ebbing. His men guffawed, genuinely, and they dragged the woman with them along the bank.

  Their guard hut abruptly showed a light through the window as Lial struck flint and steel and caught the tump ready for the lamp. That was a cheap mineral oil lamp, and would no doubt stink all night. The place contained bunks for ten men, an audo, with a curtained alcove for the leader. The light showed his rank markings. Hirvin ranked as a ley-Deldar. The woman was pushed down on a bunk and the men stood back, staring at her.

  She sat up. Sly looks passed from swod to swod. Young Nal swallowed, visibly trembling.

  She said: “You are—"

  “Say nothing, shishi.” Hirvin held out his arm without looking as Lial bustled up with a cloth to wipe away the blood. “As soon as this little pink is bandaged, then you and I will try a fall or two, and not with Beng Drudoj, either."

  Chuckles sounded in the little hut. The mud brick walls were hung with cheap and garish cloths such as could be bought for a silver sinver in any bazaar. A cooking stove built into the wall stank of grease. The bunks draped grayish bedclothes, heaped like stranded and decaying fish. The lamp, inevitably, smoked.

  An arms rack, built of mud brick with some wood, held spears, stuxes, axes and short swords. The men, watching the woman, began to take off their weaponry. Outside sounded the clatter of hooves as the totrixes found their own way into their stalls.

  “Watch her!” snarled Hirvin, then winced as Lial slapped a steaming cloth onto his wound. “Careful, oaf!"

  The water stood ready on the stove, and it was clear the men were willing, very willing, to forgo their evening meal until afterward. Patrolling the river and the edge of the Ochre Limits was a miserable existence.

  When Lial finished bandaging Hirvin's arm, the Deldar took a breath, sniffed, drew in his stomach and flexed his arm experimentally. He looked at the woman.

  “Will you scratch? If you do you will have to be tied down."

  “I will do more than scratch—"

  Hirvin shouted.

  “Get the clothes off her! Tie her down! By Vox! No little shishi balks me—"

  She kicked the first one so that he turned green and rolled about the floor. The second only just missed having an eye removed. The third got a grip on her hair and then keened in agony as two fingers struck up his nostrils. The other two fell on her, bearing her down by wei
ght, and Hirvin simply leaped on top of the lot.

  The door of the hut opened and the growing night breeze blew dust across the floor. Hirvin, sliding forward and hitting his wounded arm a crack on the edge of the bunk, yelled.

  “Shut the door, Tandu, for the sake of Ben Dikkane! And keep that brat of yours outside if you don't want him to see man's work."

  He reared up and swung about as his comrades grasped the woman, holding her. Now she struggled unavailingly, lissom, supple, her brown hair aswirl.

  The four-armed man in the doorway said, curtly: “Stay outside, Dalki. See to the totrixes."

  Hirvin's momentary distraction as his wounded arm cracked against the bunk edge, and from shouting at the four-armed Djang, gave the woman a tiny moment in which to act. The two men holding her felt her movements and could not hold her. One wrung his hands as the wrists poured molten streams of pain up his arms, the other reeled back with blood spurting from his nose. The woman leaped up onto the bunk, panting, brown hair wild, and from the last of her assailants she snatched the fighting man's dagger. Heavy, unadorned, designed to be a gut-spiller, the dagger menaced the men in the hut.

  She looked a magnificent savage beast of the jungle, broken free of her chains, uncaged, no longer shackled for the delight of the passing trade.

  The Djang, Tandu, used his upper left hand to sweep the dust-covered cloak up over his shoulder, out of the way. His height overtopped all. His broad, ferocious, open Dwadjang features congested with blood. He stepped forward and knocked over a three-legged stool. He did not notice. He stared at the woman, poised on the bunk. She did not brandish the dagger; she held it as a person holds a weapon they know well how to use.

  Some of the swods were over the first shock of their injuries at the hands of the woman. They gathered themselves together, and stood up and wiped the blood away. They looked at their leader, at ley-Deldar Hirvin, and murderous intent disfigured their faces. They were mercenaries, hired for a mind-dulling task; they would not be balked of their prey.

  “She's only a woman!” yelled Hirvin. “She will not stop us with a dagger. Get behind her, throw a blanket over her, bear her down!"

  Young Nal, trembling, scampered around the end of the bunk and Lial and Long Naghan snatched up a blanket. Tandu, the Djang, stared at the woman.

  His hand, his upper right, whipped out one of his swords. His lower left drew a long dagger. He advanced, he did not shut the door as he had been ordered, and his boots scratched on the blown dust. His hip collided with the edge of the nearest bunk and dislodged a marching pack there, which fell and emptied its contents onto the dusty floor. He did not notice.

  He stared. His face, congested, broad, a furious ferocious frightening Djang countenance, empurpled.

  He shouted. He roared in such a voice as would bring the very stars out of the sky.

  “Do not touch her!” His lower right hand caught in Vogon the Amsant's hair, and jerked the bulky mercenary back. He thrust himself on, sword lifted, dagger snouting. He was visibly shaking with passion.

  “What nonsense is this?” screeched Hirvin.

  Tandu the Djang drew himself up. His sword swept in the ritual salute to the woman and then flickered out, a bar of lethal steel, to menace Hirvin.

  “You fool! This lady is my queen! The Queen of Djanduin!” The Djang sword darted for Hirvin's throat. “This is the Stromni of Valka! The Empress of Vallia! Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains!"

  * * *

  Chapter two

  The Djang Tandu and His Son Dalki Stand Watch

  Deldar Hirvin staggered back, away from that reaching Djang sword. His eyes opened wide. His mouth thinned into a bitter line. He spat his words when he found his voice.

  “The empress? What is that to us, now? If it is true, Tandu—"

  The Djang swirled his sword to encompass the others. Young Nal, behind the bunk, froze, ashen.

  “True? Aye, you nidges, it is true!"

  “Then,” said Hirvin, spittle slobbering, “then we are all dead men. What I say is so!” He twisted away from the point of the sword, gestured to his men. “It matters nothing to us, empress or queen. If she lives—we die!"

  “Down on your knees!” thundered Tandu. “Down on your faces in the full incline!"

  He knocked the bowl of water over from the table, and sent the table flying after it. He bloated with the enormity of his own rage, his harness straining under the immense swelling of his ribcage. He looked—he was!—frighteningly formidable.

  “Thank you, Tandu,” said Delia. She spoke levelly. She was in control of her breathing now, and fighting off the dreadful tiredness. She smiled.

  At that smile Tandu almost exploded.

  “Do we kill her first,” said Sly Oswalk, “or after?"

  Tandu roared his contempt.

  “First, nidges, you will have to slay me!"

  “That, Tandu the Onker, we will accomplish,” said Hirvin, and leaped.

  Delia threw the dagger.

  Heavy, simple, cruel, it passed clean through Hirvin's neck.

  His eyes crossed as he vainly attempted to focus on the steel transfixing his throat.

  “Hai!” bellowed Tandu, and then, remembering: “Dalki!"

  Swords snapped up, and before Hirvin, tottering, fell under their feet, the men were at handstrokes.

  It was a poor contest; when Dalki, a younger edition of Tandu, burst in raging, it was no contest at all.

  Sly Oswalk, alone, managed to slip through the open doorway and escape into the night.

  Tandu and Dalki were all for following and cutting him down without mercy.

  “Majestrix! He deserves to suffer in the deepest of Herrelldrin Hells, to wander screaming among the Ice Floes of Sicce forever!"

  “Aye,” said Delia. “Probably. But he snatched a bow before he left. I value you, Tandu, and your son Dalki, too much—"

  Tandu, stumbling over a corpse, had the sense to make no otiose reply.

  Delia sat herself down on the edge of a bunk. She put a hand to her hair, smoothing the wildness back. In that brown hair, caught and embellished by the lamplight, outrageous chestnut and auburn tints glowed. Tandu, breathing hard, beamed down on his queen.

  “I remember you, Tandu. Yes, I assuredly do. It is Tandu Khynlin Jondermair, is it not?"

  “Yes, majestrix, may Djan Kadjiryon have you in his keeping."

  “And you married one of our girls in Valka, I recall, when you came from Djanduin to train our young men to fly flutduins? Yes—Valli, I remember, beautiful Valli of the violet eyes. And Dalki is your son."

  Tandu breathed so that his bronze-studded harness creaked. “Valli died, majestrix. Slain by those Djan-forsaken cramphs of aragorn. When we fought in Valka."

  “I am sorry, Tandu. We have been through terrible times together."

  “That is true. But there is my son, Dalki—"

  As Dalki, shorter, and by a fraction less formidable than his father, bobbed his head in awed respect for this famous and indomitable woman—the Empress of Vallia! The Stromni of Valka!—it was clearly apparent that he had heard of Delia of Vallia, heard of her and shared his father's fanatical loyalty. Yet Dalki drew his harness over but two arms; he was not a true Dwadjang with four powerful fighting men's arms. He was a miscegenation; yet clear-eyed, strong-faced, proud and upright, a true son to his Djang father and Valkan mother.

  “Can we stay here tonight, Tandu? I am tired."

  Instantly, Dalki was at the bunks, picking up blankets, bashing straw-filled mattresses, hauling all the pillows about to find the finest.

  “You are hungry, majestrix, thirsty?"

  “I could drink the whole of the Sunset Sea, were it sweet water."

  “A meal! Dalki, a meal for the queen!"

  The mercenary frontier riders provided poor food; but the Djang and his half-Djang half-apim son rustled up the best. They brewed strong Kregan tea and heaped a pottery dish with the golden yellow paline berries. Delia sipped the te
a and chewed a paline as the meal was prepared. She leaned back against heaped pillows, and looked with her brown eyes level and curiously unimpassioned upon the scene. She had come through a bad ordeal. She had done so before. No doubt, in Opaz's good time, she would do so again.

  The corpses were thrown outside to be cleared away in the morning. Tandu and his son would not sleep all this night. Not, by Zodjuin of the Silver Stux, when their queen slept and they stood guard.

  Simple though the ingredients might be, the meal Dalki cooked up smelled delicious. It tasted very fine, also; although Delia would probably have chewed on passe biltong and sour water with her hunger. She did not consider it strange that the Djangs had not asked her why she was here, marching out of the Ochre Limits, instead of living in her great palaces—any of them—surrounded by luxury. They knew she was a woman well-used to the hard trails of life.

  That lack of curiosity on their part did not make her quench her own curiosity about them. When she had finished the meal, which she had insisted they share, she said: “Tell me, Tandu. You came to Valka to train young men to fly flutduins. You were an ord-Deldar, I believe. At any rate, you would soon have passed out of the Deldar grade to become a Hikdar commanding your own pastang. Why is it that you are here, riding guard on the Ochre Limits, chasing bandits for the Kov of Vindelka?"

  Tandu let his gaze linger briefly on his son. His broad, high-colored face suddenly took on lines Delia had not noticed before. Tandu looked, for an instant, sad.

  Then he said: “Because I married my Valli."

  Delia felt the shock.

  “In Valka? Where I am Stromni and my husband is strom? In our Valka?"

  “Aye, majestrix. In the Time of Troubles, when you were away fighting our enemies. A few people only, but enough."

  “My husband and I much mislike folk who do not look on all Creation as one. Djang, apim, we are all Opaz's creatures, all men and women under the hand of Djan."

  Softly, Dalki said: “You suffered under many enemies then, majestrix."

  His strong face, so like his father's and yet inlaid and softened by his apim ancestry, betrayed the awe and elation he felt at actually speaking to the Queen of Djanduin and the Empress of Vallia. Delia smiled.