Prince of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #5]

by Alan Burt Akers

  The Emperor watched all this. I was sane enough to realize that he was cunning enough to use men when it suited him; he had seen me fighting and wouldn't arrest me—or make the attempt, Zair rot him!—while I was useful to him. That's how he had remained Emperor so long. I caught a whiff of perfume, a sweet, gagging stench, completely out of place in those surroundings. Across the clearing raced foemen to attack us. I looked quickly down and there, wedged into a crevice between rocks, crouched a man. He was sumptuously dressed, with a great deal of lace, silk, and golden ornaments. He wore a rapier. He smelled like a barber's shop. I caught him by the collar and hauled him out.

  “Get up and fight, you cramph!"

  “No! No—I am no fighting-man!"

  Once a Kregan reaches maturity he appears to age very little until the last years of his life, perhaps a few white hairs when he is a hundred and fifty or so; but I fancied this man was considerably older than my comrades. I kicked him.

  “You fight, dom! You fight for your Emperor!"

  An Undurker arrow whistled between us and clanged against the rock. He screeched. His face was covered in sweat. It sheened under She of the Veils like pink icing.

  “Fight, cramph!"

  He staggered up then, his face contorted into a look compounded of fear and hatred, pride and anger. For a second I thought he would take his place in the line of men and halflings now furiously battling with the waves of attackers as they sought to smash past the pitiful barrier of rocks. Then he crumpled and twisted away. In the wash of light I saw the colors, made meaningless by the pink moons’ light, but the emblem was unmistakable. It was a great butterfly so I knew those colors were gold and black.

  “I do not want to die!” he moaned now, all the hatred and anger gone, and the pride slipping until only fear was left.

  “We've all got to die some time, you calsany! Better in a great fight than rotten with disease in a bed! Draw your sword! Fight!"

  Some of the last vestiges of habitual unthinking pride clung to him and he looked up at me, a white face, delicate, weak, foolish. “Do you not know who I am, kleesh! I am Vektor, Kov of Aduimbrev! I do not take orders from a mere Strom."

  I looked at him, and the Emperor moved his hand. Pallan Rodway and the High Kov of Erstveheim, two old men and therefore not required in the fighting line, lifted Vektor by the armpits and took him away. I glared sullenly at the Emperor.

  “That is Vektor of Aduimbrev! That is the thing you wish to marry your daughter!"

  And then I laughed. I roared out a great coarse insulting gutter-bred laugh.

  “You thought to rule him when he was married, keep him from getting in your hair! I despise you, Emperor Majister! You sought to soil your daughter by marrying her to a thing like that to serve your own dark and evil ways.” And then, because a wash of Chuliks poured in over the wall, such as it was, I pushed him aside. “Get yourself under cover or you will be killed."

  An Undurker arrow arched in over the ruins and dropped full for the Emperor's chest. My rapier nicked out, cleanly as we Krozairs of Zy know how, and chopped the arrow away.

  “Go on, you old fool Majister!” I roared. “I've a battle to fight and you're getting under my feet!"

  The Emperor stared at me with eyes in which an agony had been born. Vomanus ran up. His sword dripped blood.

  “They're through on the other side!"

  “Thank the Emperor for that and the onker Vektor. They detained me when I should have been fighting. Get everyone back to the central tower, Vomanus. Move!"

  He ran off and then the smash of Chuliks reached me and I had to skip and jump, slash and thrust, very busily for a space. I left the Chuliks stretched upon the dusty rocks and ran back. I could see the heads of the Bowmen of Loh in the ruined tower, but they were not loosing their deadly shafts.

  We had expended all our arrows.

  The smaller arrows of the Undurkers were not of great use, but some of the Bowmen, who boasted they could loose a leg of ponsho and hit the chunkrah's eye, let fly and brought down their men. Inside the tower I paused to take stock.

  We had lost a lot of men. We were down to twenty-four Bowmen, and sixteen halfling mercenaries. Out there, Furtway, although he had lost large numbers, must still have three or four hundred to hurl against us. And without arrows we were in parlous state.

  “Rocks!” I roared. “We will throw rocks down on them and break their skulls!"

  “Aye!” shouted Seg Segutorio. “They haven't a chance!"

  The men reacted to that. Now they had faced the reality of the situation they knew they must fight on. One reality was, of course, that they had seen me thrust a Fristle through the body when he had attempted to run out toward our foemen, his hands empty and high over his head. That had not been murder. That had been execution of a traitor. I hated it, but it was done in the heat of battle, when the blood sang, when that dreadful and despised red curtain of which I have spoken drops before the eyes, and a man who is a man must struggle to reach past it. The other reality was less starkly brutal; much more of the mores of Kregen. They would earn their pay, these hireling soldiers. They had no complaints now about food and drink, for they sensed they might not live long enough to want.

  The Emperor approached me again. “Strom Drak, I would like to speak with you—"

  “Not now, Majister. I'm busy. If you've a problem, see Vomanus, or Seg Segutorio."

  I spun away and roared vilely at two Chuliks who, in their eagerness to procure rocks for skull-crushing, were prizing loose a stone that would have brought down the upper corner ruins. As we sorted out that, I looked over the jagged masonry wall and saw quite clearly the quick energetic figures of Furtway's men advancing. So Zim and Genodras had risen. So it was daylight.

  “All the better for us to see them!” I roared. “They'll be sorry they messed with us!"

  We met the enemy as they advanced with a shower of rocks. Men fell, to join the piles of other bodies feathered with the long Lohvian arrows. But they pressed on. I looked for Furtway, Jenbar, and Larghos.

  Some new dynamic had been injected into the attack. They came on with a firm tread, ignoring their casualties, and so burst into the foot of the tower. I had ordered everyone aloft on the single rickety platform remaining. From this we hurled down rocks. Arrows sought us. Every now and then a Bowman or a halfling would clutch himself, looking stupidly at the arrow in him, and then pitch forward to crash to the stones beneath. Around then I realized—and despaired as far as ever I allow myself to despair—that the men with me believed all was lost. They did not think we would live through this.

  The Emperor with his nobles had been perched right at the top in the highest of the three angled corners remaining. I prowled the canted platform below, urging my men to conserve their rocks and to hurl only when a foeman attempted too boldly to climb. I had brought us into an impasse. This was not my way of fighting. I couldn't get at those rasts down there.

  There were few enough of us left now for a breakout to be a possibility. It was our only chance to save the Emperor and his men. I had to make that attempt to save him now. For my Delia's sake.

  I went up and told him.

  He looked at me, and a look on his face I could not fathom made me return it with as ugly a glare as any I have bestowed on an unfortunate in my life.

  “We stand a good chance now, Majister, and we will leave no one behind except the wounded who cannot run. And,” I added bitterly, “they are mostly below, poor devils, well on their way to the Ice Floes of Sicce."

  The Emperor said, “You are a wild and strange man, Drak. I thought this even when I heard of your exploits on Valka, when I signed your patent of nobility.” He pulled and pushed a ring on his middle left finger. “Well, Strom Drak. If you save me alive from here, I will do more than make you a Strom, or a Vad, or a Kov. You will be fit to be called Prince Majister of Vallia."

  “You'll have to tie up your garments,” I said. “And take a good grip on my tunic, and belt. If you
let go I can't save you. I shall need both hands for climbing."

  “Did you hear what I said?"

  “Yes. No time now. Titles mean nothing to me. Your life, Majister, means only something you wouldn't understand."

  Vomanus came over and reported a stir below. I looked down.

  Trylon Larghos was there, full of life and good cheer, beaming up, confident of victory.

  “Let me speak to the Emperor!"

  I hurled a rock at him and, stupidly, missed, for he jumped aside. The rock splintered and a chip struck him in the eye, and screeching and spouting blood over his hands as he clasped his face, he collapsed. I went up again.

  “Now is the time, Majister.” He was ready. Vomanus and Seg assisted the other old men. We went to the back of the tower and squeezed through the lower windows. Opposite us the forest of petrified bones glittered in the mingled opaz light. We began that climb down the walls. The Emperor hung on my back a dead weight. I watched a Fristle let go and scream his way to the ground, landing in a red puddle, and I cursed the fool for betraying what we were doing.

  We slid, slipped, and scraped our way down. In the song that has been made of the fight at The Dragon's Bones, the tempo becomes mocking here, talking of the loss of skin, the sweat in our eyes, the ripped fingernails, and the blood-streaks down the ruined walls. But that is the Kregan way. They often mock where their emotions run deep.

  We reached the floor of the clearing and at once we started for the bones opposite.

  I thought we would make it.

  “Go on, Majister! I will take the rear—just in case."

  They ran on, a clump of old men, halflings, and Bowmen. I found Seg at my side, and Vomanus at the other. All our weapons were caked with blood. I spoke viciously.

  “Go on, you two! Stick with the Emperor."

  Vomanus said, “You have been giving us orders very freely, Dray. Now, I think, we will disobey you."

  Seg said, “You go with the Emperor, Dray, if you like."

  Comrades.

  We would do it. We were almost there.

  A great swirling flood of mercenaries burst around the shattered corner of the tower and raced across the dust toward us. Many races and species were there, all thirsting for our blood. I could hear their shrill shrieks of triumph.

  “Run, Majister!” I roared. “Run, by Vox, run for the sake of your daughter."

  He half turned to look back, and I waved my rapier at him and yelled: “I didn't come here to rescue you! But you're rescued now! Get in among the bones and you're safe! Run!"

  Then we three, Seg, Vomanus, and I, turned to face the death running so swiftly upon us.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Delia

  A great song has been made of the fight at The Dragon's Bones, but I will not give you its title. It runs to a mere seventy-eight stanzas, but every one is turned and polished like a gemstone, and when I hear it the blood thumps and thrills through my veins. Perhaps, at least to me, there is no finer passage than that which follows. But I, speaking in English, can only tell you in my plain sailorman's prose what happened. You must dream of the wonder-images, the defeat and triumph, the despair and hope, the smell of blood and sweat, the slick taste of dust, the feel of a rapier hilt hard in the fingers, the main-gauche gripped in the left fist; hear the devilish shrieks and yells of the wounded and maimed, the screams of the dying. You must blend all this into a mighty uproar in the brain.

  We fought.

  Vomanus was a fine rapier man, as I knew. Seg Segutorio was the finest archer in two worlds. Yet we would not have lasted more than a few murs, but for the wonder.

  How to tell you of that moment?

  We heard yells, surprised shouts, and the press upon us slackened. We could gulp for air, wipe the sweat from our foreheads, and look about. We were all wounded, but we lived. We looked about, we looked up—oh, the wonder, the wonder of it!

  The sky filled with airboats.

  They slanted down from the east, so that I guessed Inch must have swung his fleet from the Blue Mountains around. And in that I was wrong. Gloriously wrong!

  The fliers landed in the clearing and men poured out.

  Such men!

  I didn't believe it then. I just stood there, my mouth open, my rapier and dagger hanging limply, and any onker of a rast could have run me through as I gaped.

  The very first man to hit the dusty rock of the clearing wore russet leathers, tasseled and fringed, with cunning pieces of armor strapped where they would protect the most. He wore a helmet, but I knew his hair was fair and bleached by the Suns of Antares. He swung an ax, double-bitted and daggered with six niches of flat-bladed steel. Belted at his side swung a great broadsword and a deadly shortsword. Over his back he carried, ready strung, a short reflex compound bow.

  Hap Loder!

  Running swiftly with him was a ferocious being all dun-colored hide and bristly bullet-head, massive shoulders, and short sinewy legs, clad in as brilliant a scarlet breech-clout as you will find on Kregen. He wore parts of armor, too, and carried a rapier and main-gauche. I smiled, guessing he had been taking lessons.

  Gloag!

  With these two ran a young man clad all in powder blue, with an elegant and handsome appearance, his bronzed face keen and his black eyes alert. He wore cropped hair beneath his steel cap. He handled his rapier and main-gauche with superb authority, a true bravo-fighter of Zenicce.

  Varden! Prince Varden Wanek of the House of Eward!

  Following on rushed a great crowd of men clad in the russet leathers of my clansmen, the brave scarlet of Strombor, the powder blue of Eward—and there were even a few bravos wearing the silver and black of the Reinmans, and the crimson and gold of the Wickens.

  I saw those old familiar faces—Loku, Rov Kovno, Ark Atvar, fierce merciless clansmen sworn in obi brotherhood to me. And—and by Diproo the Nimble-fingered! There ran Nath the Thief, dressed up in clansmen's russets and the scarlet of Strombor, with an empty lesten-hide bag flapping at his side ready to be filled with the loot his nimble fingers could close on!

  How I stared!

  My men—my ferocious Clansmen of Felschraung with their horrendous axes and broadswords, and my bravo-fighters of Strombor! I had not seen them for long and long; but they had not forgotten me, for as they smashed like a solid wall of iron and steel into the panic-stricken mob of Furtway's mercenaries, they were yelling and roaring it out: “Hai! Jikai! Dray Prescot! Jikai!"

  My clansmen roared in a deep rolling thunder of noise: “Hai! Zorcander! Hai! Vovedeer!” With the last they exaggerated, as they always did.

  My men of Strombor roared in a high fierce screeching: “Hai! Strombor! Strombor!"

  Furtway's men had little chance—hell!—they had no chance at all!

  My clansmen, the most ferocious and brave warriors in all Kregen, simply smashed over the rapiers and daggers like a single wave blots out a fragile bridge. A few Undurkers let fly with their arrows, and from the rear ranks of the clansmen rose a sheeting storm from the cruel reflex bone and horn bows, and the Undurkers fled. They had recognized clansmen, and however impossible it was for clansmen to be here in the heart of Vallia—they were here, in iron and steel and blood!

  The axes rose and fell. The great broadswords scythed. The shortswords stabbed, in and out, very deadly.

  Then Vomanus, who had been staring with the eyes goggling in his head, shouted and pointed.

  A second aerial armada settled down in the space cleared of dinosaur bones. The first man out was Inch, waving his huge Saxon-pattern ax, roaring into action to chop at an angle into the crazed mob of Furtway's mercenaries. I did not see the Kov Furtway, or his nephew Jenbar, or the wounded Trylon Larghos, but word was brought to me they had managed to escape. And I was willing they should go, for the score between us lay on a personal basis. Much more important, though, was the fact that the Star Lords wanted Furtway alive for their own schemes. I had been prepared to balk them and see the man sl
ain for what he had tried to do, but I own I felt a certain relief, a cowardly relief, if you will, that the Star Lords would not have reason to toss me back to Earth.

  Following Inch and his Saxon ax raced Korf Aighos at the head of the Blue Mountain Boys. I saw the way many swung the great sword of war of the Blue Mountains, even Ob-eye, and the flash and glitter from sharp-honed edges before they stained a more sinister hue.

  After that it was all over. Then—I did shout.

  “Majister! You may come out of the bones, now. You are safe."

  He crawled out. He tried to arrange his robes, but they were torn and bedraggled. The sacred emblem strung around his neck winked blindingly in a flash of gold as he lifted his head. He did not look frightened, of that he cannot stand accused. But there was about him an air of shrunken pride and tawdry magnificence, the arrogance shredded away to a reality he had never had to face before. He walked slowly toward me followed by his retinue of old men. Among them I could not see Kov Vektor.

  And then, for me at least, came the greatest wonder of all.

  My men had fashioned a litter of dinosaur bones and over it flung a great scarlet silk, very grand in the suns-light. Golden cushions bestrewed the scarlet silk. They had lifted the litter high, proudly. Reclining there, warm and vibrant and altogether magnificent against the gold and scarlet, holding in her left hand the staff of Old Superb, my old flag with the yellow cross on the red field—Delia!

  They carried her, those men of mine, they carried her proudly as befitted a princess. And no princess in two worlds ever had so proud or gallant a party so to carry her. My men! They carried my Princess in triumph before me, and over all waved the old flag of mine, Old Superb, as men called that flag, waving in the streaming mingled light from the twin Suns of Scorpio.