“Ho! One for the coffle, this! A fine promising piece of merchandise.”
Seg moved as a leaping leem moves. Feral, deadly, merciless.
His fist struck twice.
The two Katakis slumped to the floor, unconscious.
“Now let us get out of here, and right now! Come on you two — and, Diomb, stow that dratted blowpipe!”
Pelting out from the stoop they hit the square and ran like crazy down the first of the mazy alleyways. Seg headed for the river.
“Where are we going?” Milsi panted it out, running with her head up, her hips going from side to side; but running fleetly and well.
“River. Find a boat. The rains — are due soon. Now, woman — run!”
The dinkus kept up with fleet agility. Seg held his pace down. He would not leave them, and he could not leave Milsi, who had caused all this aggravation.
The rains would come pelting down soon, casting a pall of water over everything and turning the mud into a quagmire. He wanted to be well away into the river by then.
The waterside presented an appearance of lazy apathy. Fisherfolk were not working at this time, knowing the rains were due. The busiest activity centered on a long narrow canoe-like craft where the Kataki slavers they had seen crossing the square were herding the coffle aboard.
Diomb settled the whole thing.
He skidded to a halt. His blowpipe twitched up.
“Dratted Katakis!” he said.
His cheeks puffed, the first dart sped.
Seg howled in frustration; but the damage was done.
He slapped up his bow, nocked an arrow, and Diomb had puffed a second dart. Two Katakis clapped hands to their necks above the rim of their harness, startled. They saw the pygmies, they started to jeer at them, and then they fell down.
Another took a clothyard shaft through his throat and a fourth yelped as a dart stung his lowering face.
He, too, fell down shortly thereafter.
The fifth and sixth were punched clean through by arrows. The seventh tried to run and, ironically, the dart took him in the fleshy root of his tail. He ran on and could not stop and tumbled headlong into the water.
A furious splashing followed, and the crunch of jaws.
Seg roared up to the canoe-like craft, known as a Schinkitree in these parts, and stared down on the slaves.
“Who is willing to paddle to freedom with me?”
“I!” and “I!”
“All right. You—” pointing at the Och, “find the keys. You—” with a fierce stab at the Chulik,“chuck the dratted Katakis into the river when we have the keys! Bratch!”
At that command the slaves bratched. They jumped.
The key was found, the clever fingers of the little Och released the first of the slaves on the chain, the Chulik, after a dour look at Seg, started hurling the Katakis into the river. Jaws crunched.
“Get aboard, all!” called Seg. “Hurry!”
The two dinkus even in this extremity of urgency assisted Milsi aboard, waiting for her. She went into the Schinkitree with a regal step that looked most becoming. Seg pushed off. He stared back across the waterside to the first of the wooden houses.
From the ragged alleyway men were running out, apims, Katakis, Rapas, all yelling and waving weapons.
He did not bother to shaft them. There had been no time to cut out his arrows, and he did not wish to waste any more. The boat was off from the riverside, surging out into midstream as the freed slaves took up the paddles and dug deep.
Then the rain slashed down.
A solid curtain of water hid the bank and the forest and the township.
The Chulik roared out: “By Likshu the Treacherous! I am free again! Downstream. Paddle downstream.
We will make Mattamlad at the mouth of the river. I have friends there—”
Seg chopped him off brutally.
“I am in command here, Chulik. We paddle upstream. That is without question.”
His bow, arrow nocked, aimed at the Chulik’s breast.
“Apim yetch! I am Nath Chandarl! Nath the Dorvenhork!”
“That is as it may be. But, by the Veiled Froyvil, dom, we paddle upstream — unless you wish to become flint-fodder.”
The Chulik started. He stared from those narrow eyes at Seg, saw the bow, heard what he said. He lowered his fist.
“You are a Bowman of Loh?”
“Yes.”
“In that case—”
“Look, dom. They will expect us to paddle downstream. That is where they will search. We have a goodly craft, strong paddlers. We go upstream and they’ll never find us. Later, when we have made our fortunes, we may return downstream and you can rejoin your friends.”
“That does, by Likshu the Treacherous, make sense, apim.”
The current, lazy though it might still be here, was carrying them downstream. Seg, without taking his gaze or the aim of the shaft from the Chulik, Nath the Dorvenhork, said with a harsh emphasis: “Paddle, doms. Paddle upstream and let us lose ourselves in the rain.”
“Yes,” shrilled the Och, wildly. “As sure as my name is Umtig the Lock, the apim speaks sooth!”
Once more the paddles bit. This time the boat turned and headed upstream. The paddlers, slaves only moments before, drew their blades through the brown water with strong and determined sweeps. They had been slave; now they were free. Not one of them would voluntarily return to slavery. They would paddle and paddle, strive and battle, to avoid that ghastly fate.
Slowly, Seg lowered his bow. This Chulik, by his sobriquet of Dorvenhork, was a bowman also. With Seg’s movement from the stern of the Schinkitree the Chulik relaxed. Merciless, ruthless, like all his race, he had recognized another master bowman, and, also, seen the wisdom of the decision to paddle upstream. He took up a paddle and joined in the rhythmic swing and stroke of the other ex-slaves.
In the stern, with Milsi, Diomb and Bamba, Seg surveyed his new command. They were veiled in the gray and silver rain. The brown river gurgled past below.
Whatever the future might hold, they were on their way to it right now...
Chapter seven
Stranded
A sennight later and well up the river the fugitives found it expedient to make a camp for a few days on one of the islands dotting the Kazzchun River hereabouts. The river rolled along, redolent of brown mud and damp growing things, choked with wildfowl, the mudflats always shimmering with the flash of wings.
The denizens of the water fought and thrived, and, all in all, there was food a plenty.
The histories of the freed slaves were interesting and shared a common thread. Folk who are born to slavery are born to slavery, as the saying went. Others, caught in petty crimes, found themselves chained and trudging along in the coffle, punished enough and more for their sins.
The little Och, Umtig the Lock, more than once exclaimed when he spoke: “By Diproo the Nimble-Fingered!” By this men knew him to be a thief.
The Chulik had formed an odd kind of respect for Seg. He had asked to inspect the Lohvian longbow, and made a stupid mewling whistle of admiration as he bent it.
“I am used to the dorven bow, the crossbow, or even the weak flat bow; this round longbow is indeed a marvel.”
Seg had never had much time for Chuliks. Raised from birth as they were to be mercenaries, and highly paid ones at that, they knew little of humanity. They were ruthless in their exactment of debts. But, in these latter days, he found that human converse was possible with specimens of the race. He simply handled each eventuality as it arose, and felt distinct relief that Nath the Dorvenhork had desisted from that first desire to shaft him.
Diomb brought up an interesting question, that made Seg roar with laughter, and then sober, and then —
lamely — try to explain.
“You stole this boat, Seg. You are a thief. They will cut off your hands, and your head—”
“They have to catch me first.”
“Yes — but, you said—”
“I know, Diomb, and mark me! What I said was right. But you saw the situation. All honest men abhor Katakis as slavers, even though they condone slavery. Katakis are anti-human in a way that—” Here Seg looked around the campsite on the river island. The Chulik was nowhere in sight. “In a way even that Chuliks are not. But I do not seek to pretend I did not steal the boat or that stealing is a crime. Just, that—”
“Thievery is an honest profession like any other!” protested the Och, Umtig the Lock, most heated.
“There are degrees, dom, and well you know it.”
They wrangled amicably for a space, and then Seg said to Umtig: “And mind you do not lead Diomb into bad habits, you rogue. I cherish your outlook in some things, not all.”
The traffic on the river thinned past the last town through which they had paddled at dead of night. Local produce traveled up and down, and the massive rafts carried stone and building materials to the south, as the slender schinkitrees carried wood upstream to the great plains.
“Let us paddle out and seize one of these craft laden with treasure, slit all their throats, and take the gold!” counseled a hulking great apim called Ortyg the Undlefar.
“We are not pirates, not renders!” said Seg, shocked at the uncouthness of it all.
“Why not? We have a boat, we have fighting men, we have—”
“And we have no weapons, apart from those of the four who rescued us,” said a Fristle, Naghan the Slippy.
“We descend on them unheard and unseen! We will soon have weapons!” Ortyg the Undlefar showed his contempt for those who did not understand the render’s trade.
A Sybli, a girl with the delectable body of a mature woman and the face of an innocent child in the way of her race of diffs, spoke up. “I would like to go home.”
Others took up this call. A lath-thin apim, known as Hundle the Design, said: “I agree we would like to go home. But I, for one, would prefer to return with a pocket full of gold. But, doms, I would not like to gain the gold through piracy or thievery.”
A Khibil whose haughty, fox-featured face showed that, like all Khibils, he considered himself a cut above everyone else — known as Khardun the Franch — said in his lofty way: “I am a hyr-paktun. Let us find a great lord and hire out our services as fighting men. We will soon make our fortunes.”
A mild-mannered Relt stylor, Caphlander the Quill, ventured to say that not all present had the skills of mercenary fighting men, paktuns.
Seg felt the twinge hearing that name. There had been just such a mild-mannered Relt when he’d first met his old dom, far and far away from here, and that Relt’s name had been Caphlander. Relts were distant cousins of the ferocious Rapas, and usually they were employed as domestics, stylors, clerical help, accountants.
“We stick together,” Seg declared. “We are going to reach the town of Mewsansmot. After that, with full bellies, you may go your own separate ways. There may also be gold in it, too.” He cocked a cautious eye at Milsi.
She took the point at once.
“I believe there will be gold for all of you if you help to bring us safely to Mewsansmot.”
The only serious opposition to this plan came from the hulking apim, Ortyg the Undlefar. Seg told him that he was at perfect liberty to leave the party. He would be put onto the riverbank of his choosing and from thence go where he willed. Ortyg chilled considerably in his own plans and oppositions to others after that.
The plain fact was that these one-time slaves had been taken up for a variety of reasons. Ortyg, now, was a real villain. The beautiful Sybli was a slave because members of her race were usually slaves. She had been there to be sold to a new master. Some were petty criminals, some were debtors, some had been snatched from their homes.
Seg sorted them out in his mind, allotting them places in his table of possible uses.
He took the opportunity to have a word with the Khibil, Khardun the Franch.
“I salute you, Khardun, as a hyrpaktun. How is it, if you care to tell me, that you became slave?”
Seg knew how to handle Khibils. So long as they believed they were the greatest, then things ran smoothly.
“How I became slave, dom? I will tell you. I am a hyrpaktun, I am a mercenary who hires out only for top rates, who commands, who orders. I served King Crox well. I had a detachment to take downriver, and this I did. When I returned, the king had gone to some heathenish place called the Coup Blag. The lady Mab, who was married to him in a ceremony, so I am told, of the utmost shortness, followed. The Kov Llipton—”
“Ah!” said Seg. “Now I have heard of him. He is the regent, is he not, and rules in the king’s place?”
“That is so. I do not know how I offended him. But whatever I did, it was wrong, and I was stripped, my pakzhan taken from me, my sword broken, and I was shipped out as slave.” Here the Khibil’s savage and resentful look did not surprise Seg. The pakzhan, a golden head of a zhantil, perhaps the most splendid of all Kregen’s wild animals that he knew of, strung on a silken thread and looped in a top buttonhole or over a shoulder knot, was the highest award conferred by hyrpaktuns upon members of their trade. It was hard to come by. A pakzhan glittering gold at the throat of a hyrpaktun marked him as a soldier of fortune of the highest renown.
Seg did not think it opportune to mention that he, too, had won the pakzhan and was a hyrpaktun. He had been a noble lord long enough for his more reckless days as a mercenary warrior to recede into the past for him.
“Tell me of Kov Llipton.”
“He is like any other great lord, I suppose. He runs the country now. I think that he was mightily displeased that Queen Mab followed the king to the Coup Blag.”
Ah! said Seg to himself. That did not take a deal of worming out. If this Llipton fellow wanted to be king, and King Crox dead, then he’d have to marry the queen.
“You saw Queen Mab?”
“No. She came from Jholaix—”
“From Jholaix!”
“Aye, Seg. She brought a dowry of wine so splendid that, well, I swear it was enough to make all of the kingdom drunk for three seasons.”
“And no hangovers.”
“No. Never! Not with the wines of Jholaix!”
They paddled upriver. No one of the passing craft offered to molest them. Milsi judged that pursuit had, indeed, hared off downriver.
Diomb came up to Seg as they paddled past one of the many islands dotting the broad river here, and said: “I am astonished by what that girl, the Sybli Malindi, says. She wants to go home. That is understandable. But, by Clomb of the Ompion Never-Miss! If she does that she will be slave again. That is what home means to her.”
“There are different sorts of slaves, Diomb. Oh, some folk who keep slaves treat them well, almost as part of the family. Syblies and Relts aspire to that condition. It is in the fields, the mines, the terrible places where men and women work until they drop, that slavery at its worst may be found.”
“And, another thing. There are mercenaries, paktuns, among us. They take — money — from other people to fight for them. That is, indeed, most strange.”
Seg laughed.
“If I do not like fighting and do not wish to risk my precious skin in a battle, then I will pay someone else to go out and fight for me. It is simple.”
“Well, I suppose so. But all mercenaries are not paktuns—”
“No. A paktun is a mercenary who has gained some fame. A hyrpaktun is a most famous paktun. Yet lots of mercenaries are dubbed paktuns these days. The custom is new. Just about only the young ones, the coys, are not called paktuns in general usage these days.”
“Well,” said Diomb. “I think that if I have to work to gain this money, then I will be a paktun.”
Seg was not surprised.
“You could. You would do well with your dratted blowpipe — your ompion. That would tickle ’em up on a battlefield, by the Veiled Froyvil, yes!”
The Chulik, Nath the Dorvenhork, in the general way of Chuliks, did not l
augh or smile when he made his comment. But for a Chulik it was revealing enough.
“I agree. The little fellow would earn his hire!”
There was, Seg could see, a strange kind of brotherhood developing between the exponents of missile weapons.
He’d always been a feckless sort of scamp and so he’d never thought overmuch of the way he ought to treat diffs. Diffs were diffs; that was all there was to it. In these later seasons he had seen a deal of the world and had picked up new ways of handling exceptional members of odd races. But he’d never bothered his head much over Chuliks; they went their cold, mercenary way, and he went his.
Still, if the Dorvenhork wanted to secure allies, that would be no bad thing.
The political map had changed with the coming of age of King Crox, and he now controlled the length of the river from past Mewsansmot in the north to a new shanty town he’d erected ten or so dwaburs from the coast. King Crox did not control the mouth of the river and Mattamlad. But, then, it was highly unlikely that King Crox controlled anything at all in the fabulous world of Kregen, being no doubt stuffed down in the intestines of some horrendous monster in the maze of the Coup Blag.
A little Ift, Twober the So, went past with a long look at Seg’s bow. Twober’s ears stuck up in two shapely points almost past the crown of his head. His eyebrows slanted up, and his eyes slanted up.
Woodsfolk, the Ifts, not jungle folk, and Twober had wandered down here to South Pandahem from his home over the massive central mountains in North Pandahem.
Various plans were discussed by groups of the escaped slaves. All well understood their peril, and the punishments that would be their lot if they were recaptured. Any slave-owning society is hard on runaways.
Ortyg the Undlefar, although chastened, kept on a monotonous series of suggestions. All boiled down to paddling out and capturing a rich merchant raft, boat or Schinkitree, massacring all the occupants, and disappearing with the gold and jewels.
The evening light, all a glorious mingling of jade and ruby, threw mazy shadows upon the sliding water.
Seg the Bowman Page 7