Scorpio Reborn [Dray Prescot #38]

by Alan Burt Akers

  I was in Loh.

  Loh, shaped somewhat like a Stone Age hand-axe, point to the north, is one of the continents of Paz and contains mountains, rivers, jungles and deserts just like any self-respecting continent. I could only hazard the guess I was in the south, for the central sections form the jungles of Chem and the northern pointed promontory forms the land of Erthyrdrin. That made me think of my blade comrade, Seg Segutorio, and long for him to be here where in no time his cutting wit would have me up on my feet foaming—and we'd have a wager on it, too! And, too, across to the east lay the land of Ng'groga and naturally that made me think of my blade comrade Inch whose tallness and thinness and lethal axe had figured in many a bonny adventure.

  By the direction of travel of the twin suns across the sky I knew I was in the southern hemisphere of Kregen. Well, as soon as this confounded paralysis wore off I'd make my way back home. There was still a kite to fly with young Inky.

  That little thought gave me pause. I marveled. Here I could dream of returning home to fly a kite when only a few seasons ago all the cares of the Empire of Vallia crushed down on my shoulders. My Delia, the divine Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, had shared that burden with me and now we were both free of it. Drak and Silda had taken over, now they were Emperor and Empress of Vallia—and good luck to ‘em!

  At the moment Delia was off on one of her secret and hair-raising missions for the Sisters of the Rose. Even if I could return to Valka this very minute, as ever was, Delia would not be there.

  “Sink me!” I burst out; but silently, mentally, hotly. “We've got to come to an understanding with Delia and her Sisters of the Rose.” But I knew dismally enough that the Star Lords would whisk me off at any time, just as Delia went off with the SoR.

  Information of any kind was hard to come by as I lay in that creaking torture-machine of a cart. From odd snippets of conversation I drew the firm conclusion that most of these folk were more religious in outlook than many of the people I had known. They referred constantly to Tsung-Tan in tones of respect, awe and affection and not in the usually Kregen way of a mouth filling oath or three. I overheard one quietly serious conversation in which the speakers sought to establish whether or no the theatres in paradise would close on Tsung-Tan's day, as they did here on Kregen. This paradise presided over by Tsung-Tan clearly was vividly real to these folk. They called their paradise Gilium.

  On a day when a tiny cloudlet appeared in the sky early on, to vanish the moment the day's heat began to build, the cart jolted to a stop. I heard someone yelling and someone else screaming. The cart started up again and now it jounced and bounced and threw me about. I could hear the rattling patter of hooves, and more shouting, and smell dust flying up. I could visualize the caravan as rushing along in panic.

  A trumpet brayed, hard and brassy, and a thin silver echo sounded some way off. Like a magician's stage trick, abruptly and without warning, a long arrow sprouted from the timber side of the cart directly before my eyes.

  The shaft must have shaved over my body. The trajectory was flat. So the bandits were close, then. I could only lie there. All too soon the sound of tinker-hammering broke along the caravan as guards and bandits clashed. I could see it all in my mind's eye. But, as the caravan was attacked and the guards slain, I, Dray Prescot, simply lay idly on my back.

  With a great roaring and splintering the cart threw itself over on its side. Helplessly, all atangle, I was flung out.

  The ground smacked me across the face. Half on my side, sprawled, my arms outflung and my legs twisted, I lay there and I know I looked like a corpse.

  My eyelids were half lowered and I could see slantingly upwards.

  Hoofbeats hammered past. Dust drifted across. The last few shrieks scythed the hot air and the raw tang of blood mingled with the taste of dust.

  And I just lay there.

  If only I could move! If I could get to my feet, snatch up a sword, fling myself on these drikingers, these murdering thieves preying on the caravans! My right arm outflung was turned at the elbow and I could see my right hand. The fingers lay like that fabled bunch of bananas, limp and useless. If I could just move!

  Intermittent noises spurted up as the bandits ransacked the caravan. My humble cart, broken as it was at my back, attracted scant attention. I expected the drikingers to take all the water they could lay hands on.

  At length, eight tall spindly legs daintily moving up and down, moved into my vision. Two long spirally twisted horns appeared and then the owners of the legs and horns. Two fine blood zorcas, moving with all the lissom grace of that superb saddle animal, halted before me. Their riders were so different from their mounts as to form a blasphemy under the suns.

  Yes, their faces were fierce and predatory. Yes, their lips curled with arrogant contempt. And, yes, the veneer of humanity and civilization had been stripped from them. But these are things one expects if one follows the drikinger's trade. Bandits are not nice people. They sat their superb zorcas staring down at the smashed cart at my back and at me, a corpse sprawled in the dust. One lifted his bow and drew the string back. The steel point, a broad flesh-cutter, pointed directly at me.

  He smiled, black beard glistening with sweat. I could see one eye along the shaft, baleful, hard. For sport, he was going to skewer me.

  “He's a gonner, Naghan,” shouted his companion. “Don't waste a good shaft on the cramph's corpse."

  The bow string relaxed as this Naghan decided not to waste a shaft. In a heartbeat he could draw and loose and bury that steel head in my heart.

  In that tense moment of waiting for his decision I saw a sight that filled me with two opposite emotions. I gleed with a fierce joy and I shook with a shattering horror.

  Directly before my eyes my little finger was twitching, was moving, was curling in as the savage impulses to move at last stirred.

  I could not stop that little finger moving and I could not move any other portion of my body.

  If this rast saw my little finger moving he'd as lief shoot it off as a target shot, and then perhaps slit my throat with his knife.

  That little finger curled like a piglet's tail.

  “This caravan,” Naghan the Bandit said. He lowered the bow. “Not well guarded, Kwang. And why?"

  Kwang said: “How should I know, by Lokush the Chuns? We've lost more shafts than we've gained. That I do know."

  “Yes. You are right—for once."

  “Hai! Have a care lest I lose a shaft in your miserable hide!"

  Waiting, head in the dust, eyes half closed, I could feel many sensations—sweat trickling, the awkwardness of my position, the ground pressing hard and unyielding into my hip and back—yet the chief sensation was one of complete helplessness. That betraying little finger curled and stopped and these two zorca riders, Naghan and Kwang, swiveled their mounts and moved off. I knew I'd passed perilously close to the entrance doors to the Ice Floes of Sicce then. The experience was unpleasant—unpleasant!

  I do not wish to experience too many like that, I can tell you.

  Mevancy had taken my belt away and hung it on the bedpost. That belt held my Kregan belongings; besides the pouches it also held my rapier and main gauche. That belt was missing from the bedpost.

  Useless to rage and fume. The thing was gone; so it was gone and one with Beng Dithermon the Gatherer. So I lay there in the dust, abandoned, robbed and left for dead.

  Presently the bandits mounted up amid a great hullabaloo. I could hear screams and the sound of blows. Whips cracked. Then that hateful word spat out with all the vicious force of slavemasters. “Grak! Grak!"

  The people who had ventured across this waste land in the caravan were now slave. They were being driven off into slavery. And the word to use to make slaves jump, and cringe, and rush to do your bidding was—"Grak!"

  If you didn't grak then ol’ snake would curl over your shoulders and sting you through to the bone and teach you what grak meant.

  The sound of carts and carriage
s rumbling off told me the bandits had made a haul of plunder even if they were short of shafts. The soft shushing of footfalls mingled with the harder staccato of hooves. Gradually the noises faded and at last died and I was left to silence.

  The idea that it might have been preferable for that Opaz-forsaken drikinger to have shot me, to have placed that broad sharp arrow head clean through my heart, could not be allowed into my thoughts. I was not dead yet. Until I was dead I would go on struggling, for that is my way.

  So I began to concentrate on trying to move that little finger.

  The frightening deadness in my body complemented by the deadness in my brain had to be fought. I felt sweat on my face. This was a matter of mind over body; for Needleman Slezen had pronounced my body as being perfectly fit and healthy. “The knock has done some deep internal damage to his brain. Until that is rectified by an opposite force...” Slezen's opinion was cultivated. “He will remain a cabbage."

  My reactions when the bandits appeared had motivated enough muscular energy to shift one little finger. By Krun! What would it take to make me lift that arm? The sack of a city?

  A fluttering sighing sound heralded Rippasch's arrival. He strutted into my sight, ruffling his black feathers, turning his head from side to side, and the twin suns glinted in jade and ruby glory from the curve of his sharp and hooked beak. He eyed me. He was very sure I was dead and his belief was shared by a brother or sister. In a great swishing of wings another vulture landed beside the first. Well, that was one eye apiece so far.

  I could visualize this scene as it might be witnessed by Rippasch himself as he sailed in the upper air, scanning the ground below. A litter of thrown aside goods all mixed up with broken carts and dead animals, the shafts capable of being loosed again cut out so the blood ran freely. Corpses lying about untidily—there are always corpses lying about after hideous incidents like the one just past. If I lost my eyes I wouldn't be able to see Delia again. That would be a punishment beyond bearing, I thought. Delia had a way of dealing with Rippasch the vulture. Oh, yes, Delia didn't stand any nonsense from them. Even so, I could not find it in my heart to wish she were here. Suppose, suddenly, I regained movement. I was stranded in the middle of the waste land without transport or weapons, without water.

  The vultures flapped their wings and moved in closer.

  Again I made a superhuman effort to move, and stirred not a single muscle—wait! My little finger. It moved. It curled and uncurled. And as I struggled so I saw the next finger curl and uncurl. The vultures came closer.

  They turned their heads to the side and stared at me. Their beaks glittered in the light of the suns. Fluttering his wings with shooting downdrafts of sand spraying everywhere, one—the first one—alighted on my body. He bent to peer more closely at my face.

  I couldn't close my eyes.

  I wanted to see all there was to see until I saw no more.

  I strained and struggled.

  With a sensation of every cord in my body tearing free, as though my arm was pulling muscles, sinews and tendons clear out of the flesh, my right arm flapped up and over, like the jib of a crane, and flopped down across my chest. Rippasch let out a surprised and disappointed squawk and fluttered dust all over me as he took off, springing up into the air. His companion joined him and a long Lohvian arrow sprouted from the sleek black body.

  A flushed face came into view.

  Mevancy said: “So you're still alive, cabbage? Remarkable. I really shouldn't have bothered to come back for you; but you're just like a newborn baby."

  I could say nothing. I simply closed my eyes.

  * * *

  Chapter three

  Under my nose the dusty sand moved past at a steady walking pace. The saddle of the lictrix was not particularly well-adapted to a man's body slung over athwartships, head hanging down one side and heels the other. And six-legged riding animals—in general—are not as comfortable as four or eight-legged ones.

  “Try moving your other arm, cabbage!"

  I couldn't snarl back that, by Krun, I was trying, wasn't I?

  My right arm possessed some movement, although it seemed to move of its own volition. I'd hit myself on the nose trying to wipe my mouth, for example. Now I was working away on the left arm, and hoping against hope that the little finger would vouchsafe me a sign of future success.

  I hadn't heard Mevancy and the two lictrixes returning. I put that down to my utter concentration on what Rippasch was about to do, and of my attempts to move my arm. Certainly the vultures had not heard. Mevancy, I suppose because there was no other audience, had fallen into the habit of talking to me. She spoke not quite as a mother to a child, more like a person talking to herself. Now she said: “I dislike killing anything, cabbage; but I thought the vulture was about to feast on your eyeballs."

  We rode along towards the west in the wake of the caravan. Mevancy had a filled waterbottle. I could only assume she had managed to escape from the bandits and steal the two lictrixes. Certainly, I warmed to her. She was brave and resourceful, that was clear. And she'd come back for me.

  Of course, her tongue was more of a cutting instrument than a bludgeon; but she could deliver a few shrewd whacks with it, nonetheless.

  “Well, cabbage, you've lost your fancy foreign sword and dagger. Now if you could use a sword at all we could fix you up with a lynxter, or a Havilfarese thraxter. If you know how to use them, that is."

  After a space she went on: “If those Gahamond-forsaken bandits show up again—well, cabbage, we'll run. That's all we can do."

  That was an eventuality I did not look forward to. Galloping face down over an animal's back is no fun way to ride.

  And notice, please, that that was my first thought. Only second came the thought that I did not relish running away from foes.

  I might have won a resounding victory and be able to move my right arm and my left little finger; but my head was still dazed and mazed and stuffed full with chair upholsterer's padding.

  “Reminds me of the time old Kervaney the Wand's caravan was attacked. That was up in Snarlendrin. Right in the middle of it the Rains came down. Ha! Talk about mud baths. By Spurl! We were a bunch of mudlarks all thwacking away at one another. Nath the Onker's sword slipped out of his fist and stuck clean through the throat of the drikinger who was just about to strike Kervaney down. Flew through the air like he'd hurled it.” Here Mevancy paused and I imagined she was shaking her head in amused reflection. “Old Kervaney couldn't do enough for Nath the Onker who'd saved his life. And it was the making of Nath the Onker, too. Called him Nath the Volscreetz after that."

  Whilst the anecdote possessed some vestigial interest, I quite failed to see what beautiful Rains had to do with the dry and dusty desert trail that was slowly desiccating us and sucking us into sere husks.

  Like any sensible desert or wasteland traveler, Mevancy allowed no water drinking during the day. At the going down of the suns we could drink.

  Surmising that she did not wish to close up too close to the bandits ahead I was not surprised when she ordered an early halt. Caravans are slow by their very nature. I assumed she'd halted just out of sight of the dust cloud up ahead. A few hard dry bushes grew in strips here and there and a couple afforded us cover. This particular species of wasteland had stretches of pure sandy desert interspersed with straggly bushes in strips and clumps as hills broke the flatness of the plain. It was not unlike some parts of Arizona. The people of the caravan had mentioned the Salt Desert to the west with some trepidation, and this I gathered was similar to the great salt deserts of western China.

  She said: “One good thing, cabbage. I don't have to threaten you to keep quiet. These dumb beasts that are not so dumb are different."

  Dumped off the lictrix I sprawled out on the dust behind a bush. Mevancy gave my head a twist on my neck so I could see along the ground and through the dry branches. I could hear her at my back and one of the lictrixes emitted a snorting whinny cut abruptly short. By this I knew
Mevancy was tying cloths about their mouths. So we were in ambush, then...

  Soon after that I heard them.

  Soft shushing and harder hoofbeats, the jingle of bit and bridle, they were riding with assurance, confident of their own power and prowess. They rode into sight down the little incline past the dry bushes. They rode zorcas. They were mailed and carried slender lances and bows. Their helmets bore clumps of feathers, dyed bright red and yellow. In my life on Kregen red and yellow have been my colors more often than not.

  I counted twenty-five of them.

  The leader rode a blood zorca of superlative quality. His head was held erect and he laughed openly, a fiery red moustache curling up past his nose and his eyes creasing up in good humor.

  “You speak sooth, Hangol. We will have these abandoned of Tsung-Tan by supper."

  “And then, lynxor, we shall put them to the sword."

  “I suppose so. It is just. Anyway, you will enjoy it."

  “Oh, yes,” said this Hangol. He rode just that fraction of a space to the rear on the leader's left side. We were to the south of the trail so the party of zorca riders crossed from right to left. I noticed this Hangol held his head a trifle turned away and put this down to a fawning attention on his leader and paymaster. His zorca was fine and his armor resplendent, and among his plethora of weapons, in the good old Kregan way, hung thraxter and main gauche. This told me he was left-handed.

  Mevancy stood up, strode out from the cover of the bushes, spraddled her legs, put her hands on her hips and yelled. “Llahal and Llahal!"

  They all reined up as though they'd been shot.

  I quite enjoyed that. Had I been that leader with the fiery red moustaches paying this fellow Hangol to be my cadade, my captain of the guard, I'd have his hide for failing to post point, outriders and flanks. By Krun, yes!

  Bows were drawn and arrowheads glittered in the declining light, all aimed at Mevancy.

  The standard-bearer had a little difficulty in handling his zorca, who jounced around and wanted to kick his legs a trifle. The banner, a tresh of red and yellow of intricate design and difficult to distinguish at that distance, fluttered bravely.