“Declare your intentions or you are dead!” shouted up this Hangol.
Mevancy laughed.
“I chose to stand forth and greet you. I could have chosen to shaft you. You do not know how many bows are here with me."
The leader leaned gracefully and spoke quietly to Hangol. Hangol's helmet bobbed and even at this distance and seeing the whole scene on its side, I saw the surliness of that response. The cadade shouted up.
“We give you the Llahal. This is Leotes li Ningwan, Vad of Sabiling, Paol-ur-bliem."
The leader favored Hangol with a swift look of sharp displeasure, and then recovered his good humor. So he was a vad, just one rank below a kov, a duke. Well, he was high and mighty then. Just what the significance of Paol-ur-bliem might be I couldn't fathom. Paol is generally regarded as the earthly part of vaol-paol, the eternal cycle of existence encompassing fate and destiny. Bliem is a word for life.
With her back to me Mevancy's expression might be anything; I rather fancied she was putting on one of her more genial looks.
“Llahal, Vad Leotes. If you're after those Tsung-Tan forsaken drikingers, then I shall ride with you.” She made a small gesture with her left hand. “I am Mevancy nal Chardaz. Lahal."
The vad lifted his hand. “You and your forces will be welcome, my lady."
“Now,” I said to myself, “Lady Mevancy nal Chardaz, let's see you get out of this one without moving!"
She simply hauled her lictrix from the cover of the bushes, mounted up and flung a word back to me before cantering down the slope.
“I'll be back for you, cabbage. Don't run off."
She must have impressed Vad Leotes, for they spoke together briefly and then they swung their steeds’ heads around to the west and galloped off.
I lifted my left arm and shook my fist after this hoity-toity miss.
Then I realized what I had done.
I lifted both arms, and clenched and unclenched my fists.
By Zair!
Now I could get to work on my legs.
My feet were now just about healed and if I could once get up on my pins I had no doubts whatsoever I'd walk. I'd damned well run!
Making muscles obey the dictates of my brain, telling sinews and tendons to pull, forcing my paralyzed legs to move at all—that was the trick.
As I lay there under the sere black bush and struggled to move, the twin suns steadily declined. Zim and Genodras, which here in this part of Loh are called Luz and Walig, cast long and longer shadows, emerald and ruby, smoking in the dusty light. There is no need to belabor my pains. At the time I heard a caravan approaching from the east, I felt the first bendings of my knees. By the time the caravan was in sight and preparing to make camp I was up on hands and knees, and when the first tents went up I went up too, to stand totteringly, reeling, dazed—but up on my own two feet.
After that it was a matter of climbing up onto the lictrix's saddle, a feat rather like climbing a peak in The Stratemsk, and of gently ambling down the incline towards the caravan and the camp. I was stopped very quickly, naturally. A man put a long polearm up at me. I saw it was a strangdja, a weapon of Chem, much feared.
“Whereaway, dom?” he said, in no hostile way, for I think he had the wit to guess from whence I came.
I smiled at him.
“Llahal, dom,” I said. “I'm from the caravan that was attacked."
Then I stopped speaking.
What actually issued from my mouth was something like: “Lla—l—mm—mm—cvn—tat—"
So. I was still unable to speak.
The guard—he wore brass-studded leathers and a leather cap—put his strangdja on the ground and reached up. “Here, dom. You need attention, and we've the best Puncture Lady this side of Tarankar.” He caught me as I fell off. His nose was ripe and large and possessed fissures like those of a river system as it enters the Delta. His mouth was wide and mobile. I felt the limber strength of him as he caught me. He yelled: “Hai! Nath! Scrimshi! Come and give this poor devil a hand."
Three bulky leather-clad men hauled me up and carried me into a tent where the sweet scent of palines growing in a tub made my mouth water. I suppose the efforts I'd put out just recently had drained some other reserve of energy quite distict from whatever lack caused the paralysis. They gave me a handful of palines and I devoured the yellow berries knowing that in themselves they could cure a mighty lot of Kregen's ills. I stood up, swaying, it is true, and again essayed to speak, with the same dismal result.
The Puncture Lady wore a neat blue dress with a yellow collar and cuffs. She bustled in ready to order, organize and generally boss people about. Her face showed all that in its straight lines, its angle of jaw, the tightness of the prim mouth. She started to punch me, here and there.
“Nothing wrong with him,” she pronounced. “I'd think him drunk if he smelled of liquor. He's fit. You say he's from the caravan we found?"
“We think so, doctor,” said the fellow with the strangdja.
“Where else can he have come from?” said the one called Scrimshi.
The one called Nath said: “Maybe he ran off and hid and pretended to be sick.” He nodded wisely. “It is known."
I started to swing my arms about like a windmill in protest. The Puncture Lady grasped both my wrists and put my arms down by my side. She had no difficulty in doing that. I tried to resist and could feel her pressure on my wrists inexorably forcing down my arms. By Krun! I was weaker than a woflo!
“I dunno—” said the fellow with the strangdja. “I wish we could understand what he's trying to say."
“Well, whatever it is, it does not alter the fact that there's nothing wrong with him."
I tried to throw my arms about again and she simply held them fast.
The tent was furnished in this section more as a doctor's waiting room and I supposed there were sick in the caravan. A carpet of a weave unknown to me covered the floor. There was one chair and table of plain bent wood. I could see no paper or writing equipment.
These three caravan guards quite probably could not read or write and so did not think to communicate with me in that way. But surely this doctor would? She looked tired beneath her hard professional veneer. I surmised that Vad Leotes demanded much from his people.
“What shall we do with him, Doctor Fenella?"
“Oh, find him a corner somewhere. If he's run off from his duty the vad will want to see him. Oh, yes, assuredly so."
“Come on, Llodi, give us a hand,” said Nath. The man who had first halted me tucked his strangdja under his arm and helped Nath and Scrimshi haul me out of the Puncture Lady's tent.
Already a little queue of sick folk was forming.
Outside, twinned shadows lay long, with that effect peculiar to worlds with more than one sun of each shadow being, as it were, re-lit by the other sun. They carried me along with my head hanging down; I knew where we were going for I could hear the animals, the whicker and snort through wide nostrils, the stamp of hooves and the slap of rope against picket.
“Bung him down among the calsanys,” said the one called Scrimshi, and he snickered. I'd marked him as an unpleasant sort of person.
“Naw,” said Llodi. “What with him being sick, an’ all."
“Then sling him here.” Nath settled it by dumping my feet onto the bare ground. I toppled around and fell onto a heap of fodder bags.
“That'll do."
Llodi bent to me. “You stay here, dom. You'll be all right."
“We'll tell the next watch to keep an eye out.” Scrimshi breathed in, swelling his chest. “You'd better not run off. The vad'll want you."
They went off about their guard duty. I pondered. Well, now, I was in no state to take the lictrix and make off. Anyway, I didn't really want to. I own I felt unease about the safety of that young female tearaway Mevancy. What she recalled of the fire I didn't know; what I surmised was that she had little memory before she dragged me out. As far as she was concerned, she really had rescued me.
I would go along with that.
So I made myself comfortable on the fodder bags—and went to sleep.
* * *
Chapter four
“You call me notor,” said Strom Hangol ham Finral as I wheeled to a halt facing him with guards either side of me and prodding me on from the rear. “You are accused of deserting the caravan you were sworn to protect."
He sat at a table on which rested a large double-bitted axe and a clepsydra just turned. The water dropping down was stained a pleasant pink color. Around us in the early rays of the twin suns, the caravan breakfasted preparatory to moving off. Smoke and cooking odors wafted. The day would be fine. Also, if this buffoon of a strom sitting in judgment on me couldn't be made to see sense, it could be the day on Kregen I breathed my last. Or, at the least, suffered some horrendous punishment.
I said: “I did not desert,” and the sounds were like those of a bosk with his snout in the trough.
“The fellow is an idiot as well,” observed the thin-faced ascetic in the blue robe standing just to Strom Hangol's rear. His face would have served as the model for the chunk of cheese one places in the mousetrap.
“Or he just pretends, San Hargon."
As Hangol spoke so the early suns light flashed from the silver mask covering the right side of his face. That had not been visible when he'd trotted past below and Mevancy had stood up. The metal might be a mask; equally it could be a replacement skin.
The easy assumption could be made that the disfigurement necessitating the wearing of a mask had scored deeply into Hangol's sanity, that he would like to serve the rest of the world of Kregen as he had been served. Well, just because easy assumptions are that does not automatically debar them from accuracy. I own I rather wished Vad Leotes had been sitting there in judgment on me; my impressions of him had been cautiously favorable. Whilst I realize the following remark must expose my own overweening self-importance which I deplore and which had been very necessary during my time as Emperor of Vallia, I saw that as an emperor I could have turned Vad Leotes into a useful and loyal noble devoted to the crown. Still, those days were gone. Now I had to manipulate these nobles in other ways.
“Give him a prod, you,” said Hangol to the guard on my left. He obediently thrust the butt end of his spear into my side. I was not bound. My hands were free. I moved to slide the blow and ease the spear away and the butt end thwacked me in the side. I let out a gasp. By the Black Chunkrah! I was abso-zigging-lutely useless!
I opened my mouth and gargled, trying to force coherent words out.
The ascetic in the blue robe spoke primly: “An idiot."
“It seems you are right, San. No wonder the caravan succumbed with onkers like this to guard it. It is quite clear the fellow is of no use.” He picked up the double-bitted axe. “Take him away and execute him."
I tried to shout and the guards twitched me around with contemptuous ease. Strom Hangol rose from the table, turning to speak in a perfectly normal voice to the ascetic. “I trust our discourse today will yield sweeter fruit than yesterday's, San."
To which San Hargon replied in a smooth and smarmy voice: “It is my intention to take chapter eleven of Beng Loshner's ‘Active Principles’ as our starting point.” The two walked off, already oblivious to anyone else.
So I tried to struggle and was hoicked up like a chicken and carted off feet first.
How incongruous my megalomaniac thoughts regarding emperors and their handling of lords, and my present position, in which a vad hadn't even bothered to sit in judgment on me and had left it to his assistant, a strom!
They took me a little way off among thorn bushes. No doubt they did not wish to disturb the stomachs of the breakfasters. This was the first breakfast; the second, if taken at all, would be taken en route. I saw Llodi with Nath and Scrimshi walking up to the guards holding me.
“I'm not surprised.” Scrimshi gave his opinion heavily. “The fool deserves all he gets."
“Better for him, really,” said Nath. “To be out of the way."
“I dunno.” Llodi's magnificent fissured nose shone in light and shadow like a mountain range. His cheeks were leathery, fissured, and shone in a similar if less formidable way. “Pity for him, being an idiot an’ all."
“You wanta do the job,” snarled one of the guards holding me. “You do it. Otherwise push off, schtump!"
Scrimshi snarled in reply: “I'll have your liver and lights one day, Nalgre the Pock!"
The guards were no longer holding me. They dropped me onto the dusty ground. As I fell I managed to twist so that I might have a grandstand view of the coming brawl. I quite cheered up.
These caravan mercenaries were sensible enough not to draw weapons one against another. No doubt long held resentments had to break out every now and then. Human nature is petty at times, and as these guards were all apims they could knock one another down with a gusto that had nothing of inter-racial prejudice about it. Dust rose. I managed to stand up and started off for the shelter of the nearest bush. I saw Llodi give a big bull-headed fellow a roundhouse to the jaw and then jump and kick him in the guts and I winced. Scrimshi was down and Nalgre the Pock was sitting on him and bashing his head against the dirt. I nodded sagely.
Once I had the bush fairly between the brawl and me, I paused to try to think what to do next. By Krun! I was in a pretty pickle and no mistake!
The animal lines were busy as the outriders saddled up. Breakfast fires were being doused. Tents that before had risen in considerable numbers were now absent, and the last few were coming down in billows of canvas. Noise and smells and dust and slanting suns shine, all was a flicker and a bedlam to that side; this side lay only the open wasteland.
I had aims in life.
Quite apart from the necessary aim of staying alive, I had grand visions of what might be made of our grouping of continents and islands called Paz upon the surface of Kregen. I wanted diff and apim to live together in harmony in all the lands, and not just in those already with liberal policies. I wanted to make sure the evil cult of Lem the Silver Leem was abolished never to be resurrected to the torture and destruction of little girls. I wanted to make of the Kroveres of Iztar a band of people devoted to furthering these grand aims of making of Kregen a better place—given that better in this context meant what I and my friends considered better. Perhaps above all I was committed to resisting the invasions and wanton slaughter by the Shanks, the fish heads from over the curve of the world. In this last, I knew, I had the blessing of the Everoinye.
Oh, yes, by Zair, there was so very much I had yet to accomplish in this terrible and beautiful world of Kregen, four hundred light years from the planet of my birth.
I stared at that open wasteland.
To venture out there, even if I had health and strength, a fleet zorca and a full water bottle, would be an enterprise fraught with peril. No. Despite all seeming, I had a better chance within the caravan—if I could so arrange matters to my own advantage.
The brawl roared on, blood flowing from noses, eyes closing, fists lashing, knuckles skinning. Nalgre the Pock was down with Llodi sitting on his head as Scrimshi scrambled up, blood flowing from his nose, roaring. Nath gave his fellow a shrewd blow betwixt wind and water and, suddenly, it was all over. Llodi let Nalgre up and he and his two fellows ran off.
“Well,” said Nath, feeling a newly loose tooth. “I quite enjoyed that, by Lohrhiang of the Waters."
“I'll do for that Nalgre one of these days,” growled Scrimshi, exploring his nose. “And we're left with the prisoner."
“Is that our business?” demanded Nath.
“Fambly! Of course it is. We've stopped a detail carrying out a duty and we'll get it in the neck when Strom Hangol finds out. So—"
“So,” said Llodi, and he spoke heavily. “We must carry out that duty ourselves.” He looked around. “At least, we can send him off to the Death Jungles of Sichaz all clean and tidy. That lot would've played with him first, the shints."
T
he Death Jungles of Sichaz. That was what folk down here in Loh called the Ice Floes of Sicce.
“Aye,” said Nath. “Unhealthy folk, those."
“They get pleasure out of it,” said Scrimshi, wincing as he felt his nose. “Well, we'd better get on with it."
They picked up their strangdjas and walked across to my bush and I realized how ludicrous and pathetic had been my attempt at escape.
So I stood up. In that moment blazing anger was replaced by black amusement. That I, Dray Prescot, with all these resounding titles and all these fabulous deeds to my name, should be chopped in the dust of some forgotten desert somewhere in Southern Loh. Well, wherever death finds you out, that spot does tend to figure large and importantly in your scheme of life.
“I just hope he don't make a fuss,” mumbled Llodi.
“He's big and ugly enough for two, anyway,” said Nath. “I'll hold him."
Scrimshi took his strangdja in two fists and gave a couple of preparatory swings. The strangdja varies in form, pattern and size; essentially it is like a large holly leaf fashioned from honed steel cunningly sharpened and mounted on a shaft. It is, indeed, in skilled hands, a feared weapon.
The ferocious holly-leaf shaped head glittered blindingly in the light of the suns as Scrimshi swung the weapon up. Beyond his upraised arms I saw a small cavalcade of riders pace into view past the thorn bushes. In the lead rode Vad Leotes deep in conversation with Mevancy. The riders looked disheveled, many no longer had their lances, and some were wounded. They headed towards a marquee that had not so far been pulled down. This would be Leotes’ tent, I surmised. I opened my mouth and croaked garbled sounds.
Nath said, sharply: “Get on with it, Scrimshi! There's the vad and we want this done before he finds out."
As he spoke Nath gestured vehemently, releasing me.
For me to try to shout was totally useless. I could not run, for I could barely totter. I just hoped my strength was up to the trick that was all I had left to play. These three would butcher me without thought as a duty that must be performed. I bent down.
Scorpio Reborn [Dray Prescot #38] Page 4