King Of Zunga rb-12

by Джеффри Лорд

  When Blade finished, he had no idea whether he had won or lost his case. The men of the War Council had listened to his entire presentation with totally expressionless faces, except for Afuno. And the faces had not changed when Blade went out to await their decision.

  There was beer and bread waiting for him in the corridor, and he fell to. He had just polished off the last of both when he saw a slave woman come down the hall and stop before the commander of the council’s guards. They whispered together for a moment, then the commander turned to Blade and said, «This woman is Princess Aumara’s. The princess wants you. You must go.»

  «Now?» asked Blade.

  «Yes.»

  «But the council-«

  «Richard Blade of the English,» said the guard commander with a grin. «Do not fear the War Council. Fear the princess if she becomes angry. I know. Soon you will too.» There was no trace of a leer in the man’s grin. If he knew anything, he was keeping it to himself. Blade nodded and followed the woman.

  He did not have to follow her very far. Aumara was standing in the corner of a small room off the next corridor to the left. As the door of the room closed behind him, Aumara slipped into his arms. She seemed to want to be held, and as he held her, he felt her trembling.

  «What is it, Princess? Do you…?» He was trying to think of a tactful way to ask a warrior princess what had frightened her when she saved him the trouble.

  «The On’ror has asked for my hand.»

  It took Blade a moment to realize what she had said. It took him another moment to realize what it meant. When he did, he swore softly, invoking both the Sky Father and a variety of other deities picked up on his adventures. Then he shook his head in impotent fury.

  «I see you understand,» said Aumara.

  «Yes. The man who can determine whether I become a great hero of the Zungans is now my rival for you. If he gives me the chance to train the Zungans, I may end up with fame above his, second only to King Afuno. If he does not give me the chance, he himself will be the strongest candidate for your hand, no matter what your father thinks of him.»

  «Yes,» said Aumara bitterly. «And the On’ror and I will rule for a few short years over the Zungans while the slave raiders continue to bleed them. Then we will die with our people when the Rulami and the Kandans march together.»

  Blade felt like swearing again, but realized it would be a waste of breath. All the optimism he had built up over the past couple of hours had drained out of him. He sat down and stared off into the darkness of the room, his mind working furiously.

  «Can you delay accepting any consort for a while?»

  «How long, Blade?»

  Blade frowned. «It depends on how much of a chance to train the warriors I get. Whatever you do, hold off choosing until I have some sort of a victory to show off. That will give me the status I need to make an offer for you.

  «Whatever you and I think, your father won’t dare accept me until I have enough status among the warriors so that he won’t face a rebellion by choosing me.»

  Aumara nodded sadly. «There are very many times when I was growing up that I wished I was not a princess. This is the first time I have wished that since I became a woman.» She sighed and seemed to put the thought away, then returned to the issue. «How long will it take you to win that victory?»

  «That I won’t even be able to guess at until the War Council decides what I am to do.»

  After that there was nothing more to say, and they sat in the dark stifling little room holding each other. Blade did not know how long they sat before the woman knocked gently on the door and whispered, «The council is calling for Blade.»

  Unwinding himself from Aumara’s arms, he rose and followed the woman back to the council chamber. The guard led him inside and then vanished. Standing before the fifteen seated figures, he scanned the dark faces for some sign of what their decision had been.

  Fourteen of the faces were as unreadable as ever. The fifteenth was the On’ror’s. Blade looked the man over more closely than before, noticing the thickening jowls, the high forehead, the missing finger and the half-missing ear, the scars on his chest and arms. This man was an enemy. One he could take almost easily in a straight fight, he suspected. But would it ever come to, that? Blade doubted it.

  «Richard Blade of the English,» said the On’ror in a voice now as gross and ugly as his body. «The council has heard you. It has talked of you. It has decided.» The man paused. He stretched the pause until it was obvious to Blade that this was a deliberate effort to make him sweat and fidget. He stared back at the On’ror with a level, expressionless gaze. He was damned if the man was going to win their very first confrontation.

  Finally the On’ror got the message that Blade wasn’t going to yield. He lifted his head until he appeared to be staring off into space-or perhaps up into the heavens? Once again he prolonged the display of reverence in an effort to make Blade nervous.

  Blade remained unmoved, but the strain was too much for King Afuno. «Well, get on with it, damn you!» the King snapped. «The Sky Father isn’t going to appear on the ceiling and give you a scroll with the words you want written on it in gold.»

  The king’s voice jolted the On’ror into action. He rose to his feet and the rest of the council followed. «Richard Blade of the English, your methods of fighting may not be pleasing to the Sky Father. But we shall not utterly cast out them or you: You shall train ten men in your arts for three moons. Then you shall wait three full moons more, and each of those men shall train ten more. After that all shall wait one full year, that the Sky Father may show us whether or not your arts are pleasing to him. Neither you nor any of the men you have trained shall instruct any other warriors during that year. Further we shall not say until all the time has passed.» He sat down again, his massive rump hitting the chair with a solid thump. The grin on his face was almost a smirk.

  Forty objections and as many curses died on Blade’s lips at a sharp look from Afuno. With an effort he controlled himself, took a deep breath, and without waiting for the guards, turned around and left the chamber. Outside he headed for the stairs to the second floor. He had to get out of this stifling gloom, onto a balcony and into the sun and the fresh air.

  Aumara met him halfway up the stairs. «I thought you would be coming up here, Blade. What was the decision? No, I can see it in your face. Bad?»

  Blade was calm now and his ability to plan was back. He nodded, but slowly. «It could have been worse.» He told her. She shook her head.

  «I cannot hold out for six months, and never for a whole year after that. Even my father would cast me down as First Princess if I tried it. You must do something sooner.»

  Blade had to laugh at this, but it was a bitter laugh.

  «Very well, Princess. I will see if I can defeat the slave raiders with ten men.»

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It did not come to that. Nayung, King Afuno, and several of the Great Mors who were thoroughly out of sympathy with the On’ror’s plans pitched in and kept Blade’s job from being completely impossible. It was merely fantastically difficult.

  Blade chose his ten trainees carefully, with the advice of King Afuno. Among them were two Great Mors, five Mors, and three other fighters of known wisdom as well as skill. They were of the anti-Ulunga faction. Blade was able to be entirely frank with them the first time he gathered them together for a training session.

  «The On’ror and some of the War Council want to play the game of the Ulungas. I don’t know what that game is, but I have seen things like it in my travels. It is a game dangerous to the Zungans. The only people who will gain from it are the Ulungas themselves sand perhaps the slave raiders of Rulam and Kanda. But you do not want to let the Ulungas lead you by the hand like little children. That is good. You are wise men as well as great warriors. And by your wisdom as well as by your war skills you may save the people of Zunga.» That was a prospect he deliberately and carefully held out to them-that they would be the savio
rs of Zunga. He thought it wiser not to push himself too far forward, regardless of what plans Princess Aumara had for him.

  After that there was no difficulty in whipping up his students’ enthusiasm. They were all grown men, trained warriors, in top physical and mental condition, and more than willing to learn. Training them was a pleasure, even if an exhausting one. Blade soon learned that they were insatiable in their curiosity about the ways of the English, not only in fighting but in all other things. He had to keep mentally very much on his toes to answer their questions. And he had to keep even more on his toes physically. Not only were they willing to train from dawn to dark and even at night, but they learned fast. Within ten days half of them were already dangerous opponents.

  Almost as great a pleasure to Blade were the various tricks he and King Afuno were playing on the Ulungas and the On’ror. The matter of the new balanced spears, for example. King Afuno’s household included a large contingent of smiths. He had them make up the twenty practice spears for Blade’s students.

  After they had made these, the smiths waited for a few days while Blade tested the spears. Then he sent back the five best, and the smiths went right back to work making more. Soon they were turning out fifty to a hundred of the new spears a week. In obscure corners of the cellars of King Afuno’s palace, piles of long hide-wrapped bundles began to grow. Each bundle contained ten of the new spears.

  «And the Ulungas can say nothing about it,» said Afuno with a triumphant grin. «They said only that you could not train more than a certain number of fighters. They said nothing about not making the weapons for any number.»

  There were even ways devised for getting around the training restrictions. All the training sessions were held in the open field, where anybody who wanted to stop and watch could do so. Many warriors did. Afterward, some of them went off and tried out privately what they had seen in the sessions. They soon discovered that the standard Zungan spear was not nearly as good as the new balanced ones for the new, fighting style. They came to Blade, asking for new spears. He sent them to Nayung, who asked each one a few questions, intended to reveal if the warrior was a sympathizer with the Ulungas or not. If Nayung approved of him, the warrior was then taken down into the cellars of the palace and given two of the new spears.

  By the time Nayung was back on his feet, Blade had trained his hard core of ten about as much as he could without their going stale or getting bored. At least fifty more warriors had watched and practiced enough so that they also were now giving lessons. About five hundred warriors in all were now learning the new fighting techniques, and more than a thousand of the new spears were in circulation.

  King Afuno was openly delighted at this neat outflanking of the Ulungas. So was Blade. He had heard J tell many tales of the years when intelligence service budgets had been slashed to the bone. The younger men, the field agents in particular, had performed miracles of improvisation and judicious deception. In some of those stories there had been a note of mild scorn for the postwar intelligence operatives, who had never known a real starvation budget, or learned how to outwit Whitehall. Well, when he got back from this trip, Blade knew he could tell J at least one good story of making do and outwitting higher authorities.

  But as well as things were going, and as much fun as he was having, Blade knew the horizon was still far from clear. Neither he nor Afuno nor Nayung believed that the Ulungas would overlook the tricks and evasions of their decision indefinitely. Even if the Ulungas were not sufficiently familiar with things military to recognize what was happening, the On’ror certainly was and would pass the word to his masters. And then the fat would be, in the fire-Blade’s fat, Afuno’s, and Nayung’s.

  Meanwhile, the On’ror was also pushing his suit for Aumara. The princess would neither encourage nor discourage him. As long as he kept coming around on visits and talking to her, she would be able to learn at least some of what he was thinking and planning. And what she learned, she passed on to Blade each time she slipped into his room at night.

  For many weeks there was nothing in the On’ror’s words to cause Blade much alarm. In fact, Aumara’s mocking recitals of the man’s constant boasting became something he looked forward to almost as much as to their lovemaking. Aumara had a savage gift for mimicry. But he listened closely to those recitals while laughing at them. A boastful man who may drop hints of his plans while boasting is an easier enemy.

  Finally the day came when he gathered his ten students together and told them that tomorrow they would go north to hunt slave raiders. If he had just offered each of them a ton of gold or half a dozen beautiful women, they could not have been happier. When the cheering died, he reminded them to bring three spears and two water bottles each. He warned them not to expect that the slave raiders would lie down and die when the new spears were waved in their faces. He made it clear that this was very much a trial run, and they were not going to fight a pitched battle if the Sky Father made it possible. And he was quite sure that they had not heard half a word of all his warnings and advice. Hoping that the Zungans’ luck would hold until they got their overconfidence out of their systems, he went off to his chamber.

  Aumara came to him that night. As she slipped into his bed and flowed up against him, he felt her trembling. Not with desire this time, but with fear. He held her gently and murmured in her ear as though he were comforting a child, but the trembling went on. Finally he pulled her tight against him and whispered in her ear, «What is it, my princess?»

  She swallowed. «The On’ror knows that you are taking your men out tomorrow.»

  «So? That’s not a secret. Why should it be? The slave raiders aren’t going to find out about it. And what good would it do if they did?»

  «Are you sure, Blade? Are you sure the slave raiders don’t know?»

  It was Blade’s turn to stiffen. «What have you heard? Has the On’ror been saying something?»

  «Yes. He came to my chamber this evening and drank more beer than usual. He seemed happier than I had ever seen him. I gave him more beer, and… «she paused, «I even let him make love to me. You are not angry?»

  «Of course not,» said Blade. «Go on.»

  «When we were in bed together, he kept muttering something about ‘The English warrior’s time is coming. He has had his run. Now he thinks he will go out and get so famous he can have you. He won’t. He won’t even come back alive.’ And then he laughed. He laughed for a long time, then he fell asleep.»

  Blade let his breath out in a long whistling sigh. Did these boasts mean that the On’ror was prepared to betray his own people to the slave raiders? That was an ugly thought. And it put Blade in an awkward position, to say the least. If he canceled the mission to the north, how could he convince his warriors that he hadn’t simply lost his nerve? But if he took them north and the On’ror had passed the word on to the slave raiders to lay a trap, what then? Would it look as if he had led his ten picked men into a trap? Not to mention what losing many of the trained instructors in their first battle would do to the Zungans’ morale.

  Unfortunately there was no way back. He would simply have to march out tomorrow and be particularly careful. The plains and forests to the north were vast, his patrol small, the number of slave raiders limited. He and the enemy would have plenty of room to miss each other. He didn’t like relying on luck, but for the moment it looked as if he would have to. With that giving him a little peace of mind, he fell asleep.

  With Zungans, there was no problem in having the patrol headed north out of the city before dawn. It took them an hour to get clear of Dorkalu’s herds going out to pasture, then they were alone.

  They were alone for two whole days, in fact. Over the land to the north of Dorkalu the hand of the slavers had fallen heavily. Huts and whole towns lay abandoned and ruined, fields that had once been rich with grain now grew masses of weeds, the rangy survivors of the cattle herds had gone wild and lumbered away at the approach of Blade’s men.

  The second night ou
t, they camped in a patch of forest on the northernmost edge of Zungan territory with extra sentries posted on all sides. The morning of the third day dawned overcast, less rare now that they were farther north. To Blade this was nothing, but to the Zungans clouds concealed the face of the Sky Father, who would not be able to see them going into battle and judge their new fighting skills. Blade did not try to argue them out of their nervousness. He was far from calm himself, here in enemy territory and with Aumara’s warning hanging over his head like the gray sky itself. He hoped their nervousness would vanish with the first successful combat.

  They no longer marched boldly across country, but stalked like hunting animals from one patch of cover to another. The Zungans had nothing to learn from Blade about the use of cover. In fact, he hoped he would have time to learn from them. A Zungan could stretch along the branch of a tree and remain so motionless that he seemed to merge with the branch. To a man not looking for him, he would be totally invisible.

  The first sight of their enemies came toward midafternoon, sooner than Blade had expected. One of the Zungan scouts suddenly flattened himself against a tree, then cautiously waved Blade forward. Slipping forward and flattening himself against the other side of the tree, Blade followed the Zungan’s pointing hand. Fourteen soldiers in two files of seven were tramping along the edge of a small ravine. They wore Rulami-style iron helmets and cuirasses, and carried the Rulami broadswords. But on each helmet and breastplate was a vertical white line.

  «Kandans,» said the Zungan warrior. «That white line is the sign of the Ivory Tower. This will be easy. They are not as good soldiers as the Rulami.»

  «Do not count the bodies until they are dead,» said Blade. He turned back toward the woods where the other nine Zungans were. He waited for a count of five, until the soldiers reached a stretch of ravine where there were no bushes to give them cover. Then he raised his hand and swung it across his own throat in a chopping gesture.