Renegade of Kregen dp-13

by Alan Burt Akers

  Grogor saw, also, and shrilled and we all pelted along, hurling ourselves madly over the bluffs and so roaring down the sandy slopes in great clouds and smothers of sand.

  Somehow Blue Cloud kept his six legs under him. We were on the beach. I yanked out my longsword, that Ghittawrer blade with the device removed, and whirled along the packed sand. The black-clad men saw us coming.

  There was a struggle in their midst.

  Grogor and Nath were neck and neck with me. Our three swords thrust forward, three-pronged retribution.

  The black-clad men tried to face us.

  There must have been few men who could have stood up to us in that frenzied moment. In the moments before we hit I saw my Lady of the Stars.

  She wielded a long, thin dagger in her white hand, and she toppled one kidnapper from his saddle and whirled on another who tried to spit her through. She parried — it was marvelously done, marvelously!

  — and riposted and stuck the rast through the eye. He screamed and fell and then we were upon them. Our rage was terrible and genuine.

  The longswords whirled and glittered, split and cleft, and whipped aloft again for the next blow, dripping red.

  Blade clanged against blade. My Ghittawrer longsword sang above my head. Aye! It sang as I whirled it up and down. I smashed with full force, seeing a head spin off, seeing a black-masked face abruptly disappear into a ghastly red mask, seeing an arm spin up and away as a back-hander curled beneath a blow. It was all over in scant murs. We panted. I dragged in a great lungful of air and then, dismounting, walked over to my Lady, who lay in the sand. Her green veiling remained in place, for she had one hand to it. But she knew me.

  "Gadak! So you rescue me again."

  "Aye, my Lady. You are unhurt?"

  She stood up. She put a hand on my shoulder. Her left hand. In her right hand, smothered in blood, she still gripped the slender, jeweled dagger.

  "I am unharmed. They tried to — at the end — when they saw you coming. But-"

  "Yes, my Lady. You yourself created a Jikai, I saw." Then I smiled — I, who am a surly beast and with a face like the ram of a swifter. "I am minded of another lady, my Lady."

  "I would not have thought-" she began, and then stopped and threw the dagger to the sand. She took her hand from my shoulder and drew herself up. She put that clean left hand to her hair. Typically, the next words she said were, "And my lord? How goes the battle?"

  "The battle will go well enough."

  She sighed.

  She, like myself, had been Zairian once.

  "I returned to the camp, Gadak, and they were waiting for me. Men in black. Stikitches — kidnappers for a space — but real stikitches, nonetheless."

  "Aye."

  My men were inspecting the corpses. The swifter was gone, pulling madly out to sea. Grogor turned one body over with his foot and then cocked an eye at me. I looked down. The brown face with a livid scar all across it showed where Golitas, who had received that scar from the hands of Pur Dray, had died in agony.

  "It would be best to heave these carrion into the sea." Grogor took out his knife. "But first — My Lady, would you please retire for a space, for there are things that must be done." She understood well enough. A warrior maid, for she had fought magnificently, now she was a practical lady with a man to protect. So we disfigured the corpses so that they would never be recognized and heaved them into the sea. When we had finished we escorted my Lady back to camp and had anyone challenged us he would have been a dead man.

  We had saved my Lady of the Stars for Gafard, Sea-Zhantil; we had saved her from the clutches of King Genod himself and no one to point the finger of accusation at us. Also, a man who knew my face was dead. Besides the safety of my Lady that was of no importance at all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grogor surprises me

  Black magbirds flew overhead. To larboard the lesser Pharos passed at the end of the mole. The stones gleamed in the slanting lines of masonry, and the curve of stonework opened out into a broad view across the outer harbor. Two swifters rode to their moorings here, their yards crossed, and the last preparations caused a bustle on their long, lean decks as they were readied for sea. Volgodont’s Fang glided on, the oars pulling with a slow, steady rhythm that drove our stem through the water with a low musical chinkle.

  The frowning stone gateway to the cothon, the inner basin, lined up directly with our ram. Nath ti Hagon stood staring directly ahead, lining up the ship, giving quick, direct orders to the oar-master in his tabernacle and to the two helm-Deldars at their rudder handles. These two old tarpaulins turned the curved steering oars with cunning, smooth movements that kept the swifter dead on track. The group standing with me on the quarterdeck included Gafard, but he was in this matter quite content to let his trusted first lieutenant conn the ship. Hardly a breeze ruffled the still surface of the water in which reflections stood out in perfect mirror-images.

  The entrance to this cothon had been excavated widely enough to accommodate the spread wings of a swifter. Many cothons have narrow entrances, so that a galley must be drawn through by pulling-boat or, more usually, by gangs of men hauling hawsers from the dock side, all heaving together at the crack of a whip and the yell of "Grak!"

  We glided on smoothly. I had no doubts that Nath would take the ship fairly through the center of the narrow channel with not a single oar splintered. Swifters habitually carry as many as half the number of oars again to replace broken oars, for breaking oars is a familiar hazard to the swifter captains of the inner sea.

  Once we were fairly through the whistles shrilled and the drum-Deldar tapped his peculiar terminal notes and every oar lifted and remained level. Swifters of the size of Volgodont’s Fang are reasonably stable in the water, unlike the smaller swifters that rock so much a man must step lightly and the oars must rest in the water to ensure stability.

  How familiar the details of bringing a vessel into port!

  I watched, storing away the nostalgic memories and refusing to become maudlin. The sides of the cothon were lined with the long, slanting ship-sheds, narrow structures, two slips to a roof, inclined toward the water. Ingenious capstans and pulleys were arranged so that the swifters might be drawn up out of the water and gangs of slaves whipped to the work. The open fronts of the sheds with their ornate columns and Magdaggian arches could be closed by wooden doors in inclement weather — of which there is, thankfully, very little in the Eye of the World — and as they clustered closely together they presented a compact, crowded nesting effect. Little over the width of a swifter, probably not one being more than forty feet wide to accept the apostis, they were long, a hundred and eighty feet or more. This was not the king’s harbor. Over there the sheds were, of course, larger. The massively impressive building rising to the rear, sculptured almost like a temple, was the Arsenal of the Jikgernus — the warrior lords — and there were kept the multifarious stores demanded by the swifters. The smell of that place could waft me away and away four hundred light-years in my mind’s eye.

  Farther to one side and lifting grandly over the ship-sheds, the bulk of a real temple glittered in the suns-light. All smothered in green tiling, ceramics of the same high quality that decorated the megaliths, the temple of the sea-god, Shorush-Tish, sparkled and glistered in the light. Set at the apex of its many-peaked roofs the marble representations of swifters, one third full size, leered down over the mariners and marines and slaves who crowded the narrow streets, busy about the sea business of Shorush-Tish.

  It is a remarkable fact — at least, at that time it was remarkable to me — that the blue-maned sea-god, Shorush-Tish, is shared by Grodnim and Zairian. In all else they clash in their beliefs, for all that they sprang from the same original religious convictions. Temples to Shorush-Tish are obligatory on all the seafronts of all the ports of the north and south, the Green and the Red. Even the Proconians erect altars to Shorush-Tish. Even the many races of diffs who live up in the northeastern areas of the Eye of the W
orld — and particularly around the smaller sea known as the Sea of Onyx to the apims because of the many chalcedony mines around its shores — build their temples to their halfling representations of Shorush-Tish. Even the Sorzarts who live and reive from their islands up there respect the power of the universal sea-god of the Eye of the World.

  It would be a foolish and reckless captain who did not make an offering to Shorush-Tish before he observed the fantamyrrh boarding his vessel.

  For all my own dogged beliefs I complied with the custom, and many were the rings and cups I had given to the blue-robed priests of Shorush-Tish in his great temple on the waterfront of the inner harbor at Sanurkazz.

  Over by the near wall as we glided on, busy gangs of workmen swarmed over an old swifter of that class rowed in the fashion the savants call a terzaruolo. I have mentioned that the extra power gained by using a number of men on one oar rowing over an apostis in the a scaloccio system had reached the inner sea; but, like the swordships up along the coasts of the Hoboling Islands, the older system still clung on. This swifter with her five men to a bench, angled to the stern, each man pulling on one oar, could not hope to match the speed of a modern swifter of the type of Volgodont’s Fang. Yet she had been built well and the teredo had not got her, and her timbers were still sound. She had been a fairly large example, rowing five men to a bench each side and with thirty-two oars in each bank. This gave her a total of three hundred and twenty oarsmen and three hundred and twenty oars. When I say she would not reach the same speed as the more modern examples, I mean essentially the same sustained speed and the same driving power. To improve her it would be necessary to place the five men of each bench all pulling on the same oar, and to increase the length and strength of that oar out of all recognition of the smaller loom and blade hauled by a single man. This is exactly what the workmen were doing.

  When completed, she would be classed as a five sixty-two swifter. I looked to see if they were building a second bank, but saw no sign that this was proposed in her rebuilding. We went through all the usual formalities of landing. The slaves were herded off to their bagnios. They would very quickly be pressed into service again, for, as the conversion of the old swifter of the a terzaruolo system showed, Magdag was scraping up all her resources to fling into what everyone here must consider as the final stages of a victorious war.

  The omens looked propitious for King Genod and the overlords of Magdag as for the whole of the Grodnim alliance. I had more or less recovered from the smart of that series of disasters on the Red southern shore. Now we had come back to Magdag, For all the others here this was a homecoming. For me it was the chance to further my plans — those plans that envisaged the king, Gafard, and a voller. King Genod had duly won his Battle of Pynzalo. There had been few prisoners, and while I was glad of that, I knew the truth lay buried in the sands or running back to Pynzalo and beyond. That, I tell you, was one battle I was glad with a heartfelt gratitude to have missed.

  Gafard did not tell me of what passed between him and Genod.

  After all, I was as far as he was concerned merely a fellow renegade he had befriended and given employment and who had by chance come into contact with his beloved in ways that, hitherto, he had rewarded with death. I did have a privileged position of a sort, that was clear, but it did not extend past the concerns of his household and domestic matters.

  He had thanked the group who had rescued the Lady of the Stars, thanked them profusely and with gold. We were only too well aware of what we had done; but the squadron under Grogor was composed of picked men, every man loyal to Gafard personally. No possible blame could attach to the King’s Striker for having his men cut down black-clad assassins and kidnappers. All the same, at the first opportunity, Genod handed over command of the army to Genal Furneld, the Rog of Giddur, and called Gafard back to Magdag. A gloss was put on this by the announcement to the army that soon Prince Glycas would take over command of the combined armies and Gafard, the King’s Striker, was required for further duties.

  This Genal Furneld was of the usual cut of unpleasant overlords of Magdag and I avoided him. Giddur was sited on the River Dag in one of the great sweeping bends south of Hagon. He had arrived on the southern shore breathing fire and slaughter and having fifty men of a pike regiment punished for dirty equipment. I thought the army was welcome to him. Gafard had said, lightly, concealing his feelings, that Genal Furneld could sit down in front of Pynzalo and freeze for all he cared. No one imagined that he would carry the city with the same panache as the Sea-Zhantil. That had cheered me a little. Little time was given me for moping.

  My Lady of the Stars returned to her apartments in the Tower of True Contentment and Gafard called me in to tell me that he had decided, if I was to earn my keep now that he no longer commanded actively, that I was to stand guard with the others of his loyal squadron. I do not like guard duty. But I accepted this charge with equanimity.

  "The matter is simple. Grogor will give you your orders. Do not fail me, Gadak. I am a man of exceeding wrath to those in whom I have reposed trust if they betray me."

  So, I bellowed, "Your orders, my commands, gernu!" and bashed off to see what unpleasantness Grogor might dream up for me.

  He surprised me.

  He sat in the small guardroom in the wall hard by the entrance to the tower. It was plain and furnished with a stand of weapons of various kinds, a table and chairs, no sleeping arrangements, the toilet being outside, and was a harsh and unlovely room.

  "Now, Gadak, who was once a Zairian, listen to me and listen well." I was not prepared to strike him, so I listened. I had plans. I thought Grogor as a vicious killer was not worth my destroying what slender chances my plans possessed. But, as I say, he surprised me. A bulky, sweaty man, this Grogor. He said, "You told me you did not aspire to take my place in the affections of our lord and I did not believe. I was wrong. I do believe you now." He reached over a leather jack and drank with a great blustering of bubbles. He started to say "By Mother-" and stopped, and swore, a rib-creaking oath involving the anatomy of Gyphimedes, the favorite of the beloved of Grodno.

  I said, "It is hard, sometimes."

  "Aye."

  "I serve my Lady," I said. "As you know well."

  He slapped the jack onto the scarred wooden table. His sweaty, heavy face lit up. "By Grodno! But it was a good quick fight, was it not! We tore them to pieces like leems."

  "Yet you missed the battle."

  He looked up at me, for he sat while I stood. "Aye. What of it?"

  "Nothing. Except that you strike me as a man who enjoys a good fight."

  "I do." He nodded to the interior door leading into the tower. "And if anyone save the lord or people bearing his sign attempt to pass that door, it is a fight to the death."

  "I understand that."

  "Good. It is well we understand each other."

  There was no doorway at ground level leading into the tower from the outer four courtyards around the base. The only ingress was through the guardroom in the wall. And we guarded that room and that wall and that door.

  A second chamber lay alongside the guardroom in which the guards on duty but off watch might sleep and clean their tack. This room smelled of spit and polish, of sweaty bodies, of greasy food. One day, Gafard said, he would have a fresh chamber constructed and so separate the various guard functions. As it was, our prime duty was to guard my Lady.

  I sent in a formal request to see Gafard. When he received me, it was in the armory, where he was inspecting a new consignment of Genodders of a superior make. They would bear the Kregish block initials G.K.S.M. in Kregish. This, quite obviously, stood for the sword from the armory of Gafard, King’s Striker.

  "You want to see me?"

  "Aye, gernu. I guard the tower and am happy to do so — honored-"

  "Get on with it!"

  "We guard the door. But the roof — we have all seen a certain flying boat-" He slapped a shortsword down so the metal rang.

  "By Grodn
o! No honest man would think of such a thing — which proves you are no honest man and therefore of great use to me. By Goyt! We’ll fix any onkers who try to fly down like volgodonts onto my roof! We’ll impale the rasts!"

  All this meant, of course, was that he had not lived, as had I, in a culture where vollers and flying animals and birds are regularly used. It was a thing he would not have thought of in the nature of his experience. But he sealed the roof as well as any roof was sealed in the Hostile Territories. Kregen is a harsh and cruel world for all its beauty, and there a man must protect his own, a woman protect her own. I had done precious little of that, lately, but I had supreme confidence in my Delia. She, at the least, would give me firm assurance that I did the right thing in thus helping to protect this unknown Zairian girl, this Lady of the Stars.

  I felt sure I was right in this, and yet could give no real reason to myself. I have tried to explain as best I can the effect this maiden had on me, and although I intended to knock Gafard on the head when I could get him and the king together with a voller, I fancied I’d think of her as I hit him. One night I went on duty earlier than usual, because I was fretful and wanted to get away from some of the diffs of the squadron who were playing dirty-Jikaida (a game I do not care for), and so I wandered along by the wall thinking of Delia and all manner of distant dreams. The guardroom door was open and I went in and almost stumbled over the body of young Genal the Freckles. His neck had been cut open. The longsword was in my hand, a brand of fire in the torchlight.