The Reavers of Skaith-Volume III of The Book of Skaith

by Leigh Brackett

  Men carried on with their everyday lives and their bargaining and chaffering, but it was as though a heavy cloud hung over the quarter, so that even the flourishing sin shops were subdued and folk spoke in low voices over their wine.

  Their talk was of two matters. When he had heard enough, Stark returned to the beach where he had left the little skiff. Then he sculled out to where the boat had dropped her anchor stone in an open mooring, as far away from other craft as she could get. Cloud, with a flicker of lightning in it, had obscured the lowest of the Three Ladies. The air was oppressive, so that Stark sweated at his sculling.

  The company waited under a jury-rigged awning that somewhat concealed them from curious eyes. Now that they had reached their goal, they were becoming peevish with confinement, and the hounds growled continually.

  Ashton did not wait for Stark to get aboard. "The starship," he asked, leaning over the rail, "is it still here?"

  "It is, somewhere." Stark made his painter fast to the rail and climbed over. "The town is all a-mutter with it, like a henroost with a fox about. They don't fear attack here, Cereleng is too large and well-defended. But every day fresh word comes in of temples plundered, villages robbed, people killed. The Wandsmen are busy spreading tales, so probably half of them are lies. But the ship is still here."

  "Thank God for that," said Ashton. "We'll have to hurry. Where is Pedrallon?"

  "That is the other thing they talk about. Pedrallon, and the ransom. They're not angry about the ransom. Honor required them to redeem their prince from the hands of the ungodly so that they can punish him properly themselves. They blame Pedrallon for intriguing with off-worlders. They say he ought to be fed to Old Sun."

  "He has not been?"

  "Not yet. But he's out of power, a prisoner in his own palace. His brother is now Prince of Andapell, and it's only a matter of time. And not very much of it!"

  Ashton shook his head. "That's hard news. I had counted on Pedrallon's help."

  "Must we worry about this Pedrallon?" Halk demanded. "If the starship is still here, and is necessary to us, let us go to it."

  "I'd like to do that," Stark said, "but I don't know where it is."

  "Couldn't you hear? Did no one say—?"

  "Everyone said. Everyone knew. I saw men come to blows about it. No two places are the same. Some one of them is right, of course, but there's no way to tell which one that is, nor how to get there."

  The clouds had reached higher, covering the second of the Three Ladies. It was much darker and thunder sounded in the west. The hounds grumbled, shifting uneasily in their places.

  "Pedrallon would know," Stark said.

  Halk made an angry gesture. "A pox on Pedrallon! Forget the ship. The wise woman says that our road leads south."

  Stark said, "I can't forget the ship."

  "What, then?" asked Ashton. "There are not enough of us to storm the palace."

  Lightning flickered and flared, lacing the horizon. Stark said, "We won't leave harbor anyway, until that's past. I'll go up with Gerd and Grith. Perhaps we may arrange something. Be ready to move when you see us coining."

  He let himself over the rail and called the hounds, not waiting for further argument. Making Gerd and Grith lie down in the bottom of the skiff, he sculled back to the shore, and thunderheads swallowed the last of the Three Ladies.

  He beached the skiff at a place where unlighted warehouses clustered about a pier and where there was no one to see him. Hiding the skiff underneath the pier, he set off through furtive lanes toward the upper town, moving fast with the two hounds at his heels.

  The houses here were mostly dwellings, shouldering together up the slope, redolent of sweat and spices. Only a few mean shops were open. What folk were abroad stared at the white hounds, but no one attempted to interfere.

  By the time Stark had reached broader avenues, the first drops of rain were falling, great fat things that stung like hail, striking the paving stones far apart with a sharp splatting sound.

  The rain ceased, and it became very dark in between the lightning. Thunder cracked the sky and made the ground tremble underfoot. Then rain came again, this time in torrents that swept the streets clean of all idle strollers.

  The houses, which became larger and grander as Stark climbed, were set back in walled gardens. Heavy fragrances of unfamiliar flowers mingled with the smell of rain. Water rushed in the gutters.

  The wall of the palace complex was high and white. At the main gate stood a gatehouse of marble, lovely as a jewel box, with lights in the windows and no sentries visible outside. The gate itself was barred shut. Stark passed it by. The wall was very long, girdling the hilltop in a huge irregular circle. He trotted beside it in the hammering downpour, the wet hounds flinching and groaning every time the sky split open.

  Half a mile or so around, Stark came to a small gate, heavily barred. He guessed that it served the kitchen quarters. Inside it was a sentry box with a porch where a huge gong was hung, presumably for the sounding of alarms. A lantern burned inside the open door.

  Men, said Gerd. There.

  Wait.

  Stark drew back a little and then ran at the wall, leaping to catch the top with his fingers. He pulled himself up and over, dropping lightly on the other side. A flare of lightning showed him gardens, drenched and deserted, with white buildings beyond. The sentry box was at his left, about twenty feet away.

  Kill, N'Chaka?

  Not unless I tell you.

  He went toward the small stone structure, not worrying too much about stealth. The storm would cover any sound he might make. Coming under the shelter of the porch, he found two men in scarlet—the palace color—kneeling on a mat in the small room, absorbed in a game that was played with dice and ivory counters. Perhaps they felt that there was no need to keep watch in this storm. Perhaps the present prince did not want too close a watch to be kept at all, in case a mob should roll up and relieve him of the embarrassment of his brother.

  The men started up, seeing Stark. They cried out with one voice that was lost in a crash of thunder, and they reached for the weapons they had leaned against the wall.

  Stark kicked the wind out of one of them, knocked the other hard against the stone, and then made sure they were both unconscious. He bound them carefully and gagged them with strips of scarlet silk.

  Then he went and lifted the bars of the gate. The hounds rushed in.

  Find Wandsman.

  He put Pedrallon into their minds, not the name but the look of him. Wandsman who came with N'Chaka.

  He put into their minds the time and place. Remember Wandsman, they answered. They were conditioned to remember Wandsmen.

  Hurry. And watch.

  They ran across dark lawns ankle-deep in water, beneath bending trees turned silver by the lightning. The palace buildings were enormous in extent, with colonnades and domed pavilions lovely as pale dreams.

  Too many minds there, N'Chaka.

  Try.

  The palace windows were dark, as though most of its people slept. Only the guards' stations were lighted. Stark kept away from those. The hounds would warn him of patrols. But if there were any, they must have been indoors somewhere, sheltering from the storm.

  Too many minds. Sleep. Gray.

  Try!

  They passed long, marble wings that wandered among fragrant gardens. They passed sunken courtyards and pools. They found nothing.

  Stark began to believe that it was a hopeless quest, and not too bright a thought in the first place. He did not care to be caught in the palace grounds when the storm had passed. He was on the point of going back when Gerd spoke suddenly.

  Wandsman there!

  Lead.

  "There" was a small pavilion set apart from the main mass of the palace. It was round, with graceful arches and a spired roof, and no walls. Candles burned in tall stands, the flames going straight up because in spite of the storm there was little wind. In the center of the marble floor a man knelt, his head bowed i
n an attitude of contemplation. There was a stillness about the kneeling figure, surrounded by brightness and seen through a curtain of falling rain, which suggested that the person who dwelt within it was faraway.

  Stark recognized Pedrallon.

  Four men stood around him with their backs to the rain. They stood quite still, leaning on their spears, watching him. No one else was nearby. The sleeping palace was quiet and remote.

  Stark gave the hounds their orders.

  The storm muffled sound, swallowed up the thin screaming of men in mortal terror. Stark and the hounds gained the platform of the pavilion and the men groveled on it. Stark moved swiftly among them, clubbing with the butt of a spear until they were all silent. Afterward, he bound them, working very fast.

  Pedrallon had not risen from his knees. He wore only a white waistcloth, and his slender body might have been carved from amber, so motionless he held it. Only his head had lifted so that he might see Stark.

  "Why do you disturb me?" he asked. "I am preparing for death."

  "I have friends, and a boat in the harbor. You have no need to die."

  "Because of my dealings with Penkawr-Che, I am responsible for what has happened," Pedrallon said. "I will not live with shame."

  "Do you know where this ship is that preys on your people?"

  "Yes."

  "Could you lead us to it?"

  "Yes."

  "Then there is still hope. Come with me, Pedrallon."

  The rain poured down, sheeting from the roof edges, though the candles burned steadily.

  The hounds nosed and prowled among the fallen guards. Hurry, N'Chaka.

  "What hope?" asked Pedrallon.

  "Of bringing help, bringing ships and punishing Penkawr-Che—of saving the people who want to be saved. All the things you risked your life for." He looked down at Pedrallon. "Where is the man who was going to go on fighting the Wandsmen, no matter what?"

  "Words. I am a captive under my own roof. I have no followers. My people scream for my blood, and my brother is in haste to satisfy them. Deeds, I have found, are more difficult than words."

  His face was as Stark remembered it, a fine construction of aristocratic bones and smooth flesh, but the tremendous force that once had blazed in it was absent. The dark eyes that had burned with so much vitality were now cold and dull.

  "You speak of things that concerned me yesterday, in another life. That time is gone."

  Pedrallon bent his head again.

  Stark said, "You will come with me now. If you do not, the hounds will touch you. Do you understand?"

  Pedrallon did not stir.

  The hounds touched him. They flogged him to his feet with little whips of terror. They drove him beside Stark out across the dark and streaming lawns.

  "How long before someone comes to the pavilion?"

  "No one comes," Pedrallon answered, sobbing, "until the guard is changed. I spend my nights and days there, fasting—"

  "When is the guard changed?"

  "When Old Sun rises."

  Does he lie, Gerd?

  No.

  Does anyone follow?

  They went the shortest way to the gate. The sentries were still quiet. Stark closed the gate behind them and set off down the hill. Pedrallon was beside him, heavy and stumbling, as though hunger had weakened him. Stark steadied him, his own ears stretched for any sound of alarm or pursuit behind them.

  None came, nor did the hounds give any warning.

  The storm rolled away slowly over the jungle. The rain slackened. It was very late now, and the few folk who prowled the swimming streets saw no more than a pair of sailors hurrying back to their ship.

  Stark found the skiff where he had left it. Pedrallon sat in it with a hound front and back. Stark sculled out to the mooring.

  Ready hands pulled them aboard, hoisted up the skiff to its place on the deck. Rowers jumped to the benches. The sweeps ran out. The anchor stone came thumping up over the stern and the boat moved through glassy water, toward the open sea. Overhead, the clouds had broken, letting through rifts of silver light.

  Pedrallon sat dazed and exhausted. Tuchvar brought wine and he drank it. It seemed to bring a little life back into him. He looked at the hounds and shuddered. He looked round at his shipmates, and made a gesture to Ashton, recognizing him. Then he turned to Stark.

  "Is there truly hope?" he asked.

  "I think so, if you lead us quickly to that ship."

  "Well, then," Pedrallon said, "I will break my fast."

  16

  Old Sun was newly risen, but already it was hot. Lying in the fringe of the jungle, Stark could feel the runnels of sweat trickling on his naked back.

  He was looking out from under a noisy canopy of trees where innumerable nameless creatures shouted and quarreled, going about the business of a new day.

  He was looking at the starship.

  Pedrallon had led them well since he woke from the drugged apathy of despair. The faint hope that he might yet defeat the Lords Protector and set his world free had been enough to kindle something of the old fire in him again. The sheer, vicious desire to strike a punishing blow against Penkawr-Che had done the rest.

  By his direction, the Fallarin had given them a hurrying wind south, to a tiny inlet, where the boat was worked in under oars and concealed from passing ships and over-flying hoppers. The Fallarin remained, with the Tarf, to guard her and to gather strength. Pedrallon's enemies were not likely to accept his disappearance with equanimity, and once the pursuit was under way the fugitives would have to move fast to keep ahead of it.

  In the breathless heat of noon, Pedrallon had brought the rest of the troop to a village. He had hunted these jungles many times, he said, and the man who had served him as guide and tracker knew every trail in this part of Andapell. He could take them directly to the ship.

  "But will he serve you now?" asked Halk.

  Stark glanced at the hounds, but Pedrallon shook his head. "You will not need them."

  And they did not. Pedrallon entered the village and came back with a small, wiry man named Larg, who said that Pedrallon was his lord and his friend and that whatever Pedrallon wanted, he would do.

  So they followed Larg, all that day and through the night, toward the place where Pedrallon had told him to go. They halted only to rest briefly and eat the hard rations they had brought with them. And all the way Stark was haunted by the fear that they were too late, that the ship had already gone to rendezvous with Penkawr-Che on the heath and that they were straining their hearts out for nothing.

  It was not necessary to say this to Ashton. His anxious face mirrored the same fear.

  They came at last, in the moonless morning time before Old Sun was up, to the edge of the jungle, and they saw the great towering shape gleaming faintly in the starshine and knew they were not too late.

  The ship sat on a triangular plain of gravel laid down by the flooding of two small rivers, or by two branches of the same river, that came down over a rock wall in two separate waterfalls a quarter-mile apart to join again some distance below. This was not the flood season and the water was no more than ankle deep. It made a pleasant chuckling sound going over its stony bed. But Stark was not pleased by it. He saw the stream as an obstacle; not a large one, to be sure, but one he could have done without.

  The ship was small by interstellar standards. Like Arkeshti, she was designed for use on the out-worlds, where port facilities were primitive or nonexistent. Small as she was, she bulked impressively on the plain, propped level on massive landing legs, her outer skin scored and pitted by alien atmospheres and the dust that drifts between the stars.

  When Old Sun came up, Stark was able to see more detail than he had at first, and none of it was reassuring. Three hoppers squatted in a line close to the ship.

  They were inside a perimeter guarded by three laser cannon on portable mounts. The cannon had their own power cells, and they were emplaced to cover all approaches to the open hatch of the sh
ip. The two-man crews walked about or lounged between the canvas awnings that sheltered each emplacement.

  "They run a tight ship," said Ashton, lying at Stark's left. "Without the hounds, I shouldn't care to face those cannon."

  "My brother has not cared to, either," Pedrallon said. He was at Stark's right. "The Wandsmen impressed upon him the futility of an attack and he was only too eager to agree. The Wandsmen are pleased with the depredations because of the hatred they rouse against foreigners. They do not wish to have them stopped." He stared hungrily at the ship. "We must take her, Stark. If possible, we must destroy her."

  Six men emerged from the ship. They spoke to the six men of the gun crews, who went up the ramp and inside—to get their breakfasts, Stark supposed, and then some sleep. The six newcomers took their places by the cannon.

  Halk came up, from the place some distance away where the troop was resting, under orders to make no sound. He crouched down, glowering at the hoppers.

  "Will they never take those damned things off?" he said.

  "It's early yet."

  "They must be near the end of their looting," Pedrallon said. "My brother has kept me supplied with each day's report of temples robbed and villages plundered. Even allowing for lies, Andapell must be nearly stripped, as well as the principalities that neighbor us."

  "Let's hope the hoppers have one more day's work," Stark said. "If they open that cargo hatch to load the hoppers in, we'll have to hit them with all hands present, something I don't want to do."

  "Surely," said Halk, "your Northhounds can carry all before them."

  "The Northhounds are not immortal, and those are powerful weapons. A tramp like this one draws hands from all over the galaxy, and some of them may be like the Tarf, immune to the hounds. If there are too many immunes, or if there's just one and he happens to be in charge of a cannon, we won't have such an easy time of it."

  "Look," said Pedrallon.