Warrior of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #3]

by Alan Burt Akers

  She gasped as my fingers dug into her shoulders.

  “Dray—you're hurting—"

  I let her down, but I still held her hard.

  “Tell me!"

  “Delia—the Princess Majestrix—the impiter dropped her, Dray—I thought you knew! It dropped her into a pond—you know, one of the little tarns that you find all over the uplands—and I screamed—why did you think I was screaming, Dray, for myself?” She wriggled and licked her lips. “I knew Delia was dead, and I was screaming in fear for you, Dray!"

  I let her drop so that she went down in a flurry of silver tissue with the brave scarlet breechclout sprawling in an ungainly back-slide, and turned away, and Seg said: “I did not see Delia fall from the impiter! By the veiled Froyvil—she cannot be dead! It would not be allowed!"

  He came into the room with most of his old reckless air still about him; his limp had almost gone. He was better, he was the old Seg again, with the reckless laugh and the damn-you-to-hell manner.

  “No,” I said, my voice a croak. “No—it would be unthinkable—it could not be allowed. My Delia, she is not dead—” I swung to Thelda, who raised herself on her arms, the silver tissue bulging and crumpling with the force of her breathing. “What tarn was it, Thelda? I will go to this pond and see for myself!"

  Nothing would stop me.

  When Hwang pointed out the dangers, that travel between cities anywhere in this land was beset with peril, that the winged host might still be in the vicinity, that wild beasts would rend me, I brushed all that tomfoolery aside. I donned my scarlet breechclout, buckled on my long sword, and I found a blanket roll, and some odd items of food. I took my new longbow in my hand, slung the quiver over my shoulders, mounted a borrowed nactrix, and I was off.

  As I had expected Seg soon spurred up to ride at my side.

  By the time we had ridden back over that ground and found the site of the battle—massacre, really—where the bones lay white and bleaching under the suns of Scorpio, Hwang and a regiment of his own cavalry were hard on our heels. I had heard from the Queen's nephew something of the reasons for that disastrous battle in the valley; that the men cherished their traditions and fought in disciplined bodies held together by rules sacrosanct with age. That the treacherous councilor Forpacheng—and not Orpus whom the Queen had suspected and who had miraculously escaped the ambush on the stairway—had led the troops into the valley, and had then let them be cut to pieces. That the discipline had broken under Forpacheng's malicious and contradictory orders. Now, Hwang had said, a new army was being forged from the remnants and new recruits, and they would not repeat the mistakes of the past.

  The pool lay black and ominous beneath the suns.

  I dived. I dived and swam beneath the water until my lungs burned and all the suns of the universe flamed before my eyes; I did not find my Delia.

  Memories of that time blur. I remember men talking to me and urging me not to continue; and of myself taking deep agonizing breaths and cleaving the dark water of the tarn and swimming, swimming, swimming, and always that nightmarish expectancy that my groping hands would close on the obscenely bloated, water-logged, half eaten body of my Delia of Delphond.

  Exhaustion had no place in my scheme of things. I would search every single square inch of the bottom of the pool, and every cubic inch of its water; and if I did not find my Delia, then I would begin all over again. I did not want to find her there, God knows; but I did not want to leave the task unfinished and be haunted for the rest of my days.

  Perhaps, in the end, I was only saved from insanity by the arrival of Orpus and more soldiers. They seemed to my dulled senses smart enough, Zair knows. With them rode a man whose hair was dyed a deep indigo.

  I reared up and from somewhere my long sword was in my fist and I started for this man with the indigo hair and I heard Seg shout and his hand gripped my arm.

  “No, no, Dray! He is of Hiclantung—his hair is dyed because he has been scouting—"

  “A spy,” I said stupidly.

  “Yes, yes—and listen! He believes he has found where Delia is held captive!"

  When I had somewhat recovered my senses and the news had been expounded, my next step was obvious.

  The name I now focused on with an intensity of purpose at once hateful and vengeful and obsessional was—Umgar Stro.

  The spy, one Naghan, a common name on Kregen, had been clever; clearly he was a courageous and resourceful man. Charged with the task of discovering who had instigated the nighttime attack upon the Queen he had begun by making inquiries in Chersonang, the rival city-state of Hiclantung, only to discover that the whole political situation had changed. A new force had entered this area of the Hostile Territories. From far to the northwest a fresh barbarian horde had swung southward as they had done when the empire of Walfarg in Loh had fallen. From the windy heights past The Stratemsk they had flown astride their impiters and corths and zizils, intent on carving a new land for themselves. They had taken over a country inhabited by Rapas, killing the vulturine people by the thousand, installing themselves as overlords. And here their leader, this Umgar Stro, had suborned and paid the traitor Forpacheng. But now—Umgar Stro had announced his intentions of dominating the entire section of nations centering on his new capital of Plicla, that had once been Rapa, and then of taking over the whole of the Hostile Territories, and the eastern seaboard with its scattering of settlements of nations of the outer ocean, and, so he had said, boldly, he would also march across The Stratemsk and attack whatever lay beyond.

  Of course, the inner sea, the Eye of the World, was unknown to these people except in the vaguest of myth and legend.

  “And Delia is held in a tower in Plicla. May the veiled Froyvil guard her and keep her from harm!"

  “You are sure?” I asked Naghan as Seg's anxious words died.

  “I cannot be certain that the girl captured is the princess you seek,” said Naghan, omitting all forms of ceremonial or obsequious address. “I never saw her.” He was short and strong, with a faded look around his eyes. He had built his face up into a blunt profile with oiled clays, but no one would think him one of Umgar Stro's half-men in any kind of decent light. He had taken his life in his hands to bring me this information, and I was grateful to him. “I can give you all the information of the tower you require; externally, that is. Once inside—” He spread his hands.

  Umgar Stro.

  The whole area between The Stratemsk and the eastern seaboard had been turned into a place containing a very large number of petty kingdoms. The so-called Hostile Territories were places where a series of nations each followed its own destiny. There were tracts where the original inhabitants remained, there were barbarian nomads, there were cities of half-men and beast-men, there were nations of half-civilized barbarians, there were the cities which had managed to retain much of their Lohvian heritage. The whole was a great quilt of conflicting cultures.

  Umgar Stro.

  With the legacies left by Walfarg—the long well-constructed and surfaced roads, a common currency, the use of arms, a common law that the barbarians naturally disrupted, a religion based on worship of the female principle in life and the interesting ramifications following on that—all these elements of existence held in common had in an ironic way helped rather than hindered the dissolution and conquest of the land by factions. A raiding army could move rapidly down the roads, but they would be exposed to attack at known places by the flying hosts.

  Umgar Stro.

  “Once I am inside Umgar Stro's tower,” I told Naghan, the spy, “I shall be satisfied."

  He looked at my face, and turned away, and fidgeted with his sword.

  “What is the name of this barbarian nation that flies its impiters against Hiclantung?"

  “They come from Ullardrin, somewhere north of The Stratemsk and they are called the Ullars."

  “We'll need to fly, Dray,” said Seg.

  “Yes,” I said. “I hear the men of Hiclantung do not really relish flyin
g—the corths are few and far between in the city.” This was true. Corth-flying was in the nature of a sport for the nobles and the high councilors; the ordinary people and the soldiers hated all flying beasts, and one could well understand why. Their ancestors had waged ceaseless war against the aerial barbarians, and it still went on today. They had developed effective tricks and weapons they could deploy against impiters and corths and only through Forpacheng's treachery were they deprived of them on the day of the army massacre.

  We hurried back to the city.

  Thelda with tears and protestations tried to stop me from going. She had seen Delia fall into the tarn and if I went to this dreadful Umgar Stro's high tower I would surely be killed.

  There was much to be learned about riding a corth and I put her aside and shouted for Seg. Hwang had insisted on putting his two best birds at our disposal, and we went along to fat Nath the Corthman to find out all we could.

  Everyone treated us as though we were mad, and everyone was careful to make full, polite, and emotional Remberee of us before they let us go.

  I told Seg I did not want him to accompany me.

  He laughed.

  “I'll grant I've never seen a swordsman like you, Dray—no, and never likely to! But I know that however good you may be with the longbow, you cannot best me; and bows will be needed, you will see. Consequently, I shall come with you.” He stared at me and I warmed to the look on his lean, tanned face, the light of understanding and resolution in his blue eyes, the wild mane of black hair. “And,” he said, offhandedly, “I, too, value your Delia Majestrix."

  I couldn't speak for a moment, and grasped his hand. I was not fool enough to say what I had been about to say, namely, that I had thought he would welcome the opportunity to stay with Thelda. She had been worrying me, and I wished she would turn to Seg, although I wouldn't have wished her on my comrade for the world—either one—had he not devoutly wished that disaster for himself.

  In the confused tangling of politics going on all around me as Queen Lilah sought for strength and allies against the menace of the Ullars, I was conscious only of one objective: I had to reach Umgar Stro's high tower and bring my Delia safely back to me.

  I called her “my Delia” and she called me “my Dray” but neither one of us regarded it as selfish possession in thus speaking; rather we recognized we were but halves of a complete whole.

  To add to our normal weapons and accouterments we took warm flying furs and silks, extra quivers of arrows, and a couple of heavy flint-headed spears. I packed a complete set of warm clothing for Delia. I had no doubts, now.

  That evening I went up to the palace—imposing but, because of the absolute necessity not to allow any perching place for birds or animals, somehow spiritless and without that fantasy of architecture so beloved by the builders of Kregen—to pay my respects to the Queen.

  Lilah received me in a small withdrawing room in which the lamps picked out the sumptuous furnishings, the furs and rugs, the weapons on the walls, the leather upholstery and all the crystal wink and glitter, the golden glows and the silver sheen of absolute luxury. The Queen of Pain, men called her, behind their hands. I had heard dark stories about her wayward manner with men; how she used them and tossed them aside. I had met, as I then thought, women of her stamp before. Those fabulous Queens of Loh, notorious, sadistic, cruel, had a devoted disciple in this tall woman with the widow's peak of dark red hair, the upslanting eyebrows, the shaded cheekbones, and the small firm mouth. She welcomed me kindly and we drank purple wine of Hiclantung, and munched palines. She wore a jeweled mesh of clothes so that her white skin gleamed through the interstices. Lovely and desirable she looked; and yet, hard and remote, a true queen with destinies and cares above the mere carnal satisfactions of the flesh. I had the thought that my Delia, however greater an empire she might one day rule, would never take on that hard, polished, ruthless look of despotism.

  “You have saved my life, Dray Prescot, and now you rush off to risk that life, precious to me, in the wayward service of another woman."

  “Not any woman, Lilah."

  “And am I not any woman! I am the Queen—I have told you; my word is law. You flouted my wishes, there in the windlass room of the corthdrome. Many men have died for less."

  “Mayhap they have. I do not intend to die for that."

  She drew in a breath and the gems about her body winked and flashed in the lamplight. Gracefully she stretched out a white arm and lifted her goblet. The wine stained her lips for an instant, turning them purple and cruel.

  “I need a man like you, Dray Prescot. I can give you any thing you desire—as you have seen. Now that the Ullars are forcing themselves on us, I need a fighting-man to lead my regiments. They are well-disciplined, but they do not fight well. The barbarians scorn us."

  “Men will fight if they believe in what they fight for."

  “I believe in Hiclantung! And I believe in myself!"

  I nodded.

  “Sit upon my throne alongside me, Dray! I implore you—and there could be a great sweetness between us—more than you can imagine.” She was breathing faster now, and her mouth opened with the passions she felt. I—what did I think, then, when every fiber of my being shrieked to be off and away in search of my Delia of the Blue Mountains?

  “You honor me, Lilah. Indeed, you are beautiful."

  Before I could go on she had thrown herself upon me, her arms were about my neck, and I could feel the gems upon her person pressing into my flesh beneath the white robe I wore. Her mouth, all hot and moist, sought mine. I recoiled.

  “Dray!” she moaned. “If I were a true queen I would have had you quartered for what you did! So bold, so reckless, so impious—you defied me, the Queen of Hiclantung. And yet you live and I am prostrate at your feet, imploring you—"

  “Please, Lilah!” I managed to disengage, and she slumped to the floor on the gorgeous rugs and stared up lustfully at me. She was breathing in great gasps now, her body convulsed with her own passions. “Please, you are the Queen and a great one. You have wonderful deeds to accomplish for your city, and I will help you—that I swear—"

  “You—?"

  “I must go to Umgar Stro's tower, Lilah. If I may not do that then I will not do anything else."

  She jumped up, her eyes murderous upon me, and I knew that in an instant I might be struck down on that carpet before her, my head rolling and spouting blood over her pretty jeweled naked feet.

  She opened her mouth and a palace slave—a pretty girl with the gray slave breechclout edged in gold lace, and a pair of enormous dark eyes that fairly danced in a goggling kind of amazement at the scene within—put her curly head in at the door and started to say: “The Lady Thelda of Vallia—” when she was pushed aside and Thelda marched in.

  The tableau held. It held, I confess, until despite all my lack of laughter I wanted to roar my mirth at these two.

  For these two were standing up very straight and erect, bosoms jutting, chins up, hands held quiveringly at their sides, their eyes darting and flashing like rapiers crossing, so charged with emotion were these two ladies—and over a hulking great brute of a man with an ugly face and shoulders wide enough to have encompassed the pair of them—a man, moreover, who wanted nothing so much as to be rid of the pair of them and wing into the night to seek his true love.

  So much for the tantrums of beauty!

  They did not fight, or spit, or scratch—and, indeed, it would have been an overmatched contest—but the danger signals that flashed between them crackled with eloquent if silent rivalries.

  Queen Lilah seemed perfectly to accept Thelda's arrival. I suppose she could, if she wished, have tossed us both into some dank dungeon and had us tortured to death, licking her lips over us the while.

  As it was, Lilah simply said with devastating regality: “Does this—woman—mean anything to you, Dray?"

  The question differed entirely from that question of like meaning put to me by the Princess Natema on her g
arden rooftop in the Opal Palace of the Esztercari hold in Zenicce. Then I had lied to save my Delia's life. I did not need to lie now to save Thelda's. And yet—she did mean something to me, although not what either she longed for or Lilah suspected.

  “I have the highest respect for the Lady Thelda,” I said, with crude formality. The image of the night sky and a rushing wind and the tower of Umgar Stro reared into my mind's eye. I could not wait longer. “I hold her in the same deep and cherished affection as I hold your esteemed and regal person, Lilah. No more—and no less."

  “Oh—Dray!” The wail could have come from either woman.

  “I must go."

  I laid my hand on my sword hilt. An almost instinctive gesture, it brought a flush to Lilah's pallid countenance. Such boorish behavior, clearly, was unknown in her civilized palace. Thelda started across and took my arm. She glared haughtily upon the Queen.

  “I am responsible for the safe-keeping of my Lord of Strombor,” she said. “Now that his betrothed, the Princess Majestrix of Vallia, is dead."

  I would not let her say any more. I turned my wrist and took her hand in my own and crushed it, and smiled at Lilah, the Queen, and said firmly but without rancor: “I am eternally in your debt, Lilah, for your goodness to me and my friends. Now I must go to seek out this Umgar Stro and, if necessary, kill him. I believe I am doing you a good favor, Lilah, in doing that, so do not hurt Thelda here or hinder me. I am a good friend—I would not wish you to understand the depth of my enmity."

  This was all good fustian staff, but it had its effect.

  As though coming to a decision, the Queen nodded, and the stiffness went out of her poise. Her figure was good, if a trifle on the thin side, but this merely added to the regality of her presence. She put a hand to her breast, over her heart, and pressed it in. Distinctly, I saw a gigantic diamond, scintillant and brilliant in the lamplight, cut into her flesh.

  Her gasp forced its way past psychic, mental levels of pain completely unknown to her body.

  “Very well, Dray Prescot. Wreak your vengeance on Umgar Stro. I shall not forget. I shall be here when you return. Then we will talk more; for what I have spoken to you I sincerely mean."