Masks of Scorpio (18 page)

Through her sobs the child gasped out: “Put me down, put me down! Let me go!”

Now the treads were fashioned of wood, cutting through the dark earth, and my feet hit them with the hard smack of callused skin.

In these frantic moments of flight there was just no way of explaining, and my concern for the child had to be adjusted with what might appear to be the same callousness that affected my feet. She had been promised sweets and candies, a pretty white dress, and these goodies she had received. To be snatched from them by a naked hairy sweating devil in a glinting gold zhantil mask! No, oh, no, explanations at this moment could never explain.

The wooden door at the head of the stairs was not guarded from the inside, whereat my heart sank, for I judged it would be bolted and guarded from the outside.

The only way to find out was to put a shoulder to it and heave.

The door resisted.

I felt — I felt that demeaning rush of blood to the head, the scarlet curtain, the furious obsessive rage that trembles all along the muscles and bursts out in blinding ferocity.

I smashed at the door.

It flew open and the mingled emerald and ruby radiance of Kregen flooded in.

The splintered ends of the shattered bar thumped to the ground. Clutching the girl sacrifice, my sword snouting, I leaped through the opening.

The two Chuliks who had been lounging on the wooden bench beside the door that let into the grassy bank scrambled to their feet. They wore the brown and silver and leather harness and they’d been playing at the Game of Moons. The pieces went flying. The Chuliks ripped out their swords and jumped for me silently.

Like all Chuliks I’d known, they were quick, professional fighting men. There was no chance of repeating my trick with a flung thraxter here. They were on me in a twinkling.

They did not attack one after the other like actors in a play who must never harm the hero; they leaped in together.

Tackling two Chuliks is difficult enough, Vox knows, without the encumbrance of a squealing, wriggling, kicking girl-child in your free arm. I dumped her down, yelled: “Stand still!” and ripped into the Yellow Tuskers.

They were good — well, that is a stupid remark! Any Chulik who goes overseas and takes employment as a paktun is good. No thought of fancy work entered my head. This had to be quick — damned quick, by Krun.

The grass afforded firm footing, so that we three could leap and pirouette and strike and withdraw with ease. They whipped in side by side and I avoided the first blows and curled my blade in and the left-handed one contemptuously foined me off. I had to skip and jump to miss his comrade’s slash. The next onset went much the same way, although as in a mirror, for the right-hand one parried and the left-hand one struck. That round, like the first, ended with us fronting across the grass, warily seeking an opening, circling.

Of course, they tried to circle me from each side.

This was more like it.

They had to split up so that one could go clockwise and the other widdershins. They’d crush me between them as an ear of grain is crushed in the mill.

So they thought.

Without hesitation I rushed upon the left-hand fellow, making a bit of a pantomime of it, not actually screeching a war cry, but making enough of a menacing growling challenge to set the Chulik quivering.

As I thus rushed on him, his companion, invisible at my back, let out a yell.

“Hold him, Changa!”

This fellow before me whirled up his thraxter, and a wild light came into his yellow face. His tusks were banded with silver. He set himself to meet my attack and, so I guessed, deal with me before his comrade arrived, and thus gain the kudos, what some Kregan warriors call the
absteilung
.

Without the shadow of a doubt, the other Chulik was haring across the grass toward my back, hungering for his share in what
absteilung
there was to be gained from one naked apim warrior.

I halted. I whirled.

The onrushing Chulik, all froth and foam, eyes glaring, tusks flecking spittle from his gaping mouth, gasping with the effort, reared up, sword high.

The one called Changa screeched.

“Beware, Tincho, beware...”

I slid the blade into Tincho, twisted, withdrew, and instantly, without thought, flung sideways and snatched the thraxter aloft. Changa’s blow clanged down. Then it was a twist, a thrust, another ugly twist, and a withdrawal.

Slowly, they collapsed. Each mirroring the other’s actions, they fell to their knees. The swords dropped from lax fingers. Together, they pitched forward onto the grass, sprawled, limp and done for.

One — the one called Changa — managed to gasp out: “By Likshu the Treacherous... the apim fooled us...”

I looked down at them.

“By the Black Chunkrah,” I said, and the sadness tinged my voice. “I salute you both, Chuliks.”

The blood dripped from the thraxter.

It was the work of a moment to strip a length of brown cloth free and wind it about me. I looked about, and if I say my breathing was even and steady, do not be deceived.

The bank rose at my side with the smashed open door leading to the horrors within. Within a few moments horrors on two legs would come roaring out of that cavern seeking my blood.

Below me down the hill spread a tree-dotted expanse leading to the sea. The light of the suns sparkled on that sea. Just what sea it might be in all of Kregen I could not then know.

A seaport nestled in a bay with a spit of land to give protection. The roads were clustered with shipping.

Away to the right on a flat grassy area of considerable extent the long ordered rows of tents of an army glistened in the light.

The scents of grass and trees came pleasantly to my nostrils. And a scampering white dot on twinkling bare legs skipped heedlessly down the grassy slope toward the town.

Picking up my sword, I followed.

“Twelve gold pieces, my friend, and I’ll throw in an extra five dhems.”

Carrying the girl sacrifice — her name she had whispered was Carrie — I tried to brush past in the crowded souk. The fellow with his black chin beard and gold chains and oily hair was persistent.

“Come now, my friend! I know why you are here! You cannot do better than deal with me, Honest Nath Ob-eye the Trancular. Fifteen gold pieces, then—”

He wore a patch over his left eye. His clothes were ornate if greasy, and he carried as well as a sword a whip coiled up over his left shoulder. If I sold Carrie to him he’d have no compunction in using that evil instrument on her. He’d do it in such a way as not to mark the merchandise. Slavers know how to strike in the pain ways.

Carrie and I had hidden in a brake of greenery as the pursuit from that devil’s pit roared past. We’d cleaned ourselves up in a brook that led into the river that reached the sea where this seaport stood. Its name was Memguin and it boasted a powerful fortress. I’d never been here before. But I knew where we were.

By Krun! I knew!

The Everoinye had dumped me down in Menaham.

Menaham, whose inhabitants were known to their neighbors as the Bloody Menahem, stood immediately to the west of Pando’s Bormark in Tomboram. Hereditary enemies, the two countries, and this bloody place had joined up willingly with Phu-Si-Yantong when, as the Hyr Notor, he had taken over in his crazy schemes to conquer the world.

Well, he was dead, the black devil.

But his evil legacy lived on.

“Look, dom,” wheedled this Nath Ob-eye the Trancular. “There is no need to fear. I can see your situation at a glance. You are a poor man, and you have too many children. It is common, men and women being what they are and the good Pandrite blessing them with fecundity. Your girl will be placed in a good home where she will learn to sew and stitch and perhaps, if she has the aptitude, be trained in the arts. A harpist, a dancer, perhaps if she has the gifts of the gods an actress — the lords hereabouts are partial to—”

“Go,” I said, “away.”

“But, dom—”

The souk bustled with activity. The spicy scents rose, and with them the tantalizing odors of food reminded me that my insides were as hollow as a blown egg.

This unpleasant slaver tried a new tack as I pushed on through the throngs.

“Twenty gold pieces will set you up for life! Why—”

His offer was as nonsensical as to price as the situation was to my purposes.

I ignored him and settled Carrie more comfortably on my shoulder. She took considerable interest in the busy scene, with its sights and colors and scents and ceaseless activity, crying out in wonder from time to time. We’d got along in the time it had taken to reach Memguin. By Zair! And hadn’t I had considerable experience lately in the psychological handling of bewildered little girl sacrifices?

“Look, my friend, let me put this to you. You have a sword. Perhaps you think of joining the army being raised by Kov Colun Mogper of Mursham?”

My intense interest was at once aroused. So that was the way of it! The treacherous Mogper was once more reaching a tentacle into my affairs. As to the sword, I had, perforce, to carry it naked in my free hand.

“Perhaps, my friend, you are not the girl’s father at all. Perhaps you have stolen her away, kidnapped her for gain. If I call the watch...”

A tall and emaciated thin Weul’til joined the proceedings from the side, using his furry mouth to fashion a grimace that passed for a smile. Not as tall as your average Ng’grogan, your average Weul’til, but skinnier, decidedly skinnier.

He adjusted his black clothes, shiny in their fashion, wriggled his antennae, and said: “Hai, Nath Ob-eye the Trancular! My friend—” Then to me: “I will match this thieving trader’s best offer, aye, and increase it by five gold pieces—”

“You are too late, Lintin the Ancho! I was about to call the watch to apprehend this kidnapper.”

I own I almost smiled.

This pair of villains waxing righteous about a kidnapping! For the Weul’til, at once serious, exclaimed: “A kidnap! Then let us call the watch at once.”

No doubt they were working a variant of the badger game; but I had had enough. I restrained myself.

I looked at the pair of them, and if that old devilish Dray Prescot look flamed across my face and turned me into the semblance of a demon from the deepest pits of hell, I do not think I can be overly faulted.

“If you do not at once run away, you will not ever run again! Get going!
Grak!
”

Well, if I used that ugly word then, it fitted.

They flinched back, hovered — and then they grakked.

I’d not said “Bratch!” nor even the more correct “Schtump!” which means clear off or get out. No, I’d said grak, and this pair of villains had used that word enough times goading on their slaves to appreciate its meaning when applied to them by a wild, sword-armed fellow with a devil’s face.

I walked on. The air smelled sweeter.

The little Och from whom I’d inquired directions had directed me through this souk — the Souk of Sweetmeats — as my quickest route. A few moments later I emerged from the arched roof onto the Street of Desires and so turned right onto the Boulevard of Pandrite All-Glorious.

This was a prestigious thoroughfare, and more than one passing person gave me a curious glance.

Carriages passed with a flicker of wheels, people paraded in fine clothes, and among them the quick flitter of the slaves in their slave-gray breechclouts passed unnoticed. I carried a sword, and so was clearly not slave, for most if not all Kregans when trusting slaves with weapons dress them up in ornate and pompous finery so as to mark them. I pressed on until I reached the lime-washed wall with its wrought-iron gate, closed, set between stone pillars.

Each pillar was surmounted by a satyr carrying off a virgin, sculpted in bronze, most lifelike if twice life-size. I did not know whose embassy building this had been before the Times of Troubles. I pulled the bell ring.

Now — I was doing something I usually eschewed.

More often than not, of course, the Star Lords hurled me into action where what I was up to now was either not possible or against my best interests. I waited as the pleasant chiming of the bell dwindled to silence.

An almost naked wild-looking fellow, carrying a bare sword, with a girl child perched on his shoulder, might be an apparition not well-received at someone’s front door.

That thought had scarcely crossed my mind, incensed by those two slavers in the souk and by concern for Carrie and that ill-starred army mustering under the command of one of the vilest rogues yet unhanged. I just rang the bell and waited for the porter. I’d convince him easily enough.

There was no need.

The door in the gatehouse opened smartly and a fellow with one arm trotted out across the gravel. He wore buff breeches and buff shirt with red and yellow banded sleeves. His face was red and purple, beetle-browed and cheerfully pugnacious. The empty red and yellow sleeve was pinned up defiantly across his chest like a sash.

“And what does a fellow like you want...?” he began as he came up with Carrie and me.

He stopped.

He opened his mouth and closed it. His beetle-brows rose as though on stilts. He opened his mouth again and this time he got out: “Now may Opaz the Saver of Souls be praised!”

He fairly scuttled to the bar and lifted it with his one right hand with a smooth and powerful swing.

Then he slapped that right arm across his chest with rib-crushing force.

“Lahal, majister! Lahal and Lahal!”

You cannot expect an emperor to know the name of every soldier in his army, an empress the name of every voswod in her aerial forces. Some of them are canny enough, like Napoleon, to have themselves briefed before a parade so that they can talk to a soldier and use his name in a familiar way. This builds the legend.

Well, by Vox, I knew a large, a very large number of people on Kregen, and once I’d met them I’d normally remember names and faces.

This one-armed ex-soldier, beaming away, his purple face an enormous smile, I did not know.