Seg the Bowman (15 page)

From the boat aft of them a giant voice roared.

A Stentor, using a curly horn from one of the cattle animals of the plain, bellowed commands.

“Steer for the bank! Do not resist! Resistance is useless.”

Seg, about to spit out in his bluff way: “We’ll see about that, by Krun!” stopped, the words unformed.

The cluster of fighting men in the bows parted. The prijikers moved aside. Clearly to be seen the snout of a varter showed, aimed at Obolya’s boat, and in the trough of the ballista there would be a large and heavy rock. Once the ballista clanged and the arms sprang forward and the varter disgorged that rock...

“We shall be holed! We will sink!” gasped Milsi.

Obolya shrieked again, and his personal guards lowered their bows. Once the boat was holed and sank, the jaws lurking in the muddy waters would feast...

“There is no chance, my lady,” said Seg. He looked at his bow. He looked at the pursuing craft. He saw the varter and pictured the cruelly sharp and heavy rock positioned in the trough. Carefully, he unstrung his bow. He took the string right off. He coiled it neatly and laid it away in his belt pouch. Then he took up one of the compound reflex bows, and put that dorven bow close by his hand.

Milsi said, “The guards of Kov Llipton will not be deceived, Seg.”

“Nevertheless, I can but try.” And he put the great Lohvian longbow down, pushing it half under the landing ramp, so that it looked a mere lump of wood.

Without orders, for there was need of none, the helmsman headed for the near bank.

Zim and Genodras threw down their glorious mingled lights, streaming in long swaths of ruby and jade.

The breeze brought the scents of the plains, sweet grasses, dust, and the sky washed a pearly blue high above. The prow of the boat touched the bank, and she slewed and so came to rest in a ferny brake.

The pursuing boat ranged up alongside, and the Stentor’s voice roared forth again.

“Hold fast all! You are renders and will surely die!”

Willy-nilly, Seg and his comrades, menaced by drawn-back bows, watched as the guards poured into their boat.

“If,” said Seg, “we cannot cheat, contrive or fight a way out of this stinking dungeon, we are not fit to be called paktuns.”

The dungeon itself, sunk into the ground, iron-barred, stank. Outside, at a higher level, the guards prowled. Some guards wore brown and white feathers, and for every guard with the brown and white, another guard wearing the blue and white paced him and kept him company.

Hundle the Design explained this.

“We are in the dungeons of Mewsansmot. This is Trylon Muryan’s domain. But Kov Llipton, also, has jurisdiction, seeing that the town was the benefice of King Crox to Queen Mab when they were married.”

“Fat lot of good that does us,” said Khardun. “It means we have double the damned guards to deal with.”

“Mayhap,” said Seg, “we can start them fighting one another.”

“Would that the good Pandrite willed it!”

“I agree with Seg,” growled the Dorvenhork in his grim Chulik way. He strained against the iron chains that bound him cruelly. “We are paktuns. You, Khardun the Khibil, are a hyrpaktun.”

“That is so. We are not true to ourselves if we cannot burst a way out of here.”

Seg refused to let the scarlet flames of horror into his brain — Milsi! What had happened to her? Where was she? What were these rasts doing to her now?

Of all the men, only Diomb had been sent along with the women. He and Bamba, Milsi and Malindi had been taken off. Seg could feel the passionate terror in him; and the ferocious coldness to push that away, and await what came, and to escape and shaft as many villains as needed shafting, and rescue Milsi and the others...

“Seg! Brassud, dom, brassud!”

“Yes.” At Khardun’s comradely words, Seg did as he was bid and braced up. He could not go to pieces now, could not betray these men. The odd thing was, he thought, how they looked to him for guidance.

Oh, yes, he had paid three of them good red gold to serve as hired paktuns. And the others took their lead from him. But, all the same, used as he was to command, and the giving of orders, he found this situation intriguing.

The little Och cleared his throat.

“Doms,” said Umtig the Lock. “There is a way.”

They all looked at him, chained in their misery in the dungeon. Umtig still wore the remnants of his finery, and the green-laced blue tunic was ripped only here and there. Seg could not see Lord Clinglin, the tiny spinlikl, in his accustomed place about Umtig’s breast.

The tunic moved of itself.

“Ah!” said Seg. And, then: “Can the little fellow do it?”

“Do it?” Umtig sounded mightily offended. “Have I not trained him assiduously ever since he was fortunate enough to come under my protection? Do it! You steer close to offending me, horter Seg.”

“Then I crave your pardon, horter Umtig. And,” Seg added, “by Diproo the Nimble-Fingered! Let him get on with it sharpish!”

Umtig jumped as though goosed. He bent instantly and started whispering fervently into the opening of his tunic. Presently a long prehensile arm emerged, the tiny but powerful hand grasped Umtig’s ear, and with that as a purchase, Lord Clinglin climbed to Umtig’s shoulder.

His large round eyes surveyed the dungeon. His small round head with the widow’s peak of darker hair giving him a religious look, a sweet and ooh-aahing look to soft-hearted ladies of the court, looked to the chained men in the dungeon oddly fragile to be the cunning object on which their hopes rested.

“Beautifully, now, my lord,” whispered Umtig. “Sweetly now, as I have taught you. Away you go!”

Without hesitation, the tiny monkey jumped from Umtig’s shoulder, clung to the iron bars of the dungeon, and then vanished up away out of sight.

* * * *

Trylon Muryan Mandifenar na Mewsansmot held his title and lands at the hands of the king. King Crox had made him, made his family, and took half of the goodness, produce and profit of the Mewsansmot estates.

Encamped a few miles outside the town on the fringes of the great plains where the ruffled rumps of uncountable head of grazing animals flooded the land with color and movement, Trylon Muryan lolled at ease. He was feeling pleased with himself. That morning he had ridden out on his mewsany, a strong and hard-mouthed beast called Black Thunder, and had successfully shot and slain two chavonths creeping among the herds. His crossbow had been placed among the trophies of the hunt. He had called Master Pumphilio, an artist of repute, to capture the moment and the glory in vivid paint.

So, there sat the trylon on his striped cushions of brown and white silk, sipping sazz, nibbling at miscils, awaiting the moment when he could repair to the dinner tent. These tents were more of the style of pavilions, peaked, striped with multi-colors, embroidered. Delicious aromas from the cooking fires where his slave chefs labored filled his mouth with saliva. He drooled at the coming repast.

Around him his chiefs, his major domo, his slaves, his Chail Sheom — pearl-hung, gauzy of garments, painted of face, and chained — waited on his every word, his every gesture. He was a man pampered in this life.

He ate gluttonously. He ate hugely. Yet he remained trim and dapper, with a figure that could still be spanned by a woman’s outspread hands. And there were women aplenty who sighed to perform that divine function.

As he said, soulfully, it was a great pity and a wonder under the heavens of Zim and Genodras, that the great and glorious Pandrite had seen fit to take away his wife and his twins, and to cast them beneath the iron-rimmed wheels of a common Rapa’s garbage cart.

So it was that when the zorca-rider appeared, dust-stained, bearing the marks of hard-riding, the trylon was prepared to treat him with great solicitude.

“Wine for the messenger.” And: “Take your time, tikshim.” And: “I am for the dinner table, so do not delay me at your peril.”

The messenger gasped out his news, fragile, pallid, in mortal fear of this elegant man in the lounging robes trimmed with silver lace.

“The devil you say!”

Trylon Muryan sat up straight on his cushions.

He snapped his fingers, and his grand chamberlain scurried to do what was unspoken but necessary.

Muryan sat deep in thought and then snapped pettishly at the messenger.

“You say they will be here in two burs?”

“Assuredly so, pantor.”

“Very well. Get out.”

The trylon sat again in thought. On his sallow face graced with a thin strip of chin beard of a dark color that was not a genuine black until it was dyed, a look of growing wonder curved his thin and painted lips.

He began to throb with the wonder and the glory of what had happened. He knew, as Lem was his master and guide, he knew he had been appointed, anointed, chosen and selected.

“It must be!” he said, gobbling over his words, to San Frorwald. “The gods shine on me, and Lem is to be praised above all others!”

“You are undeniably in the right,” said San Frorwald in his grating voice. He was a Sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis, a glittering and imposing figure, such a sorcerer of flash and presence as would be employed at the table of Trylon Muryan. San Frorwald glistened in a robe of green and gold and blue, tall of spiral-bound hat, imposing of look, a thaumaturgist of considerable powers. His beringed hands stroked the book chained to his waist. That hyr lif was gem-encrusted, and bound in the skin flayed from a newly slain maiden.

This sorcerer was the only confidant admitted to the secret thoughts of Trylon Muryan Mandifenar na Mewsansmot.

“Prepare everything,” he told his major-domo. “Nothing must go amiss, or your head is forfeit.”

The major-domo, a butter-pated Gon, bowed, and acknowledged the command, and went to oversee the preparations. The Gon, one Nath the Keys, knew the trylon’s threat was no idle one.

“Now the great and glorious Lem smiles upon me!” declared Trylon Muryan. “Now shall the brown and silvers see such a day as this kingdom has never before witnessed!”

The approaching cavalcade of whose advent the messenger had warned was observed, and escorted into the trylon’s camp with great pomp. A full regiment of lancers preceded the column, their mewsany mounts hardy animals of the plains tamed to men’s use. The carriage was covered with a yellow and green awning against the midday glare of the suns. Slaves with water jugs threw handfuls of water against the carriage to cool it and the occupants within. Feathers waved. There was a full regiment of mewsany cavalry to bring up the rear. In the midst of the glittering host rode the principals, gorgeously clad, riding zorcas, those supreme saddle animals whose hooves splintered the light from burnished silver, whose spiral horns were wound with gold wire. Stentors blew their brazen trumpets in fanfare after fanfare.

Trylon Muryan, resplendent, walked out of his pavilion to greet the arrivals.

The cavalry opened out to left and right. The mewsanys of these two regiments were blacks and grays, hard of hoof, pawing the ground as their riders gentled them into the required positions to take up their guard stations. Pennons fluttered. The carriage rolled to a standstill before Trylon Muryan’s pavilion. He felt conscious of himself, of the suns beating down, of the sound of the cavalrymen, of the jingle of bit and bridle. He could smell the dust off the plains, and scent the savory dishes cooking in the kitchen area. He swelled with the importance of the moment.

Being the man he was, he swelled with his own importance.

Being the man he was, down he went, plump, into the full incline before the carriage. His nose dug into the dust of the plains, his rump stuck in the air, he abased himself to all outward seeming, and joyed in it, knowing the inner secrets of his own heart and the fecundity and glory of the schemes hatching there.

“Do rise, Trylon Muryan. Lahal.”

He lifted his head, staring up.

The queen looked glorious, clothed in light, glittering with gems, seen from this humble position like a goddess rising supernal into the air.

“Lahal, majestrix. Lahal. You are more welcome than—”

“Very probably. I have ridden out particularly to see you, trylon. Let us go into your tent where we may talk privately.”

A frantic scrabbling followed as men and women jostled out of the way, making attempts to maintain protocol, pushing lesser wights clear, shoving to make a passage for the queen and the trylon.

Within the coolness of the tent Muryan swept a beringed hand about the displayed wealth and luxury.

“All I have is yours, majestrix.”

Slowly she removed her dust-veil, the shamil of fine blue gauze hemmed with diamonds and seed pearls.

Her brown eyes regarded the trylon meaningfully.

“That is so, Muryan. You hold your life at the hands of the king my husband. And he has given Mewsansmot to benefit me. I am glad you do not forget.”

Muryan put a hand to his lips. He knew nothing of this woman. She had appeared suddenly, brought at the king’s orders from Jholaix. She was the last representative, as far as the wise men knew, of the royal line in the vital female descent. She had been married to the king in a hasty, candle-lit ceremony in the palace of Nalvinlad. The moment the final words had been spoken the king had departed, paddling down the river to go on his fatal expedition into the Snarly Hills. The queen had waited no time at all before setting off after King Crox.

And, now, here she was, back and alive, and of a sudden promising to be an unexpectedly formidable opponent.

“How may I serve, you, majestrix?”

“In two things, which must be done immediately.”

“Of course.”

“One. You will send for my daughter, the lady Mishti, from wherever she has been banished. You will do this thing now. Your head will answer for her safety.”

Muryan bowed that head that, on a sudden, seemed to him to be not so securely affixed to his neck. He rang a golden bell and his Relt stylor sidled in, pale feathers dusty and ink-stained.

“Send for the queen’s daughter, the lady Mishti. Send Jiktar Parndan and his regiment. Bratch!”