Seg the Bowman (8 page)

The local godling was a fish-tailed lady called Kazzchun-faril and her temple lifted above the houses, and its walls were of wood lavishly carved and decorated. The papishin-leaved roof covered a goodly area of cells and secret places. Milsi and the others went into the outer court and the sight of two gold croxes made the priestess’s eyes light up with avarice.

“May the great and glorious fishiness of Kazzchun-faril light upon you and your hooks never be drawn empty,” intoned a lady in a swathing robe of fish-scales, and tawdry bangles. “Go with the goddess’s blessing.”

So, with that out of the way, they went across the muddy square to The Hook and Net. Here a few copper coins produced the local brew. Without proper corn or vines, the locals produced their liquor from the bounty of the forest. Seg sipped. He made a face.

“I judge Diomb and Bamba will never touch a drop of the good stuff if this ruins their palates,” he said.

Diomb sipped, spluttered and looked affronted.

Bamba sipped, sipped again, looked at Milsi, smiled, and finished the jug.

“H’m, young lady. I shall not carry you to bed.”

The delights of roast ponsho were available, for meat animals were carried downstream from the enormous pastures farther north. Momolams, those small, yellow tubers of the delicious taste, complemented roast ponsho. Also, there were local dishes, mostly of fish cooked in an amazing variety of ways. The bread, baked from flour brought down the river, was gritty and coarse and would wear a person’s teeth out well within two hundred years.

The two dinkus lapped up everything new with an appetite at once greedy and charming.

From the caverns of the Coup Blag Seg had brought his pouch-full of gold coins. He used these sparingly. He noticed that Milsi, also, had a pouch of coins, and he surmised that these had come from the same source as his own, or, perhaps, were leftovers of those she would habitually carry as handmaid to the queen.

When the reckoning was paid, and the word was mentioned, Diomb said, “What is money?”

“Ah, now,” said Seg, wisely, scratching his nose. “Now there you pose a question that has bedeviled men and women for thousands of seasons. Money! If we did not need it, why, then—”

“We have none in the forest,” pointed out Bamba.

“I will tell you this. Money is hard to obtain and easy to lose. With it you can buy — that is, get hold of

— many things. But if you think only of money, you’re done for.”

Milsi gave a more reasoned explanation, so that the dinkus, naturally, said: “Then how will we obtain this money if it is necessary to live in the outside world?”

“Work.”

“What is work?”

As Milsi explained Seg looked out of the window. He pointed to the three stakes set up side by side against the larger house with mud cladding to its wooden walls. Each stake was crowned with a human head. Two were men, one was female; two were Fristles, one was an Och.

“See those heads out there? They are there because their owners instead of working stole goods or money from other honest folk.”

Milsi said: “Oh, Seg — the penalty here for thievery is to have the hand cut off. I don’t think—”

Seg looked meaningfully upon the two dinkus.

“And the hands cut off!”

Then, sotto voce to Milsi, “I don’t want them up to their usual common-possession habits. If we scare

’em enough they won’t get into trouble.”

“Yes, well. I suppose you are right.”

Bamba and Diomb were suitably impressed.

“The outside world is indeed a strange place. Far more strange than ever the elders told us.”

“There is,” said Seg, helpfully, “a whole lot more.”

A movement in the mud square took his attention. He pointed again. “Look there! See that fellow with the yellow skin and the blue pigtail? His hair hanging down like a rope, like a twisted vine?”

They all looked out. The small coffle of slaves, trudging from the large mud-walled house, were in a poor state. The fellow Seg pointed out with the shaven yellow skull and the blue pigtail had tusks reaching up each side of his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot. His body was robustly strong and fit, endowed with muscle.

“It is uncommon strange to see a Chulik as slave. They are mercenaries, fighting men trained up from birth. They are first-class warriors and they are not cheap to hire. I wonder what he did to get himself in this fix?”

Chained before the Chulik a little Och slumped along, his six limbs giving him some assistance, for Ochs, although only around four feet tall, use their middle limbs as hands or feet as circumstances dictate. His puffy face and lemon-shaped head looked thoroughly hangdog.

Following the Chulik a beaked Rapa, hawklike in appearance, his orange and blue feathers bedraggled, stumped along, careful not to drag the bight of chain tight.

Other diffs and apims trudged along in the miserable slave column, and the Katakis lashed them with thick whips, or buffeted them with the flats of the steel strapped to their tails.

“If they don’t cut off your hands and head,” said Seg, heavily, “they’ll take you up as slaves. So — do not take anything that is not yours. That is stealing.”

“We will remember,” said Diomb, most chastened.

The pygmies aroused considerable interest in the fisherfolk of Lasindle. A group of them in the opposite window corner kept shooting looks toward Diomb and Bamba. They were mostly apims, not all, and Seg began to feel a stuffiness in the atmosphere. He just hoped that he would not have to become embroiled in some stupid affray because these fishermen did not allow dinkus into their tavern. That kind of barbaric custom was known.

He also did not fail to miss the interest they took in the great longsword strapped to his back. He’d kept the sword because it belonged to the Bogandur. As for Seg himself, his old dom had shown him, often and often, how to wield the thing, and to hold it properly, and how to cut and thrust and cleave a path through the midst of a confused battle, as well as how to meet an opponent in single combat. Seg could handle the longsword; but it was not his chosen weapon. If he came to handstrokes he was most comfortable with the drexer scabbarded at his side, or a rapier and left-hand dagger.

All the same, he firmly believed in shafting his enemies before they got within striking range.

Uneasily, he said to Milsi: “I believe we should leave here very soon.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not much enamored of the looks of those fishermen.”

“But they are ordinary honest fisherfolk—”

“Oh, aye, indisputably. But they’re like any honest folk in their tavern. They don’t like strangers, particularly strangers they feel may wish them harm.”

“That’s nonsense! I don’t see—”

“All the same, my lady, drink up and we will leave.”

Just as they were about to quit The Hook and Net a rumble of coarse voices from the stoop heralded a couple of Katakis. They stamped their feet. They swished their bladed tails.

Seg stood aside.

Milsi sailed on, oblivious of the newcomers, making for the door.

With the two dinkus at his side, Seg watched, and it was all over in a twinkling.

Milsi quite expected to walk out of the doorway unimpeded and if anyone happened to be there, her manner made it perfectly plain, then they’d scuttle out of her way.

The Katakis did not scuttle.

They pushed in, and where in most races of Kregen people entering a tavern would be laughing and chattering, joyous in the delights to come, Katakis just marched in with their usual dour and grim absence of humor.

They pushed into Milsi.

Her surprise was genuine.

“You boors!” she cried, regaining her balance. “Do you not know to stand aside when a lady passes?”

They turned their vicious low-browed faces toward her. Their bladed tails flicked above their heads.

Snaggle teeth showed as — in this situation — the Katakis could take their unhealthy dregs of amusement.

“Shishi! You speak over-boldly—”

“Get out of my way, rasts!”

They did not like that. One put out a hand and seized the Lady Milsi by her arm, and the other wrapped his tail about her waist.

“Ho! One for the coffle, this! A fine promising piece of merchandise.”

Seg moved as a leaping leem moves. Feral, deadly, merciless.

His fist struck twice.

The two Katakis slumped to the floor, unconscious.

“Now let us get out of here, and right now! Come on you two — and, Diomb, stow that dratted blowpipe!”

Pelting out from the stoop they hit the square and ran like crazy down the first of the mazy alleyways. Seg headed for the river.

“Where are we going?” Milsi panted it out, running with her head up, her hips going from side to side; but running fleetly and well.

“River. Find a boat. The rains — are due soon. Now, woman — run!”

The dinkus kept up with fleet agility. Seg held his pace down. He would not leave them, and he could not leave Milsi, who had caused all this aggravation.

The rains would come pelting down soon, casting a pall of water over everything and turning the mud into a quagmire. He wanted to be well away into the river by then.

The waterside presented an appearance of lazy apathy. Fisherfolk were not working at this time, knowing the rains were due. The busiest activity centered on a long narrow canoe-like craft where the Kataki slavers they had seen crossing the square were herding the coffle aboard.

Diomb settled the whole thing.

He skidded to a halt. His blowpipe twitched up.

“Dratted Katakis!” he said.

His cheeks puffed, the first dart sped.

Seg howled in frustration; but the damage was done.

He slapped up his bow, nocked an arrow, and Diomb had puffed a second dart. Two Katakis clapped hands to their necks above the rim of their harness, startled. They saw the pygmies, they started to jeer at them, and then they fell down.

Another took a clothyard shaft through his throat and a fourth yelped as a dart stung his lowering face.

He, too, fell down shortly thereafter.

The fifth and sixth were punched clean through by arrows. The seventh tried to run and, ironically, the dart took him in the fleshy root of his tail. He ran on and could not stop and tumbled headlong into the water.

A furious splashing followed, and the crunch of jaws.

Seg roared up to the canoe-like craft, known as a Schinkitree in these parts, and stared down on the slaves.

“Who is willing to paddle to freedom with me?”

“I!” and “I!”

“All right. You—” pointing at the Och, “find the keys. You—” with a fierce stab at the Chulik,“chuck the dratted Katakis into the river when we have the keys!
Bratch
!”

At that command the slaves bratched. They jumped.

The key was found, the clever fingers of the little Och released the first of the slaves on the chain, the Chulik, after a dour look at Seg, started hurling the Katakis into the river. Jaws crunched.

“Get aboard, all!” called Seg. “Hurry!”

The two dinkus even in this extremity of urgency assisted Milsi aboard, waiting for her. She went into the Schinkitree with a regal step that looked most becoming. Seg pushed off. He stared back across the waterside to the first of the wooden houses.

From the ragged alleyway men were running out, apims, Katakis, Rapas, all yelling and waving weapons.

He did not bother to shaft them. There had been no time to cut out his arrows, and he did not wish to waste any more. The boat was off from the riverside, surging out into midstream as the freed slaves took up the paddles and dug deep.

Then the rain slashed down.

A solid curtain of water hid the bank and the forest and the township.

The Chulik roared out: “By Likshu the Treacherous! I am free again! Downstream. Paddle downstream.

We will make Mattamlad at the mouth of the river. I have friends there—”

Seg chopped him off brutally.

“I am in command here, Chulik. We paddle upstream. That is without question.”

His bow, arrow nocked, aimed at the Chulik’s breast.

“Apim yetch! I am Nath Chandarl! Nath the Dorvenhork!”

“That is as it may be. But, by the Veiled Froyvil, dom, we paddle upstream — unless you wish to become flint-fodder.”

The Chulik started. He stared from those narrow eyes at Seg, saw the bow, heard what he said. He lowered his fist.

“You are a Bowman of Loh?”

“Yes.”

“In that case—”

“Look, dom. They will expect us to paddle downstream. That is where they will search. We have a goodly craft, strong paddlers. We go upstream and they’ll never find us. Later, when we have made our fortunes, we may return downstream and you can rejoin your friends.”

“That does, by Likshu the Treacherous, make sense, apim.”

The current, lazy though it might still be here, was carrying them downstream. Seg, without taking his gaze or the aim of the shaft from the Chulik, Nath the Dorvenhork, said with a harsh emphasis: “Paddle, doms. Paddle upstream and let us lose ourselves in the rain.”

“Yes,” shrilled the Och, wildly. “As sure as my name is Umtig the Lock, the apim speaks sooth!”

Once more the paddles bit. This time the boat turned and headed upstream. The paddlers, slaves only moments before, drew their blades through the brown water with strong and determined sweeps. They had been slave; now they were free. Not one of them would voluntarily return to slavery. They would paddle and paddle, strive and battle, to avoid that ghastly fate.

Slowly, Seg lowered his bow. This Chulik, by his sobriquet of Dorvenhork, was a bowman also. With Seg’s movement from the stern of the Schinkitree the Chulik relaxed. Merciless, ruthless, like all his race, he had recognized another master bowman, and, also, seen the wisdom of the decision to paddle upstream. He took up a paddle and joined in the rhythmic swing and stroke of the other ex-slaves.

In the stern, with Milsi, Diomb and Bamba, Seg surveyed his new command. They were veiled in the gray and silver rain. The brown river gurgled past below.

Whatever the future might hold, they were on their way to it right now...