Stardogs (34 page)

Blood seeped sluggishly from Juan’s abraded knees and palms. He just kept going. Even the failing light and the night-cooling didn’t stop his slow, mechanical progress. The canyon walls kept him going in roughly the same direction. Upwards. Towards where the last of a precious supply of wood-fragments was being burned to gratify the new Lord and Master.

He looked at the women with an unpleasant hunger in his eyes. He was too insensitive to realize that they were aware of his lascivious gaze. He was too confident of his power over their life and death to understand that to ordinary mortals there are some things which are more important than mere life and death.

As the first moon began to rise over the canyon rim he’d reached his decision. The girl. The ridergirl. She looked so scared and vulnerable, that just looking at her aroused him. As a prince of the blood any number of aristocratic ladies and a few men, in case his preferences should run that way, had pursued him since puberty. They’d shown him that courtiers were merely courtesans by another name. They bored him, and, he always secretly suspected they despised him, despite the flattery they heaped on his efforts. His preference ran instead to the young and weak. To servants and chambermaids who might have wished to say him nay.

The others could wait. They were all his. But tonight he’d take the scared-looking one. He pointed a lazy finger at her. In the dying firelight she looked even more helpless than usual. “Una. Ridergirl. Come. I’ll have you for a bed-warmer tonight.” He giggled. “The rest of you women will have to wait for the pleasure of my royal pleasure.”

The ridergirl stared at him as if he was a snake and she a rabbit. It excited him. Suddenly he registered an incongruity. She’d jumped when he spoke. But she was deaf…

He had no more time to ponder this. Tanzo Adendorff was advancing on him, a rock clumsily held in her upraised hands.

“Keep away! You won’t get the antidote next time! I warn you!” He retreated.

“So what, you… filth. She’s just a
child.
And you’ll be dead.”

“Kadar! Wienan… Albeer… Yak, even you, Brettan. STOP HER! Or else…”

The two leaguesmen attempted to grab Tanzo. With hysterical strength the small woman flung both of them away, although she lost her rock. Then Martin Brettan added his bulk to the fight. He grabbed her from behind and held her struggling in his arms. “Let me go!” she screamed.

He put a big hand over her mouth, and turned her away from the frightened Jarian. He whispered harshly into her ear. “We get the next antidote in three days’ time, you silly bitch. Then we’ve got twenty days to make the little bastard talk. I promise once we’ve got those antidote tablets out of him, I won’t stop you killing him. We’ve just got to ‘shut up and put up’ for the next three days. The girl won’t die from it.”

She bit him.

He hit her with calculated force and she slumped in his arms. A quick glance showed him that Albeer was up and heading in to the fray. The fool hadn’t even drawn a weapon. The Yak had disappeared. That farmer girl bodyslave had drawn her weapon however. She held it rock-steady, a bead drawn on Jarian.

“Prince Jarian.” She might as well have said ‘dogturd’. “Tell them to leave her alone. Do it. Or I’ll shoot your balls off.”

“She’s er… fainted,” said Martin Brettan warily. “She’ll be fine in a minute or two, I’m sure. All the same, these highly-strung types.” He put her down gently.

“She’d better be. Listen…Prince.
I’ll
sleep with you, if you’ve got to try to prove you’re a man. Just leave the kid alone, see.”

“I don’t want you,” said Jarian, sullenly. Anything less appealing than this virago who despised him, was hard to imagine.

Tanzo sat up and groaned. “What hit me?”

“You’re going to be punished. I’ll have you flayed and then leave you to die!” Jarian picked on a softer victim, or at least one that was unarmed.

Deliberately the Viscount stepped into Lila’s line of fire, obscuring the Prince. “Your Highness. You may need this woman,” he said slowly and calmly. “We’re on the Denaari homeworld, heading for a Denaari radio beacon. She is an acknowledged expert on the Denaari.”

“Hah! The Denaari! They’re extinct.”

Tanzo tried to stand up, and then decided to remain sitting. “You wouldn’t even know what they looked like, you….excreta brain.”

In the shadows behind Jarian the small Yak grinned despite the situation. ‘Excreta brain’! She aroused in his feral mind gentle emotions which had been dormant since his mother died. He regarded the ridergirl as a non-entity, a flank you didn’t have to watch. The little turd was welcome to her. He suspected her bed-arts were restricted to weeping. He had to admire the way the lady lock-tickler had risen to defend her chick though. That was why he’d moved to cut the little prick’s throat, despite himself. He’d have to teach the lock-tickler to swear, if they got through the next few minutes alive.

“Of course I do, you… you old cow! They always looked the same in the pictures, with those stupid helmets and batwings. Well, show me one and I’ll believe you need to live. Go on. Show me one. Otherwise you’re going to
die
.”

Tanzo looked up, her eyes still blurry. And smiled. Her rather prim little mouth stretched wider than it ever stretched before. She pointed. And never was the word “There!” more triumphal.

What she was pointing to was a moon-shadow on the canyon wall. The two sharp -edged rocks between which Juan’s crown-bearing head was silhouetted, made good wings. It drew all eyes.

The tiny fire had died to glowing embers. The canyon floor was dark, and the moonlight very bright. The shadow-play Denaari was real enough to make Sam drop his chisel. “Well fuck me!”

The appearance of an alien and the sudden knowledge that the Yak had been behind him set Jarian screaming. He wasn’t alone. But he was the only one screaming “Kill it! Kill it!” And he was the only one who decided to run.

Originally, they’d stopped to wait for Shari in a small bowl amidst a tumble of boulders. Ahead was a water-worn cliff, which had given Sam and Lila pause, and allowed the rest to catch up with them. Here, where the canyon-floor widened, Juan’s crawling progress had finally led him astray. He’d crawled out of the main channel, up an old rock-slip, and was now forty feet above the other castaways. He’d actually been there for quite some minutes before Tanzo had noticed his shadow.

He’d heard the entire confrontation, but, as it was in an alien language, it hadn’t meant much to him. Now it occurred to him in the sudden silence as the Princeling fled and several guns pointed at his shadow, that he could call for help. Only his mouth was dry. Dry and too full of tongue. Also it was only Juan-Denaari who was home. His attempt at a ‘nestling-in-distress’ call did little to reassure the people below. All it did was call attention to his actual position.

But Tanzo, although unsteady on her feet, was already struggling eagerly towards him. Sam had retrieved his chisel and rushed to support her. She accepted his arm without even noticing who he was. “Up the rock-slide!” Her voice was full of an intense eagerness that somehow made the little Yak’s heart sink.

As they battled up the slope the alien visitation managed a second whistle-croak. The previously immobile group began taking cover. With a despairing croak the boy nearly toppled over the edge, before Sam and Tanzo could reach him.

Jarian ran. The shadow-Denaari had been upstream. So had the suddenly revealed Yak. So the princeling had run downstream. Down toward where Shari, Deo and Otto were struggling upwards in the dark, wishing that the moonlight they could see shining on the canyon walls would get to them.

Shari could swear she’d heard voices. But surely they must be miles away by now? She’d definitely smelled woodsmoke on the down-valley breeze. Good! That must mean they’d found food. Probably snake again. But she was hungry enough for even that to have appeal. It wasn’t so bad, really. Just the idea of it that was rather repulsive. Her pack had gone, not to her surprise. But with it had gone the prospects of a meal, and her stomach was grumbling.

They climbed up the obstructing chock-boulder that Juan had managed to wriggle under. At the top they were bathed in moonlight. Otto began to bark furiously. Prince Jarian, who hadn’t had the breath to scream for some time, managed a hysterical, terrified squeak before toppling over in a dead faint.

When he came to, his head was cradled in Shari’s lap. His eyes bulged wide with terror but he remained conscious to hear her acerbic commands. “Stop it. Stop it right now. What’s wrong?”

“You’re, you’re…
alive
?”

“So it would appear. And we’ve found water, although getting it is no fun.”

A way began to open in Jarian’s weasel brain. They at least had water! “Thank God I found you. I just escaped. The Denaari came. They’ve killed everybody. For God’s sake don’t go up-valley. We must flee.”

“What happened? Sit up and tell me, boy. How far up valley were you?”

“Oh aunt, I’m so glad to have found you. The Denaari attacked us just after nightfall. I managed to kill one and escape.”

That was one lie too many. “Yes, a likely story. Did you steal the water again?”

“No! Truly! You never believe me. I saw the Denaari myself.”

“And then you probably ran like a rabbit. Come on Deo. I think we’d better get ourselves up there. And I think we’d better take this one with us.”

He’d listened to the entire conversation in silence. He’d become accustomed to being called ‘Deo’ although he did not understand why. “This one is lying about some of what he says. He has a look about him of the one who dares to claim he rules the Church.” For centuries the Holy Church had ensured that Imperial control over Arunchal was barely nominal, and a death sentence to any who tried to extend Imperial writ more than ten miles outside the Imperial fortress enclaves. Even in these areas, death was frequent, sudden and often inexplicable. But for centuries the dagger-hands of the Church had kept it so, confining themselves to the planet. Now, he had heard, they planned to strike offworld. Against the head on the coins. He’d seen one of those, once. Possession of one was considered heresy, and punished accordingly.

The Dagger of the Goddess was confused, living partially in a world he’d left twenty years before. Still, part of him knew that the whining boy-man had not lied about the Denaari. Deep within his skull the nano-surgeon unit also registered it. Denaari: the carrier species name for the ancient enemy. It had been programmed for this eventuality.

Shari reached her decision. “We’ll go up, but cautiously. Come on… you.”

Jarian ground his teeth and considered his options. God, he hated her.

“Up. Make a sound that betrays and I will kill. Lead the way.” The grip of the Dagger of the Goddess’s hand on his shoulder was like a steel vice. Jarian found he had no options. He had fallen down enough things while running away earlier. He was lucky he hadn’t broken his neck. Besides, he was scared his aunt might catch him, and was truly terrified that her manservant might catch him first. And even if he got away he’d be on his own, without water or food. He felt in his pocket. The pill-vial was still there. Perhaps…