“I said, who were they?” ar Korentin repeated, more loudly than before.
“Your guess is—” Aldric began; then his eyes narrowed and he jumped almost six feet backwards from the entrance to the stairway, Ykraith tucked spearwise close into his right hip. That sixth sense of his had begun to operate again, like a lantern being unshuttered—and not before time, he thought viciously. It was weak, a premonition, a mental tickle rather than the usual full-throated yell of alarm, but it was undoubtedly there. The scuff of his soft-soled boots and the faint rustle of his armour sounded very loud in the stillness his movement had engendered.
Much louder than the suave voice which drifted down the stairs towards him.
“No need to guess, gentlemen.” it purred. “They were once my colleagues. Rash fellows both—if I warned them about startling people once, I warned them a thousand times.” The voice took on a world-weary, paternal tone. “And now see where such foolishness has brought them. Most regrettable…”
The speaker sauntered into view; he was a tall, thin, wolfish man with an overly-precise moustache which looked as painted as a woman’s brows, dark, roguish curls rather at variance with the predatory gleam in his grey eyes and a solitary pearl-drop in the lobe of his right ear. His clothes were equally dashing—black breeches with silver medallions down the outer seams, glossy boots worked with gold around their fringed tops, a fine white shirt and a blue coat over all, worked with more gold and embroidery, caught at the waist by a scarlet sash through which were thrust two curved shortswords and a fancifully carved
telek
. It was this individual’s stylish—if eccentric—mode of dress which told Dewan what, if not who, he was.
“Pirate,” the Vreijek growled, putting all the distaste a king’s officer could summon up into that one word.
A flicker of annoyance crossed the other’s saturnine face and his lazy smile became momentarily somewhat stretched. “You’re over-blunt, my friend,” he reproved. “That is not a word I like. I prefer to regard myself as an adventurous businessman, a dealer in the transfer of expensive commodities.” He smiled broadly and snapped his fingers. “Now
these
are pirates.”
Feet clattered on the stairs and seven more intruders joined the first. They were a motley group, ill-favoured and villainous; some, in ill-fitting and ragged finery, tried to ape their leader’s romantic attire, but without taking his painstaking care succeeded only in looking faintly ridiculous—although neither Aldric nor his companions felt like laughing at the spectacle. The remainder dressed—or to judge by the amount of scarred, weather-beaten flesh on view, did not dress—much as the fancy took them, in leather war-harness and furs, or in grubby jerkins and pieces of cast-off armour. Their threatening growls and curses fell to silence as they saw the heaps of treasure strewn about the Cavern of Firedrakes.
Aldric paid them no heed, apart from the germ of an idea in which Ymareth the dragon played a leading role. His attention was focused on their lord, chieftain, captain or whatever he chose to call himself—and the pirate’s attention was focused on Tehal Kyrin. Any Valhollan woman could take care of her own virtue, as the
eijo
knew quite well—Kyrin perhaps better than most—but he was still a
kailin-eir
and honour was still something to be upheld.
“Gentlemen, and of course the lovely lady,” the pirate murmured in a caressing voice calculated to provoke, “let me explain this delicate situation. Techaur Island is our… cashbox, if you like, where we deposit the profits from our various… transactions. In such circumstances you must see that your presence here is less than welcome. Apart, of course, from you, my dear.” He bowed elaborately to Kyrin who, Aldric was pleased to see, failed to appreciate his courtesy.
“I am not your dear,” she snapped, drawing her
estoc
for emphasis.
“For the moment,” returned the buccaneer, not one whit deterred by her rejection. “We’ll see what more intimate acquaintance produces. You see, gentlemen, we usually feel obliged to execute trespassers but on this occasion I think a fine would be more rewarding. The girl and twice her weight in gold, in exchange for your lives. Agreed?”
“Not agreed.” Aldric drove the Dragonwand into the floor with as much ease as piercing a fresh loaf and left it embedded in the flagstones. “Leave my lady right out of your calculations,
pirate
. Consider: there are three of us, eight of you.” He was talking now not to the captain but to his common sailors, those with most to gain and lose from a good bargain or a hard fight.
“The odds are not good—but enough to ensure somebody will not live to enjoy whatever the survivors win. All for a girl. Whereas if your captain leaves his own lechery aside, you’ll all get gold enough to buy the favours of twenty first-rank courtesans and never a scratch to show for it. So there’s my offer. Gold.” Widowmaker sang as she slowly left her scabbard. “Or steel. And a death I’ll make as painful as my skill allows. Choose.”
As a growling mutter rose behind him, the captain looked narrowly at Aldric, then at Kyrin and ar Koren-tin. All had now drawn blades and the firelight in the hall reflected from their weapons like molten copper— or fresh blood.
“How much gold?” the man asked, much of his mocking good-humour dissipated by the possibility of his own violent death.
“As much gold as each man can carry out unaided in one journey. But I want some word of honour that you won’t come back again.” Careful, Aldric reminded himself. If you sound too naive, they will suspect you’re up to something. He deliberately sneered at them. “Assuming scum like you use oaths for anything but foul language, of course. Well?”
“By the sea on which we earn our living, I swear we will not return once we have taken what we can carry,” the pirate chief said primly.
Dewan guessed that both men were hiding smiles; the . buccaneer for his ambiguous oath, which would change with the tide, and Aldric for his devious trick which seemed to be working well. Ar Korentin did not approve of such a scheme, but the circumstances were desperate enough to require harsh measures.
“And my lady?” the Alban persisted.
“You can keep her. I’ll settle for a willing woman.”
“But I will not!”
The bull-bellow startled everyone and almost precipitated the fight which Aldric was trying to avoid. Then he stared at the man who was forcing his way to the front of the buccaneers’ ranks.
“I am Khakkhur,” the huge figure rumbled. “I want
your
woman, now. And what Khakkhur wants, he takes!” The man was a barbarian from the far north, but totally unlike the fair, ruddy-featured big men Aldric had seen on the docks at Erdhaven. Where they had been stern and grim, Khakkhur’s heavy features were set in what looked to be a permanent scowl. A mane of coarse black hair hung to his shoulders and his massive body was clad only in boots, swordbelt and a length of bearskin strapped around his hips as a kind of kilt.
The Northrons at Erdhaven had dressed in much the same way, proud of their sleek muscles and showing them off adorned with gold bands and ornaments of bear-teeth. In Aldric’s opinion, Khakkhur would have been wiser covering himself up. The man was overdeveloped to the point of grossness, his biceps as thick as the Alban’s thigh, the ponderous muscles of his chest like a woman’s breasts.
A barbarian, to Aldric, had been one who neither spoke Alban nor lived in a land with permanent towns. He saw now that there was a third, more bestial type, who had left his tribal customs behind but who called civilised laws weak and in consequence did what he pleased. Even the wolf in the wood obeyed the rules of his pack. But not a wild animal like Khakkhur.
“Give me the girl, little black-beetle,” the barbarian growled, and drew a heavy broadsword from its sheath at his belt. “Give her to me, or Khakkhur will crack your shell apart and eat your liver raw.”
He probably would at that, Aldric reflected sombrely, then wrinkled his nose as a whiff of unwashed body reached him. Not all the big man’s bronze skin came from sun and wind; it seemed he had decided soap and water was a mark of civilised decadence, along with manners, morals and the rest. Then the young
eijo’s
teeth showed in an ugly grin. Shell—Light of Heaven, of course! Bare muscles were just meat, no matter how powerful, and Isileth Widowmaker was the ultimate carving-knife. “Captain,” he advised, “call your henchman off if he’s of any value.”
“I cannot do that, my friend,” said the pirate with totally false regret. One fewer opponent would bring the odds even more into his favour. “My promise concerned gold. Killing is something else entirely.”
Aldric looked at the massive blade in the barbarian’s fist and swallowed hard despite his own confidence. His
tsalaer
was full battle armour, but it wouldn’t keep such a weapon out without being so heavy he would be unable to move. Long ago the
kailinin
had struck a balance in their armour: thick enough to turn chance arrows or glancing blows, but light enough to give them speed to dodge anything more deliberate.
Tsalaerin
were not impenetrable and Aldric’s mind’s eye had seen—was still seeing with hideous clarity—what that huge sword would do to him if it struck home squarely. So keep out of its way, he thought, and roll with what you cannot avoid in time. Duck and sidestep, then cut straight.
The slightly stylised look of taiken-fighting had a purpose; it demanded accuracy, not brute force, aiming as it did for the vulnerable points of a fully armoured warrior. Khakkhur had no armour whatsoever, but his unknown strength and skill were as much a threat as any hidden blade might be.
“If you want my lady, you barbaric ox,” said Aldric pleasantly, “you will have to come and take her.”
Steel rang as the blades met in a tentative probing of defences, then parted with a little slither. Khakkhur chopped suddenly at Aldric’s eyes but the Alban sidestepped like the beat of a swallow’s wing, just enough to avoid the blow with deft, disdainful ease. He did not parry. There was contempt in the movement, and it looked to Kyrin as if the barbarian should have died at once.
Without knowing how fast his opponent could recover, Aldric was not going for a quick kill—that was the way to risk his own death. Instead he watched even as he jerked aside.
Khakkhur’s muscles tensed and he grunted slightly as his sword came out of its swoop. One of Aldric’s questions had its answer: the barbarian could swing his weapon with ease, heavy though it was beside an ordinary blade—but sheer momentum made it hard to stop if his weighty stroke should miss and against someone skilled in the disciplines of
taiken-ulleth
, this would usually happen.
The pirate cut back-handed at thigh and was blocked, both swords ringing like bells and his own, deflected, throwing up sparks as its point gouged the floor. The blades met again with a double clash and a sound like monstrous shears, sprang apart and clanged back. Aldric thrust and was parried by the heavier blade, spun and cut, was blocked and darted away.
There was a pause when the scuff of feet and the panting of breath were the loudest sounds in the whole of the cavern, as both men glided along the perimeter of a circle only they could see. The barbarian was good, tutored in the violent school of experience where failure meant death, but Aldric’s tuition, even if not so fatal towards error, had been every bit as rough.
Then a cut went home.
Aldric whirled across the floor and crashed into a pillar, slid down it into a crumpled, untidy heap of black metal and lay very still.
Kyrin bit her knuckle until the blood flowed. She did not cry; she simply did not believe what she had seen. Aldric had said once, in a gloomy moment, that there would be someone, somewhere, stronger or better or faster than he was, and that on the day they met he would go out into the darkness. Now it seemed this had happened.
Dewan seized her by the shoulder and pulled her round to guard his back, knowing that when their surprise had worn off the pirates would surely attack. He was right.
“I think my promise is null and void, don’t you?” said their captain cheerfully. He gestured with both hands. “Kill the man, but keep the woman for later.”
“Not—so—hasty—friend…” Aldric gasped hoarsely. He dragged himself upright with the aid of the firedrake carved around the pillar, then leaned against it and fought for breath.
“You are
dead
!” choked Khakkhur, his face going as pale as his grimy skin allowed.
Aldric coughed on a laugh. “Not quite. I merely look… and feel… that way.” Straightening up, he dragged air into his lungs as the crushed sensation in his solar plexus faded to a queasy throbbing, and almost managed to conceal a slight wince when at last he got all his breath back where it should have been. “I don’t wear all… this metal… without good reason.”
Khakkhur’s superstitious awe died away as he realised he was not facing a living dead thing, one of the
trau-garin
of Alban legend, and he shambled forward to finish what he had started. The barbarian was not to know that an
eijo
—and especially this
eijo
—was far more dangerous than any
traugur
in a story. Isileth was not fiction; she was hard, razor-edged fact.
Aldric did not wait for his enemy to attack. Instead he came to meet him behind a low, vicious lunge which made the pirate parry wildly. Their blades crashed together half a dozen times with blinding speed, near-invisible blurs of steel with enough power to sever heads and arms and legs if they ever had a chance to strike their target. The hall echoed like a bell-tower. Then Khakkhur saw an opening and slashed double-handed at the Alban’s neck.
Ducking under that wild swing, Aldric thrust his
taiken
out and through the barbarian’s nearest bicep, then sliced sideways and peeled the muscle off its bone with obscene ease. The man screamed harshly and made a frantic attempt to hold his arm together, then shrieked on an impossibly high note for such a bass voice when the young
eijo
laid a forehand drawing cut across the corded sinews of his exposed belly. Mighty muscles—but only so much meat. They parted and everything spilled out in a foetid gush.