Vagabonds of Gor (30 page)

The rence stem, hollowed, may serve as a breathing tube. By means of this, particularly if the opening of the stem is kept near the surface of the water, and those in the vicinity are not familiar with marshcraft, if they are not vigilant and keenly alert to the possibility of such techniques, one may often travel about in relative security and concealment. To be sure, the movement of the tube, particularly if seemingly purposeful, if noticed, should excite immediate suspicion. Rencers are familiar with such techniques but seldom make use of them, except in trident and knife attacks. Immersion of the great bow, if prolonged, as it absorbs water, and is dampened and dried, and so on, impairs its resiliency; the effective life of the bowstrings, usually of hemp whipped with silk, is also shortened; and the fletching on arrows is irregularized. Too, of course, this approach requires immersion in the marsh, which can be dangerous in itself. Rencers usually attack in their rence craft, formed of bound rence, using the almost ubiquitous rence for cover. The attack unit usually consists of two men, one to pole or paddle the craft and the other to use the bow.

I lifted my head a little from the water.

Many of the men of Ar had taken refuge on sand bars. Fires had been built, on which marsh growth and damp rence were thrown, to produce smoke, that this might ward off flies. Many huddled about, shuddering. Some lay about, sick. These were reactions, I was sure, to the venom of the sting flies. Many of the men had covered themselves with blankets and cloths; others sat with their heads down, with their tunics pulled up, about their faces. Others crouched and sat near the fire. Many had darkened their faces, and arms and legs, with mud and ashes, presumably as some putative protection against the flies. Many were red-eyed. There was coughing. Others had covered themselves with rence. Some had dug down into the sand. I heard a man throwing up, into the marsh. I heard weeping, and moaning. The faces of some of the men were swollen out of shape, discolored and covered with knob-like excrescences. Similar bulbous swellings appeared on many arms and legs. The eyes of some were swollen shut.

I located the fellow I was confident had the key to the manacles. He was lying on his stomach, shuddering, half covered with rence. He had apparently been much stung. The key I supposed, would be in his pouch. There was much gear about. I did not think there would be much difficulty in getting at it. Indeed, though I did not wish to retrace the steps of the column, there were many things, even shields and such, which had been discarded in the marsh. One might have followed the path of the column by the trail of such debris. It was the same, I supposed, with the other units in the marsh.

I heard a fellow cry out with pain, stung. But there were fewer flies about now, just now.

Indeed perhaps the men, scattered about, here and there, miserable on the bar, thought the flies had gone.

I had, however, from the rence, seen the clouds once more approaching from the west, even vaster, even darker. The first wave is never the most dense, the most terrible. The center waves, seemingly obedient to some statistical imperative, enjoyed that distinction. The final waves, of course, are smaller, and more fitful. Rencers sometimes even leave their huts during the final waves, racing overhead like scattered clouds.

As soon as I had seen the first edge of the new darkness, those new clouds, like a black rising moon, emerge on the horizon, over the rence, to the west, I had taken the rence tube, already prepared, and returned to the vicinity of the men of Ar. None here, on the bar, it seemed, was yet aware of the new clouds, rising in the west.

That was better for me.

Let the new storm come upon them like lightning, like a torrent of agony.

"Ho!" cried a man on the bar, in misery. "Listen! Listen!"

"Aiii!" cried more than one man.

I saw with satisfaction the men of Ar take what shelter they could, digging into the sand, pulling blankets about them, covering themselves with rence, wrapping cloths about their head and eyes, burying their head in their arms, doing whatever they could do to prepare themselves for the imminent arrival of their numerous small guests, the temporary masters of the delta of the Vosk.

At such a time I thought a larl might tread unnoticed amongst them.

"Ai!" cried a man, stung by what was, in effect, no more than one of the harbingers or precursors of the cloud. It is a bit like a rain, I thought, the first drops, then more, then torrents, perhaps for a long time, then eventually the easing, the letting up, then the last drops, then, somehow, eventually, what one had almost ceased to hope for, the clearing. To be sure it comes horizontally, and is dry, and black, and some of the "drops" linger, crawling about.

In a matter of moments the air began to be laced with movement. This movement was sudden and swift, almost blurring. Yet there was no great density in it. It was as though these small, furious flying forms sped through transparent tunnels in the air, separated from one another.

Men of Ar cried out in misery. Many lay flat, covering their head with their hands.

I dipped my head briefly under the water, to wash flies from my face. Most of the flies that alight on one do not, of course, sting. If they did, I suppose, given the cumulative effect of so much venom, so much toxin, one might be dead in a matter of Ehn.

Then, suddenly it seemed the very air was filled with swiftly moving bodies, pelting, striking even into one another. I then swiftly, running, bent over, emerged from the marsh. In an Ehn I was to, and behind, the fellow lying on the bar, covered with rence. I knelt across his prone body and, before he was really aware of what was happening or could cry out, with my shackled hands forced his face down into the sand. In this fashion he could not breathe. He could, however, hear. He squirmed wildly for a moment but only for a moment. I think he understood almost instantly the hopelessness of his position, from my weight, my leverage and grip. He could not breathe unless I chose to permit it. He knew himself at my mercy.

"Do not cry out," I whispered to him. "If you do," I said, "I will break your neck." There are various ways in which this may be done, given the strength. One is a heavy blow below the base of the skull, as with fists or a foot, another is a blow with the heel of the hand, or the foot, forcing the head to the side, particularly with the body fixed in a position where it cannot move with the blow, as, say, when it is being held immobile.

I pulled his head up a little, not so much that his mouth could fully clear the sand, but so that he could take a little air through the nose, perhaps a bit through the mouth. His face was covered with sand, and his eyes. There was sand, I suppose, in his mouth. Then I thrust his head down again into the sand. "You will remain as you are for ten Ihn," I informed him. "Do you understand?" The face moved a little, in the sand. I then withdrew my manacled hands from his neck and head and withdrew his dagger from his belt. With the dagger I cut the sword belt from him, disarming him.

"You may lift your head," I whispered to him. "A little." When he did so he felt his own knife at his throat. "You," he whispered, half choked with sand. He had felt the links of the manacles at the back of his neck.

"Where is the key to the manacles?" I said. I assumed it was in his pouch but I did not care to ransack this article if it might lie elsewhere. It might be, for example, in his pack. Too, the key was kept on a string, with a tiny wooden float. Thus it might be worn about the neck, or, say, twisted about a wrist. The point of the float, of course, was in case the key might be dropped in the marsh, that it would be less likely to be lost.

"I do not have it!" he said.

"Do not lie!" I said to him, savagely. I almost moved the blade into his throat. I had not come this far to be disappointed.

"I do not have it," he wept.

For an instant then I became aware of the flies about. They were thick. I must be covered with them. I had been stung, I think, but in the intensity of my emotion, and given my concentration on my quest, I was not even sure of it.

"Who has it? Where is it?" I asked.

"Do not kill me!" he said.

"Where is the key?" I said.

"Plenius would know!" he said.

"We are going to call on him," I said. Plenius was the name of the fellow who had been my keeper.

"Rise to your knees, slowly," I said. I then, crouching behind him, slipped the linkage of the manacles about his neck, that he might be kept where I wished, also returning the blade to his throat. "Place your hands and forearms now within your tunic belt." I said, "Good." He looked down once at the sword in its sheath, lying to the side, where it had slipped, the sword belt earlier severed, when he had risen to his knees. "Now," I whispered to him, "let us find our friend, Plenius."

In a moment or two, he on his knees, I moving behind him, we had come to a figure huddled in a blanket.

"Call to him, softly," I said.

"Plenius!" he called. "Plenius!"

Angrily Plenius pulled aside the blanket, a little. Then, despite the flies, he threw it back from him. His hand went to his sword but my mien and the movement of the knife at my prisoner's throat gave him pause. The face of Plenius was a mass of swellings. One eye was swollen shut. I could still see the mark on the side of his forehead where, earlier, I had struck him with the bow of the yoke.

"The key to the manacles," I said.

He stood up, kicking away the blanket.

Flies were much about. At times I could not see him clearly for their numbers.

"The key," I said.

The buzzing of the flies was monstrous.

I saw his hand, almost inadvertently, go to his tunic. He had it then, I supposed, within his tunic, about his neck. His one open eye gleamed wildly.

"I thought you might come back," he said.

"Speak softly," I said, the dagger at my prisoner's throat.

He pulled the key, on its string, out of the tunic. "It is for that reason," he said, "that I have myself kept the key, that you would have to come to me for it!"

"This fellow had it earlier, did he not?" I inquired.

"Yes," he said.

This pleased me, that I had not been mistaken about the matter.

"If you want it," he said, "you must get it from me."

"I should have realized that you would take it back," I said, "that you would accept its responsibility, the risk that I might return for it."

"I wanted you to come to me for it," he said.

"You have now received your wish," I said.

"You do not expect me to give it to you, surely?"

"Oh, yes, I do," I said. I moved the knife very close to the prisoner's throat. He had to pull back, that he not, by his own action, cut his own throat.

"Give him the key," whispered the prisoner. "Give it to him!"

"Never!" said the keeper.

"It seems to me a trade to your advantage," I said, "a bit of metal, on a string, for your fellow."

"Never!" said the keeper.

"Very well," I said.

"No!" said the keeper. "I will give you the key!"

"Put it on the sand," I said, "between us."

"Release Titus," he said.

"Place the key on the sand, first," I said.

"Perhaps you will kill him," he said, "once you have the key."

"Perhaps you will attack me," I said, "once he is free."

"I need only call out," be said, "and there will be a dozen men here."

"And Titus," I said, "will not be among them."

"Give him the key, Plenius," whispered Titus, his head back.

"Let him first free you," said Plenius, the keeper.