Warlord of Antares Read online

  “Oh,” said Nath, quite unrepentant.

  We managed to soothe Murlock’s ruffled feathers and he produced what was a superior wine, a vintage with which I was unfamiliar. We sat around the fire drinking companionably, and when Murlock had finished the washing up, he was called to join us.

  “How,” demanded Orso, “did you steal this food?”

  “We do not much fancy the late food’s owners cutting up rough,” put in Nath.

  “The food was come by honestly, horters, that I swear by Pyman—”

  “Yes, yes,” Orso crackled, wiping his lips. “Enough of that. We believe you even if a million wouldn’t.”

  As Seg said: “There are Menahem and Menahem.” He meant, of course, that Murlock as a palace servant, not slave, was not quite the same as your normal Bloody Menahem. I reflected that he had, at least, stuck his knife into the neck of Gartang the Kazzur neatly enough. He might not be as soft and flabby as so many palace servants become.

  The night flowed on about us with the scents of night-blooming flowers mingled with the woodsmoke from the camp fires.

  Presently Seg said: “Well, my old dom. And where are our Lamnian friends, then?”

  “There is little need to worry our heads over them,” said Orso. “They are skilled negotiators.”

  “The negotiating was done when the deal was struck. They went to collect payment due to them.”

  Nath rumbled out: “I like ’em, them Lamnians.”

  “Job for us tonight,” Seg told him. “So banish all thoughts of your sack.”

  Murlock looked disappointed. He heaved up a sigh and said: “If you demand my services later, horters, then naturally I am at your command. I was hoping — there is a sweet little shishi in the — well—”

  “It seems to me,” said Seg and he was bottling up his enjoyment, “that you chase anything female you see.”

  “Not anything, horter. There is taste.”

  “Ah, of course!” And Seg laid a wise finger alongside his nose.

  “All the same,” I said, rather heavily. “That does not tell us where the Lamnians are.”

  Murlock stood up. “Before I go off duty, with your permission, horters, naturally, I will make enquiries.”

  “Yes, yes, very well,” said Orso.

  Seg and I, together, said: “Thank you, Murlock.”

  Orso looked at us after Murlock had gone into the moon-shadows. His face was intense.

  “I am forced to call you Jak, majister, and you, jen, as Seg. I am not a noble; but my father is incredibly wealthy and may buy a dozen lords. He may yet buy a title, if he chooses. Yet you treat these scum as though they are koters and brothers in arms.”

  Seg and I waited for each other to speak, and so Nath in his rough way rumbled out: “Doesn’t hurt to treat a fellow decent, Orso. Never know when he might have a knife in your throat.”

  “Come the day when he ever gets a knife near my throat!”

  Seg changed the conversation then and we talked desultorily of this and that until Murlock returned.

  He did not sit down as he was gestured to do. He said: “I have a second cousin in Kapt Rorman the Indestructible’s camp kitchen staff. I can come and go freely. My appearance is much changed.” Here he touched the scar.

  “Well? Get on with it!” That was Orso.

  “The Lamnians have been arrested and detained at the king’s pleasure.”

  Orso just sneered at the news, clearly persuading himself that he’d expected duplicity all along. Nath rumbled out a curse and started to talk. Seg cut in and I said: “The plans remain. But it will be just you three, now.”

  I stood up and put a hand on Murlock’s shoulder.

  “You have, I think, a cousin in the king’s camp kitchen staff.”

  At his abruptly scared nod, I went on confidently to say: “Exactly so. Then we will stroll up there and see what may be done about our Lamnian friends.”

  Chapter seventeen

  Al-Ar-Mergondon

  The glow of a more golden light impinging on the fuzzy pink radiance of the Maiden with the Many Smiles heralded the breaking of She of the Veils from cloud wrack. Mingled moons’ light fell across the camp and the river and the wrecked town and one could be forgiven for believing that in that luminescence the countryside slept peacefully.

  I did not have to take Murlock the Spry by one ear and run him over to the king’s enclosure. He trotted along willingly enough; I knew he’d take himself off the moment he had a chance.

  In the streaming mingled golden and rosy radiance of the two moons, we approached the guarded gate. Over most of Paz the first and third Moons of Kregen are generally known as The Maiden with the Many Smiles and She of the Veils. The two second moons, the Twins, have many and various names all over, and as for the three hurtling lesser moons, so often are they referred to in the terms of endearment one uses to pets their names are legion.

  “No!” whispered Murlock, grabbing my arm and trying to haul me away. “Not there!”

  He dragged me off the beaten path leading to the gate.

  What he intended made absolute sense. He led us around to the other side of the enclosure where a small gate gave admittance to the slaves and servants. Small though it might be, this gate, too, was guarded.

  “Let me do the talking, horter.”

  “Am I slave or servant?” I had taken the trouble to collect a parcel of sticks as firewood and bound the bundle with string. Down the center snugged the Krozair blade, so the thing took after the guise of a fasces.

  “Servant.” Here Murlock shifted my swords he wore strapped to his waist as though they stung him. He was strictly a knife-man. He might learn, given time and life. He carried the bottle of Risslaca Ichor wrapped in straw and slung from his left shoulder.

  “Llanitch!” called the sentry in due form.

  Obediently we halted.

  “Second chef Apgarl the Sauce’s cousin come to see him, jurukker, on a matter of high culinary policy.”

  Murlock rapped that out in the same hard formal tones the guard had used ordering us to halt. Now Murlock relaxed and went on in a different tone of voice: “It’s the Havil-retarded clingberry and mustard sauce, dom. Won’t go right nohow. My cousin’s the expert in that field and I have to get it right for the morning, without fail.”

  “You cooks have it soft as it is,” growled the sentry; but he, too, relaxed, and after another gibe or two waved us into the king’s enclosure.

  “You’re in, horter,” squeaked Murlock. “So I’ll be off.” The enormity of what he had done must have caught up with him about then, for he did look a strange color.

  “Not yet, dom, not yet. Stick close.”

  “You could have brought your friends as well. I’d have got them through easy.” Now the deed was accomplished he dwelt with pride on how he had fooled the guard; he did not want anything further to go wrong. “And the Lamnians won’t be caged up here, surely? Not in my experience.”

  “They’re not ordinary prisoners taken in a fight.”

  We were approaching the cooking area and the scents really were quite delicious. The cooks never slept in King Morbihom’s camp, for he would call for food, anything from a light snack to a twenty-course banquet, at any hour of day or night. Torches lit the scene. There was no secret now where Murlock had acquired the high-class ingredients for the meal he had cooked us. The Kapt’s cook was a cousin. I guessed the catering families were intertwined through the whole structure of Menaham society.

  “Maybe they aren’t ordinary prisoners. They’re not here!”

  “We will see.”

  Now the problem of secreting a weapon in a pile of firewood is that, sooner or later, you have to dump the wood near the fire.

  I began to regret my stubbornness in lugging the Krozair brand along with me. This was work for daggers and knives, perhaps a rapier or thraxter. Still, stubborn I, Dray Prescot, am... My friends call it obstinacy and others dub it pig-headedness. I was stuck with a decision a
nd must, therefore, in the best traditions of Kregen, make the most of it.

  When I captured the first passing soldier, treating him summarily and dragging him somewhat forcibly into the rose and golden shadows of a tent, Murlock’s alarm increased.

  “All right, Murlock. I won’t treat any of your array of cousins like this. Satisfied?”

  He licked his lips. “Only that Garhand the Pickler, who deserves to be pickled. You won’t pass as a guard.”

  “Rather tart, is he? Don’t intend to — not yet.”

  The guard rolled his head around and mumbled: “Luli! Don’t go away, Luli! Luli, c’mere—”

  I took his chin between my fist and hefted him up and glared at him. I made him see the devil look. He flinched.

  “Where are the Lamnian prisoners, dom?”

  “Can’t say—”

  “It’s your life.”

  Very little persuasion was needed for him to blurt out the location of the tent in which the three Lamnians were being held. No decision, as far as he was aware, had been reached on their fate.

  “The king will prize more contracts from them in return for their lives,” said Murlock with the air of one who understands the business of affairs of corrupt courts. “Now can I go?”

  “Just don’t get caught, you Spry, you hear?”

  “Once I depart from your company, I have every right to be here visiting my cousin.”

  “Well, if you take him Risslaca Ichor, he’s a bigger fool than his cousin.”

  “Remberee, horter. I hope I see you again.”

  “I shall want a slap up first breakfast!”

  “Ha!” And off he went to see his cousin.

  No matter how many times you creep into a tent to rescue somebody, no two times are alike.

  Each and every time can see your fool head off and bouncing. I hadn’t missed Murlock’s way of taking his leave. That: “Once I depart from your company” when he would normally have said a far more colloquial way of taking off.

  And, as I am sure you will have realized, all this time I was wrestling with my conscience over my usage of the Lamnians in quite this way. My conscience is sometimes an elastic beast, and at others a constricting dungeon of the deepest depths and finest steel bars. Of course I’d do what I could to help the Lamnians escape. That is obvious, by Vox! As to squeezing their money out of the king — well, that was a splendid idea and one I subscribed to. Just how it was to be done remained a mystery, to me, at least.

  The guard wore a broad green and blue sash over his armor, which was of a common kind, and the sash across my jack gave the same impression. Often where armor is not all that easily come by and no two sets of harness are alike, regiments and formations are denoted by sashes, favors, feathers. In his helmet tufted blue and green feathers. I put the helmet on and then strapped up the longsword over my back. I’d taken a drexer from the calsany pack in place of the thraxter I’d worn when first venturing into Gorlki.

  So, with the sash and the feathers, I looked just another hired guard. I pushed the pakzhan down out of sight.

  The idea that I was on a desperate mission occurred to me, to be pushed aside.

  Murlock had served his part. He’d gotten me in, he’d brought in my weaponry and armor, and now it was all down to me.

  Going carefully in the fuzzy moonlight I managed to avoid tripping over any guylines and so fetched up before the tent indicated. At that precise moment, as the gods smiled upon man’s foolish endeavors, an uproarious hullabaloo started up on the opposite bank of the River of Rippling Reeds.

  Good old Seg!

  He’d judged it to a nicety even he couldn’t have anticipated. He, Nath and Orso were now hard at it over there, creating mayhem and busily liberating the Lomian and Vallian prisoners. The reaction on this side of the river came commendably quickly and soldiers ran yelling from their quarters. There was a clumsy rope-propelled pontoon arrangement provided to cross the river and the soldiers ran down to the bank to line up at the gate to board. I strolled across to the two sentries on the prison tent.

  I used a well-worn device.

  The burden was this: “Hai, doms! You have all the luck. The Jik wants you over there, and I’m stuck here on sentry go. May Havil take it!”

  Eagerly, they ran off, guessing they would have some skull-bashing in prospect. I took up a properly soldierlike stance until they vanished into the moons-drenched shadows, and then I went into the tent.

  Just in time I managed to avoid Yamsin’s pottery cup. The thing flew up and shattered on the ground. I held her in my arms, as she writhed and twisted, calling me all the vile beasts she could lay her tongue to.

  “Calm down, Mistress Yamsin. We must be quiet—”

  “Horter Jak!”

  “Aye.” I stared hard at the Lamnians. “Swiftly and quietly and we are out of here and safe.”

  With all his merchant’s nerves aquiver, Weymlo got out: “You are welcome, Jak, right welcome. We will never be paid by the king now. He would have our heads first.”

  “The cramph,” put in Lamilo, in a most un-like Lamnian snarl.

  “Fling your cloaks about you and follow me.”

  I wasn’t at all sure it was going to be particularly easy; in any event in all the confusion we were able to slip out through the gate, leaving two unconscious sentries sprawled on the ground. We hared off into the pink shadows.

  The opportunity was too good to miss.

  “The best thing for you is to pack your camp right away and get well clear before dawn. With a good start you should not be troubled.” I did not add that what I intended would materially assist their chances of complete escape.

  “But you, Jak!”

  “A trifle of unfinished business. Shall we meet in, say Linansmot? Perhaps in four days’ time?”

  “If we are not taken up, we will be there.”

  “Good. Off you go, and may Pandrite go with you.”

  “And may Pandrite the All-Powerful go with you, too.”

  I waited just long enough to see them well away and then turned back for the encampment gate.

  The two sentries were just waking up as I entered. Helping them to further slumber I ran rapidly on before the swirls of confusion rip-roaring about swirled my way.

  The king’s pavilion, the largest and most grand structure, could not be missed. Even with the turmoil going on there was no chance of entrance through the front and I circled around to the back. My judgment suggested King Morbihom would merely go to the flap of his pavilion and give orders. He would not concern himself personally over a matter as simple as that of rounding up escaped prisoners. He’d send troops across the river and then return to the delights within his personal silken enclosure.

  My old sailor knife slit down and the cloth parted and I was through.

  Naturally, this sumptuous portable palace being on Kregen, it was not a single erection but a bewildering maze of cloth-hung passageways and rooms. Various marquee-sized tents joined together formed a lavish field headquarters. I turned to the right as I came to the first tent’s junction with the next, and gave no thought to why I went that way.

  One or two people were about, mostly slave; and these I ignored, only having to tap on the skulls of a couple of the king’s personal bodyguard who proved inquisitive. I stepped out into a small enclosure, intending to cut right through the cloth into the next.

  Two stout poles thrust into the ground to form a cross supported the body of a man. I stopped.

  He wore sumptuous robes, and by the runic inscriptions and the fellow’s flaming red hair, I took him to be from Loh, a Wizard of Loh. His face bore black marks; but it bore also the marks of passion and habitual authority. His turban lay to one side, dented in. His robes were ripped open and his shirt also, baring his chest. Streaky red marks like strawberry jam disfigured the skin.

  He lifted his head as I entered.

  “Drugged,” he said in a slurred furry voice. “Memphees. The king requites me most unjustly.” />
  “Al-Ar-Mergondon, I presume?”

  “You are right. And now you are here you may assist me to escape.”

  “As to that—”

  “Oh, I think you will. I have been expecting you, Dray Prescot.”

  Chapter eighteen

  I pay for our foe’s supplies

  Well, if it came to it, I could always pay the Lamnians myself. Out of friendship. However odd it might sound for me to pay good red Vallian gold to the purveyors of supplies to Vallia’s enemies, it made solid common sense to me. I fancied that Weymlo, in order to make a living, and the king of Tomboram being sick and not going to war, had been decoyed into selling to Morbihom. Also, the illness of Tomboram’s monarch probably explained Menaham’s freedom of action.

  I was in sufficient control of myself to betray no great start of surprise when this Wizard of Loh used my name.

  Instead I looked around, saw the boxes and bales ripped open and vandalized, the overset tables and chairs, the spilled wine. I went up to Al-Ar-Mergondon, whipped out my knife, cut him free and caught him as he fell.

  “Easy, san, easy.”

  “Yes. I am still weak. The devilish Memphees drains a man, wizard or no wizard.”

  “I know.”

  As, indeed, I did. That rascally villain, Vad Garnath, long gone down to the Ice Floes of Sicce, had had me drugged just before a Bladesman’s duel. Memphees, concocted from the bark of the poison tree memph and the cactus trechinolc, seeps through the body and takes away the senses. Once Mergondon, helpless, had been trussed up, even his arcane arts had been unable to free him.

  The thought occurred to me to wonder if Deb-Lu or Khe-Hi or Ling-Li could not have loosened their bonds.

  “Such a task is not within my powers,” said Mergondon.

  “Come on, Mergondon,” I said, determined that we should start our relationship on the right lines from the very beginning. “If we are to escape this hell hole, then you must brace yourself up. Brassud!”

  “Of course. And all because the army suffered a reverse. I was blamed, the ingrate!”