A Sword for Kregen [Dray Prescot #20] Read online

With a sigh, Bevon stood up, a massive bent shape against the starlight. Quienyin murmured that he was not enamored of Scatulo's notation. The fire struck sparks from a glinting figure that appeared, striding along between the caravan and the fires. I saw this was Prince Mefto. Bevon took up his goblet and started for Scatulo's carriage. Prince Mefto, leading his swarth, approached.

  There was nothing any of us could say to halt Bevon and to persuade him that the water ration was his. His master had demanded it and Bevon was slave.

  A fellow who had been slave a long time and grown cunning in slavish ways would have gulped the sazz down instantly and then whined that there was no water—and if he got a beating for it would regard that as quits doubled, once for drinking the water himself and second for depriving his master of it. But Bevon was gentle and unschooled in the devious ways of the world. And, too, there is every chance that he really felt his master required the sazz—oh, yes, absolutely. Something like that must surely have been in his mind in view of what occurred.

  Mefto was swigging from a bottle. He resealed this and moving to the side of his swarth thrust the bottle away. He patted the swarth's greenish-purple scaled head. He saw Bevon.

  “Hai, slave! Kraitch-ambur,[4] my swarth, is thirsty. Give me that water."

  [4 Kraitch-ambur: Thunder]

  Bevon halted.

  Better he should have run into the darkness.

  Prince Mefto frowned. We could see his resplendent figure reflecting our firelight. His lower right hand fell to one of his sword hilts.

  “Slave, the water! Grak!"

  “Master,” stammered Bevon. “It is for my master—"

  “To a Herrelldrin Hell with your master! I shall not tell you again, slave. The water!"

  Bevon just stood, his dogged face perplexed, his massive shoulders hunched, it seemed, protectively over the goblet. Scatulo yelled again and Bevon jumped and Mefto reached forward to snatch the water and the goblet fell and the sazz-flavored water spread into the dirt.

  “You onker! You stupid yetch!"

  Prince Mefto was incensed. He whipped out the sword he gripped and with another hand patted his swarth affectionately. “My poor Kraitch-ambur! There is no water for you. But the slave will be punished!"

  With that Mefto the Kazzur began hitting Bevon with the flat of his sword.

  Desperately attempting to protect himself with upraised arms, the Brukaj was knocked over onto the ground. The Kildoi went on hitting him sadistically with the flat.

  I stood up.

  Pompino rose at my side and put a hand on my arm.

  “No, Jak. He will take it amiss if you interfere."

  “Had I my powers,” sighed Quienyin, and took a sip of his drink.

  Sishi was gasping and her hands were pressed fiercely to her breast, her face shining in the firelight.

  Now Bevon was beginning to yell, the first cries of pain that had passed his lips. The sword rose and fell with wet soggy sounds. Bevon rolled this way and that, a huddled quivering mass, defenseless.

  “No, Jak!” Pompino pulled me.

  I shook him off and walked across to this gallant Prince Mefto the Kazzur.

  “Jak! He will slaughter you!"

  The prince paused in the beating to look across Bevon's prostrate and groaning form. His golden eyebrows drew down menacingly. His upper right hand dropped to the second sword hilt.

  “Well, rast?"

  I said, “Prince. You chastise this man unjustly—"

  I got no further. Soft words were not the currency of Mefto the Kazzur.

  He simply said, “Yetch, you presume to your death!"

  He leaped Bevon and charged full at me, two swords whistling. Both were thraxters.

  I drew my thraxter and parried the first blows. I gave ground, circling, already realizing I was in for a fight. To be forced to kill this fellow would lead to most unpleasant consequences, for he was a prince and I a hired paktun.

  It seemed to me in the first few moments of the fight that I dare not slay him and must therefore seek to stretch him out senseless. He would have to be tackled as I tackle a Djang, with the added complication of his tail-hand. He was rather like a Djang with his four arms and a Kataki with his tail rolled into one. I have fought Djangs and Katakis, and one Djang can dispose of—well, of a lot of Katakis.

  This unpleasant cramph was a Kildoi.

  Nine inches of daggered steel whipped up in his tail-hand and twinkled between his legs at me.

  With a skip and jump I got out of the way. I did not slash the tail off. As we fought I fancied I had not sliced his tail off because that was the beginning of more trouble, that he had to be knocked out. As we fought I realized that he had not let me slice his tail off.

  He was a marvel.

  We fought. The blades flashed and rang with that sliding screech. Oh, yes, he had three blades against my one; but that was not it, not it at all. I knew and he knew, after a space.

  He drew back. He was smiling. He looked pleased.

  “Whoever you are, paktun, I have never met a better swordsman. But I think you must number your days now."

  The best swordsman in the world, Sishi had called him.

  I didn't know if he was that. But I did know that I had, at last, met my match.

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  The Fight Beside the Caravan

  Every swordsman must be aware that one day he may meet his match and so enter his last fight.

  One reads so often of our intrepid hero who is so vastly superior as a swordsman, fighting other wights, and toying with them, cutting them up, with the outcome never in doubt. As you know I had always entered each fight with the knowledge that this could be the time I met my master. Oh, yes, I have cut up opponents, as I have related. One reads of the way in which the hero goes about his task. But now, here under the fatly glowing stars of Kregen, with the Moons rising and the crimson firelight playing upon the halted caravan, I was in nowise being gently admonished and taught a lesson, rather I was being sadistically tortured before the end.

  With a convulsive snatch I managed to get my dagger out and into play. That made two blades against three. But this Kildoi was a master bladesman. The swords wove their deceptive patterns of steel. He knew every trick I essayed. He showed me three or four I'd never come across and only by desperate efforts I managed to escape, and even then I believe he let me, for the fun of it. Once a swordsman sees a trick he knows it—as I have said—otherwise he is dead.

  I learned.

  But I knew that he knew more than I did. And, all the time, his two left arms poised prettily and the hands hung gracefully. If he wished, he could bring two more blades into the fight.

  Well, to take some ludicrous credit, after a space he hauled out a short sword with his upper left hand, and pressed me. I knew now I was fighting for my life and any thought of merely hitting him over the head was long flown. I rallied and fought back, and the swords clashed and clanged, and then, and I saw the fact as proof of something and as a final death warrant, his lower left fist pulled out a long dagger. So now he had five weapons against my two, and some of the smile was gone from his handsome face with the golden beard blowing.

  Could Korero, I wondered, fight like this?

  I'd have to see when I got back to Vallia.

  And then ... The truth was I wasn't going to get back to Vallia ... Not after Prince Mefto the Kazzur had finished with me.

  As some fighting men do, he talked as he battled.

  “You are good, paktun, very good. I would love to talk to you about your victories, your instructors. But I am a prince and I do not tolerate your kind of conduct."

  He cut me about the left shoulder and I swirled away and then used a risky attack to land a hit on his left shoulder. I saw the blood there, a smear in the light. We both wore light tunics, having doffed our armor. His face went mean.

  “You think, you rast, you can better me? Me, Mefto the Kazzur, who fought his way to a princedom over
the bodies of his foes? Fool!"

  Well, yes, I was a fool, right enough.

  I hit him again, a glancing blow across his face and severed a chunk of his beard.

  Those two hits were the only ones I scored.

  He pinked me again and I slid two of his blades and a third and fourth chunked a gouge out of my right side.

  He was beginning to enjoy himself.

  He didn't like the cut on his face. I hoped it left an ugly scar, the rast.

  Swordsmen have their little foibles. He had me in his toils, right enough. But as we fought and I tried the old trick of dismembering him piecemeal, being unable to finish him with a body thrust, I began to pick up hints as to his favored techniques. The trouble was, it was not just that he had five blades, or that his technique was well-nigh perfect, but that he was just supremely good. He was not quite as fast as me; had he been I'd have been stretched lifeless by now.

  So I began to work out a last desperate gamble that would break all the rules and would make or break. Truth to tell, I had little real hope. The moment I began the passage I fancied he would detect instantly the attack and know the correct counter. But desperate situations demand desperate remedies. I was bleeding profusely now; but all the cuts were shallow and I knew he but toyed with me.

  He was chattering away as we fought.

  “I joy in this contest, paktun! By the Blade of Kurin! You are indeed a master bladesman."

  Maybe—but I was like to be a dead bladesman, master or not...

  With a sudden and ferocious passade he began an attack aimed at slicing off my left ear—I think. I defended desperately, and gave ground, and faintly I heard screams and guessed Sishi and Pompino were riveted by this spectacle.

  Time for the last great gamble ... I positioned myself and a long arrow abruptly sprouted from Mefto's right shoulder, between those cunningly swiveled double joints.

  He screamed.

  He fell back, screeching, and he dropped all his weapons.

  Another arrow hissed past my head and went thwunk into the painted wood of Scatulo's carriage. Without a thought I dropped flat and dived under the coach.

  Well—yes.

  The drikingers had played us and now they drove in to finish us completely and steal all we had.

  Logic indicated they had chosen their time well. We were at rest, we were short of water, we were tired and apprehensive, and we ought all to have been asleep but for the sentries, and they, poor devils, would no doubt be sprawled with slit throats. The fight had given the bandits pause and some intemperate hothead had loosed at us and so the alarm was raised.

  The drikingers were blessed by me, then, I can tell you.

  And, to be honest and all the same—that second arrow would have pinned me but for the instinctive move I'd made when the first one shafted Mefto. Speed—that was all I had as advantage over Mefto, and it was speed of reaction that in the end had saved me.

  The caravan roused and the paktuns turned out and Bevon took up his sword from Master Scatulo's carriage and we fought.

  The fight was savage and unpleasant with much carving up of leathery hides and stripping of bright feathers; but at last we drove the drikingers off and collapsed, exhausted.

  These skirling events were just those I had been missing as emperor in Vallia ... How far removed this brisk little encounter was from the ordered and planned evolutions of the Phalanx!

  But, death attended both in equal measure.

  In the morning we buried our dead or cremated those whose religious convictions demanded that ingress to the Ice Floes of Sicce. Various gods were apostrophized for good fortune for the ibs of the departed. As for the drikingers, we found only three of them, twisted in death by the wagon wheels, and these, too, we buried. They had been lean hardy men, apims, with leathery skins and ferocious bunches of hair dyed purple, and with scraps of armor looted from previous caravans. Of the other bandit dead, they had been all carried off by their comrades.

  So, groaning and protesting, the caravan moved off and safely reached the water hole and from then on the journey across the Desolate Waste proceeded as such a journey should—filled with alarums and excursions but with a happy arrival at the end.

  The country opened out and grew fat and rich once we crossed the River of Purple Rushes. There was a ford and a strong fort and parties of warriors of Aidrin to escort us in. They greeted us in jocular mood, making light of our problems, telling us of the troubles that previous unfortunate caravans had endured. There were caravans that set out from Songaslad, the town of thieves, that never reached the River of Purple Rushes. White and yellow bones scattered over the Desolate Waste marked their endings.

  From the fort by the ford, Prince Mefto was carried swiftly ahead of us, with his men, to Jikaida City. He left the caravan. He had not spoken to me and was reputed badly injured—and at the time I suspected that an arrow in the cunning double-joint had done more harm than it would do to a fellow with only two arms to fight with. I had kept a strict watch for revenge; but nothing transpired. What honor code he followed, if any, I did not know. But I had the strongest—and nastiest—suspicion that I had not heard the last of Prince Mefto the Kazzur.

  If I do not dwell overmuch on my reactions to that fight I think you will respect that. I had had a shock, all right; and, too, I had grown in understanding. In future, fights would not be quite the same again; but I fancied I knew enough of Dray Prescot to guess what he would do. One is as one is, and like the Scorpion, must hew to nature's path.

  The Wizard of Loh, Deb-Lu Quienyin, was overjoyed to have reached his destination safely.

  “I shall seek out San Orien at once. He, I feel sure, I hope, will be able to cure me—to retrieve my powers."

  Saying remberee to him I brought up the subject I had been harboring for long. “I am confident he will do everything he can to aid you, San. Tell me, do you know of a Wizard of Loh called Phu-Si-Yantong?"

  “Dear San Yantong! I have not heard of him for ages."

  Well, now...

  How Wizards of Loh kept in touch was a subject not for ordinary men. But old Deb-Lu-Quienyin burbled on happily about Yantong, the biggest villain unhanged, and I wondered if there could be two Wizards of Loh with the same name. But now, Quienyin would have none of that. He had not heard of Yantong for many seasons, and when last he had been in contact Yantong had been building up a useful practice in Loh. “Of course, I always felt he was marked for great things. There was an aura about him, despite his difficulty. I do hope he prospers."

  There was no point in arguing about that; but I did pick up one or two useful hints from Quienyin. He was reticent about this “difficulty” of Yantong's, and would not be drawn, and I wondered if Phu-Si-Yantong was indeed the cripple he had pretended to be and that was his difficulty.

  We watched Master Scatulo's coach trundling off to the superior inn where the Jikaidast would stay until, as Bevon put it: “He has established his credentials."

  LionardDen, Jikaida City, was given over to one thing in life. Jikaida. The game consumed the people. Of course, they lived by it and it paid them handsome dividends. Their country of Aidrin was rich in worldly goods, the fields and mines and rivers yielded a bountiful harvest. People flocked from all over to play Kazz-Jikaida. There were enormous fortunes to be made. There were reputations to be made.

  Standing saying remberee to the Wizard of Loh, Pompino said to me, “I do not fancy staying here overmuch. But it seems we may have to."

  Quienyin nodded. “When a caravan returns across the Desolate Waste, I think. It is suicide to attempt the crossing alone or in small numbers. And all west of here across the lakes is dreadful, so I am told by those who know—leem hunters and the like."

  I said: “D'you fancy the life of a leem-hunter, Pompino?"

  Quienyin laughed and my fellow kregoinye made a face. “By Horato the Potent, Jak. No!"

  “You could take employment in the games."

  “How so, San?"

 
“Why, stout fighting men are always wanted. I, myself, do not care for Kazz-Jikaida. But it has its attractions."

  “We will, I think, find out a little more first,” Pompino told me, whereat, feeling my wounds still a little sore, I nodded agreement.

  Jikaida City certainly was beautiful, with airy kyros and broad avenues and with houses that were graceful and colonnaded against the heat and thick-walled against the cold. The climate, by reason of the lakes, was not too extreme this deeply in the center of the continent. Everywhere the checkerboard was used as decoration. One could grow tired of the continual repetition. Even the soldiers’ cloaks were checkered black and white.

  Quienyin shook his head. “If you go as a warrior you will be expected, as part of your duties, to act in the games. That is understood."

  “I have no wish to be a soldier,” said Pompino. Truth to tell, we two kregoinye were stranded here.

  And there was not a single sight of a golden and scarlet raptor circling arrogantly above us, mocking us with his squawk.

  The lady Yasuri paid us off, and she had the grace to thank us for our services. But paid off we were, and so were at a loose end. I said to Pompino: “I am for going back across the Desolate Waste. I have urgent business that will not wait."

  “No business,” he said sententiously, “is more important than that of the Everoinye."

  One could not argue with that sentiment. But I was serious.

  “If we can buy or steal a couple of fluttrells—"

  “They are more precious than gold. And how many have you seen since we arrived?"

  “None.” There were volroks and other flying men abroad on the streets of the city; but we saw no aerial cavalry. That there must be some seemed to me probable. I'd have a saddle-bird, I promised myself; but in the interim until I gained one we had to find something to do. So, as we had known, the games drew us.

  “Anyway,” I said as we hitched up our belts and went off to find a suitable tavern, “Ineldar the Kaktu will be taking a caravan back across the Desolate Wastes. We have only to sign on with him as caravan guards."

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen