The Tides of Kregen [Dray Prescot #12] Read online

  These three quite clearly were a scout party, sniffing out the secrets of the Zairians on this small island. Once they saw the four swifters they would report back. The projected attack by the men of Zair would be betrayed—betrayed and doomed.

  No doubt the swifter from which they had come lurked on the opposite shore, ready to race back to the main fleet with news.

  Well, I had been dishonored and condemned by the men of Zair. I had been rejected, considered fit for the fight only to pull an oar. I was a Valkan, a Vallian, Lord of Strombor, King of Djanduin. What were the petty squabbles of red and green to such a mighty man as I? These sarcastic thoughts passed through my head and were gone like swallows at evening. Surely this was a test, sent by Zair himself.

  Slowly, comfortably, I stood up and stepped out into the clearing. The last shards of emerald light fell across the trees, turning them into jeweled marvels. The air sang with the sound of evening insects. The grass glittered with dew.

  The Chuliks saw me.

  I was still hairy although washed clean. I wore a brave old scarlet breechclout. They knew, as I knew, that we could not allow a survivor. They must slay me or I must slay them. The destinies of Grodno and Zair demanded nothing less.

  With an absolute confidence that might have shaken less of a maniac than I am they advanced, their longswords ready.

  The first Chulik surprised me.

  “Cramph! Lay down your sword and yield, lest we slay you."

  I overcame my surprise. This was not mercy. This was a mere device to take a prisoner and extract information.

  I said: “You three are dead men."

  Chuliks and I, we do not laugh often. A diff of another race might have thrown his head back and guffawed his scorn and merriment. These three spread out and came on, silently.

  The green light would soon be all gone. The sword glimmered like ice in my fists. I did not use the cunning Krozair grip. I have spoken a little of this Krozair longsword grip, but there is much more to it than the mere spacing out of the hands on the handle, much more, including the angle of the hands, the placing of the thumbs, the delicate and yet brutal over- and underhand play—yes, much more. The Chuliks would know about Krozairs. They came on with sure purpose. After that first exchange it was all silent and deadly there beneath the dying green sun.

  I leaped.

  I did not wait for them.

  The sword chirred. In the moment of leaping, before I landed and gripped the bulk of Kregen beneath my feet and struck, I had shifted grips. The full force of the longsword flung by the cunning, twisting motion of the Krozair grip ripped the head from the first Chulik's shoulders.

  Stupid! Wasteful! This was not the professional fighting man-killer Dray Prescot; this was the old savage and barbaric Dray Prescot of bygone years.

  The second Chulik bored in, his sword thrusting for my belly; the third circled and slashed down at my head.

  I parried the one and slid the other and whirled the sword back. The Chulik leaped clear, but I had aimed short and so was able to carry the blow around, low and dirty, and cut the ankles from number three. As I leaped back, the longsword snapping up into position again, I cursed. I was fighting with power and fury and letting my muscles do the work. I, who had been a hyr-kaidur of the Jikhorkdun! Passion and senseless ferocity marked me during that fight. I needed to bash a few skulls, the black blood in me seething to run foaming and free.

  The second Chulik—now so dreadfully the last—did not back off. He was a fighter—well, all Chuliks are fighters—but he fancied his chances, seeing the massive anger I had put into my strokes. He would feint with me a while and then use his skill to slay me. So he thought.

  The blades touched and rang and then shirred in that shivery sound of war-metal striking war-metal. He lopped and aimed to slash, shortened and thrust. I parried and then bashed him back. From the tail of my eye I could see the footless one crawling along leaving a trail of red. If I trod near him he'd reach up and spit me. I angled away.

  The swords blurred. The shadows dropped down. It was all very quick in the nature of a fight and yet all the hallmarks of the slow, mail-crushing longsword fighting held us both. This Chulik might have done better with his shortsword against me, an unarmored man. He most likely would not have though, I think, looking back.

  He fought well and then I had him. A neat parade and hand-rolling movement dazzled him long enough for me to clear space to swing backhanded at his neck. The mail hood erupted. This time I struck with force sufficient only to strike through to his neck bone. His head lolled off, most grotesquely, with the blood spouting onto his mail, fouling all the bright green insignia.

  The crawler knew he was finished and slit his own throat.

  I felt a tiny whisper of surprise at this; it was known, but rare among Chuliks.

  I dragged the three of them back off the trail, out of the clearing. When I straightened up, the stars glittered in their hosts and She of the Veils floated serenely above, a new sharp crescent among the stars.

  Removing their armor was not difficult and relieving them of their weapons was likewise easy. I would have to cobble the rents in the mail together. I took everything and the supplies from the hut down to the boat—a muldavy with a dipping lug—and threw them all in and covered them with a flap of canvas. I did not know if Nath and Zolta would return this night or not. If they did not come my relief would be genuine. If they did I would have to make sure they got back to their ship in time.

  They did arrive, puffing, swearing, calling on Mother Zinzu the Blessed, and searched around. I had moved the muldavy. They found nothing. I heard them arguing and insulting each other. I had to restrain myself, hold myself back from leaping up and embracing them and pummeling them to once more recapture our old comradeship.

  But my life held no joys for them.

  Eventually, with many a Makki-Grodno curse and a wonderment at my intentions, they wandered off back to the swifter. I waited on the island until the four swifters and the small scout vanished into the darkness. One day, I vowed, and this time I meant to hew to the resolution with great tenacity, I would see them again and explain my ingratitude, so that once more we might go carousing in Sanurkazz and roll into the Fleeced Ponsho, roaring for wenches and drink, skylarking, merrymaking, creating havoc until the fat and jolly mobiles with their rusty swords came waddling up, wreathed in smiles.

  But all that could only happen if the evil green of Magdag was banished, sent recoiling back to its foul warrens. If the Grodnims overcame the Zairians in the Eye of the World there would be no more lighthearted roistering in Sanurkazz for Nath and Zolta and me—or for any other who followed the red of Zair.

  * * * *

  It is at this point that the last cassette finishes those making up the Rio de Janeiro tapes. Prior to this point, an event I had come somewhat to dread as denying us anything more of the fascinating and incredible story of Dray Prescot on the planet of Kregen under Antares, a further supply reached me. They were transmitted in the same way as previously, namely, in a packaged box addressed to Mr. Dan Fraser, sent by the executors of his estate to Geoffrey Dean and so to me. They had been dispatched originally from Sydney, Australia. This time there was no covering letter to explain their existence.

  As usual with Prescot at the controls, the opening of the Sydney tapes is fuzzed with a fair amount of wordage completely lost or so distorted as to be indecipherable. It is possible to make out Prescot talking at some length on the tangled political situation of the inner sea. It seems clear he took the little muldavy and sailed her to the western part of the southern shore in pursuance of his plan to reinstate himself as a Krozair of Zy.

  He also speaks—and here his deep voice rolls out—of a name which appears to affect him profoundly. The name is Pakkad.

  We are supremely fortunate to be blessed with further cassettes from Dray Prescot and the manner of their arrival here together with the maps he appends is of less moment than their content. Now we may loo
k forward to further adventures on Kregen beneath the red and green suns, and share with Dray Prescot the barbaric color and headlong action of his life under the Suns of Scorpio.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  Duhrra

  “Step up! Step up! All comers! Duhrra the Mighty Mangler challenges all comers! A golden piece against one fall! Step up, my fine Jernus!"

  Torchlights threw lurid splashes of color across the scene. The soldiers and sailors and workmen crowded close among the tents and bales and packing crates, all the impedimenta of an army stores base. The streaming radiance of the Twins threw fuzzy pink shadows into the corners, but the flaring torchlights dominated the shifting, erratic patterns, throwing greedy reflections on lips and anticipatory gleams in crafty eyes. Here was where an army disported itself when out of the line.

  “Come on, doms! Come on, Jernus! Duhrra the Mighty Mangler welcomes all challenges. Clean wrestling, with the first fall to count against a gold piece! Where's your pride?"

  The speaker—or, rather, the shouter—was a thin weasely individual with the face of a wersting, all fangs and ferociousness. His thin body, incongruously clad in a flowing scarlet robe, cinctured by a trashy brassy-gold belt, looked scarcely capable of lifting a longsword. He wore a tall white and red mitered cap streaming with arbora feathers, and he kept tossing a gold piece up and down in the clawed palm of one hand. With the other hand he pointed with great meaning to Duhrra the Mighty Mangler.

  “There stands Duhrra! Undisputed champion of Crazmoz!’ Any swod of the army who can best him takes away a gold piece! Step up, Jernus, step up!"

  The half-mocking tone in which this barker addressed the clustered crowd, calling them Jernus, lords, made them laugh. But they eyed the massive bulk of the wrestler, shuffled their feet and averted their eyes. No one seemed anxious to step forward into the marked circle.

  I studied this Duhrra. A magnificent body, yet bulky, probably not as slow as he looked, with immense corded thighs and plated muscle over his chest—and a belly that would do well to accept a few flagons less of Zond or Chremson.

  I was here on the tail of the army with a purpose.

  Somewhere further west, engaged in fighting the Grodnims, was Pur Zenkiren. I had to talk to him. Yet I needed a mount, I needed food and drink—shelter could be found under the stars—and for all this I needed money.

  Money was the one thing Nath and Zolta had failed to bring.

  All kinds of coins circulated among the Zairians. There were the Zo-pieces, minted by King Zo in Sanurkazz. There were many other mints of other free cities of the southern shore. There were the coins of great mercantile houses, banks, lords of the southern shore. And there were the gold and silver oars of Magdag.

  The price to engage in combat with Duhrra the Mighty Mangier was a bronze so. That is, a three-piece. I did not possess even an ob, a one-piece.

  About to make my move, for I felt confident that I could take this man despite his massive body, I checked. A bulky dwa-Deldar of the varters stepped forward, flinging off his red cloak, baring his hairy chest, bulging his muscles. He tossed a so to the barker with a confident shout of: “I'll show this hunk of vosk-steak how to fight!"

  “Hai!” they shouted. “Hai for Nath the Biceps!"

  I studied the ensuing instructive combat.

  This Duhrra knew his business. His head was shaved bald, with a small peak and a descending pigtail, somewhat after the manner of an Algonquian or a Chulik, but far less flamboyant. His face bore a blank, expressionless flatness, with a smudge of a nose, upturned upper lip, and a general air of idiocy I felt belied the keenness he would show in hand-to-hand combat. He uttered a low gurgling cry of pleasure as the dwa-Deldar surged forward to come to hand grips.

  The dwa-Deldar circled, lunged, gripped, tried to hoist Duhrra and throw him, as doubtless he had done many times to unruly swods in his outfit. Duhrra grunted. He scarcely moved. His corded thighs ridged as he grasped this Nath the Biceps. I saw the smooth heavy face abruptly blaze with power, the small dark eyes suddenly filled with great joy. Then, with a mighty heave, the dwa-Deldar, Nath the Biceps, flew into the air to land with a dust-billowing crash on his back.

  The crowd yelled. There were a few boos. But the gold coin continued to flick up and down in the clawed palm of the barker and he chuckled his mirth.

  “Undefeated! Duhrra the Mighty Mangler, champion still, winner by a fall!” And then: “Step up, doms! Step up! A gold piece to be taken this night!"

  The crowd began to drift away.

  I sidled quickly to the barker and said, “You are losing their interest, dom. Your man wins too easily."

  He flicked me a liquid glance.

  “Aye, dom. I know. But Duhrra is a real champion."

  Across the aisle between tents a brilliant concentration of torches lit a crude stage upon which half a dozen girls danced. They wore beads and feathers and they writhed enticingly. The soldiers gaped up, licking their lips. Further along a man kept swallowing balls and snakes of fire, helping them down with daggers. His barker bellowed louder than the one before me.

  “I will wrestle with Duhrra,” I said.

  “Where is your so?"

  “If I lose you shall have your so."

  One swod with the patches of a sectrixman heard and swung back, calling to his comrades. I stared at this barker who let the gold piece fall to lie in his palm.

  “If my old father could see me now!” he cried. “Me, Naghan the Show! Reduced to shilling for nothing!"

  “Hurry!"

  “He gonna fight or ain't he gonna fight?” demanded the cavalryman. The crowd hovered.

  I made up this Naghan the Show's mind for him.

  “I will fight,” I declared and threw off my old red cloak. The belt with the longsword and the sailor's knife followed. Clad only in the old scarlet breechclout I walked into the marked space. Duhrra the Mighty Mangler eyed me. I saluted him.

  “You are a man, my friend,” I said. “I bear you no ill will."

  His dull eyes sized me up. He said: “Uh ... no, dom ... uh ... no ill will."

  Somewhere a woman screamed, “Duhrra'll kill him!” And another, shriller still, joying: “No! Lookit him!"

  I fancy my good comrade Turko the Shield, who is a very high kham indeed in the syples of the Khamorros, would have disposed of the Duhrra with no less difficulty than I. The Khamorros are mightily dangerous men in the disciplines of unarmed combat, able to kill or maim with a blow. Yet I had proved my own disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy were superior even to the khamster skills of the Khamorros. Could this Duhrra have benefited from Krozair training? I did not think so.

  That, as you well know, made me a cheat, for Duhrra stood little chance. Yet he was a massive man, ridged in muscle, iron-hard, with that bald domed head like a battering ram. I would have to be very careful indeed and imagine the mocking bantering eyes of Turko upon me all the time.

  The fight is scarcely worth the chronicling, for I was minded to be merciful to Duhrra. He attempted to seize me as I advanced and I drew him on. Then, as we had done so many times in the unarmed combat drills in the fortress of Zy, and later as I had with Turko in our little practice area in Esser Rarioch, I took him and turned and twisted and for all his enormous bulk he rotated about the grip and flopped back, toppling, to fall ponderously on the flat of that massive back.

  I could not stop myself from saying “Hai Jikai!"

  But that was a saying from other places and times.

  The crowd stood silently and then, suddenly, burst into roaring applause. I merited no applause. I reached down and took Duhrra's hand and hoisted him to his feet. I stared into his dark dull eyes and saw an expression there I recognized; I did not know whether to be joyful or shiver with the apprehension of a new responsibility.

  Naghan the Show waxed highly indignant.

  “The gold piece, Naghan!"

  In the end he handed it over.

  I had the thing, warm from hi
s claw, in my hand, and was bending to don my cloak and belt when the first shrieks and screams laced the air with panic.

  Everyone was running. Pandemonium broke out further along where the bulk of the piled stores cut against the stars. I heard the fierce warlike yells, the battle cries, and I heard again that hated shrilling of: “Magdag! Magdag! Grodno! Green! Green!"

  The longsword shivered in my grip.

  Naghan the Show was screaming. He ran. Duhrra scooped up a red cloak and ran with him. I followed. They ought to know their way about this showground outside the base store camp. The devils of Grodnim were raiding from the sea. They aimed to destroy the stores here, in the rear of the army. These civilians, the tail of the army, the camp followers, were mere meat to be butchered. They must flee for their lives. I was not minded to flee, but I wished to fight where I felt success would attend my efforts. To be killed now in a stupid affray would nullify all I fought for in the wider realities. I had to quell that perfectly natural feeling that I ran like a nulsh from a fight. A fighting man who does not pick his field usually does not last long. But I admit I felt the shame and the indignity of running before those hated cries of “Magdag! Grodno! Magdag!"

  I owed the Overlords of Magdag. Once I had nearly defeated them with my old slave phalanx of vosk-skulls. Now I must find the guard detail here and form with them to bash these green sea-leems back to their ship and burn them there.

  So you see I had changed from the old Dray Prescot who had once roamed and fought over the Eye of the World.

  Or so I thought in my folly.

  Naghan the Show panted out, “Into the ruins! There we may hide from these cramphs of Magdag."

  Duhrra gave a low grunting cry, unintelligible. When Naghan stumbled he caught the slight body up and carried him as one would carry a feather pillow.

  Behind us the sky began to light up as the Grodnims started their fires among the stores. Away to our right along the shore the dark masses of tents and the long sectrix lines remained silent. If the guards did not counterattack soon they might as well shut up shop. The crazed mobs of people were running every which way. Ahead up a slight incline, sandy and scattered with thorn-ivy under the light of the moons, lay the sere gray skeletal arms of the ruins.