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

  The Rapa lifted his hand and light splintered.

  Even as I turned sharply away prepared to duck in the right direction, the big apim called Dav poised his sword and threw. It hissed through the air. It buried its point in the Rapa's breast, smashing through his leather jerkin, crunching into his bones, spouting blood.

  In the next instant I had drawn and was running upon the Brokelsh and his apim comrades. With a clang the blades crossed. I was aware of the Fristle, Fropo, and the apim, Dav, running up. Somewhere, someone had shouted: “'Ware your back, dom!"

  The Rapa was done for, the dagger spilled into the dust. His viciously beaked face lay against the earth. But as my sword felt the savage blows of these would-be stikitches, I felt a new and wholly unexpected sensation—an unwelcome and treacherously deadly emotion.

  I recalled that last fight with Mefto, and the way he had bested me. My blade faltered. The apims had sized me up and were pressing hard and somehow and, I think of its own volition, my thraxter leaped to parry their blows. But I saw again those five lethal blades of Mefto flashing before my eyes.

  My throat was dry. I leaped and slashed the blade about and caught the Brokelsh in the side. The Brokelsh are a squat-bodied race of diffs, and he staggered and recovered and came for me again. Then Fropo's sword switched in and took the Brokelsh in play, Dav took one of the apims, and I was left to face the last. Whatever my emotions had been, however the feelings had scorched through my brain, I felt the old secrets flowing along my arm and through my wrist and into my hand. I turned the sword over and beat and twitched and so lunged, and stepped back.

  Fropo and Dav were standing looking at me. The Brokelsh and the other apim were coughing their guts out.

  “You were a mite slow, dom,” said Dav, in his affable way. “You need to sharpen up."

  “Yes,” I said. I took a breath. “My thanks—"

  “Against them? The apim I took I know. Naghan the Sly, he was called. Look.” Dav bent and ripped away the big blue favor. Under it the hard yellow showed. “They tried to cowp you from the back, the yetches. Well, they'll never report back to Mefto the Kazzur, may he rot in Cottmer's Caverns."

  I said, “My thanks again. But I do not think they could have known you—who know them—would be here. They would not have been so bold."

  “Right, dom. They would not. And,” Here his big smile burst out. He wore a little tufty beard bisecting his chin, and he was burly, no doubt of that, genial. “And no Lahal between us. I am Dav Olmes. Lahal. This is Fropo the Curved."

  “I am Jak. Lahal, Dav Olmes. Lahal, Fropo the Curved."

  “And now I need three stoups of best ale, one after t'other,” quoth Dav. “Instanter, by the Blade of Kurin."

  So I knew he was a swordsman, and we went into the courtyard and found the ale and washed the dust away down our throats. And, for me, Dray Prescot known as Jak, the dust went down bitter with unease.

  No need to ask where the sword with which Dav had made such pretty play had come from. The little Och was wailing away and scrabbling around picking up the scattered items of the harness that Dav had ripped to pieces from its hangings on the post. The beautifully polished kax had fallen with a crash. The gilt helmet with the brave blue feathers still rolled about, like a balancing act. Now Dav threw the sword at the Och, who caught it with the unthinking skill of the man who spends his life with weapons, free or slave.

  “Thank you, notor, thank you,” chattered the Och.

  “That,” said Fropo, “was the kov's own blade."

  “Aye. And very fine, too. Now where is this ale?"

  “The Och called you notor,” I said. Notor is the usual Hamalian way of saying lord. We say jen in Vallia.

  Before Dav had recovered from his gutsy laugh at my words, Fropo, with sudden seriousness, said: “Aye. This is Dav Olmes, the Vad of Bilsley."

  A vad is a high rank of nobility indeed, and they had mentioned a kov. I said, “And the kov?"

  Fropo sucked through his teeth. “Konec Yadivro, the Kov of Brugheim."

  Ineldar the Kaktu could have told me I was going to see a kov, by Krun!

  Dav had found the ale and after he had demolished the first stoup in two swallows, he said: “The kov and I do not parade our ranks here in Jikaida City. We have work to do that—” Here he took the opportunity of destroying the second stoup. Then: “By this little fracas I take it you have run afoul of Prince Mefto the Kazzur the yetch?"

  “Aye.” I told them I had fought Mefto, and lost, and had been saved by the drikingers. They expressed the opinion that I must be somewhat of a bladesman after all, not to have been slain in the first pass or two. And, I knew, I had stood like a loon, shaking, when I had crossed swords with these stikitches. Kov Konec and his comrades had reached Jikaida City a few days earlier in a caravan whose master was Inarartu the Dokor, the twin brother of Ineldar the Kaktu, and this explained Ineldar's knowledge, I thought.

  The kov turned out to be a strong, frank-faced man with charming manners. I formed the opinion that he placed great reliance on the opinions and advice from Dav. Their estates, those of Brugheim and Bilsley, lay in Mandua, a country immediately to the west of Mefto's Shanodrin. At once I realized the rivalry existing, and determined that it had nothing to do with me. Mefto could go hang; Vallia counted for me, and nowhere else. I was wrong there, of course.

  However, I did take the opportunity in conversation of remarking that I knew a Bowman of Loh who swore that shafts fletched with the blue feathers of the king korf were superior to any other. I thought it tactful not to mention that Seg had also revised his opinion and had been heard to admit that the rose-red feathers of the zim-korf of Valka were as good. He wouldn't admit, as many a bowman felt, that they were superior.

  “You know about the king korf, then, Jak?"

  “A little. Not enough, kov."

  “You call me Konec, Jak, here in Jikaida City."

  “Konec."

  “You have no love for Mefto?"

  “He bested me. It was a fair fight—"

  “A man with four arms and a tail?"

  It rankled; but I had to say it, if only to show myself that I was not blinded by self-esteem. “It was not that, Konec. He is just simply superb. I think, perhaps, with other weapons he might ... But it would be a brave man who would go up against him, man to man."

  “Aye,” said Fropo, and he riffled his whiskers.

  “His ambitions are overweening. He must be stopped before he brings ruin to all the Dawn Lands. It is here in Jikaida City that we stand the best chance, paradoxical though that may appear."

  Dav chipped in to say, “If you are with us, Jak—"

  I said, “There is the story in the old legends, true or false who can say after thousands of seasons? The legend of Lian Brewis and his enchanted brush. He was the artist for the gods, he could draw and paint so beautifully that his creations came alive, and peopled the world, and what the gods spoke of, Lian Brewis created out of paint."

  “The story is known over Kregen and is very beautiful,"said Dav. “So—?"

  “So when the evil gods grew jealous in their wrath they took up Lian Brewis. He was cut off in full flower, a plump, jolly, wonderful person. And the gods for whom he had created so much beauty arose likewise in their just wrath and placed Lian Brewis as that constellation of stars that adorns the Heavens of Kregen. He can never be forgotten.” I looked at them, at their serious faces, and understood the intensity of their determination to halt Prince Mefto in his career of conquest. “Be sure the gods do not—"

  “They will not,” said Konec, and he spoke with power. “You may rest assured on that."

  There was always the chance that the Rapa, the Brokelsh and the two apims had been sacrificed by their master just so that he might infiltrate a spy into the enemy camp. The trick is known. So I was not accepted whole-heartedly all at once, and of course my hesitation in dealing with my opponent added to the suspicion. But Dav was genuine and genial and my mention of the king ko
rf, which was by way of being a secret signal, allayed much of the natural suspicion. They did not think that Mefto had penetrated that far into their schemes.

  As for myself, I pondered just why I was here; how could these folk help me back to Vallia?

  In the succeeding days I came to know them better and Pompino made the pappattu as my partner. We shifted quarters and Konec placed a room in the hotel of the Blue Rokveil at our disposal alongside the others. We spent the time practicing at swordplay, and, by Zair, I felt I mightily needed that sharpening up. The remembrance of Mefto's five blades seemed to have mesmerized me.

  This party from Mandua were here ostensibly to play Jikaida, and Konec was a player of repute. Their intrigues against Mefto were kept very quiet; but if assassination formed part of them, it stood little chance. Mefto was surrounded continually by his brilliant retinue of followers. He lay abed, recovering from his arrow wound. So Dav insisted we go with him to watch a well-touted game of Kazz-Jikaida. It was to be between rival factions of the twin cities, and was the usual Kazz game and not the Death game, that is, the pieces did not face certain death if they lost.

  We went along to take our seats in the public galleries of one of the game courts of the Jikaidaderen and I watched the Kazz game—and I was not enthralled. There was a powerful fascination in Kazz-Jikaida, an appeal to deeply hidden emotions and a dark pull on the blood; but I kept seeing the magical blades and the scornful and triumphant face of Prince Mefto the Kazzur before my eyes.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  How Bevon Struck a Blow

  The game turned out to be the Pallan's Kapt's Gambit Declined. That was how the encounter began. Because this was Kazz-Jikaida, the precise and elegantly contrived moves broke down after a time when a piece refused to be taken. The game proceeded interestingly enough, despite that. One swod, a Chulik whose fierce upthrust tusks were banded in silver, fought very well, defeating two Deldars sent against him successively. This upset the right hand drins of the game as far as Yellow was concerned, and pretty soon Blue was sweeping through the center with a line of Deldar-supported swods and pieces. When the two Kapts were brought into play they swept aside a Chuktar and a Hikdar and, but for an interesting contest between a Hyr-Paktun and the Aeilssa's Swordsman, the game was over.

  Here in democratic-aristocratic Jikaida City the piece around whose capture the game revolved was called not King or Rokveil but Aeilssa, Princess. Well, I liked the romantic ring of that, and having married a princess and having others of that ilk as daughters, I could not in all conscience find fault.

  When the game was done, the sand already being raked neatly back into the blue and yellow squares ready for the next game—there being time for two encounters in that afternoon—Dav and I shouldered up to leave. Being Dav, his first thought was to discover the nearest alehouse.

  With a flagon in his fist and his elbow on the counter, he said, “The pieces fight differently when it is a Death game."

  I nodded, and drank. I was thirsty.

  “How often do they—?"

  “Very seldom for the public contests. Death-Jikaida is expensive. The inner courts. They are the places for the highest stakes and the most bloody of encounters."

  “I have heard it said,” I remarked, quoting Deb-Lu-Quienyin as we had talked around our caravan fire under the stars of the Desolate Waste, “that there is no skill in Jikaida where the outcome of carefully planned moves can be upset by mere brainless warriors fighting."

  “So they say.” Dav supped companionably. “But Konec says there is skill, albeit of a different kind. There is the skill of sizing up your opponent's powers and of arranging within the moves to place your best fighters to bear on the weakest of your opponent's, and of protecting your own lesser pieces."

  “That Chulik swod with the silver-banded tusks—"

  “In the next game he will be a Deldar, you mark my words."

  “Chuliks are ferocious fighters. He'll be a Pallan yet."

  “On the Jikaida board only, though! By Spag the Junct! The blue and yellow sand will drink much blood before they put him away in the balass box."

  Pompino found us then and wanted to catch up with the flagons, and some of Konec's people arrived, and the alehouse began to liven up. We'd all put in some time in the practice court, and we lived and messed shoulder by shoulder, for Konec paid for everything in the Blue Rokveil with funds provided by contributions from Mandua against Mefto, and I'd practiced in a kind of daze. Dav regarded me as a better than middling swordsman. Pompino he rated much higher. I felt, in the turmoil that I couldn't plumb, that maybe he was right.

  Now, with the flagons being refilled by Fristle fifis, who squealed as they did their work, well-knowing that the customers liked that, Dav broached the question. He opened up the reasons behind what had been going on.

  “You are a fighting man, Jak. You are good. You could be better, I feel, if—but then, if we all knew that if, we'd all be Mefto the Bastards, eh?"

  “I suppose so."

  “Cheer up, you miserable fambly! I'm offering you a task you should joy in—we fight for Konec in Kazz-Jikaida. Will you join us?"

  Pompino, who had just lifted a fresh flagon to his lips, blew a head of froth a clear six feet and into the cleavage of a fifi. She yelped. She put her finger down and wiped—and then she licked the finger, making a face. But she didn't deceive us. We laughed—even I laughed.

  “All right,” I said.

  “We-ell,” said Pompino.

  “It depends on the size of the game we get into,” Dav said, speaking to Pompino with intent to induce him. “Konec has brought first-class fighters; but we may need many more to make up the pieces. What say you? You know the pay is good, and the inducements offered by the Nine Masked Guardians add up to a handsome sum."

  In Poron Jikaida, which is the smallest size reckoned to be worth the playing, there are thirty-six pieces a side. In Lamdu Jikaida there are ninety pieces a side.

  In the end Pompino gave his assent; a qualified assent which, as he said, depended on getting the hell out of this city. We were both of the opinion that the Everoinye, having used our services, would not bother us again for a space and therefore we must use our own efforts to escape. For we regarded it as an escape. “There is no chance I shall stay once Ineldar the Kaktu begins to form his caravan,” said Pompino, and he meant it.

  “By Spag the Junct!” burst out Dav. “You eat Konec's food and sleep under his roof—"

  “I shall pay,” said Pompino, and his foxy face bristled. “I shall pay—you will see."

  “Very well. We shall hire swods from the academies. The higher pieces are named. I think you two may be Deldars—"

  “What?” Pompino was outraged. “I am a paktun—"

  “We have hyr-paktuns with us in this, with the pakzhan."

  Pompino stared furiously at me. I hate to see friends wrangling. “If you could at least give Pompino a decent harness it would—"

  “The weapons and the armor are prescribed by law. It is all in the Jikaidish."

  Well, by Vox, that was true. Each piece on the board was represented on the blue and yellow sands of Kazz-Jikaida by a fighting man. Each piece was equipped according to the laws of Jikaida as prescribed in the Jikaidish Lore—that is, in this sense of the Kregish word, the hyr-lif written in the Jikaidish. Swods wore a breechclout and held a small shield and were armed with a five-foot spear. The Deldars wore a leather jerkin and carried a more effective shield. Mind you, the Jikaidish Lore provided for an amazing variety of equipments. One of the most important facts to remember about Jikaida is that the ramifications, combinations, extensions and sheer prolific variety of the game demand that before any game begins each player is aware of the exact rules under which the game is to be played. This is cardinal. Much blood has been shed because players were too stupid or lazy to make sure they agreed on the rules they were going to use before they started playing.

  Pompino rubbed his whiskers.


  “Arrange for me to have a sword, and, maybe—"

  “It is difficult.” Dav screwed up his face and then reached for the flagon. “It may not be possible to arrange the bokkertu for Screetz-Jikaida. But I will speak to Konec."

  “Do so."

  “Who is Konec playing?” I said to attempt to bring the conversation down a few degrees. It had been growing too warm.

  “Some old biddy called Yasuri."

  “Ha!” snapped Pompino. “I might have guessed."

  “She didn't hire us to fight for her—she must be using the academies."

  Dav nodded sagely. “I am told they train ‘em here to fight in ways adjusted to the Jikaida board. It is cramped."

  “Wise old lady Yasuri,” sneered Pompino.

  “Don't tell me the name of her Jikaidast, Dav,” I said. “Let me guess. One Master Scatulo, yes?"

  Dav shook his head. “No."

  I was surprised.

  “She put great store by him. Fawned on him."

  “If he arrived with you then he wouldn't have had time to Establish his Credentials."

  “Bevon the Brukaj mentioned that,” said Pompino.

  We learned what that meant. Jikaidasts could earn fortunes here in Jikaida City. The great ones who could afford to come here and pay for the privilege of playing Kazz-Jikaida would all be devoted to the game, that went without saying; but they might not be quite as good players as they imagined. It was customary for each player to employ a Jikaidast to be at his or her elbow and to advise. A very conspicuous and ornate clepsydra marked off the time allowed for each move, and when the time was up the water-clock beat a resounding stroke upon a great brazen gong. In some games if a player had not made the move by then he was required to forfeit a piece. As for the Establishment of Credentials, this took place in the Hall of Jikaidasts.

  The Hall was long and narrow. Along each side was ranged a column of Jikaida boards. The newcomer seated himself at the end board and played Jikaida against his opponent. If he won he moved up a board. There was a constant stream of Jikaidasts moving up or down—down and out to await their turn to begin the ascent of the ladder again, or up to the topmost table where they would have established their credentials and could then seek employment as advisers to wealthy players.