Storm over Vallia [Dray Prescot #35] Read online

  Drak stood up. His left hand clasped the silk cloak. He stretched out his right hand.

  “Silda. Lend me your sword."

  Silda gave him the drexer.

  Drak, sword in hand, advanced and planted himself before Alloran.

  “Before you die, Alloran, you must know—"

  Alloran interrupted.

  “Majister! I doknow. I know. Kill me and have done. I deserve only a contemptible death.” He threw his sword onto the carpets.

  Suddenly and bewilderingly unsure, Drak stared at this man, this traitor, who had caused so many deaths. There were meanings here that, on the surface were plain enough, and yet whose hidden truths might be twisted in ways that would make a mockery of justice.

  Fraipur moved forward, avoiding a Mantissa who fell down choking her lifeblood out. Long Nath turned for the next one, gripped by a hatred so profound he could not resist it. Fraipur, in his turn, studied Alloran.

  “Yes, San Fraipur,” said Alloran in a voice hoarse and low. “I owe you the deepest apologies. I wronged you. I feel the shame, for you have been loyal to my father and to me, and I treated you...” He shuddered. “Slay me, San, and rid the world of baseness."

  The straw twitched like a grasshopper.

  “How can you be blamed for actions forced on you by another? Arachna bewitched you. Now she is dead, you are your own man again."

  “I know. I am in torment for what I have done—"

  “What Arachna has done."

  Fascinated—and repelled—Silda kept silent. She could see what Fraipur was talking about and appreciated the justice of it. Just that, after all the bloodshed...

  Drak drew a breath. What had happened had happened. He'd digest the details in time. Right now he had the winning of this damn war and the clearing of the whole of Southwest Vallia in his hands. He was not going to let an opportunity like that slip by, no, by Vox!

  * * *

  Chapter seventeen

  What chanced at the Villa of Poppies

  That time in Southwest Vallia became known as the Hyr Kataki Jikai.

  The ordinary folk just did not like Katakis. The Whiptails made their living through all the activities of slaving. For a person unfortunate enough to be taken up as a slave the world might just as well have ended. Slaves called slavemasters and slavers greeshes, a contraction in the Kregish of kleesh and grak. Kleesh, a word of so insulting a connotation it could drive a man into a frenzy of rage, and grak, that evil word meaning work, run, slave until you die beaten by the lash, added together gave vent to much of the feeling ordinary folk liable to be taken up as slave could express only in words.

  The Great Kataki Hunt swept through the countryside.

  There was little the Prince Majister could have done to prevent the outburst even had he wished to do anything to halt the execution of justice.

  San Fraipur, restored to his green hooded robe and golden belt with rapier and main gauche, saw a little more. He spoke seriously to Drak as they took wine in an inner room of the villa given over to Drak's use.

  “The people detest Katakis; but many of them do not object to owning slaves."

  “My views on that are known."

  “It will not be easy."

  Drak sipped and said moodily, “What is?"

  Silda had taken herself off the very day after the fraught happenings in Vodun Alloran's villa. She had been called away by the Sisters of the Rose, of course. How could a fellow who would one day be emperor have an empress continually going gallivanting off like this? He thought of his mother, and sighed, knowing that she had had to put up with his father's continuous absences. Queen Lush, on the other hand ... Well, she had arrived in great state and with enormous pomp and circumstance.

  His brother, Jaidur, had changed considerably since Drak had danced at his wedding away down south in the island kingdom of Hyrklana. His wife, the queen, had gone home because of the expected happy event. Lildra didn't go chasing off over the world, did she?

  Like a stage demon, Jaidur came in at that moment demanding wine. Yes, he had changed from the harum-scarum reckless rascal who'd hated the whole world and not really known why. Since his reconciliation with their father, and his gaining the crown of Hyrklana, he had settled down to responsible government. Now he was due for a family, and more than likely it would be twins. The puncture ladies were confident.

  There was going to be a whole new generation festering about under Drak's feet soon. Didi, the daughter of his sister Velia and Rog Gafard, was a grown woman now, of an age with his youngest sister, Velia. What, wondered Drak, did young Didi make of having an aunt with the same name as her dead mother?

  “I saw Queen Lush in her palanquin as I rode over,” announced Jaidur.

  “Yes?"

  “Very grand. Had to shade my eyes against her jewelry. She was heading this way, brother."

  “Oh."

  “Queen Lushfymi,” said Fraipur in a surprisingly prim way, “is a most remarkable woman. She does have some powers of thaumaturgy, I believe, or so I have heard, though they have not been vouchsafed me."

  Drak stood up and emptied his goblet.

  “Think I'll take a stroll to see Alloran. I'm not absolutely decided yet. Hang him, banish him, let him take up an appointment in the army, or restore his kovnate of Kaldi to him."

  Fraipur's hot feelings of anger against the kov had passed. He did say: “When the kov was under the spell of that vile woman, he had a way of deciding knotty problems."

  “An old Kataki custom,” said Jaidur when Fraipur explained about the fighting men apportioned a decision each, the winner deciding. “Saw it in the Eye of the World."

  “Ah!” said Drak, memories boiling up.

  “Mind you,” went on Jaidur, “there was a Kataki lord, feller called Rukker, when I was Vax Neemusjid, well, he, I think, had the faintest spark of humanity about him. Faint, mind, and I'd not like to meet him when he discovered he'd stolen rocks instead of our gold. Ha!"[12]

  [12 see Krozair of Kregen, Dray Prescot #14. A.B.A.]

  Drak started for the door. He thrust thoughts of the inner sea of Turismond, the Eye of the World, from him. That was where he and his brothers had received a great deal of their education. The Krozairs of Zy disciplined lads well and fairly and made men of repute out of them. As a man of repute he was scuttling off with a feeble excuse instead of waiting to greet Queen Lushfymi. What a coil!

  “I'm with you, Drak,” said Jaidur, finishing his wine.

  Fraipur stood up, and at once, as a prince, Drak said: “You are welcome, San."

  “Thank you, majister—I beg your pardon, jis."

  Majis was the correct familiar diminutive for emperors, kings and princes. The little word jis, which meant “sir” was coming into general use.

  They went out by a side door and the sentry slammed himself up to attention. Under the lights of the Twins, the two second moons of Kregen eternally orbiting each other as they orbited the planet, they walked across to the outer gate in the wall where the sentry here slammed herself up to attention as rigid as her comrade at the door. Drak acknowledged and the three men walked along the street toward the villa where Alloran was now quartered. It was not the same one. That still had not been named, and now never would be, by Alloran. He was quartered now in the Villa of Poppies, with a reasonable staff to attend him.

  The sentries here, all Drak's people, were pleased to see him. A few moments conversation with them ended as Drak, answering the question on all their lips, said: “I give thanks to the Invisible Twins made manifest in Opaz that Endru and Carlotta are out of danger and mend well. The news has just reached me."

  “Hal, jis!” they said, pleased that their comrade Jiktar and the Jikai Vuvushi were alive.

  Going into the Villa of Poppies, Drak reflected that his father often used to say that while he despaired of these folk who would thrust their bodies between him and danger, making a man feel small in the sight of Zair, it remained still a marvel and a warming won
der.

  A great deal had occurred since the bandy little fellow—Lon the Knees—had given Arachna her quietus. His brother had flown in with a tremendous force of skyships, thirsting to smash the enemies of Vallia. Alloran, shaken to his foundations, had given orders to his own forces to cooperate to the full with the Prince Majister. The mercenaries were continued on the payroll until they could be repatriated. Silda's father, Kov Seg Segutorio, had left the aerial armada to fly direct to Vondium. He had a new bride with him. Perhaps, considered Drak, going into the hallway leading to the apartments Alloran used as his withdrawing room, Silda had gone to Vondium. Tricky business, that, meeting a new stepmother. Silda's mother, Thelda, had been lost in the Time of Troubles, a sad story.

  Alloran rested in a limbo at the moment, for his future was undecided, and he was now addressed as koter, the simple way of addressing a Vallian gentleman. Drak was well aware that the final decision would rest with the emperor, together with the Lord Farris and the Presidio. Paktuns could be repatriated; but the position of those native Vallians who had sided with Alloran in his treacherous revolt was different. Drak fancied that the fate of Alloran would decide the fate of his adherents. Many, of course, had already run off, sensible people.

  Well, not necessarily so sensible. That was a shaming thought if carried through to its conclusion. He halted as a Khibil guard first snapped to attention and then, putting his fist onto the door handle, opened the door for the prince.

  The apartments were comfortably furnished and Drak had given orders that Alloran was to be treated correctly and his necessary wants attended to politely. A little Fristle fifi, her fur of that silvery dove gray that enchanted in a fashion quite different from the golden Fristles, sat sprawled in a gilt-legged chair sobbing her heart out. The maroon and gray ribbon shook as she shuddered with each agonized wail.

  Three strides took Drak to her. He bent.

  Through her despair, she heard him and looked up. She had not been crying long; very soon her pretty face would be a raw wreck.

  “What ails you, fifi?"

  “The kov—” she managed to choke out. She pointed to the inner door.

  At once, Drak understood.

  “Jaidur! Fraipur! Smash that door down!"

  Drak didn't even bother to check to see if it was locked. It would be. He started in on the panels with his drexer, his brother joined him, and Fraipur began to work his dagger into the crevices around the lock. If they understood or not, Drak didn't know or care; but at the urgency of his manner they set to. The door splintered and burst in.

  Drak sprang into the room.

  From a hook a rope drew down, taut and spinning, and in the loop the neck of Vodun Alloran was clenched fast. The chair lay tumbled on its side.

  With the rush of a maniac Drak hurtled across the carpet, knocked a table over, sending a vase of flowers flying, slashed the rope asunder with his sword.

  Jaidur, leaping like a leem, caught the falling body in his arms and lowered Alloran to the carpet. Fraipur bent and cut the rope free.

  Alloran's eyes were closed, his face drawn, haggard with agony. The weal on his neck still glowed red.

  “Pump his arms!” commanded Drak. He bellowed outside, “Send for the needlemen! Bratch!"

  Not content, he ran across to the door. The girl was just standing up, unsteadily. Drak eyed her. “Run for the needleman, fifi! Run!"

  Jaidur called out: “He's breathing."

  “Thank Opaz!"

  Still not content, for the little Fristle fifi had clearly been in a terrible state, Drak ran out after her to the doorway. He caught a glimpse of her silvery-gray fur as she raced toward the gateway. She was screaming. A guard rushed in, halberd up, looking ugly.

  “The needleman!” bellowed Drak. “Bring him in here instantly! Run!"

  “Quidang!"

  After that all Drak could do was let Fraipur get on with doing what he could to revive Alloran, and then wait as the needleman, apprised of the urgency of the situation and yet unknowing what the exact emergency might be, rushed in and, seeing what his duty was, set to.

  Alloran had not dangled there overlong. He would survive.

  “The gray ones smiled on him, jis. I will just stick him a trifle...” Here the needleman deftly inserted half a dozen acupuncture needles to take away any pain. “He'll live."

  Drak sighed with relief. Close. That had been closer than he liked. Had Vodun Alloran died before any decision had been reached, the news would have sounded most ugly in the ears of the world. Damned ugly. The Prince Majister, folk would say, had had the kov put out of the way...

  “Place a guard on him,” Drak told the cadade, and the guard commander nodded, understanding.

  “He won't get a chance to do it again, jis."

  “Make it so."

  A few days later when Alloran had completely recovered, he sent word that he craved an audience with the Prince Majister. Drak happened to be taking a bur or two off from the pressing business of organizing the multifarious items necessary, and was playing a game of Jikaida with his brother. The board was filled with the ranks and columns of marching figures, all exquisitely carved and painted.

  “H'm,” said Jaidur, capturing a Jiktar, and cupping the piece in his fist. “I'll warrant Alloran is sweating blood right now."

  “Your Eleventh Fleet—"

  “Not mine. It is the Eleventh Fleet of the Vallian Air Service. I am merely the King of Hyrklana. Kapt Thando runs the Eleventh.” He reached for the silver dish of greeps, slender, bright green shoots that must be cooked expertly and with precision as to temperature and duration to bring out the flavor. “What of them?"

  “We sent a fast flier to Vondium with the news and have had no reply."

  “That does not worry me. There has been a delay. That is all."

  “Until I know what Farris and the Presidio decide, I do not particularly wish to see Alloran."

  “Then,” said Jaidur with a flash of his old reckless ways, “make him wait. Let him sweat some more blood."

  “I suppose so. It is cruel—"

  “Life is."

  As though at random, although to Jaidur it was no non sequitur, he added, “I was sorry to miss Silda."

  “She would joy to see you."

  “Aye. I'll tell you, big brother, there was a time when if you had not been around I would have—well, Silda is Silda. When I met my Lildra it happened, as they say, as though we were shafted by the same bolt of lightning."

  “I am happy for you."

  “Of course! I am married and a king. Brother Zeg is married and a king out in Zandikar. Now Uncle Seg is married again—and a king. You limp along, brother, you limp along like a leem with but five legs."

  Drak shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “If I married Queen Lushfymi, then I might be King of Lome—"

  “If!"

  Drak felt surprise at the scornful, scoffing tone.

  “She is a most remarkable woman, and I feel a very real attachment to her."

  Like his twin sister, Dayra, Jaidur had no hesitation in rushing recklessly on, not caring for his brother's finer feelings, knowing them to be misguided in this instance.

  “You marry that one, Drak, and you'll regret it. There is only one girl for you—"

  “Who is never here. Who has no idea of what being a queen or empress entails!"

  “You benighted onker!” quoth Jaidur, disgustedly.

  Drak switched about and changed the subject in a marked way. “We have not fought since we were children in Esser Rarioch. Now, as to Alloran. My vote in the Presidio is for clemency. The poor devil was engulfed in sorcery. If I do not hear soon I shall make the decision—"

  “Pardon him?"

  “More than that. Give him back his estates and his title. His treachery was not of his volition."

  “That is sooth. And we have fought—in Zy, when the Krozairs tested us—"

  “That was without malice."

  “Ah!"
/>   Swinging away from the Jikaida board upon the table and standing up with a jerky, irritable gesture of his fist, Drak burst out, “By Zair! I wish I knew where Silda was now!"

  * * *

  Chapter eighteen

  Queen Lush—heroine

  Not all the mercenaries hired by Vodun Alloran quietly accepted the needle and agreed to repatriation.

  Leone Starhammer reined in and looked down on the village cupped in its little valley. It still burned. The black smoke hung greasily above collapsed roofs and fallen walls. Corpses lay about in grotesque contortions.

  “The bastards have been through here, and recently,” said Leone. She turned to Queen Lushfymi who rode at her stirrup.

  “Then they cannot be far off,” said the queen.

  “May the Gross Armipand rot ‘em.” Leone lifted her gloved hand. “I'll get the girls moving. We'll have these Pandrite-forsaken cramphs—"

  “You will use the rest of the brigade, Leone?"

  A regiment of zorcabows and a regiment of zorca lancers had been placed at Leone's disposal. But they were male regiments. She sniffed.

  “Only if we have to—"

  “I think it would be wise."

  “Yes, majestrix."

  They were near enough to Rashumsmot, in all conscience. The paktuns were pillaging their way to the next port of call where they'd no doubt burn and slay and loot before seizing the ships there. That Queen Lushfymi, who had chosen to ride out with her bodyguard regiment, chanced to be the one to stumble on this band of paktuns, meant in her eyes that she had been chosen by Pandrite to effect their destruction. There was no hope of taking them into her employ—not now, not with Drak and his views hovering. If only ... Well, that was all gone, smoke blown with the wind...

  As the brigade moved forward with scouts out ahead she reflected despondently and with a panic threatening to erupt, a panic she kept firmly battened down, that she just had to get Drak to speak soon. She was not growing any younger. Oh, yes, her arts kept her beauty intact and she'd not age for many and many a season yet. But she felt the passing of time, felt it cruelly.