Witches of Kregen Read online

  “Make it so.”

  Seg quaffed a good-sized slug. I’ve no idea what wine we were drinking that night. “And you, Dray?”

  “Khe-Hi and Ling-Li will stay with you, Turko. They’ll want to be married as soon as it’s practicable. As for me — I’ll nip across to Inch.”

  Instantly, Seg objected.

  “A messenger will tell Farris. We can dredge up the regiments. I’m coming with you, my old dom, to see Inch.”

  Turko opened his mouth to protest in his turn.

  Nath said: “You can’t go alone, Dray!”

  “And you’re not coming with me, Nath, so get that idea out of your head. You’re needed here, to help get the army to rights.”

  “But, Dray—!”

  “But nothing. Of course I’ll go alone. We can’t spare anyone. I’ll have to sneak off so my lads of the bodyguard corps don’t know. By Vox! It’ll be good to stretch my wings again.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Well, I do!”

  “One lone man, to fly across hostile territory, no, Dray, it won’t do, by the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, it won’t do at all!”

  “All the same, each one of you has a more important job to do than nursemaid me. If I’m the emperor then I’ll be the bloody emperor and dish out orders! Sink me!” I burst out at last. “I’m going across to see Inch on my own, so Queyd-Arn-Tung!”

  Chapter four

  A sick bird brings a task

  Down south in the continent of Havilfar where saddle birds and animals are much more in evidence than here in Vallia or in Pandahem, they say that if the velvety green feathers of your fluttrell show a lemonish-yellow tinge around the edges — beware!

  The beigey-white feathers of the fluttrell I had chosen glistened healthily. His eyes were bright. His talons sharp. That stupid head vane fluttrells have been cursed with — or blessed with, perhaps, if it materially assists their flying — was undamaged. His harness shone with saddle soap and leather polish, ministrations of his late dead owner.

  I suppose, to be perfectly truthful, there was a faint tinge of yellow around his green feathers. I ought to have taken more care about that; but, then, I was saddling him and cutting him out from the rest by the light only of She of the Veils, dwindling into the west. Also, there was a tinge of apprehension in me that one of my hulking great lads would patrol along here and get stuck into this sneaking thief before I could yell.

  The Emperor of Vallia, sneaking off so that his bodyguard corps should not fly with him!

  This had happened before and would happen again. My guards understood that sometimes I had to go off by myself. They’d do their damnedest to go with me, and it had turned into a species of game between us. If they suspected I intended to go off alone they’d be on the qui vive and I’d be at shift to take great pains to outwit them.

  This time they were not expecting me to fly off, as our night conference remained secret.

  The fluttrell — I, of course, did not know his name — bore on through thin air as She of the Veils finally sank. The night pressed in, for the moment a pseudo night of Notor Zan, when no moons float in the sky and the star glitter cannot make up for the lost illumination.

  Flutsmen habitually decorate their mounts and themselves with multitudes of feathers and silks and trailing cords and sashes. These are things I abhor. Oh, they look fine enough; I do not care to have a foreman grab a pretty shoulder cord or waist sash and reel me in to be spitted.

  In addition, these decorations announce the allegiance of the flutsman. One band may tell another in the air. The protocol of aerial meeting is strict by virtue of the need to know if the flyers approaching are friend or enemy. I did not know if the flying silks I had with me would proclaim me a friend or an enemy to other bands of flutsmen. Certainly, there were no survivors of the band from whom this fluttrell and these silks had come.

  By morning when Zim and Genodras rose to flood down their mingled streaming lights, the fluttrell had flown me a goodly distance on the journey. Now was time, I felt, to rest him, feed and water him, and, perhaps, myself catch forty winks.

  We slanted down over open country, the fields large and quite unlike the intensive cultivations farther south. In fact, very little of the land looked as though it was being worked. A town — a straggling place of stone houses looking as though it humped itself out of the very ground — showed up ahead.

  Now I was not intending to hide on this flight. I looked what in very truth I was — a paktun, a fighting man ready to hire out as a mercenary. This cover had stood me in good stead in the past. With Deb-Lu-Quienyin’s skill, taught to me, of subtly altering the planes and lines of my face so that I could pass unrecognized through a crowd of friends, I should not be molested on the score of being that arch devil, Dray Prescot, the Emperor of Vallia.

  So I circled the fluttrell and slanted down to the town. There were no regular perching poles for the birds; but a makeshift one had been erected outside a tavern.

  The flight across Vennar to Inch’s Black Mountains appeared to me at that time as a hiatus in my plans. I wanted the journey over as soon as possible; yet fluttrells are flesh and blood birds, they are not machines.

  I decided to call this saddle bird Salvation because he had been brought out of bad company.

  He went up onto the perching pole gladly enough, and flickered his wings proudly enough, for there were two other birds perching there. It was then I noticed how strong that betraying yellowish cast was to the fringes of his velvety green feathers.

  “Poor old Salvation,” I said to him. “Looks as though you are in for a bad time.”

  There might be a vet in the town, which from its placing and my knowledge of the geography of Vallia, I knew to be Snarkter, an oddly un-Vallian name. There were mines nearby, from which was extracted the ore that yielded cryspals, so precious that I might have to rule harshly on who owned the mines when Inch and Turko took over. Maybe there would have to be a border line right through the middle, dividing up the crystal mines fairly. If there was a vet he might be able to doctor calsanys and plains asses and mytzers and quoffas, and the occasional zorca, but what would he know of fluttrells?

  A few people were shuffling about, and, I admit without shame, they struck me as dull and lethargic. From people like this, then, was Layco Jhansi’s Sorcerer of Murcroinim, Rovard the Murvish, creating the crazed mob of fanatics who opposed us?

  Then I frowned.

  Among the citizens of Snarkter, other people crept along, wearing gray slave breechclouts, bearing burdens, getting out of the way as the citizens passed.

  If for no other reason — and there were plenty of others — this alone was cause enough for us to liberate all of Vallia.

  The Quork Nightly looked to be typical of taverns in this part of the island, being built of stone from the local quarries, slate roofed, low pitched and with a washed-out peach-colored munstal growing over the door which, however, exuded a sweetly pleasant scent. I ducked my head and went inside, carefully observing the fantamyrrh as I did so. I courted no trouble here.

  The innkeeper was apim, a member of Homo sapiens sapiens, like me, wearing a blue-striped apron, and with rounded red forearms bristling with brown hair. His nose, I recall, looked like a red cabbage.

  He was prepared to serve a lone mercenary. Over in the corner sat a couple of hefty lads, with cudgels down by their chairs. No, the innkeeper, Loban the Nose, had no good reason to refuse to serve me.

  I spread a silver stiver on the counter along with a couple of copper obs. Flashing gold here would not be prudent.

  The ale was thin watery stuff; but it was wet and it went down along with a couple of rashers of bosk, a heel of bread and, afterwards, a pottery dish of palines. I savored the yellow berries, sovereign cures for hangovers and sundry other ills. It is extremely difficult to find palines that are not good anywhere on Kregen, although I have been to some places where the palines were a disgrace. That is rare, thankfully.

&
nbsp; “Come far?” was the usual opening gambit.

  I chewed.

  “Nope.”

  “Going far?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hiring out to the kov, are you?”

  “Yep.”

  Wondering how long I could keep up this tight-lipped pose amused me. Overdoing it would make these local yokels hostile. So I said, “Have a drink with me, doms. Times are hard.”

  “Aye, dom, times are hard, we thank you.”

  There were no other patrons in The Quork Nightly at this time of the morning. I stood the landlord and his two bully boys a drink of their own weak ale, and we talked desultorily. I asked for a vet, and was directed to a house with a black front door over on the other side of town.

  As I took my leave I said: “Thank you, Koter Loban. Do you do a good meal here at the hour of mid?”

  “Aye, koter, that we do. Roast ponsho, ponsho pie, ponsho puddings — we do a very fine meal.”

  “Good. Remberee.”

  I took Salvation walking alongside me, the reins in my fist, as I crossed to the house with the back door. The sign read:

  MASTER URBAN THE UNGUENT

  The paint was cracked black, the lettering a wobbly attempt at the severe formal Kregish. Underneath in smaller letters was:

  ALL ANIMALS TREATED LIKE LORDS

  I went in.

  Salvation had to wait outside, tied up to a post. No doubt there would be a treatment yard round at the back of the house.

  One breath inside the house and, instantly, I was back in the house where I’d been born, long ago and far away on Earth. My father had been a horse doctor, and the house constantly witnessed a struggle between the smells of liniments and oils and those of freshly-baked bread and cabbage and furniture polish. I shook my head and went into the room where a crude picture of a human hand pointed the way.

  “Yes, koter?”

  Master Urban the Unguent was small, untidy, his hair a mop, and his clothes stained by the marks of his trade. He was in the act of dropping oils into a mixture in a brass pot upon a tiny brazier, and by his movements I saw that he knew, at least in this, what he was doing.

  I told him the problem, and he pursed up his lips and shook his head, and looked serious.

  “Since these troublous times I have had to learn about these marvelous birds that carry men through the sky. I have heard of this disease. It is called the Yellow Rot, or Strugmin’s Rot, from the veterinary who first diagnosed it.”

  “Can you cure it?”

  “I will try. My unguents are renowned throughout Vennar, and beyond, to Falinur and even to the Black Hills. I will do my best.” He glanced up quickly. “It will cost you—”

  I showed him a golden talen.

  He nodded, and took the coin.

  “That will do nicely, koter.”

  “The bird is called Salvation and is outside. How long—”

  He waved a hand. “Who can tell?”

  This was infuriating.

  The peaceful appearance and laziness of this town of Snarkter struck me. Here I was in the heartland of the enemies of my people. I had to get on to Inch in the Black Hills. Seg would raise regiments from the Lord Farris in Vondium; Kapt Erndor would bring regiments from Valka provided by Tom Tomor, Turko and Nath na Kochwold would build up the morale of the Ninth Army; all this was so. Yet the help that Inch might be able to provide could prove decisive. He might not be able to offer any help at all, for he fought Jhansi on this front and the damned Racters to his north. Up there they had a habit of changing the names of places and rivers to mark a special occasion. I wanted the names to reflect our success, not our defeat.

  So my hurry was of my own making. All the same, if poor old Salvation was going to take time to mend I’d have to try something else. There’d been two other saddle birds perching outside The Quork Nightly...

  My guess was they did not belong to Loban the Nose’s two henchmen. Rather, they’d be the mounts of two paktuns who were still, at this early hour, snoring away in one of Loban’s upstairs bedchambers.

  The patter of bare feet heralded the entrance of a short, plump woman wearing a dingy black dress. Her face, round and shining, with a snub nose; her brown hair once neatly caught up in a bun now straggling over her shoulders; her eyes, all told of tragedy.

  She was sobbing and crying, and trying to speak all at the same time. She staggered, and I put out a hand and caught her and so eased her to a chair.

  Urban the Unguents looked alarmed.

  “What is it, Kotera Minvila?”

  Through her caterwauling she got out: “My Maisie! Have you seen her? I’ve been everywhere, all over, no one’s seen her! My Maisie—”

  “She has not been here.” Urban glanced up at me. “A mere child, but pretty. She likes to help with the animals — but she has not come here today.”

  “Where is she? She was not in her bed when I called her — Maisie! Maisie!”

  “A little cordial, I think, Master Urban.”

  He reacted at once and went to a cabinet, returning with a glass containing colored liquid which Kotera Minvila spilled half over her dress, a third over her face, and managed to gulp down the remainder. She was in a distressing state over the disappearance of her daughter.

  In a low voice, bending close, Urban said: “I do not like the sound of this, Koter Kadar.” That was the name I’d given him. “There have been a number of disappearances of young girls just recently.”

  In a slow and heavy voice, I said: “They were all young, about two to four, say, pretty, and from families of the poorer—”

  “Yes. Mostly they are slaves, which isbad enough, Opaz knows. But three or four have been from the families of respectable citizens, like Kotera Minvila. Her husband was killed in the war.”

  Poor devil, no doubt he’d been swept up by Layco Jhansi’s Deldars, thrust into the ranks with a spear, and then sorcerously inflamed by Rovard the Murvish. He’d been just one in that army of crazies.

  I could feel the chill in me.

  There was no certainty about what had happened. Salvation could have had the Yellow Rot for no other reason beyond the normal.

  But I harbored the deepest conviction that no accident had caused me to choose a fluttrell that would delay me here.

  No, oh no, by Zair!

  Once more, in this fashion, I was convinced the Star Lords had set a task to my hands.

  Chapter five

  Two Paktuns

  A theory formed itself in my head.

  Now theories are tricky beasts and can land a fellow in all kinds of trouble if he’s not careful.

  Still, the probability of this particular theory being valid struck me as quite high. I wouldn’t pitch it any stronger than that.

  Among the flim-flammery of gaudy silks and sashes brought along from the flutsman’s kit I drew out a scarf of green and blue eye-watering silkiness, with silver edgings. None of this stuff was being worn, for obvious reasons. I wanted these people to take me for a simple paktun and not a reiving flutsman.

  The silver came away as the point of my dagger probed it free. I twisted up some of the strands into a special spiral arrangement, one I knew and loathed. Together with the snip of feather I’d taken from Salvation’s darker parts, the brown and silver insignia would have to serve.

  I pinned it to the reverse flap of the khiganer I’d selected to wear. This khiganer, shaped in the usual fashion with a wide flap caught up over the left side with a row of bronze buttons from belt to shoulder and from point of shoulder to collar, was tailored from a heavy brown material. The collar was not as stiff and high as usual. I valued comfort more than ostentation. Naturally I wore the old scarlet breechclout; but this was decently covered by bronze-studded pteruges. When I’d finished and pinned on the evil badge, I walked back to The Quork Nightly.

  My assumption proved correct, for two hard characters were seated at table wolfing the second breakfast. They were dressed as soldiers of fortune, their weapons wer
e scabbarded to them, and while one bore a scar from forehead to ear, the other bore a scar from nose to lip.

  “Llahal, doms,” I said, cheerfully, as I went in.

  One spat a bit of gristle onto the floor and grunted something. The other slugged back a mouthful of weak ale, belched, and said: “And what’s so all-cheerful about it, then, rast?”

  These greetings, you will perceive, were not those conducive to friendly relations.

  I sat down.

  “You called me rast, dom,” I said, still in that overly cheerful voice.

  “Aye, cramph, yetch, rast you are.”

  I stared at them. Big, hard, muscled, hairy. Their iron helmets rested on the floor by their chairs. Their booted feet stuck out at arrogant angles. They made a mess when they ate. They wore thraxters, the cut and thrust sword of Havilfar. I wore a drexer, and if anyone questioned why I carried a Valkan sword, I’d simply say I’d won it in battle and taken it from a dead Vallian.

  Also, I wore my rapier and main gauche. They did not have scabbarded to their belts the rapier and left hand dagger, the Jiktar and the Hikdar.

  They did have axes, small and nimble, rather like tomahawks. Those, I’d have to watch.

  I said, “I wonder why I have not thrust your teeth down your throats. By Hanitcha the Harrower, I marvel at my reticence!”

  They jerked up at this and swiveled to stare more closely at me.

  “Hamalese?”

  “Are you? You speak and act like clums, like guls. Are you all that Hamal can find to dredge up out of the gutters and send forth as fighting men?”

  They reared up, their hands groping for the hilts of their thraxters.

  I waved them away as though I waved a fly away.

  “I’ve no time to waste on you, by Lem, no!”

  As I used that hateful word I watched them narrowly.

  Their whole appearance changed.

  They sat back, and their hands left their sword hilts and reached for the ale.

  “Well, dom,” one said, and belched. “You could have said.”

  “Aye, we but tried your mettle,” said the other.