Legions of Antares [Dray Prescot #25] Read online

  Four men, backs bare, were strung up and being flogged.

  They were all unconscious. Their heads lolled. The stylor at the side with his slate chalked off the lashes as the Deldars of the Whip struck. I felt that foolish expression on my face tightening and I had to force myself to remain composed. This needed explanation—and perhaps the four men deserved punishment? Although even devoted Nulty would not hand out so vicious a punishment unless the crime was horrendous.

  The Deldar commanding the detail marching me along called across. He sounded right jovial.

  “Hey, Manchi—save a place for this rast!"

  The stylor glanced up, his chalk poised. His lips were very red. “They're all the same to me, Deldar Hruntag. Wheel ‘em up and I'll jikaider ‘em."

  The paktuns sniggered and on we marched under the opposite roof and along a corridor where crossbowmen and spearmen stood guard and so to the anteroom of the Amak. Here I was halted and we waited. As Deldar Hruntag said: “You may be a miserable spy for the flutsmen; but the Amak has duties. You wait."

  Now, despite all that I had witnessed, and although I could not believe it of Nulty, I was prepared in the deepest recesses of my ugly thoughts to perceive Nulty waiting in judgment. I could not believe it of him; but I was prepared for him to have taken over as Amak.

  So that when we wheeled in and I noticed the hall as a place of color and some provincial magnificence, I looked at the man sitting in his chair raised on a dais and felt a profound and grateful sense of relief.

  And, immediately thereafter, a profound and alarmed sense of concern for Nulty.

  The Amak of Paline Valley looked to be on the younger side of his first half-century, a nervous, intense, dark man, with a leanness to nose and chin and a thinness to lips I found displeasing—and then corrected my prejudiced thoughts. His hair, very dark, lay plastered to his scalp so that he looked like a weasel. He stared at me. He was not at first sight at all a nice kind of person.

  “So this is the flutsman spy."

  I waited, looking around. I was not bound. I wore my sword. The fellow in his chair, which was done up in gilts and ivories and smothered in a truly magnificent zhantil pelt, a blaze of gold, rested his narrow chin on his fist, which looked all bone, and glowered at me.

  I waited no longer.

  “I am not a flutsman. Where is Nulty, the Crebent of Paline Valley?"

  The command Deldar gave me a backhander across the face. He would have done, except that I moved and he stumbled past. I let him topple on, merely contenting myself with tripping him.

  “Answer me, usurper! What have you done with Nulty?"

  As you see, I was just as stupid as ever I'd been on Kregen.

  All kinds of clever stratagems occurred to me when I woke up in the cells.

  The place was dimly lit by a torch mounted just outside the bars. Filthy straw half-covered the stone floor. The walls were bare. Iron chains lay here and there stapled to the walls. No skeletons lay in grotesque bone-yellow contortions within the chains; so I gathered that the Amak killed his prisoners off sharply. A bundle stirred and moaned in the shadows, and another rolled over. A voice spoke from the other side.

  “Lie still, Nath. Give your back time to ease."

  I knew the voice.

  I said, “Nulty!"

  The voice whispered. “Is it you—the Amak—is it...?"

  A squat form shambled forward to the end of the chain's tether. Torchlight fell across the filthy, bearded, exhausted face of my comrade Nulty, Crebent of Paline Valley.

  “When we get out of here, Nulty,” I said. “We will let this fellow who calls himself the Amak test these chains."

  Nulty sank to his knees. He had been a laughing, barrel-bodied man, constantly in scrapes of which I knew I never learned the quarter. Then I saw his hands. They were knotted into useless lumps, so I knew the cramps that had troubled him had finally destroyed his dexterity.

  “Nulty! Brace up. We've been in trouble before—"

  “Aye, master. But not like this. And he was my son, my adopted son, and this is his reward for love."

  So the story came out when Nulty got over his amazement at my appearance here. It was not clever. Responsible for the whole management of the valley, Nulty had looked around for someone to train up to replace him when he died. Having no family of his own, he had selected a bright and promising lad from a distant cousin's union with a rapscallion of a paktun. The lad was called Hardil the Mak for his black hair. He had promised much and Nulty loved him. Then it all turned sour and Hardil had proclaimed himself Amak, hired his bully boys, ousted Nulty and those faithful to me, and set about making it all legal in the law courts at Ruathytu, the capital.

  I said, “I blame myself. Absentee landlords are a sin; but sometimes are unavoidable."

  “Not you, notor, not you. Me. I should have descried his character. Bad blood."

  “Your hands?"

  He was over the first wonderment, now, and so he said matter-of-factly, “Nothing could cure them. They curled up on me and remain curled, useless. It is a judgment."

  “Nonsense! We'll find a cure."

  I was thinking of the sacred pool of baptism in far Aphrasöe, the Swinging City of the Savanti. A cup of that milky fluid would cure Nulty. That was on my personal agenda for the future.

  I said, “I do not have a great deal of time. There are affairs I must manage in Ruathytu."

  “Making sure Hardil is ejected as Amak?"

  “That, too. The laws are strict. Possession is a great deal; but not all. I am the Amak—as you witnessed, Nulty—and so if this Hardil the Mak is not slain he will stand condemned."

  A voice croaked from the straw.

  “I believe you to be the real Amak, notor. But Hardil holds the power."

  Nulty barked roughly. “Hold still, Nath! You do not know the notor. He will sort this out. I give thanks to all the gods he has returned."

  The sinking sensation this kind of faith produced had to be brushed aside. I said, “What support has Hardil apart from his hired paktuns? Can you rely on our people? Tell me the whole situation, Nulty."

  Truth to tell, I was anxious to press on to such an extent I was in danger of minimizing the peril here. I just did not want to waste a lot of time. But events forced me to the understanding that I had to take care of these people, who had vowed allegiance to me as their Amak, before I could think of leaving them. This Hardil, following along the road of many a usurper, had instituted a reign of terror to seat himself securely. What was needed to topple him was some way of dealing with his bully boys. His coup had taken place when men of Paline Valley, forming part of an aerial cavalry regiment, had been badly beaten in some sky skirmish. The histories of the wars would not mention that little affray; it had denuded Paline Valley of many stout fighting men.

  Again, as is in the nature of these affairs, the survivors were undecided how best to deal with Hardil and divided in their councils. Hardil flogged, maimed and killed. So far he had not killed Nulty, which that tough man attributed to a lingering regard on the part of the usurping Amak for his old foster father. I did not mention that more probably it was a matter of policy. Nulty could do nothing chained in the cells; dead he might become a martyr. That was not certain, but it had its precedents.

  “But, master, I could have done something, chained though I am. But my hands, and the ingratitude, and—something died in me."

  “We will do it now, Nulty, old friend, and we will do it together."

  The bundle of misery on the straw grunted disbelief. So I set myself to kindling the spark here, in the cells. That, it seemed to me, was not only a good place to start, it was the only damned place, by Krun.

  The need for speed impelled me to shortcuts. Away in Vallia and in Hyrklana armies were being gathered to invade Hamal. I had to do my part. Perhaps the presence of Train of Supply troops in the valley aided me, for they were sloppy and generally not actively fit men, and their attitudes infected the paktuns hired
by Hardil. Slackness spreads insidiously.

  The food—awful gunk in pottery bowls—was brought by a bent-over Och crone. The only thing of interest was the spoon. This was wooden. So the first and most simple plan was dashed.

  Nulty said, “The guard commander—?"

  “Right, Nulty, you old devil. You're coming back to life already."

  Had the guard Deldar been up to his job he would never have obliged us. My own instructions to my lads back home covered this kind of unpleasant contingency. He was not foolish enough actually to enter our cell carrying the keys. He glowered down, very bulky, sweating, his leather creaking.

  “You cramph,” he said, using the insult with relish. “You'd better have something to say. I am not summoned lightly. What do you want?"

  I reached over.

  “This."

  I took his throat between my fists and choked a little, enough to take his mind off going for his sword. He fell down. We got his sword out and the point only broke off when the second staple was free. I threw the chains on the straw and started in on Nulty.

  “Hurry, master. One of his men will be along..."

  “Don't feel sorry for him, Nulty."

  And Nulty laughed. “Oh, no! Not at all."

  Nulty's staples came out more easily, for he'd been working on them, the cunning old leem. He could not hold a sword. I looked down on the miserable bundles on the straw, and one of them, the one called Nath, showed the whites of his eyes.

  “Free me, notor, please!"

  “And you will help against this rast Hardil?"

  “Aye!"

  He was one arm freed when the guard wandered along to see what had happened to his Deldar. The slackness had, indeed, spread. Had it not, we would not have gained our freedom so easily. The guard collapsed and we had a second sword. This I preserved, for it possessed a point.

  When the bundle of misery called Nath stood up, he said, “Give me the guard's dagger, notor."

  I handed it across. We had ourselves a recruit.

  * * *

  Chapter five

  Concerning Nulty's Sword Arm

  We stood in the guardroom and surveyed the five unconscious mercenaries. Nulty's hands prevented him from helping us tie up the guards. Nath and his companion in misery, Lardo—the other two had died on the flogging frames—were not up to taking part in heavy fighting. Refusing to kill the mercenaries in cold blood, I made sure they were bound and gagged securely. Had I wished them slain they'd have died when we burst in here.

  “We've made a start,” said Nulty, with a considerable return of his husky manner.

  “We'll never—” began Lardo. He was a squat, bushy man with a bulbous nose.

  “Not if you do not believe it,” I said. “We must contact the people loyal to Nulty—"

  “Loyal to you, master,” interrupted Nulty, a heinous sin in retainers but one in which Nulty had tended to indulge himself freely.

  “Loyal to proper management of the valley. From what you tell me, Hardil is a tyrant."

  “And unpleasant with it, notor,” said Nath.

  It seemed to me, what with Nulty's crippled hands and Nath and Lardo walking like crabs with their injured backs, any heavy fighting would devolve on me. Well, and wasn't that what being the Amak was about—in part, at any rate?

  Whatever day it was in Kregen's Havilfarian calendar was dying. I was not clear how much time had clasped since I'd been thrown into the cells. We slunk out into the twinned shadows of the compound. A few lights were already going on, and the smells of one of the evening meals wafted in mouth-wateringly. A parcel of guards came along to relieve their comrades, and they had to be knocked on the head and put to sleep. Only two died.

  Nulty had found himself a length of rope, and he made Nath and Lardo tie a sword hilt to his wrist and crippled right hand. The blade was reasonably firm, and he it was who cut one of the reliefs down, smiting furiously, unable to judge the exact strength of the blow with the strapped-up sword.

  “I did not mean to slay him, master. But his god must have turned his face away from him. The rast."

  I did not laugh, for Nulty would not expect that. Grim and horrible though the circumstances were, they were fit subjects for humor, considering what we attempted and the means at our disposal.

  All the same, there were men and women loyal to Nulty because he was the Crebent and a just man, and not merely willing to fight for him against Hardil because Hardil was a usurping rast.

  “You'll have to keep out of it if we engage in any heavy fighting, Nulty. That contraption strapped to your arm is all very well, but—"

  “I'll fight, master. You'll see."

  “And,” I said as he swung the strapped steel about, gesticulating, “you'll have to be a damned sight more careful with it. You'll have our eyes out or our heads off."

  He let rip a snort of amused disgust, compounded of anger at his predicament and delight in the return of hope and the conceit of his friends’ heads a-rolling on the straw.

  “I'll be careful, master."

  We had to move with energy and speed. The first house Nulty selected proved to contain a family who would dearly love to string Hardil high and toast his soles. The head of the household, a hard grainy man with a scarred face, spread his hands.

  “We are all overjoyed that the true Amak has returned. But we are without weapons, for the Amak—Hardil the Mak—has taken them all away."

  This was not the poser it might have seemed. Nath and Lardo unrolled the blanket in which we had wrapped the guards’ gear. “Take your pick."

  That put a very different complexion on the whole affair.

  “There are more where those came from,” I said.

  From a silly raggle-taggle group trying to topple a lord in power, we slowly grew in strength to a tidy little force. The hired mercenaries would prove the chief problem. Maybe they were slack and not on the top line; for all that they remained men whose trade was killing. I confess I hesitated; it would have been easy for me, now that I was free, to seize a flying beast and simply leave Paline Valley and head for Ruathytu. In a sober assessment of the situation that is probably what I should have done. Life was just bearable for the people here with Hardil in charge. He was vicious and cruel; but his time would pass. Was it only my own self-esteem that made me persevere? Was it a lust for power? All I needed from the valley was a name; Nulty could run the place admirably. Why should men risk their lives just for an Amak who was hardly ever around?

  And then one of the people who had taken up a captured sword said, “Notor! We bless the day you return to us, for now we shall be free from a burden on our minds."

  Perhaps that was the turning point. A burden on their bodies was expected; but a burden on their minds ... ?

  So we went up against Hardil the Mak and his bought blades and we fought them.

  We had to be clever. We had to use all the advantages that people fighting in their own village possess over intruders. Young lads, whooping with joy, flung lassos from rooftops and snared up the mercenaries. Nets dropped from the shadows and entangled fighting men so that they might be stuxed where they struggled. The mercenaries quickly tired of earning their hire, for they were of middling quality only, and they attempted to strike bargains with the people. At that time I was having a merry little ding-dong with a group of the guards who had escorted me into Hardil's imposing house. They were being bested, and starting to fall away, and run, when Nulty ran up, shouting that the mercenaries had surrendered, crying quarter, and would enter the service of the old Amak.

  “The new Amak is done for, his power forfeit, his charade at an end,” I said, for the benefit of the listening paktuns. “The old Amak has returned to his home."

  They got the message.

  I left the elders to sort out the details, and accompanied by Nulty and a group of my people with swords in their fists went off to find out about Hardil the Mak. He was discovered cowering in a chest stuffed with silks and sensils, shaking,
and yet very ready to damn and blast us all. What he expected at our hands must remain a mystery. Nulty stepped forward to speak to him, and a woman—little more than a slip of a girl with wild brown hair and blank eyes—leaped. The dagger in her fist flamed. She plunged the blade into Hardil's throat, above his tunic and jerkin, dragged it out stained with blood, and so drove it in, again and again, screaming, until she was pulled away. She stood, blood-splashed, quivering, straining to get at Hardil.

  He needed no further ministrations on Kregen.

  “Lalli,” said Nulty in a reproving voice. He knelt at Hardil's side, and I remembered he had adopted the black-haired boy as his son. Nulty bowed his head and we stood respectfully.

  Presently, Nulty stood up. The sword strapped to his arm scraped on the floor.

  “He was misguided, poor lad, and turned into a monster. But he promised well, at the beginning. I am sad it turned out like this."

  Lalli screeched.

  “Yes, yes,” said Nulty. And, “Help Lalli to her bed, someone. She'll be better when the child is born."

  Well, there is no guarantee of that, on Kregen as on Earth.

  “It was no plan of mine that Hardil should die,” I told Nulty.

  “I know you, master, and I know you speak the truth. Mayhap it was better that he did, after all."

  Everyone gathered in the main compound under the light of Kregen's first moon, the Maiden with the Many Smiles, and the mercenaries were discharged. They would find employment very quickly and remain tazll for only a short time in Hamal where armies were being formed for projects unknown. I asked after the army of whose structure I remained ignorant, and the soldiers here, who had remained strictly aloof from the fighting, knew nothing beyond their orders, which required them to provide food and provender. An army demands enormous quantities of supplies and mad Empress Thyllis was not choosy about how she obtained the sinews of war.

  The Hikdar in command of this supply detachment said to me, “So, notor, you are the real Amak. But it is all one to us. We collect supplies for the army, and you or the other Amak will provide them."