Scorpio Drums [Dray Prescot #42] Read online

  Whether or not my unpleasant spat at Lop-eared Nath made him repent of any ideas of treachery or not I couldn't say. I can say we went on without undue haste and without any hindrance through the moonlight until we reached the gates just as they were about to be closed. There was a quantity of amused jibing at Lop-eared Nath and his Quoffa cart—and then we were through under the gateway and trudging along the dusty ribbon of road. Mul-lu-Manting pushed her head out through the straw and said: “It seems we are safe now, Drajak. You have my thanks. Now we are for Chanshong, a nicer place than Shamfrin, where we have friends.”

  I felt disinclined to leave the women now. My job would be done when the Everoinye said it was done—not a mur before.

  There was no need for me to worry my head on that score.

  There was no time for a single remberee.

  Up I went, clothed in blueness, the lambency of the phantom blue Scorpion of the Star Lords blazing in my eyes. The coldness touched me and then passed by. I felt something hard smash against my thighs and instinctively, as a rider, I gripped on. I was sitting in the saddle of a zorca.

  So I knew.

  I heaved up a huge prayer of relief, trying to see through the haze of slowly-dissipating blueness.

  My clothes and armor were with me, and quite involuntarily, without even a pause, I gripped the great Krozair longsword in my fist. The noise, the smells, the sensations of a burning city burst in on me. Smoke roiled across the street, as the blueness at last vanished. Smoke lay like a blanket over the city, a blanket splattered with blood.

  Up that street I had urged my steed on, chasing after the seven Katakis who were abducting Delia. I recognized the street. I peered ahead as the smoke writhed in heat-driven coils. The Star Lords had kept their promise. They had returned me to Taranjin at the precise moment I had been taken away. I felt sensations of all manner of varieties overpowering me—I wanted to hurl mocking thanks at the Star Lords, to screech defiance, to curse the Opaz-forsaken Katakis and their slaving ways, to encourage the zorca between my knees to greater efforts, to call on Vox and Krun and Djan—oh, yes, I rode on amid a welter of powerful emotions.

  Smoke wafted across my face, stinging my eyes, clogging my mouth.

  The smoke cleared. I stared eagerly down the street as my zorca galloped swiftly on. I wanted to see Delia again, and the doomed Katakis abducting her.

  I stared down the street.

  The street was empty.

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  * * *

  Chapter six

  The street was empty.

  “No!” The cry of agony broke from me with lung-bursting horror. “No! Star Lords—No!”

  Ahead of me as my fleet zorca galloped on, the street lay deserted. The smoke choked down, heat smote from burning walls, the whole terrible panorama of man's stupid inhumanity extended as though in condemnation all about. I felt numbed. I felt as though liquid fire surged through my veins. My whole body burned. Delia! Where was Delia now?

  My head throbbed. I could feel my heart thundering away. Pressure swelled my wrists. Delia! Delia!

  The Everoinye had betrayed me.

  Well, their power over me might be real and awesome, never again would I do a single thing for them—never, ever. I could not think coherently. I know I must have been completely mad for those moments. Nothing on Kregen or Earth mattered now. The whole lot could be taken over by the Shanks. See if I'd care. Oh, no, as the zorca raced on along the burning street and my eyes stung and pained and my throat choked with a lump of agony, oh no—life was dead for me.

  A shout reached me, a harsh, demanding, ordering kind of Kataki shout.

  “Out of the way, cramph!”

  As the finish of my life had sunk in and madness overtaken me I'd eased up in the saddle and the zorca, grateful for the rest, had slowed down. Now I was in someone's way.

  I looked back over my shoulder.

  Perhaps only Opaz alone knows my feelings then.

  I have—metaphorically—climbed back out of the grave. I have served my time in the Black Marble Quarries of Zenicce. I have slaved in the Heavenly Mines of Hamal. I have believed my Delia dead before now, and rejoiced when she was found alive. But this time, this time a wholly new sensation afflicted me—a sensation I cannot wholly describe. To be dead and then to be alive. Yes. To lose and then to win. Yes. But more—oh, yes, much more!

  She rode her zorca surrounded by the seven Katakis, and they spurred on in their vile way, ready to cut me down if I did not get out of their way.

  She looked—as always—gorgeous. The spots of color on her cheeks blazed her contemptuous anger for these Whiptails.

  I held the Krozair brand. What had happened was now quite clear. The Star Lords’ command of the Time Flow was chancy at best. They'd dumped me down in front of the Katakis instead of chasing them. To be honest—I fancied as I turned to look back that a fellow astride a zorca was actually chasing after the Whiptails. If I had seen him, almost an apparition, then that fellow would have been me.

  The zorca span about and raised his head where the long straight spiral horn cut a shaft of ivory whiteness against the dark smoke.

  “You are a dead man, shint!” The foremost Kataki swung his lynxter about his head in a gesture intended to intimidate.

  When the Star Lords had tweaked me up to go off to rescue Mul-lu-Manting, I'd seen Delia unconscious across the saddle of a Kataki's animal. In the time stream muddle, time itself must have folded, so that Delia had regained consciousness and could stare with such defiant disdain upon the Jibrfarils.

  In not at all the same way as the brawl with the Kanzai, this confrontation proceeded along its way with suppleness and speed. The first Kataki fell off his zorca with his head hanging by a few shreds of skin. Six. The next tried to spear me and he fell off his zorca with his guts hanging out. Five. The next swung a cunning and powerful axe-blow at my head and he fell off his zorca without a right arm. Four. His comrade thrust the wicked holly-leaf-shaped head of a strangdja, and he chose to be clever and aim at my own mount. He miscalculated and so he fell off his zorca with the back of his skull thrusting past his nose. Three. The next two were also clever and tried to work as a pair. One slashed with his lynxter as the other thrust with his spear. Both of them fell off their zorcas, separated from different portions of their anatomy and their inward parts disgorging themselves onto the dust of the street. One.

  This was the fellow who held onto Delia's zorca and no doubt the same one who had ridden with her unconscious body draped over his saddle.

  He said in that harsh guttural of your dyed-in-the-wool Whiptail: “Dom—you may take the girl—” His tail with its six inches of bladed steel waved over his head. “She is of value—dom.”

  Whilst it was comforting to know a damned slaving Kataki was feeling terror in his guts, peril for Delia remained. If this damned fellow caught on to the fact that Delia was important to me, he could hold her as a hostage and try to bargain.

  I said: “Just let go of her bridle—dom. You may ride off.”

  Delia, of course, being Delia, had immediately sized up the situation. She sat and she sat silently.

  The Kataki let go the bridle. He eyed me warily. Unpleasant folk, Katakis. Slavers, slavemasters and traders, they are called Jibrfarils with reason, for that more or less means lovers of pain giving. This representative of an obnoxious race of diffs sidled his zorca away, and then slapped in those cruel and unnecessary spurs. He galloped off.

  Delia said: “Lahal, husband.” This, above all else, revealed her emotions. I wanted to burst out with a whole barrage of romantic declarations, of undying love, of passion, of desperate fears for her safety—all the turgid stuff of Kregan dramatic romances. Delia felt all that, and knew the right time and place.

  I was facing her and she was looking at me—and past me.

  “Dray, my dear, move quickly aside.”

  I simply did as she ordered. The Kataki's arrow from his short bow spat down on
to the cobbles.

  “Well, now,” said my Delia. “How ungrateful can you get?”

  I unlimbered the Lohvian longbow. “You can get dead.”

  My first shaft, as Seg Segutorio would have approved—nay, insisted—hit the mark and the Kataki threw up his arms and he fell off his zorca with the red-fletched Valkan arrow through him.

  “I had noted there were seven of ‘em and seven of ‘em I'd marked.”

  “I do believe you marked them.”

  “I must tell you where I've been—all crazy stuff about Loh.”

  Her face tightened. “The Everoinye?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it ever end?”

  “Impossible to say. I've a theory when we've finally persuaded the Shanks not to come raiding us over the curve of the world—”

  “Then it will end?”

  “I very much doubt it, my heart.”

  Then I pushed all this nonsense of the destinies of empires away. I dismounted and held my hand for Delia's foot—is there a foot of so dainty a fashion in two worlds? A foot that has marched all the livelong way through the Hostile Territories? She alighted and turned to look at me from the corners of her eyes. I felt—well, I am Dray Prescot, etc., etc.—I felt my ears go red. I started to say something—I've no idea what—and she put a pink finger to my lips.

  So I put my arms about her and after a time we strolled across the Kataki-littered street to a house that had not burned properly and found a heap of straw. Later, I mentioned the straw, and laughed, and we wondered how Mul-lu-Manting and her straw covered Quoffa cart were getting along.

  “And you really did suspect that Lop-eared Nath of something?”

  “Assuredly. He was cut out for the part of a villain.”

  “Well, we have had our share of villains, my love.”

  “Oh, aye,” I said, comfortably, stretching back on the straw so I could admire the way Delia sat up talking. “And we'll meet a whole regiment of ‘em in the future. That's certain.”

  “Yes. This Carazaar—”

  “I've been told he's evil and I tend to believe it.”

  “I was not at all sure—Deb-Lu said he was confident—but when you went off up to Carazaar's plane—well—”

  I'd described my very very swift fight with the simulacra of Carazaar and she had shivered and hugged me and then laughed to reassure me. Now her true worries were being revealed.

  Eventually—much later—we thought we'd better be making a move. After a great battle there are always many things to be done.

  “If I know Nath na Kochwold he'll have teams of fire fighters out. We ought to save what we can of Taranjin.”

  In the succeeding days we saved Taranjin and saw to all the multifarious problems besetting people after war. The Shanks had gone. My friends and comrades were relieved and pleased to see me safely back on this mortal plane, and it was easy to guess many had given me up for lost. As Seg said: “Well, my old dom, they say leems have more than one life.”

  His wife the queen said serenely: “Only cunning old leems.”

  “That, Milsi,” observed Inch with some acerbity, “is quite right.”

  I knew what they were getting at, well enough. I growled out: “What happened to the damned Fish Faces?”

  Sasha, almost as tall as Inch, said: “They flew off in the ships they had left. Their sailing ships were long gone.”

  Delia glanced at me, and I nodded and said: “Sounds as though they'd sent their sailers back to Schan to pick up reinforcements—more vollers, more settlers. I don't like the sound of that.”

  “Not one little bit,” said Delia.

  During this period immediately following the Battle of Taranjin, religious ceremonies were held to mark the occasion. More than one noumjiksirn had to take place. A noumjiksirn is the Kregen form of a wake, a serious yet carousing way of remembering fallen comrades. And, believe me, there were names in the casualty lists I hated to see there.

  Nath Javed, old Hack ‘n’ Slay, came to pay his respects, and stayed for a night of revelry with my lads of the Guard Corps. He did not ask to join any of the guard regiments. I did not ask him why, for I had the idea he felt if he was a freer agent he could come adventuring with us again. He praised up his Mixed Infantry Brigade and took shameless advantage of his friendship with the Emperor of Emperors to wheedle extra medals and rewards for his men. I felt any man under old Hack ‘n’ Slay's command would fight well and deserved his bob.

  So, of course, there were endless parades in which the bobs were handed out, proudly worn, and whilst the flags waved and the bands played, shown to the recipients’ family and friends.

  A fine healthy spot had been chosen for the erection of the rows of hospital tents. The needlemen and puncture ladies kept at work for long hours and with their techniques could alleviate pain. They could not always save a wounded person; at least he or she died painlessly. Among the wounded were a score or so of Katakis.

  I issued absolutely no instructions concerning these Whiptails, rather like Pontius Pilate, and yet was gratified to find, as I had suspected, that the doctors treated the damned slavers as just more patients. When they were fit their fate would have to be determined by the courts.

  In the normal way of things I would have begun to chafe at this kind of life. Surely, what we were doing was valuable and needed to be done. All the same, usually I'd be itchy to get off back home. On this occasion I fancied I was stringing fate along and hoping to be able to settle up some more scores for the Everoinye.

  At least, that was how I phrased it myself, all jumbled up in my old vosk skull of a head.

  Delia spotted all that without any trouble. Well, being Delia, she would, wouldn't she? She said:

  “Now, you grizzly old graint, you want another chance to have a go at this Carazaar. Come on, now, admit it!”

  “Don't have to, to you. Of course, I suppose that is why we're hanging about down here in Loh instead of going where we belong, back to Esser Rarioch and Valkanium and—”

  “Naturally.”

  “So,” I said, only now realizing the enormity of what I'd been doing, my unconscious selfishness, my unthinking brutality, “we will leave for home first thing in the morning. My Val! What a selfish brute I am! Exposing you to potential danger when Esser Rarioch—it makes me shudder. Well, my heart, my eyes are open and—”

  “Fambly,” she said, and she stopped any further words with her lips. Now kissing Delia is an occupation fraught with peril for me—for I can go on kissing her and forget all about anything else. After some time we eventually disentangled ourselves and she said, very prim and proper with her hair in charming disarray: “So we shall just await what happens. And the nearer we are to the action the less distance we'll have to fly to reach it. Dernun, husband?”

  I pulled her towards me again and before the world vanished once more I whispered: “I think we'd better ask Deb-Lu down here.”

  “A splendid notion—”

  Towards suns set of that day we were contracted to go to dinner with Queen Kirsty and Rodders. Kuong and Mevancy would be there. Some of the guard commanders had been invited. The do would be formal. “I suppose,” I said, trying to fix the high and ornate collar around the back of my neck, “we do have to wear these mazillas?”

  “Oh, Dray, dear, do shut up!”

  “I know, I know. This'll be Kirsty trying to show everyone how important she is. She's already starting her campaign to become Queen of Tarankar as well as Tsungfaril.”

  “So that's why we have to dress formally, like Vallians.”

  “I told Mul-lu-Manting I was a Clansman. With this blasted collar up at the back of my head it would have been profitable if I'd stayed a barbarian.”

  “Dray, dear, do stop whingeing.”

  “It's all right for you. You look marvelous! As for me, I look a right popinjay rigged out like this.”

  “Nonsense. You look extraordinarily handsome and commanding. Anyone can see why you've been chosen to
be the Emperor of Paz.”

  “No one asked me, though, did they?”

  “Because you can't refuse. There is no one better fitted.”

  “Well, at least, you're the Empress of Empresses, the Empress of Paz.”

  “And no one asked me, did they?”

  I said: “If you really do not want to go on with this empress and emperor nonsense, I shall pack it in.” I looked at her and all I could see in all the wide world of Kregen was her face, isolated as it were from every other mundane object, serene and lovely and well—entirely useless to attempt to carry on that line of thought rationally. I finished: “I can refuse the job. A single word from you and I will refuse.”

  “And the Everoinye?”

  The anger welled up inside me and had to be quashed, forced back and away. Yes. The Star Lords would see to it.

  “I could try.”

  “The last time you defied them to the end you were banned to your funny little world with only one silver moon and only one yellow sun and no diffs at all, only apims.”

  “Twenty one Earthly years. A period I hate to recall. If only there were a way to take you with me—”

  “To a miserable little world like that!”

  “Oh, no. Earth is a most wonderful world.”

  “Well, yes,” she conceded. “You have told me wonderful stories of the marvels of Earth. All the same, to leave Esser Rarioch, to abandon the Blue Mountains, never to see Delphond again!”

  “Not to be contemplated.”

  “There's nothing else for it.”

  “Um,” I said, a remark I considered at the time to be remarkably acute and to the point at issue. “Um.”

  “So you see,” said the divine Delia, Delia of the Blue Mountains, Delia of Delphond, “we are doomed to our fate.”

  “The Empress and Emperor of Empresses and Emperors.” I rolled the empty words around my mouth like bile. “Empress and Emperor of Paz. Ha! Let's hope you get some pretty frocks out of it!”