Warlord of Antares [Dray Prescot #37] Read online

  A fast scouter, she was of a type I recognized only because we'd bought half a dozen from King Filbarrka and Queen Zenobya, whose realms in Balintol were firmly allied with Vallia. She carried blue and yellow checkered flags, whereat I knew she was from my kovnate island of Zamra. Now this was odd, as I did not recall any similar vessels in the fleet that had sailed to Pandahem. Therefore, reinforcements must have been sent us. This was good news. The bad news was that this scouter was doomed and her crew just about done for.

  She hit heavily and ripped into shreds. Agile figures dark against the suns’ light leaped out and the silver wink of stars from their weapons held cold comfort.

  The Shanks landed promptly but unhurriedly, and disgorged rank after rank of fish-headed fighting demons.

  In a low-voiced monotone Nath Javed the Impenitent cursed everything, from fate, the Ice Floes of Sicce, the benighted of Opaz, the forsaken of Vox, the destroyed of Kurin, his own bad luck and, finally, himself.

  Then he said: “Well, it all had to end one day. I cannot skulk here."

  Seg said in his lightest and most flamboyant style: “Oh, aye, my old Impenitent. I agree. But I do not think we will walk away from this fight."

  “Indubitably."

  Shalane, from her bush, spat out: “You are not going to—no, you cannot? Surely—"

  I said: “You may not believe now, Shalane, that this is your fight and the fight of the Rumay belief. But it is so."

  With that I stood up, unlimbered the great Krozair longsword and with a lilting: “Hai, Jikai!” roared out of my bush and along the riverbank full tilt at the packed ranks of the fish-headed Shanks.

  * * *

  Chapter ten

  Wounds

  This was not the first time and—if the cruel fates spare me—not the last when I thus roared into the charge with Seg Segutorio to shoot me in.

  As I bounded on, roaring my fool head off, so Seg's shafts flowered overhead.

  A master bowman, the finest archer on two worlds, Seg. His strings were dry from his pouch, safe from the watery passage of the river. The crimson-fletched shafts skewered into the packed ranks of the Shanks.

  I did not count the number of times Seg shot, for I knew he did not have arrows enough to dispose of the foe; I did see two arrows at least pierce through two men each, and I judge I saw a third that penetrated through three Shanks before its force was expended.

  Through the thunder of blood in my head I heard the heavy beat of footsteps alongside, and the lighter patter on the other side. Nath the Impenitent, enormous, scarlet, bursting with passionate intensity, hullabalooed along determined to keep up and swing into action at the same time. Phocis fleeted along, and a single swift glance showed me her spear held most professionally in the hands of a most determined young lady.

  Well, like us all, she would take her chances in the coming conflict.

  The lads from the downed Vallian flier had not been idle. They'd rigged a varter from the wreckage and now the bolt-thrower began to hurl its cruel iron darts into the massed Shanks.

  Just before our pathetic little bunch from the riverbank hit I spotted the two left arms of the yellow-haired men wearing Vallian Air Service uniforms. This did not surprise me. I'd set up communities of Pachaks on Zamra. They were citizens of Zamra and of Vallia. They were, also, fighting men of absolute integrity and of deadly skill and cunning.

  “Hai, Jikai!” I bellowed.

  Well, by Vox, if this was to be the last great fight, as I believed, then I'd use that great war cry properly and for the final time.

  We hit the Shanks and in an instant were involved in a melee of striking and dodging, of ducking and of bashing as we sought to exploit the gap created by Seg's masterful shooting.

  The Krozair brand swept and lopped, struck and thrust. It was essential to use economy, to strike with force just sufficient for the purpose. Try it in the red-blood-roaring madness of an affray! Nice theories fall apart under the manic goad of battle.

  We exploited the gap and by thus concentrating our onslaught we could deal with those Shanks who could get at us. The others, for the moment, until they could rally themselves, were out of it.

  Seg joined us for the melee. Then in the contorted actions of battle, where you smite to the front and dodge and trust no one is smashing down on your back, I saw the Rumay women.

  They fought like slinking devils, low and upthrusting, fluid, bitter and without mercy.

  All the same, they died, as the Shanks died. Phocis took a tine through her upper arm and I swept the fish-headed creature away in two halves. The tine was smooth and not barbed, for it was a melee-trident and not a throwing weapon, so it came out suckingly easily enough.

  “Leave me and go on,” she panted out.

  “I can fight here as well as anywhere."

  There was time to say no more as the Shanks, rallying, pelted at us again. Seg and I fought them as we had in the old days. Nath fought them and learned, I did not doubt, many new tricks of nastiness.

  From the flank the Pachaks screeched into a wild attack. I believe it is a part of their mystique that they cast off their helmets and let their long yellow hair stream free. They go berserk. This in people of the character I know them to be always has struck me as suspiciously unlikely. For instance, this bunch from the downed voller did not cast off their helmets. Their straw yellow hair streamed abaft them as they charged and they were wild and abandoned to the passions of battle; as to being genuinely berserk—I do not think so.

  Even with all the Pachaks and all the Rumay women and the other women like Phocis who joined in the battle, we could never have gained the victory over this number of Shanks. We would have fought the last great battle. Someone, somewhere, might have spoken of the deed as a High Jikai. Probably not. We would have died and been forgotten.

  Phocis had drawn a scrap of cloth from her shirt around the wound. She was using the Shank trident as a weapon. She forced herself up and fought alongside us, wielding the three-tined trident with consummate skill.

  Soon her blood on the metal was joined by that of Shanks.

  Shalane swirled like a demoness, appearing to shed sparks, striking in all directions at once. Her tigress girls struggled and struck, fought and died. I surmised they had not met the Shanks in battle before and were not in the same awe of the Fishheads as those who had had the misfortune and the glory to meet them.

  A shadow passed over us.

  I did not look up.

  It was very necessary at that moment to despatch the fellow to the left side who was trying to stick his damned trident into Seg's side.

  The Krozair brand sliced and the Shanks screeched and fell away and then—again very necessarily—the Krozair brand was needed on the other side where Phocis, cleverly spitting her opponent, momentarily left herself open to a third thrust. Here I thrust past the incoming tines, bouncing them off with the blade and so going on to haul up without punching clean through backbone as well.

  “Like a damned beetle on a pin!” Phocis retrieved her trident and instantly set to again, raging.

  The raw stink of blood, red blood and green ichor, smoked into the air. The ground muddied with blood. And still Seg and I, Nath and Phocis and Shalane and the Rumay women battled on. This madness could not last.

  Nath stood amidst a heap of Shank corpses, roaring defiance. Shalane appeared to be everywhere, cutting and cutting. Seg's cool skilled swordsmanship cleared the ring, and Phocis with her Shank trident stopped many a Shank dead in his tracks. But, still, it could not last.

  In one of those uncanny little lulls that obtrude in almost any fight where muscles are the only motive power, Seg flicked drops from his blade and stared balefully at the Shanks just across from us. They were forming up for another of the charges that had proved unsuccessful.

  I said: “Seg...” There was an unmistakable tone of warning there.

  He scowled back at me. “All right, Dray, all right. Not yet, anyway."

  He could fig
ht with cool professionalism, could our Seg Segutorio; equally, if the mood took him he'd go roaring into the fray with all a Pachak's berserk fury and a whole shovelful more. This was a legacy of those strange mountains and valleys of the land of his birth, Erthyrdrin, the northernmost country of the continent of Loh. And Loh is as mysterious a place as you can want.

  The Shanks started to fidget and move and shake their weapons again. Not all wielded tridents.

  “Here they come again,” called Nath. He was covered in blood and looked to be in an exalted mood. “Hack ‘n’ slay!” he bellowed, the words clear and distinct and forming a battlecry. “Hack ‘n’ slay, my lads, hack ‘n’ slay!"

  “Aye!” ripped out Seg.

  This next onslaught was ferocious and frightful. I saw Shalane go down with a spear through her, and in that microscopic section of time I could spare for a thought about her I surmised the wound would not be fatal.

  I knocked two Shanks down who were trying to spear Seg, and Phocis stuck her trident through the eyes of another. The Krozair brand flamed around, and a fourth attacker's arm fell off. Seg sliced his man and we cleared the ring.

  I saw Nath, bloated, scarlet, huge, smash over sideways with a trident sticking into him with an obscene wiggle of the shaft.

  So this is how it goes, I said to myself, one by one they will go down and Seg and I will be left to the last.

  The two girls cared for by Nath must have joined in the fracas after the initial charge. Whatever the truth of the matter, they appeared now and flung themselves wailing upon Nath. He lay like a fallen oak tree, arms wide, and I swear his expression was exactly that he must have worn when being thrown out of the tavern, after he'd spent all his soldier's pay.

  “Hai, Jikai!” I vomited the words out and swung the Krozair brand over my head. I did not feel a fool doing this outrageous gesture and mouthing the great words. If it was to be all over, then get it all over with.

  The Shanks did not appear to wish to continue the combat.

  They were milling about. If those cold-hearted reivers from over the curve of the world could be said to be hesitant, uncertain, then they appeared at a loss now.

  Then we saw the reason and set up such a caterwauling row as would have brought the Watch of any strict city out in a sweat rash.

  A skyship had touched down beyond the two Shanks and her fighting men, her voswods, had alighted, formed their ranks as they had done a hundred times in practice drills, and, heads down and spears leveled, swept down on the Fish-heads.

  The Shanks fought damned hard. Shtarkins, I believed them to be. Their fishy heads and fishy smells repelled me; but they were wonderful sailors and navigators. They fought with vicious intensity now that they were outnumbered and on the receiving end.

  And so, now, it could not last. And, this time, it was the Shanks who would not last, praise be to Opaz.

  In the end they tried to make a break for their airboats; but the Vallian skyship commander had spotted that possibility and had thrown a blocking force out. No Shanks reached sanctuary.

  I looked around the field. We had made the Shanks suffer; they had caused us injury.

  The dead were heaped up dolefully. Then I felt a jolt of surprise. Among a pile of Shtarkin dead lay the Kanzai Warrior Brother we had met in the maze of the Coup Blag.

  We'd never known his name. The dark log Phocis had spotted leaping out of the waterfall tunnel was now explained. We'd been far too absorbed in our own combat to notice the Kanzai adept. Yet I recalled, there had been a moment in the fight when the pressure lessened unaccountably.

  From the evidence before us, it was perfectly clear he had fought magnificently. I lifted my bloodstained sword in salute to him, and commended his warrior spirit on its way down to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

  “I wonder if he realized he was fighting for Paz,” said Seg. “He wouldn't believe it; but he was."

  “A most judicious thought, Seg, and one we must make sure Shalane understands."

  “Here comes the skyship landing force commander. He's a Jiktar. And I think—yes—” Seg shook his head, letting down from that sudden sharp scrutiny: “It's old Hodo Fra-Le. I had a right go at him over the state of his archers a few seasons ago."

  “His lads seem to have done all right here."

  “Oh, aye. I went up to Zamra and fairly ran ‘em ragged until they were up to scratch."

  I did not give a laugh that would have been the normal accompaniment to my next thought; laughter on this stricken field spoke of the manic laughter that referred only to itself and the battle. My thought was that Seg was such a stickler in anything connected with toxophily that no one would feel surprise if he went down to the enemy before a fight and tried to smarten up their shooting as well.

  Hodo Fra-Le, a Pachak, clad in armor and with the integrity of his race strong upon him, marched up with a small group as bodyguard. He wore bobs and the medals had been well-earned. His Pachak face wore a pleased expression over the natural hardness and I guessed he was intrigued by the situation into which he had stumbled.

  “Llahal! I am glad to see some of you survive."

  Sharing a natural curiosity he checked our group first, already knowing he had saved the crew of the scouter.

  Seg moved out very sharply up front. Big and extraordinarily powerful though he may be, Seg can move like greased lightning, as they say in Clishdrin, when necessary.

  He towered over Hodo Fra-Le, for Pachaks are not among your taller diffs of Kregen, and he clapped a friendly arm over a shoulder and bent his head and spoke most amicably and forcibly. Anyone listening to Seg Segutorio talk under those circumstances would devoutly believe.

  What Seg was doing was making sure he preserved my anonymity. It didn't matter that Seg thought I sometimes played at the mysterious a trifle over the top; if I wanted to conceal my identity under a nom-de-guerre, than he would do his damnedest to see the deceit worked.

  When Hodo wheeled up he squeaked out: “Lahal, Jak."

  “Lahal and Lahal, Hodo. You arrived opportunely."

  “We have been searching for the fleet, majis—Jak. Since we arrived from Zamra we have not made contact."

  “Deb-Lu must soon rectify that,” pointed out Seg.

  “I trust so, jen.” Hodo addressed Seg correctly as Jen, Lord, and if anyone overheard they'd know he was not from Pandahem, where lords are Pantors.

  As we walked along to try to sort out the mess, I realized the stupidity of that thought. Anyone could see Hodo Fra-Le was not of Pandahem, what with that enormous skyship in the background!

  Nath the Impenitent was not dead.

  I felt a tremendous lift of the heart at this news, and gave thanks to Opaz and Zair.

  Nath was shifted off into the skyship's sickbay and the two girls—Perli and Sanchi—went with him. The skyship, a splendid vessel built in Hamal and given the name Zamra Venturer was the answer to our immediate problems.

  Her captain, Jiktar Nalgre Voernswert ti Zanchenden, warned by his land force commander, welcomed me as Jak. The stories told in the souks had one benefit, at the least.

  Our other wounded were cared for. Shalane was desperately injured and hovered on the slippery slope down to the Ice Floes. I would not care to see her die. Phocis, by contrast, with a medical poultice on her punctured arm would be as good as new tomorrow.

  This was not the time for congratulation or for slackening of effort. Yes, we had won free at last from the maze of the Coup Blag. We had the wonderful benefit of having airboats in which to fly over the inhospitable jungle. We all felt the enormous relief as a physical burden removed from our shoulders. But we could not relax. There remained far too much to do if we were to save Paz.

  Although Jiktar Nalgre managed to remember to call me Jak instead of majister, he was all aquiver to put up a good front and do well. Seg told him to take Zamra Venturer around to the other side of the mountain so that we might find out what had befallen our youngest comrade, Cadet Ortyg Thingol.

  He'
d been left outside the mountain with Kov Hurngal's airboat and an ink stained Relt stylor, Hurngal's secretary. Ortyg had resisted being left and only a promise that he was in the most important position of having command of the airboat and having to rescue us had mollified him.

  Now here we were flying in a mammoth skyship. I heaved up a sigh. Well, brown-curled handsome and romantic young air cadets have to learn the hard facts of life like anyone else, by Vox.

  I decided to leave the voller in case Kov Loriman the Hunter did emerge into the suns’ light. As for the Relt, now his employer, Kov Hurngal, was dead he was free to stay or fly with us.

  As for the Rumay women—the downing of their leader affected them all in a way that, to me at least, came as a surprise. They were stunned and apathetic. Sanka, who assumed the command, made one attempt to rally them. After that they all sat in a huddle crooning ritual dirges. I did not say as I felt very much like bursting out: “Shalane ain't dead yet, you famblys!"

  “They'll have to be kept sequestered from the crew,” pointed out the ship's captain, Jiktar Nalgre Voernswert ti Zanchenden. He was often known as Nalgre the Blunt. “They're enough to frizzle the heart of a stone-monster."

  “They'll be all right when Shalane gets better."

  “By Corg! I devoutly trust so!"

  So, in much better heart than we had been when last the twin suns Zim and Genodras set over the shadowy face of Kregen, we flew off to find the rest of the Vallian armada.

  * * *

  Chapter eleven

  How old Hack ‘n’ Slay stood up

  The real world of Kregen, as my Kregish friends are fond of remarking in many proverbs and adages, is always changing, continually surprising, exotic even to those born under the streaming mingled lights of the Suns of Scorpio.

  Yet there are places familiar and dear because of that.

  Seg and Milsi were adamant that we could now spend the time with them we had promised. Delia—ah! My Delia smoothed all and so we flew off to Croxdrin where Milsi was Queen and Seg was King. Along the River of Bloody Jaws we had had adventures, with more to come, no doubt; for now we could just be ourselves and enjoy life. That, after all, as the wise men say, is the reason we are here at all.