Krozair of Kregen [Dray Prescot #14] Read online

  “Yes, Dak. I will not speak of it."

  “Good. Then know that this Lady of the Stars was the true daughter of Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor."

  Before I had finished the great word Strombor, my son Jaidur, whom I must think of as Vax, leaped up. He let a terrible cry escape him. Then he turned—I saw his face—and he ran to the ladder at the stern and fell down it and so raced like a maniac into the bushes of the shore, vanishing out of sight.

  Duhrra stared after him, a powerful frown crumpling up that smooth, seemingly idiot face. “Duh, master! What did I do?"

  “You did nothing, Duhrra. And I am not your master."

  “Yes, master."

  I walked away, feeling the desolation in me. This was not my idea of family life. But, then what did I know of family life? I had been privileged to know my eldest twins, Drak and Lela, for periods off and on until they were fourteen. My second twins, Segnik and Velia, had been three when I'd been so mercilessly hurled back to Earth. And now Segnik was Zeg and a famous Krozair of Zy, and Velia was dead. Of Dayra I knew nothing, and of her twin, Jaidur, I must see him every day and speak with him, and call him Vax, and bear the agony; for he hated the memory of his father, a father he knew nothing of—or, at least, knew nothing good of.

  I did know one thing of Dayra. Delia had told me she had been giving trouble at school, with the Sisters of the Rose, of course. And I remembered old Panshi talking of the young prince and of my assumption he meant Segnik, when he meant Jaidur. Old Panshi had had a little frown of puzzlement. Why couldn't I be just an ordinary simple man? But then, if I were that, I would never have won Delia, the Princess Majestrix of Vallia, at all.

  We sailed out on a raiding cruise the next day, hopping from island to island, and I was exceedingly beastly to the Magdaggian shipping we caught. The three swifters acted together, for it seemed the natural thing to do, and Rukker was getting the hang of sea fighting. On this cruise we took a small swifter by a ruse, and boarded her and slew or enslaved her Magdaggian crew. Her slaves joined our ranks. She was sailed back to Wabinosk in triumph.

  That night we caroused as Renders do. I had run through all my memories of carousing the nights away with Viridia the Render on the Island of Careless Repose, in the Hobolings. She had been youngish then, and with the normal two-hundred-year life span of the Kregan, I had no doubt she was still at her piratical tricks. Would I ever see her again? Would I ever see any of my old comrades—and enemies—again?

  The coveted High Jikai appeared to come no nearer.

  But my words with Vax—I must think and talk of him as Vax—bore fruit

  Fazhan, who acted as my ship-Hikdar, told me the swifter we had taken was of Sanurkazz. She had been taken by the Magdaggians and converted to their use. As in the wooden navies of the eighteenth century of Earth, the ships of the contending nations were of so similar a type they were fully interchangeable. She had the name arrogantly painted on her bows and under her stern—the sailors of Kregen follow this fashion more often than not—and I read this aloud. "Prychan. A suitable name."

  “Yes,” said Fazhan. He reached out with his knife and scraped at the green paint. “Yes, as I thought. See, Dak, underneath. Her real name, carved as is proper; but blocked up with this damned green paint."

  We removed the offensive paint and saw the original name of the galley.

  "Neemu. Yes, I see.” You know that a neemu is a black-furred, near leopard-sized killer, with a round head, squat ears, slit eyes of lambent gold, and runs ferociously upon four legs. A prychan is a very similar beast, sharing the same characteristics, but having fur of a tawny gold. I studied the lines of Neemu.

  She was two-banked, a four-three seventy-two. Although she had only eighteen oars to a bank, they were concentrated in the usual way of swifters, giving her an exceptionally long forecastle and quarterdeck. She was narrow in the beam, so narrow I ordered her oars kept in the water to keep her upright. She was fast. I tried her in maneuvers and found her cranky so that she did not respond as well as—for instance—Green Magodont, which was a much larger craft, a three-banked hundred-twenty-six. Green Magodont was of that class of swifter designed to sail in the front rank in a battle, agile so that she might spin about and deliver the diekplus, shearing away an opponent's oars. Then the second line would come in to take on what was left. This Neemu was clearly a scouting vessel, designed for high speed, yet powerful enough to tackle reasonably heavy opposition.

  Vax said, “I would like to take all those who will come and sail back to Zandikar."

  There was now a fresh batch of rescued Zairians wishing to go home.

  I said, “Why Zandikar?"

  He said, without shame, “There is a girl—"

  “Oh,” I said.

  So the brutality of my ruse had been worth it. Vax had decided not to go to Magdag to search for his sister Velia. He knew she was dead; he did not know the manner of her dying. I had told no one that I had held Velia in my arms as she died, and of how the overlords had trampled up to take me. They had not caught Grogor, Gafard's second in command; but he it was who had shot the arrow into the king's fluttrell; he it was, they thought, who had slain the stikitches employed by the king. I was a mere pawn, Gafard's man, and me they had dispatched to the galleys.

  “Very well—” I started to say, when I was interrupted by a harsh and ominous screeching.

  I knew exactly what that raucous shriek from the sky was, and I did not look up. The Gdoinye, the great golden and scarlet raptor of the Star Lords, the magnificent bird of prey they used as a messenger and a spy, had sought me out once again. Duhrra was talking to Vax about taking Neemu back to Zandikar, and trying to urge him to go on to Sanurkazz, for that was nearer Crazmoz. Vax cocked up his head.

  “What is that bird?” he said.

  Duhrra looked up, also, his idiot-face peering.

  “Duh—I see no bird."

  I glanced up, casually.

  The confounded Gdoinye was up there, planing in wide hunting circles, screeching down. The thing spied on me for the Star Lords, that was sure.

  “Up there, Duhrra, you fambly!” said Vax. He pointed. “Surely you see it? A great red and gold bird."

  “Vax—you've been at the dopa again."

  Vax shouted hotly at this and swung to me. “Dak—you see it?"

  I looked up at the Gdoinye circling up there, watching me, telling the Star Lords what I was about

  “No, Vax. I see no bird."

  “You're all blind!” shouted Vax, and stamped off. I felt sorry for him. I wondered what he was thinking.

  But I thought this must be an omen. I must stir myself, or I might be thrust back across four hundred light-years, to Earth, and never get out of the Eye of the World. First, I must make sure my son Jaidur, who called himself Vax out of shame, was safe.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  We strike a blow for Zairia and for Vallia

  On a fine Kregan morning as we pirates swaggered down to the swifters hauled up onto the beach, I said to Duhrra, “You want to talk to this young tearaway, Vax. Probe him about his father.” I saw Duhrra glance across at me. “It is not good that a young man feels this way."

  “I agree. But it is a powerful hatred he bears."

  “Talk to him."

  “Duh—master—it will be all too easy. He will deafen my ears with his anger."

  Our plans for departure had been interrupted by this capture of Neemu. There was no question of the ship being given to Vax. He was far too young and inexperienced on the Eye of the World. I did not say this. It was freely spoken of by the other Renders. Among their ranks were men who knew the inner sea, men who had fought for many years upon the sparkling blue waters, men who understood the ways of the Eye of the World. Pur Naghan ti Perzefn had not taken Pearl back. Those Zairians who wished to return home had sailed in a broad ship. Pur Naghan, Krzm, realized he could strike resounding blows for Zair in thus rending with us. As a Krozair of Zamu his vows impelled
him to struggle with the Green at every opportunity. Our plans called for us to sail back together, Pearl, Neemu, Crimson Magodont, as a squadron.

  No Krozair, not even an ex-Krozair, could command a swifter with Green in her name.

  Green Magodont was now Crimson Magodont.

  Rukker, waving his bladed tail in a typical Kataki fury, had bellowed, “I spare no oar-slaves! If you wish to fill your banks you must take the rasts yourselves. And Vengeance Mortil sails with me.” He was in a right old fury.

  I recall this particular day with some brisk satisfaction as demonstrating a neat double-hander in my dealings on Kregen. Occupied though I was by affairs and mysterious dealings in tie Eye of the World, I was still aware of the vaster problems awaiting me in the lands of the Outer Oceans. Out there that great and evil empress Thyllis planned to hurl all the military resources of her empire of Hamal against my island of Vallia. Out there intrigues and treachery and double-dealing blossomed like the black lotus flowers of Hodan-Set.

  So, on this day, when our squadron sighted sails on the horizon, and the whip-Deldars flew about with ol’ snake licking, and bellowing, “Grak! Grak!” and the swifters flew over the waters, I found a profound joy in me as I saw those sails resolve into the typical shapes of the canvas of argenters from Menaham.

  Menaham with her argenter fleet was used by the empress Thyllis of Hamal to trade with the overlords of Magdag. She sold them airboats and saddle-flyers. Judging by the course of the argenters, which bore on bravely with their three masts clad in plain sail straining, I would find out what King Genod paid the empress Thyllis in return.

  I pushed away disappointment. I would have preferred to have captured the argenters on their way to Magdag. Then I would have taken vollers and flyers. As it was, this blow would more directly damage Hamal. But that mad genius Genod would suffer, too...

  In any kind of breeze the swifters would never have caught the argenters. But the Eye of the World, like the Mediterranean, is a fluky place for wind. Oared vessels reign there except—and this I say with pride, for the pride is not for me—for the great race-built galleons of Vallia. We pulled in for the kill.

  Sails billowed and fluttered as the breeze fluked around. The argenters wallowed. We could see their people running about the decks and a pang struck through me, for I remembered when Duhrra and I had stood in an argenter and watched the Renders pulling in for us. That made me make sure that lookouts with keen eyes were aloft to spot the first hint of Green slicing toward us over the horizon.

  “They scurry like ponshos before leems,” observed Vax with bloodthirsty satisfaction.

  We stood on the quarterdeck. I looked at my son.

  “Do you so hate them, then, Vax? They are not of Magdag."

  “I have reasons for hating them. You would know nothing of my reasons. But, believe me, they are very real."

  Much though I was dismayed at my boy's bloodthirstiness, I was cheered by his evident concern for the affairs of his own country. And, anyway, on Kregen a modicum of good honest skull-bashing is often the only antidote to poison. I deplore this; but while it remains true I prefer to have other people's skulls bashed. The truth also is that I have done a great deal on Kregen to lessen the incidence of skull-bashing and bloodthirsty fighting in these latter days. I speak now of a time when the famous old Bells of Beng Kishi regularly rang in many and many a thick skull over the length and breadth of Kregen.

  Just to get Vax going a little more, I said, “And these marvelous reasons, Vax. I suppose your cramph of a father is mixed up with them—oh, but he's dead, isn't he?"

  He shot me a murderous glance. I did not know how much he remembered of what he'd maundered on about to me; I fancied he had precious little idea of what he had said.

  “My father—” He scowled and gripped his sword-hilt. “He did fight the Bloody Menahem. I will give the rast that."

  Duhrra was looking at both of us with an expression that on his gleaming idiot-face looked most comical.

  “So you have something good to say about your father, then?"

  “By Vox! No! I believe he fought only through others, that his friends did the fighting, while he—"

  “Rukker's going ahead!” bellowed the lookout.

  I was rather glad of the interruption.

  Fazhan bellowed down to Pugnarses Ob-Eye, our oar-master, who might boast only one eye but who ran a taut six oar banks.

  We heard Pugnarses’ whistle blow and then his full-blown voice telling the whip-Deldars interesting facts about their physiognomy and antecedents and probable destinations in the hereafter, and the beat of the oars quickened. No one on the quarterdeck or on the forecastle thought overmuch of the pains of the oar-slaves. We knew exactly what they were going through. Exactly.

  As Mangar, our drum-Deldar, increased the beat in response to the commands from Pugnarses and the oars thrashed faster, so we began to pull back the distance Rukker had surged ahead.

  Three swifters ravening down on four argenters. I found by chance that I would line up on the third ship from Menaham. Rukker would hit the lead ship, and Pur Naghan the second.

  There would be time. I said, “It's surprising to me, Vax, that any man with a father like yours would bother to get born at all. I suppose you will spend the rest of your life hating him?"

  “And if I do, it will be spent gladly."

  The first varter shots were coming in. Our varters up forward replied. Soon the bows would sing. I could not leave well alone.

  “Of course, if your father died before you were born, you have only the words of others. You don't know yourself."

  “I know enough! I know what being Apushniad means—” He checked himself there, and glared about. He wore mail and a helmet and he looked young and bold and vigorous and—and frighteningly vulnerable with his flushed face and scowling lips. He whipped out his longsword. “I fight with the prijikers today and show the world I am not as my father!"

  "No!" The word was shocked from me. I could not stop it.

  He glowered at me, half turned, ready to storm off to the forecastle and be among the foremost of the prijikers who would swarm along the beakhead when it thumped down onto the argenter's deck.

  “No? I am a fighting-man. I am—I was, nearly—What do you mean, Dak; no?"

  I couldn't explain. He was my son. I didn't want him in the forefront of the most dangerous part of the attack. A prijiker, a stem-fighter, joyed in his honor and glory and danger. I reckoned they were all more mad than other sailors. They bore the most wounds; from their numbers the most men made holes in the sea.

  “I want you to be at my side."

  “But why? Do you deny me the glory?"

  “There's no damned glory in getting killed in a stupid render affray!” I roared at him. “It's only loot out there. Are you so greedy for gold you'd throw your life away?"

  He drew himself up in that faintly ridiculous way a young man indicates that he is grown up in his own estimation.

  “You cannot stop me from fighting with the prijikers. If I get killed that is my affair.” He swung his sword violently at the argenters. “Anyway, they are enemies of my country."

  We were closing now and the arrows were feathering into the palisade across our forecastle. The beakhead swayed with the onward plunge of the ship. Men crouched up there, ready to spring like leems onto the decks, ready to smash in red fury to victory.

  “And is that your marvelous reason?"

  “It will do for now!"

  And he swung off along the gangway. I glared after him. I knew practically nothing about the way he would act. He was a headstrong and violent youth, suffering under a sense of shame and outrage, carrying a heavy burden of hatred that ate at his pride. But as the fight developed and we smashed into the argenter and the beakhead went down and we roared across her decks, I had to understand that I could not do as I had unthinkingly sought to do. I had acted, I conceived, as any father would act. I did not want my son to go off fighting. But I could
not hold him back. His own instincts, his pride, his youthful folly, all impelled him to rush headlong into the thickest of the fight.

  Can any father thus shield his son from reality and expect to produce a man?

  Sometimes the burdens of fatherhood are too heavy for a simple man to bear. Sometimes, I think, nature should have invented some easier way to carry on the generations. I did not enjoy that fight. I drew the great Krozair longsword and I went up the gangway after Vax, and I bellowed back to Fazhan to conn the ship, and I plunged into the fray like the madman I am, striking viciously left and right, thrusting and hacking, carving a bloody path through those poor devils from Menaham. We took the argenter all right. I had known we would take her. Everyone knew we would take her. It seemed idiotic to me that my son should imperil himself in so obvious a way over so obvious a fight.

  But he did.

  He was my son.

  He was just as big a fool as I am.

  When it was over and the flag came fluttering down in a blaze of blue and green and the shouts of “Hai!” rose, I saw that Vax, although splashed with blood, was unharmed. He had fought magnificently. I had been near him and there had been no single time when I had had to intervene. He could handle himself in a fight, that was plain. I knew he had been under training with the Krozairs of Zy. Their wonderful Disciplines had molded him well. He must, I guessed, have been very near to the time when he would have been accepted into the Order as a full member and have been allowed to prefix that proud Pur to his name.

  But, all the same, despite his prowess, I was mighty glad when the fighting ceased.

  Vax it was who spotted the danger to Pearl, ahead of us. He sprang onto the forecastle of the argenter and waved his sword.

  "Pearl! Pur Naghan's in trouble!"

  The swifter had wallowed around and broken a number of her starboard oars. The fighting on her decks looked confused. Men were spilling over into the water. There was no time to be lost.