Captive Scorpio

Ten

The mizzle of rain eased and a wan grayish daylight seeped through the massed clouds. Hillsides, woods, bushes, open swards dripped water. Barty swung off his hooded cape and the water sprayed. The totrixes ambled along in that skewed six-legged gait. Uthnior slid his cape off expertly and let the water drain off into the grass.

Gray clouds hung about the mountains. The pass ahead glinted with a waterfall’s sudden silver.

“Five burs ride beyond the pass,” said the guide, pointing. “Then I leave you to go on. There is a cave. Three days I shall wait. After that-”

“You needn’t go on!” exclaimed Barty. “If we don’t come back in three days we’ll be dead. I know.”

Uthnior had little experience of airboats, for his hunter clients liked to get into the saddle as soon as possible, and at the time I took at face value his assertion that fliers would be useless in the maze of valleys and gullies and hilly peaks around us. The Kwan Hills were no place to crash in, that was certain. Our six-legged mounts ambled along and the twin suns struggled to pierce the thick cloud layer above. That pass ahead, with its thread of silver, the dark sodden slopes on either hand, the cavernous bellies of the low-lying clouds above — my fingers began to twitch. Fingerspitzengefuhl. Yes, the Germans had the word for it, the twitch in the finger tips. The old breeze up the spine. I rolled my eyes about, looking up the slopes, seeing clumps of vegetation dripping with moisture, vague pale blurs of wan sunshine trying to strike glints from the drops and producing glimmering pearls.

“Here they come!” I bellowed and ripped out the longbow.

They bounded down the slopes screeching like demons, leaping from tussock to tussock, waving their weapons, ragged bands of men and women, their armor and harness dun-earth in color and wet, wet with the wet ground on which they had lain in ambush.

“Hawkwas!” yelled Uthnior, and his bow was in his hand.

Reflex compound bow and Lohvian longbow spat as one.

Barty’s bow slapped out a little later, as the hunter and I loosed again. In this kind of sudden fierce attack as fighting men and women roar at you, screeching, aiming to top you, you have to assume that, have to understand they are hostile and react to that, and not hang about wondering if this is merely a too-enthusiastic welcome. We shot to stop the attack. Men screamed with shafts feathered through them. They tumbled down the wet hill-slopes, tattered bundles, arms and legs flopping.

The arrows we loosed took their toll, and then it was handstrokes.

All the old cliches about letting the mind divorce itself from the corporeal body, the sword being held and not held, the mysteries of the Disciplines, all these things chunked into place. Because I was mounted and because I was in a hurry to get through these Hawkwas I used the Krozair longsword. The brand flamed in the weak sunlight Hawkwas shrieked and fell away. Blood splattered. Barty was slashing about with the clanxer I had insisted he bring, the straight cut and thruster more use in this kind of work than a rapier. Uthnior struck mighty sweeping blows with a polearm, a scythe-like blade mounted on a staff, an overgrown version of the glaive my people of Valka know so well how to use. We urged our totrixes on, the baggage animals tethered to the saddles following willy-nilly, and we broke through the screeching mob. The Hawkwas fought us, for they saw we were but three and there were nineteen or twenty of them. But the deadly arrows had cut them down and the swords completed the task.

A last remnant, three men, turned to run back, casting aside their weapons. Uthnior slapped his polearm away and took out his bow. He shot cleanly into the back of the nearest fugitive. He must have sensed my thoughts, for he bellowed savagely at me.

“They will bring their Opaz-forsaken friends, koter!”

As he dispatched the penultimate wretch, I, with some compunction and self-disgust, loosed at the last. Practical matters despite all other concepts had to reign here. I valued my daughter Dayra above these bandits of the hills. It was horrible and messy; it was, as I took it, inevitable. There was no point in gathering up the scattered weapons.

We rode from that accursed spot as quickly as we could move the totrixes along, after I had recovered my arrows.

And the rain came drifting back.

“You have, I think, fought before,” observed Uthnior as we jogged along.

“Yes.”

“Did you see that one-” began Barty.

“Not now, Barty,” I said.

We drew our cape hoods up and slouched in the saddles and rode through the valley and past the feathery glinting waterfall and so came out to the saddle beyond, where the land lifted away from us, misty, clouded by rain veils, gray and wet.

Barty said, with an oath: “What I would give for a piping hot cup of tea — right now — vydra tea, for that is what I like best.”

“I, too, am fond of vydra tea,” said Uthnior.

I hauled out a wine bottle and passed it across. “You will have to make do with wine, Barty. For now.”

“I suppose so.”

When we reached the cave of which the guide had spoken we reined in. The rocky face of the cliff closed down, and the uneven track wound down toward thickly wooded and much cut up land beyond. The veils of rain blew across like vertical sweeps from gigantic sword blades. Uthnior hesitated.

“To wait here, now, will not be advisable.”

“Our tracks will be washed out.” I said tentatively.

“Assuredly, koter. But the bodies of the Hawkwas will be found. Their friends will search. It will not be difficult to find a lone man hiding in a cave.”

“So you-” began Barty.

“Ride with us until you find a secure hide,” I said.

Barty swung to face me, annoyed; but he saw my face and did not pursue the argument. We rode on. The sense of desolation that depressed me here in these Kwan Hills lightened a little as the rain eased. I knew the atmospheric feelings were mine, that in other circumstances I would have joyed to explore here. Barty relapsed into a hurt silence, unable to comprehend why my companionship had so sadly fallen away. Uthnior led on, alert, sniffing the wind, his eyes forever scanning the distant prospects that opened up with each turn in our winding progress through the hills.

We had decided to approach the areas where the Hawkwas camped from a different direction. That, at least, was all we could do to divorce ourselves from the fight. If we were connected to that massacre at a later date, that was in the lap of the gods. So the way took longer, and we spent the next day jogging across cross-grained country and feeling the spirits of the land invading our ibs. Barty was now most unhappy.

We fell in with a wandering man, wild of aspect, half mad, whose shriveled face and white hair told eloquently that he suffered from that dread disease I have spoken of. A normal Kregan looks forward to better than two hundred years of happy, vigorous life. This disease, this chivrel, shortens a lifespan by a handful of years only, depriving people of that lovely golden autumn of life; but it destroys their strength and their appearance, aging them obscenely, shattering their powers. Kregans hold in their hearts a deep horror of this particular disease; yet as far as anyone knows it is not transferable and people live in close contact with sufferers without ill effects. The disease strikes at random, it seems.

The camp we made beside a brook with crags above and trees massed about cheered me a little. Uthnior’s desires I respected. Barty would come round once I got this black dog off my back. Dayra would be found. As for the wider problems of the empire, these weighed most deeply on my mind, fretting at me, worrying me in that I was traipsing about in some damned back hills instead of acting my part in Vondium and trying to thwart evil schemes against the emperor and keeping him safely on his throne.

Who knew what was going on in Vondium now?

A single dagger thrust can change the destiny of nations.

The old fellow waved his arms about, his lank white hair flying, his wrinkled face parchment brittle. His coarse sacking garment was hitched up by a rope girdle; but he carried beside the usual stout pipewood bamboo stick, a sword blade mounted into a pole, the steel broken and resharpened into a foot-long blade. He said his name was Yanpa the Fran — a suitable name given the pallor of that shriveled face and the whiteness of his hair.

In answer to our questions he said he searched for the fabled Cher-ree. At this, Barty was all set to burst out laughing; but he caught my eye and subsided at my quick shake of the head. In this, Barty was prepared to accept my admonishment. After all, it was patent that Yanpa the Fran was makib, insane, and therefore entitled to pursue a will-o’-the-wisp search.

As my Djangs would say, Yanpa chased after Drig’s Lanterns.

“But there are too many Junka-forsaken warriors bashing about the Hills,” Yanpa complained. His hands shook. “They march everywhere, spoiling. They drive the spirits away.”

“Warriors?”

“Aye! Hundreds — thousands. They gather to the war drums and the trumpets. The banners fly. A band chased me yesterday-”

“Hawkwas?” demanded Uthnior. His lean face jutted aggressively forward.

“Also. Many mercenaries, many warriors, many paktuns.”

“Where is their camp?”

“Camp? Camp?” His withered old arms windmilled. “There are many camps. The leathers fill the valleys.”

“The chief camp?”

His eyeballs rolled. If this moment of lucidity passed before he answered we would be no better off. But he licked his cracked lips, the spittle shining, and laughed and hugged himself. “They meet at Hockwafernes. I saw the temple. I saw and they did not know.” He hugged himself in glee. Uthnior pulled an earlobe. “Hockwafernes. I know it. Some would call it a place blessed and others a place damned. It is certain devils reside there.”

“Devils!” tittered Yanpa the Fran. “Aye! Junka has taken them all up into his hand and some spilled through his fingers and scuttled away and hide and tremble in Hockwafernes.”

“And others say, old man, that the devils wait there for the tombstones to be lifted, for the funeral pyres to suck in the smoke and flame, for the Ice Floes of Sicce to melt-”

“May Opaz the Light of Days protect us all!” exclaimed Barty, on a breath. He shivered, and looked across the fire into the enveloping trees.

A clatter of stones along the bank of the brook brought us about, instantly. Barty stared toward the source of the noise, hidden beyond a bend in the stream and a stand of trees. Uthnior looked about. I nodded, grim-faced, to the trees and we eased back into their cover. Yanpa came with us, casting a nervous glance back at his riding preysany and his pack calsany. The animals cropped grass alongside our totrixes.

The Rapa who trudged into view, walking sullenly along the river bank, was a fighting man, a warrior, clad in war harness and carrying a monstrous blanket-wrapped bundle on his shoulder. He muttered to himself as he walked, casting dark savage looks from side to side. The instant he saw the camp and the animals he threw the bundle down and the sword appeared in his fist in a twinkling glitter of light. He glared about, uncertain.

I called: “Llahal, dom. We mean you no mischief.”

He was confident enough. Where he stood he commanded our approach and before we could get to him he could make the decision to fight or run. I caught the silver glint at his throat, above the armor, and guessed he would not run.

How he would withstand a cloth-yard shaft driven straight at him was another matter entirely. I did not test him. I stepped out and held up my empty hand.

“Llahal, dom,” he said in his surly way. People say all Rapas stink. This is not so. He turned his massively beaked face to regard me. He was of that family of Rapas with brilliant red feathers around the beak, and bands of red and black feathers running aft, and white feathers circling the eyes. His fierce vulturine face leered at me. I went forward.

After we made pappattu and learned he was Rojashin the Kaktu, a paktun, on his way to join Trylon Udo na Gelkwa who was raising an army and employing many mercenaries, Rojashin said with a surly curse: “And my confounded zorca fell and smashed two legs. I have walked two dwaburs like a common slave.” His predatory eye fastened on our animals.

Uthnior’s hand tightened on his sword hilt.

“You are mercenaries, also? I see you are not full paktuns.”

He spoke with some contempt, this Rojashin the Rapa. The little silver mortilhead gleamed at his throat, the pakmort, proud symbol of mercenaries who have achieved the coveted status of paktun. Of course, the word paktun is used loosely these days for almost any mercenary, and usage is changing. Kregen is a world that is not static, that is not stamped into an unchanging mold. Customs, habits, traditions evolve. It was becoming the fashion to call all high-quality mercenary warriors paktuns, and those with the pakmort consequently were called mortpaktuns. Hyr-paktuns, who wore the pakzhan, would then be dubbed zhanpaktuns. But it would be foolish to call a youngster newly left the farm and run off to be a mercenary a paktun. So new hands, green fighting-men, coys, tended to be called a variety of unflattering names, of which paktunik is perhaps the least offensive.

We were like to have trouble with this one. Rojashin went on grumbling, fleering derogatory remarks about a bunch of thieving masichieri masquerading as soldiers he had seen. He kept on looking at our animals, and fingering his sword, while he ate the food we gave him. He answered our questions readily enough. Trylon Udo was gathering a great army in the Northeast. Men were coming from all over. Many traveled from across the seas. He, himself, had been lured by gold from North Segesthes. But for the mischance of the fallen zorca he would have been at Hockwafernes, having the directions written down safely. Then, he had been promised by the recruiting agent, the army would march south through Vallia and storm and take Vondium. The plunder would be enormous. The sack of the greatest city in this part of the world must yield fantastic wealth to anyone lucky enough to be alive after the assault.

“And, by the Ib Reiver himself, I am like to be cheated of the opportunity.”

I decided I would offer this braggart Rojashin the Kaktu the use of my pack totrix and we would ride into Trylon Udo’s camp together. That way I would discover at first hand the details of the threat to Vondium. Also, I had the shrewdest of suspicions that Dayra would be found there, too. But fate has a nasty habit of knocking my schemes askew.

To call this Rapa a braggart may seem harsh; but I saw the newness of his pakmort, the sharpness of the silver edges, and guessed he was still in the grip of the elation that comes with the achievement. He stood up and drew out his sword with his right hand, wiping his left hand across that damned great beak.

“I will take a totrix now. If you resist, I shall slay you all.”

I sighed.

He had summed up Uthnior as a guide, and us as his clients, and he disregarded Yanpa the Fran as a diseased madman.

“You may ride with us-” I began.

The Rapa bellowed. “By Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls! You cowardly rasts! I shall cut you all down and then take all.”

With that he charged full tilt at Barty.

Barty had been sitting cross-legged munching on a handful of palines. As the Rapa bore down, the sword flaming lethally, Barty let out a yell and rolled sideways in a tangle, berries spurting up like pips from a squeezed fruit. Yanpa let out a pure screech of terror and dived for his preysany. Uthnior held back, glancing at me. I gave no sign.

Barty, all in a tangle, rolled desperately as the sword thwacked down. Uthnior let out a growl. His fist closed on his sword hilt and the blade slid halfway out.

Then, and only then, I said: “Shaft the cramph, if you have to, Uthnior. He will have only himself to blame.”

Barty yelled again and flopped about like a stranded whale. He got a knee under him and shoved up, dragging his rapier out.

I sighed again. One day, I supposed, he would learn.

By my right side a usefully sized rock lay to hand. I picked it up, weighed it, tossed it up and down a couple of times, and then hurled it full at the Rapa’s head.

The rock clanged off his neck guard. He staggered forward, arms flailing, tripped over Barty and sprawled onto the ground. His beak cut a swath through the mud.

But the helmet had prevented a knock-out blow. The Rapa was up on his feet, moving with ferocious speed, slashing the rapier away in a grating twinkle of steel. In the next second he would have had Barty’s head off.

Uthnior loosed.

The shaft passed cleanly through the Rapa’s wattled neck, bursting past the wrapped scarf, scything on to break free in a gouting smother of blood. Rojashin the Kaktu stood up, very tall. His fingers relaxed on the sword and it flew into the trees. He stood. Then he fell. His legs kicked. He lay still. I felt most disgruntled.

“Why these idiots have to bulge their muscles and strut about like conquering heroes beats me,” I said.

“By Vox! He misjudged us, the onker. And a paktun, too.”

“A very new paktun,” observed Uthnior.

We went across and looked down on the body. The Rapa did not die well. Barty stood up, untangling himself, and, looking most mean, said: “You cut that damned fine.”

Gesturing to his rapier, I said: “Rapiers are city weapons, my lad. There is a different knack to using them out here.”

“Yes, that may be true, but, well and all-”

“He could have had a free and pleasant ride to the camp. But no — he had to prove himself a great and mighty warrior.” I noticed his smell, then, and turned away. Yet I have known Rapas with whom a great comradeship was possible. It takes all kinds to make a world.

Later on, when Barty’s color had gone down and he had his breath back, I told them I would have to leave them at this point. They looked blankly at me.

“You,” I said to Barty. “You will get back to Vondium as fast as the airboat will take you. Report on what we have learned. See Naghan Vanki. I expect Kov Layco Jhansi will be interested, also, and will arrange an interview with the emperor. The threat from the Northeast is more serious than they imagine.”

“And you?”

I picked up the pieces of armor we had stripped from the Rapa. I would make them fit me. “Oh, I think I will join up with Trylon Udo’s new army. Dayra is likely to be there-”

“Then I shall go with you!”

Uthnior wrinkled up those huntsman’s eyes. “Yanpa the Fran has gone. I think my employment with you is terminated.”

“Yes, and I give you thanks, Chavonthjid. Go with Opaz.”

“And I,” quoth Barty, “shall go with you, Jak, to the camp and-”

“And do you think you can carry off the part of a paktun?”

“We-ell-”

In the end I convinced him. It was not easy. But I bore down.

He would only be a hindrance. The life of a Strom at court and on his estates is far removed from the life of a mercenary. And that despite they may both meet on the field of battle. We buried the Rapa, Rojashin the Kaktu, paktun, with decent observances, and then struck camp. I stood to watch Uthnior and Barty ride off, back-tracking, trusting they would get through safely to the secreted airboat. I gave them a cheerful Remberee, and then mounted up on the totrix and turned his head toward Hockwafernes and the rebel army of Trylon Udo na Gelkwa. It was very good once more to be my own lone self, that old Dray Prescot who roared and bashed his way about the brutal and beautiful world of Kregen.