Chapter 16

The Royal Axe

The long night was almost spent when the gnomes dared wake Kitiara. She grunted with pain and got to her feet. "Suffering bloodstained gods," she muttered. "What happened? I feel like somebody's worked me over with a stick."

"Are you sore?" asked Rainspot.

She worked one shoulder around and grimaced. "Very."

"I have a liniment that may be of comfort to you." The gnome searched rapidly through his vest and pants pockets.

He produced a small leather bag with a tight drawstring.

"Here," said Rainspot.

Kitiara accepted the bag and sniffed the closed mouth.

"What is it?" she said suspiciously.

"Dr. Finger's Efficacious Ointment. Also known as the

Self-Administered Massage Balm."

"Well, ah, thanks, Rainspot. I'll give it a try," she said, though she thought it more likely that the liniment would blister her skin than soothe her muscles. She tucked it away.

"Where's Sturm?" Kitiara asked with sudden realization.

"We saw him several hours ago. He was looking for you," said Cutwood.

"Did he find me?"

"How should we know? He told us we couldn't take any of Rapaldo's iron without asking permission, then he went looking for you," said Bellcrank peevishly.

Kitiara rubbed her aching temples. "I remember I went for a walk, came back obviously, but outside of that my mem ory is dry." She coughed. "So's my throat. Is there any water?"

"Rainspot called down a batch this morning," said Sight er. He proffered a full bottle to Kitiara, and she drank deeply. The gnomes watched this process solemnly. When

Kitiara at last lowered the water bottle, Wingover said,

"Lady, we are unanimous in our resolve to be gone from here as quickly as possible. We think the king is dangerous; also, the trail of the Micones grows colder as we wait."

Kitiara surveyed the serious little faces. She'd never seen the gnomes so united and intent. "Very well, let's see if we can hunt down Sturm," she said.

Rapaldo was in his audience hall, flanked by twenty tall tree-men when Kitiara and the gnomes arrived. He was wearing Sturm's horned helmet, padded out with rags so that it wouldn't fall over his eyes. The axe lay nestled in his arms.

He regarded them idly. "I didn't send for you. Go away."

"Cut the lip wagging," Kitiara snapped. She recognized the helmet. "Where's Sturm?"

"Do all of the women of Abanasinia have such bad man ners? That's what comes of letting them carry swords — "

She drew both weapons, sword and dagger, and took one step toward Rapaldo. The Lunitarians promptly raised their glass swords and spear.s and closed ranks around their divine, though mad, king.

"You'll never reach me," Rapaldo said, giggling. "It might be fun to see you try."

"Your Majesty," said Sighter diplomatically, "what has become of our friend Sturm?"

Rapaldo leaned forward and waggled a bony finger at the gnome. "See? Now that's the proper way to ask a question."

He slumped back in his high chair and pronounced, "He is resting. Shortly he will be the new king of Lunitari."

"New king? What's going to happen to the old one?" asked Kitiara with barely concealed fury.

"I'm abdicating. Ten years is long enough to rule, don't you think? I'm going back to Krynn and live among my own kind as an honored and respected shipwright." He licked his fingers to smooth back his lank gray hair. "After my sub jects take back the aerial ship, you all shall remain here, except for whatever gnomes are needed to fly it." He cocked his head toward Kitiara. "I was going to take you with me, but I see now that you are completely unsuited. Heh, heh.

Completely."

"We won't fly you anywhere," said Wingover defiantly.

"I think you will — if I order my faithful subjects to kill you off, one by one. I think you'll fall in with my plan."

"Never!" said Kitiara. The rage was rising in her.

Rapaldo looked up at the nearest tree-man and said, "Kill one of the gnomes. Start with the littlest one." The gnomes closed in a tight circle around Fitter.

The Lunitarian came at them straight on. Kitiara cried,

"Run!" and moved to meet the tree-man. She parried his strong but clumsy cuts. Chips of glass flew each time her steel blade met the glass one, but the haft of the tree-man's weapon was so thick that she didn't think it would snap without a direct crosswise blow. The gibbering gnomes retreated in a body to the door. None of the other Lunitar ians deigned to bother them.

She had managed to pin the tree-man's point to the floor and now she raised her foot and smashed the glass sword in two. The Lunitarian stepped back out of her reach.

Rapaldo applauded. "Ta-ra!" he crowed. "What a show!"

There were too many of them. Though she hated to do it,

Kitiara backed out of the room with her blood boiling.

Rapaldo laughed and whistled loudly.

Out in the passage, Kitiara halted, her face burning furi ously with shame. To be whistled out of a room — what an insult! As if she were some juggler or painted fool!

"We're going back in there," she said tensely. "I'm going to get that lunatic woodcutter if I have to — "

"I have an idea," said Sighter, tugging vainly at her trouser leg.

"Suffering gods, we've got to find Sturm! We don't have time for a silly gnomish idea!"

The gnomes drew back with expressions of hurt. Kitiara hastily apologized, and Sighter went on. "As this place has no roof, why don't we climb the walls? We could walk along the top of the walls and peer down into every room."

Kitiara blinked. "Sighter, you — you're a genius."

He polished his nails on his vest and said, "Well, I am extremely intelligent."

She turned to the wall and ran a hand over the dry plaster.

"I don't know if we can get enough purchase to climb up," she said.

"I can do it," said Roperig. He pressed his hands on the wall and muttered, "Strong grip. Strong grip." To everyone's delight, his palms stuck, and he proceeded to climb right up the wall like a spider. The gnomes cheered; Kitiara hushed them.

"It's all right," Roperig said from atop the wall. "It's just wide enough for me to walk on. Boost Fitter up, will you?"

Kitiara hoisted Fitter up with one hand. Roperig caught his upstretched hands and pulled his apprentice up beside him.

Cutwood and Wingover were next.

"That's enough," said Sighter. "We'll stay with the lady and divert the king's attention. You find Sturm."

The four gnomes on the wall set off. Kitiara went back to the entry of the audience hall, banging sword and dagger together for attention. Bellcrank and Sighter stood close behind her, filling the doorway.

'You're back. Happy, happy to see you!" exclaimed

Rapaldo, who was still hooting from his roost.

"We want to negotiate," Kitiara said. It was galling, even if it was a lie.

"You touched me with your sword," Rapaldo said petu lantly. "That's treason, impious blasphemy and treason.

Throw your sword into the hall where I can see it."

"I won't give up my sword, not while I still live."

"Really? The king will see about that!" Rapaldo hooted some words in the Lunitarians' language. The guards in the room took up the message and repeated it again and again, louder and louder. Soon thousands outside were hooting the words.

Roperig and the others could hear the tree-men take up

Rapaldo's chant as they fairly flew over the narrow wall tops, peeking into every room in the keep'. Cutwood, of course, stopped to make notes of the contents of every room and passage, while Wingover kept probing the distant vistas instead of searching the nearer rooms below. Only Fitter

' took his task to heart. The little gnome raced along at blind ing speed, running, leaping, searching. He doubled back to his panting boss.

"Where did you learn to run so fast?" Roperig gasped.

"I don't know. Haven't I always run this way?"

"No indeed!"

"Oh! The magic has gotten to me at last!" Fitter flashed along the wall, sidestepping Cutwood, who was in the midst of compiling his umpteenth catalog. Cutwood, startled by the speedy Fitter, lost his balance and fell.

"Oof!" said Sturm as the forty-pound gnome landed in his lap. "Cutwood! Where did you come from?"

"Sancrist." He called out to Roperig, and the other three gnomes quickly found them.

"My hands are bound," Sturm explained. He was sitting in an old chair, and his feet were tied to the chair legs.

"Rapaldo took my knife."

"The lady has the dagger," said Roperig.

"I'll get it!" said Fitter, and in an instant he was gone.

Sturm blinked. "I know I've got the grandfather of all headaches, but our friend Fitter seems to me to have gotten awfully fast since last I saw him."

"Here it is!" called Fitter. He dropped the dagger, point first. Cutwood picked it up and started sawing away at

Sturm's bonds. The dagger was made for thrusting, not cut ting, and didn't have much of an edge.

"Hurry," said Fitter breathlessly. "The others are in big trouble."

"What are we in, a pleasant daydream?" Cutwood said sourly.

"Don't talk, cut," said Sturm.

'Trouble' was a mild word for what Kitiara and the two gnomes were facing. Scores of Lunitarians had filled the cor ridor behind them, and guards from the audience hall had seized each of them. Rapaldo strutted in front of them, tap ping the back of the axe head against the palm of his hand.

"Treasonous piglets," he said imperiously. "You are all worthy of death. The question is, who shall feel the royal axe first?"

"Kill me, you witless scab; at least then I won't have to lis ten to you spout on like the gibbering swabby you are," Kiti ara said. She was held by no fewer than seven tree-men.

Their wooden limbs were wrapped around her so securely that only her face and feet showed. Rapaldo smirked and lifted her chin with the handle of his axe.

"Oh, no, pretty, I shall spare you, heh, heh. I would make you queen of Lunitari, if only for a day."

"I'd rather have my eyes put out!"

He shrugged and stepped in front of Sighter, held by a sin gle guard. "Shall I kill this one?" said Rapaldo. "Or that?"

"Kill me," pleaded Bellcrank. "I'm only a metallurgist.

Sighter is the navigator of our flying ship. Without him, you'll never reach Krynn."

"That's ridiculous," Sighter argued. "If you die, who will fix the damage to the Cloudmaster? No one can work iron like Bellcrank."

"They're just gnomes," said Kitiara. "Kill me, rotten

Rapaldo, or I'll surely kill you!"

"Enough, enough! Heh, heh, I know what to do, I do. You try to fool me, but I am the king!" He strode away a pace or two and dropped his axe. The king of Lunitari pulled apart the tied ends of his decrepit tunic. Under his shirt, but over his woolens, Rapaldo wore chain. Not chain mail, but heavy, rusty chain, wound around his waist.

'You see, I know what it means to live on Lunitari,"

Rapaldo said. He let his shirt fall off and untwisted a bale of wire that held the end of the chain in place. He unlooped several turns of chain. As the links piled up on the floor,

Rapaldo's feet rose. Soon he was floating two feet in the air, and the tree-folk were rapt in their devoted attention.

"I fly! Ta-ra! Who are you puny mortals to bandy words with me? I float! If I didn't wear fifty pounds of chain, I'd drift away. They won't let me have a ceiling, you know, the tree-people. Shade makes them take root. Without this chain, I'd fly away like a wisp of smoke." Rapaldo let another loop of chain fall to the floor. He pivoted until his feet were floating out behind him. "I am the king, you see!

The gods have given me this power!"

"No," Sighter tried to explain. "It must be a consequence of the Lunitari magic — "

"Silence!" Rapaldo made clumsy swimming motions with his hands and drifted over to Kitiara. "You wear armor, but you can take it off when you want to. I can't! I have to wear this chain every hour, every day." He shoved his dirty, bearded face close to hers. "I renounce the power! I'm going home, I am, and walk like a man again. The trees will not miss me with Sir Sturmbright as king.

"Treason! Treason! You're all guilty!" Rapaldo somer saulted in the air, away from Kitiara. He scooped up his axe and flung it at his chosen victim.

Загрузка...