Fliers of Antares

CHAPTER TEN

They say the devil finds work for idle hands.

Well, there are many devils of many different shades of deviltry on Kregen, as there are parts of that profoundly mysterious planet where devils are accounted of no value at all; and I suppose the devil who got into me was most likely to be Khokkak the Meddler.

I do not think it could have been Sly the Ambitious, or Gleen the Envious. No, on reflection, some few aspects of Hoko the Amusingly Malicious must have helped along the general deviltry of Khokkak the Meddler.

At any event, what with my own desperate boredom and savage misery, and the way the country was going, and the stupid succession of stupid kings, and what was happening to fine people like Coper and Sinkie, for something to do I decided I would become king of Djanduin. This was a consciously mischievous decision.

As you will know, among my clansmen my success there had been entirely because I would not allow myself to be killed, when, in truth, I had no great reason to live, and through the accumulation of obi and a growing respect, culminating in the selection by the elders and the election of myself as leader, subsequently Zorcander. And in Zenicce no one had been more surprised than I had been myself when Great-Aunt Shusha — who was not my great-aunt — had bestowed on me the House of Strombor. And in Valka, I had fought, I and my men, for the island, and they had petitioned behind my back with the Emperor to make me their Strom. As for being Prince Majister of Vallia, that meant nothing. Delia, as the Princess Majestrix, had been the prize not only for me, but I as her prize. So I had not gone out of my way to grasp for ranks and titles and honors. I had with some calculation accepted Can-thirda and Zamra, but they were political acquisitions, with an eye to the future. Here, in Djanduin, with much inner amusement, I took a calm decision. I, Dray Prescot, would make myself King of Djanduin.

It would not be easy. That was all to the good. I had what was left of ten years to do it in, and the harder it was the more amusement I would have.

Oh, do not think I did not falter on occasion as the years wore on, when I saw fine young men, superb fighting Djangs, dying on some stupid battlefield, or in some affray that went awry; but I took the weakling’s comfort in the knowledge that had I not struggled to put the country in order those fine young men would have died, anyway, and many more with them. When Nath Wonlin Sundermair was assassinated as he waited in my tent for me — while I was out repairing a varter that had been damaged by a chunk of rock thrown by the enemy artillery — do not think I was unmoved. N. Wonlin Sundermair had fought them and shouted for aid, and my guards had come running, too late. The assassins were caught. A military court sat, and adjudged, and they were hanged, all six of them, hanged and left to rot. The fateful charisma that envelops me whether I will it or not worked for me in Djanduin. Many men, and not only Djangs, but Lamnias and Fristles and Brokelsh and others of the marvelous diffs of Kregen, had reached a dead end in their hopes for Djanduin. The leemsheads were now so bold in their raids that only strongly escorted parties of non-Djangs might venture out onto the white dusty roads, or take cautiously to the air astride their flutduins.

The onslaught of the Gorgrens had, at last and following on the death of Chuktar Naghan Rumferling, burst through a pathway of the Yawfi Suth, and a clever feint southward toward the Wendwath had sent the bulk of the Djanduin army rushing southward. The Gorgrens surged through the land of East Djanduin to reach the Mountains of Mirth. Here they were stopped, not by the army but by those old allies of Djanduin, the Mountains of Mirth and the desolate country at their feet to the east. You will recall that great period when the events chronicled in the song “The Fetching of Drak na Valka”

were being enacted. Somehow, during this time when I struggled with only two hands to hold Djanduin together and to defeat the Gorgrens, I could take no high joy from the enterprise. No song, I thought, would be composed by the skalds of Djanduin to commemorate these wild and skirling events. Well, I was wrong in that, as you shall hear.

One day when the little band I had gathered together — old soldiers, young men out for adventure, rascals like Khobo the So, one or two diffs from overseas who thought I looked a likely prospect for future plunder — came down into a hollow among tuffa trees and found the remnants of an army unit shattered and burned, I met Kytun Kholin Dom. We had a smart set-to with the Gorgrens — nasty brutes — before they were seen off, and I took pleasure from the way this tall and agile young Djang fought. He roared his joy as my men came running down swiftly into the hollow between the tuffa trees, and his thraxter twinkled merrily in and out, and his shield rang with return blows.

“You are welcome, Dray Prescot!” he yelled at me, and dispatched his man and swung to engage the next. “Lara has told me what a great shaggy graint you are! But, Lahal! You are right welcome!”

“Lahal, Kytun Dom,” I shouted, and ran to stand with him back to back and so beat off the last of the Gorgrens. Truly, he is a man among men, Kytun!

We had incredible adventures together and he became a good comrade to whom I could confide much of my story. We understood each other. He was a Dwadjang, and therefore as bonny a fighter as there is on Kregen, and I was apim, and therefore as canny as an Obdjang. We formed a great team. The years went by and the kings came and went and the Gorgrens moldered sullenly to the east of the Mountains of Mirth. On the day they made their final massive attempt to break through they also did something they had not attempted before, according to Kytun, through all of recorded history. We were riding our flutduins toward the mountains followed by the advanced aerial wing of our army -

oh, yes, by this time we had our own army, and efficient and formidable it was, too — when the merker reached us. We alighted at once.

“I find it impossible to believe, Dray,” said Kytun. His coppery hair blazed in the emerald and ruby lights from Antares. His tough, bluffly handsome face with the amber eyes twisted up in deep reflection as he twisted the signal paper. “The Gorgrens, may Djan rot ’em! Sailing across the sea to attack us!”

“The Gorgrens hate the sea, Notor,” said old Panjit, the Obdjang Chuktar who had thrown in his lot with us, at Pallan Coper’s urgent suggestion. “They have no navy, no marine. They are a nomad people above themselves with pride and greed who wish to sweep us up into their jaws, as they have done Tarnish and Sava.”

“I agree, Panjit,” said Kytun. “But the signal says their ships are landing men in the Bay of Djanguraj, at the mouth of the River of Wraiths.”

“Then the capital is immediately threatened.” Panjit gave his fine white whiskers a polishing rub. “We cannot be in two places at once. The army of the east must hold the Mountains of Mirth — but they are too weak, as we well know.” He looked at me a moment, wanting me to say something; but I remained silent. Finally he said, “The reserve army should be called out, of course. But they will never stand if the invasion is so close to Djanguraj.” Again he rubbed his whiskers. “We will have to return.”

Kytun looked at me.

Our officers had gathered, standing in the relaxed yet alert postures of the fighting-man. And very romantic and barbaric they looked, with their flying leathers covered in flying silks and furs, their jewels and their ornaments, their weapons gleaming, the feathers nodding from their helmets. I took heart from their firm bronzed faces, the light of determination in their eyes. The Djangs are a warrior people. They would need all their devotion to me, all their belief in an apim’s powers of strategy, for them to follow me now and trust my word.

I said, “We go on to the Mountains of Mirth.”

There was a silence.

I can see them now in my mind’s eye, as I sit talking into this microphone, here on the world of my birth. Oh, they are a bonny lot, the fighting-men of Djanduin! The brilliant colors of their decorations, their silver and gold sword-mountings, the jewels studding their harness, the meticulously executed designs upon their shields, all the affected trappings a fighting-man acquires during his years of service giving them this wonderful pagan, barbaric look tempered by the discipline of a professional army. The flutduin men are addicted to the pelisse and sabretache and look like savage editions of hussars. Their national weapon, the djangir, is worn by every soldier — aye! — and he knows how to use it to devastating advantage.

The silence hung.

Slowly I turned and glowered on them, one by one. The streaming opaz light from Zim and Genodras flooded down in brilliance all about us upon that windy plain, and the feathers and silks and scarves rustled and fluttered. With a steady slogging tramp of metal-studded sandals the infantry were marching up, as I glared around on my knot of high officers. The joat-mounted cavalry trotted by, every lance aligned, the colors flying.

I waited for one of them to break the silence, but all, every one, lowered his eyelids as my gaze fell upon him. I glared with special ferocity upon Felder Mindner, for he was my Jiktar of flutduins, and he looked away, and slapped his sabretache against his leg, and fidgeted; but he did not speak.

“By Zim-Zair!” I burst out, at last, forced by their sullen silence to speak against my will. “Must I explain everything!”

Kytun — that same K. Kholin Dom, who was a Kov and a good comrade — at last lifted his head, the coppery hair flying, and he said, “Dray — Notor Prescot, Lord of Strombor! We have followed you faithfully and well, in good times and in bad. But now that Djanguraj is attacked from the sea we-”

I would not let him continue. I did not wish him to utter words he would afterward regret.

“Yes! You have vowed to follow me, and I seek nothing from any of you, except the saving of the country!”

This was a lie. Thankfully, it was the last lie I had need of telling my men, my wonderful men, of Djanduin.

And, do not misunderstand me, for there were many girls who marched and rode and flew with us, glorious girls with coppery hair and tawny skins and flashing eyes, girls whose four arms were as deft with sword and djangir as any man’s. Girls who, into the bargain, had other, gentler skills.

“You have sworn to serve me as I serve you in freeing our country from the devil Gorgrens and the devil leems-heads! Together, Obdjang, Dwadjang, apim, diff, we will cleanse Djanduin and found for ourselves a new, clean, brave country where our children may live in peace!”

Around us now the army gathered, my army, the force I had built up and trained and given spirit, all so that Khokkak the Meddler might glee within my skull.

In the sound of stamping hooves, the snorts of joats, the rustling of flutduin wings, the clink of armor and weapons, that silence came back. It hung there between us like a rashoon of the inner sea, stark and dark and brutal.

I glared at Felder; he is a fine fellow but a blockhead. I glared at the Obdjang Chuktar Panjit, and he rubbed his whiskers and looked away.

Again I looked around the circle of my officers, my trusted comrades, and again they looked away. And then Kytun stepped forward. He dragged out — not his thraxter but his djangir. He lifted it high.

“I trust Notor Prescot! I believe in him! I, for one, will fly to the Mountains of Mirth and there thrash the Gorgrens, once and for all!” He swung the broad short blade about his head. “Who will follow me and ride with Notor Prescot?”

The spell was broken, the dam breached. The djangirs flashed out, a forest of blades, and they cried, every one, that they would follow me. For, by Djan, was I not Notor Prescot, the man who had sworn he would put their poor abused country back on its feet again?

I stood, looking on them as they shouted and cheered and pledged themselves again, as the great cry was taken up by the massed men beyond, as infantry and cavalry and artillery and flyers all caught the fever, the understanding that this was a new and bright beginning, a fresh compact between themselves and me. And I looked and saw what I had wrought.

In that moment, I now see, I drove Khokkak the Meddler from my brain. In that moment there on the wind-blowing plain with the acclamations and the pledges of my men ringing in my ears, I sloughed off at last my willful foolishness, my malicious antics. I had decided to become King of Djanduin because I had been bored, on a whim, as something to do to amuse me. Now I saw something I should have seen from the very beginning: that I had been meddling in the affairs of men and women, men and women whose own lives were profoundly affected by my petty games. Never again with the men of Djanduin could I act the games-master. The country needed a strong hand at the helm. If I could become King of Djanduin, I would do so. Not, this time, just for amusement and to see if I could do it in the time allowed me, but so as to fulfill all the glib pledges I had made, so as really to make of the country a fine and wonderful place in which to live — as we had in Valka!

So we rode and flew and marched to the Mountains of Mirth, and we caught the Gorgrens as they tried to debouch from a high pass. The battle was long and weary, but in the end we overcame and routed them and sent them packing back to East Djanduin. When we had overcome our internal problems and gathered our strength we in our turn would descend from the Mountains of Mirth and drive the cramphs of Gorgrens right out of Djanduin and back over their own borders.

As you know the colors of Djanduin are orange and gray. I had not bothered overmuch about banners and flags, apart from ensuring that every unit flew its identifying guidon or standard. But just before the battle in the high pass of the Mountains of Mirth, in the pass known as the Jaws of Nundji, I had made a flag. I told the women who stitched it that it was to be a large flag, and a noble one, with a heavy gold-bullion fringe, and with golden ropes and tassels, and to the men who turned the staff I told them I wanted a djangir blade mounted atop, proudly, as was fitting.

So, when we fought the Gorgrens in the pass of the Jaws of Nundji, and routed them utterly, my old flag flew over my men. That old flag with its yellow cross on the scarlet field floated high as we charged down. Truly, with Old Superb to fight under, I was totally committed. No longer was I merely playing a political and military game, so as to see if I might make myself king within a stipulated time. Now, I did not care if I became king or not. Now I decided that Djanduin came first. . You may laugh and mock and call me a sentimental fool. For, of course, you might say, these Djangs were a leaderless bunch, naturally they would accept my decision. But they were hotheaded fighting-men, and they believed their homes were in danger, behind their backs, with their enemies creeping upon their wives and children from the sea. Had you been there on that windswept plain, under the streaming brilliance of the Suns of Scorpio, I do not think you would have dubbed me either an onker or sentimental.

When we were taking an enforced rest after the battle, seeing to our wounded and counting the cost, and I sat in a miserable little tent of hides and pored over the map, in the light of a samphron-oil lamp we had captured from the Gorgrens, the merker came.

His fluttclepper was exhausted. These fast racing birds are built for speed and speed and more speed. He had reached us from Djanduin in record time.

After the Llahals had been made and he had gulped a goblet of wine, he said, “I see my message of warning is not necessary.”

“Tell us, man!” Kytun spat out wrathfully, as befitted a Kov kept waiting, although he was a good-hearted fellow as I well know.

“As to that,” I said, “the merker will say that the ships were a feint, that they carried straw dummies, that only a small force landed, and straightaway took themselves off when once they had aroused the neighborhood and news had been carried to Djanguraj in all haste, as they could see.”

The merker gaped at me.

Then Kytun let out a great bellow of laughter.

“By Zodjuin of the Silver Stux! Is that the way of it?”

“Aye, Kov,” said the messenger. He licked his bearded lips where the wine glittered in the lamplight. “It is as the Notor says. The reserve army marched out, and the Gorgrens had gone.” He looked at me. “By your leave, Notor, there is more.”

I nodded.

“The ships were provided by the leemshead Kov Nath Jagdur. The plan was his. A Gorgren was taken prisoner, and he talked freely.”

“By Djan!” said Kytun, leaping up and fairly rocking the tent with the violence of his anger. “One day I will take that false Kov’s head from his shoulders.”

“The king has sent messengers to the army of the east, to warn them; they began their westward march as soon as news was brought them that the Gorgrens had invaded by sea, difficult though it be to believe such a thing.”

“Difficult to believe the Gorgrens would sail the sea, merker, or difficult to believe Chuktar Rogan Kolanier — who is a Zan-Chuktar — would believe it and take his army of the east to the west?”

Kytun chortled at this, and my other officers crowded into the little tent gave vent to their amusement in various picturesque ways. The merker was not discomposed. His light colored eyes remained fastened on me. In his life, I suppose, he was accustomed to delivering messages that would evoke all manner of violent responses in their recipients.

“I think, Notor, both.”

I looked at him.

“Your name, merker?”

“If it please you, Notor, I am called Chan of the Wings.”

I nodded to him. I knew a messenger did not receive the appellation of the Wings lightly.

“The Pallan Coper sent you, I know. Therefore you must be a good man. Is there any other news?”

He had no need to hesitate. “Whatever was the news before, Notor, your victory here today will change everything. Now, perhaps, the food will flow more freely.” Then, with a great deal of meaning, he added,

“The king will be pleased.”

Kytun said, somewhat coarsely, “And the king had better think what best to be done about Chuktar Kolanier! He was completely caught by the wiles of those Opaz-forsaken Gorgrens.”

“Like Marshal Grouchy,” I said, but softly, for they could not understand that reference. Then, with a simple directness that took the wind out of my sails, for one, the merker Chan of the Wings, committed himself — and others, besides.

“I am privy to many secrets, Notor. I and my fellow merkers — and we are a not insignificant khand -

have been saved from despair by you and your army and your determination to save the country. These things we know, for we carry them. We are sworn to secrecy, but we know.” By khand he meant the merker’s guild, or caste, or brotherhood. They were small in number but, by reason of their calling, influential. A good merker is a great jewel in any man’s retinue. “We declare for you, Notor Prescot, as king. Take the throne, and we are with you.”

A murmur broke out from my officers. This, as far as they were concerned, was the first anyone had said of Notor Prescot, the Lord of Strombor — who was apim! — ascending the faerling throne in the sacred court of the warrior gods.

I sensed the hand of Pallan Coper in this. The old fox! He wanted someone he could trust on the throne, but he sure as the hot springs in the ice floes wasn’t going to sit on that hot seat himself!

It was left to Kytun to spring up, waving wildly, and knock the tent completely over so that his bellow rang out between the mountains, echoing back and forth: “Aye! Notor Prescot, Lord of Strombor! King of Djanduin!”