Under the Green Star

Chapter 18 INTIMATIONS OF WAIL

Since guards get no sleep during the hours of their duty, save for a harmless bit of dozing, they are generally relieved of all duties for the following day and are permitted to sleep then, if they wish.

Thus, just about the time Niamh was rising, I was going to bed. I told her of the incident of the knife in the dark and how I had managed to pry loose from my branch an unknown creature, which had fallen, squalling loudly, crashing down to thump against the branch below. Shaking with laughter, I also related how poor Sligon had limped so painfully all the way home.

The princess did not seem to find my story very amusing, although she smiled wanly. But her brow soon clouded with worry.

“Should you not tell someone—Yurgon, perhaps? If this goes unreported, will not this Sligon make another attempt on your life?” she asked. I shook my head.

“I do not think so,” I said. “I rather imagine little Sligon received punishment enough in his fall. I doubt if he will try the same trick twice in a row; and, anyway, there is little he can do against us. Of course, I shall remain on my guard. The only thing we must be careful about is to see to it that he does not come skulking around spying upon us, for were he to discover that I am the Lord Chong and that you are the Princess Niamh of Phaolon, then he would have an excellent weapon to use against us—”

I broke off suddenly, for just as I had uttered those fateful words a hiss of indrawn breath came to my ears.

Had someone been lurking outside our cubicle, listening to our words?

In a flash I drew the curtains aside and sprang out into the hall. But there was no one there; no one at all.

But just vanishing through a doorway I glimpsed a black shape. Was it only my imagination, or did that dark figure have a hunched back and did it walk with the sidling motion of a crab?

The skin prickled at the nape of my neck, under my unshorn warrior’s mane. Had the black figure limped painfully on a twisted leg? Had it been Sligon, there, beyond the curtains while we talked? And had the spiteful little thief overheard when I had been so careless as to utter Niamh’s name aloud?

I stood there helplessly, clenching and unclenching my fists in an agony of indecision, uncertain whether or not I should plunge after that figure, now vanished. Just then my friend Kaorn strode past, yawning sleepily. I grabbed the boy’s arm.

“Lad, where is Sligon? Have you seen aught of him?” I demanded urgently.

“Not I,” the youth said in a puzzled tone. “He’s asleep, I guess—as both you and I should be. Why do you ask?”

“Oh—nothing,” I said shortly. Then, clapping him on the shoulder, I returned to my bed.

But I did not sleep. Long after Niamh left to go about her kitchen duties, I tossed and turned restlessly, wondering if it had been Sligon listening beyond the curtain; and, if it had been him, had he heard when I spoke Niamh’s name?

Eventually, exhaustion took dominance over my worries, and I slept. But my dreams were dark and troubled ones, nightmares through which a hunched shape shambled monstrously, its leering eyes aflame with a dreadful secret.

Events came to a head that very evening. But first came a surprising event that none of us could have foretold.

While night guards spent their tour perched in tiny crow’s nests aloft in the giant trees, Siona’s daytime guards combed the vicinity by air, mounted on the beautiful, gigantic dragonflies the Laonese call zaiph. Toward late afternoon, one of these far-flung scouts returned with an astonishing message.

During his flight he had observed a party in the black-and-yellow livery of the city of Ardha traveling under a flag of truce. These envoys of Akhmim bore a message from the tyrant-lord of that realm to none other but Siona herself! What this message was, they refused to divulge to any but the girl-leader of the outlaw band, and for this purpose they desired safe-conduct into the very lair of the foresters.

“Admit ambassadors of an enemy kingdom to visit us here in the Secret City?” Siona repeated in tones of amazement and disbelief. “They must be mad to think we would permit them to learn the key of our hiding place!”

“On the other hand,” said Yurgon thoughtfully, “it would do no harm to find out what it is they desire of us. They could be carefully blindfolded and flown here by a roundabout route, thus remaining in ignorance of the location of our encampment …”

Siona thought it over, rubbing her small, stubborn chin with thoughtful, musing fingers.

“Well, there is something in what you say. Doubtless there is profit in it, whatever it is the folk of Ardha require of us … and it has been too long since you lazy rogues have surprised a merchant caravan out of their gems and plump purses! Yurgon, see to it. I leave the protective measures to your devise … we will meet with these envoys here tonight in the great hall.”

Listening at my side, Niamh shivered suddenly, and dug her fingers into the flesh of my arm.

Looking back on the scene from the vantage point of time, I wonder if she had some premonition of the dreadful doom that was about to befall both of us.

Night fell, black as pitch; and it was not until an hour after darkness came down on the World of the Green Star that the envoys of Akhmim of Ardha were conducted into the secret Secret City, as the forest outlaws termed their hidden base.

Yurgon had decided to wait until darkness for added security, for he did not trust the unscrupulous wiles of the Ardhanese envoy. The outlaws were considered the foes of every city, and it was not impossible for a blindfold to slip. But by conducting the party of ambassadors here under cover of night, Yurgon made it doubly certain that the position of the outlaw camp would remain unknown to their yellow-robed enemies.

I felt curiously glad that I had the day off, due to my guard duty the previous night; for thus it would be impossible for Yurgon to have selected me to be one of the guards assigned to accompany the envoys hither by a circuitous route.

Not that it was very likely that any of the envoys could have recognized me—although several high lords of Ardha had accompanied the tyrant-prince to the court of Phaolon on the day of my revivification, and the envoys might just possibly have been among them. At any rate, we all awaited the arrival of the embassy with high curiosity and not a little suspense.

The scene was to be the great hall of the outlaw stronghold. The fire in the circular pit had been heaped high with dry fuel and the flames leaped halfway to the smoke-blackened rafters far overhead, casting a brilliant orange light across the huge room. The tables and benches had been cleared away, and the entire strength of the outlaw band was assembled to hear the words of the envoy. Or almost the entire strength, for the clever queen of the foresters did not overlook the possibility of duplicity. A war party might be lying hidden, waiting to follow the blindfolded ambassadors back to the Secret City and take it by surprise. So on this night of nights, Siona had commanded tall, gray-bearded Phryne, who had that night’s guard captaincy, to triple his men, employing far-flung and seldom-used stations. And all in the great room had weapons to hand, ready to leap to the defense of their hidden lair should it be attacked.

Siona, decked in war gear, sat on the dais in the great carved throne-like chair that had been her father’s. For this rare occasion the Amazon girl wore breast-cups of beaten gold over hard copper, an abbreviated skirt of leather straps studded with small metal plates, and a barbaric headdress of gold and violet plumes. Gold bangles flashed on her strong wrists; gold bands encircled her tanned bare arms; and a gold-hilted dagger was slung about her slim waist. She looked every inch a queen, and I could not help admiring her openly, much to Niamh’s obvious annoyance.

As for Siona, she never once looked in my direction. She had avoided the great hall of the stronghold since the night of our argument, and had taken her meals in her own apartments; on the occasions when she could not avoid my company, she had ignored me with a stony reserve that continued to baffle me.

A trumpeter beyond the hall set his horn to his lips and music rang out in a signal that denoted the arrival of the envoys from Ardha. Even now their cockleshell chariot was settling to the level branch before the hall and the gorgeous wings of immense zaiph were fluttering to stillness.

The doors were flung open; Yurgon appeared, guiding the blindfolded envoys past the screens and curtains that were erected before the outer door every nightfall, to keep any trace of light from betraying the location of the encampment.

Yurgon led the envoys into the center of the hall until they stood before Siona’s throne. Then they were unmasked and their wrists, which had been bound with thongs, were freed. They blinked about them in the orange light-soft, fleshy men with pendulous chins and wobbling paunches, eyes sharp and observant and shrewd in their soft, plump faces. They wore cumbersome robes of yellow cloth adorned with beads of sparkling jet.

Observing Siona seated proudly on her wooden throne, the envoys bowed profoundly in a humble obeisance. The huntress told them to arise and state their business.

“Beauteous and regal lady,” began the fattest of the three in an unctuous voice so suave it virtually dripped with oil, “the Great Prince, my master, has bid this lowly one set before you these precious gifts in homage to your legendary loveliness, and in token of our future alliance of mutual profit and assistance.”

At his lordly gesture, one of the lesser envoys stepped forward and placed a small chest on the steps which led up to the dais. He bowed himself backward, rejoining his fellows; Yurgon pushed open the casket with the point of his sword and the lid fell backward, revealing a mass of flashing gems that glittered and dazzled in the bold firelight.

“Very pretty,” Siona remarked in a cool, disinterested voice. The fat envoy smirked obsequiously.

“In the words of my master, beauty deserves beautiful things,” he said.

“The Tyrant of Ardha is noted for many qualities,” Siona observed, “but generosity is not among them. You spoke of ‘future alliance’—hence I must consider these gifts not merely as gifts, but in the nature of payment for some service. What service might that be?”

The envoy beamed. “Beauty, virtue, wit, and intelligence—combined in one!” he enthused. “What penetration! Admirable! Quite admirable!”

“An end to these compliments,” the Amazon girl said sharply. “You are here, I take it, to discuss business; very well, then, what business? These trinkets and bright baubles are advance payment for some service; well, what service? Get down to it, man!”

He bowed low.

“As you wish, beauteous lady! Relations have long been strained between the realm of my master and the city of Phaolon. Conditions have deteriorated to the point at which amicable discourse has been severed. The Great Prince has no other recourse for the settling of his grievances but to move in force against the Jewel City—”

Siona straightened, eyes flashing with some strange emotion.

“So that’s it,” she murmured. “—War.”

Standing beside me in the shadows, Niamh sucked in her breath with a gasp and again her fingers tightened upon my arm.

“—War!” she echoed in a tense whisper.