Captive Scorpio (27 page)

She looked gorgeous in her russet leathers, strapped about with rapier and dagger, striding limber and free, her brown hair magnificent under the suns. After she had embraced me she said: “Dayra?”

I touched my scratched face reflectively; but the gesture meant nothing to Delia. She regarded me gravely.

“I have seen her, my love. She is well. But there is a very great deal to tell. Can you not persuade your father, the stubborn old onker, to abandon the palace and fly to safety?”

“I will speak to him. But he never forgets he is the emperor.”

“Not any more he isn’t.”

Greeting the Lord Farris kindly, for he was a great-hearted man, I broke the news of Queen Lush’s personal tragedy. Delia touched her lips, lightly, and looked down.

“I felt she was a bad influence — many of us did. But this — will she live long?”

“Not long, I judge. She looks as though she is passed two hundred and fifty years old.”

Delia shivered.

The emperor greeted his daughter, and was polite to Farris, which amused me. The old devil tried to make amends.

It was useless to look for relief. We could expect no succor in the shape of an aerial armada. From Valka was only silence. Delia said that Delphond slumbered, which did not surprise me. As for the Blue Mountains — when I told her the news her brows drew down and her eyes took on that dangerous look that indicated someone was in for it in the neck. But nothing could be done there. And Strombor — well, we faced an army of Hamalese, plus the multitudes of irregulars and the factions, all whipped into frenzy by false stories, rumors, bitter animosities fanned by Phu-si-Yantong. We were isolated.

“The Empress Thyllis has prepared long for this,” said the emperor. “She takes her revenge upon us Vallians.” He rubbed his fingers together, absently, and then gripped his rapier hilt. “If only the queen were in full health, blooming like a rose — if only she were herself.”

So, looking at Delia, I said: “She might be — it may be possible.”

Delia shook her head; but her father rounded on me.

“Well? What mean you? Spit it out!”

“I promise nothing. But—” I tried to look at Delia; but she would not meet my eye. “I must go to my Valkan villa here in the city. When I return, we will see what may be done.”

“Dray—” said Delia.

“I know,” I said. “But even though I am an onker of onkers, it was you who made me go down into the pit — and more than once — to bring the famblys out.”

“I remember.”

“You cannot venture into the city, prince,” said Farris. “The place swarms with looters and rioters, and Hamalians putting them down. Anyone out there —
everyone
out there — is a foe.”

“I’ll fly.” I made up my mind. “And I’ll use your flier, Jen Farris. The one I stole from Udo is a fine craft and will serve the emperor.”

Before I left I took Delia aside. “Look, my heart. Make sure your father does nothing foolish while I am gone. I have warned him, and I think he understands. The flier is a good one and will carry you and him, as well as Farris, if a little cramped—”

“And you!”

“Oh, aye. I’ll be back. Count on that.”

The flier carried me sluggishly over doomed Vondium. For the most part the place was deserted, with stray bands of looters and rioters thieving and burning and parties of Hamalian soldiery attempting to preserve the city — to preserve it for Yantong. That truly mighty city, once proud and sublime in its confidence, lay now enthralled under the cloak of oppression. No vollers offered to stop my progress and I began to think that the absence of Hamalian skyships indicated they might be engaged somewhere over Vallia in a last supreme struggle with the Vallian Air Service. Farris would rage that he was denied that final proof of his devotion to his Air Service.

The Valkan villa was abandoned but I guessed its unkempt appearance had deterred looters. Going through those dusty halls and corridors gave me a shivery feeling; I remembered the circumstances of my last departure from here. That was prophetic; too late to realize that now. The keys were in the wall niche and the iron-bound chest opened easily and disgorged household linen and the scuffed old water bottle. This I fastened securely to my harness.

The dusty smell of the villa would have depressed me but there was no time for self-indulgence of that sort. Once we’d put Queen Lush to rights I’d make the emperor take the flier and leave Vondium. The little craft would take him and the queen as well as Delia and Farris. . . As to whether or not I would go I was not decided. To be a wanderer on the face of Kregen, hunted, outlawed, whose destruction was avidly sought by powerful and greedy men, cruel in their strength, this was a fate of the most profound abhorrence. I fancied I knew what Delia would say.

All the animals of the villa had been released and I assumed Shadow had trotted off with them. I felt the strongest presentiment that I had not seen the last of that superb zorca. My thoughts rattled on as I sprinted across the open space for the flier. My splendid enclave of Strombor in the city of Zenicce lay to the eastward on the coast of the continent of Segesthes. There the emperor and the queen might recuperate while Delia and I planned our next steps. We could gather the exiles. There were still men loyal. Lord Farris was one. Even Lykon Crimahan, despite the malice he felt toward me, was loyal. Maybe, now we had lost our estates in Vallia, much of his resentment of me would be finished, for he had his evil eyes on Veliadrin — along with plenty of other nobles of the eastern coast.

The voller took off sweetly enough and carried me perhaps half an ulm toward the palace. Then she went into a steep nose dive and only luck and a thick skull saved me. I went pitching out and into a canal, splashing, spouting water, flailing for the bank. The flier sank with a bubbling gurgle. From now on the journey back would be on foot. Well, on my own two feet I have tramped a fair old bit of Kregen.

I set off, and I loosened the longsword in the scabbard. The way was barred in a couple of places by the detritus of fallen buildings. Naghan the Mask’s fine new theatre had been gutted, I was sorry to see. The temples looked unscathed. A party of looters tried to loot my equipment; but half a dozen of them having lost blood and other inward essentials, the rest ran off shrieking.

An arrow past my ear heralded the attempt of the Hamalese army to detain me. But there were only ten of them, a strong audo, a section or so, and after three casts of my Lohvian longbow the others decided in prosaic military formula to retire to reform and seek fresh orders. They were wise — the seven who thus lived.

The going became a trifle tougher as I neared the palace and ran into the rear echelons of the besieging forces. There are usually ten audos in a pastang, ten sections in a company, and the Hamalese, notorious for the severity of their laws, organize tightly. Crouching down by a brick wall I stared out at the backs of the Hamalese. The swods and their officers moved about with the sure confidence of men approaching victory in their own time. They kept busy. I saw the glitter of their helmets and weapons, the panoply of their appearance, the square shapes of their shields. I chose my point with some care.

A pretty little flower-bowered bridge spanned a canal ahead and the Hamalese swod set to guard it hefted his stux, the throwing spear, at the poise. He whistled a cheerful little ditty I had heard many times in Hamal:
When the fluttrell flirts his wing
, and there was no passing him without question.

A fight would alert his comrades. So taking up the refrain at the point where the fluttrell flyer, discovering the buckles of his clerketer have parted and the saddle is sliding down the big bird’s back, claps his hands over his eyes — always raises a laugh, does that, among flyers — I marched up with a swing. The swod eyed me and the stux lifted. He could punch a hole in a kax with that, at close enough range.

He shouted:
“Llanitch!
Halt! Stand you still, dom.”

His shield bore the painted devices of the Twenty-ninth Regiment of Foot. I waved a friendly arm and bellowed: “Where away are the Fifteenth of Foot, dom? By Krun! This place confuses me even more than Ruathytu. What I’d give to be strolling through the Ghat Gate to the Jikhorkdun of the Swods.”

At my familiar mention of places in Ruathytu he eased up. He should not have done so, of course. I reached him, still chattering on about Ruathytu, capital of Hamal, which I then knew better than Vondium, mentioning certain lively and low dopa dens, and smilingly took his throat in my hand and choked — only a little. I held him upright and propped him against the flower-drenched bricks of the bridge. I leaned his stux against his lorica. With a merry quip about the sylvies at The Stux and Mirvol, I saluted him and tromped on, turning down by the canal, and after a scything glance showed none of the swods cared about me, ducking down into a hedgerow of a private garden. The hedge let me through, not without a scrape or two, and I belted across the lawn and so through the house. Using houses and gardens I worked my way up the avenue, having passed into the engaged zone of the enemy.

No one had taken alarm. That swod would recover with a sore throat. His Deldar would scream at him; what his Hikdar would say would flay him; and when the Jiktar commanding his regiment spoke to him — well, I felt sorry for the swod, believe me.

Pressing on toward the palace, darting across side roads, crossing canals and all the time keeping out of sight, I wormed close to the edge of the great kyro. A few murs more. . .

Three Hamalian reconnaissance vollers flew over the palace in wedge formation. They kept their eyes on us from time to time. From a propped-up varter a couple of bolts were let fly from the battlements. The Hamalians, trailing bright flags, flew on unconcerned.

They disappeared beyond the jumble of rooftops and another voller leaped up from the palace. Crouching down, I looked up and recognized her as the craft I had stolen from Udo. She swung away, going fast. Before she had time to gain height the Hamalians were back. The three closed in. Bolts flew and arrows crisscrossed the wind-streaming gap. The fliers turned and passed above my head. I saw the Hamalians clear — and saw the way the fleeing voller from the palace turned end over end and fell to a smashing destruction on the stones before the palace.

Twenty

Delia of Vallia

In the ensuing confusion as the soldiery boiled across to gape at the wreckage and the blood-soaked refuse within I was able to slip past. Of one thing I was certain. Whoever may have been in the flier, Delia was not one of that company. A Chulik offered to bash my brains out at the rampart until I rapped out the password. “Zamra!” I had chosen that. The confusion without was matched and overmatched by the confusion within.

“Dray! You have it?” Delia ran up to me, eager, alive, ready to let me have an earful for endangering myself. I shook the water bottle.

Together, we went to the small private inner room where Queen Lush lay on a pallet, panting shallowly, withering away. The emperor sat by her side, frightened even to hold her hand in case the brittle bones snapped.

The men in the fleeing voller were three certain pallans. I will not mention their names. They came to an evil end.

But they indicated very clearly the deterioration of morale within the palace. And, the means of flight had been snatched from the emperor. Delia bent over Queen Lush as I thought about the implications. Vondium was decidedly unhealthy right now and was like to get worse.

The fliers we saw did not drop firepots on us. Phu-si-Yantong did not wish to destroy the palace. He coveted its priceless treasures. Of course, he could have razed the lot and built afresh and to a greater scale of grandeur; but that would not have slaked the greed in the man, of that I felt sure.

“Water?” said the emperor. “Is that all—?”

“Hush, father,” said Delia, whereat I smiled alarmingly.

The withered brown lips were somehow coaxed into receiving some of the milky fluid from the Sacred Pool of Baptism of the River Zelph in far Aphrasöe. Delia poured a golden cupful, and we helped Queen Lush to lift herself, and Delia coaxed her gently. The crone moaned and slobbered and much of the priceless fluid ran down that withered witch-like chin.

“How much, my heart, do you think?”

“I do not know. But Yantong is a mighty powerful devil of a wizard. Give her plenty. Better more than less.”

“You are right.” Together we fed the magical fluid, sip by sip.

The emperor rocked back. He was shaking. His eyes opened wide. “By the sweet sake of Opaz!”

“Yes, father,” said Delia, impatiently, “and don’t jog the cup. You have wasted two mouthfuls.”

For Queen Lushfymi changed. The lines and wrinkles sloughed away and her skin took on that smooth peach bloom. Dark tint suffused the stringy white hair; slowly it resumed that lustrous darkness that shone with blue-black light. Her body filled, her shrunken flesh restoring that voluptuous outline, the skeletal claws firming to the shapely hands with which she gestured so gracefully. In not too long a time Queen Lush glowed seductively before us, fully restored to beauty.

“My love—” She turned those limpid violet eyes on the emperor. Delia blinked and smiled. “How can I thank you? You have made me — made me myself again—”

“It was not me, my queen. Rather, thank the wild leem Dray Prescot — and my daughter Delia.”

She took Delia’s hand in hers. The reconciliation would have been most affecting; but the sound of conflict and shouting and the screams of wounded and dying men burst savagely in. I stood up.

“There is work to be done — but, emperor, we’re finished here. You must discharge the mercenaries in honor and then we must leave.”

“There is no airboat—”

“I shall arrange that.”

He stood up and faced me. We stood looking at each other for a heartbeat. Kov Lykon and the Lord Farris — who was a kov, also — burst in. “The devils are through the Peral Gate! We must pull back—”

“I am coming,” I said. “We will hold them at the Wall of Larghos Risslaca.” That was dangerously close to the very heart of the palace.