Delia of Vallia (22 page)

Sissy, hand to mouth, face green as Genodras, watched. The girl’s eyes rounded into enormous terror.

Delia tied up the Battle Maiden herself.

“Now, Sissy, you know nothing of all this. You will not tell anyone, not Nath, not anyone. If you do, I shall come back and cut off your head.”

Sissy started to cry.

Delia resisted the impulse to put her arm around the girl’s shoulder and chide her for a silly goose. She looked very fierce, said, “Remember, Sissy, your head!” and marched out.

The helmet was of that curved pattern that both allowed freedom of movement of the neck and shielded the cheeks. Delia’s face was, therefore, partly shadowed. She tilted the helmet forward. She marched with a swing, just like any of your battle-hardened Jikai Vuvushis. She stared with utter contempt and loathing upon Limi who was creeping along carrying a linen-covered bowl. Limi shrank away. Delia strode on.

Sissy ran out after her, distraught, and then raced off in the other direction. If the girl had any sense she’d have stuffed the Battle Maiden under the bed first. And, if Sissy babbled out her news — why, then, that would mean that Delia would have to start fighting in real earnest. Somehow her blood was up. Somehow she was invigorated. And, she told herself sternly, that could not be just because she was concerned about someone other than herself, could it? That was to admit to a silly kind of perverse self-love.

Making her way to the Lud Tower at this time of evening when some of the torches were lit and others were not was not overly difficult. No wonder she’d not discovered what existed inside the fourth tower. The ward rang hollow under her Battle Maiden’s sandals with the iron studs. Her equipment clanked. That wouldn’t do for any regiment Delia commanded. A guard stood at the lower doorway. The torch was lit and helped by contributing its quota of shadows to conceal her face.

“What do you want, dom?” inquired the guard in an unfriendly voice.

“Why, dom — nothing that concerns you—” The blow was swift, unexpected, and hard. The girl collapsed. Delia dragged her into the shadows inside the doorway and then started up the stairs. The place stank of damp and dust and disuse. Nyleen hadn’t as yet gotten around to redecorating in here, then.

The kovneva was very sure of the kov. There remained only two more guards and a couple of werstings on the second landing.

The guards, being human, could be knocked out without trouble. The werstings presented a more formidable obstacle...

The black and white striped hunting dogs snarled at her, exposing yellow fangs. Their tongues lolled. They were chained through slots in the wall so that she could not pass without putting herself within their range. Their fangs had not been blunted. She took out the Jikai Vuvushi’s terchick, hefted the little throwing knife, hurled. Even as the first wersting yowled at the steel sliver in his neck, trying to bite and scrape it off, so the long slender steel of the rapier slid into his mate. Feeling disgusted, Delia stepped back.

With the blood-stained brand in her fist she ascended the last flight of stairs and pushed open the door at the top.

In the dimness she could see little apart from a vague rectangle of radiance from a door in the room’s far wall. Something moved, and a trembling voice said: “Majestrix!”

“Quiet,” said Delia.

A chain clanked. The voice said: “I would give you the full incline, majestrix, but these cramphs have chained me up.”

He spoke in a low voice, heeding her injunction to be quiet. Evidently, he knew her. She said: “Kov Vomanus?”

“In the inner room, majestrix. I fear he is near death.”

She went in, kicked over a stool, peered about. Her eyes could make out objects better now. The man was, indeed, chained. His straw pallet was filthy. A few scraps of bread in a wooden platter looked stale. His hair stood up in spikes.

The far door beckoned her. But she paused to say: “You are?”

“Larghos Ventil, majestrix. I serve the kov—”

“Yes. I will see what I can do for you.”

She went through into the far room. She put a hand to her nose instantly, gagging.

The light from the arrow-slit fell across the haggard face. Vomanus did, dreadfully, look close to death. She held herself within herself. Sickness... Suffering... Disease! How she loathed all this ghastly business!

“Delia?” The fluttery voice barely stirred the stifling air. “Delia?”

“Yes, Vom. It’s me. I’m taking you out of all this.”

“Yes, but — Nyleen—?”

“Do not fret.”

Vomanus looked as though he might be in the process of being starved to death. That would be like the dark revengeful soul of Nyleen. He tried to rise, and she shushed him, and turned back to the outer room.

“Larghos — the keys?”

“The guard, majestrix — with the werstings.”

“Yes. And do not call me majestrix, as you love your life. If you must, call me Sishu.”

“Yes, my lady, yes, Sishu.”

She went out and down the stairs, the rapier held just so and ready to rip into the throat of anyone attacking her up the stone stairs. The guards still slumbered. The werstings looked pathetic, slumped in their own blood. She tapped the two guards again, just to make sure, wondering when the guard Deldar would come by to change the sentries, snatched the keys off the uglier girl’s keyring and darted back up.

She had been gone a bare score of heartbeats, but already Vomanus was querulously demanding where Delia was.

“Hush, Vom. I’m here.” She threw the keys at Larghos Ventil and went through to bend over her half-brother.

“Nyleen,” he said. “She tricked me. I thought she was—”

“Yes. Where are your clothes?” Then, berating herself, she looked. The clothes, splendid wedding gowns, lay bundled in a chest. She dragged them out and then Larghos was with her and they began to dress Vomanus. He was wasted to skin and bone.

“Nyleen is a wicked woman,” he babbled. “She is mad, quite makib. She plans to be empress of Vallia.”

“Yes, yes, Vomanus, my dear. Put your arm through here. Larghos! Do up those laces! Hurry!”

“Yes, Sishu.”

“She plans to kill you, Delia. Kill you!”

“I know.”

“She sent the wedding invitations, all smiling, and she waited to kill you and you didn’t come. I was glad.”

“How did she manage to bring you to this?”

He shivered.

“Fiacola the Gaze... Sorcery!” He glared up, and reached out a withered arm to grasp at her dangling pteruges. “Witchery!”

“If you don’t let go I can’t dress — there, that’s better. Larghos, a blanket! And how was she to be empress?”

“Why, she plans to marry the emperor. Then, she will kill him, too. She and her brother—”

“Kill the emperor!”

And then Delia saw the comic side of that. “
Marry
the emperor!”

“When you are dead.”

“Well,” said Delia, Empress of Vallia, lifting the shriveled form of her half-brother off the bed. “Well, we will see about that!”

“Oh, she will marry him. Her witch is strong. I — I—”

“Yes. Now keep quiet. If there is any fighting to do I shall have to drop you.”

“Sishu? Should not I carry the kov?”

She laughed. A small gurgle in the dimness. “So that I can do the fighting myself? Unimpeded? Why, Larghos Ventil, I was hoping you would help with the fighting.”

“Yes, majes — yes, Sishu.”

Down the stairs they went. “Give those two another tap, Larghos. Do not kill them.”

He picked up the girls’ abandoned weaponry, and tapped them, and then crept on. The guard at the bottom still slumbered, for Delia had dealt with her more severely, but Larghos tapped her, just to make sure. A big fuzzy pink moon floated above, the Maiden with the Many Smiles, and this did not please Delia. The overpowering scent of moon blooms reached her, strong on the night air. Sounds of the usual fortress business floated up; there were no shouts of alarm.

She started off for the tricky business of penetrating back to the yard and Larghos said: “The stables are this way.”

She stopped. Of course there would be other stables. She said nothing, but followed Larghos as he led off in the opposite direction, skirting the tower, heading for the far corner where the stone walls ended jaggedly and the new wooden ramparts joined. In the angle stood a small door. At the side leaned sheds. A zorca stamped his hooves and blew.

There was one zorca.

Delia let fall an unladylike remark.

A girl slave passed carrying a bucket. The moon shone. The moon blooms drowned the night in perfume. And there was one zorca.

The girl slave vanished around the corner. Delia lifted Vomanus into the zorca’s saddle which Larghos, with practiced skill, had already cinched up. The saddle animal was a splendid example, belonging to the guard on perimeter patrol, and, like all zorcas, was so close-coupled as to make riding two up difficult. With a little give and take and a squash it could be done. She had felt the strength flowing in her arms and back and thighs when she’d lifted her half-brother. He would have to go, of course. But she could scarcely ride off and leave Larghos Ventil. She could do so, of course, and he would understand and accept the proprieties of her decision. For she was the empress. And that was the kind of thing empresses did.

Delia was not and never could be your ordinary mundane kind of empress. If she wanted to do something and it didn’t hurt anybody else, she’d damn well do it. If it didn’t discommode them too much, she’d do it... But in this...?

Torchlights blazed up from the darkness. Through the gateway separating this ward from the next, lurid light flickered. Orange highlights bounced on the stonework of the tower. Shouts raised, heavy angry bellowings. The heavy beat of war-sandals cracked out, iron studs ringing against flagstones.

“Up with you, Larghos. Hold the kov firmly.”

“But, majestrix! Sishu!”

“Up, man! Hurry.”

“But I cannot leave the empress—”

“Do as you are commanded. Escape and fetch help. Now, Larghos, when I open the gate, ride as though your hide depended on it. For by Vox, believe me, it does!”

“Quidang!”

The wooden gate opened easily enough and the faint squeal vanished in the increasing uproar beyond the other gate. Larghos bent his head, Delia gave the zorca the subtlest of taps, and the superb animal, responding, leaped through. Delia swung the wood closed. No time to lean against it for a gulp of air and a moment’s respite. Truth to tell, she doubted if she could have brought Vomanus safely through to the other stables in his condition. Larghos would care for Vomanus, stop him from falling off, and, the sooner the better, return with help.

By that time Delia planned to be long gone. Her confidence nerved her; she trusted in herself for a very long way, but what others might never see or suspect in her she was very well aware of herself. Her confidence and self-assurance were frighteningly thin. Her nerves had been scraped raw. By Krun! — all she had to do now was get across to the stables and select a mount and ride off. That was all.

She suspected she had just about enough courage left for that.

Through the open gateway ruddy light flared, like the single enormous eye of some diabolical pagan idol drowned in the jungles of Chem. Two guards catapulted through, to land with twin crashes on the flags. Furious bellowings reached her. The coruscating lights of the torches reflected in whirling radiance from the weathered stones of the tower. Iron studs gonged against the flagstones, and guards appeared. The two who had been thrown through staggered up. The group hesitated, and then with naked steel turned.

Clutching her bloody rapier, Delia peered about into the shadows, desperately seeking a place to hide.

Chapter eighteen

The Artistry of a Sword Mistress

Hunkering in the shadows next to a shed that contained something unmentionable — something best left undisturbed judging by the smell — Delia glared out into the ward. Torchlights cast ominous flashes and gleams of fire. Silhouetted and animate, the guards gathered themselves. Evidently a new coffle of slaves had just come in and someone retained spirit enough to resist. More than one slave was being loaded with extra chains and bashed over the head in the next ward. Delia had to cross that space and then get past the kitchens to the stables. Setting themselves, the slave handlers rushed back through the archway and the noise increased.

Delia glared. She glared in a veritable passion of frustration and sheer bad temper.

By Vox! By Krun! By Dee Sheon! By all the gods and goddesses and spirits of Kregen! Just when she’d got Vomanus away and at last — at long damned last — things were going reasonably well and she could envisage herself astride a zorca and speeding away, this maniacal crew of idiots had to come shouting and scattering torchlight and whipping on packs of yowling werstings.

As a man she knew might have said, it was enough to make her throw her hat on the ground and jump on it, by Zair!

The rumpus and the lights drew back from the archway. She waited, seething, feeling her temper boiling up and scalding away her doubts and uncertainties.

She could remember her mother in her strict yet loving way saying: “Now, Dilly, you will say you are sorry to Opaz every time you lose your temper, and no sweets for a week.”

This pack of rasts here in Veliganda led by Nyleen and Cranchar were like to have her off sweets for the rest of her life.

Her mother used to call her Dilly. That was a long time ago. At least Vomanus had called her Delia, even if, so distressed she had been, she’d called him Vom. They were the affectionate names of their youth.

If her mother had married her father first, instead of Vomanus’s father, then young Vom would have grown up to be emperor. That would have saved a very very great deal of grief for her and for the hairy clansman she had wed.

The snarling racket of leashed werstings made her react. By Krun! She felt invigorated, the action driving the blood through her. She felt capable of anything. At first, she had guessed the alarm to be raised because a sentry on the battlements had spotted Vomanus and Larghos riding off astride their zorca. Then she had fancied it must be because missing sentries had been found. But the torchlight, spilling in through the gateway and bouncing in lurid reflections from the stone of the tower, remained stationary. It did not advance menacingly. And the snarling growls of the werstings spat no nearer.