Delia of Vallia (27 page)
She rushed at him, foaming, the dagger lifted. She struck wildly at his head. He moved his head sideways and the dagger gouged into the wood of the stake and stuck, lodged fast.
Nyleen pushed in against the chained man whose two arms were viciously chained around the back of the stake and whose legs were chained all the way from thigh to foot. She reached up past his head for the dagger. The next time she would not miss.
She reached up, her body straining in the silks and tissues, looped with gems. She remained there. She lifted a little onto her toes. Dalki’s arms, chained around the back of the stake, quivered with some intense exertion. Nyleen did not reach farther for the dagger, did not move, just stood there on tiptoe, pressed against Dalki.
Delia saw the Djang’s face. He was not a real Djang, for he had but the two normal arms; but he thought and acted like a Djang. That face was compressed with effort, the eyeballs starting, the veins throbbing in the forehead, the mouth clamped and white with strain. Sweat rolled down Dalki’s Djang face.
And the kovneva remained on tiptoe, pressed against him.
The women began to fidget, to call out. Ilka left the body of the witch and walked down the line of tables. The werstings snuffled and yowled. Jikai Vuvushis began to chatter among themselves. Some looked around in a bewildered way, as though wondering where they were.
And, still, Nyleen, Kovneva of Vindelka, remained unmoving on tiptoe, straining against Dalki.
Delia saw an odd movement at the kovneva’s neck.
Something lifted there, like a collar, lifted and withdrew.
Nyleen fell.
She collapsed and sprawled to the floor.
Ilka reached her, bent, looked, turned and screamed: “
The kovneva is dead!
”
Jilian said, “And about time too. I am ready to throw off my chains, Delia.”
“And I.”
Delia, about to discard the chains that the inattentive guards had allowed to loosen, steadied herself. Just before she broke loose she looked not at Nyleen, dead upon the floor; but at Dalki. She saw.
His father was a Djang, no matter that his mother had been apim. Dwadjangs have four arms. Dalki, too, had four arms. But the second pair of arms were truncated, tiny, as long only as half a forearm each. But the hands were broad and powerful. Those hands withdrew into the rents in his tunic. They might have looked pathetic, muscular hands that could only just touch each other across his chest. They might have done. But those hands had taken Nyleen’s throat between them and choked her out of this world.
Dalki had worked on his chains with those hidden hands, and now he stepped free and raced for his father as Delia and Jilian cast down their chains and raged out. Jilian’s Claw went on in a twinkling. Her rapier licked out. Delia found the first rapier to hand, for the guard would no longer require the blade, and the two girls ranged shoulder to shoulder.
Not a single woman in the refectory would care to challenge one of them. Now there were two...
“This will be a bonny fight,” said Jilian. “If we are lucky it might be dubbed a Jikai.”
“It is nice,” said Delia in her decisive way, “to have friends.”
There was little need to spell out to Jilian what Nyleen had intended. She made no further attempt to explain away her conduct. There was no explanation this side of the black arts.
Delia said, “Now the witch and Nyleen are gone, I think these poor fools will come to their senses. I hope so. I would like to avoid more fighting.”
“So would I,” said Jilian, making her Claw catch the lights of the torches and splinter back silver stars from each razored talon. “So I dearly would. But someone has warned that cramph Cranchar. Here he comes.”
The doors burst open, and Cranchar and his henchmen rushed in, brandishing weapons, roaring for the devils who had slain Fiacola the Gaze.
Over the uproar, Delia called: “Cranchar! See to your sister.”
He saw the limp gaudy form, cradled in Ilka’s arms. His face bludgeoned. He stood stock still. He put the gauntleted hand gripping his sword to his forehead. In a low mad voice, he said: “Then are you all dead. Dead!”
“No!” shouted Nath the Muncible, striding forward with Sissy defiant and yet palpitating at his side. “There has been death enough to warm the Ice Floes of Sicce with spilled blood.”
Tandu ripped the last of the chains free as Dalki helped him. Tandu stared up, engorged.
“My queen! Is this the chief rast?” Without waiting for an answer he leaped for Cranchar.
Cranchar was a dead man then. But Tandu caught his foot in a loop of chain and tumbled head over heels, all four arms going like a windmill, rolled into the tables and brought two or three down with pots of wine cascading onto his head. He roared.
Nath the Muncible was pushed out of the way as Cranchar hared for the door. He screamed at his men. They stood undecided, or followed him, or started to attack. Those that chose the latter course no longer figured in the annals of Kregen. Jordio the Hawk and Lathdo the Eager, freed, snatched up weapons.
Delia called above the hubbub, commandingly, as befitted an empress.
“I desire no further bloodshed. But I think Cranchar the Cranchu should not be allowed to escape. He did plan to kill the emperor, and that cannot be allowed to pass.”
Men — and Jikai Vuvushis — ran out after the Cranchu.
He was a poor figure, Delia considered, broken now that his sister was dead. But anyone at all who attempted ill against the emperor her husband must know he ran in peril of his life. Some of the Jikai Vuvushis came forward, and some made the greetings of the SoR, and some of other Orders, and they bent the knee to Delia, Empress of Vallia.
She had to put up with this. For one thing, it meant the girls were getting back to sanity and order could be restored. For another, it was a visible proof that the thralldom imposed by the witch was passing. Some of Nyleen’s cronies might not be happy, might plot revenge; they would have to be handled with tact and firmness.
Nath the Muncible walked forward. He held Sissy around the waist.
“Majestrix,” he said. “I crave your forgiveness—”
Sissy goggled up. “Alyss! Are you really the empress?”
“Hush, dear heart,” said Nath, discomposed. Jilian laughed and Tandu and Dalki bristled up. Lathdo the Eager bustled forward, ready to perform his duties.
Delia quashed it all.
“Yes, Sissy, dear, I am the empress. And if you and Nath are as happy as the emperor and me—” Then she stopped. That was a poor promise for a couple. Of course, these two would not face the near-inconceivable horrors faced by the emperor and empress. “You must be happy, Sissy. Nath, I believe I do understand your problems. You have done ill, but that, too, will wash away with time. Just take care of Sissy.”
“Quidang, majestrix!”
Then they came back with the report that Cranchar the Cranchu had jumped off the topmost turret of the tower rather than be brought back to the empress to face his just punishment.
Delia sighed.
“He wasn’t much of a man.”
In the refectory as elsewhere in the fortress the rapidity with which order was restored was a result not so much of the fact that Delia was an empress as from the force of her personality, the way she instantly decided and commanded, the air of complete confidence she radiated. No one could suspect her own inner doubts. The Sisters of the Rose gathered, still dazed, yet forming a formidable force to support not only their empress but the Flower of the SoR.
A quivering lump of male humanity hovered around at the back of Nath and Sissy. Stertorous breathing and the creak of harness — and a man mountain of flesh, sweating, shaking, totally shattered, protruded into view, and dodged back, and so shambled forward again. Delia did not laugh. What happened here could be taken as the signpost for future actions, and people who did not know the ways of her husband and herself might easily react with the cynicism born of harsh life under authority.
“Nath! Tell Magero to step forward.”
Magero the Obstreperous shambled up and fell down plump on his nose in the full incline. His rear end pointed skyward. His nose rubbed in the spilled detritus upon the floor.
In the normal way, Delia much misliked this groveling. Now she pursed up her lips and let Magero grovel. She was in half a mind to leap on his back and give his rump a few cuts with the rapier, just to remind him.
Presently she said, “Jilian. Will you please lend me a golden talen. I promise to return it as soon as possible.”
Without question Jilian withdrew a gold coin from her belt purse and handed it across. Her white face brooded on the scene, interested and yet sadly detached. Delia caught her breath. This scene was over. Now Jilian hungered to find Kov Colun...
“Magero. Stand up!”
“Majestrix!” he blurted, and fumbled and stumbled, and stood up, and so could say nothing.
“Here is your gold coin.” She flipped it to him. “I shall do nothing. For in you I sense a poor strayed ponsho, who does not think but acts. This is your misfortune. I shall not kill you. But I think — remembering what you have done — it better for your health if you go far away. Probably out of Vallia. Go overseas and become a mercenary, and you may turn into a fine paktun, even a hyr-paktun. Perhaps, in a number of seasons, you might return to Vallia.”
“Quidang, majestrix!” and: “Thank you, majestrix!” and a slobbering gulp of air. Magero the Obstreperous might, Delia considered, make some attempt to think — next time.
As for Naghondo the Squint, he lay in the side doorway with a hole in his head. Delia refused to say the obvious — that made two — and turned back to what needed to be done.
The plot against Vallia had been broken.
Vomanus would recover and resume his lordship of the province. There were friends to be rewarded. There was a lot to be done. Jilian... Ah, well... The Sweet-Tooth would go her own way, by Vox, and all Delia could do was commend her friend to the good graces of the Invisible Twins made manifest in Opaz.
Jilian heard the whole plot, and made a grimace. She had been not only a tool of sorcery; but an unwitting accessory to crimes she could not commit. That, of course, had been the undoing of the witch.
“So Nyleen had it all planned out. With an ordinary empress and emperor it would have worked, I think.” Jilian slowly unstrapped her Claw to lay it aside in the balass box. “You have won for Vallia, Delia.”
For Vallia? Delia smiled. For Vallia also, of course...
She watched where the remains of Nyleen were being carried out “Think of the emperor. What he would have endured.” She spoke very firmly, most decisively. “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly have let that dreadful woman marry my Dray.”
[1]
bur. The Kregan hour, approximately 40 terrestrial minutes.
[2]
Quidang! — Kregish for “Very good!” “Aye aye, sir!” “Your wish is my command and will be obeyed instantly.”
[3]
Benga: saint.
Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.
Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer’s works were published along with the works of other authors under "house names" (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.
Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series.
More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at
www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.
The Delian Cycle:
1. Transit to Scorpio
2. The Suns of Scorpio
3. Warrior of Scorpio
4. Swordships of Scorpio
5. Prince of Scorpio
Havilfar Cycle:
6. Manhounds of Antares
7. Arena of Antares
8. Fliers of Antares
9. Bladesman of Antares
10. Avenger of Antares
11. Armada of Antares
The Krozair Cycle:
12. The Tides of Kregen
13. Renegade of Kregen
14. Krozair of Kregen
Vallian cycle:
15. Secret Scorpio
16. Savage Scorpio
17. Captive Scorpio
18. Golden Scorpio
Jikaida cycle:
19. A Life for Kregen
20. A Sword for Kregen
21. A Fortune for Kregen
22. A Victory for Kregen
Spikatur cycle:
23. Beasts of Antares
24. Rebel of Antares
25. Legions of Antares
26. Allies of Antares
Pandahem cycle:
27. Mazes of Scorpio
28. Delia of Vallia
29. Fires of Scorpio
30. Talons of Scorpio
31. Masks of Scorpio
32. Seg the Bowman
Witch War cycle:
33. Werewolves of Kregen
34. Witches of Kregen
35. Storm over Vallia
36. Omens of Kregen
37. Warlord of Antares
Lohvian cycle:
38. Scorpio Reborn
39. Scorpio Assassin
40. Scorpio Invasion
41. Scorpio Ablaze
42. Scorpio Drums
43. Scorpio Triumph
Balintol cycle:
44. Intrigue of Antares
45. Gangs of Antares
46. Demons of Antares
47. Scourge of Antares
48. Challenge of Antares
49. Wrath of Antares
50. Shadows over Kregen
