Masks of Scorpio (7 page)

“Of course, horter Jak. But—?”

I was stripping off the blue tunic and cut-off trousers. In their place I wrapped a length of green cloth about myself, unblinking of the color. An old brown blanket went over my shoulder in a roll. I handed Naghan the rapier and main gauche. He took them, mightily puzzled. I handed him the sword, the straight cut and thruster, and he took that, too. Over my right hip was sheathed a sailor knife. That would suffice.

Perhaps I’d find a stout stick from a hedge.

The Fristle guard Deldar said: “Horter Jak. Do you know what you are doing?”

“Yes, Naghan, strange as that may seem. Now go along with your people. I’ll catch you in time for dinner.”

He shook his catlike head, and tugged his whiskers, but he yelled at his men and off they went along the road.

In the shadow of the stand of trees I watched them, searching for the form of Dayra. I did not see her. I frowned. A quoffa-cart creaked along toward me, loaded with what looked like cabbages. The man leading the animal chewed a straw and wore his hat pulled down. I simply fell in at the tailgate of the cart, and Dayra said, “And about time, too!”

I refused to be discomposed.

“Look, Ros, this is no place for you—”

“They’re Vallians — and there are others who are friends besides Sosie—”

“Yes, but—”

“It is no use arguing.”

So, in a kind of armed truce, we walked back to Pettarsmot where we had been imprisoned, fined —

and not fed.

She wore her own blanket in a kind of poncho, and had changed her russet tunic for a blue skirt and bodice. I saw I was going to have trouble with this smart daughter of mine if I wanted to sneak off in the future...

She’d retained her swords, also, under the poncho.

Going along quietly at the tail of the wagon we reentered Pettarsmot. The place looked no different, as indeed, why should it? We went along to the prison block and stopped outside to have a scout around.

For all our casual attitude, this was not going to be easy.

“Bash somebody over the head and ask,” counseled Dayra.

With a little devil prodding me, I said: “Now if we had a carpet handy...”

She stared at me. “I haven’t forgotten!”

“Well, this is how we do it, then.”

We found the fellow standing guard at a small side door. As we rounded the corner we both stopped.

Dayra gasped.

Out in the center of the parade ground lay the imposing if wrecked shape of a flying sailing ship of the air.
Val Defender
, masts trailing over the side, a raffle of cordage cumbering her decks, squatted like a child’s toy trodden underfoot by a careless adult.

I brightened up when I saw her.

“That’s more like it!”

“What—?”

“Grab this fellow and let’s get inside.”

The guard went to sleep standing up and as I eased him to the ground Dayra slid the door open. Light from an open roof spilled down, revealing an empty corridor. We stuffed the guard into a corner, tied and gagged, and padded off looking for trouble. How odd, and yet how exhilarating, to be out adventuring with my daughter Dayra! I thought of the times I’d gone off on adventures like this with Lela, my eldest daughter, known as Jaezila, and I vowed certain vows and if I thought of my daughter, Velia, well, then, I did, and the whole world might stop and still make no difference...

By a side wall in a patio where a well covered by a sharply pitched blue slate roof lorded it, we found a flunkey who was only too pleased to put down his water bucket and take us along to where the Vallian prisoners were confined. Usually, when you are on a rescue mission of this nature, it is not as easy as this... I watched the fellow in his gray slave breechclout. Dayra paced ahead eagerly.

We heard them before we reached them.

They were singing.

It seems to me entirely unnecessary to say that I’d borrowed the sword from the guard who’d gone to sleep. Now I lifted the weapon, as it were, for all the silliness of it, for all the stupidity of it that it may reveal, I lifted the sword in involuntary salute.

The men and women of Vallia, prisoners, sang.

They were not singing one of the great songs of Vallia, a patriotic paean of glory and valor and nobility.

Oh, no. They were not singing one of the rollicking Vallian songs that poke fun at the various enemies Vallia has had to contend with from time to time. Oh, no.

Oh, no. They were singing “The Song of Logan Lop-Ears and His Faithful Calsany.” This, in its enumeration of the terrible problems poor Logan Lop-Ears faced taking his father’s calsany to market to sell the poor beast, adumbrates stanza by stanza the vicissitudes of folk’s lives and mishaps. It provokes, needless to say, considerable mirth.

And the Vallians roared out with gusto, particularly those stanzas that often have their words subtly altered to fit circumstances.

Dayra glanced back at me. Her color was up and her eyes were bright. I nodded. For that moment, I, too, could not speak.

The slave flunkey could. He said: “There will be guards with swords, masters. They will kill you, and me too. Let me go, I beg you—”

“We will not harm you, dom,” I said truthfully. “Just bide quietly and see what will be.”

There were guards, four of them. They were just about to bang on the door to stop the singing, and then, for the Vallians would not stop for that, more likely than not go busting in to crack a few heads. Dayra leaped. There was a steely, diamond-bright glitter before her. One of the guards fell back, trying to scream through a wrecked face. His companion staggered drunkenly sideways as Dayra’s rapier licked back. The other two were barely aware of what was going on until they slumped, and Dayra took one of them, also...

The fattest held the key ring at his belt. Dayra stooped. I stepped back a pace, half-turning, listening.

“Tell them to keep singing, but softer. You go on, Ros. I will see if — yes!”

Around the corner behind us came five more guards, big beefy fellows carrying stuxes as well as swords and spears.

Dayra gave them a single comprehensive glance.

“Come to change the guard. Very well — father!”

She leaped for the door, the key in her fist.

I swung back to face these five who ran on, shouting.

Now if I say I was pleased to see them, you may wonder. I was. The reason, simple enough, was that they carried weapons. My folk of Vallia would need those weapons.

The guards ran up, hurling their javelins. These stuxes flew with varying directions and power, for two of the fellows were apim, one was Brokelsh, one a Rapa and the fifth a bleg. He’d be difficult to knock over. Now it was vitally necessary that I allowed not a single stux to pass me. If one flew over my shoulder it could strike into Dayra’s slender back as she bent to the prison lock. So — I caught the first one, deflected the next and the next and the fourth, damnably, nicked me along my left forearm. I used the stux in my fist to swat away the last one — that hurled by the bleg who came from a race of diffs not noted for their hurling ability — some of them — and then I was able to roar on and get to handstrokes.

The tinker-hammer stuff could not be allowed to last. It was all charge, knee-up, dirty stuff, bash and tromple on. And, as I’d guessed, the bleg with his four legs arranged rather like the legs of a chair took the most knocking over. That he was half-dead when at last he slumped had little to do with it.

As he hit the floor a raspy voice at my back said: “Hai, Jikai!” and a bulky body crashed past, diving for the fallen weapons. Others of the Vallians crowded up. The singing, which had faltered, now resumed.

Dayra joined us. It was all very quick, like gears meshing smoothly. No time for lahals; we had to fight our way out.

There was only one place for us to go, of course.

With Dayra and myself in the lead we raced off. The slave flunkey lay in the angle of the corridor; he was not dead, he had fainted clean away. I commended him to his patron spirit as we dashed past.

Dayra spat out as we ran: “The Pandaheem have been cruel to them! Young Paline Vinfine has been killed. I do not think the crew of
Vol Defender
will have much mercy.”

“Can they all keep up?”

“Yes. The worst wounded are being carried.”

“Good. Is Jiktar Nath Fremerhavn alive and with us?”

We skidded out onto the verge of the parade ground where the forlorn lump of wreckage that was a proud flying ship of Vallia lay abandoned. We stared calculatingly out across the open we must cross to reach our goal.

“Jiktar Fremerhavn was posted into command of
Val Neemusjid
,” said a firmly built woman who halted at my side and stared keenly out, not looking at me. “Jiktar Vanli Cwopanifer was posted to command
Val Defender
. He — is not with us.”

“Guards,” rasped the bulky fellow who’d been the first to scoop a weapon. On the rags of his uniform he wore the rank badges of the Ship-Deldar. “By Vox! I am going to enjoy blattering the rasts!”

“Hold, Edivon! Do not let your rage blind you. We hit them when they reach the shadows.”

“Quidang, Hik!” rasped this Deldar Edivon.

So the woman was the Ship-Hikdar, her first lieutenant. I gave her a single searching look. Her face was taut, naturally, hard and lean, with a prominent nose and cheekbones. Her eyes and hair were good Vallian brown. There was about her a calm competence and yet an eager blaze. If I say that one could easily visualize her with a whistle on a cord about her neck, calling: “Now, come along, girls!” I indicate the admirable qualities. If anyone is foolish enough to regard the comparison as in some way derogatory, even sexist, then all I can say is, let ’em rot in their own effluvium.

The guards reached the shadows. The people of Vallia pounced. Then we were up and racing across the open toward their ship.

I felt the fierce leap within me as Dayra was first up and onto the deck.

Magnificent, she looked, wild and free, the silly skirt thing ripped away, her legs long and lithe as she clambered up. The crew followed her and they went raging over the bulwarks and the shattered watch of Pandaheem were overwhelmed. Dayra’s Claw slashed and her rapier twinkled, and there were no more enemies holding a ship of Vallia.

Without even thinking about it, the Ship-Hikdar took command. Her orders cracked out. Deldar Edivon attempted to moderate his bellow. Folk dived below to assess damage, and an urchin wearing a rag around her waist came up and slapped up a cracking salute and said: “The silver boxes are unharmed, hikdar.”

“Very good, Pansi. Get to your station.”

“Quidang!”

That young ragamuffin, that grimy urchin, was probably a high-born-noble lady of Vallia learning her craft as an aerial sailor. This woman, this Ship-Hikdar, knew her business. I watched as everything that should be done was done. Walking slowly across the deck I looked down on the opposite side. At once I was galvanized into fresh action.

Down there, snugged in alongside the vorlca, the slender petal-shape of the voller lay quietly waiting for me to leap down and take her into the air.

“Ros!”

She ran up. “Yes?”

I nodded over the side. Dayra looked.

“Oh, yes!”

The flying sailing ship moved under me. Duty personnel were at the levers of the silver boxes, drawing them closer together so that the power inherent in the minerals in one box and the mysterious substance cayferm in the other could exert their force and lift all that solid bulk up into the air as light as thistledown.

The raffle of masts and rigging clattered and groaned as it swung inward and upward as we rose. That could all be cut away later.

Without hesitating I jumped onto the bulwark and took a flying leap out into thin air.

I hit the deck of the voller and staggered and was up, sword in fist, searching for guards.

Dayra landed beside me, fleet, sure-footed, her Claw a diamond-glitter.

“No guards.”

We were alone on the voller — then half-a-dozen folk dropped down. A lad looked about wildly. I said to Dayra: “We’d better—”

She was into the small steering cabin amidships before I’d framed my thought. The aerial sailors might know how to fly a sailing ship; they might not know how to pilot an airboat.

We lifted away as Dayra manipulated the control levers. Down below on the parade ground soldiers were running out, many of them. They were foreshortened figures, glinting with steel and bronze, and they could not touch us.

A girl wearing a Claw came across to me. She wore precious little else; but on the scrap of red cloth over one shoulder the embroidered representation of a rose glowed in colored silks.

“I can fly an airboat,” she said. There was no blood on the talons of her Claw. “Do you know Ros the Claw?”

When folk ran below to sort out their possessions and to make sure the ship was sound, this girl had seized up her Claw from its hiding place. No doubt she was sorry the fight was over before she could use it.

“Yes. You do?”

She drew herself up.

“I am the lady Royba ti Thamindensax.”

“Then Llahal and Lahal, lady. Pray, tell me the name of your Ship-Hikdar and what happened to your Jiktar.”

She eyed me. That she felt puzzlement was clear. I did not know her. Of her town, yes, I had heard but never visited. By Vox! An emperor can hardly visit all his towns in one lifetime. We were lifting up now, matching speeds and courses with
Val Defender
. The breeze had veered in the night and we floated along splendidly. Then Dayra popped out of the steering cabin, and through the ports I could see a lad at the controls. I hoped he knew what he was doing! Dayra walked up to us, and she was smiling.

She began unstrapping her Claw. She nodded to the lady Royba’s steel bright Talons. “I see you didn’t have a drink, Royba.”

“That Sosie!” Royba was obviously in a truculent frame of mind. “She beat me to a weapon — but I did kick a damned Pandaheem where he will be sore for a sennight!”

The ships sailed on, suspended between earth and sky.