Secret Scorpio (20 page)
This was what living on Kregen was all about, this horrific transformation, in an instant, from peaceful living to berserk toy, from graciousness to terror.
This must be done right the first time, and quick, damned quick. . .
The two chavonths did not leap exactly together and so I was able to position and slash at the first. The gleaming blade of the longsword swept in that vicious chopping circle as my hands and wrists and forearms rolled over, and the muscles of my back ridged and extended and I felt all the old pull and power. The steel sliced through the chavonth’s furred hide just above his left forequarter — his left foresixth — and I went with the blow and rolled away and the slashing claws razored past. A single roll brought me up and a single twist turned me and a single leap brought me from the side against the second chavonth. The Krozair brand licked out like a bar of blood. I drove it point first into the lean furry flank. A blue hexagon imploded. The onward rush of the great beast almost snatched the sword from me, but a Krozair knows how to hold onto a sword hilt. I gave a vicious twist and then withdraw, swirling the blade instantly into an overhand chop that crunched down on the chavonth’s backbone just abaft his center pair of legs.
The yelling shrieking of the wounded chavonths erupted in the iron-barred area, the stink of freshly spilled blood poured out in a warm effluvium. There was no time to stop. This beast was done for, although he spat and clawed futilely at the air and at his ruined back.
The chinless kov was trying to get in at the first chavonth, trying to dart his slender rapier in past the wicked claws of its remaining legs. I hurled myself forward in a desperate rush and almost, almost I saved him completely.
But a wickedly tipped claw swept in from the side and gashed all down his ribs and he shrieked and fell back and then I was on the chavonth and the terrible Krozair longsword rose and fell, rose and fell, and three blows took the poor chavonth’s head clean off.
Natyzha Famphreon had not fainted. Nalgre Sultant, seeing the dead and dying cats, dragged out his rapier and made a great show of coming forward, twirling the blade, ready to face all comers. Nath Ulverswan kept his grip upon the kovneva. Ered Imlien reluctantly walked forward. He was not afraid, that I knew, but he had not considered what had happened as being possible.
I bent to the kov. His chinless face, so unlike the chinless, pop-eyed face of Chido, glared up at me and a grin ricked his lips. His side was badly torn, but he would live. He was in some pain.
“I tried. . .” He spoke with an effort. “My mother . . . it was my duty . . . but . . . but a rapier. . .”
“Lie still, kov.” His name was Nath, but I could not call him Nath. There are many Naths on Kregen. “Lie still.” I looked up at the others, all recovering from the fright, all sorting out the story they would tell. “You zigging cramphs!” I bellowed. “Run and send for a doctor! Run, you nurdling onkers!”
Ered Imlien ran past the corpses of slaves, the dead and dying chavonths, swirling his rapier, to fetch a doctor.
I held this Kov Nath of Falkerdrin, easing him, feeling only a vast pity, a contempt that embraced all his stupid family and the pride that sustained them. I glared at Nalgre Sultant.
“Fetch cloths from the dead slaves, Sultant. We must staunch the wounds. Jump to it, you rast!”
He jumped.
So we waited for the doctor, for I would not allow Kov Nath to be moved. He lapsed into unconsciousness as the doctor arrived, so the acupuncture needles to ease his pain were not necessary and the doctor, a client of the house, could get to work to stop the bleeding and to draw the ragged wounds together and apply his healing paste. Some doctors of Kregen are useless, many are expert; one chooses where one can.
I stood up.
“I am leaving.” I picked up my cloak and the cape-cloak. “I will wash elsewhere, wash this place from me. Until I see you again, Natyzha Famphreon, take good care of that son of yours. Maybe we have all misjudged him. Perhaps all Vallia is wrong about him.” Then I went out and no one offered to stop me and I did not observe the fantamyrrh.
Kadar the Hammer rides north to Seg Segutorio
Now began a period of my life on Kregen that, even now, looking back, I cannot decide if I should curse horribly over it or simply stand with my fists on my hips and roar with laughter. It was all a great foolishness. I made my way by the dusty roads northwestward. When it rained in a lashing gale of Kregen that drenched everything and everyone the roads turned to a quagmire and it was useless to attempt to flounder on. Then I sought sanctuary. After leaving Natyzha Famphreon’s house where we had hatched intrigues against the emperor, I had called again at our villa in Vondium — the Valkan villa owned by Delia and myself — and besides having a long and glorious bath, taking the full Baths of the Nine, I equipped myself a little more lavishly for the journey.
The villa did not see us all that often, for we stayed at the emperor’s command in the wing of the palace given over to our use. But everything was ready, as it was bound to be. So I took a strong preysany loaded with supplies, with a harness or two of armor, spare weapons, provisions. Also I packed the old brown blanket cloak and the bamboo stick with the concealed blade. That had served before; it might serve again.
During the ride north to Seg’s estates of Falinur I was embroiled only in four small skirmishes and rode for my life only once, preferring that to fighting the stinking pack of drikingers who howled hairily at me from the roadside and hurled stones and spears and would have skewered me through had I not ducked and clapped in spurs.
This kind of flight was a different matter from running from one’s foes. These poor devils might be evil in the eyes of honest folk, but all in good time my plans called for the alleviation of the conditions that created bandits, if it could be contrived, rather than for the removal of the drikingers themselves.
The zorca-ride jolted up the old liver, as I had said. I am fond of the canals and the canalfolk of Vallia, but somehow this canter through the heart of Vallia seemed more in keeping. The canal folk are a staunchly independent lot, and the men and women of the cuts do not call themselves koters and koteras as do the gentry of Vallia; they are vens and venas. But as I passed through the green countryside I would stop at bridges over the canals and talk and spend some time, for I was maturing plans and had no wish to rush. After all, I was not hurrying to a rendezvous with Delia.
A strong eastward swing was advisable toward the north of Vindelka for the Ocher Limits thrust a tongue-like protrusion between that province and Seg’s Falinur to the north. I made no attempt to revisit either of the Delkas, and decided firmly against a sentimental side trip to the Dragon’s Bones.
All through this central portion of the island large lakes are to be found, with the Great River twining through, and the canals boring on with man’s ingenuity at work to maintain the levels by lock and lift. So I trotted on and entered the Kovnate of Falinur and at once I saw what Seg meant about the demeanor of his people.
They did not offer hostility, although they did not know who I was, and when I put up at an inn and told them my name was Kadar the Hammer they merely sniffed and took no more than the usual notice of a stranger one expects. But the undercurrents were strong. As a simple smith, for that is what they took me to be, out seeking some gainful employment, I posed only the threat of any itinerant labor to the homegrown product. But a laughing group of koters passed, tyrs and kyrs and even a strom, and these gentry aroused dark hidden looks of anger and envy. Falinur, as Seg had said, was like to erupt in violence at any moment.
These people had backed their late kov against the emperor with the third party and had lost. So why should that still rankle? Perhaps, for I did not bring the precise subject up, perhaps it was not that which was causing their hostility to Seg. Whatever it was, we had to put it aright by fair means. Any other way would be as abhorrent to Seg as to myself. Anyway, with tough independent people as are most Vallians, brutal repression would repercuss with a vengeance.
A shrunken little fellow with one eye and swathed in furs against an imagined cold gave me a portion of the answer. He rode a hirvel and led a long string of calsanys, all loaded down with trinkets that this ob-Eye Enil hawked from village to village. We rode together for a space, and I listened.
“Aye, Kadar the Hammer! You may well ask. We ride through Vinnur’s Garden here and the land is rich.” His one eye swiveled alarmingly to regard me with cunning. “And where the land is rich, there, by Beng Drangil, men will fight and kill for it.”
The Great River which bordered Falinur’s eastern flank made a kinked loop to the east here on the border between Falinur and Vindelka. The Ocher Limits ended to the west. In the fertile area of Vinnur’s Garden riches could be won by agriculture on the fertile eastern sections by mining on the more barren western. The border between the two kovnates ran to the north of Vinnur’s Garden. The people living there had been under the rule of both Vindelka and Falinur at differing times. Now Vindelka demanded their loyalty, and their taxes. But many folk north and south of the border wished that dividing line to be redrawn much farther to the south, cutting off Vinnur’s Garden from Vindelka and giving it to Falinur.
It was scarcely necessary for Ob-Eye to say, “But the new kov of Falinur, this Seg Segutorio whose past is a mystery, refuses to countenance any move against Vindelka.”
Ob-Eye wandered the central portions of Vallia, and although he confided that he had been born in Ovvend, he could look upon these squabbles with the single eye of the interested observer.
I knew why Seg would not allow his people to go raiding down into Vinnur’s Garden, why he made no move to annex the place from the Kov of Vindelka. For this Kov of Vindelka was Vomanus, a good comrade to Seg and me, and we had fought at that immortal battle at the Dragon’s Bones.
But I sensed this did not explain all the hostility to Seg and Thelda. As we rode north and left the parochial problem of Valinur’s Garden to the rear, still the impression I received was one of implacable hatred to the Kov of Falinur. I own I was put out by this, upset, angry and baffled.
There were slaves still in Falinur, though there were not many. And I gained some more insight. Acting not just because it was my way but from honest conviction, Seg had given orders that from henceforth no slaves would be allowed in his kovnate. He was obeyed surlily and his edict was broken more and more often, for all that his guards rode to stamp out the evil. One consequence of the abolition of slavery, in intention if not yet in fact, was the resurgence of the slavers who preyed where pickings were ripest. This added another strand; it still did not explain it all. So, taking the chunkrah by the horns, I began direct questions about the Black Feathers.
The answers Ob-Bye gave me filled in about another fifty percent of the problem.
Yes, there were temples and priests and traveling churches spreading the great word and, by Beng Drangil, the great day is coming, the Black Day, and in that day will the Great Chyyan reward all his loyal followers! Thus spake Ob-Eye Enil, swearing by Beng Drangil, the patron saint of hawkers.
This was no fantasy. This was stark reality. As I jogged along toward Seg’s kovnate capital city of Falanriel, a place which, despite its architecture, I always looked forward to visiting, I realized more and more the hold the Chyyanists had on these people.
On a day when the suns broke through scattered clouds and the joy of living should have burst all worries — and, sadly, did not — we trotted through a ferny dell. With horrid shrieks designed to chill us, the drikingers leaped from the ferns, waving their clanxers and rapiers and spears, roaring at us to surrender or be chopped.
With a curse I ripped out the clanxer scabbarded to Twitchnose. A smith may carry samples of his wares. If it came to it I’d use the longsword on them.
Then I checked. The bandits closed up around us, fierce, hairy men with thickly bearded faces and bright merry eyes, darting the points of their weapons at us. But Ob-Eye pulled out a leather wallet from his loose tunic, opened it, waved a scrap of black feather in the air.
“Peace, brothers!” he squeaked. He was only a little frightened, I saw, and marveled. “We are all Chyyanists together, you and I. Listen to what Makfaril has said through his priests, listen and rejoice, for the day is coming.”
And then these fearsome bandits set up a yelling and a hullabaloo and crowded around, laughing, slapping their thighs and bellowing greetings, and every other sentence had to do with the Black Feathers. In no time a fire had been lit and we were sitting around listening and smelling roasting vosk haunch. The wine went around. It was good too, plunder from a vintner’s caravan. Good humor prevailed, although the leader, a ferocious villain with a spade beard he had threaded with gold wire and with golden earrings that caught the lights of the fire and of the suns, did bellow out, “By Varkwa the Open-Handed! If many more travelers are Chyyanists the pickings will be small!”
“But soon all Vallia will be ours for the looting!” bellowed his lieutenant, and the gang set up a racket of laughter and promises of what they would do on the Black Day. Chief among these was the heartfelt desire to go into Falanriel and sack the place and take all. And what they would do to the kovneva, the high and mighty, stuck-up, prideful and ignorant Kovneva Thelda, would have set the Ice Floes of Sicce alight.
I chewed on succulent vosk and kept my face down. Listening would help more than a stupid sword-swinging affray. Was this another piece of the puzzle? Was poor Thelda, who always meant well, overdoing her part as a kovneva? She loved the title and took immense pride in her status. Yet once in the long ago she had been forced to spy and scheme for the racters. Now my good comrade Seg had her in his keeping. I made a little vow that not only would I speak to Thelda as a friend, I’d stick a length of steel blade into any of these drikinger cramphs who tried to harm a hair of her head. But, all the same, she could be a terribly tiresome woman, and goodheartedly never be aware of it.
