Talons of Scorpio (25 page)

All the same, I managed to persuade Pompino to go on and sort out what lay ahead while I brought up the rear. So, it chanced that I was the last to go through into that dark opening and Dayra the penultimate.

A wooden horizontal bar across the inside of the slab afforded purchase to close it. I put a hand to this, Dayra stood at my side and helped. The slab began to revolve to close us off in secret and, far off down that main tunnel the sounds hastened on and a gleam of light struck into the nitre flecking the walls, reflected like an accusing host of eyes.

I stopped shutting the slab.

“What’s up now?” demanded Dayra, still pushing on.

“Wait a moment, Ros.” With that I turned sideways and slid through the narrow crack. I reached down to the certain junction of masonry where a finger hole showed. From it I drew out a palm’s length of ribbon. Water stained the ribbon darkly, but the stripe of zig-zag silver down the center had reflected that accusing flicker of torchlight, Dayra’s whistle of surprise was stifled instantly. I stuffed the ribbon into my flap-pouch, squeezed back into the opening and together we closed the slab.

The stink really got up my nostrils, and Dayra said: “By Vox! What a pestilential place!”

I said: “Use Pandrite, or Chusto or Chozputz—”

We crept along a narrow and slimy ledge with the sounds of the others before us and the erratic light of their torches to prevent us from stepping into the sewer at our side.

“Chusto?” said Dayra. “Chozputz? I’ve never heard—”

“Nor has anyone else. I made them up.”

“Oh!”

“And we have someone in our midst who leaves ribbons to mark where we went.”

“You have no suspicions?”

“None. It is probably one of the slaves we armed and brought along. Or, possibly, one of Naghan’s guards. They seek to earn a disreputable coin or two from a grateful Murgon.”

“They will earn something a little different from me, by Vo — Chusto! — when they are unmasked.”

“When.”

The small sewer led into a medium-sized sewer which led to a large sewer. The striking fact was the stinks did not improve or lessen; the folk of Port Marsilus were median in their ablutional functions. Scurrying claws fled from us; we met no fearsome monsters and I was mightily thankful for that. I thought of the girl children and the way their new dresses were being ruined. At last we reached a manhole where Pompino’s fiercely whiskered face peered down, and he said: “Come on, Jak! We’re waiting for you! Oh — my lady Ros — here, take my hand.”

With great gallantry he assisted her up. We were in a shadowed shed racked with implements like shovels and brooms and water-carrying equipment. So we could wash some of the muck off before we started out into the daytime streets of the city.

“To skulk off from a fight does not please me,” Pompino said. “But the greater good demands this dishonor.”

“Gold demands it,” I pointed out — with little pleasure.

“Lead us to the gold,” quoth Cap’n Murkizon. “I fancy we know what to do with it after those pestilential sewers.”

“Beng Dikkane will wax fat,” said Larghos, his arm protectingly around the lady Nalfi. She looked disheveled and unhappy.

We decided not to split up to slink through the city but to go in a bold body down to the docks. Dayra guided us. We met no one who offered to stop us; we guessed word of our presence would quickly reach Murgon. We just had to beat him for speed.

At the jetty the children were ferried out to
Tuscurs Maiden
with the lady Nalfi and some of the slaves who had escaped with us and were not fighters. Then we went along to where Zankov’s ship, the swordship
Igukwa Valjid
, lay moored.

The watch saw us coming, of course, and attempted to resist. But with gold in the nostrils of our fellows we were not to be denied. The watch either went overboard or fled. Dayra knew exactly where the chests were stored; the iron bars presented no problem to gold-hungry rascals like us, and we began to pass the strong iron-bound lenken chests aloft.

About the time we had a sizable pile at the jetty and the first boatload had gone across to
Tuscurs Maiden
, the sentries shouted the alarm.

Mounted men galloped down onto the stones of the jetty, shrieking, shirling swords and slanting lances. We formed to meet them and that first impetuous charge was shot to pieces.

“There will be more of the rasts,” panted Pompino, shaking his bow. He shouted back over his shoulder. “Hurry up, there! Get the chests aboard!”

“Quidang!”

The next attack combined a few kreutzin with the cavalry so that we shot and then came to handstrokes. Still we had the beating of these disorganized attacks. When Murgon and Zankov brought the full weight of their new army to bear it would be a different story. By this time the holes we had punctured in the bottom of
Igukwa Valjid
had admitted water enough to bring her deck level with the waves. A pity we could not have seized her and pulled her out; that was not on in our circumstances. We braced for the next onslaught and saw that off, and then there remained but the one pile of boxes, a ship’s boatload.

All this time Dayra had placed the balass box she’d brought from Zankov’s vessel by her feet on the dock. She did not move from that spot overmuch as she shot with the precision taught by Seg Segutorio. The bows from
Tuscurs Maiden
were the short compound reflex bows of Pandahem, with a few crossbows; with them we wrought great execution. But our time was running out.

I said to Dayra in a pause in the fighting: “Do you go with this last load of chests, Ros.”

“I think — Jak — I will remain for a while yet.”

As she spoke she looked at her balass box and then searchingly at the files of soldiers trotting out at the far end of the jetty. Her face lit up. I whirled.

He was there, leading on a group of men, Zankov, arrogant, brittle thin, nervous, yet filled with courage. I marked him and shot, and missed, and Dayra laughed.

“I do not think that one is yours, Jak.”

“I’m glad Seg didn’t see that.”

Zankov rushed on at the head of his men. Larghos the Flatch reeled back with an arrow in his shoulder, whereat he cursed wrathfully. Rondas the Bold’s mail was slashed and dangling. Nath Kemchug’s Chulik pigtail gleamed with blood from a head wound. Cap’n Murkizon whistled his axe ferociously.

I said: “Mayhap we had best leave this last pile of boxes.”

“I’m not leaving the gold for this mangy pack!” roared Murkizon.

Working like demons the men hefted the chests into the boat. The second boat pulled frantically for the shore to take us off. We might still do it. The Suns glittered on the water, gulls screeched and winged overhead, the air scented sweet with the sweetness of Kregen — it was good to be alive and futile to die for a handful of gold. But gold is gold and people are people; there is no gainsaying that on two worlds...

The front rank of soldiers hit us and we battled back. We halted them and sent them reeling and someone screeched: “The gold is loaded! The boat is here!”

“Time to go!” roared Pompino. “No arguments, anyone!”

We knew what he meant right enough.

“They come in again!” yelled Rondas. “Hai, Jikai!”

Ros bent to her bronze-bound balass box. From its velvet-lined interior she took her Claw, the shining razor-sharp Talons, and strapped them up on her left arm. Now she was a Taloned Demoness, a Sister of the Rose, one who could slash the face from an opponent and stick another with her rapier.

We jumped into a last mad affray, a jumbled affair of leaping and ducking, of slashing and hacking. We were pressed back, and a slave, brave with his new-won freedom and his spear, died under our feet. I felt the rage at the waste and pressed in ruthlessly. Ros the Claw, slashing, slicing, merciless, cut the face from a fellow and instantly swirled to take the side of a face from another. How her wicked Talons raked in! How they smashed in and twisted and left merely a red wrecked pudding!

With horrified disbelief I saw she was down. In a twinkling she slipped on spilled blood and took a vicious glancing blow from a thraxter. Instantly I dashed the brains from the fellow before me and hurdled his body and reached and scooped up my daughter. Ghastly visions of Velia floated before my eyes — I would not lose two daughters, not while I lived!

Zankov rushed me. His sword blurred. He would have gutted me then and there, but I managed to twist and kick him in the shins. He did not howl but staggered back. His thin and bitter face shone with effort, his eyes were wide and drugged and hating. He gathered himself for the final spring when he anticipated he would finish us once and for all.

A broken axe haft whirred past his head. He ducked in reflex action. A broad, barrel-like form hurtled past. Arms spread wide, red face a Zim-set of fury, that compact thunderbolt of muscle crashed into Zankov.

“...of Belschutz!” Massive arms wrapped about the thin and brittle form.

“Back to the boat!” screamed Pompino. “Bratch!”

I did not hesitate. Oh, no, not me, not puissant Dray Prescot with a wounded daughter in his arms! I simply scuttled for the boat and the waiting arms of the crew. I saw Dayra safely into the boat and then turned back, sword out, ready once more to hurl into the fray.

I saw Zankov was bent across Cap’n Murkizon’s knee. The barrel body strained as a woodcutter casually strains to break a branch for the fire. I do not believe Cap’n Murkizon needed great strength or pressure. He jerked his arms downwards. Zankov stiffened and went limp. He drooped. Murkizon threw Zankov away and ducked back, haring for the boat. Arrows fleeted past, feathering the first of those who tried to follow.

We all bundled into the boat. Covered by arrows we pulled for
Tuscurs Maiden
. We were all flushed, wrought-up. I bent to Dayra. Her eyes opened.

“It is nothing,” she said, most acidly. “A worse knock is suffered in training—”

“Lie still, Ros Delphor, lie still.”

As we neared the vessel her canvas rose. Captain Linson was all prepared to go — no doubt he’d have gone if we hadn’t reached him in time. The boat hooked on and we were hoisted bodily from the water.
Tuscurs Maiden
heeled and headed out to sea.

Wearing an untidy yellow bandage around her head, Dayra insisted on staying on deck. I joyed in having her at my side, and trembled, yes, trembled in terror at what lay ahead for us in our prickly relationship. I could not expect to be received back as a dear and doting father in the blink of an eyelid. Also, by Zair, the young miss needed to be thoroughly conversant with the magnitude of her follies.

Pompino said: “Without pay, the captains of what ships Murgon has will never chase us. By Horato the Potent! We’ve hamstrung him finely!”

Certainly, no movement could be observed among the small scatter of shipping.
Tuscurs Maiden
sailed splendidly, carrying us well out to sea.

Mantig the Screw, one of the few apims in Framco the Tranzer’s guard detail, reported in. He’d been sent with the message, and reaching the Zhantil Palace to find it besieged, had very sensibly gone on to
Tuscurs Maiden
to find us. A sharp-set young man, with a pointy look to his face — his nose was not exactly screw-shaped, but the general suggestion could not be denied — he delivered the message briskly.

“The cadade informs you that the Kovneva Tilda is safe at Plaxing. Kov Pando is with her. He is aware of the situation—”

“Is he, by thunder!”

“The kov has with him the Mytham twins and Mindi the Mad, who keeps his intelligence.”

“That explains that, then,” said Pompino.

I was amused. Pompino, who like me was a kregoinye, working for the superhuman and supernatural Star Lords, took their incredible powers perfectly matter-of-factly. But when it came to a witch performing a little lesser magic the short hairs bristled!

Naghan the Pellendur, dourly, said: “And I’ll wager, by Numi-Hyrjiv the Golden Splendor, that unhanged rascal Twayne Gullik played both ends against the middle. He’s loyal again because Kov Pando is with him.”

“A fellow to be watched,” observed Pompino.

The breeze tautened our canvas and the bluff bows smashed through the billows. The stout lenken chests were stowed below, and Cap’n Murkizon and Nath Kemchug, with Rondas the Bold and others of our friends, oversaw the stowage with exactness.

Cap’n Murkizon gave his opinion that the few swordships in port might follow for the gold. This would not worry us once we were well out into the offing. When Murkizon joined us, Dayra looked at him searchingly. He huffed and harrumphed, and then said: “I think his backbone was broken clear through, my lady; but he was not dead.”

Dayra said to me: “I think I will go below, now — Jak.”

At the head of the companionway she halted and looked back. “Call me if there is a fight.” She went below. We had a great deal to clear up; but, first, another important matter had to be dealt with.

“Gold,” said Pompino, “equals dead men and women.”

If in the ordinary way a mercenary received a silver piece a day, less if he was an Och, more if he was a Pachak or a Chulik — or a Khibil! — and if Murgon had recruited something like thirty or forty thousand men, with ships to transport them and ration allowances, plus the mounts for the cavalry, then we might expect to find a treasure of considerable size. How long the enemies of Vallia expected the campaign to last with their own gold before they could subsist from the Vallian countryside, must remain conjectural. Pompino was confident we had laid our hands on the equivalent of two hundred thousand gold pieces, for much of the treasure would have to be in silver coins. This treasure would be shared out among us according to the usual customs. We would have to set reliable watches and sleep with our swords naked at our sides.

Just where all this gold was coming from I could not know for sure. I had a terrible belief that I did know. Well, if I was right, then the future, dark though it might be, held also the promise of vivid action and headlong adventure, together with intrigue and peril enough to frizzle the scales from a dinosaur.