Talons of Scorpio (8 page)
“Ah,” I said, wisely.
“What is sure is that she is not the cause of the quarrel between them. That has festered since their respective births. She is the catalyst that has precipitated the latest outburst. And she is likely to be the last.”
“That is a bleak enough prophecy. But, if you look on the bright side, it might be a good one.”
He reached for more wine, his whiskers very red under the lamps.
“You mean, Jak, that after we have finished with them all, all their problems will be settled? Aye!”
You had to hand it to Pompino the Iarvin. Confidence was his middle name in these matters. Once he stepped ashore he became a different man.
Nath the Apron came in with the dessert. Limki had prepared looshas pudding, a soldiers’ favorite, and both Pompino and I tucked in. There was a cream and fruit trifle to follow that, and Nath the Apron, a quiet and unobtrusive cabin steward, brought in the bowls of fruit and the palines. The wine passed, and we sat, thinking of what lay ahead.
Thankfully, on Kregen, no one was foolish enough to light up and smoke. Although, and sometimes I admit this with a quiver of guilt, a fine after-dinner cigar would not have gone amiss...
Presently, Pompino stretched and thumped his glass down.
“Time?”
I stood up. Preparations had all been made. So there was but the one rejoinder to make. I said it.
“Aye.”
The Lady Nalfi hides in the Chunkrah’s Eye
“Where in the name of Suzi the Bowgirl have you been, Nalfi?” Larghos the Flatch sounded both distraught and relieved.
The Lady Nalfi laughed lightly.
“Why, you silly man, I went ashore to buy certain things a girl must have, with the money you gave me. And I became lost—”
“Think what could have happened to you! Why didn’t you ask me—?”
“You were all so busy. Anyway, it is of no moment.”
We were crowding down onto the jetty, the four calsters were manipulating Tilda’s chair down, we were trying to keep quiet and stop our weapons from clinking. Murkizon was breathing like a whale.
“Once Larghos rescued you, my lady, you placed yourself under his protection. I have done so, and joy in it.”
“As you stand by me, Cap’n,” burst out Larghos. He looked wild. He’d had a fright.
The Twins shed light enough, too much for nefarious purposes I fancied, with an uncomfortable hitch to my shoulders. Somehow or other, and even allowing for my act with Pompino, the whole business of this night looked awry to me, not quite handled in a logical and successful fashion. But Pompino was trying to shout in a whisper, and his Chulik, Nath Kemchug, dropped a spear, which clattered, and Rondas the Bold, still not abandoning his mail, let it clash slightly as he negotiated the gangplank. Pompino looked to the Moons and stars above, and clutched at my arm.
“A pack of famblys, the lot of them, by Horato the Potent, famblys all.”
I did not reply but looked about into the moon-shot darkness of the jetty. The black sheds glistened with runnels of moonshine. The cobbles swam in glisten. I could see no shadows moving out there.
Tilda’s chair had been draped with canvas to make it appear less grand, and the fake chair done up out of packing crate wood and painted canvas had been sent off earlier with most of the escort. That should have drawn off any unwelcome attentions; now we simply ran straight for the palace.
That, as I say, was the plan...
We were to follow in a slightly different path from the decoy party. The walls and towers of the palace provided a clear target, and I was perfectly prepared to wake Tilda up and shake information out of her if we could not find an easy road through.
As the Owner, Pompino had selected the composition of the parties, and he had undeniably put more weight into the genuine escort. The Ship Hikdar, Boris Pordon, commanded the fake escort with more men in numbers but not, Pompino judged, in fighting ability.
Also, the fake escort with its wood and canvas dummy chair carried torches to light the way. We, with Tilda in the real gherimcal in our midst, hurried along with only the light of the Twins to guide us. And, as I have indicated, that light was of a sufficiency enough.
Past shuttered houses we sped, the gherimcal swaying as the bearers moved in rhythmic steps. Nath Kemchug had his spear firmly grasped, and Rondas the Bold’s mail — as befitted a proud Rapa paktun — no longer chittered, link against link. As was his right and duty, Pompino led. Because of that old itchy feeling betwixt my shoulder blades — usually an infallible sign, not always, of approaching danger and action — I prowled along at the tail end. My head kept on trying to twist itself off my shoulders as I turned this way and that watching our backtrack. Every window could conceal a marksman, every shadow a shrieking swordsman, every archway a charging axeman...
The Brown and Silvers hit us from up front.
They were waiting for us.
They simply rushed out into the mouth of an avenue leading to the palace, fronting a square, and charged.
At the first yell, the first clatter of iron-shod sandals on stone, I was raging up, quivering — and remaining in the rear. Pompino and the others would have to handle the frontal attack. I still suspected a treacherous stab in the back.
“Hit ’em, knock ’em down, tromple all over ’em!” bellowed a fruity voice.
The wicked tinker-hammer of steel against steel racketed up, echoing against the walls.
Anybody who tried to break a way through that powerful human hedge of steel was in for trouble. In the time I’d known them, the comrades I’d made in
Tuscurs Maiden
had proved themselves. Now, once again, they were fighting and earning their hire. I closed up to the chair, setting my back against the curtains, and staring forward and aft. Mainly, I looked to the rear. This ambush was just right for the attack from the rear that would smash into the unprotected backs of the fighters defending in front. Grasping my thraxter, I watched.
The two apims, Nath the Clis and Indur the Rope, and the Brokelsh, Ridzi the Rangora, and the Brukaj, Bendil Fribtix, remained grasping the handles of the chair. They were ready to run like stink to smash a way through surrounded by the fighting men. They had a tough task, and one not to my liking, I can tell you, by Krun!
Something kicked my ankle.
I looked down, the thraxter snouting.
A shapely foot and ankle with a silver bangle kicked and then withdrew. I bent and lifted a flap of canvas, and the sword in my fist nuzzled forward.
“Oh!” gasped Nalfi, twisting around, her pallid face staring up in shock.
“It’s all right, my lady. But I do not think you are particularly wise. It is not safe under there if—”
The dagger in her fist glimmered as she crawled out.
“Larghos told me to seek shelter and this seemed the best place. I am frightened—”
We had fixed up boards and bronze in the gherimcal against arrows. Nalfi knew this. All the same, the chair was the target and she had chosen to shelter in the chunkrah’s eye, as it were.
The fight up ahead swayed back and forth as we spoke in snatched whispers. Dark shadows moved in convulsive gyrations, and men screamed and died. The noise would bring other men and women, soon, that was sure.
Nath the Clis holding the front near side handle looked back and called: “Larghos was right, Jak. But the lady is still in danger here.”
Even if Nalfi could have somehow squeezed into the chair with Tilda and all her belongings, the additional weight, together with the bronze and wood, would slow us too much.
“Crouch down small, Nalfi. Here.” I handed her across the shield I’d taken from Nath Kemchug’s armory aboard ship. “Hold this over you. We’ll see off this rabble up ahead. It won’t be long.”
“I do hope so!”
Larghos the Flatch ran back to the gherimcal, his bow over his shoulder and his thraxter stained dark.
“You are safe, Nalfi?”
“Yes, yes—”
“They’re giving way up there. We can move on now—”
And at that moment the back stab I had anticipated and thought to be a mere overwrought fever of my brain erupted in a yelling mob of Brown and Silvers, hurtling down upon us.
Instantly we were embroiled in a vicious fight to stay alive and to protect Tilda. The four bearers had to thwunk the gherimcal down, draw their weapons and hurl themselves into the fray. We struggled in a mass of contorting bodies across the cobbles, smashing back at the attack, striking and defending, roaring in a mind-wrenching phantasmagoria of action under the light of the Moons.
Having given the shield to Nalfi, I was in no mood to foin with this mob of would-be assassins. The left-hand dagger whipped free of its scabbard. With the stout cut and thrust thraxter in my right fist and the main gauche in my left I felt that the combination would prove an interesting variation. The things one dwells on in the fractions of a heartbeat!
The swirl of action revolved away to my left as, with Larghos at my side, we swathed a way through on the right. The Brown and Silvers wore their colored favors openly. Their faces were not masked as assassins’ faces are commonly concealed. We hit them hard, and they hit us hard.
Ridzi the Rangora catapulted backwards. A thick spear transfixed his belly. Larghos, with a cunning sideways belt of his sword, dispatched the fellow, all eyes and teeth, who had thrust his spear through Ridzi.
The Brokelsh sank down. For a tiny moment his voice reached me through the hubbub.
“By Bridzilkelsh the Resplendent! I am done for!”
Blackness gushed from his mouth.
“Hold up, dom,” I said. “We’ll carry you—”
But the Brokelsh, Ridzi the Rangora, keeled over onto his side, the spear haft drawing up his knees in a rictus of agony. In the next heartbeat he was dead.
In a heavy rush of bodies more of our fellows joined in from the fight up front. Quendur the Ripper cut down his man, swirled at another, called across in a high, bright voice: “They run in front, Jak! Now we have them here!”
I did not reply, catching a heavy blow in a slanting glide on the dagger and thrusting with the thraxter. Recovering, I ducked and belted a blow sideways to take the knees from a Rapa who gobbled and, before he could fall over, had his beak removed by Murkizon’s enormous axe.
“Tromple all over ’em!”
“Hai!” roared Pompino, catching a Brown and Silver trying to get at the gherimcal. The man sank down in a puddle. My comrade glared about. Quendur was in the act of swiping at a Fristle who now clearly wished to backpedal. The fight was all but over. The remaining Brown and Silvers drew off.
“Hurry!” I said in that penetrating whisper that cuts like splintered glass. “They’ll be shafting us now.”
Quendur saw where Ridzi lay, doubled up over the spear, the black stain on the cobbles. He stepped forward, took up the handle of the gherimcal, the other three calsters took their handles. Tilda gave no sign of life. The chair lifted. In a bunch, weapons naked and stained, we ran for the palace.
Unwilling to leave a comrade, I hoisted up Ridzi, breaking the disgusting spear off. I hurled the broken haft into the radiance of the Moons, cursing stupid waste. With the hairy bloody body of the Brokelsh over my shoulder I ran after the others.
The avenue leading from that kyro where we had been ambushed led on for a couple of hundred paces and then opened out into the plaza fronting the palace. The building of itself appeared to be no great size under the moons. Some of its towers lofted to a goodly height, and one dome gleamed silky-sheened in the radiance.
There was no moat or drawbridge. Instead a double gate flanked by watchtowers protected the entrance. I did not give that fortification a long life against an expert siege-master.
Two apim guards in little sentry boxes, their spears slanted, watched us running up.
As we approached in a rushing wheeze of panting breaths and staccato cracks of studded sandals, the gates creaked open. They creaked. Through the noise of our progress the wood and iron creaked loudly and distinctly.
We did not stop but rushed straight through into a walled courtyard where torches flared.
The gates creaked and closed at our backs.
“Safe,” said Pompino. He looked wrought up. “We’ve done it!”
“Aye,” I said, as they put the gherimcal down. “And here is some of the cost.” Over my shoulder, Ridzi lolled.
There was no decent answer Pompino could find to that.
Tuscurs Maiden’s
Ship Hikdar, Boris Pordon, appeared. He looked worried sick.
“Thank Pandrite you are safe, horter!” He spoke to Pompino directly. “We were about to run out to your assistance—”
Pompino brushed that aside. “The whole affair was over before you could have reached us. It was a hindrance only.”
The decoy party and the fake chair had made a simple, safe journey here, unmolested. The canvas and wood construction stood to one side and I looked at it critically. Well... Seen like this it might have fooled the Leem Lovers. It had not done so, and that luck played against us.
The torches streamed a ruddy light upon the folk clustered in the courtyard. Their faces wore apprehensive looks, they fidgeted and fingered their weapons. They hardly looked the people to defend a palace against determined onslaughts.
In the light an Ift stepped forward, approaching the carrying chair.
“I bid you welcome, horters, horteras,” he said. “Is the Kovneva safe?” He bent to the curtains.
Pompino bristled up.
“Just who are you, horter?”
The Ift straightened. He was under man height, although some Ifts can grow to overtop a full-grown apim, so it is said. He was clad in clothes of varying shades and tones of green, and here in a palace he was out of his usual habitat, for Ifts are folk of the forest. They are accounted fine bowshots. Wayward folk, Ifts, with tall pointed ears reaching almost to the crown of their head, and with slanted, devious eyes. Now this Ift stared challengingly at Pompino.
“Were it not for Hikdar Pordon, I would demand of you the same question, Horter Pompino. But he mentioned that we were to expect a Khibil.”
Here Pordon gave a little jump, so I guessed he’d told this Ift a little more about Pompino than he’d care to have the Owner hear.
