A Life for Kregen (20 page)

A parcel of slaves lurched lugubriously across a side trail. They were burdened with sacks and staggered as they struggled on under the whips and goads of Och guards. One tends to talk of slaves in this context in terms of parcels; no disrespect is meant by it. The Och guards were disposed of and the slaves, dully incurious, went on their lurching way. We walked on into the mist. A Fristle astride a totrix came lolloping along singing a song, his feet jutting out at arrogant angles. He went whiskers first into the quagmire. Lol stood back and put his hands on his hips.

“I,” he said, “just do not believe this.”

“You may ride, Lol,” I told him. “We’re bound to run across a couple of decent uniforms soon.”

We found the uniforms stretched across the broad backs of three Chuliks. These diffs were a different proposition, and we had a nice little set to before we could claim their garments for ourselves.

“I see what you meant about the uniforms and gear,” observed Lol as we dressed in the fancy ochre and umbre and buckled up the lesten-hide harness. The sleeves were ochre and white — the serving swod’s approximation to Layco Jhansi’s kovnate colors of ochre and silver — and the accoutrements of the men were of good quality. I nodded and stowed the longsword and longbow and quiver over my shoulder, draping a checkerboard cloak across them.

“We’ll penetrate a good long way dressed like this. But do you keep your own sword, also.”

“I understand.”

When we reached the artificial lake surrounding Trakon’s Pillars and surveyed the narrow wooden bridge that connected the pillared stronghold to the land — so-called — we realized what a foolhardy errand we were on. But there was nothing else for it now but to press on as cheerfully as might be. So, singing that silly little ditty about Forbenard and the Rokrell, we pushed on over the bridge. At the far side under the overhanging wooden gateway a Fristle guard awaited us.

“Six of ’em, majister,” said Lol, leaning down from the saddle. “I’ll rush ’em, and then—”

“Hold, Lol! You may rush ’em, with my blessing. But I shall feather three of them for you as you ride. And, once inside, make for the deepest darkest dirtiest shadow and await me. I shall not be long.”

“Majister!” He looked stricken. “I did not mean—”

“I know what you mean, Lol Polisto, and I welcome your thought. Now, as you love Vallia, do as you are bid.”

He grunted, and said, softly, “As I love my Thelda and my son.” But he waited until I had unlimbered the bow. Then he clapped in his heels and was away and I hauled back the string and snapped three arrows across the gap, whistling past Lol’s down-bent head. Three of the Fristles coughed bright blood and collapsed. Lol took two more and the last turned to run. Lol’s totrix, tangling his stupid six-legs, stumbled the wrong way. The Fristle, screeching, his whiskers flaring, would escape and arouse the castle — all I could do was call on Seg’s Supreme Being, Erthyr the Bow, and cast a last shaft.

It sped true.

Lol spurred on swiftly, as we had agreed, and I ran in after him, hurdling the fallen men, for the Fristles may have cat-faces, but they are men and can prove it. Inside the gateway the wooden walls stretched, and ahead showed shadows under brickwork, arches and galleries. That looked promising and so I ran — fast, you may be sure — expecting an arrow to float silently down any mur and knock my brains out. I reached the brick, gray with age and round-edged, and ducked into the shadows. A totrix snuffled and Lol said, “All clear.”

“Well done. Now let us get on.”

From previous experience of the uniquely Kregen architecture of palace and castle I expected us to be able to move about with comparative freedom provided no alarm was raised. The alarm was going to be raised in no uncertain fashion the moment the first of the Fristle guards was discovered. So we must tailor our cloth to suit the narrowness of our movements.

This rat’s warren of Trakon’s Pillars turned out to be something of a surprise, in the end, for we ventured through courts of moldering brick and past colonnades of gilded wood where every motif shrieked of one thing and one thing only.

Jikaida.

Our bedraggled appearance which had served to give us time to fell the Chuliks had vanished with the donning of their guard uniforms provided by Jhansi. We moved smartly, with that unmistakable swagger of the mercenary drawing swift, half-averted glances from serving wenches, free and slave alike. For a space we could proceed unmolested. The totrix was like to be a hindrance but we were loath to part with the steed against his immediate and urgent need in the near future. Past tumbled ruins, past brand-new buildings, freshly lime-washed, we went, seeking always to come to the center. There, we both felt, lay the answers to our dual questions.

We skirted several courts laid out as Jikaida boards of various sizes. Not one was in use this early in the morning. An ob-Deldar moved bulkily out of an arched doorway and bellowed at us, and we ignored him and marched on as though about the kov’s business. Later on we were accosted again, this time by a thin-nosed and supercilious Hikdar. His misfortune was that he snapped at us in an alleyway between ochreberry bushes, and so had no protection from inquisitive eyes as we clapped him down in his cape and sat on him. He struggled like a landed fish.

“Dom,” I said, very friendly. “Tell us where the captives are stowed away and you may live.”

He started to bluster and then to yell as soon as Lol took his clamping hand away. Lol tapped him alongside the skull, gently, put his fist back over the fellow’s mouth, and, leaning down with a fierceness that perfectly complemented my apparent gentleness, said, “If you do not instantly tell us what we wish to know, and do so quietly, you will miss—” Well, what he would miss would make him miss a lot of life hereafter. The Hikdar was happy, most happy, to tell Lol what he wanted to know.

Leaving the Hikdar stuffed under the ochreberry bushes we led the totrix through ways advised us until we passed a neat little pavilion reflected in a goldfish pool. Past a tall yew hedge a gravel path led to a small wicket set in a creeper-bowered brick wall. Here the sentry eyed us as Lol, most officiously, said: “We have news for the kov, dom. You had best not keep him waiting.”

The guard — one of that nameless band of heroes whose sole function, as I have pointed out before, seems to be to stand all puffed in gold and silver finery, with a spear, and to be knocked on the head — was inclined to argue. He was also incautious enough to open the wicket to make his point with great vehemence. Lol hit him, whereupon he ceased to be an obstacle and we were able to pass inside.

“Now where?”

“We must ask again, and keep asking, until we get the answer we seek.”

“You have, majister, I think,” said Lol, “done this before.”

“On and off,” I said. “On and off.”

But, the truth is, and will remain, that no two occasions are ever the same. And, every time, the old gut-tightening sensations afflict you and you have to keep a damned sharp lookout behind you. Damned sharp.

The bustle of the place was refreshing after the dolorous dragging down effect of the bogs. Slaves and servants and guards moved about and we were able to make our way forward. A swod with purple and green sleeves told us that, he thought, the prisoners were confined in dungeons where the rasts nested and the schrafters sharpened their teeth on the bones of corpses.

“The lady prisoner, cramph!”

The swod rolled his eyes down, trying to focus the dagger pressing into his throat. “In the Lattice House,” he squeaked.

So we went to the Lattice House.

This turned out to be a brick-built structure whose bricks were still sharp-cornered, and whose roof was tile rather than wood or thatch. We stopped by the corner of a gravel path, where brilliantly plumaged arboras strutted, and took in the prospects of breaking in. Lol was shaking.

“Easy, Lol. We are almost there.”

“Aye. I haven’t even thought of getting out.”

“One thing at a time.”

A dozen guards sweating with effort ran past, and their Deldar bellowed at them to spread out and search the Ladies Quarter. I frowned. “The hunt is up.”

“Just let us break in. Then—”

We glared from the shadows of the foliage, and I saw that Lol’s shaking had stopped. I rather fancied he would make a good companion, even a member of the KRVI, if we got out of this in one piece apiece, so to say. For the life of me I couldn’t take it seriously, and this, I vaguely realized, was because Lol was the kind of fellow to make you do things you wouldn’t dream of doing in more staid moments. He was a lot like Seg, and Inch, in that...

“Bluff,” I said. “It will work if you believe it will.”

With that and giving Lol no time to argue I straightened up, gave the stolen uniform a flick, and marched very arrogantly toward the entrance door. This was of lenken wood with bronze bolt heads, and each side stood an apim swod, brilliant in the ochre and white livery of Layco Jhansi.

“Llahal, doms,” I called out. “There are two madmen at large and the kov has sent us to protect the prisoners. Let us in and be quick about it.”

The two rankers frowned at us, and their swords twitched up. You couldn’t blame them. Now I have been accused, here and there, of saying that a certain man was a fool to draw a sword against me, and this has been alleged against me as proof positive of my overweening self-pride and pompousness. This is not so, as you who have heard my story will know. The truth is rather that I sorrow at his foolishness and take no pride from it whatsoever — how can one man take pride in the exposure of another? These two swods would have fallen into the category of fools, but that Lol stepped in first, feverish with frustrated impatience, and belted them, one, two, and knocked them flying.

“Very pretty,” I said. “Now we must drag them in and find someone else to ask where away is your lady wife.”

“We will,” he growled. As we dragged the guards in through the doorway I reflected that Lol was picking up my ways with a pleasing aptitude.

The lenken door closed with only the wheezingest of groans and as the wood latched shut a posse of Rapa guards ran past, swords and spears at the ready. I cursed them and turned to follow Lol into the interior of the Lattice House.

The place was lushly furnished, carpeted, lit by skylights well out of reach of even my Earthly muscles. We found a Fristle fifi who was eager to tell us where the captives were. Captives. I frowned.

We padded along on the carpets, past statuary of an erotic and convoluted kind, up stairways where candelabra branched, unlighted now, and tall mirrors reflected us as two stikitches, murderous with intent, stalking their prey. I fancied the mirrors did not entirely lie...

This Lattice House contained a distinctive smell compounded of sweat and scent, of heavily perfumed flowers and that sharp aroma that Jilian would call armpit-smell. There were mirrors and statues, paintings and tapestries everywhere. I wondered if Seg had ever been here, and, if he had, why the place still stood.

The Fristle fifi hurried ahead. Her fur was of that sweet honeydew melon color so highly-prized by connoisseurs, most of whom deserve chains themselves. She led us along a purple velvet draped corridor toward a balass door. No guards stood there. Lol pushed on ahead, eagerly, and thrust the door open. The Fristle let out a little squeal of surprise, and half-turned to me. Lol yelped. He vanished. His yelp broke up in a startled bellow, and echoes caught it, twisting and magnifying it into a booming hollowness. I caught the Fristle by her upper arm and held her gently and so looked down into the pit.

The shaft was black and unpolished by a single shard of light save what few rays fell from the lamp over the door. No sound reached me from that ebon pit.

I said, “How far did he fall?”

The Fristle was sobbing and squirming, terrified. At last she got out, “There is straw below. He is not killed.”

“You should, fifi, be very thankful for that.” I saw that the pit extended from jamb to jamb. “How do we reach the bottom of the pit?”

“You cannot. It is guarded by werstings. The handlers will come later and—”

“Show me the way.”

“I cannot! I cannot!”

The scene was not pretty. I said, “I think you can — I think you will, Fristle.”

She wailed and sobbed but began to lead me back and along a side corridor covered in pink brocades. I carried the drexer naked in my right fist, and my left hand clamped the fifi’s arm. She wore a copper bracelet there, and that should have warned me, onker that I am.

The likelihood was that she was more terrified that I did not rave and shout, and my calmness in a situation she must know was one of frightful horror for me, unnerved her. She led me along the corridors and I sheathed the blade only three times so as to avoid suspicion as we passed people. The girl Fristle made no attempt at raising the alarm at these times and, to my sorrow, I realized she imagined she would be the first to die.

At the next corner of the corridor, where an ivory statue of a talu swirled multiple arms in exotic frozen dance, she hung back. The tears glistered pearl-like on her face.

“Go on, girl.”

“There are guards—”

I pushed her back, still holding her, and stuck my head around the corner. Four apim guards lounged outside a door. Clad like the others in ochre and silver, bearing swords and spears, they yet, for all their lounging, looked alert and a cut above the usual run. One revealed the glitter of a silver pakmort at his throat.

“The lady captive,” I said to the Fristle fifi. “She is in there?”

“Yes. She and the child.”

I pondered.

No harm seemed to have come so far to Thelda Polisto and her child. The priority appeared to me to get Lol safely out of that black pit, then rescue his Thelda, and so make our break out. I did not wish to be lumbered with a woman and a baby going down against Werstings. So I hitched my left fist around the girl’s arm, very friendly, and said to her a few home truths, whereat she trembled anew, and so started off with a confident swing, my story all ready for the guards.

Well, men grow corn for Zair to sickle.