Fliers of Antares (16 page)

Now we came up against wildly vicious Djangs armed with the great sword of the islands of Djanduin. They were Nath Jagdur’s personal bodyguard, men recruited from his own island of Hyr Khor. Against them, and with an unholy zest that infuriated all present, went the great swordsmen from Kytun’s island of Uttar Djombey. There was work to be done here for the future.

A merker alighted in a rush of fluttclepper wings and I had to draw back from the forefront of the battle at this vital moment of conquest to deal with problems of handling the city. There were orders to give, and decisions to make, all the pressing demands on a commander in battle that, in truth, were my proper role instead of bashing on with my longsword. I sent a scrabble of merkers into the air and racing on zorcas among the arcaded avenues of the city so as to make absolutely sure of every point within Djanguraj.

Coper had done his work well. Despite my proud boasts I could never have kept the city once I had taken it without his work. The fruits of those labors now bore sweet fruit. The people appeared everywhere, shouting for Notor Prescot, and great crowds surged up the avenues, waving flags of orange and gray, and there were many who waved small copies of Old Superb in their violent excitement.

Coper was hauled out of the line by the scruff of his neck and Nath ti Jondaria, a bluff fellow with a moustache wider than his ears, grinned hugely as he dumped Ortyg Coper down. They are good friends in nature’s way, are Obdjang and Dwadjang, but the four-armed Djangs love to exhibit their strengths to the gerbil-faced Obdjangs. We are all human.

“Here, Notor, is the Pallan as you ordered!”

“Thank you, Nath. If you wish to carve yourself some fun in the battle—”

But he was off, running and waving his sword above his head, screeching with sheer joy at being alive.

“Now, Ortyg, we must plan the food supplies. That is the most important item in our plans. The people shout for us now, and for that I thank you with all my heart, but they will change their tune if we cannot feed them.”

Ortyg Coper squirmed inside his uncomfortable armor.

“You speak the truth, Dray. And, as Mother Diocaster is my witness, I was never cut out to be a warrior. Now, as to food, there are caches we have uncovered here and there—” And so we went at it, with maps and lists and sending off of merkers with orders to the detachments of the army. Quoffa carts were collected by the hundred, and calsanys with panniers ready prepared. Djanguraj would not starve if I could help it.

The noise of battle sensibly diminished. Coper and his stylors and I worked on in a feverish bustle, for we knew we must instantly show the people that we were not as other conquerors had been, and that we really meant what we said about the welfare of the Djangs of Djanduin.

Presently Chan of the Wings appeared. He was walking. His leather flying gear showed a streak of blood, and he held his djangir in his hand. When he advanced to stand before me at the long tables set up in the court of the Stux of Zodjuin, he looked not so much tired as regretful and resentful of his errand. This was most unlike a merker.

“Well, Chan of the Wings,” I said, scribbling notes at the foot of a distribution list — that was for palines, I noticed, having asked to inspect the paline supply position personally — and looking up sharply. “You have a message?”

“Aye, Notor Prescot, whom henceforth men will hail as King of Djanduin. The last remnants of the leemsheads are barricaded within the sacred court. Kov Kytun Kholin Dom pens them there. And the Opaz-forsaken rast of a Kov Nath Jagdur has sent a message—”

Instantly my mind flew back seven years, to the moment when I had appeared by the Star Lords’ command in Djanduin, beside the burning inn. And I could hear myself shouting, so as to give a little breathing space, throw a little bafflement into the picture, half-taunting this Nath Jagdur, Kov of Hyr Khor. His men had been hurling stuxes at me, and loosing when they could, and he had been trying to get at me with that damned great sword which now swung at my side. I remembered letting him have a curse and an offer.

“By the Black Chunkrah, Kov Nath! Let you and me settle this between ourselves, like true Horters.”

And he had laughed and said he was no Horter.

Neither am I, when it comes down to it. If I had to cut him up or stick him I would do so, fairly or foully.

“I am coming, Chan of the Wings,” I said, and rose and clapped my left hand to that great sword of the island of Djanduin that I had cut down into an imitation longsword of the Eye of the World. I strode off toward the sacred court of the warrior gods.

Chan shook his head.

“You seem ever able, Notor, to read a man’s mind.”

How easy to have said, in the old harsh way, “Believe it!”

But that would have been cheap.

Kytun met me, blood-spattered, angry, alive with his deep humor and his fighting blood aroused and baffled.

“By the blood of Holy Djan-kadjiryon!” he bellowed. “The yetch challenges you, Dray! He challenges you to single combat!”

“He but takes up a challenge issued seven years ago, Kytun.” I spoke mildly. I had no wish, now, to fight this wild leem of a rebellious Kov who had made himself king; but I would so do. I would do so for the sake of this new country of mine. For, make no mistake, Djanduin had become a country I counted and honored.

Coper had also pushed up with us, and now he squeaked his own outrage.

“If he kills you, Dray, if he does — why — it is all for nothing, for he will be the rightful king still—”

“I do not think Djanduin would care for that.”

“No — we would have to kill him then, ourselves. And the country—” Kytun flicked blood-drops from his sword. “By Djan! This is a sorry business. The challenge should never have been allowed!”

“But it has been, good Kytun, and I accept. Is all prepared?”

“Aye, Dray. It will be as the old laws prescribe. Man against man, and no other man will raise his hand to help either, no matter what the outcome.”

So I walked forward between the arcades with the sculptured and painted friezes — fine work but nothing to compare with what I had seen elsewhere on Kregen. Fresh torches were brought and they cast their flickering erratic light down into the sacred court of the warrior gods. Kov Nath sat on the faerling throne. He looked as I had last seen him, save that his once-smooth helmet of copper hair had now grown long and was disarranged. Many dead Djangs lay about the court. I marked them. The night was very dark, and the stars sparkled down with unwonted brilliance.

“Bring torches!” bellowed Kytun.

I went with my people in a kind of procession into the sacred court; the thought occurred to me then: almost as though we marched ceremoniously into the Jikhorkdun where we would perform our bloody rituals.

Still more torches were brought. Their golden light streaked upon the chemzite carvings of the walls, upon the mosaics of the floor, now dabbled in blood, upon the gold and silver and ivory of the faerling throne, and upon the huge and solidly gem-plated hood which rose, high and domed and arching, above. Like a hollow benediction of gold and jewels the sacred hood of the faerling throne rose over the throne itself, both protecting and threatening. As Kov Nath stood up to reveal himself, clad only in a scarlet breechclout, I loosened my longsword and drew it forth.

Kov Nath stepped down the six golden steps and trod upon the mosaic floor. His four hands were empty.

Thinking it a useful ploy to be seen not to have the advantage of armor I started to strip it off, and Wil of the Bellows was there, unstrapping and carefully removing all the dinted pieces from my body. He took my sword. I held out my hand for the weapon.

An old Dwadjang came forward with a wide and shallow balass box. Wil clung on to my sword, his eyes wide and fear filled upon me. The old Djang opened the box. Inside were ranked eight djangirs. The short broad blades of the double-edged swords glittered in the torchlight.

“This is by the customs of the ancients of Djanduin!” he cried out in a reedy voice. “The challenge has been made and accepted. It is man against man and the prize is the crown and the faerling throne!”

In the rustling silence the spit and crackle of the torches sounded loud and ominous. I stood, all manner of thoughts rushing and colliding in my head.

“Come, cramph, the rast men call Notor Prescot! Select your weapons!”

Slowly I drew out two djangirs.

Kov Nath Jagdur laughed with immense scorn. He plunged his four hands in and withdrew four djangirs.

This was the way of it, then! This was the ancient custom! In Djanduin the Djangs fight duels and ritual battles with their national weapon, the djangir.

We faced each other. Two men, alike in so many ways, for had Kov Nath not possessed an extra pair of arms he would have been apim. And — because of a little fad, a weakness, of mine which made me don my old scarlet breechclout on the morning of battle — we both stood naked but for a scarlet loincloth.

He fell into a fighting crouch and then surged up, laughing, gleeful, swinging his arms.

I stand as though mesmerized at those four whirling djangirs.

So he faced me, at the end, Nath Jagdur, Kov of Hyr Khor, who was once of the Djin tan. The torchlight threw two stars of mocking gold into his eyes, and his four arms wove a flickering silver net before my eyes. He leaped for me, and in his four hands the whirling blades swung into a lethal wheel of deadly steel!

The fight in the sacred court of the warrior gods

The marvelous world of Kregen is blessed with two suns and seven moons. Usually at night a combination of moons sends down their streaming pinkish rays, sometimes golden, sometimes jade, as seasons change and the mists rise. Sometimes there falls a night in which no moons are visible. There are two suns and seven moons, and each has many names, and the tenth is called Notor Zan, the Tenth Lord, the Lord of Blackness.

The Djangs are ferocious warriors.

Had I my trusted longsword — or a thraxter and shield — or a rapier and main-gauche — for it might perhaps have been too much to ask that I gripped the superb Savanti sword I had left with Delia — I would have gone up against Kov Nath with greater confidence.

As it was, we fought with his national weapon, and he had four arms and he was possessed of great skill. He leaped for me and his arms wove a deadly net of steel. I backed away nimbly, leaping dead bodies, for the court had not been cleared of the corpses. He roared and charged.

“Stand and fight, you nulsh! By Zodjuin of the Storm-clouds! Act like a man, even if you are only apim!”

There had to be a way of taking him. He would not be decoyed so easily as to stumble over a dead man. Djangs are warriors born. I circled, for we were pent between the mystic friezes of the sacred court of the warrior gods, and men clustered in the arcades, watching us by the light of torches.

On those walls frowned down the carved representations of warrior gods, the pantheon of Djanduin. High over the rest rose a giant stele with symbols incised upon it describing the creation of Djanduin out of the primitive miasmas of the Ocean of Doubt. Djan had called forth the land and the land had risen and, lo! that land was Djanduin, blessed among the lands of the world.

Kov Nath flickered his three djangirs most expertly while he kept his left lower blade down and limp, as though out of the play. I might not have four arms, but I recognized the symptom of the ploy he was trying there. As I circled he rushed me in an attempt to finish the thing quickly. I took two djangirs upon my own and skipped aside as the third sliced down past my thigh and only just managed to interpose a hurriedly snatched blade between that last, treacherous, left low blade and my belly. He roared, and stood back, the sweat starting out all over his body.

“Hai! For a cripple you fight passing well!”

I did not reply. Along the walls the sacred carvings seemed to flicker in the torchlight and to march, writhing across the stone. They appeared to me to be marching around, up there, along the friezes, and to be looking down on us as we fought for the faerling throne.

Asshurphaz, Djondalar, Rig, Zodjuin, perhaps the most favored by warriors of the warrior gods, Djan-kadjiryon. All of them were armed, armored, crested, their diamond and ruby eyes gleaming down in the torchlight, and they writhed and rippled there upon the solid stone walls. Nundji was there, escorted by wild leems, railing against the warriors who had jailed him in a leem-hell. Over on the far side the draperies of Mother Diocaster seemed to surge as the torchlight shimmered across the pale alabaster surfaces. The shadows moved.

Kov Nath leaped again and his blades wove a deceptive circle of sparks. I ducked and slid sideways and tried to stick him in the belly. Two djangirs came down with a firm finality and halted my blade, and only a savage kick and lunge saved a third from going through my shoulder.

Those watchful Djangs kept a strict silence at first. But as we leaped and lunged across the mosaics of the floor, hurdling dead bodies, slipping and recovering in the pools of spilled blood, so the fire got to those wild warriors and they began to yell. There were fierce shouts of encouragement for Kov Nath from those of his men who had remained here, until the challenge and acceptance had been confirmed. My men yelled, too. The torches waved in the wide space, curling the streaming golden hair against the darkness of Notor Zan. I knew I was likely to go down into Notor Zan’s paunch, and wake up in the Ice Floes of Sicce, if I did not speedily devise a system for sticking a man with four arms who knew how to handle four deadly djangirs with consummate skill.

“You are no Djang, rast; but stand and fight like a man, by Zodjuin of the Glittering Stux!”

As Kov Nath spoke, I leaped with a great fury and so took him high on the upper left shoulder. The morphology of the Djangs is remarkable, for their doubled shoulder blades constructed rather like sliding doors give equal power — well, almost equal power — to their upper and lower arms, and their muscles rope like steel across their backs. I sliced some flesh and the blood spouted. A hoarse shout rose from the assembled warriors and then, out of nowhere, I felt a keen blade slice down my side. I swiveled and lurched away and I felt the blood running down my side; but I did not put a hand to it. There was no time.