The Fallable Fiend (12 page)
Read The Fallable Fiend Online
Authors: L. Sprague deCamp
“Who has led the foremost in every battle? I, the fearless and invincible Shragen! Who slew five Gendings single-handed at the battle of the Ummel? I, the mighty and valorous Shragen! Who won the interclan wrestling tournament in the fifth year of Cham Theorik, on whom may the gods ever smile? I, the fierce and redoubtable Shragen! Whose sense of honor has never failed him? Mine, that of the noble and virtuous Shragen! Can any warrior compare with the peerless and well-beloved Shragen? Nay, and therefore I drink to my own magnificence!”
Down went a mugful of beer. When the magnificent Shragen had sat down, another arose and delivered a similar harangue, which Shnorri translated for me. As we say at home, self-conceit oft precedes a downfall.
###
After an hour of this, the chiefs of the Hruntings were well into their cups. At last, Cham Theorik hammered on his table with the hilt of his dagger.
“Time for business!” he bellowed. “We have two items only tonight. One is a complaint from the Gendings that one of our brave heroes has stolen a flock of their sheep. The other is the proposal brought from Ir by the demon Zdim—that dragonny-looking fellow yonder, between Shnorri and Hvaednir. First, the sheep. Step forward, Master Minthar!”
The Gending envoy was a middle-aged Shvenite, who told how a Gending had been robbed of fifty sheep by a gang of Hrunting thieves. Cham Theorik questioned Minthar. No, the victim had not seen the rustlers. How knew he they were Hruntings? By his shepherd’s description of their costume and horse trappings, and by the direction in which they had fled . . .
After an hour of this, during which several chiefs went to sleep, Theorik ended the proceedings. “Enough!” he roared. “You have produced no competent evidence. If the Gendings need more sheep, they can buy them from us.”
“But, Your Terribility, this is a weighty matter to us—” protested the envoy.
Theorik belched. “Begone, wretch! We do not believe a word of your tale. Everybody knows what liars the Gendings are—”
“Everyone knows what thieves the Hruntings are, you mean!” shouted the envoy. “This means another war!”
“You insult and threaten us in our own tent?” yelled Theorik. “Guards, seize me this pestilent knave! Off with his head!”
Guards dragged Minthar, screaming and struggling, out of the tent. A buzz of argument arose among the chiefs. Several tried to speak to the cham at once. Some said that this was the way to treat those treacherous scum; others, that the person of an ambassador should be respected regardless of his message. By shouting louder than the other, one of the latter party got the chain’s ear.
“Aye, aye, we see your point,” said Theorik. “Well, we will consider the matter again on the morrow, when we are sober. If Minthar merit a more considerate treatment—”
“Cham!” cried my companion Shnorri. “Minthar will be in no state tomorrow to get better treatment!”
Theorik shook his head in a puzzled way. “Aye, now that you put it thus, I see what you mean. Guards! Belay our last order, about killing—oh oh, too late!”
A guard had just stepped into the tent, holding at arm’s length, by its scalp lock, the dripping head of Ambassador Minthar. Theorik said: “A good joke on us, ho ho ho! By Greipnek’s balls, we shall have to think up some excuse or apology to Cham Vandomar. The other item is the proposal brought from Ir by the demon Zdim . . .”
Theorik gave a resume of my proposal. “At first we suspected some sessor trick,” said the cham, “for Zdim brought no credentials or other evidence with him, claiming they had been stolen by the Zaperazh. Several of our men who served in Ir, however, confirm that Zdim was there, in service to a lady of that city. So we are inclined to believe him. At least, it is hard to see what ulterior motive he could have in making so long and arduous a journey by himself. But now let him speak to you in person. His Excellency Zdim!”
By “sessor,” Theorik meant a non-nomad, like a farmer or a city-dweller. The nomads use the word as a term of contempt for all men of sedentary occupations.
I had some difficulty in standing up, for Prince Hvaednir had fallen asleep with his golden head on my shoulder. When I had disengaged myself from him, I told the chiefs of the facts, while Shnorri translated. I was circumspect in my speech, having seen what might befall an ambassador who roiled this crowd of drunken barbarians.
The ensuing discussion ran on and on. Because the speakers were now thoroughly drunk, their arguments were also largely irrelevant or unintelligible. At last the cham rapped for order.
“That will be all for tonight, comrades,” he said. “We shall come to our deshish—our deshiss—we shall make up our minds tomorrow at the sober council. Now—”
“I crave your pardon, Great Cham, but it is not all!” cried a Hrunting, whom I recognized as the man I had forced to convey me to the tent city. “I was fain not to interrupt your business; but now that is over, I have something to settle with this demon!”
“Oh?” said the cham. “What would you, Master Hlindung?”
“He has insulted my honor!” Hlindung told of our meeting on the steppe and of my coercing him to bear me to the chain’s abode. “So I name him a vile, inhuman monster and will prove my words upon his corrupt and loathsome body, forthwith! Stand forth, demon!”
“What means this?” I asked Shnorri.
“It means you must fight him to the death.”
“Cham!” I called. “If this man slay me, how shall I present the proposals from Ir on the morrow?”
“Let that fret you not,” said Theorik. “I have heard the proposals, and I am sure that Shnorri as well knows them by heart. Meanwhile, this combat will provide an amusing end to a prolixious evening. How jolly, ho ho ho! Stand forth and take your chances, Master Zdim!”
Hlindung swaggered back and forth in the space before the cham’s table. He bore a sword, which he swished through the air, and an iron-studded leathern buckler.
“I endeavor to give satisfaction,” I said, “but what am I supposed to fight him with?”
“Whatever you have with you,” said the cham.
“But I have nought with me!” I protested. “Your guards disarmed me when they took me into custody, and my weapons have never been returned.”
“Ho ho ho, how funny!” roared Theorik. “How unfortunate for you! I cannot order that you be given weapons, for you might hurt Hlindung with them, and then I should have been disloyal to my own tribesman. Come on, push him out, somebody.”
My tendrils tingled with the lust of the assembled chiefs to see blood flow.
Hvaednir awoke, and he and another seized me by the shoulders from behind and began to push me out from behind the table.
“What if I kill him?” I cried to the cham.
“That would be a fine jest, ho ho ho! Why, nought so far as I am concerned, since you would have slain him in fair fight. Of course, his kinsmen would then be at feud with you and entitled to slay you on sight.”
Before I knew it, I stood in the cleared space, facing Hlindung. The latter went into a crouch, holding his shield up before him, and began to slink towards me, making tentative little motions with his sword, on whose blade the yellow lantern light danced.
“But, Your Terribility—” I began, when Hlindung rushed.
Although in strength I far surpassed the ordinary Prime Planer and was more solidly put together, I did not delude myself that Hlindung’s sword would simply bounce off my scales. Since the space was cramped, I did the only thing I could to avoid that wicked-looking blade. I leaped clear over Hlindung’s head, alighting behind him.
The Hranting was well gone in drink, whereas I had drank only a moderate amount of beer. Besides, alcohol seems to affect us of the Twelfth Plane much less than Prime Planers. Perhaps the alchemists can puzzle out the reason.
When Hlindung realized that I had vanished, instead of turning around, he slashed the air where I had been standing. “Witchcraft!” he shouted. “Demonry!”
I sprang upon him from behind, seizing the collar of his jacket and the slack of his trousers with my talons. Then I swung him off his feet and spun him in a circle, wheeling on my heels. The third time around, I let him go on the upswing. With a scream, he flew against the sloping side of the tent and went right on through. A thump came from outside.
Several Hruntings rushed out. Presently some came back in, saying: “Great Cham, Hlindung is not badly hurt. He merely broke a leg coming down.”
“Ho ho ho!” chortled the cham. “So my brave swasher thinks he can take liberties with beings from other planes, eh? This will teach him. He should be harmless for a few moons. By the time he recovers and can seek a return match, Master Zdim, you will doubtless have found business elsewhere. Cursed clever of you, by Greipnek’s bowels! Even if you did damage my tent. To bed, everybody; I pronounce this drunken council ended.”
###
The sober council, the following afternoon, was less picturesque but more reasonable, despite the hangovers of some of the chiefs. In fact, some Shvenites displayed reasoning powers that would not shame a Twelfth Plane demon. The chiefs favored an expedition to Ir but boggled at the dragon-lizards.
“The mammoth is a fell weapon,” said one, “but the beasts have a craven mislike of wounds and death. Confront them with some outlandish sight and smell, like these dragons, and they are wont to panic and flee back through their own host. This leaves the host in an untidy state.”
“We demons,” I said, “have a saying: to seek to save oneself is a natural law. But have you no magicians amongst you, to render these monsters harmless?”
“We have a couple of old warlocks, good only for curing bellyaches and forecasting the weather. We brave nomads had rather trust our sword arms than the juggleries of magic.”
“If the Paaluans invaded Shven,” mused another, “it were simple. Wait for a cold spell, and their dragons—being cold-blooded reptiles—would slow to a halt as the cold stiffened them.”
“That gives me an idea, if I may take the liberty of speaking,” said I. “I know a shaman of the Zaperazh—if ‘know’ be the word I want for a man who tried to sacrifice me to their god. He has a cold spell in his magical armory; in fact, they captured me when this fellow Yurog froze me so that I could not move. Now, could we persuade Master Yurog to apply his spell to the Paaluans . . .”
This suggestion met with shouts of approval from the chiefs. “Good!” said the cham. “That is,
if
Master Zdim can enlist this savage in the enterprise. We’ll march as far as the Needle’s Eye and then see what his powers of persuasion will do.
“Now,” he continued, “another matter. We still have no written contract with the Syndicate, and we should be fools to bleed ourselves white on their behalf without a solid agreement. We know those tricksters all too well. We could sacrifice half the nation for them, but if we had no piece of parchment to show, they would say: ‘We owe you nought; we never agreed to your helping us.’ ”
There was general agreement with the cham. Since nearly all Shvenites are illiterate, they have a superstitious reverence for the written word. Besides, from what I had seen of the Syndicate, I doubted not that the Shvenites’ apprehensions of being cozened had a basis in fact.
In the end it was decided that, first, an expeditionary force of five thousand warriors and a hundred mammoths should be sent as far as the Needle’s Eye. If I could enlist Yurog, the force would then march on through Solymbria, which would be in no position to resist the trespass, to Ir.
After some chaffering, they and I agreed upon essentially the terms the Syndicate had offered: one mark per man per day, with sixpence a day for each mammoth and a maximum of a quarter-million marks. They insisted on adding a minimum of a hundred thousand marks, to which I acceded.
Before engaging the Paaluans, however, we should make every effort to get a written promise from the Irians. How this could be done, with Ir surrounded by the Paaluans, would have to wait upon the event. Lastly, Theorik said: “O Hvaednir, since you may someday succeed me, it is time you learnt the art of independent command. Therefore you shall lead this foray. I shall furnish you with a competent council of war, made up of seasoned commanders, and I advise you to heed their rede.”
“I thank you, Uncle,” said Prince Hvaednir.
X
GENERAL ULOLA
We marched to the Needle’s Eye. Our scouts caught a Zaperazh tribesman, told him that we wished to confer with Yurog the shaman, and let him go. Presently, Yurog appeared from among the rocks. A payment of ten oxen to the tribe—five at once and five promised after the campaign—easily persuaded him to join us. As we swayed down the southern side of the pass on the back of a mammoth, the old fellow confided: “Is nice, being shaman; but me want see civilization, meet great wizards, learn higher magic. After many years, rocky mountains and ignorant cavemen is big bore.”
At the Solymbrian border, we faced the problem of how to treat the Solymbrians. I told Shnorri: “Methinks they cannot stop your army on its march to Ir, since they have become disorganized by having a halfwit as archon. But they will soon hold another election, and this time the lot may fall upon somebody more competent. If Hvaednir let his men run wild, robbing, raping, and slaying, you may have to fight your way back through Solymbria after the campaign.”
At the next council of war, Shnorri brought up the subject. (I attended these councils as the representative of Ir.) A chief said: “Who is this faintheart, who would have us treat vile sessors in this delicate, namby-pamby fashion? Out upon him! If our brave lads futter the Solymbrian wenches, it is a favor to the Solymbrians, by infusing our heroic blood into their degenerate veins.”
“Even a rat will bite if cornered,” said another. “Therefore, I agree with Prince Shnorri. If we push these Solymbrian rats too far, they will surely retaliate. What boots it for us to slay ten of them for every one of us? That one man who would die is worth far more to us back on the steppe, if war with the Gendings flare up again.”
“Oh, bugger the Solymbrians!” said the first. “We shall go through them like a hot knife through butter. Have you forgotten how we sacked Boaktis City in the days of Cham Yngnal, whilst the sessors fled like rabbits before us?”
Shnorri said: “I also recall that, as our force was on its way back across the Ellornas, the combined forces of the Boaktians, Tarxians, and Solymbrians assailed us and recovered most of the loot.”
So it went, back and forth, while Prince Hvaednir listened. This young man did not strike me as very intelligent, even when I had learnt enough Shvenish to converse with him. Thus far, however, he had listened attentively to the advice of his chiefs and accepted it when they more or less agreed. At last he said: “I will follow my cousin Shnorri’s advice. Command the warriors to stay on the highway; straggling shall be severely punished. Moreover, they shall pay the price demanded for everything they take from the Solymbrians. Theft and assault shall be punished by the loss of a hand; rape, by castration; murder, by the loss of a head.”
There was grumbling at this, and some warriors seemed not to take the command seriously. After one had lost his head for manslaying, however, the rest settled down and obeyed the rules.
At first the Solymbrians fled wildly from the Hrunting army. When they learnt how well-behaved the nomads were, however, most returned to their domiciles. A host of sutlers, entertainers, and whores assembled to minister to the warriors’ wants.
From some of these, I learnt that Ir still stood. The news was not new, because all the land roundabout Ir City, for many leagues, was bare of human life. Some of the folk had been captured by foraging parties of Paaluan kangaroo-cavalry and taken back to be eaten. The other dwellers, hearing of the fate of their countrymen, had put all the distance they could between themselves and Ir.
When we marched past Solymbria City—which prudently closed its gates against us—we passed a camp of Irian refugees. We halted for the night in sight of the city, and a delegation of Irians waited upon our commander.
“We fain would join your army in the rescue of our city,” they said. Shnorri again translated.
When Hvaednir seemed at a loss as to how to take this offer, Shnorri suggested calling a council of war. This was done. One chief asked: “How many would you be?”
“Perhaps five hundred, sir.”
“How are you armed?” asked another.
“Oh, we have no arms, sir. We fled in too great haste. We thought that your well-stocked army could furnish the arms.”
“How many are seasoned warriors?” asked a third.
The spokesman began to look depressed. “None, sir. We are a peace-loving folk, who ask only to be allowed to till our farms and ply our trades.” A Hrunting made a sneering remark in his own tongue, but the Irian continued: “Natheless, we burn with patriotic fervor, which makes up for our lack of experience.”
A chief said: “I fear that, with such a covey of fumblers, one might carry out one good charge but hardly a campaign. How are you mounted?”
“Not at all, sir. True, a few brought horses; but these are mere hackneys and farm nags, unsuited to war. We meant to serve as foot soldiers.”
Hvaednir spoke up: “We are a completely mounted army. Every man, save the mammoth riders, has at least two horses. What use would a battalion of untrained infantry be to us? You could not even keep up with us on the road.”
Several chiefs remarked: “A plague on them! We need no crowd of cowardly sessors.” “Aye, they would only be in the way.” “Honor demands that we keep the glory of this campaign to ourselves.” “Send the lowns packing, Prince.”
The Irians could not understand, but they caught the tone and looked sadder than ever. As they prepared to depart, I said: “Sirs, you know not what you will find at Ir. The Paaluans may have thrown strong defenses around their position. For assailing these, if I read my Prime Plane history aright, your animals will be of no use. You would have to undertake a siege of your own, which is a slow, laborious business.
“Whilst you made your preparations, the Irian refugees could catch up with you. If you lent them a Novarian-speaking officer as drillmaster, he could train them on the road. When the time came to assault a fortified camp, you might find that one soldier afoot is much like another.”
There was another outburst from the chiefs. Most of them still objected to arming the Irians, although Shnorri and two others came over to my side. At length Hvaednir said: “Well, since the arguments are balanced, let us let the gods decide.”
He took a coin out of his purse, flipped it, caught it, and slapped it down on his wrist.
“Heads,” he said. “The Irians shall be armed and mustered as the demon proposes. I have spoken.”
###
The weather became hot as, marching through deserted country, we neared Ir. The Hruntings’ heavy garments were unsuited to this sultry climate. Men rode with heads and upper bodies bare and then complained of sunburn. (Most Shvenites shaved the scalp save for a braided scalp lock; Hvaednir, vain of his golden locks, was one of the few to wear a full head of hair.) The stout Shnorri suffered especially, the sweat cascading off his rotund body. Sickness became common.
I must say that, when it came to moving an army, throwing out scouts, or pitching and striking a camp, the Hruntings were efficient. The chiefs might be full of fantastic notions of honor, valor, and superiority, but in practical matters they were effective. Hence it did not much matter that Prince Hvaednir was a rather stupid young man. So long as he followed their advice, he could not go very far wrong.
As we neared the Kyamos, our scouts reported that the Paaluans still surrounded Ir City. The Kyamos itself could not be seen from Ir, because of a low ridge between the Kyamos and the little Vomantikon. It was therefore decided to march by stealth and at night to the Kyamos and camp there, in hope that the Paaluans would not discover our presence until we were ready to attack. The cannibals no longer sent their scouts out on bouncers to range the countryside. I suppose they had given up searching for anything—or rather, anybody—edible, and it had not occurred to them to watch for a relieving army.
One evening, the Hrunting army moved quietly into the valley of the Kyamos, crossed the drawbridge, and camped. The men ate a cold supper, and all would have gone well had not one of the mammoths uttered a shrill, trumpetlike squeal. Several others responded, and within minutes our scouts reported that a body of Paaluans on bouncers were issuing from their camp with torches. The chiefs dispatched a larger force of horsemen to deal with them. The Hruntings scattered the Paaluans and killed most of them, but some got back into the camp.
The cannibals now knew that there was a hostile force nearby, but they did not know what sort of force it was. The chiefs strove to keep them from finding out. They posted pickets along the ridge separating the Kyamos from Ir and sent horsemen to patrol the higher points in the area, day and night. Some Paaluan scouts may have glimpsed our camp, but from too far away to do them much good.
On the second night after our arrival, the war council convened. A chief reported: “Our scouts tell me that the Paaluan soldiers were busy around their camp all day with picks and shovels, enlarging their fortifications. Some dig pits and plant stakes at the bottom; some set up barricades of sharpened branches; some dig ditches and raise walls. We should attack at once, ere these savages make themselves impregnable.”
“Nay!” said another. “We are the world’s most dashing horsemen; but stumbling about afoot, we should get ourselves slaughtered to no end. Better to cut off their supplies and starve them out.”
“We should starve the Irians to death whilst we were about it,” and another.
“So what? When the craven sessors are all dead, we can help ourselves to their wealth.”
“That were dishonorable counsel!”
“Comrades!” said another. “Let us keep our minds on the present problem. The Irian foot are but a day’s march behind us. If we await their arrival, we shall be better able to storm the cannibal camp. We shall, of course, put the Irians in the first wave. After all, it is their city, so they should not mind dying for it.”
And so it went, round and round. At last Prince Hvaednir remarked: “Comrades, my uncle the cham warned me, ere we departed, against joining battle without a firm agreement on terms with the Syndicate.”
“But how shall we agree with the Syndicate,” said a chief, “with the circle of Paaluans betwixt us and them?”
“We could go over, under, or through,” said a chief, half in jest. “From the amount of bare rock hereabouts, I doubt if a tunnel were practical.”
“As for going over,” said another, “have we no magician who can fly an envoy into and out of the city? I have heard of enchanted rugs and broomsticks that could carry a man.”
Shnorri said: “When I was a student at Othomae, a lecturer told me that such spells had been cast. But only the mightiest wizards could cast them, and they only with costly preparations, long labor, and the exhaustion of their own strength and powers. We might, however, ask our own magicker, Yurog the Zaperazh.”
Yurog was fetched. When the proposal was explained to him, he sighed. “Me no great magician like that. Me just little tribal shaman. Me hope learn stronger magic in civilized countries, but no have chance yet.”
Shnorri: “My friend Zdim here, I understand, escaped from Ir through the Paaluan lines by stealth and by his power of changing color. If he did it once, why not again?”
I said: “Gentlemen, I endeavor to give satisfaction. I must, however, point out that the task were harder and riskier than before. As we say on the Twelfth Plane, every pitcher goes to the well once too often and gets broken. The Paaluans are raising stronger defenses—”
The chiefs drowned me out. “Hurrah for Zdim!”
“Zdim shall be our trusted messenger!” “With those claws, he can go over a stockade like a squirrel.” “You are too modest, noble Zdim; we will take no denial!”
The council was unanimous. I cast a look at Prince Hvaednir, hoping he would gainsay them; the lad had been showing more independence lately. But he said: “You are right, comrades. Zdim shall take a contract into the city, get the Syndics’ signatures, and fetch it out again. Until he do so, we shall remain here and merely harass the cannibals. I have spoken.”
Since I saw no other way to serve Ir as commanded, I accepted the mission, albeit with reluctance. Writing materials were brought. The learned Shnorri inscribed, both in Shvenish and in Novarian, in duplicate, a contract between the army of the Hruntings and the Syndicate of Ir. The terms were those agreed upon at the Hruntings’ camp in Shven: one mark a man a day and so on. Shnorri and I signed. Hvaednir made his mark, which Shnorri and I witnessed.
###
Ere the moon arose, I neared the Paaluan camp. The earthworks on which the besiegers had been laboring presented no great obstacle, because only a fraction had yet been completed. I threaded my way on all fours across the band of broken earth and half-finished works to the main ditch and embankment.
Again I crept into the ring-shaped camp, with my hide a midnight black. I watched, listened, and sniffed for sentries and their ban-lizards. If I say so myself, I moved as quietly as a shadow.
I was hallway across the space between the inner and outer walls and was circling a pile of logs, when I sensed the approach of a sentry. I froze against the logs. Around the corner he came, with a lizard trotting beside him on a leash. He walked past without seeing me.
But his lizard felt my presence. The reptile stopped and thrust out a tongue. Feeling the tug on his leash, the Paaluan halted and turned to me. As he took a step back, his hand brushed against my scales.
The man jerked his hand away, stared into the darkness, and leaped from me with a yell. As other shouts answered him, I started to run, dodging around obstacles towards the inner wall. In rounding a bend, however, I cut the corner too closely. I tripped over a tent rope and fell sprawling, half-bringing down the tent.
I was up again instantly, but in that instant a man appeared with a torch. As I started to run again, something hummed through the air and wrapped itself around my legs, bringing me down once more. It was one of those devices of stone balls whirling on the ends of a cord.
Before I could untangle myself, it seemed as if half the Paaluan army had pounced upon me. Two or three I could have handled, but these fellows clustered about and hung on to my limbs like a swarm of those Prime Plane insects called ants. I bit one in the leg, but that did not stop them from binding my arms and legs with enough rope to have restrained a mammoth.