“Assuredly you do. Now — jump!”
Tyfar nodded. “Nath, Barkindrar, set to it.”
I ploughed in to help select anything we thought would be of use to us. But, as a prince, Tyfar moved a little way off. He did not help us strip the dead of the rich armor, or rake through the satchels, or lift up the blood-caked weapons. But he did not walk away. He stood nearby, and if any further flutsmen showed up, why, then he would show what being a prince involved.
The bulky, bearded man bothered me. He had given his life, and that had not been enough. His young lord was dead. I surmised they were part of an expedition out to venture down a Moder after treasure and magic, and had been separated from the main body by the Muzzard vakkas. Then the flutsmen, ever avid to pick up morsels like that, had attacked.
Twisted under a fine zorca that had been shafted — I took a single look and then looked away. The vile things that happen to faithful saddle animals at the hands of men is a sore subject with me, as with many other men on two worlds. Twisted under this poor dead zorca, as I say, lay the body of a large man who had been pitched from the saddle. His neck had broken.
I studied his face, calm, lined, filled with the remnants of a vigor that had sustained him in life and was now deserting him in death. He wore magnificent armor. It had not stopped his neck from being smashed. I sucked in my breath and went to work.
He was not the bearded servitor’s young lord, and I guessed he was a lord in his own right, gone adventuring on his own account. The expedition of which we nine were the last to escape from Moderdrin had contained nine separate expeditions within our ranks. The armor came off easily, for it had been well cared for. I hoisted it on my back and took his weapons and then trailed off after the others who were hurrying back to the rocks.
I saw Prince Tyfar looking at me.
He said nothing.
I said, “When you have been adventuring out in the wild and hostile world, Tyfar-” And then I stopped myself.
He would not understand. He might learn — if he lived long enough. But I knew enough to know that his ideas of honor could not comprehend my motives.
“Just, Tyfar, one thing.”
“Yes, Jak?”
“Do not think the less of me. I hazard a guess that you have never starved, never been flogged, never really wanted in all your life. These things give a man a different view of the values in life and, yes, I know I am being insufferable and almost preaching, but I value your comradeship and would not see it spoiled over so small a matter.”
And, even then, that was the wrong note. The matter was not small when it touched the honor of a prince of Hamal.
Then he surprised me.
“I have a deal to learn — everything is not contained in books or the instructions of axemasters. I shall don this poor young lord’s armor, which Nath and Barkindrar carry back for me — when it is necessary.”
I felt, I admit, suitably chastened.
When he reached the outcrop, the others had finished up their work and had secured the surviving fluttrells. The big birds were chained down by their wing chains, and had found it suddenly restful in the shade.
I nodded. “Well done.”
“And, what do we do with the swarths?”
“Cut them loose,” said Tyfar. “They will fend for themselves and, eventually, find their way to fresh employment.”
“Agreed.”
The night would soon be upon us and although we could fly quite easily by the light of the moons, we judged it better to give the fluttrells a time to recuperate. Hunch busied himself brewing up tea, that superb Kregan tea, for a supply was discovered in the saddlebags we had taken from the dead animals. Also, we found something that told us who at least some of these folk had been. Modo brought the package across and we opened it and read the warrant in the last of the light.
“Rolan Hamarker, Vad of Thangal — most odd.” Tyfar looked up from the paper. “That is a good Hamalese name. Yet I do not know of anyone called that. Thangal has no Vad. It is a Trylonate.”
“Due northwest of Ruthmayern,” I said.
“Yes. This is, indeed, a curiosity.”
“And this came from the effects of the young man?”
“Yes, Jak,” said Modo.
“Well, there was nothing with the other lord to identify him. And that, to me, is stranger still.”
“You are right, by Krun!” said Tyfar.
“Perhaps,” said Quienyin in his mellow voice. “They did not wish to give their true names when they ventured into Moderdrin.”
“Of course.” Tyfar beamed on the Wizard of Loh. “You have the right of it.”
“Probably,” I said.
We now had a plethora of weapons and armor and equipment. So we could take our pick. Any good Kregan will take as many weapons along with him as the situation warrants, or the situation that might arise the day after tomorrow will warrant.
As I picked up the dead lord’s sword, I looked across at Tyfar and said, “But that warrant, made out for Rolan Hamarker, gives him authority to arrest anyone he sees fit to question. It is exceedingly wide. And, of course, you observe the signature and the seal?”
“I do. It is the seal of King Doghamrei. Although the scrawl is so bad it could have been signed by any damned slave who had stolen the seal cylinder.”
“King Doghamrei,” I said, and I fell silent, my mind choked with memories: of Ob-Eye, his one optic quite mad, trussing me up and stuffing me into a metal cage, of the cage being swung over the bulwarks of the massive Hamalian skyship Hirrume Warrior, of Ob-Eye thrusting the torch into the mass of combustibles piled around my bound form, of the cage being readied to drop onto the decks of the Vallian galleon Ovvend Barynth on the sea below. They’d set my pants alight, all right. Somehow, because I was a Krozair of Zy, as I truly think, and because I did not wish to be parted from Delia, I had gotten out of that scrape. But — all those vile things had been done to me not on the orders of the Empress Thyllis — Queen Thyllis as she was then — but of King Doghamrei. Oh, yes, I recalled him with some clarity.
And so, because of all those old memories ghosting up, I said, “By Krun! I’ve half a mind to feel sorry he’s still alive.”
Then I looked at Tyfar.
He smiled.
“Then in that you do not stand alone, Jak. He never did succeed in his plot to marry the empress — her poor doting husband still mopes away in some fusty tower or other — and King Doghamrei is still only a servile king in fee to the empress.”
“Well, I was incautious in my sentiments. Perhaps, one day, you will understand my feelings.”
“My father once fought a duel with Doghamrei-”
“Ha! Then I’ll wager Prince Nedfar acted as a true horter and let the rast off — more’s the pity.”
“He did and it is. But that is smoke blown with the wind.”
“Your father, Tyfar, is a prince for whom I cherish the most lively affection and respect. Now, why couldn’t he be a king — or even an emperor?”
Tyfar drew his cheeks in. He looked suddenly grave, all the banter fled.
“You run on leem’s tracks hastily, Jak.”
“I will say no more. I have said too much.”
“Yes. But, I think — I know — your sentiments are not yours alone.”
“Ah!”
Now, of course, all this sentiment was sweet in the ears of a Vallian. Anything to discomfit Hamal until that empire was willing to talk decently to her neighbors must be to the advantage of Vallia. All the same, what I had
