picked up here and there on our travels had not been the great long sword of the Krozairs — but Zenkiren had graciously given me a real Krozair long sword when we had parted in Pattelonia. Its handle was a full four fists’ width in length, perfectly balanced for single-handed work, deadly when counterpoised by the left fist beneath the pommel with all that leverage that could be exerted. It was, perhaps, when wielded by a practiced and expert two-handed swordsman even faster than a single-hander — I knew this, yet I needed some protection for my left arm initially, and I could wield the sword two-handed even with the embroidered cloth bundled about my left arm.
“Now — go!”
With frightened shrieks the stable slaves scampered away from the doors and vanished into the shadows.
I poised, ready, and I felt the night breeze upon my naked chest and thighs, the floor hard and firm beneath my feet, the grip of the Krozair sword in my fist.
Yes — my Delia, my Delia of the Blue Mountains — if I was to die then this was the way I would go. The doors smashed back.
Like an indigo tide the assassins poured in and I met them headlong, with a bestial roar that stopped them in their tracks. I was among them, smiting, thrusting, before they were aware, and they recoiled as though from some inhuman monster of legend.
“Hai!” I roared, leaping and slashing. “Hai, Jikai!”
We were too close-packed for them to bring the mighty Lohvian longbows into action. I swung the sword in economical strokes now, aiming for targets, smiting them to the ground. Twice I was able to wrest the thin sword from the grip of a surprised man, and, leaping forward, grasp him about the throat with my left hand and, after throttling him, hurl him back among his fellows. How long I might have gone on thus I do not know. Not forever, that is certain. But then I heard a high-pitched, cracking voice from the interior of the corthdrome.
And I knew Hwang and the Queen had reached the door to the windlass room. For an exit I surged into the nearest man, hoisted him over my head, flung him horizontally into the men jostling to get in through the doors over the bloodied bodies of their comrades. Swiftly, then, for I did not relish this part, I turned and ran. I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor, turned and ran. But I ran with a set purpose. I reached the foot of the stairs before they had recovered and I went up in gigantic leaping strides that must surely have confused those men of Kregen who had never witnessed an Earthman’s muscles exerting their full power against the fractionally weaker gravity of their planet. Halfway up I judged to be the moment of danger, and a yell from Hwang from above confirmed that. I swung about, the Krozair sword lifted, and I beat away the arrows as we used to do in those strict and demanding disciplines on the island of Zy in the Eye of the World.
Up again, and a turn, and more arrows to be dodged or beaten away with sword or robes, and up yet again.
Now the indigo-haired men were at the foot of the stairs and were racing up, their swords slivers of steely glitter in the torchlight. They wanted the Queen; they would dare anything for that end. At the top I struck sideways an arrow that would have found Hwang, and then we were through the small lenk door.
I slammed it and barred it. I breathed deeply and easily, aware of the sweat shining on my chest and thighs, runneling down between the ridged muscles. Blood dripped thickly from my sword and gobbets and gouts of it matted the hair on my chest.
“You-” stammered Queen Lilah of Hiclantung.
A new and stronger roaring began outside the barred door and the first few blows upon its stout lenk wood were the only ones. We could hear, distantly, the shouting of men and the clash of steel.
“The guards!” exclaimed Hwang. His face radiated a fresh and sudden confidence. “We are saved!”
I grunted.
I put my hand to the bar.
Queen Lilah stood, and I could see the heaving tumult of her bosom thrusting now against the concealing stiff brocade. “Dray-” she began, then, again: “Dray Prescot?”
I looked at her, eyes on a level with eyes.
“You have witnessed what few have ever seen,” I told her, unaware then of the irony of it. “You have seen Dray Prescot run from his foes. Now I go back to settle with them.”
Of course — that evil and fascinating blood fever was upon me then. I lifted the bar.
She put a small white hand on my arm.
“No, Dray Prescot. There is no need. The guards will deal with those rasts of assassins. But — I would not wish you wounded now, perhaps killed.”
“You would have me skulk behind a locked door?”
She shook her head angrily, her dark eyes filled with a reflected torchlight that made of them a dazzlement and a glory.
“I would have you live, Dray Prescot — and do not forget, I am the Queen! My word is law! You would do well not to cross me, Dray Prescot — stranger!”
“I agree — and I would do even better to obey my own wishes!”
And I lifted the bar and opened the door and ran down the stairs.
Chapter Twelve
“Oh, Dray Prescot!” said Thelda. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do with you!”
We stood in the sunny morning room of the villa and Thelda regarded me with her head on one side, her ripe red lips pursed up and her hands on her hips. She wore a scarlet — because she thought that would please me — breechclout and a simple silvery-tissue blouse that was as near as made no difference to being transparent. Her dark brown hair had been meticulously coiffed by one of the house slaves we had been obligated to accept — we had no powers to free them, as Seg and I would have instantly done -
and the lush coils sparkled with gems and pearls. Her fingernails and toe-nails had been lacquered a pleasant scarlet. Her face received such care and attention as it had surely never known since leaving Vallia. She did look alluring and lovely and voluptuous, no question of it, now that her fat had been worked off and the natural firm and Junoesque lines of her figure could be seen. She stood with her legs braced, her hands on her hips, and she regarded me as a risslaca regards a rabbit.
“You, Dray Prescot, recovering from a terrible wound, go slallyfanting about the city at the dead of night
— getting into fights — rescuing the Queen — oh, Dray — look out for her! She is a deep and devious one. I know, for Seg has told me of the notorious Queens of Loh-”
“I know,” I said. “I have heard. They call her the Queen of Pain. But only when she cannot overhear them.”
“They were terrible — the Queens of Loh! The things they did turned my stomach over when Seg merely hinted at them. And this one is right in the line. I wouldn’t like to inquire into just how many husbands — husbands! That’s a laugh! — how many poor silly believing men she’s toyed with and discarded and had tortured to death. .”
“Thelda! It’s you who are slallyfanting, not me.”
“But surely you can see why I am so worried about you, Dray!”
“No. And, anyway, since the Walfarg empire crumpled Loh has left only some of its culture behind here
— why, the women don’t wear veils, as they do in their mysterious walled gardens of Loh.”
“You have been to Loh, Dray?”
“No. But I have heard of it-”
She was standing straight and firm, but now she seemed to melt and flow, the tenseness leaving her thighs and calves, her shoulders, and she bent and flowed and moved against me so that she pressed into my chest. I was wearing a plain white loincloth, having come straight from the bath, with my hair still wet, and I could feel the
