his wrist in my fist and jerked him back; but he kicked me low down and sprang away, ripping out his rapier as he saw he would have to fight me for real.
I drew.
“You stinking cramph!” This Strom was reputed good with a rapier and main-gauche. I had seen him in action when we boarded and he showed no fear. I put myself in a position for fighting and waited, for I had no wish to kill him — then. “You mildewed rast! You lump of offal!” He went on shouting for a space, hoping, no doubt, to enrage me.
After a bit, I said, “Kleesh. Walk away quietly, or you are a dead man.”
Whether his breeding goaded him into madness, then, whether he was simply mad clear through with jealousy, matters little. He threw himself on me, his blades whirling and thrusting in a positive flurry of action and a fury of venom. I parried, caught him, twisted; but he eluded that one, having been caught once before. A swordsman need only see a fighting trick once to know it again. If he doesn’t, he is dead, of course.
Our blades crossed and slithered with that teeth-vibrating screech of metal. He leaped, I forced him back, I thrust, he took my blade on his dagger and held and thrust for me to take his blade on my dagger in turn. For a space the four slivers of steel slanted up in the pink moonglow, evil and slick and lethal, smooth and unbloodied.
Then, quick as a striking leem, he withdrew his dagger and thrust low. I swayed sideways, recovered and once more we fell into our fighting stances.
He was good. There was no doubt of that. I thought of Galna, whom I had fought in that corridor in what was now my own palace of Strombor; yes, it is all a long time ago, now; but I can still feel the jar of steel on steel and I can hear yet again the ring of blades as they met and crossed. Then he essayed a complicated passage, and I took him, and in the pink wash of moonlight from She of the Veils, Strom Erclan slumped with my rapier through his heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Raucous shouts and good-humored arguments broke the stillness of the night as the renders of the islands caroused in the wooden houses of the pirates’ lair.
In the fringe of the vegetation back along the beach lay the skewered body of Strom Erclan. Very soon the creeping crawling denizens of those woods would convert his body to bones and then these, too, would rot away until all that remained to show a man had existed would be the memory other men might carry in their minds.
I knew no one would mourn Strom Erclan for very long.
In the wooden barn-like house where most of the higher ranks in Viridia’s confidence were carousing, the atmosphere billowed thick with the fumes of wines culled from the freight holds of a hundred ships. Heaping platters of food loaded the heavily-timbered tables. Disheveled wenches darted in and out avoiding clutching hands in giggles or shrieks or abuse, each according to her nature. Food appeared on the tables in bounteous abundance, and disappeared down gullets with fascinating speed. The wine that was drunk! Men would suddenly screech and leap up and dance a wild jig, or leap head-over-heels across the floor, or two would fall into a deadly dagger fight that ended with one coughing his guts out bloodily across the floor, the other ready to face the render court of inquiry. Other half-men half-beasts drank and caroused in their own ways, and all were equal here, under the captains. To this select company Viridia had bidden me, Dray Prescot.
As I approached where she sat at the head of a long table, quaffing her wine and roaring like any jack-booted man of the sea, I noticed Valka sitting at the lower end of the table, his nose in a blackjack. He looked up as I passed, and winked. Shades of Inch, I said to myself, and planted my feet down on a clear space among the litter of bones and discarded meats on the floor. One blessing there was in all that pandemonium and guzzling and drinking and wenching, one evil we were spared; the only smoke in the room came wafting in from the glowing cook fires or rose from the succulent dishes covering the tables.
“Dray Prescot!” shouted Viridia, lolling back. Her blue eyes were not clouded with wine and I saw in their depths a deep and shrewd intelligence; yet her body lolled and her head jerked and she laughed shrilly, as though she were drunk. Near her a Chulik captain sat, a mass of gold lace and crimson silk, his tusks gleaming and — a fashion I had noticed before — tipped with gold. He was plying Viridia with wine. She laughed and drained the cup, and thrust it forward for replenishment. In general Chuliks can be trained into seamen; of the halflings the Hobolings are unquestionably the finest top-men in the business, and I wouldn’t give berth space to a Fristle, be wary of an Och, and detesting Rapas as I then did, would haul up the gangplank before letting one aboard my command. I knew that the Relts, those more gentle cousins of the Rapas, went to sea as supercargoes and clerks, but I doubted even them.
This Chulik captain, one Chekumte, was trying to sell a swordship to Viridia. His ploy was transparent to me, and, I saw, to Viridia also. I fancied she could drink him under the table.
“She is a fleet craft, and nimble, Viridia,” Chekumte was saying. He spilled wine as he slanted his cup in eagerness to lean forward in friendly converse. “She rows a hundred and twenty oars and sails like a king korf!”
“A hundred and twenty oars,” said Viridia, properly contemptuous. “Zenzile fashion!”
“And what of that? She has served me well; but I have captured a new swordship from Walfarg, and my force is balanced so that I no longer need her.”
“And you seek to dispose of your old scows to me, Chekumte.”
I stood there, listening, for listening brings information.
Viridia lifted her cup to me. The fingers she wrapped around the glass stem glittered with gemmed rings. Her tanned face was, minute by minute, growing more flushed. “Dray Prescot! You are not drinking.”
“When I find out what you wanted, Viridia, I will find some wine.”
She scowled as though I had insulted her, but heaved up and glared sullenly at me.
“Have you seen Strom Erclan? I want him to discuss this business. Chekumte is a wily rogue, for a Chulik.”
Chekumte guffawed, polished his tusks, and quaffed wine.
I would not lie. “I saw him up the beach half a bur ago.”
“Wenching again, I’ll be bound.” Viridia slumped back, that sullen expression on her face turning all her features lumpy. “I keep my render maidens locked away from the likes of him.”
I did not say: “You will have no need of that anymore.”
It would have been a nice line, but I wanted no more trouble. If I had to tear the hearts out of all those here, I would do so if that was the only way to return to my Delia. But only a fool buys trouble. Instead, I said, casually, “A zenzile swordship would not fit in with your squadron, Viridia. And if she rows only a hundred and twenty oars she must be short, and if short then narrow to retain her speed, and if narrow then useless in a sea. I can’t get your calsanys to shoot straight from the deck of your flagship as it is.”
Chekumte surged up. His eyes were bloodshot. His thin lips ricked back from those gold-tipped tusks. Little of humanity is known to a Chulik. About the only thing I have heard in their favor is that they are loyal to whoever pays them.
Mind you — that is a valuable attribute in any mercenary.
Now this Chulik glowered down on me and spouted obscenities at me. He rounded on Viridia. “Do you allow Likshu-spawned offal like this to teach you your trade, Viridia the Render?”
Viridia was annoyed. She twiddled with the hilt of her rapier. As though transmitting her anger to her Womoxes who stood in partial shadow at her back, she herself stood up. For a moment we three stood, confronting one another, and gradually the uproar died as the roisterers realized the tension gripping us. Chuliks make a habit of adopting the weapons and customs of the race employing them. Now Chekumte was a render captain in his own right and he had adopted the weaponry of his peers. He drew his rapier and, slowly, pushed it forward until the point touched my breast. He did not prick the skin.
“This thing must be taught a lesson, Viridia.”
