over, to be gripped and thrust facedown into the dirt, finished, if his ribs weren’t all cracked to Kingdom Come. Turko’s scream ripped into the stink of the dungeon.
Morgo’s bellow of “Hai Hikai!” passed unheeded.
Everything happened in a fluidity of motion beautiful to behold, making me wish I’d been there when Pur Zenkiren did this to those overlords of Magdag. I took Boro’s ankles in both fists and I leaned back, as a hammer- thrower leans in the circle, and spun. He carried all that forward momentum into a sideways rotation, with my body leaning back, muscles ridged, acting as the hub. Around me he spun, parallel to the ground. I lifted a little higher as his head flew around and aimed him, and, as though wielding a great Krozair long-sword, I laid his head smack alongside Morgo’s head.
I let go.
Both Khamorros collapsed. Blood and brains gushed from their nostrils and their ears.
“By the Muscle!” I heard Turko whisper.
Quaesa wouldn’t stop screaming. Saenda had done things she afterward would never remember. Rapechak said, “I believe the correct term is Hai Hikai, Dray Prescot! Hai Hikai!”
He was right. The unarmed combat masters, like the Khamorros, like old Zinki, do not use the swordsman’s great Hai Jikai — instead, they say: “Hai Hikai.”
Turko the Khamorro looked at me. His face held a frozen look of horror. Then he spoke, in a husky whisper.
“Hai Hikai, Dray Prescot! Hai Hikai!”
Freeing the four prisoners was simple enough, for the keys had been in the keeping of Morgo the Khamorro, who was now no doubt practicing his art somewhere under the alert eye of Morro the Muscle himself. They were stiff and sore and the two girls collapsed, moaning, for Quaesa had stopped screaming the instant she felt my hands on her, unlocking the chains. Turko picked up the blood-soaked bandage and rewound it around my head. He looked at it, his dark eyes filled with a pain he did not believe.
“As a reed-syple, Dray Prescot, that bloody bandage is extraordinarily fitting.”
As you know I make it a rule never to apologize; I would have apologized to Turko, then, for acting in such a stupid way, when Rapechak, picking up a crossbow and quiver of bolts, said with an evil chuckle:
“I think we may fight our way out now, Dray Prescot.”
I handed him one of the swords. I made up my mind. I said, “Turko, you called me Dray, back there. I would — like — it if you and Rapechak dropped the Prescot.”
This was no trifle.
We said no more, but I know Rapechak, the Rapa, at least, was pleased. At the iron grilles we took clothes from the guards and sketchily gave the girls a breechclout each and a few rags for the men. Turko stopped. He looked down at the guard’s thraxter, still in his fist. The shield lay to one side. Turko’s face was completely expressionless.
I watched him. He bent and picked up the sword. He held it for a space, the guard’s open hand like some mute testament below. Then he tossed the sword down. I started to turn away and then halted. Turko picked up the shield. He hefted it, looked at the straps inside, turned it around, slid it up his left arm, swung it about. Then, turning to face me, holding the shield up, he said, “I am ready to follow you, Dray.”
“Good, Turko. We march now to freedom.”
But we both knew we meant much more than merely escaping from this fortress-prison of Mungul Sidrath.
With both crossbows spanned and ready, with Turko at my back with his shield, and the girls following on, we padded on away from the dungeon and on toward the cavern of the waters. Halfway across the bridge I halted. In the noise and confusion of water spouting, great wheels creaking, and slaves screaming as whips whistled down, we could not fail to attract attention. But the danger lay ahead. On the far side of the bridge a body of men appeared and instantly they were revealed as the nobles and officers come down to question their prisoners, and, perhaps, to have a little sport with them. In the forefront, as I had cynically expected, stood Hikdar Markman ti Coyton. He screamed and pointed and dragged out his sword, his words unheard in the din of rushing water, creaking wood, and other screams so much more brutally dragged forth. At Markman’s side stood a man who blazed with the stiff regalia of pride and authority. This Canop had to be the commandant of Yaman. For good measure I put the first shaft into him. I saw his mouth open as he fell, but did not hear his dying scream. Rapechak let fly and slew a Chuktar directly to Markman’s rear. Markman turned and tried to push back through the officers. Being officers and having come on a sporting occasion they had no bowmen handy, but very quickly bowmen could be deployed and then we’d be skewered, there on the open bridge with the roaring water beneath. I put my face close to Turko’s ear.
“Over with you, Turko! And breathe deeply!”
I said the same to Rapechak.
They both wanted to argue and Rapechak, bending his great beaked face close to mine, barely avoided the quarrel that sizzled past to thunk into the wooden railing in a showering of yellow chips. They were arguing about the girls. There was no time to reload. Turko moved forward, and in a twinkling crossbow bolts stood in his shield like angry bristles. He screened us. I was not sure of the Rapa’s capabilities as a swimmer, and Turko was in no real condition to look after anyone but himself. I pushed them both over and grabbed the girls about their waists and leaped. Half a dozen crossbow bolts ripped the wood of the bridge as we hurtled down. We hit the water in a fountain that vanished almost instantly in that smooth, heavy flow and the current swept us frighteningly fast down and into the arched opening leading onto darkness.
Sword and crossbow had gone and I now had armfuls only of wet and terrified girls. I lunged up, my head above the surface, and dragged them up. There was no sign of the others. “Breathe!” I yelled, and then took a frantic quick breath, as deeply as I could in the time left, and then we were over and falling in the midst of the cascade, with only darkness, and water, and noise all about us. Accounted a superb swimmer and able to dive for long periods I may be, but that gulp of air had not been enough. I felt the pains in my chest, the flecks of fire before my eyes that were wide open and staring blindly into the roaring darkness. On and on we were tumbled, turning and twisting like chips in a drainage ditch. I felt then that for a surety I was done for. This was the end. This was where they tossed the broken and bleeding corpses of the dead slaves after they had worked until they died, this was where they disposed of the prisoners they had questioned beyond the limits of tolerance. Down and down we went and on and on and then I knew I had finished and there was nothing else to do but end this agonizing pain and open my mouth.
But, being Dray Prescot, a stupid onker, I kept my mouth shut and I fought the pain and we swirled along like refuse. I felt a sudden rising shock as lights stung my dazzled eyes, and cool night air laved my face and we were afloat on the surface of the River Magan.
Turko waved an arm and yelled. I did not see Rapechak.
We swam into the bank and on the oozing mud a severe session of arm-pumping and kissing brought the girls around. They were shattered by their experiences and unable fully to comprehend that we had escaped. I felt that we would have little time. Finding a boat was easy enough and I selected a craft typical of river work, with sharply flared bows and a broad beam, shallow-drafted and with a sail and awning. At the oars — at the oars! How eerie and strange a feeling that was to be sure! — we pulled around in circles, calling as loudly as we dared for Rapechak. But we did not find the Rapa. I would not think of that. At last, and with regret, I set the bows downriver and pulled steadily away in the dying light of the Maiden with the Many Smiles.
By dawn we were well down the river. We had a few scraps of clothing, no weapons, and no money. But we had our lives.
“I can sail this boat well enough,” I said. Hell! If I, Dray Prescot, couldn’t sail a boat the end of two worlds was in sight! I felt relieved, light-headed, and yet let down. This was the end of this adventure, for there was food and wine in the boat and fishing lines and bait, with a breaker of water, and so all this evidence pointed to a fishing party this day. We might be pursued. If the boat had belonged to a Migla, I did not think the halfling would report its loss to the Canoptic authorities. Turko said, “The girls ought to know this country, Dray. If we can sail out of the country of Migla we can find friends. If what Saenda says is true. . and what Quaesa boasts of is so.”
The girls shivered in the dawn as the mists rose from the sluggish river and a little breeze got up. We could set some canvas very shortly, for the wind blew fair.
“My father-” began Saenda. She swallowed. “If we could reach Cnarveyl, on the coast to the north, or
