A sword-blade struck a helmet like a gong. The combat began.
Chapter Nine
Pachaks have been blessed by nature — or the dark manipulations of genetic science — with quick and lethal tail hands. Katakis must strap their steel to their whip-tails. I am partial to Pachaks, as employed mercenaries, as friends. In long talks with them around the camp fires on the eve of battles I have learned much of the art of tail- fighting. There are tricks. As the gong note clanged with grim promise from the sword-struck helmet, I leaned down to Vax and said, “His tail may be numbed by-”
“I know,” said my son.
They always seem to know, these cocky youngsters. I stepped back. I did not waver from my resolution to court personal dishonor and destruction if they were necessary to save my son. The chances were he would know. Planath Pe-Na, my standard-bearer who carried Old Superb into action, must have known Vax as the lad grew up into manhood. Along with all my friends of Esser Rarioch — Balass the Hawk, Naghan the Gnat, Oby, Melow the Supple, the Djangs who were a regular part of the people there; all must have contributed their knowledge toward the education of Vax no less than they had to Drak and Segnik — no, I must call him Zeg now. And, of course, there were Seg and Inch and Turko the Shield. If Vax had taken in what they had to tell him then the combined knowledge should make him a formidable fighter — and he was, indeed, as I had seen, a bonny lad with a sword. Planath must have told Vax of the tricks an apim might get up to with the tail of a Kataki. Planath would have relished the telling.
With no more relish in myself at the idea of this fight, but with some feeling of relief, I watched as Athgar stalked forward — arrogant, completely confident — to knock over and slay this slim and supple apim lad.
I cannot do justice to that fight, for I was far too intimately concerned for my own good. I had picked up the look from Duhrra and he had slipped me his longsword. I held it ready, and I must give thanks that the fight occupied the attention of the men there, for had they seen my face in the firelight glow and the radiance of the moons, they would no doubt have run shrieking.
Athgar launched himself, his sword blurring, his tail-blade high and deceiving. Vax lunged right, checked and reversed, came back. The two combatants passed. Now was the danger! The tail hissed around. Vax jumped. I let out a grunt of relief. Vax dropped down hard. He made no attempt at that cunning tail-numbing trick. Athgar had expected him to duck, as would be the instinctive response to the threat of that arrogant high-held blade. Athgar struck low. Vax jumped. And the great Krozair longsword flamed. Athgar shrieked.
The tail spun and looped away, the strapped blade glittering, flicked like a limp coil of rope into the fire. It sizzled.
Blood pumped from Athgar. He stood disbelieving. He stood for perhaps two heartbeats. Rukker yelled, “Athgar the Tailless!”
The Neemu screeched and swung his sword in a ferocious horizontal sweep. Vax met the blow, slanting his brand, and let the blades chink and screech in that demoniac sound of steel on steel. His broad back muscles tensed and bunched, drew out in a ripple of massive power. The blade struck forward. The point burst through Athgar’s throat above the mail, smashed on to eject itself in a spouting gout of blood. Without a word, Vax withdrew and stepped back. He looked on silently as Athgar dropped his sword and gripped his crimson throat, his eyes glaring madly. He choked, trying to say something. Then he fell. He pitched down to sprawl at Vax’s feet.
Vax looked down. He was my son. Without a word he spit on the corpse. Then he walked away. No one said a word.
It was left to Vax, turning to speak over his shoulder, to say, “I will clean your sword, Dak, before I return it.”
I wanted to say — how I wanted to say! — the words hot and breaking in me. . I swallowed. I said,
“Jikai — keep the sword, Vax. It is yours.”
For a moment he stood, silent, limber, lithe and young, staring at me. The firelight painted one half of his face ruby; the moons shone fuzzily pink and gold upon the other. He nodded. Again he did not speak. He just nodded and lifted the sword, and saluted, and so walked into the darkness beyond the fires. I handed Duhrra his sword. “Take Nath. Follow.”
“Yes, master.”
Duhrra and Nath melted into the moon-drenched shadows. Other men of my crew followed. They would see that Vax came to no harm. They were good fellows. If I do not mention them overmuch, surely it is obvious that concern for my son dominated all my thoughts. Rukker said, “There is no need for that, Dak.”
“No.”
He looked down at the corpse. “He was my man and yet he was not my man. I think this Vax Neemusbane is your man and yet not your man. It was a Hyr Jikordur. There is no blood between us.”
“None,” I said. “And you are right about Vax. I think he has done you a favor.”
“Probably. But I do not wish to discuss that.”
It amuses me now to think how Rukker regarded me. He treated the other Renders sharply enough, and they respected or hated him for it, according to their natures. But he must have come to terms with his own ruthlessness in his dealings with me, or so I think. Maybe he did not forget our first meeting, or the way he would have been flogged on the oar bench had I not spoken. As I say, Rukker possessed a scrap of humanity.
All the same, I meant to repay him for his trick when he had loaded all the treasure aboard his swifter and attempted to sail away. He might not wish to speak of that in the future; I had a few words on the subject — and these words would not be spoken but acted on.
In any company on Kregen one feels naked without a sword. A weapon is needed most everywhere. Even the unarmed combat skills developed by the Khamorros of Havilfar, and the Krozairs of the Eye of the World, cannot fully compensate for the lack of a weapon if the unarmed combat man goes up against an opponent skilled in his weapon’s use. And it does not have to be a sword, of course; but legends and myths cluster about swords.
In our reiving over the western end of the inner sea we had built up an armory and in my cabin in
A shouting on the beach, and a distant calling from higher up, drew me to the deck. The night lay calm and sweet under the stars and moons; yet mists trickled down like thickened waterfalls from the headland. I looked up. Lights speckled the ruins. Many torches flared among the aeons-old walls and columns.
“What is it, Sternen?” I shouted at the watch.
“I do not know, Dak. But whatever it is, men have gone up to find out.” He shivered. He was a tough apim with a scarred face and quick with a knife. “By Zogo the Hyrwhip! Those screams never came from a human throat!”
About to check him roughly, I paused. The shrieks from the ruins sounded unnatural. Sternen made several quick and secret signs. These were rooted in a time before Zair and Grodno parted into enmity. I slapped the Ghittawrer blade into the scabbard, for the Grodnims attempted to copy the dimensions of a Krozair blade, and rattled off down the ladder. Many men were running up the steep track in the cliff toward the ruins, carrying torches, bearing weapons. Renders out to prove they feared not a single damn thing in all of Kregen. I followed.
