Krozair of Kregen

But I had not told them that King Genod had formed an alliance with the empress Thyllis in far Hamal. I had not told them that Genod had bought fliers and saddle-birds from Thyllis. I had not told them that as soon as the king arrived he would bring with him vollers and fliers. We did not know if he had been reducing Zimuzz, or if he had tried a fling at the sacred Isle of Zy. All we knew early one morning was that King Genod, the war genius, had arrived in his camp before besieged Zandikar.

We saw the dots in the high air. People looked up and pointed. Exclamations broke out. They had seen the flier that Duhrra and Vax had brought here with Hikdar Ornol ti Zab. That had long since been smashed and no one knew where Ornol was. So they knew what these fliers were, and they also knew what they portended.

I knew that this day, the very same day he landed here, the genius at war, King Genod, would launch his aerial armada against Zandikar. The walls would avail nothing. Assailed at a hundred points within the city itself, Zandikar must fall.

Chapter Eighteen

Pur Zeg, Prince of Vallia, Krzy

Had Miam not been the great-granddaughter of old King Zinna and the rightful heir to the throne, or had Starkey the Wersting realized enough to have had her killed, or had some other reason debarred her from being the pawn in my machinations, I believe Zena Iztar, whose supernatural powers were of an extent I could not comprehend, would have found some other road for me and my comrades to preserve the city of Zandikar. I did not believe she would have plotted as she had only to let all go to waste. No help in the shape of a vast sky army was to be expected from the Savanti. They might transit more Savapims. As for the Star Lords, well, the Everoinye had been very quiet of late and I fancied that was because in this internecine war of the inner sea they backed the Greens. The damned fliers and flyers of King Genod landed on the flat expanse outside the soldiers’ camps. I made myself stand and watch them. I counted. At least a hundred vollers, and perhaps merely twenty fluttrells, turning their headvanes with the wind as they landed with widespread feet and downturned tails, amid much wing- fluttering and dust. Their riders were ill-trained. That made sense in a society like the one of the inner sea where airboats and saddle-birds were exotic phenomena. There remained to me now one course of action.

As I prepared, hurriedly, bellowing for Duhrra and Sniz and Dolan, sending them scurrying about the things needful, I wondered if I was to be cast in the role of Pakkad. Whether or not he was merely a legendary figure — or if red blood had flowed in his veins, and he had been clothed in flesh, a real man of some distant epoch — neither I nor any other human of Kregen knew. But poor Pakkad had been cruelly treated by Mitronoton, the Reducer of Towers, the Destroyer of Cities, a very devil. Now his story formed part of the mythology of Kregen, and Pakkad himself stood as a symbol for the outcast, the downtrodden, the unwanted, the pariah. Well, I was to meet a latter-day incarnation of Mitronoton, as you shall hear, during the Time of Troubles, and if I do not speak often of that man-god-devil I follow only a general custom. One does not call lightly on Mitronoton, the Leveler of Ways. Fazhan bustled up, saying, “The swifter is prepared, Dak.”

‘Then let all repair aboard. We have little time.”

We took the swifter brought in by Pur Trazhan, who no longer needed her, being dead. She was single- banked, with two men to an oar and fifteen oars a side, of the style called, in Zairia, chavinter. There are many and many names for the different sizes and styles of swifters of the inner sea, of course; I usually refer to them all indifferently as swifters to save confusion. Every oarsman was a free man, a warrior, and he pulled with his weapons ready to hand. The narrow central gangway extended aft into a quarterdeck by courtesy only, and I stood there ready to command the ship as Dolan the Bow conned her out through the Dikars.

Nath the Slinger, cursing by Zogo the Hyrwhip, and fulminating against the zigging Grodnims, raced along the quayside and fairly leaped aboard, landing in a sprawl and a bellow of pain as he jolted his wounded arm. He staggered up, shouting, “And you would sail without me, Dak the Ingrate!”

“Welcome, Nath — you may observe the fantamyrrh, if you will.”

On the quayside Nath Zavarin and Roz Janri watched us leave, puzzled even though I had sworn by Zair I was not deserting them. Queen Miam, attended by her people, came down to see us off. They all knew I was about a desperate enterprise, and they wished me well, casting my fortunes into the hands of Zair. They would see that the soldiers and warriors fought when the attack came in. I knew that. And, knowing that, I wondered only a little if I did this thing for Zandikar or for the memory of Velia. Since Trazhan had slipped through the channels in the night after Pur Nazhan had opened up four of the Dikars, we guessed the Grodnims would have reestablished patrols and probably sealed up most, if not all of them again. We had to sail through in daylight. We pulled so as not to lift a sail above the low-lying islands; and past the cliff-sided islands the wind would often fall away to nothing. We glided on and we waited for the attack we all felt certain would come, although I heartily wished to get through the ring without an encounter.

“Mother Zinzu the Blessed!” quoth Nath the Slinger, lowering the goblet and wiping his lips. “I needed that.”

“You have a wounded arm,” I said, “and therefore cannot pull at the oars. I believe you to be a very cunning man, Nath the Slinger, by the disgusting nostrils of Makki-Grodno!”

“Aye, Dak, that I am.” And he belched most comfortably.

I thought of my old oar-comrade, Nath, and I sighed, and watched the openings of the myriad mazy channels as they passed away astern.

The swifter was low and lean, and standing on the deck raised a man little more than four feet above the water. Her name was Marigold, and she was a dinky little craft and her ram was short and stubby and sharp, a vicious hacking tooth that would do a ship’s business for her. The oars had been muffled and we glided as silently as a vessel ever can glide through chinking water. We crept along stealthily and we watched with alert eyes and even then were nearly caught. No one spoke an unnecessary word and then only in a whisper. Dolan the Bow up with the prijikers signaled with a smashing cut of his hand and we understood. Fazhan gave the signal to the oarsmen — we were not using a drum, of course — and they swung the ship away from the channel on our larboard bow. We glided into a deviating channel to the right and everyone heard the creak of oars and the splashing as a swifter prowled past. We went on, and if a swifter’s crew can be said to have bated breath — we did, by Vox!

Very softly, so that only I heard him, Nath the Slinger said, “By Zinter the Afflicted! I would welcome a few handstrokes. My arm pains me.”

I did not reply. Dolan came aft, walking along the gangway with the habitual grace of the swifterman. He, too, whispered.

“We approach an area of great danger. An open reach. We will have to pull at top speed to get in among the rushes to seaward. If we’re caught in the open-” He had no need to spell it out. Fazhan caught my eye and I nodded and he went along the benches whispering to the oarsmen. Free men. They would pull.

This Fazhan ti Rozilloi had grown in stature since we had labored at the oar benches in Green Magodont. He was an oar-comrade. And yet he did not possess the superficial brilliance of character so many men have; he was quiet and contained, with nothing of the coarse virility of Nath the Slinger. He was a gentleman of Zairia. There are not many of them.

So we dug in the oars and Marigold leaped forward. We burst from the narrow channel and a wide and open stretch of water showed ahead, reaching for perhaps three ulms. A damned long way to row. The water glimmered silver in the light as clouds passed over the Suns of Scorpio. There were very few wild fowl, for they had been hunted mercilessly during the siege. The water chuckled and ran past and the oars dug and pulled and lifted and so dug and pulled again. The men threw their backs into it. We foamed along.

Just under halfway I heard Nath shout a short, sharp obscenity and so before I turned I knew. From the starboard side a channel opened and from the channel leaped a Magdaggian swifter. Lean and feral, with a single bank, she pounced down on us. She had twenty-five oars a side and I guessed four men to a loom. She was altogether bigger than Marigold. We swerved as the helm-Deldars threw their weight on the steering handles. Our starboard bank would have gone on pulling, blind and determined in their rowing; but I yelled, high and harsh, “Ship oars! Weapons! For Zair!”