Cursing the damned wizard and all his misdeeds, I took up my sack and my bamboo stick and prowled to the far opening, peered out, saw the coast was clear and so stalked out into the dying light of evening as the twin Suns of Scorpio sank toward the horizon.
There was no direct proof that Yantong was mixed up with the Chyyanists, although circumstantial evidence pointed to that eventuality. If he was, then I knew I was in for the fiercest struggle I had faced so far on Kregen.
In my ugly mood I positively relished the confrontation.
Poor fool, I, Dray Prescot, Prince of Onkers!
Seven
The suns sank finally as I rode from the little hamlet of Dinel.
In the last of the light drenching the western horizon with shards of blood and washes of viridian I rode, cursing that the farmers of Dinel had no better mount to offer than this stubby four-legged hirvel, kicking him in the ribs to make him go faster. As I cantered on through the rich farmlands under the night sky, I reflected that even if the farmerfolk of Dinel had no fine zorcas or fancy sleeths to offer me, their work demanding the use of krahniks and calsanys and the occasional quoffa and unggar, at least this hirvel, whose name was Whitefoot, made some claim to be a quality saddle animal. He belonged to the chief man of the hamlet and was superior to a preysany. I could have done worse. So I kicked my heels in and away we went.
She of the Veils, Kregen’s fourth moon, rose to shed a fuzzy pink light, golden and glorious. I was in no mood to enjoy the wonder of the night sky of Kregen, even when two of the smaller moons went hurtling past close above. I had to reach the garrison at Arkadon, the marketplace for the surrounding area, rouse them out, select the best-mounted — for I doubted if they’d have any airboats — and then ride like the wind back to the Temple of Delia.
If everything went as ordered we’d catch the worshipers of the Black Feathers. I wondered what they did for a statue here. If Himet the Mak was the priest, as seemed probable, then one of his statues was unavailable.
An elongated black speck darted up against the golden disk of She of the Veils. The swirls of limpid color over the larger moons, evidences of some atmosphere there, confused sight for a moment. Then the golden gleam pulsed clear and I saw the hard black shape of an airboat lifting. It flicked past the limb of the moon and vanished among the stars.
I frowned.
I craned my head back to look along the way I had come. Roads in Vallia are usually atrocious, by reason of the superb canal system, but all country districts must have their roads for the quoffa and krahnik carts. Dust hung glittering in the light of the moon, raised by my hirvel’s hooves. I could see no pursuit. Airboats taking off, at night, close to me, always make me reach a hand down to the hilt of my sword.
I nudged Whitefoot along and we trended down past the edge of a cornfield with the somber mass of a wood on the far side. I’d have to get off and walk to rest Whitefoot in a moment or two, for the hirvel, although looking nothing like a horse, with his round head and cup-shaped ears and twitching snout, has a performance not unlike a good quality waler.
Dark figures showed at the edge of the wood.
Instantly I slowed the hirvel down. He had been pushed hard and now, at the time when I wished to walk him, he was faced with the imminent prospect of hard running.
The figures were mounted on zorcas. There was no mistaking those glorious close-coupled animals with their fire and spirit and energy. So even if Whitefoot had been fresh and in tip-top condition, the zorcas would have overtaken him as a cheetah overtakes a deer.
“By Zair!” I said to myself. “Phu-si-Yantong, a week’s wages against a sucked orange!”
I kept on. There are tricks and stratagems in encounters like this. We met as the dusty roadway curved up at the end of the cornfield to give way to a field of gregarians. I came over the slight ridge past a tumbledown fence and the zorcamen spurred out to stop me, very fierce, the moonlight glistening on their blades.
They wore the black and leather, and there were black feathers in their helmets. They were Rapas. The vulturine-headed diffs leered on me, completely confident. Mercenaries, like those apim mercenaries at the Temple of Delia, these Rapas with their predatory beaked faces were masichieri, without a doubt. I was absolutely convinced that they had been sent against me by Phu-si-Yantong after his apparition had spied on me. Now this puzzled me, before I reasoned that the Rapas would almost certainly have orders to take me alive.
I knew from an overheard conversation that the wizard with his maniacal and ludicrous ambitions wished to rule all Vallia through me acting as his puppet. Well, he might try. The effect of this was that I knew he had given orders that I was not to be assassinated, not to be slain. I spurred forward, yelling, whirling the bamboo stick about my head. A good rousing charge might carry me through, and I might knock one or two over and leave perhaps three to deal with.
They opened out, very prettily. The light grew as the Maiden with the Many Smiles rose over the horizon. Now there was no escape in the shadows.
The first blows struck down, the thraxters held so the flat of the blades smashed in at me. The bamboo stick could parry that kind of blow without being cut through, or not, given the nature of that stick. I stuck the end of the bamboo into a beak, heard the Rapa shrill his agony. I swirled around, chunked the stick into the guts of a second, ducked as the swish of a blade passed close over my bare head. The hirvel nudged up into the forequarters of a zorca and the rider swung back, for a moment off balance. Before he could recover my left hand gripped his arm and pulled and he came out of the saddle in a gyrating heap of black feathers and black cloak. He fell under the hooves. From nowhere a parrying-stick slashed at my shoulder. The jolt numbed my left arm. I kicked Whitefoot and he blundered ahead. Swords and parrying-sticks laced about me and I knew I’d have to unlimber the stick when a magnificent bellow roared out over our heads.
“Hold, you cramphs! Take on a man with a sword, you moldy villains!”
A glimpse I caught, a fragmentary glimpse of a man riding a zorca charging into the midst of the Rapas. He wore metal armor and a metal helmet, all burnished bright as gold in the radiance of the moons. He swung a thick straight sword, a clanxer of Vallia, and he cut the first Rapa down in a smother of blood. The Rapa nearest me let go of Whitefoot’s bridle and swung his mount away. He babbled something about: “You are not supposed-” And the clanxer curved down and went chunk into the leather armor over his shoulder. The man — he was a numim with golden fur under the armor and a bright golden mane
— bellowed, “I’m not supposed to beat off footpads, is that it, you tapo! I’ll have your tripes, every last one!”
I slashed the bamboo, and a Rapa collapsed over his zorca.
The numim, his lion-face snarling and his whiskers bristling, smashed his sword down onto the leather helmet of another Rapa. The vulturine-headed diffs had had enough. They reined away and set spurs to their mounts and galloped off. Two rode as though drunk, just managing to cling to their seats and rolling in their saddles.
The numim glared after them, golden, glorious, swearing that, by Vox! they were a poxy lot of scum.
“I must thank you,” I began, in the proper form.
He flicked blood drops from his sword.
“Think nothing of it, my man! A wayfarer is entitled to the protection of a koter of Vallia.”
He used the word
“Llahal and Lahal,” I said in one of the prescribed forms for making pappattu, the first Llahal with that strong Welsh double-L sound, used in greeting strangers, the second with the softer single L, used for greeting friends. “I am Nath the Gnat.” I said this promptly, almost without thought. My cover as a poor old wandering laborer seemed valuable enough to maintain for the moment.
“Llahal and Lahal. I am Koter Rafik Avandil.” He appended no further information, but I did not mistake his deliberate use of the title. For a poor laborer koter was a gentlemanly rank that should impress. Moving slowly yet
