He twisted the bamboo, hauling back.
He was an onker, right enough. He twisted the bamboo. I felt the click and the sweet sliding of oiled metal. He staggered back clasping the hollow bamboo. All the people watching gasped, as this foolish young trylon fell back, pulling the bamboo free of the blade.
In my right fist I held the ridged wooden hilt. Two feet of oiled steel blade glimmered in the lights from the windows. That blade had been forged by Naghan the Gnat in the armory of Esser Rarioch. I had designed it with Naghan, and we had laughed as we’d mounted its slender length into the bamboo hilt, covering the murderous brand with the rest of the hollow bamboo. I keep calling this wood bamboo; it is not real bamboo. It is of a deep orange luster, ridged and grows in the marshes. Kregans call it pipewood, for it is often used for tubing work in plumbing and the like. The blade glistened. The Trylon of Tremi stared and his face assumed a caricature of enraged fury, black with passion.
“You murderous rast! Now I’ll spit you clean through your filthy guts!”
And he set to, swirling his blade, thrusting and slashing like one demented. His companions stumbled up from the table, their chairs going over with a smash. They ripped their own weapons free.
One came in from one side, the second from the other.
If I was in for a little exercise then I’d make it reasonably entertaining. As I fought, foining off the two from the sides and beginning an amusing disrobing of the trylon, I reflected that this Rafik Avandil possessed a rare sense of humor. He had arranged to meet me here in this pseudo-cultural Running Sleeth knowing damn well what would follow. So I felt a double amusement as I cut the laces of the trylon’s fancy tunic and so stripped his clothes from him, garment by garment. When his two cronies pressed too close one was sent staggering and yelling away with a slit ear and the other with a punctured right forearm. The good old over and under stop-thrust worked beautifully. This idiot trylon’s overlong rapier most often pointed at the ceiling or the floor, or angled toward one of the garish pictures along the walls, more often than it aimed at my guts. I played him long enough to cut away his clothes down to his breechclout — bright pink, would you believe? — and then I had had enough.
Disgust filled me.
This kind of petty mindless brawl leaves a foul taste in a man’s mouth. This kind of bestiality is for the morons of the world, for the morons of two worlds.
Once they had seen how they thought the fight would now go, the rest of the patrons began to laugh. In their stupid heartless way they laughed at the Trylon of Tremi. He, poor fool, gagged on his own spit. His face was now whey-colored, gray and green, his eyes staring, his mouth slobbering. His beautiful pink breechclout with the embroidered chavonths and zhantils looked pathetic. It had blue lace edging. I stripped a little away and then he jumped at the wrong moment and the blade nicked his flesh in a tender spot.
He screamed.
So, wishing to have done, I snaked his blade away and stepped in. I took him by the throat with my left hand. I choked him only a little.
“The next time you seek to bully and thrash a defenseless old man, think, rast. Think, you brainless cramph, and remember this day.”
Then I turned him around and gave him a hard toe up the backside and so kicked him staggering across the floor.
His cronies stood back, furious but cowed, unwilling to reopen the fray. Blood had been drawn from both of them, splattering their finery and the black and white favors, but they had come out of this less injured than their lord. His hurts did not show on his skin. His hurts would not mend as fast as the scratches they had suffered.
The contrast between the conduct of this spoiled lordly brat and that of Rafik toward an old man was to me at the time most edifying. I felt an amusement toward Rafik, engendered as much by his trick as by the circumstances of his supposed rescue.
Larghos was visibly recovering his composure, seeing that no real damage had been done to his establishment. He began to flutter about. So I wiped my blade tip on the corner of my old brown cloak, picked up my sack, cast a last look upon the assembled gaping patrons — remembering to bend over as I did so — and bid them all a pleasant Remberee.
Then I stepped out of the Running Sleeth into the clean air and luminous suns-shine of Kregen.
Nine
Delphond is not as well served by the intricate canal system of Vallia as it might be, especially as it is an imperial province, descending in the imperial female line. This has served in the past as a distinct advantage and goes some way to explaining the surprising remoteness of much of the province, situated as it is relatively close to the capital. This fact, too, I suppose, does explain, as Delia maintains, why so many tides of conquest in the troubled history of Vallia have passed Delphond by with little destruction. The zorca ambled along the dusty road, kicking the thick white powder into a floating trail, and I jogged along, sunk in thought, yet still keeping that old sailor-man’s weather eye open. The oiled steel blade was snicked back into its bamboo scabbard and now looked like any wandering laborer’s stick. Making no attempt to discover the whereabouts of Rafik, I had simply ridden out of Arkadon. I could feel the muzziness clouding my head a trifle and a light-heaviness about my limbs; but, if necessary, I could go on swashing and fighting and drinking for another night or two without sleep yet. It is a knack. The rendezvous with Delia drew me on. The moment I reached Deliasmot where a canal trunk system terminated I would transfer to a narrow boat and be rapidly hauled all the way in first-class comfort. If Rafik was headed this way we would meet. I fancied I’d not seen the last of that golden numim with the sense of humor.
The white road wound between cornfields, with orchards all green and shining beyond, rising and falling over the gentle countryside. The road remained deserted until a cloud of dust heralded a considerable party of country folk taking their produce into Arkadon. I was surprised. The quoffa carts trundled along. Men thwacked on krahniks loaded with bales and baskets. The calsanys trotted along in their strings of patient bearing. Women and children perched on the carts or walked together in the intervals. The men marched, I could swear, almost in the form of a guard, with a scouting party ahead riding preysanys, superior forms of calsanys, and carrying not only their sticks but spears and long-knives. They gave me highly suspicious looks. But I was alone, and so we exchanged Llahals and parted, and I spat dust until free of their trail.
Logic told me that I did, indeed, look highly suspicious.
Here I was, a raggedy old laborer with a tattered brown blanket cloak, bareheaded and barefoot, riding a well-groomed and, if not first water, then reasonably high-quality zorca. Yes. Logic told me the country people might well have thought it their business to stop me and question me. There would be a reward for the return of the zorca to its owner. They were not to know the Rapa masichieri lay with his blood spilling out into the Kregan dirt.
But they had not stopped me. If anything, they had displayed so extreme a caution that it could be construed as fear.
And this, in Sweet Delphond, Delphond the Blessed, the Garden of Vallia!
The other interesting fact I had observed was simply that these country folk appeared to have shed their fat and lazy indifference. The men — abruptly, it seemed to me — presented an altogether new and different aspect. They had held their spears and long-knives with the firm determination of men intending to fight if they had to. This was remarkably unlike the usual attitudes I had encountered in Delphond. Ahead along the road the lath and plaster walls of a country inn came in sight, the red tile roofs shallowly peaked, the twisted chimneys lifting in welcome. No smoke rose from the chimneys. A window pane caught the red light of Zim and flashed. I perked up. Here was where I would repair the deficiencies missing breakfast was causing my stomach.
I rode up, feeling cheerful, and the damned place was empty, deserted, with windows smashed and doors hanging loose and weeds choking the neat fenced gardens. I cursed. Just my luck to encounter a wayside inn that was derelict.
“By Vox!” I said, aloud, thoroughly miffed. “By the disgusting bloated swag belly of Makki-Grodno!
My throat is like the Ocher Limits.”
