gain a greater hold. We must watch every entrance and stop these priests. The idol you describe is not an easy thing to move.”
“I’ll get my men down to the docks,” said the kov, the kovneva’s son, and we all turned to look at him, shocked, as though a ghost had spoken.
“Yes, my son.” The kovneva spoke in a soothing tone. “You do that”
No real surprise could be felt by me that these highly placed nobles should know of the Chyyanists. This kind of information would flow into their bureaus all the time. Now they would take more concern over the Black Feathers. This all added up. It all made sense. But I was banished from Vondium. I said, “I am banished from Vondium. I shall leave now, unless you have any other ideas, and see what I can do in the provinces. I am concerned over the Great Chyyan.” I had told them that Hamal could be the basis of the new creed, but they indicated that did not signify. They’d smash Hamal when the time came. Even Nath Ulverswan was almost reconciled to that view. The main threat, as they saw it, was against themselves. There was no point in my telling them that my chief concern, a concern almost approaching a guilty anguish, was for the poor deluded people who believed this evil creed and imagined they might indulge in all the goodness of Kregen, at once, in the here and now. These noble racters would never comprehend that point of view.
Further talk and a little more bargaining more or less sealed the compact in the view of the racters. If they suspected I merely toyed with them, for I was scrupulous in not giving my word, they did not reveal it. If I was going to have to fight my way out, that, too, did not appear on the surface. The Chuliks had gone, dismissed by a wave of the kovneva’s hand. We walked through the farther recesses of the conservatory. It was a remarkable place. Cages had been positioned about in which were kept examples of many kinds of wild animals, so the place was also a miniature zoo. I said, “We are now talking in circles. I will leave.” I gave a hitch to the cloak and brought the hat up ready to clap it on my head. I was ready, also, to whip out longbow or longsword and swirl the cloak back out of the way for action.
On the way in here I’d observed the fantamyrrh as was proper. It occurred to me I might not be in the mood to observe it on the way out.
Intrigue and dark secrets flourished here as the exotic plants flourished in their heated glass houses. The passions and the feral viciousness here were scarcely matched by the savage beasts penned in their cages.
A number of the kovneva’s Chail Sheom, her pretty little slave girls in their silks and bangles and silver chains, trailed after her carrying her fan and her perfumes and the gewgaws inseparable from a great lady of high rank. Two hulking fellows carried her chair. I had given these slaves a casual glance and saw their hangdog expressions. They brightened up with smiles and laughs when the kovneva looked at them, which is the way of slaves. It sickened me.
Now, as we stood there with the intrigues between us and the secret passions held down, as we made our plans and no doubt made alternative plans to deal more effectively each with the other, so the realization struck through to me that I, that same Dray Prescot who had so ruthlessly driven the slavers from Valka and had fought them over the fair surface of Kregen, was in reality standing here and plotting with Zair-forsaken slave masters and slave profiteers.
I moved away, gripping the hat, stood by a cage in which a graint shambled upright to grip the bars. The others moved with me and I didn’t give a damn if they saw my face and guessed my thoughts. At that moment I’d have cheerfully seen them all consigned to the Ice Floes of Sicce. A scattering screech and a ripping, tearing, chopped-off scream from the cages we had just passed brought us all around to stare upon a scene of horror.
Two feral beasts leaped from the blood-streaming wreckage of a half-naked slave girl to smash a second away with a splintered skull and to spring on two more. The beasts were chavonths. Past them I saw the two chair men running. Someone had deliberately opened the cage. Someone who hated the Dowager Kovneva Natyzha Famphreon had released these savage killer beasts upon us. The scene etched itself on my brain. The parallel lines of cages with their heavy iron bars. The maddened beasts within, scenting freshly spilled blood, joined in the savage chorus. The slave girls huddled, naked arms upraised, silks splashed with blood, feathers and fans and jewels spilling across the floor. The chavonths chewed up their victims and turned, their muzzles smeared, to glare with venomous fury upon us.
And the nobles, these racters, screamed and clawed and ran past me screeching their fear, to find their way blocked by a stout iron grille at the end of the row of cages. Whoever had planned this had schemed well. I fancied the chair men were the culprits. They had run free, arguing a pre-knowledge. But they had so arranged affairs that the chavonths penned us in against iron bars. We were the caged, the chavonths the masters now!
Chavonths are known as treacherous beasts. They are six-legged hunting cats, powerful, and their fur is patterned in hexagons of blue, gray and black. Their fangs may not match those of a leem, their speed not equal that of a strigicaw, but they can smash a man’s head in, their claws can disembowel a poor naked slave girl.
Nalgre Sultant pushed past me and ran for the end of the alleyway and stood, shaking the iron bars that blocked him off, screaming, screaming. Ered Imlien swung away, his red bloated face green. Nath Ulverswan gripped the arm of Natyzha Famphreon and they stood, crouched with their backs to the bars, glaring with awful horror upon the death that snarled at them. The chinless nincompoop, Natyzha’s son, Kov of Falkerdrin, stepped forward. He drew his rapier and main gauche. I could see the side of his face, see the sweat dripping there, the way his teeth caught his upper lip. His body trembled. But he stepped out before his mother and the twin blades he held caught the fireglass glow and gleamed.
The dowager kovneva husked out a word. “Jikai!” she said.
This would not be a Jikai — well, perhaps a little one — but it would prove to be highly instructive, that was for sure.
I said, “This is not work for a rapier, kov.”
His voice panted. “That I know. But it is all the weapon I have, that and my dagger.”
I threw off the swathing buff cloak and unfastened the golden zhantil heads and tossed down the gold-laced crimson cape-cloak. Then I drew the Krozair longsword, for the time for bowmanship had passed. Seg might not have agreed, but I knew what I knew about the Krozair brand.
“When they leap, Prince,” said this young kov, “do you take the left hand one and I-”
“Give them no time to spring,” I said, and took the Krozair longsword’s hilt into both my spread fists and so charged forward, swinging the brand up in a deadly arc of steel. Through all the hubbub I heard the gasps of horror at my back. What I looked like Zair alone knows. I hurtled forward. The chavonths had given me no time to smash forward to save the slaves; all were dead or fled. Everything had happened with shocked speed, a few heartbeats separating the first scream and the instant I sprang.
This was what living on Kregen was all about, this horrific transformation, in an instant, from peaceful living to berserk toy, from graciousness to terror.
This must be done right the first time, and quick, damned quick. . The two chavonths did not leap exactly together and so I was able to position and slash at the first. The gleaming blade of the longsword swept in that vicious chopping circle as my hands and wrists and forearms rolled over, and the muscles of my back ridged and extended and I felt all the old pull and power. The steel sliced through the chavonth’s furred hide just above his left forequarter — his left foresixth — and I went with the blow and rolled away and the slashing claws razored past. A single roll brought me up and a single twist turned me and a single leap brought me from the side against the second chavonth. The Krozair brand licked out like a bar of blood. I drove it point first into the lean furry flank. A blue hexagon imploded. The onward rush of the great beast almost snatched the sword from me, but a Krozair knows how to hold onto a sword hilt. I gave a vicious twist and then withdraw, swirling the blade instantly into an overhand chop that crunched down on the chavonth’s backbone just abaft his center pair of legs.
The yelling shrieking of the wounded chavonths erupted in the iron-barred area, the stink of freshly spilled blood poured out in a warm effluvium. There was no time to stop. This beast was done for, although he spat and clawed futilely at the air and at his ruined back. The chinless kov was trying to get in at the first chavonth, trying to dart his slender rapier in past the wicked claws of its remaining legs. I hurled myself forward in a desperate rush and almost, almost I saved him completely.
But a wickedly tipped claw swept in from the side and gashed all down his ribs and he shrieked and fell back and then I was on the chavonth and the terrible Krozair longsword rose and fell, rose and fell, and three blows took the poor chavonth’s head clean off.
Natyzha Famphreon had not fainted. Nalgre Sultant, seeing the dead and dying cats, dragged out his rapier and made a great show of coming forward, twirling the blade, ready to face all comers. Nath Ulverswan kept his
