A gasp swept the assembly. The bets hovered, uncertain, for both girls possessed reputations. I knew the one in black leathers. I had seen her before, in those abominable caverns beneath Vondium where my Delia had been offered up on a basalt slab under the obscene idol of a giant toad to the fangs and claws of a real chyyan. I had seen her then, this Ros the Claw, as she released a mangled wight from a prison cell.
Two more girls in black leathers stepped forward. They looked grim. They were addressed as Zillah and Jodi, and they bore marks of authority. Ros flung out at them.
“This is overdue.”
“Maybe. But we cannot allow the Jikordur. The Trylon has forbidden duels to the death.”
“This began as a squabble over a bead necklace. What-”
“The Trylon Udo has commanded.”
“To the Ice Floes of Sicce with Udo! This bitch leem has tortured enough. She must be-”
“You may be called a tiger-girl, Ros. You may stand high. But in this you cannot go against the orders of the trylon.”
Now it was the turn of Karina the Quick to laugh.
The sightseers swayed this way and that to get a better view. All recognized this as a woman’s affair; but with rapiers and daggers in play, a universal sympathy was involved. I wondered what, if Dayra was here, she would do. She must have witnessed sights like this before. And that struck me as a most deucedly odd thought, I can tell you, I who had never to my knowledge seen my daughter. I wondered to which side she would hew. I did not think, with some assurance, that having a brother like Jaidur, Dayra could possibly have any truck with the green. That, here in Vallia, was a stupid concept, where green was merely another heraldic color, where blue, if any, was the color of contempt. And that was a pity.
The streaming opaline radiance of the suns brought out the colors of the soldiers and the irregulars, glittered from armor and weapons, struck glinting metallic highlights in the hanging dust.
“Desist, Ros the Claw, or we will take you into custody.”
This girl with her lithe feline form, the blood suffusing her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes that told of venom and intelligence, hauled Firn to her feet. The redhead swayed.
“Look! Very well. As Dee-Sheon is my witness, not the Jikordur — a common brawl, then, a gutter fight.”
At the words Dee-Sheon many of the women made tiny reflexive gestures with their fingers. Did they convey worship or did they ward off evil? Gods and goddesses and spirits throng the pantheons of Kregen. A New York City directory would contain not a half of them.
This was the moment I decided I could stand and watch no longer. I half turned to move away. The girls would not be constrained by the ritualistic trappings of the Jikordur and they would not fight to the death. This Ros had her way. But Karina laughed, derisively, showing her white teeth, her lips very red. Her body arched magnificently as she stretched, her rapier licking out in swift cunning passes. She vibrated confidence.
Slowly, Ros pulled from her waist pouch a thing of shining steel, an artifact shaped like an articulated metal glove, clawed with razor steel, sharp and cruel. She pulled it onto her left hand. The talons glinted. Metal splines extended up her wrist. She turned the tiger-talons this way and that. To call them tiger-talons is correct, for they shared much of the cruel curved beauty of a killer bird’s claws. The massed crowd fell silent.
The girls faced each other, Karina the Quick flicking her rapier and dagger about expertly; Ros the Claw poised with rapier ready and left hand glittering with clawed steel. So, I, Dray Prescot, sentimental onker, turned away and pushed through the crowd. I had no wish to witness what might follow. But, if I had to lay down any bets, my money would be on Ros, every last copper ob.
I had gone barely a dozen paces when a bubbling scream burst up into the bright air. I continued walking. I did not look back.
A vast sigh oozed from the crowd.
That was woman’s business. They were welcome to it.
Fourteen
“You are sure, Nalgre? Certain sure?” The seething anger and violence in me had to be held down. I could not show too much interest in the politics of Vallia here.
“Certain, Jak. I spoke to a flier pilot who returned with the trylon. The Lord Farris has been arrested and charged with treason. And others of like kidney, too.”
“It will make our task easier,” put in Dolan, idly swinging his sling around his legs. “Farris was loyal to the emperor.”
“Yes,” I said. “He was.”
“And as Udo is back in camp we will go and enlist today.”
“Very well,” I said, to keep up my cover.
This news was bad. It indicated quite clearly that scheming people were burrowing from within. The Lord Farris was devoted to Delia and the emperor. How could he possibly be accused of so outrageous a crime? Accused, yes; that would be all too easy. But the accusation must be false. I was convinced of that.
Before we went to enlist the three of us ambled across to an ale tent, for the suns progressed across the sky, to spend some of Nalgre’s winnings. Dolan had bet on Karina the Quick. And, as Nalgre said, with a guffaw: “That cat-girl cut her up a real treat.”
I was not interested. The day passed too slowly for me. On the morrow Dayra would arrive and I knew I would have to be quick to fetch her out of it before Zankov moved. I’d summed up that villain, as I thought, and how I kept moving and speaking and acting normally I do not know. The problem of this acting as a paktun and hiring out to Trylon Udo also worried me. If I gave my sworn oath to serve, as any mercenary would do, I would not wish lightly to break my word. That the whole thing was a sham, a facade, would not count. My word would have been given, and here, in the camp of Hockwafernes, I
Well, it is the same with problems as with plans. Men sow for Zair to sickle. Coming out of the ale tent after a goodly interval — a goodly interval — Nalgre wiped his lips and belched.
“By Beng Dikkane,” he said, comfortably. “I am in the mood now.”
A pang for old days and for Nath and Zolta swept me. We turned along the line of booths and tents where the trafficking went on all the live-long day. A party of warrior women marched along, all in step, all spears ranked, their helmets gleaming.
Dolan nodded.
“I warrant they’d not be so regimented when the moons are in the sky, eh?”
“They wouldn’t give you a calsany’s offering,” quoth Nalgre, and he laughed. The Jikai Vuvushis marched with a swing. There were equal numbers of those in green leathers under their armor as those in russets. On duty animosities were forgotten. At the head marched Zillah and Jodi, and Ros the Claw was there, with Firn. They approached and we three together with other swods casually sauntering nearby moved out of the way.
Leona nal Larravur pointed at me.
“There he is!” she shouted. Her voice rose, cracking with strain and excitement. “There he is! The Prince Majister! Seize him!”
It was damned quick.
I was ringed by spear points. My comrades fell back, gaping. Many of the irregulars ran off in terror. Zillah, tall, buxom, high of color, fronted me. Her rapier glittered at my throat.
“You are the Prince Majister of Vallia?”
I stared about the hostile ring. Damned quick, by Krun!
To go drinking in camp we had merely donned rapier and dagger. My fighting equipment lay buckled up in its leather coverings along with the gear of the others, guarded by the camp slave. Even then I could have broken free, skewered a few of the guards, slashed a few more, and so broken to liberty. But I hesitated.
These were women. Mind you, they were women dressed up as warriors, carrying arms, armored. All the
