incensed fury was all directed at that towering, impregnable, loweringly obscene form of a living dead man.
Then, after a handful of shafts into the first of the charging guards it was handstrokes along the high balcony.
The shortsword, built by Naghan the Gnat to specifications drawn up from careful measurement of the deadly shortsword of my Clansmen of Segesthes, chunked in gleaming silver and ripped out gleaming red. I put my shoulder down and bashed into the guards, anxious to carve a way through them and reach the outside air. The notion of finding Dayra in all this hullabaloo had still not left me, although I was having to face the fact that with all my plans gone wrong I was hardly likely to find her now. Four Rapas tried to work as a team and do for me. No doubt they were accustomed to quick victory utilizing their intricate teamwork on the battlefield or in camp brawls. But a fighting man must tailor his work to circumstances. The balcony was narrow. Even as the first Rapa prepared to open the gambit and feint away I slashed his beak off, burst past him, sank the blade into the next one — just far enough
— ducked a wild clanxer swipe and so chunked left, right, and felled the other two. They couldn’t know, of course — but anyone who did would understand why the shortsword gleamed in my fist and the deadly Krozair longsword snugged still in its scabbard. The guards expected me to go one way, and so I went the other. A narrow slot opened in the wall, one of the many runnels all these huge old buildings possess, crevices between facing walls, cavities under domes, tunnels left for the maintenance that must unceasingly go on to stop the whole fabric from toppling to destruction. With a last flicker of the shortsword I ducked down the slot. The first fall was some ten feet and I hit with a thump. On my feet in an instant I padded between rough brick courses, a thread of light wanly illuminating the patches of damp and the mold. The way led via wooden ladders and dusty passages downward. The sounds of pursuit followed me. I stepped past a skeleton — it had been a plump wallpitix, poisoned by the temple caretakers, and crept away here to die
— and pushed on boldly. Wherever the way led I was sure to meet guards. Brittle bones crunched underfoot. A whole nest of wallpitixes, those furry, bright-eyed household scavengers, had died here. Beyond them and around a harsh masonry corner where the dirt had been cobbled over, a lenken door, banded with bronze, barred the way. I gave the door a look and put my shoulder to it.
With a creak like some poor soul being crushed between millstones, it grated open. Red and green light flooded in. Cautiously, I poked my head out, the blade raised, ready to defend myself. Around me stretched the ranked arcades of stone coffins. Some had toppled over and a detritus of bones and skulls littered the stone-flagged floor. I had penetrated below the temple and entered the crypt. That seemed apt at the time. Thoughtfully, I closed the door and shot the massive iron bolts, turning the heads over with a succession of sharp and satisfactory snaps. That took care of the bloodthirsty soldiers at my back. Now for the no-less bloodthirsty warriors in front.
The light streamed from tinted fireglass crystals set in niches along the coves. I guessed San Uzhiro had been down here earlier, needing light, to fetch out the crystal coffin of Guiskwain the Witherer. There were telltale marks in the dust. A skull rolled away as I marched across the flags. The eerie effects of witnessing a corpse brought back to life began to wear off. I found I was thinking again.
I have always said that if you can’t join them, beat them. As a principle of life on Kregen, I think that well- exemplified in the account of what befell Dray Prescot there. But, now, it would be convenient to join them for a space.
The fusty smell in the crypt led by way of the almost imperceptible wash of fresher air to the outer door. By its configuration I judged it stood at the bottom of a flight of steps cut into the earth leading up to ground level. Carefully, easing the door open a whisker at a time, I peered out. No matter how many times I tangle with guards, I am forced to fight sentries, hide from or dispatch watchmen, I can never think of them as mere lay figures. Guards on duty face a thankless task. At times it seems they are there merely to be slain by the princes and captains who seek to go where they should not. But a guard is a man, doing a rotten job, and glad when his duty is over and he can traipse off to the guardroom and take off at least a little of his equipment and put his feet up for a time, until he is due to roust out again.
Guards stand in gaudy uniforms with ornate spears and are ripe targets. No — I do not devalue guards, no matter that I have been forced to deal harshly with them in my time. The guards at the top of the steps were Chuliks. This complicated matters from the point of view of joining them, and made the physical exertion of dealing with them that much more hazardous. Chuliks are not apims. They are diffs. They are powerful, ferocious warriors, trained from the earliest age in the manipulation of weapons, lacking in the lighter side of humanity, abhorred except as mercenary warriors. This, at the time and, I admit, to my shame, made the moral side of the problem that much easier of resolution.
I could not join this little lot — so I was forced to beat them.
The fight boiled up along the steps and out onto a grassy sward between upflung buttresses. The courtyard closed in with gray stone walls. It formed one of the many surrounding enclosures penned by the cyclopean walls that uplifted and supported the bulk of the temple. Roughly wiped, the shortsword slapped back into its scabbard.
The Krozair longsword twinkled out, and flamed silver for only a heartbeat, and then turned into the bloody brand of destruction that shears through all opposition.
“Cut the cramph down!” And: “By Likshu the Treacherous! The man is a devil!” And: “In the name of Father Chalkush of the Iron Brand do not let him pass.”
Blades clashed and slithered, blood flew, we leaped and contorted across the grass, Chuliks spun away, pierced, slashed, degutted, the longsword flamed a circle of savage destruction. The very size of those towering walls deadened sound. We trampled across the grass and I had to skip and jump right smartly, for Chuliks are rightly renowned as superb fighting men. But for the dead Rapa paktun’s armor I would have been nicked a couple of times. But, in the end, I had them all, and so could plunk the dripping point of the Krozair brand into the turf and spell a moment or two, breathing deeply, gulping the air which stank now with the tang of freshly spilled blood.
The Chuliks wore the colors of Gelkwa. The colors were green, silver, black and yellow, arranged in the Hawkwa fashion as a regular pattern of circles, silver, black and yellow, upon their green sleeves. Finding a tunic that was not too bloody I stripped my own tunic off — or, rather, the tunic that had been Rojashin’s — and donned the garment of Gelkwa. All the same, the kax that had served me well went back on. The letting out of the shoulder straps and pauldrons had not affected the harness’s efficacy. The longbow could be unstrung and slid back into its sleeve. How long that would pass as a spear remained to be seen; it had deceived before. Settling a fresh helmet on my head — gaudy with colors, heavy with feathers — and curling the long cape about me I surveyed the scene.
A grassy sward filled with dead Chuliks. Blood. Stink. Flies. And me, Dray Prescot, helplessly and hopelessly looking for a wayward daughter, and all Vallia in flames. Through the far gateway I came out onto the temple precincts and was able to mingle casually with the departing throngs. The talk centered on one subject only. I walked with bowed head, as though profoundly affected by the awesome occurrences within the Temple of Hockwafernes. I felt that all Vallia was alight. Once the emperor was seen to falter, once a blow was struck against his authority, many people would stand forth from the shadows and openly challenge him. You know of many of the parties and factions; there were more, people determined to have their own way with the Empire of Vallia and to the Ice Floes of Sicce with anyone who opposed them. There had been a battle and the emperor had been defeated. I wondered if he had been there in person or had sent a general to deal with the invasion. I wondered if the old devil was still alive. My course was now clear cut. Despite all my ineffective attempts to see Dayra and to rescue her, I had achieved nothing. Even this corpse revived to blasphemous life lived and I had been unable to send him decently back to the grave. Between Dayra and Delia I was being forced to choose, and the alternatives were odious, agonizing. But — Delia. Yes I must assure myself she was safe first. If her father went down in ruin, Delia would become the prey of the leems prowling and scenting blood. Somehow, I sensed that Dayra had survived with the wild bunch with whom she ran because she knew how to handle both herself and them. She would not be suddenly in dire peril now, just because I had not seen her. Why should my arrival make any difference to her? After all, I had not affected her life up until now. She had lived and grown to womanhood without me. So, feeling the deep hurtful wounds pressing in on my spirit, I set off to see about stealing a flier.
The careful watch of the guards lay all at my rear now. The temple was still the focal point. How long I would have before that dreadful courtyard was discovered I did not know. But a flier I needed and a flier I would have.
