Water sluiced inboard, drenching us.
The pressure kept up. The black crags ringed with creamy foam seemed to be racing up toward us as we went careering down, forced by wind and sea. But the silver boxes of the voller exerted their power as I forced the levers over. Slowly, we saw the angles widen, slowly we saw the bows creep past the last disturbed confusion of water, slowly the argenter,
“We’ve done it!’” shouted Andrinos. His hands were clasped together. Saenci clung to his arm. “Never have I seen such flying!”
Spray burst over us. The argenter rolled uglily. Men clung to her, like bees on a honeypot. And we weren’t done with her yet. She had to be turned, now, turned poop on to the run of the sea, so that she would ground less forcefully.
And then disaster struck. One moment I was beginning to think that we had successfully done it, the next a brute of a sea surged in, crisscrossing the current, the towering sterncastle punched at us, the poop swung shrewdly, and the voller was caught and flung and toppled end over end into the sea.
Chapter sixteen
The water felt like a brick wall.
Spread-eagled, cartwheeling, I crashed into that brick wall and burst through it with all the breath knocked out of me. Water buried me.
To struggle back to the surface and to gulp air… To struggle, never to give in, to go on fighting and clawing even as they shovel the grave sods over your face. That is the way of Dray Prescot, and often and often I wonder just how far it has got him. As the sea smashed into me and water clogged my nostrils I gave a few erratic strokes with my legs, turning and twisting upright, forcing myself to rise. Up. Up I went and my head broke the silver sky and the Suns of Scorpio blazed in my face. Light blinded me. Shimmer of wavetops, spray cutting across, all a liquid movement of colors and radiance. I spat. I shook my head. I forced my eyes to remain open. I felt, I admit, like a side of beef must feel after it has been corned and stuffed into a tin.
The situation was quite other than I had expected, for the voller floated. Amazingly, the flier sat on the water, upright, rising and falling with the motion of the sea. Just beyond her the argenter
Standing on the splintered deck of the voller, I looked about. The advantage of vision afforded by that little extra height proved sufficient. Two heads showed in the sea, among white splashes, and then a third. Saenci’s reddish foxy hair drifted on the water and I dived in first for her. She was swimming well; but going the wrong way.
Spitting, I gasped out, “Steady, Saenci. It’s all right now. Just relax and let me-”
“Where is Andrinos?”
“He’s all right. We must reach the argenter.”
I held her in the prescribed fashion for lifesaving and swam across to the drifting ship. Turko and Andrinos swam across. We trod water and looked up and they threw ropes down for us and helped us inboard. Like half- drowned gyps we crawled aboard.
Being your ruffianly kind of mercenary, I knew I had not much time left before the voller sank to act as any proper hyrpaktun would act now. I dived back and swam to the flier. I left the hubbub and howls of protest. Clambering onto the warped deck and working very rapidly, very rapidly indeed, by Krun! I snatched up my weapons and that superb harness of mesh links. Swimming back with the bundle was not too difficult although not a sport I’d take up for pleasure, and once again they hauled me inboard. This time I was content to lie on the deck and let my battered old carcass recover.
“You’re a right maniac, dom!” quoth a cheerful voice. I looked up. He stood, his thick legs spread apart, his hands on his hips, stark naked but for the weapons belted to him. His face was plug-ugly, scarred, with prominent eyebrows and a mass of thick brown hair, plastered into shiny flatness by spray.
“Aye,” I said. And then, “Llahal.”
“Llahal, dom. I am Clardo the Clis. I thank you for saving us-” A gleam of gold at his belt caught my eye. He had taken his pakzhan, the little golden zhantil head that is the mark of the hyrpaktun, from around his neck and twisted the silken cords tightly around his belt. About to reply that, Llahal, I was Jak, a sudden shadow fell over me as I sat up and a fierce, excited, bubbling voice burst about us and brought instant silence from everyone.
“Lahal!” said this voice. “Lahal and Lahal, Strom Drak! It’s me, Torn Tomor. And you are now Emperor of Vallia. Lahal, majister, Lahal!”
I stood up and looked at him.
Yes, he had the virile toughness of his father and the slim agility of his mother, and if he had a tithe of their strengths he would be a most puissant young man. I smiled.
“Lahal, Torn Tomor. And your father and mother are well and thrive, thanks be to Opaz. And, as for you, your faith was too fragile, for the murderer confessed.” He started at this, a young, eager, alive man with all his life to lead. “Yes, Torn, you ran off to be a paktun when we all knew you would not strike down a man from the shadows, with steel between his shoulder blades.”
“But,” he stammered, “majister — everyone said — it looked black-”
“It is black no more. Do I need to ask why you return to Vallia?”
“By Vox, no!” spoke up Clardo the Clis. “But-” And here his scarred face swung toward Torn Tomor. “-is this really the emperor, Torn? How can he be, seeing the emperor sits in Vondium and waits for us to fight and win his battles for him?”
The argenter gave a lurching heave that made us all brace ourselves to the sway of her. The muddy shore was not far off and soon the ship would splinter to flinders. Turko stood at my side. Andrinos was holding Saenci. I looked at the crowding men, hardened men, professional fighting men, tough and ruthless in combat, easy and reckless in camp. Yes, they were mercenaries, going to Vallia to find employment. A few quick words established what I had instantly guessed, and what had made Deb-Lu-Quienyin direct me here. Every man was a Vallian. Each man had gone off from his own country as a lad, seeing that Vallia had no army but employed paktuns to fight for gold. And, now the mother country was in dire danger, beset by enemies, her sons were returning home. But they were not the country bumpkins, the smart townies, who had left. Now they were paktuns and hyrpaktuns. Now they were professionals. I sighed. What I could do with a hundred thousand like this!
The voller had taken with her the secrets of her silver boxes, and I had to quell the spurt of anger. All that had chanced to me since leaving Vallia for the Dawn Lands formed a part of a pattern, that was clear. Prince Tyfar and Quienyin; well, Quienyin was actively assisting me now and Tyfar was going to have a much more prominent part to play in my plans than he dreamed of. By Zair! He had a much bigger part to play than I dreamed of! How fate does throw the knucklebones, and sits back, giggling. And that Vajikry fanatic, Trylon Nath Orscop, had afforded me a voller able to pull. No Vajikry, no voller. No voller, no ship of fighting men for Vallia.
Turko said, “We’re going to hit any mur — and that company you spoke of. They’re waiting.”
Along the edge of the surf the lines of totrixmen cantered. They looked hard and sharp. They were waiting for us. As we staggered up out of the clutch of the sea they would ride forward and spear us. The Vallians in the ship were shouting and waving. They thought these riders were waiting to succor them. And that was the sensible thought to any Vallian who had left the country before the Time of Troubles. I shouted, hard and high, in an ugly voice.
“Those jutmen are our mortal foes! They will spear us as we wade ashore through the mud. Each man must be ready to resist them. They are a parcel of the cramphs who are eating up your homeland.”
Well, that changed the demeanor of the returning mercenaries wonderfully. A staff-slinger stepped forward.
