The Vallian Cycle

Chapter seven

Chapter seven

Koter Rafik Avandil, lion-manThe suns sank finally as I rode from the little hamlet of Dinel.

In the last of the light drenching the western horizon with shards of blood and washes of viridian I rode, cursing that the farmers of Dinel had no better mount to offer than this stubby four-legged hirvel, kicking him in the ribs to make him go faster. As I cantered on through the rich farmlands under the night sky, I reflected that even if the farmerfolk of Dinel had no fine zorcas or fancy sleeths to offer me, their work demanding the use of krahniks and calsanys and the occasional quoffa and unggar, at least this hirvel, whose name was Whitefoot, made some claim to be a quality saddle animal. He belonged to the chief man of the hamlet and was superior to a preysany. I could have done worse. So I kicked my heels in and away we went.

She of the Veils, Kregen’s fourth moon, rose to shed a fuzzy pink light, golden and glorious. I was in no mood to enjoy the wonder of the night sky of Kregen, even when two of the smaller moons went hurtling past close above. I had to reach the garrison at Arkadon, the marketplace for the surrounding area, rouse them out, select the best-mounted — for I doubted if they’d have any airboats — and then ride like the wind back to the Temple of Delia.

If everything went as ordered we’d catch the worshipers of the Black Feathers. I wondered what they did for a statue here. If Himet the Mak was the priest, as seemed probable, then one of his statues was unavailable.

An elongated black speck darted up against the golden disk of She of the Veils. The swirls of limpid color over the larger moons, evidences of some atmosphere there, confused sight for a moment. Then the golden gleam pulsed clear and I saw the hard black shape of an airboat lifting. It flicked past the limb of the moon and vanished among the stars.

I frowned.

I craned my head back to look along the way I had come. Roads in Vallia are usually atrocious, by reason of the superb canal system, but all country districts must have their roads for the quoffa and krahnik carts. Dust hung glittering in the light of the moon, raised by my hirvel’s hooves. I could see no pursuit. Airboats taking off, at night, close to me, always make me reach a hand down to the hilt of my sword.

I nudged Whitefoot along and we trended down past the edge of a cornfield with the somber mass of a wood on the far side. I’d have to get off and walk to rest Whitefoot in a moment or two, for the hirvel, although looking nothing like a horse, with his round head and cup-shaped ears and twitching snout, has a performance not unlike a good quality waler.

Dark figures showed at the edge of the wood.

Instantly I slowed the hirvel down. He had been pushed hard and now, at the time when I wished to walk him, he was faced with the imminent prospect of hard running.

The figures were mounted on zorcas. There was no mistaking those glorious close-coupled animals with their fire and spirit and energy. So even if Whitefoot had been fresh and in tip-top condition, the zorcas would have overtaken him as a cheetah overtakes a deer.

“By Zair!” I said to myself. “Phu-si-Yantong, a week’s wages against a sucked orange!”

I kept on. There are tricks and stratagems in encounters like this.

We met as the dusty roadway curved up at the end of the cornfield to give way to a field of gregarians. I came over the slight ridge past a tumbledown fence and the zorcamen spurred out to stop me, very fierce, the moonlight glistening on their blades.

They wore the black and leather, and there were black feathers in their helmets. They were Rapas. The vulturine-headed diffs leered on me, completely confident. Mercenaries, like those apim mercenaries at the Temple of Delia, these Rapas with their predatory beaked faces were masichieri, without a doubt. I was absolutely convinced that they had been sent against me by Phu-si-Yantong after his apparition had spied on me. Now this puzzled me, before I reasoned that the Rapas would almost certainly have orders to take me alive.

I knew from an overheard conversation that the wizard with his maniacal and ludicrous ambitions wished to rule all Vallia through me acting as his puppet. Well, he might try. The effect of this was that I knew he had given orders that I was not to be assassinated, not to be slain.

I spurred forward, yelling, whirling the bamboo stick about my head.

A good rousing charge might carry me through, and I might knock one or two over and leave perhaps three to deal with.

They opened out, very prettily. The light grew as the Maiden with the Many Smiles rose over the horizon. Now there was no escape in the shadows.

The first blows struck down, the thraxters held so the flat of the blades smashed in at me. The bamboo stick could parry that kind of blow without being cut through, or not, given the nature of that stick.

I stuck the end of the bamboo into a beak, heard the Rapa shrill his agony. I swirled around, chunked the stick into the guts of a second, ducked as the swish of a blade passed close over my bare head. The hirvel nudged up into the forequarters of a zorca and the rider swung back, for a moment off balance. Before he could recover my left hand gripped his arm and pulled and he came out of the saddle in a gyrating heap of black feathers and black cloak. He fell under the hooves.

From nowhere a parrying-stick slashed at my shoulder. The jolt numbed my left arm. I kicked Whitefoot and he blundered ahead. Swords and parrying-sticks laced about me and I knew I’d have to unlimber the stick when a magnificent bellow roared out over our heads.

“Hold, you cramphs! Take on a man with a sword, you moldy villains!”

A glimpse I caught, a fragmentary glimpse of a man riding a zorca charging into the midst of the Rapas. He wore metal armor and a metal helmet, all burnished bright as gold in the radiance of the moons. He swung a thick straight sword, a clanxer of Vallia, and he cut the first Rapa down in a smother of blood.

The Rapa nearest me let go of Whitefoot’s bridle and swung his mount away. He babbled something about: “You are not supposed—” And the clanxer curved down and went chunk into the leather armor over his shoulder. The man — he was a numim with golden fur under the armor and a bright golden mane — bellowed, “I’m not supposed to beat off footpads, is that it, you tapo! I’ll have your tripes, every last one!”

I slashed the bamboo, and a Rapa collapsed over his zorca.

The numim, his lion-face snarling and his whiskers bristling, smashed his sword down onto the leather helmet of another Rapa. The vulturine-headed diffs had had enough. They reined away and set spurs to their mounts and galloped off. Two rode as though drunk, just managing to cling to their seats and rolling in their saddles.

The numim glared after them, golden, glorious, swearing that, by Vox! they were a poxy lot of scum.

“I must thank you,” I began, in the proper form.

He flicked blood drops from his sword.

“Think nothing of it, my man! A wayfarer is entitled to the protection of a koter of Vallia.”

He used the word koter in its meaning of gentleman, rather than of mister.

He reached out and grasped the reins of a zorca from which a dead Rapa hung tangled in the stirrups.

“Llahal and Lahal,” I said in one of the prescribed forms for making pappattu, the first Llahal with that strong Welsh double-L sound, used in greeting strangers, the second with the softer single L, used for greeting friends. “I am Nath the Gnat.” I said this promptly, almost without thought. My cover as a poor old wandering laborer seemed valuable enough to maintain for the moment.

“Llahal and Lahal. I am Koter Rafik Avandil.” He appended no further information, but I did not mistake his deliberate use of the title. For a poor laborer koter was a gentlemanly rank that should impress.

Moving slowly yet with sureness I dismounted from Whitefoot. The hirvel had served as well as he was able, not unlike a nightmare version of a llama, with that tall round neck and shaggy body. I took up the reins of the only other zorca left by the Rapas. Koter Rafik looked on. If he wished to claim both animals as his own he would have a fight on his hands. But he offered no comment.

Numims are loud and boisterous, with their golden fur and golden manes and fierce bristly mustaches. Lion-folk are numims, and the lion-maidens are glorious under the rays of the suns. They are also extraordinarily seductive under the moons, or so I am told.

I mounted up with a sack and my bamboo stick. I took up the reins. “I am for Arkadon, Koter Avandil. I am in a hurry. I give you my thanks again for your assistance.” He was not to know that I’d been in no real danger. If the Rapa masichieri had turned nasty and attempted to use the edges of their swords I’d have been forced to unlimber the bamboo stick and settle their business. But he had come charging in like a knight errant and so deserved his due of praise and thanks. “I ride fast, Koter, so will bid you Remberee. May Opaz the All-Glorious have you in his keeping.”

“Eh?” he said, a little put out. Then, with a real numim bellow, “Oh, yes! By Vox! I don’t hold with religion! A man’s right arm and his sword, they are the gods of Vallia.”

He wore a rapier and a dagger, I noticed, but the clanxer, the cutlass-like weapon of Vallia that is so often derided, had proved a good choice against the thraxters of the Rapas.

I set spurs to the zorca and took off. He followed, keeping pace, but made no attempt to engage in conversation which was, in any event, not too easy as we galloped along the dusty road.

There was an odd, eerie sensation about that wild nighttime ride across Vallia under the moons of Kregen. Only the sounds of the zorcas’ hooves and the wind in our ears and the thumping feel of our onward passage kept us in touch with reality. With some thankfulness I saw the sharp-cut outlines of the fortress of Arkadon rising up against the star glitter, and soon made out the circuit of the walls and a few scattered lights from tower and window within.

We made enough hullabaloo at the arched gate to arouse the sleepy sentry. My Delia’s Delphond is a quiet, lazy place, but any town near the coast must needs stand a watch. This is one of the ways of Kregen that can never be forgotten, if you wish to keep your head on your shoulders or your wrists and ankles free of chains. The slavers and the aragorn prowl many lands and seek to snatch away slaves where they can. Even here, in civilized Vallia, in sweet Delphond, the slavers sought to carry on their foul trade.

The response was quick enough to surprise me.

A yell and a curse from the ramparts, and then: “What’s all the noise! Quiet down, you great villains, you’ll wake the town!”

We managed to convince the sentry and the ob-deldar guard-commander he called that we were not slavers or bandits, those drikingers of the wild places unknown in Delphond. The ob-deldar was surprisingly suspicious. My few experiences of Delphond had led me to believe the easygoing people would have welcomed a pack of rascally kataki slavers with a proffered flask of ale.

Rafik Avandil bellowed out in his numim way, quite out of patience.

“Open the gates, you onker! Jump to it! Bratch! Or I’ll have your deldar rank torn off and burned!”

Bratch is not as ugly a word as the terrible Grak! shouted at slaves to make them work until they drop, but it is still a powerful word of command, implying move, jump or you know what will happen! The ob-deldar jumped.

The gates swung open, well-oiled and uncreaking, admitting us to the cobbled street.

“I need a bath and a meal and a bed,” bellowed Rafik. “I’ll stand the same for you, old man, and you will.”

This was munificence.

“I thank you, Koter Avandil. But I think it best for me to finish what I must do. Perhaps—”

“Aye! That will serve admirably.” He waved a violent hand at the guards sulkily trailing their spears back to the guardroom under the archway. “These southerners are a puny lot! By Vox! I’d smarten ’em up!” These sentiments appeared to put him in a better humor, for he finished in a roar: “We’ll meet on the morrow at an inn that has some pretense to fashion. I’ll see you at Larghos’s Running Sleeth.”

“Until tomorrow, Koter Avandil, at the Running Sleeth.”

He cantered off and he began to sing, one of those rollicking numim songs that always bring back memories of Rees and Chido and wild days rioting as a Bladesman in Ruathytu. I took myself off to rout out men and mounts and weapons for the rest of my night’s work.

I had to reveal my identity to the town governor before I got any sense out of him, sleepy-eyed in his night attire, tousled of hair, roused from bed. He held the title of Rango and was your usual plump, easygoing, smiling, lazy Delphondian. But I impressed on him, this Rango Insur na Arkadon, the importance and the urgency of the night’s business, and soon thereafter I rode out on a fresh zorca at the head of all the zorcamen he could spare, a miserable thirty of them, all sleepy-eyed and cursing away and rolling about in their saddles trying to ride off the fumes of the evening’s wine.

She of the Veils vanished beyond the horizon and the Maiden with the Many Smiles would follow and then the suns would rise and a new day would dawn over Kregen. By that time we reached the Temple of Delia. Harshly I ordered the party to dismount and giving them no time to rest their aching backsides gave instructions in a cutting voice to their hikdar and the deldars to spread out and surround the central roofed area, which gleamed in the first c****s of morning light, ominously silent.

Birds were chirping merrily away in the trees, and the dew sparkled everywhere, fresh and sweet. The air tasted like the best Jholaix. But, I, Dray Prescot, took no comfort from all that beauty.

We crept in, and I held a rapier borrowed from Rango Insur, and we stole between the pillars ready to leap upon the congregation engaged in their blasphemous rites to the Black Feathers of the Great Chyyan.

I knew, I supposed, when I heard the birds singing.

We burst in, and the place was empty. We scoured all the tumbled ruins, peering and prying, prodding with our swords. Nothing. Not a single thing gave any evidence of a soul having been there for a thousand years.

“It seems, Prince, we have had a wasted ride.”

The hikdar spoke a little sourly. His head was still ringing, I judged, from the party of the previous evening.

“The birds have flown, hikdar. I’ll grant you that. But as to a wasted ride, I think you’ll eat a better breakfast this morning than you would otherwise have done.”

He made a face, but bellowed out, “Too right, Prince!”

It was so, of course.

There, was nothing here. I had failed in this night’s business. Then I walked quietly around to that crumbled corner of masonry and bent among the dew-bright ferns. The hikdar stared at me curiously, hands on the hilts of his weapons, his booted feet thrust wide. I straightened up. In my hand I held the scrap of rusty black feather.

“Not altogether wasted for me, hikdar, either.”

Then we mounted up and I shook the reins and turned my zorca’s head for Arkadon and the Running Sleeth and this Rafik.