The Delian Cycle

Chapter eight

Chapter eight

I take obi of the Clansmen of FelschraungI, Dray Prescot of Earth, sat miserably hunched in the skin tent of a man I had killed and felt all the impotent anger and the frustrations and the agony and the hell of total remorse and sorrow.

Delia was dead.

I had been told this by the clan leaders themselves, who had heard from scouting parties who had seen the Fristles set upon by, as they phrased it, “strange beasts riding stranger beasts” and there was no doubt. But there had to be doubt. How could Delia be dead? It was unthinkable, impossible. There must be a mistake. I questioned the scouts myself, impatient of pappattu and of the challenges that sometimes came. All the camp knew that Hap Loder, a Jiktar of a thousand men, had made obi to Dray Prescot, and there were few challenges. I learned the customs and how it was that ten thousand men could live together without a continual round of challenges. On first meeting, obi could be given or taken. Subsequently, it was a matter for jurisdiction of the wise men and the clan leaders, of custom and of necessity, and of elections when a leader died or fell in battle. I was impatient of it all. I searched the camp for the men, and asked my questions easily enough after I had killed the first three and taken obi from the rest, all of them, to the number of twenty-six. Their stories tallied. Strange beasts riding beasts had set upon the Fristles and all the party had been slain.

So I, Dray Prescot of Earth, sat in my skin tent surrounded by the trophies my search had brought me, and brooded long and agonizingly on what had been lost.

Even then, even then I doubted. Surely no man would be foolish enough to slay such glorious beauty as Delia of Delphond? But — but it had been beasts who had attacked. I shuddered. Would they not see beauty in Delia? And then, came the horrific thought, perhaps if they did it were better she were dead.

I believe you, who listen to the tapes spinning between the heads of your recorder, will forgive me if I do not dwell on my life among the clansmen of Felschraung. I spent five years with them. I did not age. By challenge, by election and duel, I rose in the hierarchy, although this was not of my seeking. It is an amazing and sobering fact to realize the power of ten thousand men who have made obi to one man. By the end of the five years every single one of the clansmen of Felschraung had made obi to me, either directly as the result of a victory in combat or through the indirect method of acknowledging me, with all the ceremony demanded by obi, as being their lord and master.

It all meant nothing, of course.

Mainly, it was forced upon me by circumstances and my saving my own skin. I knew why I wanted to live. Quite apart from my abhorrence of suicide, despite the dejection into which I can fall, if I surrendered my life abjectly and Delia of the Blue Mountains still lived and needed me — how would I acquit myself on the Plain of Mists then?

Some days of sunshine and rushing winds as we rode our zorcas across the wide prairies I would think Delia truly dead. And then on other days as the rains lashed down and the pack animals and the endless lines of wagons rolled across the plains, sinking axle-deep into the mud, I would begin to think that perhaps she still lived. Often I found myself believing she had in some miraculous way been transported back to Aphrasöe, the City of the Savants. If so, that was a happening I could understand and applaud. I had been discharged from Paradise for helping her, as being unworthy. Perhaps the Savanti had reconsidered their verdict. Could I look forward once more to seeing the Swinging City?

That I had under my direct command ten thousand of the fiercest fighters I had ever led was an accident.

Their chief weapon was the laminated reflex bow. I, too, learned the knack of sending five shafts out of five into the chunkrah’s eye. The chunkrah, as the reference suggests, was the cattle animal, deep-chested, horned, fierce, superb eating roasted. I had need of this expertise with the bow, for more than once or twice when elections had selected the combatants I fought men who wished to take obi from me with bows. I found a primitive pleasure astride zorca or vove in stalking my opponent, clad in hunting leathers like myself, bow to bow, slipping his arrows and sending my own shafts deep into his breast.

The clansmen used an ancient and superbly thought-out system of warfare. While they used their earth-shaking herds of chunkrah to break down enemy palisades or wagon circles, they considered this a waste of good chunkrah-flesh. They fought when the need arose from within the tightly-drawn wagon circle, the laager of the plains. But they took their fiercest joy in the two riding animals, the vove and the zorca. As a clansman I shared with them the two entirely different exhilarations to be found in charging knee to knee in the massive vove phalanxes and in pirouetting superbly on the nimble zorcas as the flashing shafts from our bows seethed into the hostile ranks.

For the first shock of vove combat when the earth shuddered to the pounding of the hooves, the clansmen used the long, heavy, couched lance, banded with iron and steel. Then they would take to their axes, with which they were irresistible. The broadsword was used, and often; but normally only when the ax was smashed or lost from its thong. With my experience of wielding a tomahawk in boarding parties on my own Earth I was able to hold my own. But an ax has a relatively short cutting edge; a striking sword will wound down almost its whole sharpened length. Even from their zorcas and voves, perched in their high saddles, they could not with their axes best me. I found that in the melee of mounted combat when the mighty voves struggled head to head and the swinging room was restricted, an ax could crushingly do more damage, biting down solidly through steel and bronze and bone. It was a useful weapon then. But as the press increased and the dust rose choking and blinding and stinging in our sweating eyes and clogging in our riding scarves, the short stabbing sword came into its own, and made short work of opponents against whom axes would clog.

The balanced throwing knife was regarded with some favor by certain of the clans of the great plains, and the terchick, as the form in which it was forged was called by the clansmen — I suspected not from its shape but from the sound it made — was swift and accurate. However, it was essentially the woman’s weapon, and the fierce tawny-skinned bright-eyed girls of the clans could hurl their terchicks with unerring skill. In the nuptial ceremony the groom would stand for his bride as she sank a quiver-full of terchicks into the stuffed target sacks at his back. Then, laughing, when all her defenses were gone, he would take her up in his arms and place her tenderly upon his vove for their bridal ride.

The voves were eight-legged, large, savage, horned and tufted, shaggy with a russet color glorious beneath the suns of Antares. Their endurance was legendary. Their hearts would pump loyally for day after day in the long chase if necessary, until the animal dropped dead, still struggling on. They carried the main war divisions of the clansmen, fighting with bulk and strength. The zorcas were lighter, fleeter but without the awe-inspiring stamina of the vove.

After five years it became necessary for me to conquer and take over the Clan of Longuelm. Again there was only a marginal joy in it. Hap Loder, who was now my right-hand man, remarked that I could, if I wished, weld the whole of the clansmen of the great plains into a single mighty fighting force.

“Why, Hap?” I said to him.

“Think of the glory!” His face reflected the shining promises he could see. “A force so powerful nothing could stand in its way. And you could do it, Dray.”

“And if I did, whom would we fight?”

His face fell. “I had not thought of that.”

“Perhaps,” I said to him. “Because there would not then be anyone to fight, it might be worth the doing.”

He did not really understand me.

Great wealth reckoned in any terms had been amassed during that five years. I possessed zorcas and voves by the thousand, and chunkrahs by the tens of thousand. I commanded with the rights of life and death the lives of twenty thousand fighting men, and three times as many women and children. The wagons contained chests of jewels, rare silks of Pandahem, spices from Askinard, ivory from the jungles of Chem. A flick of my fingers could bring a dozen of the most beautiful girls one could find to dance for me. Wine, food, music, literature, good talk and the wisdom of the wise men, all were mine without a thought.

But I merely existed through this time, for all I cared about was Delia of the Blue Mountain, and through her for Aphrasöe where all the luxuries and delicacies of the clansmen would taste immeasurably sweeter.

Life, however, was for the living.

If I have given the impression that obi was a mere matter of a challenge, and a relatively brainless combat, then I do the clansmen a disservice. It carried far more ramifications than that. The wise men, for instance, could not in their aged sagacity be expected to be continually leaping up to swing a sword and shoot a bow. The electoral system balanced out in the end to the benefit of the clan, and the clan leader was a fine fighting man, as would be essential given the conditions of life on the great plains of Segesthes.

I knew that I could count on the absolute and fanatical loyalty of every single man of the clans of Felschraung and Longuelm. I had made it my business to weed out men of Lart’s type. The first lieutenant of a King’s Ship soon learns to handle men. I could find an inverted, ridiculous pride in the fact that my men owed me loyalty without the need of the lash, and if I fancied they also held me in some affection, I would not be a human being had that not pleased me.

These were poor substitutes for what I had lost.

The clansmen kept no slaves.

There was no need for me to do as I would undoubtedly have done, and freed them all with that procedure’s consequent tears and confusions and tragedies. Out on the great plains loyalty and affection between man and man and between man and woman would have clogged had slavery obtruded. We rode like the wind, and like the wind were here and gone before oafish mortals could apprehend. Mysticism came easily on the great plains beneath the seven moons of Kregen.

Most obi challenges were fought mounted; only my own flat feet on which I had been standing those first few times had given me an advantage which later I recognized. A clansman lived in the saddle. When a man and maid joined themselves in the simple nuptials recognized by the elders they would ride off together astride their mounts as a natural extension of the lives they had known. They would always contrive to ride off into the red sun’s sunset, and not the green sun’s. This I understood. Among the many languages of Kregen — and I soon picked up enough of the clansmen’s so that I could converse in that tongue as well as Kregish — there were many and various names for the red sun and the green sun and for all the seven moons, and all the phases of the seven moons. Suffice it that if the need arises I will use the most suitable names; for names are important on Kregen, more, if that be possible, than on Earth. With a name a primitive man may conceive he possesses the inner nature of the thing named. Names were not given lightly, and once given were objects of respect. Yes, names are important, and should not be forgotten.

I will speak no more for the moment of the clansmen of Segesthes but pass on to a day of early spring — the Kregan seasons must revolve like our own so that there is a time of planting and a time of growing and a time of harvesting and a time of feasting; but the binary suns make these elementary distinctions gradually change year by year — when I rode out at the head of a hunting party. The men were happy and carefree, for life was good and, as they said, never had they known a greater Warlord, a mightier Vovedeer, a more furious Zorcander, than Dray Prescot.

We had ventured far to the south, leaving that gleaming sea many miles distant — its name was not on record among the clansmen for they were men of the great plains — and we could include in our grazing swing fresh areas opened up to us by the amalgamation with the clan of Longuelm. This had been one reason for my diplomacy of swords.

Even so we had entered areas unknown to the men of Longuelm and this party was as much a scout as a hunt.

Looking back now I can blame myself for bad scouting, or for bad generalship. But had our point not missed what he should have seen before he died, all that followed would not have occurred and you would not be listening to this tape.

The ground was breaking with the green growing burgeon of spring as we trotted down between two rounded hills whereon trees grew. We always welcomed trees as signs that water and a break from the plains was near. The air smelled as sweet and fresh as it always does in the better parts of Kregen. The twin suns shone, their emerald and crimson fires casting the twin shadows that were now so usual to me.

We bestrode high-spirited zorcas, and a string of fierce impatiently following voves trailed in the remuda. A few pack animals, calsanys and Kregen asses, mostly, carried our few belongings for camp. Yes, life was good and free and filled with the zest of high living for all those young men who followed me. The image of Delia of the Blue Mountains remained a constant dull ache within me. Yet I was beginning to accept, at last, that I must go on without her.

The shower of arrows and spears felled four of my men, slew my zorca, and pitched me into the dust. I was up in an instant, sword drawn, and a net closed around my head. I could see weirdly-shaped creatures flinging the nets and I hacked and slashed — and then a club smashed against my head and I went down into unconsciousness.

How could I be surprised when I regained consciousness to find that I was naked, apart from a breechclout, and that my hands were lashed together with cords and that I was yoked to what remained of my men?

We were prodded to our feet and commanded to march.

The beasts who had captured us smelled unpleasantly. They were not above four-foot tall, covered in thick hair of a dun color tending to black at the tips, and each had six limbs. The bottom pair were clad in rough sandals, the upper pair wielded the prodding spears and swords and shields, and the middle pair seemed to serve any other function as it became necessary. They wore slashed tunics of some stuff of brilliant emerald color — the color of the green sun of Antares — and their heads, which were lemon shaped with puffy jaws and lolling chops, were crowned with ridiculous flat caps of emerald velvet. They carried their spears as though they knew how to use them.

“Are you all right, Zorcander?” asked one of my men, and the nearest beast growled like a dog in its throat and beat him over the head. He did not cry out. He was a clansman.

“We must stick together, my clansmen,” I shouted, and before the beast could strike me I raised my voice and bellowed: “We will come through yet, my friends.”

The spear-blade lashed alongside my head and for a space I stumbled along blinded and weak and dumb.

The camp to which we were brought was resplendent with richly-decorated marquees, and everywhere signs of opulence and luxury indicated clearly that this hunting party believed in making life on the great plains as comfortable as possible. Lines of zorcas tethered together on one side were matched by lines of another riding animal, an eight-legged beast not unlike a vove, except that they were smaller and lighter and without the ferocious aspect of a vove, without the horns and the fangs. Our own captured zorcas had been brought in, I noticed, and tethered with the others. But our captors had not brought in one single vove. Had I been given to empty gestures, I would have smiled.

A man stepped from a tent and stood wide-legged, his hands on his hips, regarding us with a curl to his lips. He was very white-faced, dark-haired, and he wore tight-fitting leathers over all his body. They were of the same brilliant emerald as the garments worn by the things that had caught us.

I decided it would be something to do to snap his neck; something that might lighten the drabness of days.

He turned his face back toward the tent opening. The tent was the most grandiose in all the camp. We stood bedraggled and naked in the dust.

“Ho, my princess!” the man called. “The Ochs have made a capture that may amuse you.”

So, I thought to myself, they have princesses hereabouts, do they?

The princess strolled to the entrance to her tent.

Yes, she was beautiful. After all these years, I must admit she was beautiful. One first noticed her hair, like ripe corn with the morning sun shining on it in a field of our own Earth. Her eyes were the cornflower blue of the flowers one might find in that field. These were old and tired clichés before ever they reached Kregen; but I recall her as I first saw her that day long ago as she stood looking down on where we had been flung captive in the dust.

She lifted a white rounded arm that glowed with the warm pink pulse of blood. Her lips were red, red, and soft like a luscious fruit. She wore an emerald green gown that revealed her throat and arms and the lower portion of her legs, and she wore around her neck a string of blazing emeralds that must have ransomed a city. She looked down on us, and her nostrils pinched together as at an offensive smell. Very beautiful and commanding, she looked, on that day so long ago.

I was lifting my face to look at her.

The man walked across and kicked me.

“Turn your eyes to the dirt, rast, when the Princess Natema passes!”

Within my lashings and the yoke I rolled over and still looked up at her although the man had kicked me cruelly hard.

“Does the princess then not desire admiration from a man’s eyes?”

The man went mad.

He kicked and kicked. I rolled about; but the bonds interfered. I heard the princess shouting with anger, and heard her say: “Why clean your boots on the rast, Galna? Prod him with a spear and have done. I weary of this hunt.”

Well, if I were to die, then this monkey would die with me.

I tripped him and rolled on him and placed my bound wrists on his throat. His face turned purplish. His eyes protruded. I leered at him.

“You kick me, you blagskite, and you die!”

He gargled at me. There was an uproar. The Ochs ran about waving their spears. I surged upright gripping Galna, and my men on the lashings rose with me. I kicked the first Och in the belly and he tumbled away, screeching. A spear flicked past my body. Galna wore a fancy little sword smothered with jewels. I dropped him as though he were a rattler, and as he fell I managed to drag the little jeweled sticker out. The next Och took the small sword through the throat. It broke off as the beast shrieked and struggled and died.

I flung the hilt at the next Och and cut his head open.

I picked up Galna again, my hands and wrists swelling against the lashings, and hurled him full at the princess.

She gave a cry and vanished within her tent.

Then, as it seemed so often when things were becoming interesting, the sky fell in on me.

Neither of us would ever forget my first meeting with the Princess Natema Cydones of the Noble House of Esztercari of the City of Zenicce.