The Balintol Cycle I

Chapter two

Chapter twoI stood up. I said nothing — absolutely nothing.

The tunic and breechclout given me by the Star Lords were soaking wet and clogged with mud. Glutinous mud squelched in the shoes. The scabbard, a cheap affair of thin leather, wood and green brass, was bent, shrunken and distorted. The sword, a reasonable weapon of the straight cut and thrust variety, had a wire-wrapped wooden handle, flimsy quillons, and a point that made it primarily a cutting weapon. I hefted it and looked around through a hedge of drenched and mud entangled hair.

With a gesture as much of resignation as irritation I shoved my hair back from my forehead, wiped a paw over my face, and glared about for anybody who wanted to pass by.

The situation was familiar and ugly enough. Pirates infested the coast and now the menace of the Shanks had been removed, even if only temporarily, the sea rovers ranged far and wide. People ran about crazily. The noise lifted and sank almost, it seemed, in rhythm to the drifts of smoke wafting over the roofs. Amintin was a poor enough place, Zair knew; it still had attractions for those damned renders. I knew about renders, having served with Viridia the Render, that most charming lady pirate, and my feelings were that this unhealthy lot were both the dregs and the scum of society.

Given my situation, standing like a loon in the mouth of an alley was a fine way of being chopped. Swiftly crossing into the shadows of the nearest house I checked the alley, which was now empty, and then faced the street again.

If any pirates had seen our party ride off none of them for the moment strutted along to investigate. I began to think I might pull back and scuttle along the alley and see about transport to catch up.

By this time during my life on Kregen I fought only when I had to and then reluctantly. But, like any seasoned warrior, once a fight was inevitable and joined then I’d go in with the ferocious determination to finish it as quickly as possible.

Most of the noise racketed from further back in the town. My guess was the renders had put in their surprise attack and had closed in past this spot. They’d be making for the fat and juicy targets. The people in the Net and Stikling, for instance, would be well barricaded in and ready to put up a stout resistance.

The decision made, I wasted no more time.

Padding along the alley with the sword in my fist I kept both eyes wide open, very wide open, by Krun.

The rain had appreciably lessened and the Maiden with the Many Smiles shone down her fuzzy pink light through gaps in the clouds. There were even one of two of Kregen’s stars visible, twinkling away up there and vastly indifferent to what went on below.

Even then, sharply though I was keeping a lookout, they nearly had me. But I am an old leem hunter and am not easily ambushed.

Four of them leaped at me from a black-beamed doorway. They tried to degut me with spears and tridents and for a moment there was a swift and deadly series of passages, of cuts and slashes, of twists and evasions, before they all went down. The sword was a damned unhandy affair. I shook it in disgust.

From the next house along the sounds of combat spurted into the night. Your normal plunderer likes to help himself to loot with as little trouble as possible. No doubt these reivers had blood in their eye. It happens. Cautiously I padded along towards the fight.

The moon washed pink light across the house wall. Seven or eight renders were prancing about in the street trying to cut down the four men backed up against that rosy-glowing wall.

A number of bodies lay sprawled on the muddy cobbles.

There was no question of indecision here. I leaped forward.

Of course, they had their backs to me so I had no compunction in laying into the first of them to come to hand. One, two, three went down screeching before the others realized a new element had entered the equation.

A long spear with a bearded pirate at the other end of it thrust hard for my midriff. With a left hand that had hauled me up the rigging in hurricanes to daze the senses, I took the spear away. Economically I used it to clout its late owner over the head. He fell down.

Somewhere in the fracas over by the wall I heard a laugh. A light, peculiar, distinctly amused laugh, clear as a crystal chime through the hullabaloo, was not altogether unexpected. It told me someone was not taking this little scrap over-seriously. Without a moment’s conscious reflection, engaged as I immediately was by a fresh customer, I formed an estimate of the laugher’s character and personality and — well, that you must judge for yourself.

The renders mostly wore leather armor of sorts, bits and pieces. The fellow who challenged me now, a damned Chulik as ever was, wore metal. His yellow tusks were banded in silver. His chunky body strained against metal breast and back as we clashed weapons and then drew back so that I judged the armor he’d looted from somewhere was not a perfect fit.

Someone yelled: “Watch your back!”

The advice was not meant for me, so I reasoned; but you do not stay alive for very long if you ignore the slightest warnings. I leaped sideways and swung about, instantly reversing to slide the Chulik’s venomous thrust. I sidestepped and he blundered past so that I gave him a thwack and the confounded sword broke in two.

He reared up, massively competent with weapons as all Chuliks are.

They do possess humanity, do the Yellow Tuskers, a modicum. This one showed obvious delight at my predicament. His round black eyes and oily yellow skin did not differentiate him from a thousand of his fellows. But he sneered at me and said: “Come sneaking up at my back, would you! By Likshu the Treacherous, you have been rewarded!” He bored in with the sole intention of transfixing me upon his blade.

A movement to the right and a swaying reverse allowed me to use my forearm to force his sword arm away to the side. I put a fist into his snub nose and followed that by a crafty kick as taught very early on in the unarmed disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy. He yelled.

He yelled blue bloody murder.

He didn’t have any metal armor there — he didn’t have any armor there at all, just a dingy brown breechclout.

He doubled up so that my fist making contact with his chin received extra momentum from his own movement.

Then, as usual in these affairs, it was vitally necessary to keep low and spring away without thought.

The single-bladed axe swished down where my head had been and clanged into the cobbles. So fierce had the blow been the axe was twisted clean out of the grip of the Rapa who’d tried to cleave my skull in two.

In a matter of less than a second the Chulik’s sword was in my grip and in the rest of the second was buried in the Rapa’s side.

The sword possessed a strong curve to the blade, almost as much as a fancy sabre, and it slid in snugly enough doing the Rapa’s business for him.

A swift glance around showed me the rest of the pirates sprawled in the mud. The Chulik lay doubled up and moaning. I confess I had kicked rather hard.

“My thanks, friend. Llahal.” The voice was light and amused.

So I stared at him as he came forward from the wall, the bloodied rapier in his fist, the left-hand dagger its match. Dandified, oh yes, in the way a predatory bird’s bright coat of feathers gives it a handsome appearance, he was all that and more. He was like the cold steel of his rapier with the charming colored jewels adorning the hilt.

“Llahal,” I said.

His three friends were visibly relieved still to be alive.

He saw the Chulik groaning on the ground. One elegant dark eyebrow lifted. His lips although red were thin and firm. He stepped across and with delicate precision drove the blade through the Chulik’s heart. As the Yellow Tusker was doubled up this fine amusing fellow thrust through from the back. I knew well enough the point of his rapier had struck straight past backbone and ribs and with unerring aim burst the heart asunder. That, I knew.

“Better to clean up any mess. I like to be neat and tidy.”

His face was barely flushed after the combat. Over that thin mouth he affected a thin black moustache. Once he had cleaned his weapons the first thing he would do was run a forefinger along that elegant moustache.

Other sounds began to percolate into our attention as the immediate fury of the fight subsided. A devil of a lot of noise was erupting from the town. Orange glare reflected from the low clouds. The Maiden with the Many Smiles shone down to add her pink luster to the scene.

“What are we to do now, notor?” The fellow who spoke, short and wiry and with a shock of straw-colored hair dangling from under a round leather cap, clutched a hefty short sword with a smidgeon of blood upon the blade. His face showed all the marks of dependence on another, coupled with an animal cunning in twist of lip and slant of eye.

“Do, fambly, do? Why, we shake hands with this gentleman and thank him for his help.”

The other two men who were already cleaning their weapons were clad in tough leather armor and their function in life as guards was patently apparent. They’d earned their hire, for they had killed well.

The lord eyed me calculatingly.

“Your name, my friend?”

“Drajak.” I spoke pleasantly. “And yours?”

His servant sucked in his cheeks.

Notor is how one addresses a lord in many parts of Paz upon Kregen. I’d had my fill of kowtowing to lords of late and I had no intention of beginning again right now. I had urgent things to do — like following Fweygo and the rest and trusting to all the Beneficent Spirits of Uttar Soblime they had not been slaughtered.

His eyebrows drew down for an instant and then that light amused laugh eased the situation — at least, it eased the situation for him and his servant. I didn’t give a damn who he was. I wanted to get on.

“I am Amak Dagert — Dagert of Paylen. Lahal.”

“Lahal. Now, if you will excuse me I must—” He’d drawn a yellow cloth from under the short cape he wore over metal armor and was about to clean his sword. He wrapped the cloth again and stuffed it away with a gesture as elegant as a court dandy’s. His voice chirred like oiled steel clearing scabbard.

“I think, Drajak, you must do something other than you intended.”

Philosophically I turned around and followed his gaze. A whole bunch of renders crowded down the alley towards us. Now the rain had stopped they’d lit torches and the lurid lights glanced and danced off wet walls and cobbles, glinted redly from the black blood at our feet.

The two guards stood very still, staring at Dagert of Paylen. Their eyes looked like pebbles. The amak’s servant trembled. He licked his lips and kept flexing his grip on the short sword.

I looked around for another and possibly better weapon.

That amused low laugh, almost a self-satisfied chuckle, broke from Dagert. He looked back. The alley led off into a darkness relatively deeper than that in the opposite direction. It seemed to me as I picked up a sword of somewhat better construction than those I’d already used, that this Dagert of Paylen was deliberately tantalizing his servant. He was making the poor devil suffer. Well, that was between them.

“Notor—” The fellow’s wet lips shone as he licked them again.

“Oh, you know me by now, Palfrey. When the odds are right — not otherwise. It has been pleasant meeting you, Drajak, and once more I offer you my thanks. Now it’s time to depart.”

With that and without more ado he turned abruptly and darted lithely away down the alley.

Mind you, he was right, assuredly, he was right, by Krun!

One thing you noticed about Dagert of Paylen that lingered in the mind was his eyes. Liquid and dark, they hid unfathomable depths. What he said was one thing, what he thought quite another.

There was no point my hanging about here any longer. My duty lay with the charges the Star Lords had placed in my care. Swiftly I followed Amak Dagert into the shadows of the alley.

The problem now was to get out of Amintin and that meant scaling the wall somewhere where that was practicable and preferably out of sight of townspeople and renders alike. The clouds were drifting away across the stars and if the sky cleared much more many of the comforting shadows would disappear.

The pirates had entered the town across more than the one wall over which we had seen them clambering and now they infested the whole place. The unholy noise racketed on. Flames twisted against the thinning clouds. There were people running about aimlessly, desperately seeking shelter. What the Amintin Watch might be doing, what the local lord in command might be ordering, appeared to me to be completely unimportant. This dreadful night the renders owned Amintin and did as they pleased.

The nearest wall now would be the one over to the east. More than once I had to skip smartly down an alleyway to avoid roistering mobs of pirates. Their domination had been swift and sudden and was now total.

Soon I entered an area of warehouses where no doubt the goods coming in and out along the caravan trails were stored. Other, more interesting odors competed with the stink of fish and mud.

Naturally, a quarter of the town holding goodies like this was not going to be overlooked by your conscientious looter. Oh, dear me, no!

Carefully sliding along by a painted wooden wall and looking everywhere about, I spotted parties already at work hauling out Amintin’s wealth. Just past the end of this warehouse and past the opened double doors from which streamed yellow lantern light an open space fronted an inland gate. Undoubtedly the gate had a name. What it might be I neither knew nor cared. I did know that it did not represent my way out of the raped town. Further along would be the place, where steps led up to the ramparts.

I did not proceed without a plan. The chances of success rested firmly on the very speed with which the renders had entered and conquered.

Moving swiftly yet cautiously I skirted the open space where during a normal working day the pack animals and the carts would muster and cut across between the two end warehouses. The wall lay only a scant fifteen paces off.

The route I had followed, dictated both by my desire to avoid pirates and to reach the east wall, channeled other fugitives to the same point. Pink moonlight momentarily illuminated agile figures clambering up the steps onto the ramparts with the oddly-cut openings of the battlements beyond. I halted. There was no doubt I expected a shower of arrows or crossbow bolts to sleet into those refugees.

Nothing happened and they ran excitedly along the top of the wall and vanished into one of the small towers erected at intervals. I frowned. That did not look promising.

“Sink me!” I snarled to myself. “In for a ponsho in for a leem!”

I gathered myself up and started at a dead run for the dappled shadows at the foot of the steps. Before I reached the wall a group of people appeared from the side, racing along with bent heads. For all their apparent blind panic, weapons snouted in their fists.

We reached the wall together.

Dagert of Paylen called: “Up, up, you hulus. Bratch!”

In a bunch we panted up the steps. Moonlight filtered down and dimmed and shone. Dagert’s lean handsome face with that trimmed moustache and dark eyes looked perfectly composed. He said: “We must be swift, Drajak.” And, instantly: “Get on, get on, Palfrey, confound you!”

They started to run along in the shadow of the battlements towards the nearest small tower. I stopped and looked over the outside of the wall.

Praise be to Zair! My plan had come right! Dangling from the walls hung the rope ladders up which the pirates had swarmed to despoil Amintin. Dagert and his three followers were helter-skeltering along towards the tower. I called: “Dagert! This way is surer!”

He halted and swung about, a lithe, tense figure in that moon-dappled confusion.

I swung up into the gap and took the ropes into my fists. I wasn’t prepared to hang about to be feathered waiting for anybody around here. Starting down, I called up: “Ladders, Dagert.”

His voice cracked out like two flat boards striking together in one of those Shensi plays, all puppets and buffoonery. “This way!”

Before I’d reached halfway down I felt his weight above me on the ladder. Glancing up I saw the nimbleness with which he negotiated the rungs. By the time I’d dropped into the dry moat — which was sticky with odiferous mud — he was halfway down and the rest of his party tumbled down after him.

Even then I had time to reflect on the illuminating fact that his followers had chosen the same ladder he had, the same one I’d chosen. There were other ladders dangling down. That told me a great deal.

He sprinted up to me as I hauled myself out on the other side of the moat.

“We’ll have to reach the cover of those trees quickly.”

A couple of hundred or so paces off the dark mass of trees did promise shelter.

“Aye,” I said and started running over the muddy grass.

“My flier is parked to the north—” he was saying, and then stopped and saved his breath for running.

At that moment the first crossbow bolts began to whicker past our heads.