Witches of Kregen (8 page)

So we fomented our plans. I was sorry to have missed Sasha, for she had proved tremendously popular in Vondium and had worked damned hard at being a good kovneva alongside her husband the kov. The twins — and there was another boy child as well now — had gone with their mother back to Ng’groga. Inch said, “Don’t ask me what my Sasha did to break that particular taboo. It meant she had to go to Ng’groga, and so we felt it good that the children should see the place. I hated losing one of my fliers, though.”

Always, around Inch of Ng’groga, one had to watch for his own infringement of his taboos. Wonderful and fearful they were, too, and never understandable to anyone who wasn’t seven foot tall and as muscular-thin as a tentacle. The way he exorcised his taboos was even more remarkable. Well, we talked and in the end agreed that Inch could spare two regiments of Valkan archers, a regiment of Vallian spearmen and a mixed regiment of totrix cavalry, lances and bows.

“There is no point in taking any of your Black Mountain Men,” I said. “They do best where they know the ground.”

“Aye.”

“Although soon you’ll be breaking beyond the river to the north and attacking the Racters in their own lands.”

Then I told him of the astonishing request received from Natyzha Famphreon, the dowager kovneva of Falkerdrin, that, owing to the unfortunate but inescapable fact that she was dying — or considered herself to be dying — she wanted me to ensure the legal inheritance of her son Nath, who was regarded as a weakling.

“But she’s the chief biddy of the Racters!” exclaimed Inch.

“Certainly. But she seems to think I’ll make sure Nath gets his dues.”

“As a Racter,” put in Brince, “his dues come at the sharp end of a sword, or the edge of an axe.”

“But,” said Inch, and he put his head on one side in a most comical-wise fashion, “if the Emperor of Vallia ensures his safe succession, he might renounce the Racters and join us. That would be a stroke!”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“When—?”

“When Natyzha shuffles off to the Ice Floes of Sicce. By Krun! The gray ones had better look sharp when she gets there.”

The laugh came easily. The future did hold a gleam of brightness through the gloom. I told Inch I’d make arrangements to transport his troops. He said he was sorry to see them go, for they were veteran fighting men.

“You’ll get ’em back the moment we’ve finished Jhansi. Then we hit north.”

“Look after ’em, Dray. And those two archer regiments, splendid, splendid. Endrass’s Avengers, and Ernelltar’s Neemus, they’re dubbed. Fine fellows.”

“We’ll hit Jhansi from the east, you’ll carve him up from the west, and when we meet in the middle, you’ll have your regiments rejoin.”

Making it sound casual, as though it had already happened instead of only being in the offing, I  said, “I’m going to split Vennar down the middle, north to south. Turko will take his half into Falinur, and you your half into the Black Mountains.”

Inch just said, after a pause: “I give you thanks, Dray.”

“Now,” and I spoke briskly. “Where’s Salvation the Second?”

“Do what?”

“My fluttrell.Is he ready?”

“He’s been fed and watered, and no doubt perched for the night—”

“Then he’ll have to be dug out.”

“You mean you’re off—”

“Of course! By the Black Chunkrah! An emperor can’t spend his time lollygagging about when the empire is falling into wrack and ruin! You have to be up and about. I’m off to the Blue Mountains.”

Inch opened his mouth, shut it, said: “Give the lahal to Korf Aighos for me.” Then he bellowed for his lads to ready the fluttrell.

Very soon, under the Moons of Kregen, I shouted down the remberees and took off, flying south.

“Remberee, Inch!”

“Remberee, Dray!”

The wind blustered into my face and the fuzzy pink moons light fell about me as Salvation the Second bore me on to the next stage in this venture.

Chapter eight

A flying visit to High Zorcady

Korf Aighos was pleased to see me. I flew into High Zorcady with the pangs of memory tingling, and made damned sure my portable possessions were firmly chained down.

Great rogues and bandits are the Blue Mountain Boys. The province of the Blue Mountains owes the utmost devotion and loyalty to Delia. They knew my mettle from of old. They worshipped Delia’s children. Apart from those few, anybody else was fair game.

High Zorcady remains always for me a place apart, lofting high on its crags above the pass, eerie and awesome, cupped by mountains, shielded by clouds. High Zorcady frowns down from the mists. Yet it is a place of color and liveliness, where Delia and I have spent many happy times.

Korf Aighos, his eyes still that brilliant blue so unusual in a Vallian, still strutting with a swagger, and yet half cautious as well as half arrogant, not a tall man but possessing a massive chest and arms corded with muscle, made me welcome. I will not detail our transactions, for essentially they followed the pattern I had established with Inch.

The Blue Mountain Boys had cleared the mountains of our foemen, as their compatriots had cleared the Zorca Plains extending out to the south. Filbarrka was still away in Balintol. Now they planned an excursion to the large island of Womox, off their west coast.

“We merely hold the ring against Jhansi,” the Korf told me as we supped in the great hall of High Zorcady with the trophies upon the wall and the hunting dogs lolling upon the rugs. “Womox is our target. They are a full lot there; but we hear there is much treasure.”

An itchy-fingered lot, Delia’s Blue Mountain Boys.

I nodded. “That is probably best. We can take Jhansi out with what we have. I sent a mob of his paktuns packing by a stratagem.” Then, telling him of what had passed at the temple of Lem the Silver Leem, I solemnly warned him again of the danger of the cult.

“We have seen no sign of the rasts. If we do...”

The sign he made eloquently conveyed his intentions.

The time I spent with Korf Aighos was even less than the time with Inch.

Delia had long ago sent over from Djanduin, of which country in the far southwest of Havilfar she was queen, a stud stock of flutduins. These magnificent flyers, the best in all Havilfar for my money, had taken to the Blue Mountains and they throve. There had inevitably been a hiccup in the ecology of the region; but the flutduins were saddle flyers and partially domesticated, so that the wild life, after the first shattering alarm, survived albeit in somewhat altered food chains. Now the Blue Mountains boasted a formidable flutduin force of aerial cavalry.

The Korf insisted I exchange Salvation the Second for the finest flutduin he could provide, a saddle bird called Lightning. He was a marvel. I accepted.

So, ascending strapped to Lightning, I bellowed down the remberees and set course for Vondium.

My hopes of meeting up with Seg were dashed, for he’d shot in aboard a voller, brow-beaten everyone into instant action, and shot off again spurring the reinforcements, as it were, before him. Farris had responded with all the vollers and vorlcas he could spare. As ever, our resources were spread thin as butter over the crusts in the poor quarters of Ruathytu.

Delia was not in Vondium, so my side trip was entirely wasted.

Anxious though I was to get back north and finish off Layco Jhansi, I knew well enough the lads up there were in good hands. I indulged myself. I admit it.

The Half Moon, an old theater, now boasted a brand new roof. The seats had been freshly painted and their fleece-stuffed cushions were of high-quality ponsho. There were even a few gilded cornices to add a little glitter. The vision and acoustics remained first class.

Thither I took myself with a few of the pallans and high officials, a few of the officers of the garrison, for a new play was being offered and this night would see the first performance.

Master Belzur the Aphorist, renowned as a playwright in all Vallia, had produced another masterpiece. He’d called it
The Thread of Life
, and a deeply probing piece it was, making the audience take a fresh look at some of their actions, and the motives, and the results that were never the expected ones. The play was rapturously applauded.

During the interval, as usual, a frothy piece was staged, with much buffoonery and half-naked girls prancing about the stage, and a deal of four-armed tomfoolery.

Afterwards, not feeling in the least tired, I told Farris and the other nobles and pallans that I intended to fly now, right away, and leave for the front.

They set up such a clacking at this that I was persuaded at least to drop by a favorite tavern where we would not be disturbed.

“A flagon or two, majister! By Vox! Do we not deserve that?” So called Naghan Strandar, a trusted pallan.

“You and your colleagues most certainly do, Naghan,” I told him. “As for me, I am not so sure. I remain always itchy and irritable when there is work to be done and I cannot get on with it.”

“Aye, majister!”

They wanted to troop off to The Risslaca Transfix’d but I bellowed out: “Oh, no! Oho no! If you insist on my company then I insist on the tavern.”

They whooped at this, sensing my change of mood.

“Where, majis?Where?”

“Why, what better place is there than The Rose of Valka?”

That tavern and posting house was very dear to me. Situated on the eastern bank of the Great Northern Cut, the inn had witnessed important events in my life upon Kregen. The owner was Young Bargom, still, and he was overjoyed to see us. Not overwhelmed. As a Valkan making a good living in Vondium and running a respectable house, he was now himself an important member of the community.

We rollicked in and the wine came up and we sat and stretched our legs and talked, and, inevitably, we sang.

I forbade the great song “The Fetching of Drak na Valka” for that would take too long. There were plenty of Valkans there, naturally, and they all called me strom, much to the disapproval of the Vallians of Vondium. So we sang “Naghan the Wily”, a Valkan ditty, and “King Naghan his Fall and Rise.”

We sang relatively few soldiers’ songs, and this, too, was understandable given the company. We did, though, have a bash at “Have a care with my Poppy” and “The Brumbyte’s Love Potion.”

In an interlude I leaned over to Farris and spoke quietly. “I really must leave soon, Farris. I’ll just ease out unobtrusively. You can calm ’em down when I’m gone.”

He knew me by now.

“If you must, Dray. Opaz knows the work never ceases.”

“We must all come to the fluttrell’s vane,” I said, and at the next opportunity to excuse myself did so and went outside. The night breathed sweet and still, and She of the Veils sailed golden above. In those moon-drenched shadows I started off, swinging my arms, feeling the lightness of freedom once again.

A shape at my side, a small hand clutching my arm, a girl’s voice, whispering in alarm in my ear—

“Dray! Dray! Your face! What are you thinking of, you great fambly! Here — in here, bratch!”

With that she hauled me into a narrow slot of shadowed rose-colored radiance in which we were hidden from all sight from the inn windows.

The shadows fell across me, the shifting illumination across her face.

I did not know her.

She was clad, as best I could make out, in trim-fitting russet leathers, rapier and dagger scabbarded to a narrow waist. Her face was not beautiful. Rather, in its round perkiness it held a cheekiness that would infuriate and enchant. Her eyes — I thought — were Vallian brown. Her large floppy hat drooped about her ears.

I just managed to bite off an instinctive: “Who the hell are you?” No one I do not know and cherish calls me Dray. No one. But she had.

She stared at me anxiously. She made no move to draw her dagger to spit me.

“It seems you believe you know me, Kotera,” I said, and my growly old voice came out alarmingly small.

“Oh, you clown! What d’you think you’re doing, parading around with your face?”

“It’s mine—”

Now it happened that I’d swung a plum-colored flying cloak about me as I’d stepped out of The Rose of Valka. A furtive movement from the end of the little alley into which this remarkable lady had dragged me drew my instant attention.

My right hand crossed to fasten upon the hilt of my rapier.

A man enveloped in a cloak moved across the alley mouth. I could not see his face, turned away from me and shadowed. But he looked a nasty customer. Big and ugly, no doubt, strong and powerful, and ready to knock some poor innocent down and rob them as to quaff a stoup of ale. He moved not at a crouch but as though coiled and ready to spring savagely upon any who stood in his path. I must say he’d give anyone a queasy turn.

The girl saw him.

She turned that round cheeky face up to me and I saw it was transfixed with horror.

She choked out words, shattered.

“By Zim-Zair! It’s — My Val!”

With that she fairly flew along the alley, burst out, grabbed this ugly customer by an arm as she’d grabbed me, and the last I saw of this unlikely and highly suspicious couple was their twinned shadows fleeting over the cobbles. Then they vanished.

I shook my head, “Now what in a Herrelldrin Hell was all that about?”

I did not shrug my shoulders; but I kept my fist wrapped about my rapier hilt as I went off to find Lightning.

There was, of course, no sign of either of them beyond the alley, not the lissom saucy girl or the big ugly fellow who looked as though he ate a whole chunkrah for breakfast.

At the last there, as she’d grasped his arm, he’d turned to her. I’d seen his face. As I say, he was a ferocious plug-ugly brute, with a strong nose and arrogant jut to his chin. He was a fellow I’d think twice about before dealing with. He forced me to think the unwelcome thought, the memory I sidestepped. He held in him something of Mefto the Kazzur, and that was a puzzlement indeed.

Lightning flapped his wings twice and then we were airborne. I shoved the silly incident from my mind and concentrated on what lay ahead.

As they say: “No man or woman born of Opaz knows all the Secrets of Imrien.”