Beasts of Antares (26 page)

I stalked across, giving the guards the rough edge of the cadade’s tongue — for a few moments of listening to him in the outer courtyard and experience of his kidney before had given me his measure.

“Take them away,” I foamed. “They are not the ones — fools, dolts, onkers! Nulshes! Pick up this one.” I pointed at Voinderam who lay, a dark trickle of blood staining his pale face. He looked in a bad way. “Bring him. I will question him. He will know the answers.”

Peremptorily, I indicated that two Rapas should drag the slave I had picked out. “The rest of you — about your business, or I’ll have the skin off your backs jikaider! Grak, you yetches,
grak!”

The guards started to lead the rest of the slaves off. The two Rapas, blank-faced, petrified with fear, followed me. I headed for the ornate stairway. Halfway up I turned and bellowed down, “What are you skulking for! Hurry, you cramphs! Bring him up here!”

They hurried. The sounds of the others receding gave me little comfort. But, by Zair, a man can do only so much in this wicked world.

At the top I walked half a dozen paces across the roof. The two Rapa guards, shaking in their sandals, started after me, dragging Voinderam between them. His shoulders stuck up like windmill sails, his head hung down, draggling. I quelled any feelings of pity — for anyone.

“Thank you,” I said, and turned back and with a simple one, two, put the Rapas to sleep. I managed to catch Voinderam before his face hit the paving of the roof. A scuffle at my back brought me around — it was Oby with Naghan. Half hysterically, Fransha threw herself forward. Between us, we levered her free, carried Voinderam across to the voller, pushed and pulled Fransha into the airboat.

“Now, take off, keep low, and then go fast. Go as fast as you can. And may Opaz go with you.”

My face did not hurt, and I realized that somewhere up those fancy stairs I’d been forced to let the cadade’s features slip away. I looked at my friends, and I felt the glow of comradeship. Then they started up their protests again.

“I will not tarry long. But you would not — in honor — have me abandon Unmok? Surely?”

“But we should go with you—”

“I am not starting again. By Vox! I left Vallia to get away from that!”

Well, there was little time. A group of slaves ran up the back stairs down which I had gone, and I saw that one carried a bloodstained sword. I fancied he’d got that from the Fristle I’d knocked unconscious. So one did not need to be told whose blood sullied the blade.

The slaves simply raced for the nearest voller, clambered in, and in heartbeats she lifted.

Among that group of ex-slaves maddened by near despair and now gripped with the determination to be free, there was no sign of the splendid golden numim, Mazdo the Splandu. I fancied he’d make his own way out of Noran’s villa, aye, and crack a few heads in the doing of it.

“That does it.” I had to make my friends grasp the essentials. “That lot will arouse the dead. You must go now!”

Finally, reluctantly, but anxious for the welfare of Tilly and the Lady Fransha, they shouted down the remberees and the voller lifted off. I did not intend to lollygag around. The flags of the roof were hot underfoot, bathed in the mingled streaming radiance of the Suns of Scorpio. Shadows lay hard and tinged with the old emerald and ruby fires. I darted across into the shade of the hangars, caught the first lifting yells of approaching guards and raced flat out over the roof for the other small stairway, twin to the one down which I had descended on the cadade. As I reached the top and bolted down the first guards boiled up onto the roof.

Below me stretched a maze of little outbuildings. Vegetation smothered the alleyways. This was a relatively neglected quarter in Noran’s villa that offered capital concealment. I stripped off the fancy armor and chucked it down under a bush. With my own clothes once more revealed I sprinted on, twisting and turning, heading back for the outer courtyard, and Froshak and the werstings.

Slowing to a walk and going along briskly but with caution, I angled around the main buildings and so came up to the courtyard from the flank. The uproar in the grounds of the villa really was rather satisfying. Slaves looked uniformly scared; which did not please me. I saw no guards until I reached the courtyard, and they were all staring the other way. I looked, right along with them.

“No,” Froshak was saying. “Not me. Know nothing.”

He stood in the grip of two Rhaclaw guards. By reason of their immense domed heads, Rhaclaws are often badly served in the way of helmets. These two wore helmets fashioned from strips of iron, filled in with boiled leather. They held Froshak firmly.

Callimark, nervously pacing, fiddling with his sword, looking agitated, swung back to glare at Froshak.

“I do not believe you! By Flem! If you’re lying...”

“Know nothing — notor.”

The werstings, still handled by our tame slaves, were being herded into wheeled cages. The pampered dogs, killers or not, went in eagerly enough at the sight of the red meat within.

I walked slowly forward.

This might be a little tricky.

I was still unobserved.

The well where the old bent-over Fristle woman had drawn me a copper bowl of water partly concealed me. The stone coping was dry. No drier, perhaps, than my mouth.

“Take his weapons, nulshes!” Callimark had made up his mind. The Rhaclaw guards snicked out Froshak’s knife. He made a single gesture; then he remained still.

Callimark pulled his thraxter around. “Guard him. I shall consult the vad in this.” So saying, Callimark marched off. He took with him, I noticed with amusement tinged with concern, an audo of his guards, the section — not a rank — of eight men marching along closed up around him. With his going a visible relaxation took the guards left. As for the slaves, they chittered and chattered about their business, and the dust plumed and the suns shone and, for all I could see, no one here cared aught of a mass escape of slaves from the Recalcitrants House.

A bronze bell rang above the outer door.

The noise among the trees and pathways fluctuated as the guards searched and this outer courtyard must have been checked over at the very beginning. Certainly, as I observed, no one, slave or guard, gave sign of excitement or concern over that escape. The escape that concerned them had taken place here earlier. The bronze bell rang again and with its second summons the majordomo and his retinue who had admitted us appeared, hurrying toward the gate. He had to pass by the cage which lay on its side, its iron-barred door flapped open. At first this had seemed to me to be a wersting cage, but it was not, as I looked closer. Something had been brought into the courtyard in that cage and the cage door had been opened and the something — or somethings — had escaped.

So that was why Callimark questioned Froshak the Shine.

The outer gate was thrown open and a file of slaves entered. They carried sacks and pots and their backs were whipped every now and again to urge them on. They scurried beneath the trees away toward the vad’s storerooms. Despite the noise the business of the villa had to go on.

One of the Rhaclaw guards gave Froshak a prod. Just why he did this I do not know; all men in these positions of petty power are not insensate beasts — of course not. But some are.

Froshak reacted. He twisted away, violently, avoiding that prodding sword.

The other Rhaclaw guard joined in, bellowing his anger.

The swords beat down. Froshak defended himself, pushing up his arms, taking the blows as best he could. He saw the open gate. If he broke free now — he and I were both aware that any resistance the Fristle might make would be punished, he could be killed, and no one would bother overmuch. The vad’s writ ran here. The Rhaclaws used the flats of their swords. Froshak would have to take his punishment, take his beating, or make a break for it.

The slaves took no notice. The other guards guffawed.

Froshak tried to grab a sword arm, and missed, and the thraxter came back and belted him alongside the ear. He tumbled over. I saw his right hand. It snaked down to his belt and an expression of anger was followed swiftly by a look of bafflement so furious I felt for the Fristle. His knife was not sheathed at his belt. He crouched, glowering. The Rhaclaws taunted him, obscenely, savage in their enjoyment of his frustrated savagery.

I drew my own sailor knife.

“Froshak!” I called in a voice directed to the Fristle. He looked up. I threw.

The knife glittered once as it flicked across the intervening space. Handle first it flew. Froshak put his hand up and — thwunk! — the knife slammed into his fist as though grown there.

One Rhaclaw yelled in abrupt alarm, and then Froshak slid the knife in, and out, slashed at the other Rhaclaw, and was on his feet and running. He was quick, by Krun! The Rhaclaws staggered away, dropping their swords, the blood bright upon their legs. There was little point in hanging around any more. Froshak ran out through the opened gateway, and I dodged back the other way around the well, keeping below the coping, faded back into the bushes.

Very little time had passed since I’d hurtled off the roof of the landing platform.

Finding the statue of Mahgoh of the Two was not difficult. The lady was a somewhat prominent landmark. Beyond there a curving arcade led on and I padded along. Froshak the Shine was a tough and resourceful customer and I had no doubt that he would win free. What he would do thereafter I could not guess. He’d recognize the knife, for sure. He’d know who had thrown it to him.

The shrubbery at the side of the path flanking the arcade rustled. Bright green leaves moved aside and a couple of men staggered out, locked together. One was a slave, a Gon with a bristle of white hair over his scalp, the other a Rapa guard. The Rapa could not cry out because the slave’s fists gripped a length of the chain about the feathered neck. The Gon struggled silently with his work. They pitched onto the pathway, flailing about, and the Rapa’s struggles weakened.

I stopped in the shadow of a column.

The Gon stood up. He touched blood on his left arm, and along his ribs. He was panting raggedly.

I said, “I’ll give you a hand to stow him in the bushes, dom.”

The Gon spun about, his hands flicking the lethal chain up.

“You’d best hurry — there will be other guards.” And I jumped across, grabbed the Rapa and started to heave him into the bushes. The Gon drew a breath.

“By Havil! You are a—”

I was ripping the Rapa’s sword belt free. His thraxter was a plain and simple weapon, much like the one I had been forced to abandon when dressing up as the cadade.

“No time for jabbering! Listen!”

The sound of heavy footfalls reached us around the curve of the arcade. The Gon looked wild. He would not touch his bristle of hair, as another man might have done, rubbing his hand across his hair in perplexity.

“I’m off—”

“May Havil the Green go with you, Gon.”

“You will need the protection of Havil more than me if you stay here.” The Gon shoved into the bushes, panting, holding
_>
his left arm where the blood ran. “Run, apim, run!”

He vanished between the leaves. I straightened my clothes and walked on a few yards past the place where blood drops might prove tricky to explain. Mingled with the oncoming tramp of studded sandals, the ominous clash of weapons indicated guardsmen. I finished buckling the Rapa’s sword belt about me, flicked my fingers and walked on.

Vad Noran in the lead, Unmok bobbing along at his side, the party rounded the bend and bore down. He had a score of guards. Noran looked murderous. At his other side, Callimark, looking agitated, was fluttering his hands and trying to explain.

I stood to one side, looking at them, and — I own! — I drew my stomach in and pulled myself up and got ready to lie like a trooper for our lives.

Chapter twenty

Combat, Blood and Death

The lies tripped off my tongue smoothly enough once I’d figured out what the hell was going on.

In addition, I was now pretty sharp set. The thought of a slap-up meal inside me to fortify the inner man against the hazards ahead tantalized with its unrealizability at the moment.

“...malignancy, and he’ll be flogged jikaider if I have any say in the matter,” Callimark was saying. He looked like a man bluffing away, blustering to conceal his own lapse in duty.

“When the truth is established, Callimark, we’ll flog to your heart’s content.” Noran’s face bore a most unpleasant expression.

“The schrepims have not been found—”

“Your pardon, notor,” said Unmok, his middle left twitching. “But there could be no reason for Froshak to let loose the schrepims! Believe me, notor, we are too conscious of your kind patronage—”

“As to that, Unmok, we shall see. I paid good red gold for those four schrepims and I intend to have my money’s worth!”

Now it was plain. The overturned cage with its iron-barred door flapped open had contained four schrepims, and these diffs, rather like overgrown lizards with cunning and intelligence, had escaped. I, too, doubted that Froshak would have done that; there was no reason for it. Well — no reason beyond the ordinary person’s aversion to schrepims. It was reputed that these scaled men had the powers of the Dark, that they could scry almost as well as a Wizard of Loh — that, I did not believe — and that their cold reptilian natures set them always in opposition to the ways of the gods of Kregen.

I stepped forward.

Unmok twitched. Callimark cast a worried look at me and then started to argue his case again with the vad. Noran did not stop. He went to bustle past without even looking at me.

I said, “Your pardon, notor.” I went on very quickly. “I believe there has been an escape of slaves, and they overturned the cage and the schrepims escaped in the confusion.”

Now Noran half stopped and regarded me as he continued on along the curving arcade.

“And you?”

“I do not know for sure, notor.”

“If you are right this Froshak may keep his head — and Unmok here and you may escape a flogging.”

That was as cold as the Ice Floes of Sicce.