Seg the Bowman (10 page)

Twober was dead, his skull bashed in. The blow that had killed him had been delivered with the same force as the blow that had knocked Rafikhan unconscious.

Instantly, Seg looked to the bank.

The boat was gone.

So he knew it all.

The camp roused out and Seg silenced their babble.

He counted heads.

Almost half of the ex-slaves were no longer present.

“May Likshu the Treacherous draw forth his entrails to be devoured by worms!” declared Nath the Dorvenhork.

“By Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls!” Rafikhan’s voice hissed in the moons’ light. “The cramph hit me shrewdly.”

No need to ask who had struck the Rapa and slain the Ift.

“Ortyg the Undlefar!” said Milsi. “He has persuaded many poor deluded souls to follow him—”

“And he has taken our boat!”

“We are stranded here, abandoned on this little island...”

Stranded they were, isolated on their mound of mud in a river boiling with hungry bellies and ravenous jaws.

“Now what are we going to do?”

Hundle the Design, skinny as a spear-shaft, stepped forward. Everyone left in the party gathered around as the twin suns rose. Their warmth on this morning, their refulgence, brought no happy welcome.

Hundle had proved knowledgeable about the boat and the way she should be handled. Now he said: “I was a Schinkitree master before my boat hit a half-submerged log and filled and sank. I lost my boat, all the merchandise I carried for the merchant Dorian Merlo, who was a Lamnia and my friend, my living and my freedom.”

They all listened, not shouting out about what the hell had this to do with their plight now. The thin ex-boat master was clearly leading up to something important he had to say.

“Go on, Hundle the Design,” said Milsi.

“The king, since he took full command of the river, has swept the whole length he controls free of pirates.

The renders were trapped, caught, slain. This poor deluded fool, Ortyg the Undlefar, will surely come to grief. As Pandrite is my witness, this will happen.”

“Yes,” said Milsi. “I judged him by his talk of renders not to understand.”

“He and I,” said the Chulik Nath Chandarl, stroking one of his tusks with a thumb, “were dragged upriver together. I think my friends in Mattamlad and his were on opposite sides of the law.”

By this, Seg gathered that the idiot Ortyg had probably been a pirate out along the coast of Pandahem and among the islands of the Koroles.

He said, “I thank you for your information, horter Hundle. This means, I take it, that that onker Ortyg will be taken up and beheaded. But, also, that we may signal to a passing craft and hope to be taken off?”

“Yes, horter Seg. They will rescue us, for that is the way of the Kazzchun River. They will, of course, charge for their services.”

“Oh, of course.”

A wailing started up at this news.

They all cried out in various ways, and it summed up as: “But we are all naked and have no money. We are clearly slaves!”

“Shastum! Silence!” yelled Seg.

He quieted them down, and then went on: “I have a little gold. I think it will pay our passage to the nearest town. The vexatious question is, how are we to become honest horters and horteras, and no longer slaves?”

Milsi said: “Good master Hundle. Is it not possible for us to have been in a boat that sank? We would have lost all in the accident.”

Quite calmly, Milsi took off her blue tunic. It was badly ripped, and she held it up high. Looking at her, clad only in a tiny blue loincloth, Seg caught his breath.

“This tunic will make loincloths for a number of us, and horter Seg can spare some of his scarlet breechclout. We will look decent enough when we are rescued.”

Shyly, Malindi said: “I would love to have a loincloth of that beautiful blue, mistress.”

“And you shall be my new handmaiden, Malindi, I promise you.”

It was said so naturally, so unaffectedly, that Seg barely noticed. He could not keep on looking at Milsi like this, and had to turn away, and found he could not.

“Well, Seg the Horkandur! And where is your knife? And your breechclout!”

With the aid of his knife the women of the party fashioned just-respectable loincloths for themselves and almost enough breechclouts for the men — drawn tightly!

Diomb and Bamba wanted to know what all the fuss was about. It fell to Seg to stumble over an explanation that slaves were expected to be naked or wear the gray slave breechclout, but that horters and horteras, ladies and gentlemen, usually covered themselves up.

“Then it is a sign of this rank you have tried to explain?”

“More or less—”

“The outside world becomes stranger and stranger the more one learns,” declared Bamba, giving her bark apron a flick. “I will willingly wear nothing at all most of the time, and anyone is welcome to share a piece of my bark.”

Somebody listening laughed. Somehow that broke the fearful tension that gripped the less hardy of the ex-slaves and seemed a good augury for the future. Seg was interested to notice the people Ortyg the Undlefar had failed to impress into his schemes: The Khibil was too proud, the Chulik a highly qualified and paid paktun, the Rapa just not interested, even the little Och thief was not into the red-roaring blood-letting of piracy. The Fristle was not happy in a boat at the best of times, and as for the others, for the best of reasons they had refused to join the render’s trade.

All in all, decided Seg, he had a likely bunch with him now, apart from the timid ones who would no doubt do as they were told. If bluff could succeed, they stood every chance of success.

Diomb in his perennially inquisitive way brought up an interesting point. He was puzzled. If, he wanted to know, slaves were property, and the slave owners very hard on runaways, then surely they’d chase after the people here and re-take them?

Milsi took it upon herself to explain that these people had not been personally owned slaves. They had been merchandise in the hands of Katakis, slave-traders, and would be regarded as stock. Anyway, many of the Kataki owners had been killed. No authority acting on behalf of an owner whose slave had run off would be involved. Seg listened, and realized that a great deal of the apathy he had noticed before caused by the absence of King Crox was at work here. He felt pretty sure that the Katakis themselves, should they ever run across these people and recognize them, would act with harshness.

Nath the Dorvenhork and Khardun the Franch, when the skimpy loincloths had been handed out and adjusted, approached Seg. With all the circumlocution and formality of warriors requesting the loan of another warrior’s weapon — the Kregish rituals extended in labyrinthine protocol for these occasions —

they asked to borrow Seg’s knife. They intended to cut stout staves from the woods, and sharpen the ends in the fire and thus fashion spears for themselves.

“Just,” said the Dorvenhork. “In case.”

“Right gladly, doms,” said Seg cheerfully, and he tossed his knife into the air. Neither attempted to beat the other to the catch and the knife went splut into the earth. Seg laughed — but to himself. Khibil and Chulik; there’d be a constant game of seizing the advantage between these two — and not in petty ways, either, by Vox...

The stranded party took considerable interest and delight in the antics of the little Och, Umtig the Lock.

He fashioned a long rope of twisted vines, with a loop at each end, and with this whistling around his head he trotted off into the island forest.

The land sloped gently up from the coast to the interior mountains, but the slope was enough to create a varied biosphere. The rain forest that Seg usually thought of as jungle, gave place to cloud forest. The dwarf forest farther on extended for only a short distance between the cloud forest and the plains. Umtig the lock trotted confidently on, whirling his plaited rope of vines.

Here he expected to find a particular species of monkey among the denizens of the trees, the humming birds, the fighting wasps, the horned lizards and all the splendid and various forms of life flourishing each in its own niche.

Chulik and Khibil watched the Och depart, and then turned to the grave matter of who should pick up Seg’s knife.

Seg settled all that nonsense.

“If you two are going to cut spears, it would be a good idea if you’d go off now and keep an eye on Umtig.”

They jerked as though stung. Then the Dorvenhork said, “You may take the knife, horter Khardun.”

“I will carry it, Nath Chandarl; you may use it first.”

“As you wish. The Och is almost out of sight.”

They followed on with the swift stalking gait of the fighting man. Umtig went about his task with perfect confidence. He peered about most carefully up into the trees. Presently he uttered a little Och exclamation of delight, and whirled the vine rope with deft precision.

The loop spun up into the air. Umtig jerked the line. With a swooshing rush a bundle of multicolored fur tumbled down. Umtig caught the little monkey with a cry of delight.

“This is a spinlikl,” he said, and at once set to crooning and making baby-mewing sounds to caress the monkey to quietude. The small creature wriggled and struggled, his eight limbs swishing about, and then he quieted down. His body was no larger than a fair-sized melon, and his eight limbs each stretched out farther than a man’s full armreach. Each limb had a fully formed hand, lithe-fingered, deft, powerful, with sharp nails. The spinlikl made no sound, but squirmed against Umtig’s chest and settled himself comfortably, three or four arms wrapped about the Och’s neck, the rest wrapped about his upper body.

Umtig beamed his pleasure.

The Chulik and the Khibil looked on, waiting for the Och to return to the main party, then they set about cutting staves with which to fashion spears.

Umtig, returning in his personal triumph to the camp, ripped a paline branch free from a handy bush and began feeding a steady stream of the berries to the spinlikl. These sweet yellow cherry-like fruits found growing over most parts of Kregen proved a source of constant delight, a sovereign remedy for a hangover, a necessity with which to conclude a meal, a digestive of the first order, a boon to all humankind.

“My supremely clever spinlikl,” Umtig said to Seg. “I will soon have him trained into the veritable paradigm of invisible deftness. I shall call him Lord Clinglin.”

Milsi smiled. “I had a little mili-milu once who was called Pantor Fotaix. How we silly humans love to give our pets grand titles!”

Such was the good humor of the party now that they had clothes of a sort, the promise of money and every chance of rescue, no one appeared to express any high-minded and respectable abomination of Umtig’s new pet. For, of course, he was no ordinary household pet to be loved and adored and played with. He was a most adept adjunct in the trade dedicated to and cared for by Diproo the Nimble-fingered.

When all was declared ready they watched for a suitable craft passing up the river. Still no one wished to chance descending the Kazzchun River, despite the general belief the Katakis would write off the lost merchandise and look for more. By the time they reached Lasindle they should be dressed properly and able to escape instant detection as escaped slaves... But...

“There!” said Milsi with great confidence, pointing. “Set the fire.”

The craft to which she pointed paddled along with forty paddles aside going in and out and up and down with perfect rhythm. Her after parts carried a covered-in cabin from which flags flew.

Hundle the Design tossed a brand into the pile of stump and twigs, of leaves and greenery and soon the smoke lifted, thick and coiling, and only slightly blown by the tiny breeze. Everyone jumped up and down and waved.

No one really believed the ornately large Schinkitree would paddle grandly past and leave them. No one really believed that... But... The moments passed with excruciating agony before, at last, the bows turned and the boat became a foreshortened spear aimed at them with her paddles churning either side. The flags flew and the foam spurted and she came churning up to their little mud bank.

Very few people ever leaped into the water to drag a boat up onto the bank in the River of Bloody Jaws.

Most boats possessed a small laddered ramp, something like a corvus, which ran out and provided a safe way to shore. The anchors were often merely large stones pierced with a hole for the chains or ropes. This vessel ran her gangway out and the spiked end went thunk into the mud, and men marched down, alert and watchful.

“What?” said Milsi, suddenly. “What does this mean?”

For the men were armed and carried weapons, and they fanned out as they touched the shore and presented a formidable front. There were ten of them, and they looked rough and tough, paktuns with blue and yellow feathers in their helmets. Then a wispy Xaffer walked ashore, his blue robes trailing, his dreamy face giving him the look of a man who lived in a private fantasy world of his own. He carried a scrip, and his right temple was ink-stained.

“Forgive the welcome,” he said, holding up his hand in greeting. “I give you the Llahal. But there have been reports of pirates on the river.”

“That Pandrite-forsaken Ortyg,” someone to the rear of the party said with great venom.

Hundle the Design stepped forward and, as the most experienced traveler among them upon the river, explained their situation. His story sounded convincing. They were travelers whose craft had sunk. Seg felt a vicious anger at the explanation of the absence of paddlers, but he kept a calm face. Now was not the time. The paddlers, being slaves, and being chained to their benches, had, of course, sunk with the boat...

Not all of them had reached this island. This handful were the only survivors. Seg agreed with that. They wanted nothing to do with the depredations of Ortyg the Undlefar and his band of cutthroats.

“You are fortunate indeed to have survived the jaws of the river. My master will be interested in your story. You are welcome to come aboard.”