Seg the Bowman (21 page)

“Oh, Seg!”

“Talk when we are away.”

Had the rope been dry enough he’d have set it alight to confuse those rasts up there. But it held dampness and so, with a feral look around that boded ill for anyone foolish enough to cross his path, he led off. The women followed silently, holding each other in mutual comfort.

They reached his three mewsanys. Here, immediately, a fresh problem presented itself.

“I could not ride, my lady!” Malindi clutched her thin tunic to her breast. “A saddle animal like the great ladies! Oh, no, my lady!”

Bamba said: “Perch on that great beast!”

Milsi said, with a sigh: “We were brought here in a carriage, Seg.”

“I will take Malindi up on my saddle. You take Bamba. And be sharp about it. We must be well clear by dawn.”

They jumped at his tone.

They did as they were bid and after a time they changed around and brought the third mewsany in to relieve the extra load. They rode silently, as Seg had enjoined.

The awkwardness persisted, exacerbated by his awareness that Milsi was not aware of it or its cause.

He rode abaft her mewsany on purpose, and kept a watchful look out to the rear. The peril sprouted from the front, suddenly, in a long line of riders breasting a hill and racing down with wild war whoops upon them.

Their own mounts were tired and dispirited. With two riders up, they could never outrun this cavalry that pounded down now, glittering in the first light of the suns. Armor winked in ruby and jade fire.

Lanceheads glittered. Feathers waved. Dust spurted back in a long line. The riders bore on and opened out into a circle, ringing the fugitives.

Seg slid his bow forward and nocked his single shaft.

They’d done well and come a long way — and now they’d come to the end of their flight.

He looked into the faces of these warriors.

Skull faces... Blunt-featured, with a tightly drawn skin of pebbly gray-green, with the roots of the teeth exposed, with bony brow ridges overhanging smoky crimson eyes, these faces looked the decomposing features of nightmare newly risen from the grave. Bamba let out a shriek of horror. Malindi fainted clean away. The ghastly riders ringed their quarry.

Milsi urged her mount a little forward. She held up her hand.

“Lahal and Lahal! Well met!”

“Lahal, majestrix!” said the leader, his gruesome features writhing with an emotion that might indicate pleasure. “Thank the Good Pandrite we have found you safe at last!”

“I,” said Skort the Clawsang, “was told you were dead, majestrix, in that confounded Coup Blag.” He used the teeth that appeared to be decomposing to bite firmly into a slice of succulent roast vosk. They were sitting around the camp fire and they were eating and drinking until they burst.

“It was poor Milsi who died. She had the same name as me, as you know, and I grieve for her.”

“Aye.” Skort wiped his lipless mouth, daintily. “But, majestrix, it is not all good news. That foul cramph Muryan has not released your daughter, the divine Princess Mishti—”

“What!” The regal anger that blazed from Milsi made Seg realize that, by Vox, she was a queen.

“He would not release her into our care, as was ordered. We rode to seek a ruling on this, and our spies told us of the Warvol Tower. But—” and Skort added this very rapidly, “he would not harm her. He dare not.”

“That I believe to be true. But I’ll — I’ll—”

“Do what all queens do, particularly Queens of Pain, and have his head off,” said Seg, and buried his face in a tankard of parclear.

“Oh, I shall, I shall! Disabuse yourself of any notion that I will not, Seg the Horkandur!”

Skort, with a mastery of tactics that pleased Seg, chipped in to say: “I own I am surprised to find you here, Seg, and yet pleased. Very pleased. The queen has need of all the champions who will muster to her banner.”

“There’s going to be a fight, then?”

“Assuredly, a fight, and a battle.”

“What of Kov Llipton?”

“If only,” said Milsi, “I could trust him!”

Carefully, Skort said: “Your husband, King Crox, suffered the misfortune of having his wife and family killed in an accident. Luckily for us, that brought you here, majestrix, an event for which we are profoundly grateful. This rast Muryan callously slew his wife and family just so that he might marry you, according to the laws. Kov Llipton still has a wife and family. Also, he is a numim.”

“I heard Muryan’s family fell under a Rapa’s garbage cart,” said Seg.

“Under a garbage cart, yes. They did not fall. They were pushed.”

“And I’ll bet that Strom Ornol did the pushing.”

“Just so.” Skort swiveled that macabre head and his crimson eyes rested balefully upon the queen.

“Llipton may be a numim. But there is nothing in the law that says he may not marry an apim. The marriage would be in name only. But then he would be king.”

“You think that is his design, Skort?” Milsi looked completely undecided. “You know the River, Skort, you understand local conditions. I am from Jholaix, and...”

“My own personal belief is that Llipton is upright and honest in his own way. He took much upon himself when the king your husband gave him the charge of the kingdom. He may be over strict. But I believe him to be loyal.”

“Yeah,” said Seg. “But to whom?”

“To King Crox until the king is known to be dead.”

“And then to the queen?”

“That is what I believe.”

“One thing is certain, Llipton won’t have Muryan as a king set above him.”

“Ha!”

“If there is to be a battle,” and here Milsi spoke with a wistful regret, “Muryan is able to field a formidable force, as he told me with much relish.”

“We’ll gulp him down with relish!”

“Yes, good Skort, I pray the Almighty Pandrite this will be so. But there was a man in the guard set over us, a man with red hair. A famous archer. He boasted continually of his prowess and of that of his men.”

“Oh?” said Seg, at once alert, his professional hackles raised. “His name?”

“He was a Jiktar, commanding a regiment. His name was Nag-So-Spangchin, called Spangchin the Horkandur.”

“A whole regiment!”

“Aye, Seg — and his name, like yours — he wore the golden zhantil-head of the pakzhan at his throat and was a zhanpaktun, although he insisted on being addressed as a hyrpaktun, which he said was proper—”

Seg put out his hand and touched Milsi’s hand, feeling the tremble. She stilled instantly the moment he touched her.

Following her line, he said: “This is the coming fashion, to call hyrpaktuns zhanpaktuns, to dub paktuns mortpaktuns, and to let the ordinary mercenaries wallow in the name of paktuns. But a whole regiment!

This is bad news indeed.”

“Aye.” Skort nodded his horrific corpselike head. “All men know of the fame of the Bowmen of Loh.”

“He wore a flaunting mass of red and yellow feathers in his helmet, and, Seg, his bow was very like yours.”

“And his arrows were all fletched blue with the feathers of the king korf from my own mountains of Erthyrdrin!”

“Yes, Seg...”

There was no need to enlarge. Pandahem, like many another island and country, had once been under the heel of the Empire of Walfarg, that was known as the Empire of Loh. The Gold and Red banners had waved in those days, until the empire had fallen and the continent of Loh had turned inward upon itself, mysterious behind its walled gardens, its women wearing veils, soft-slippered and soft-spoken. Now the new countries of Pandahem and the Empire of Vallia were pressing outwards. But men remembered the merciless efficiency of the armies of Walfarg, where every other man had red hair, and of the sleeting death brought to every battlefield by the Bowmen of Loh.

Out of his own jumbled thoughts Seg said fretfully: “I wish we could find Obolya so that I might have my own longbow again.”

No one had heard of the whereabouts of Obolya, and it was assumed he was busily trading for saddle animals.

The queen stood up. Everyone else scrambled to their feet. Looking at her, Seg felt the blood in him, the bursting pressure of his heart beating. She lifted her chin.

“We will not be downhearted, my friends! We will go forward, confident in Pandrite. If there is to be a battle then we shall win it. And then we shall make a just administration of all the land. Hai, jikai!”

“Hai, jikai!” they roared, caught up in the abrupt splendor of the moment. Seg yelled, too...

Considering it markedly inadvisable to go anywhere near Mewsansmot where Trylon Muryan hatched his plans, they skirted the town out on the plains before rejoining the river line much farther downstream.

Worry over her daughter made Milsi pale and fretful; yet Seg marked the way she contained her irritability and temper with the Clawsangs. Despite continual reassurances that Muryan would not dare to harm the lady Mishti, she took scant comfort, and lived on only by virtue of her own courage and inner resources. Seg watched all this.

No word of love passed between them. His own tangled emotions had still not fully recovered, and Milsi had more than enough problems to contend with. He took every opportunity to reassure her, and she responded in a way that while not listless, saddened him. She spoke bravely, and she encouraged all; but inwardly, Seg sensed, she doubted a happy outcome to this business.

At the capital, Nalvinlad, two items of news greeted them, one good, one evil.

The good news came when Bamba, screaming, flew into the arms of Diomb. The dinkus hugged each other with a frank and open display of affection that made Seg heave up a sigh, and then castigate himself for a dreaming loon. Milsi put a scrap of yellow lace to her eye. In the next instant, there outside her palace of the Langarl Paraido, Khardun, the Dorvenhork, Rafikhan, Naghan the Slippy, Caphlander and Umtig with Lord Clinglin waving his eight arms on his breast, gathered around, shouting the Lahals.

Hundle the Design had been pardoned and had gone off home. So the reunion was splendid.

The bad news was that Kov Llipton and six of his chief men had been treacherously attacked. Only Llipton and Trylon Ronglor had survived, badly wounded. It was thought that Llipton might recover, given time and the devoted attentions of the needlemen.

Vad Olmengo brought this news to the queen. This was the real Olmengo, and with his chin beard and full face he did not look much like Strom Ornol; but that disguise had proved perfectly adequate again.

“The rast impersonated me and brought his assassins into the palace, majestrix! The guards slew many of these vile stikitches; but the poor Kov was struck through. I am desolate—”

“It is a sad business, Olmengo, but the kov will survive, as we trust in the good Pandrite.”

“I pray so, my queen.” Here Olmengo’s face drew down mournfully. “But the soldiers! The generals had chosen that night to confer, and the Kapts are slain. We have no one with experience of warfare to lead the army!”

Seg kept very quiet. He did not want to be landed with that job. Oh, no, by Vox, not him!

Milsi said, sharply: “Then the senior Chuktars will decide. Muryan will attack. There is no doubt of that!”

In a very quiet voice as they all trooped up into the palace, Seg said to the Krozair: “Look, Pur Zarado. I know of the fame of the Krozairs. You are great warriors. If these folk have no generals, surely you could—”

“Your pardon, Seg. I am a Krozair of Zamu, as my comrade Zunder was a Krozair of Zimuzz. We are hard fighting men, yes; we do not aspire to the rarefied heights of being a Kapt, not even a Chuktar. I imagine I could swagger well enough as a Jiktar and bully a regiment. But... Oh, no!”

A couple of days later Skort’s spies reported that Muryan’s army was moving south.

Seg quite expected a huge flotilla of schinkitrees to sail down river. Skort scoffed at this.

“What! No, my friend, no sensible man wages a war on the river. Victor as well as vanquished is likely to fall into the water. Then, well...”

“Yes, I see.”

“We will march out and the battle will take place where the forest gives way to a nice battle-worthy terrain.”

“Who is to command?”

“The Chuktars argue among themselves. Men are coming in well enough to fill the ranks. Kov Llipton may not be King Crox, may Clansawft of the Perimeters have him in his keeping. But the kov is now recognized as being a man with honor attempting to carry out the duties entrusted to him. He maintained the law.”

“Oh, aye, he did that.”

“And men see that Muryan is a villain. His own adherents ride in fear of him, believe me. I have high hopes for the outcome of the battle.”

“Without a leader on our side.”

“The queen will decide.”

“Well, she’d best decide damned soon.”

Skort swished his sword back, and looked sharply at Seg. Then he said: “The sorest point at issue is this matter of the queen’s daughter. We know where she is held. But it would take an army to break through

— and that is what our army will do under the queen’s direction.”

“Oh?” Seg’s mouth did not drop open. “You mean Milsi will handle the battle herself?”

“No, no, Seg, you great fambly! That is the aim of the battle, to smash Muryan and to break through to the lady Mishti and rescue her.”

Seg rubbed a hand down a raspy jaw. “It’s these Bowmen of Loh who worry me.” Incautiously he went on: “If I commanded them they’d win the battle on their own.”

“But, horter Seg, you command nothing. And you and your comrades live in the palace at the generous hands of the queen.”

He felt like saying snappishly: “She owes us that!”

The next time Seg was talking to Zarado, the Krozair caught him up in an excited torrent of words.

“When I was fighting in Vallia for Jak the Drang he often used to say, very many times: ‘If only Seg were here!’ I wonder, Seg Segutorio the Horkandur—”

“Oh, there are many Segs in the world.”

“That may be true; but I have been puzzled where I had heard the name before.”

“They still have not chosen a Kapt to lead them. Surely, Pur Zarado—”