The Dragon in the Sword (13 page)

“I am not interested in your affairs, Armiad,” I said coldly. “And I am even less interested in your lies.”

“You say I lie?”

I shrugged. “I am here to speak with the Ghost Women. Please continue with your business. Do whatever you care to do. I have no wish to have anything further to do with you, Baron Captain.”

“You still take a haughty tone for a would-be kin-killer and a disgraced exile.” He lunged at me. I stepped back. From out of his uncharacteristically simple tunic he drew a long knife. Weapons were banned at the Massing, I knew. Even von Bek had left his gun with Bellanda. I reached out to grab his wrist. He dodged back. He stood there panting like a crazed dog. He glared. Then he rushed me again, the knife raised.

By this time there was a cacophony in the Ghost Women’s pavilion. Half a dozen age-old laws had been broken at once. I tried to hold him off me, calling to von Bek to help.

My friend, however, had been attacked by Armiad’s ruffian and had another knife to contend with.

We found ourselves backing from the great tent, yelling for help and at the same time trying to make Armiad and Rooper see some kind of sense. They were serving themselves badly and attracting unwanted attention.

Suddenly a dozen men and women had fallen on us and dragged Armiad and his henchman back, twisting the knives from their hands.

“I was defending myself,” said Armiad, “against that villain. These knives were carried by the pair of them, I swear.”

I could not believe that anyone would accept his story, but now a thick-set Draachenheemer spat on the ground at my feet. “You know me, I think, Flamadin. I was one of those who chose you for our Overlord. But you spurned us. And worse. It is good for you, Flamadin, that no blood may be spilled here. If it were not for that, I’d take a knife to you myself. Traitor! Charlatan!” And he spat again.

Now virtually all the gathered people were staring at me with loathing.

Only the women, their emotions unreadable behind their ivory masks, looked at me in a different way. I had the impression that they had suddenly recognised me and were taking a considerable interest in me.

“When the Massing’s done, we’ll find you soon enough, Flamadin!” said the Draachenheemer. He strode back into the tent which hid the slave pens.

Armiad was plainly almost as surprised as I had been that people were prepared to believe his story. He gathered his clothing together. He drew himself upright. He snorted and cleared his throat. “Who else would dare to break our ancient laws?” he asked the crowd in general.

There were some, evidently, who did not believe him. But I think they were outnumbered by those who already hated me and would believe me guilty of a dozen additional crimes, as well as those already published!

“Armiad,” I said again. “I assure you I had no intention of meddling in your business. I came to visit the Ghost Women.”

“Who but a slaver pays a visit to the Ghost Women?” he asked of the crowd in general.

A broad-beamed old man made his way through to us. He carried a staff almost twice his height and his ruddy features were stern with the importance of his office. “No arguments, no fights, no duels. These are our ways. Go you your ways, good gentlemen, and bring no further disgrace upon us.”

The Ghost Women were no longer interested in anyone but me. They were staring hard now. I heard them talking between themselves. I heard the name “Flamadin” on their lips. I bowed to them. “I am here as a friend of the Eldren race.”

There was no response. The women remained as impassive as their ivory masks.

“I would speak with you,” I said.

Still there was no response. Two of them turned away.

Armiad was still blustering, accusing me of beginning the whole affair. The old man, who called himself the Mediator, was adamant. It did not matter who had begun the dispute. It must not continue until after the Massing. “You will both be confined to your hulls under pain of death. That is the Law.”

“But I must speak with the Ghost Women,” I told him. “It is what I came for. I had no intention of getting into a brawl with that braggart.”

“No further insults!” insisted the Mediator. “Or there will be further punishment. Return to the
Frowning Shield
, good gentleman. There you must remain until the Massing is done.”

Von Bek murmured, “You can do nothing now in sight of all these people. You will have to wait until tonight.”

Armiad was giving me an unpleasant grin. I thought he had already planned my demise. I guessed that few now would blame him if he was forced to imprison me and sentence me to death as soon as the Massing was over. His thoughts were so primitive they were not difficult to read.

Reluctantly, however, I walked back towards the hull with Armiad. We were escorted by the Mediator and a mixed group who had evidently been elected by the whole assembly to uphold the Laws. It was not easy to see how I was going to be able to leave the hull and find the Ghost Women.

I looked back over my shoulder. They were standing in a group staring after me, all other dealings forgotten. It was plain that they would be more than interested in a visit from me. But what they wanted of me and what they expected to do with me, I had no idea.

In the hull Armiad let the Mediator’s people lead us to our original quarters. He was still grinning. Matters had gone well for him, after all. I did not know how von Bek and I were to be accused or what we would be accused of, but I knew that Armiad already had a plan in mind.

His final words as he stalked away to his own rooms were a gleeful: “Before long, good gentlemen, you’ll be wishing that the Ghost Women had kept you and were stripping the flesh from you before your eyes and eating your parts while the rest of you slowly roasts.”

Von Bek raised an eyebrow. “Anything would be more enjoyable than your own cuisine, Baron Captain.”

Armiad frowned, failing to understand the reference. Then he glared, almost on principle, and was gone.

A few moments later we heard the outer bars go down over our doors. We could still get to our balcony, but it would be a long and difficult climb to the decks below and there was no certainty that Armiad had not deliberately left that means of escape open to us as a means of trapping us. We would have to plan carefully now and see if there was a less obvious means of escape. It was likely we had a night to ourselves, but we could not be sure.

“I doubt he’s as subtle as you think,” said von Bek. He was already casting about for something he could use as a rope.

For my part I needed to think. I sat on the bed, automatically helping him knot the blankets together, while I reviewed the events of the morning.

“The Ghost Women recognised me,” I said.

Von Bek was amused. “So did most of the entire camp. But you do not seem to have a great many here who approve of you! Your refusal to honour tradition seems a worse crime, to many here, than your attempt to murder your sister! I am familiar with such logic. My own people are often guilty of the same thing. What chance do you think you’ll have, even if you get off this hull? Most of the others, with the possible exception of the Ursine Princes and the Ghost Women, would be in full cry after you. Where would we escape to, my friend?”

“I must admit I have thought of the same problem.” I smiled at him. “I had hoped you might have a solution.”

“Our first task must be to review all possible escape routes,” he said. “Then we must wait until nightfall. We’ll achieve nothing before then.”

“I’m afraid it was not greatly to your advantage,” I said apologetically, “throwing in your lot with me.”

He laughed. “I do not believe I had a great deal of choice, my friend. Did you?”

Von Bek had a way of improving my spirits for which I was enormously grateful. Once we had debated all routes to freedom (there was none which seemed very useful), I lay back on my bed and tried to fathom why the Ghost Women had looked at me with such curiosity. Had they, ironically, mistaken me for my twin sister Sharadim?

Night fell eventually. We had decided on our original means of escape, via the balcony and across to the nearest mast, from there down the rigging. We had no weapons of any kind, von Bek having given his pistol to Bellanda. All we could hope for would be to escape our pursuers even if we were seen.

So it was that we found ourselves in the chilly air, seeing a hundred different fires in the distance, hearing the sounds of people of all different races and cultures, some of them not even human, as they celebrated this strange Massing. Von Bek had made a kind of grappling hook from some wooden furniture. The intention was to throw this into the nearest tangle of rigging in the hope that it would hold. He whispered to me to be ready to pay out our home-made rope as soon as he gave the word, then he swung the thing out into space. I heard it hit, hold for a moment, then fall free. Another four or five casts and it seemed to find a good purchase. I let the rope run through my hands until von Bek gave the order to stop. He began to tie the remainder to the gallery rail.

“Now,” he murmured, “we must trust to luck. Shall I go first?”

I shook my head. Since this affair was a result of my obsessions the least I could do would be to take the chief risk. I clambered to the other side of the balcony, took hold of our rope and began to swing, hand over hand, towards the rigging.

It was at that point that a voice from above shouted triumphantly.

“The thieves are escaping. Capture them, quickly!”

And the whole hull seemed to come alive with men exposing the beams of dark lanterns and training them on von Bek, who was half over the rail, and on me where I hung helplessly, unable to go forward or back.

“We surrender!” cried von Bek lightly, making the best of it. “We’ll go back to our prison”

And Armiad’s answering hiss was full of malicious glee. “Oh no, you will not, good gentlemen. You must fall to the decks and break a few bones before we recapture you…”

“You’re a cold-hearted bastard as well as a mannerless parvenu,” said von Bek. He was loosening the knot holding the rope to the rail. Did he mean to kill me? Then he jumped, grabbed the rope just below me and yelled: “Hang on, Herr Daker!”

The rope fell free of the rail and we swung with enormous force towards the rigging, striking tarred ropes which cut our faces and hands but also shaking our enemies from their posts nearby. We began to scramble down.

But the whole hull was a-crawl with armed men and even as we set foot on a firm deck two or three sighted us and attacked at a run.

We rushed to the next balustrade and looked down. There was no way in which we could jump, nothing we could even hope to hang on to.

I heard a peculiar rattle from above and, looking up, saw to my complete astonishment a tall woman in bone-white armour sliding down a rope. She had a sword under her arm, a war-axe dangling from the thong on her wrist. She landed beside us and moved efficiently forward, slicing and carving apparently at the air.

What in fact she did to the Maaschanheemers I was never sure, but they seemed to collapse to the floor in small pieces. She signalled to us to follow her, which we did gratefully. Now we could see at least a dozen of the Ghost Women here and there on the ship—and wherever they had gone there were no Maaschanheemers to block our way.

I heard Armiad laughing. It was an unpleasant laugh. He seemed to be choking. “Farewell, you dogs. You deserve your fate. It is bound to be worse than anything I could conceive!” The Ghost Women now formed a sort of moving barrier around us as they moved swiftly through the ship, cutting all down before them.

Within moments von Bek and I were over the side and being borne by the women through the camp towards their own tents.

I knew that they had broken all the old laws of the Massing.

What could be so important to them that they were prepared to take such enormous risks? Without the Massing, they would be hard put to find more male slaves for their specific purposes. Their race must surely perish!

I heard von Bek say to me in a voice which shook: “I think we are their prisoners, my friend, rather than their guests. What on earth can their purpose be with us?”

One of the women said sternly: “Be silent. Our future and our very existence are now in question. We came to find you, not to fight those others. Now we must leave at once.”

“Leave?” I felt my stomach begin to turn. “Where are you taking us?”

“To Gheestenheem, of course.”

I heard von Bek utter one of his wild laughs. “Oh, this is too much for me. I’ve escaped Hitler’s torturers only to be someone’s Christmas goose. I trust you’ll find me tasty, ladies. I am rather leaner than either of us would like at present.”

They had carried us up to one of their slender white ships. Now we were bundled over the side. I could hear oars being unshipped.

“Well, von Bek,” I said to my friend. “At least we are to solve the mystery of Gheestenheem at first hand!”

I sat upright in the boat. Nobody restrained me as, supporting myself on a wooden seat, I got to my feet and looked out over black water.

Behind us were the fires and huge shadows of the Massing Ground. I was certain I would never see it again.

I turned to address the woman who had led the raid on the hull. “Why did you risk all you value? You can never attend another Massing, surely? I still do not know if I should be grateful to you or not!”

She was loosening her armour, unstrapping a visor plate. “You must judge that for yourself,” she said, “when we reach Gheestenheem.”

She removed her visor.

It was the woman I had seen earlier. As I stared at her beautiful features I remembered a dream I had had once. I had been speaking to Ermizhad. She had told me that she could not be eternally reincarnated, as I was, but that when her spirit came to inhabit another form, the form would always be the same. And she would always love me. I saw no recognition in this face, yet tears came to my eyes as I looked at her.

I said: “Is it you, Ermizhad?”

The woman regarded me in some surprise.

“My name is Alisaard,” she said. “Why are you weeping?”