Witches of Kregen (6 page)

One spat a bit of gristle onto the floor and grunted something. The other slugged back a mouthful of weak ale, belched, and said: “And what’s so all-cheerful about it, then, rast?”

These greetings, you will perceive, were not those conducive to friendly relations.

I sat down.

“You called me rast, dom,” I said, still in that overly cheerful voice.

“Aye, cramph, yetch, rast you are.”

I stared at them. Big, hard, muscled, hairy. Their iron helmets rested on the floor by their chairs. Their booted feet stuck out at arrogant angles. They made a mess when they ate. They wore thraxters, the cut and thrust sword of Havilfar. I wore a drexer, and if anyone questioned why I carried a Valkan sword, I’d simply say I’d won it in battle and taken it from a dead Vallian.

Also, I wore my rapier and main gauche. They did not have scabbarded to their belts the rapier and left hand dagger, the Jiktar and the Hikdar.

They did have axes, small and nimble, rather like tomahawks. Those, I’d have to watch.

I said, “I wonder why I have not thrust your teeth down your throats. By Hanitcha the Harrower, I marvel at my reticence!”

They jerked up at this and swiveled to stare more closely at me.

“Hamalese?”

“Are you? You speak and act like clums, like guls. Are you all that Hamal can find to dredge up out of the gutters and send forth as fighting men?”

They reared up, their hands groping for the hilts of their thraxters.

I waved them away as though I waved a fly away.

“I’ve no time to waste on you, by Lem, no!”

As I used that hateful word I watched them narrowly.

Their whole appearance changed.

They sat back, and their hands left their sword hilts and reached for the ale.

“Well, dom,” one said, and belched. “You could have said.”

“Aye, we but tried your mettle,” said the other.

That was probably quite true. Fighting men like this became bored with frightening speed. Some excitement stirred up the blood. I could never stomach them or their like, for my idea of a fighting man is vastly different. Still, it takes all sorts to make the wonderful and terrible world of Kregen revolve about the twin star of Antares.

After that the necessary secret words of the initiate in the cult of Lem the Silver Leem were spoken. They were swods within the cult; I pitched myself a little higher, giving myself the ridiculous rank of Hikdar-majis-ponti. At least, they’d be polite from now on.

They told me much of what I already knew or suspected and a deal that was new.

Mercenaries were flooding into this northwestern part of Vallia again, coming via Racterland to the north, guaranteed passage by the Racters and payment by Princess Mira.

I nodded as they spoke as though I understood. But I’d no idea who this Princess Mira was, apart from the fact that as an enemy of Vallia she would have to be dealt with.

“There is much gold, dom,” said the one called Helvcin the Kaktu. “I saw the ships unloading. The string of calsanys stretched from ship out of sight through the port gate. By Kuerden the Merciless, if one of those beasts had stumbled and spilt his load...!”

“By Krun!” amplified his comrade, one hight Movang the Splitter. “In the riot I’d have made my fortune. Hanitcha take me else.”

“Now Malahak is my witness you speak it aright, Movang!” And Helvcin put a gnarly finger into his mouth to free a scrap of food caught in his teeth.

“These great ones of the world,” I said. “If only Kaerlan the Merciful smiled on me...”

“Oh, we’ll never smell any more of the gold than our pay. And that’s fair, I grant you.”

They completely took me for a Hamalese, for I had spent a long time there, and was able to tell them more than they knew about Ruathytu, the capital of Hamal. By chance I also knew Dovad, from which town hailed Helvcin the Kaktu. I’d spent a few days there with Avec Brand and Ilter Monicep before taking the boat down the River Mak. I’d never visited Mardinglee, where Movang the Splitter had been born.

I expect you can share some of my feelings at this resurrection of memories long ago, of times and places in Hamal. Then the empire had been ruled by poor mad Queen Thyllis, before she became the Empress, and Hamal was a deadly enemy to other nations beside Vallia. Now, with Prince Nedfar placed on the throne by me to become the new emperor, we were allies.

By their lack of rapiers and left hand daggers, these two betrayed the fact they’d never been Bladesmen, never ruffled it in the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu.

Carefully letting drop tidbits of information, I casually built up the image of me I required them to have. When we got onto the topic of Lem the Silver Leem, I did feel relief that neither belonged to the temple to which I’d been taken by Nath Tolfeyr, himself a man of mystery, and been inducted into the vile cult to save my life. They had heard of that temple, though, by the aqueduct in Ruathytu, and accorded me even more respect. Apparently that particular temple held a big reputation among these decadent and torturing murderers of the Brown and Silvers.

In due time they told me all they knew about Princess Mira. This was pathetically little. She was merely the name by which the paymasters knew who was providing the gold to pay the army against Vallia.

I ventured a shaft.

“It seems to me that perhaps Princess Mira will take what you win in Vallia for herself.”

“If she does,” said Helvcin, spitting, “I shall not care, no by Krun, so long as I get my pay and a share of the loot.”

Inch would have to wait.

Even as I dredged their shallow minds for more information, I found myself thinking how grand it would be if Pompino the Iarvin were here. By Vox! He was a tool of the Everoinye, the Star Lords, as was I. He and I had burned a few temples to Lem the Silver Leem. As Kregoinye we both felt that we would burn more, although I desperately sought another solution to this monstrous disease calling itself a religion.

They left to see to their fluttrells and we parted on the understanding that we’d meet in the evening. There was to be a ceremony this night. They’d be there to enjoy the sacrifice, the torture, the blood and the horror and the orgy that followed.

I’d be there, too, but I’d be there for a vastly different set of reasons...

They expected a good turnout for the ceremony. A camp lay only a few dwaburs off, containing a goodly number of adherents. The cult was being brought into my Vallia by mercenaries from Hamal.

This was a situation so intolerable that it could not be allowed to continue past this night...

Of course, once I’d got over that initial burst of anger, I saw that just burning the temple — as ever — wouldn’t stop them. We must smash up this conspiracy, defeat Layco Jhansi and the Racters, unite all true Vallians. Then we could completely expunge all traces of Lem the Silver Leem.

For a weak moment I contemplated taking one of their fluttrells and continuing my flight to Inch. The war could be helped along if I did that, and that was my first concern.

Then I recalled the anguish of Kotera Minvila over her daughter Maisie.

That settled that, then.

Chapter six

The Chief Priest

Waiting for the night to arrive turned out to be a cruel business.

Numerous schemes flitted through my mind. The evil of Lem the Silver Leem was self-evident, at least to those who had witnessed its diabolical practices. If I worked myself into a feverish state, dwelling on the problems we faced and the hardness of the road that led to eventual success, I believe you will understand.

At last Zim and Genodras sank beneath the horizon and the Maiden with the Many Smiles shone among the stars, with the Twins, eternally orbiting each other as they orbit Kregen.

The dubious scheme I settled on at last did not call for me to walk out with either the two paktuns or the other people walking in from the camp. Back home in Vallia there were plenty of silver masks fashioned in the shape of the ugly faces of leems, trophies from successes of the past. There were also golden zhantil masks there...

So it was necessary for me to creep out alone and unobserved and waylay one of the people walking in from the camp. I’d have a look at that camp as well, on the morrow, I promised myself. If I was still in the land of the living by then, that was.

The fellow collapsed and I took his silver mask, his long brown cloak, and also his badge of brown and silver feathers. Mine had served its purpose, convincing Movang and Helvcin, but was clearly not as authentic as an original. Donning the cloak, arranging the longsword comfortably within the capacious brown folds, I strapped on the mask and set off for the temple.

This, I saw, was merely the entrance tunnel to an abandoned mine.

No chance, then, to set the place on fire. I might smoke a few of the rasts out.

The cloak, the mask, the badge, gained me entrance without question or trouble. The foul stink of incense affronted my nostrils. Many tapers burned, and torches, and the glinting tunnel walls and roof loomed semi-circularly above, a blasphemous temple indeed.

There stood the altar, a solid block of stone. They’d not carted that around with them but, most likely, had found it conveniently within the mine. The image of Lem, gleaming silver above, would be carried about, and I judged it to be fashioned from lightweight wood with a silver-gilt finish.

To one side rested the cage, of split timbers, and within the cage, clad in a white dress and decked with flowers — Maisie.

She was quite happy.

Oh, yes, they knew how to handle their sacrifices, the damned Brown and Silvers.

The new white dress.The flowers.The doll, the sweets and candies. She would burble happily to herself until the sacrificial knife descended. Her heart would still beat after it had been wrenched from her body; but before that she would have suffered tortures that could only make her death a release.

Well, the bastards were going to be disappointed on that score, at least, this night.

If this fragile scheme I had concocted was going to work I’d have to make my way through the throng gathering before the altar and the image, ease along to the rear, and then sort out whatever and whoever lay beyond.

The tunnel held a dank, stale smell which the incense worsened. The place struck me as eerie and unhealthy. The altar had been set up where a side passage led off into darkness. The opening, half blocked by a rotting wooden gate, held no interest for me, and I eased around the other side where the opposite tunnel, forming a cross, showed lights. Voices came from beyond hanging curtains. Three guards stood there, clad in brown and white, bearing spears, and they looked at me keenly.

I used the formula words on them, letting them understand I was a visiting adherent of high rank. I wished to speak with the chief priest on a matter of the utmost urgency, and if they wished to retain their privates they’d better let me through at once.
Bratch!

They bratched and saluted, and I passed through the opening in the curtain into the antechamber beyond.

More curtains concealed what lay to the left hand side; but the sound of voices and the clink of equipment told me the acolytes and the butchers were in there preparing themselves for the night’s tortures. To the right the curtain was half drawn and I caught a glimpse of men and women with the grander masks of the under-priests. Straight ahead lay my goal.

The two guards here, both apims, did not wish to let me pass, so I had to put them to sleep standing up. I caught them left and right handed and eased them to the ground, which here was covered by a silver-patterned carpet. I did this not to break their falls but to prevent their noise alarming the occupant within.

When I pushed through he looked up, the mask in his fingers, his robes already flowing about him.

“What—?”

His face was fleshy from good living, veinous, vinous, too, I daresay. He wore many rings, a habit I detest. He was firmly built and around my height, and I cut him down without a word. I caught the mask as it toppled from his nerveless fingers, and he fell on his face onto the carpet and his blood stained out across the bright silver threads.

His robes fitted well enough. The rings were a nuisance; but they had to be slid on as part of the full regalia. His own sacrificial knife, sharp, curved, I picked up with great distaste and slid into the sheath ready for it. Then I strapped on his mask in place of the one I’d worn. When I was ready I took a breath, picked up his staff with its head fashioned like a leaping silver leem, all wedge-shaped head and eight legs, snarling and vicious and well-designed to impress the gullible.

I shoved the curtains aside and hauled the two guards in by their ankles. I hit ’em again, just to keep ’em quiet a little longer, and then stalked out to stand at the far curtains. In only a few moments the acolytes and under-priests trooped out and the procession was formed and ready to go.

The closeness of the stink from incense, the heat of tapers and torches, the brazier fire burning with its ghastly implements heating up, all this discomfort had to be pushed away. There was a job to be done. I’d chosen this hair-brained way of going about it, so there was just the thing to do.

I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, Krozair of Zy, dressed as a chief priest in the debased Cult of Lem the Silver Leem, led out the procession of abominations.

Marching out front and center I raised both arms. Imposing, these debauched chief priests, no doubt about that... The noise of the congregation quieted. I addressed them. Oh, yes, I knew their stupid fancy rigmarole ranks and titles, and could work them up as I’d seen high priests do before, until they were ready for the Great Word. But, this time, and, too, of course because I probably was not performing in exactly the way a chief priest would go about conducting the ceremony, the Great Word was understood by the congregation to be different.

It would be different, too, by Krun!

After the introduction I hurried the next part, although speaking with the sonorous and, if the truth be told, deadly dull intonations of some of the priests.