Beasts of Antares (22 page)

They bore in, bludgeons upraised. One was, as you will perceive, a Rapa, and the other a Brokelsh.

I turned to face them. “A chicken, my friends? Oh, you famblys, I have no feathers left!”

So, joyfully, we met in combat — they to take my gold and slit my throat or bash my skull in if they had to, and I to prevent them. The first bludgeon blows hissed through air instead of rattling my brains in my skull. The first knife was drawn in exasperation. They were a right comical pair — I’ve no idea what their mothers called them — and they went to sleep, slumbering like the babes they once had been. I looked down on them and shook my head, in sorrow rather than anger.

“Thank you, my friends,” I said to their unconscious bodies. “You serve to remind me that life is mutable and that the suns may rise over Kregen as ever — but not for everyone.”

And with that, I mounted up on the urvivel and ambled off to our camp outside the city, and to a fine old argument with Unmok the Nets.

Chapter sixteen

An Armorer Raises an Echo

The argument erupted into a rip-roaring row.

“But we’re partners, Jak!”

“Yes. But—”

“The animals are sold. There is nothing to detain us here. I do not like the Jikhorkdun—”

“No more do I!”

“Well, then! What ails you, Jak? Let us clear out. I have good suppliers lined up and we can fetch in a fresh consignment—”

“What about your cage-voller?”

Unmok lifted his upper left and middle right. His upper right held a goblet of cheap wine.

“Not yet. I do not have the cash. But our money is safe with Avec Parlin, who has banking connections—”

“Yes, yes. But—”

“And this voyage will see it, Jak. It will! Then we can buy a cage-voller and set up properly in business.”

“I thought you were giving up? What was the last scheme — totrix breeding in Haklanun? Or was it a return to the beads and bangles on a vast scale—?”

“You mock me! We are
partners,
Jak!”

It went on for some time. I couldn’t leave Huringa now, of course not, and Unmok couldn’t see why not, and I couldn’t tell him. We went to sleep in an uncomfortable silence that all our attempts to come to an understanding only made worse.

In the morning we breakfasted with only the stiffest and politest of words between us. Froshak the Shine kept well out of it, and so opened his mouth as to yell more than twice at the slaves, which clearly indicated all was not well with Ms world.

“I have to see Vad Noran,” said Unmok. “No doubt you will be about your business — whatever that may be. I will see you tonight?”

“Yes. I will not — yes, I will see you tonight.”

I’d been about to say I wouldn’t leave without saying the remberees. But that would only arouse a fresh storm.

Riding the urvivel into Huringa, I pondered the problems. Today I intended to try my luck with the blues. The sapphire graint was the top color these days. Maybe Naghan had a hand in that. The guards at the Gate of the Trompipluns let me through — trompipluns means yellow feet — and I cantered to the inn where I would leave the urvivel for the day, preferring that to a public stables. The inn was The Queen’s Head. That has ominous overtones, if you like. It was situated right next door to the Arbora Theater where all this month of She of the Veils they were presenting
The Vengeance of Kov Rheinglaf,
from the Third Book of
The Vicissitudes of Panadian the Ibreiver,
by, as you are well aware, Nalgre ti Liancesmot. These ordinary events went on, the inn was patronized, the theater attended and all the time the Jikhorkdun lowered its shadow over all.

The noise of a busy city arose on the morning air. Slaves were hard at it. Guls were earning their hire. The gentry and nobles were thinking of getting up and facing the day. Carriages were already abroad. The hectic activity of the night in which the country carts trundled in with the produce to sustain the city’s life had ceased and given way to the equally hectic business of the day.

And I had a Gnat of an armorer to find, and a beautiful Fristle fifi, and a right tearaway who passionately loved vollers.

This early in the morning the environs of the Jikhorkdun held an exhausted, gray, hung-over look. The guards shuffled. I had scrounged a piece of blue cloth from our camp and had replaced the red with the blue. I walked up as though I owned the place.

Well...

At that time of day it was not too hard to find a way to let a gold coin change hands; a wink, a smile, and I was into the outer courts. Nothing — or very little — would get anyone into the inner courts. You had to be of the arena to be allowed there. I began my inquiries.

“Naghan the Gnat?” said a Khibil guard, his burly body straining his leather armor, his alert foxy face shrewd. “Well, now...”

Another gold coin changed hands.

Always fancy themselves a cut above the ordinary run of diffs, Khibils. I get along with most of them. Their ruddy whiskers, their bright eyes, their keen fox-like faces, have been a comfort to me on many a battlefield. The gold vanished.

“Yes, dom. Naghan the Gnat—” He hesitated.

“Yes!”

“Aye, dom. Yes. I know him.”

I quieted down. Maybe there were two men with the name of Naghan the Gnat. I nodded and the Khibil went on.

“See this thraxter?” He drew his sword and showed it to me. He pointed. The rivets of the hilt were indeed beautifully forged and fitted. I thought — I would not, dared not believe — they were Naghan’s work. “He did that, the little feller, after I wrecked the blade on the armor of that bastard of a Rapa who—”

“Where is he?”

“I’m telling you, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” I made myself speak meekly. “You are, dom.”

After all this time I was really going to find Naghan!

“He wanted to work for the reds. Course, the managers wouldn’t have that.” The shrewd fox face lowered on me. “I c’n tell you that we’re doing well now because Naghan’s armor is the best in the world. That’s why. Course, he works hard. Has to, d’ye see? They whip him if he don’t.”

My fingernails bit into my skin, but I held still.

“Where is he?”

“Where? Why, where d’you expect him to be?”

I suppose, just about then, this smart Khibil more or less took a closer look at my face. He swallowed. His stiff red whiskers bristled. Then he said, rather quickly, “Why, he’s in his forge, of course. Where else would an armorer be?”

Of course. The blue section might not be laid out in the same way as the red. I caught my breath, and then in what I considered a neutral voice, I said, “Tell me where the forge is, dom.”

The Khibil jumped.

He pointed. “Down that alleyway between the barracks and the second training ring. You can’t miss it — stinks of charcoal and smoke and oil—”

I walked on.

The sound of a two-pound hammer in that particular rhythm: chang, ching-ching, chang, ching-ching, met me as I walked along. The smells were there, charcoal and smoke and oil. The furnace glowed cherry red. Three miserable-looking slaves cowered out of my way, carrying baskets of charcoal. I walked on. A man stood at his anvil, half-bent, striking neat, tidy blows, working with the utter absorption of a master craftsman.

This was no dramatic confrontation. There was no hectic rescue amid showers of arrows, no smiting away of sword blades to snatch Naghan to the saddle and gallop madly into the sunset.

I just walked up and said, “Lahal, Naghan, my name is Chaadur and—”

He whirled. He was just the same, thank Zair.

The hammer fell from his nerveless hand.

His stained leather apron with the marks of the fire on it, his small body all gristle and bone, his lively face, with the soot marks of his trade, sweating already, and his whole astonished gape endeared him to me all over again.

He began to stutter, and swallowed, and: “Dray!” and he would have gone on.

I said, “I am Chaadur the Iarvin. Best you mind that.”

“Aye,” he said. “Aye.” He shook his head, and bent to retrieve his hammer.

“Talk later, O Gnat. Are Tilly and Oby here?”

“No.” He wiped his nose and left black smudges. “Oby is with the yellows. I am not sure about Tilly. But, but...!”

“Later. Does anything detain you here?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“Then bring your hammer and a few tools. Walk casually. We are on an important task for a great lord. Dernun?”

“Aye, and thanks be to Opaz—”

“Come on.”

So we walked along the alleyway. We did not pass the way I had come, for gold would not have quieted that Khibil guard. When Khibils hire out as guards they hew to their own codes of honor.

“I can’t just walk out, Dr — Chaadur!”

“You can and you will.”

We went along past the second training ring, briskly, Naghan two paces abaft me.

The gate I chose for the exit was guarded by a Rhaclaw. Rhaclaws possess immense domed heads; that does not mean they have any more brains than any other race of diffs.

“Hey, dom,” I said brusquely. “Here is a pickle. The kov needs an armorer at once — at once, mind — and if I do not fetch him a miserable slave I, and you, will rue the days we were born.”

“Kov?” said the Rhaclaw. He looked at me vacantly. “What kov?”

“Rast!” I bellowed. “Do you bandy words with the kov! You are a fool if you do. Out of the way before the kov has you strung upside down and your head in the fire.”

He blanched.

He lifted his spear and I brushed it aside, as one would brush aside a hanging branch in a garden, and walked on. I bellowed at Naghan.

“Yetch!
Grak!
The kov will have your tripes for harness points if you don’t jump!”

“Quidang!” yelled Naghan, playing up nobly, and we hurried past the Rhaclaw and left him trying to regain the balance of his spear.

Mind you, the moment we passed beyond the angle of the wall we both did a quick right turn and darted into the shade of a few dusty tuffa trees, all wispy and drooping and springy.

“What—?” began Naghan.

“See that fellow walking toward us?”

“The man with the striped apron and the tray upon his head?”

“Yes. Fall down and writhe. Yell — but only a little.”

Naghan immediately dropped to the ground, curled up and kicked his legs. He shrieked — but only a little.

The butcher’s arm came over balancing his tray. He looked down. “What ails him? Is it catching?”

“Yes,” I said, and put him to sleep. I caught the tray as he fell. Naghan put the lad’s clothes on — they were not too big to pass muster — and he balanced the tray on his head.

“Throw the meat away, for the sweet sake of Opaz!”

“Aye, aye.” Naghan tipped the tray over. “You wouldn’t take meat out of the Jikhorkdun, now, would you?” And he laughed.

“Walk a little ahead. I am not with you.”

“Aye. How did you—?”

“Two things, O Gnat. One: gold. Two: a kaidur’s knowledge. Talk later.”

We walked on in the bright morning, just a butcher’s man, probably a slave tricking himself out with a striped apron, and a hulking great fellow who’d as lief knock the butcher’s lad over as not if he got in his way. We went along smoothly until we came to an area where the stalls and booths were shuttered and quiet. When the gas jets were lit this place would teem with people on their way to visit famous kaidurs, perhaps idling for a few moments and spending money on knickknacks. At least, we were clear of the inner precincts. Then I noticed that Naghan, balancing the tray on his head with one hand, kept a fast grip upon his leather toolbag with the other. The head of his hammer protruded at one end and the business end of a pair of tongs at the other.

Before I could hasten my steps four Rapa guards rounded an emporium which, although shuttered, proudly proclaimed on bills and hoardings that here the mysterious potions that gave love where it was sought might be purchased. The four Rapas were quarreling — well, that was their privilege. But perhaps because of their quarrel they chose to pick on the butcher’s delivery lad.

“Hey! C’mere!”

And then, of course, they saw the leather tool kit, and immediately diagnosed the situation. This thieving rast of a butcher’s slave had stolen a valuable bag of tools!

Because of the very ordinariness of the tool bag being picked up by Naghan, I had not noticed. Mea culpa! Again I considered that if this was the way Dray Prescot went about rescuing his friends, Zair help him... And then it was all a flurry of action, and skipping and jumping and of skull bashing.

The four Rapas, out to earn their hire, clearly expected Naghan to run. They began to race toward him and, as I started off, so Naghan whipped the hammer from his bag, the tray going clattering into the Rapa’s running feet. The hammer circled once and slogged into the first Rapa’s middle. The second slashed his sword down, and then I slid the blade on my own thraxter and, regretfully, turned my wrist over and let the sword strike through.

The third and fourth yelled and plunged in and Naghan dropped to his hands and knees and chingled his hammer against the next Rapa’s kneecap. I felt that for the poor devil of a Rapa... Very nasty. My thraxter revolved in the air, the blade swept the last Rapa’s weapon aside and the flat thunked down against the side of his head, spreading the feathers, and spreading the Rapa, too, sending him sprawling across the stones. Naghan stood up.

“Run,” I said. “Yes, I think we should run now.”

So we ran.

We got to the next courtyard and then slowed our pace and walked out across a roadway where they were exercising a gaggle of totrixes. The lumbering six-legged riding animals went clip-clup-clop past. Totrixes are used in the arena. No true lover of the marvelous saddle animals of Kregen cares for that.

We squeezed along out of the way and crossed the road and went toward the gate where only a Fristle stood guard. Most of the outer sections, open to the public, needn’t have been guarded at all. But this passion for posting sentries everywhere is quite practical. For one thing, it impresses the common folk. And, for another, it gives the bodyguard something to do.

The Fristle was brushing up his whiskers with his little personal brush, all smothered in tawdry imitation jewelry, and twisting his head about the better to get just the right angle he wanted. He had taken off his helmet. His fierce cat’s face was contorted with the effort of seeing his whiskers in his pocket mirror. When we hove up he cocked an eye at us, in annoyance. I suppose, logically, that Fristle was near to death, in a cold and calculating way. Had he spoken out of turn, had he tried to stop us, had our blows just missed being non-lethal, then he would have died. Instead of all that unpleasantness he waved the brush at us and went back to his cat’s whiskers. We walked through the open gateway.