Гарри Тертлдав - The First Heroes

Kreuha made himself smile as he lifted the stein. In daylight, he could see what a shabby den this was—his mother would never have allowed rushes this fusty or garbage-strewn—but the crofters and gan-grels here drank from glass mugs! And the beer was better than any his father brewed, as well. For a moment he saw himself as this Arktorax did, as a woods-running savage to be plucked and sold.

No, he thought. Lord Bear here thinks he has fallen on a sheep in a pen. He will find it's a wolf—a Blood Wolf ...

"The police took you off," Arktorax said, relaxing a little and cutting a slab of the bread and cheese. "Officer Iraiinisson, that would be."

"Yes," Kreuha said, and scowled with rage. It was a genuine enough expression; the other man didn't need to know it was directed at him. He went on, his voice rough:

"And threw me in a cage full of vermin, and barked questions at me as if I were some thrall to be thrashed for not shoveling out the byre! By He of the Long Spear, by the Crow Goddess, I swear I will have my vengeance for last night's work!"

Arktorax nodded. "He's given to questions, is our officer Iraiinisson, and no mistake," he said genially. "You told him all, I suppose."

Kreuha grimaced. "I did not, not even what little I knew. I am not a spear-captive, to be kicked and cuffed. And he said he would not let me leave this place, so long as I did not tell him what he would know!"

"There've been complaints about him in the Town Meeting more than once. I complained, the last time he ran me in on suspicion— and had to let me go," Arktorax said. "He's had a feud with me for years, the son of a pig, but he and his kin have too many votes behind them."

"Why don't you kill him, if he's defamed your honor before the folk-moot?" Kreuha said. "I would give much to see his blood."

The big burly man looked at him blankly for a moment; they were speaking the same language, more or less, but it was as if Arktorax had just heard words without meaning to him. He smiled, shrugged, and switched to English:

"Was your mother a whore by choice, or did her father sell her?"

"I'm sorry," Kreuha said, with an effort at self-control greater than he'd needed to remain motionless on night ambushes. Eric had warned him they'd probably test him so. "I speak none of the wizard tongue."

Arktorax chuckled. "I asked if you would like me to assist in your vengeance," he said smoothly, with a genial grin.

"I would like that very much," Kreuha said. "Very much indeed."

The planning went swiftly. This time Kreuha turned down whiskey; that would not arouse suspicion, not after last night. He did grumble a little, as the urchin Arktorax hired sped off toward the police station and they left the tavern, the barkeeper and the woman in tow.

"Can you shield me from the blades of his kin?" he asked. It wasn't a question he would have made, or at least put that way, on his own.

"Just this way—"Arktorax said.

The building they entered was large and dim; empty as well, up to the high beams that held the ceiling. Mysterious piles of boxes and barrels hid much of the floor, stretching off into dimness. "Yes, of course, my friend," he went on, clapping Kreuha on the shoulder. "You will vanish from this place as if you had never been." The fat man chuckled, and spoke in English: "Just as we planned; Captain Tarketerol will be most grateful."

Kreuha smiled and nodded, the skin crawling between his shoulders. That was a Tartessian name; the wizard-folk of Nantucket kept no thralls, but the men of the far southern kingdom most assure dly did. Perhaps the villainy of these three was worse than Eric had thought. . . which was very good.

"And Officer Iraiinisson will be dead," Arktorax said. "We three can swear you were with us—and that's the truth, isn't it?"

He laughed, and then there was a long while of tense waiting, until a knock came at the door. The woman swarmed up a ladder to peer down at the doorway, and then turned to give a signal: the policeman was alone. That had been likely anyway, since there were only a score of the blue-clad armsmen in Southaven.

"Kreuha Wolkwos?" Eric Iraiinisson's sharp voice came through the boards.

"I am here," Kreuha said, taking stance in an open space not far from the portal.

The light was dim and gray, through small windows high up around the roof, but there was enough for someone who'd hunted deer and men by moonlight. "And the Blood Wolf is ready to speak as you wished," Kreuha went on. The door opened, letting in a spray of light along with a mist of fine rain. Kreuha poised with his spear, and the policeman staggered back—

"Kill!" Arktorax shouted, pushing him with a heavy hand between the shoulders. "What are you waiting for?"

Kreuha dove forward, rolling around the spearshaft and flicking himself back erect, facing the man who'd pretended friendship. The Keruthinii grinned like his name-beast and bayed laughter that might have come from his clan totem indeed.

"I am waiting for you to put your head in the rope," he said—in English, thickly accented but fluent enough. "Arktomertos," he added, in a savage play on the man's name: Dead Bear.

The crimp roared anger, turned, snatched up a barrel and threw it. That took strength; it was heavy, and the policeman dodged, falling backward into the street. When the wood staves struck the thick timber uprights of the door they cracked open, and fine-ground flour exploded in all directions. The fat man who'd been Arktorax's henchman turned to flee; Kreuha's arm cocked back as he squinted through the dust, then punched forward with smooth, swift grace. The flame-shaped bronze head took the barkeeper between the shoulders and he fell forward with the spearshaft standing up like the mast of a ship sailing to the ice-realms where the spirits of oathbreakers dwelt.

That left Arktorax. The big man drew a broad-bladed steel knife from beneath the tail of his coat and lunged, holding it underarm and stabbing upward in a stroke that would have opened the younger man like a fish filleted for the grill. Kreuha bounded back with panther ease beyond the reach of the blow, his hand unslinging the bronze-headed axe slung over his back as, for the first time since he'd set foot on the boat that brought him to Alba, he felt at ease: here was something he understood.

Arktorax wailed as he stumbled forward, drawn by the impetus of the failed stroke. The keen edge of the bronze skittered off his knife and gashed his forearm. He dropped the knife and tried to catch it with his left hand; Kreuha struck backhanded, then again, and again, smiling.

He was holding up the head when Eric Iraiinisson came through the door—this time with his revolver drawn. He swore in English, then by the hooves of the Horse Goddess.

"I didn't mean you to kill them!" he said at last. "We were to capture them for trial—"

"You didn't mean to kill them," Kreuha grinned. "I did, Eric son of the Iraiina—and ask your grandfather why, some day."

The policeman shook his head. "This means trouble."

"Didn't you say your law allowed a man to fight in self-defense?" Kreuha said. No. I can't keep the head, he decided regretfully; he did spit in the staring eyes before tossing it aside, and appropriating the dead man's knife and the contents of his pockets.

"Yes . . . but there's only one witness, and I'm known to have accused him before," Eric said. "It could be trouble for me as well as you—he does have kin, and friends of a sort here."

Kreuha grinned. "Then let me not be here," he said. "I've been thinking of what you said earlier."

Eric looked at him, brows raising. "Now that's forethoughtful," he said. "Maybe you'll go far, young warrior. If you live."

"All right," Timothy Alston-Kurlelo said.

Lucy and her younger brother both stood in the forward hold, watching a cargo-net sway down. It dangled from a dockside crane, which made the rate of descent something she needed to keep an eye on—if they'd been using one of the Pride's spars as a derrick, she'd have trusted her deck-crew.