Alan Akers - Swordships of Scorpio

On the day before we picked up the pharos for what would be our penultimate port of call Tilda discovered nits in Pando’s hair and nearly went mad, ordering up huge copper kettles of boiling water, and formidable bars of Kregen soap which is designed to scour little boys’ eyes and the backs of their ears and necks. When Pando had been nearly scalped, she pronounced him fit to enter decent company once again. I thought of those running-alive ponsho skins of the Magdag swifters. Conditions of life are all relative.

From this last port of call before we reached Port Marsilus, the entrepot for Bormark, we sailed in a little convoy of eight ships, accompanied by a vessel paid for and maintained by Bormark and her neighboring dukedom to the east for just this purpose of escort against raiders from The Bloody Menaham which lay far too close for comfort to the west beyond the promontory and islands that terminated the Bay of Panderk. The vessel was an argenter, if of a slightly leaner build than those that plowed the outer oceans, equipped with varters and catapults and with a sizable crew. I studied her, and felt something could be made of her and her like.

From Port Marsilus, with Tilda still heavily veiled and under our assumed names, we hired two onkers for Tilda and Pando and two zorcas for Inch and myself. We rode to Tilda’s home, a farm nestled among groves of samphron and muschafs, where her parents, having overcome their surprise, made us welcome. With a strict injunction to them to remain fast and not to stir abroad, and so be caught, Inch and I rode for the palace of Murlock Marsilus, the usurping Kov of Bormark.

This Murlock seemed to me to be no atavistic sport of the family of Marsilus — despite all I had heard of Marker Murlock, and all I had observed of his son Pando — for the old Kov had been relentless in his rage and malignance against not only Tilda, the girl his son had married in defiance of his wishes, but against her family also so that they had given up the stage and gone farming with distant relatives in that pleasant valley. Now, we left the valley and our zorcas’ hooves rat-tatted with a more purposeful sound on the paved road.

“Pando will turn out all right, Dray,” said Inch. He reflected, and added, “If he lives.”

“The story of the old Kov’s recantation on his deathbed and the known desire of his to have Pando recognized as his heir,” I said. “They are slender weapons, it seems to me; but they are all we have.”

“If what the Pallan Nicomeyn says is true — I expect it is — those weapons will be enough.”

“Once we have Murlock.”

“Ah!”

The palace of the Marsilus family stood on the highest eminence of a block of red cliffs that fell into the sea with a stark sheer of cliff reminiscent of those cliffs of the Eye of the World where I had dived in order to go to the assistance of Seg and the others in our flight from the sorzarts. Verdant glowing vegetation clothed the heights. The castle and palace, as richly red as the cliffs, reared above. Many flags floated there, and armed guards strode everywhere. We heard, in the inn where we stayed for a dram of Tomboram wine, that the news was that the king was visiting Tomboram and was even now on his way, traveling with a great company, coming on the pleasant coast-road, journeying in state and great comfort, surveying the domains.

“There is no time to waste,” I told Inch. “Once the king gets his lodging and board in the palace-”

“By Ngrangi! We must strike quickly, Dray!”

So it was that that night we two, Inch, a gangling giant with his ax, and I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor, with all my weapons about me, climbed that frowning red cliff in the light of the Maiden with the Many Smiles. We were gentle with the guards, for Pando, we hoped, would assume the overlordship of this pile and we did not wish to store up resentment against him. As it was, we left a trail of unconscious bodies until we penetrated clear through to Murlock’s bed chamber, where Inch uprooted the nubile wench sharing his bed and I showed him the point of my dagger.

“You are coming with us, Murlock,” I said, and at sight of my ugly face he flinched back. He was a fat man, but strong, and his jaws shook when I twiddled the dagger closer. “You may dress or not, as you please, but you had best make haste.”

Shaking with the fear that must be torturing him with wonder how we two desperadoes had invaded his palace — for he could not know that Tilda had told us of the best secret ways in that she had learned from Marker — Murlock threw on his clothes and we three went out of his bedchamber leaving the wench neatly packaged in costly silks of Pandahem itself.

We carried him down the cliff on our backs, passing him from hand to hand like a carpet. He was near paralytic with fear; but he knew, for I had made it very plain, that a single cry would sink my dagger in his throat.

We loaded him aboard the spare mount, lashed wrist and ankles, and then we spurred in the streaming pink moonlight of Kregen along the metal-shining road. Tilda could hardly believe we had done what we had done. I shushed her up. Murlock had been blindfolded so he would not know where Tilda had hidden, and for this her people were grateful. We spurred hard toward the east, going through rich agricultural land, avoiding the farms, heading up toward the coast so that at last, with the coming of the twin suns, we were well on our way.

We rode for three days, keeping up a good pace, eating provisions we had brought and not venturing near another living soul. On the morning of that day we rode boldly into the camp of the king. His people, servants, grooms, courtiers, guards, were just rising and yawning and thinking about the day ahead. I selected the biggest tent of all, with its blue flags, and jumped down before the guard. He was a man, in half-armor, clad in a blue tunic, and for weapon he carried as fancy a long-hafted spear as I had seen on Kregen. In addition he had, of course, his rapier and main-gauche.

“Keep away, rast,” he growled, and the spear blade snapped down level with my stomach.

“Send a message to the king, insolent one, that the Lord of Strombor wishes to speak with him on a matter of treason.”

The spear did not waver.

‘Take yourself off, benighted of Armipand-” There would have been more, doubtless of a foulmouthed kind, but I stepped inside the spear, knocking it away, put a fist into his jaw, didn’t bother to catch him, and pushed through the drapes into the tent.

In the anteroom with its bright silken walls other guards started up, and their Hikdar strode forward, puffy as to jaw, bloodshot as to eye.

“Hikdar!” I said, and my rasp sounded like a mill full of buzz saws. “I am the Lord of Strombor. Rouse the king. I have news for him.”

The Hikdar hesitated and I did not miss the lifting of weapons of his men. At that moment a short and exceedingly fat man wearing the robes and insignia of a Pallan stepped out.

“What is going on?” he demanded, with some acerbity. “The king is dressing and orders that whoever is creating this disturbance shall be brought before him.”

The Hikdar lost all his color.

“It was not me, Pallan Omallin, not me! This man — he claims to be the Lord of somewhere or other-”

I pushed past them both, tripping the Hikdar, shoved into the main body of the tent. As I went I shouted back: “Bring ’em in, Inch! Come straight through. Take no notice of this rabble.”

The scene in the king’s tent was much as I had expected. Evidences of luxury lay everywhere. Rich carpets, brocaded coverings, cushions, arras to double-wall the tent, weapons glittering from the tent-poles, all I saw and ignored. On a sumptuously upholstered divan sat a corpulent man with a puffy face pulling on a pair of enormous black boots. Their spurs would cause agony to a zorca. His black bar moustache lifted as he stared at me. His eyes held a pale fanatical look. He licked his purple lips a great deal. I did not take to him, as you may wonder, for I am overly tolerant to other people until I read them through correctly.