A few words soon showed that the mercenaries outside the tower had been reinforced after Hikdar Douron had left for Vondium. We had brought men, yes; but had we brought enough to break through the ring? Barty was all for getting up and bashing on. There were saddle animals stabled in the lower floors. But the Jiktar who ran his guards, a man who could have sat for a portrait to represent the professional, life-time fighting man, shook his head.
“In my view we are still too few,” said Jiktar Noronfer.
“Um,” said Seg.
“We must break out!”
Barty sank back on the blankets. He looked in bad case.
Then Jiktar Noronfer, with the infuriating ability of the professional to state a situation as though it was not a matter of life and death affecting him no less than anyone else, said: “They will break in before the flier can return to Vondium for help.”
Another iron-headed bolt arched over the ancient stone battlements and hit, bouncing. The flames from the tar and bitumen-soaked flax blazed up. The brand skated across the stones straight for us like a comet on a collision course.
Barty let out a feeble yell. Jiktar Noronfer dived out of the way. The caroming bolt leaped, like a fractious zorca, spat sparks, sizzling with a noise like a cage full of serpents. It roared directly at us. I leaped for Barty. Seg — the infernal idiot! — seized up Noronfer’s dropped spear and swung toward the blazing brand. Even as I got Barty up and scrambled him out of the way so Seg with a beautifully lithe skip and jump got the spear point under the iron head of the bolt and heaved. Then he, too, jumped for safety. His cloak was alight. He landed and rolled and I put Barty down as gently as I could contrive and as the flaming bolt reared up and spilled over the stones at our back I leaped on Seg. With my bare hands I batted at the flames and got his cloak ripped off and tossed aside. I was not burned, thank Zair
— well, not much, not enough to notice.
Seg sat up.
“Thanks, my old dom. We’ve enough light as it is without using me as a living torch.”
“You maniacal Erthyr nitwit! Why didn’t you jump out of the way?”
“Never thought you’d get the youngster out of it in time. You were damned quick.”
“Not as quick as you, you-”
Seg’s face drew in with pain. His eyes misted. Torchlight hung shadows along his jaw and his cheeks hollowed.
“Get that tunic off! And the kax! Your wound, when you were slave-”
“Aye, Dray, aye. It’s plaguing me, devil take it.”
Seg’s wound had opened and the bloody mess made me go cold. Barty’s needleman was summoned and we kept everyone else away and I made up my mind.
I made up my mind not as the Emperor of Vallia, not as Dayra’s father, not as a friend to young Barty. I made up my mind because Seg needed immediate and expert attention which the needleman here was not equipped to give. He could insert his acupuncture needles and dull Seg’s pain. But that was not enough. This was just another obstacle and, like all obstacles, must be evaluated and the best course chosen.
Seg protested vehemently. But I would not be swayed.
“And Jiktar Noronfer,” I said with emphasis, my face I am sure as hard and merciless as it had ever been. “I see you are a shebov-Jiktar. If you wish to gain the remaining three steps in the Jiktar grade to make zan-Jiktar and, if you are lucky and live, ob-Chuktar, you had best pick up the spear you dropped and fight with us.”
“I will fight, majister. I do not seek to excuse my conduct.”
“Make it so.”
I thought he would come through and fight well, better than well, after the spectacle he had made. But I would keep my eye on him.
Barty and Seg, of course, both of them, kicked up a frightful indignant racket. But I was prepared in this to be high-handed, very high-handed, even going to the ridiculous length of reminding them that I was, for Vox’s sake, the Emperor of Vallia. Thankfully, it did not come to that sorry pass and they agreed. I turned on Jiktar Noronfer.
“Wheel me up the leader of the local Freedom Fighters, Jiktar. He ought to know his way around.”
“Quidang, majister!” barked Noronfer, very businesslike, and clattered off down the stairs to the lower stories.
Seg looked mighty sullen. Because he, like me, had dipped in the Sacred Pool of Baptism he would live a thousand years and his wounds would heal swiftly and cleanly, leaving no scars. But nature will not always be baulked and his wound had been far more serious than I evidently had realized. He would heal. But that last foolhardy, heroic act had burst the fragile adhesions of the wound’s surfaces. He needed proper rest and attention and that, by Krun, was that. As Kregans say, the situation was Queyd-arn-tung! No more need be said on the subject.
Barty, too, as I say, had to have his lines read to him. The two wounded men lay side by side, Seg on his side, and glowered at me. At last Seg said, “That flint-fodder outside. You have a good longbow?
Mine-”
“Rest easy and stop chaffering like a loloo over chicks!”
“Thelda-”
“I know. In this short time we’ve been away there could be news in Vondium. The whole world can change in an instant.” By Zair! But wasn’t that right! I knew, perhaps none better, how in a twinkling life can make a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, and stand you on your head, gasping, with nothing ever the same again. “And you can go see if Delia is back, too.”
“I will. And getting out of here?”
“The plan calls for us to rush ’em and knife through. It will knock over a dermiflon.” Which is a cast-iron guarantee of success. “Now shut your great fanged wine-spout and let yourself be loaded aboard the voller. And, Seg-”
“Yes, my old dom?”
“Take care of yourself. You hear?”
His smile might be a wan ghost of his old reckless fey laugh; but he mustered up a smile for me. “I hear.”
And then, being Seg Segutorio and the best comrade a man could have on two worlds, he barbed in a cutting: “Majister!”
I winced, and then they came and took Seg and Barty and the other wounded and loaded them into the voller.
As the flier rose into the air I saw a dark hunched shape lift in an embrasure and the thin pencil mark of a great Lohvian longbow being fully drawn. That was Seg Segutorio for you. Despite his lacerated and bleeding back he was up there and ready to cast down a few deadly shafts to help us. The cramphs out there were flint-fodder, no doubt of it, and I crossed to the battlements and looked down. Three dark figures spun away, arms wide, screeching soundlessly as She of the Veils rose through wreathing mists and shed her fuzzy pink and golden light. Now we would have light enough to see by, light enough to kill by — if we were unlucky or unskilled, light enough to die by.
The voller vanished into the night and another besieger toppled with a long Lohvian arrow through him. Four times, Seg had shot. I do not think there was another archer in the whole world who could have loosed three — and hit with every shot.
Losing Seg like this naturally made me think of Inch and Turko and Balass and Oby and the rest. By Krun! Devil take these troubles consuming Vallia. I ought to be out scouring Kregen for my friends. Going down to the lower stories I found them choked with saddle animals and calsanys. Jiktar Noronfer was just about to climb back up. He looked annoyed.
“Beg to report, majister! The local chief — Lol Polisto ti Sygurd — has just got back.” He paused, waiting. I did not amuse him by bursting out with a hot-headed: “Back from where, by Vox!” I looked at him. Noronfer wet his lips, suddenly, and finished in a rush: “His wife has been taken by these rasts and they sent a message. He tried to fight through; but was beaten back.”
I said: “Was he wounded?”
“No, majister.”
I looked again at Noronfer, and, again, he wet his lips.