Before he had time to brush it away I stepped in and clouted him over the head with the flat. He dropped. I do not think there can be many men born of women who will not drop when struck by a Krozair brand.
Before he hit the carpet I had leaped aside and swung the flat around horizontally and the boy was swept away, his toy dagger spinning up like a comet of diamonds in the lights. Ros leaped for me and she wore her talons.
I ducked, put my shoulder into her stomach, clapped my left arm about her back and hugged her. Horizontally she thrashed her legs wildly. I felt the kiss of the talons against the back of my thighs, and so banged her — gently, gently! — on her bottom with the hilt.
“Stay still, daughter, or I shall tan you, but good.”
“You-!”
“Yes.”
Presently we were sorted out. Ros, with wrists and ankles fastened with the silken cords from the curtains, lay rolled in the ochre and silver carpet with the silk tassels. Brun said to me: “You would not really slay the boy?” I stood with a dagger at the boy’s throat, the rest of my armory scabbarded. I said, “Do you wish to find out? Pick up your mistress and we will walk out of here, all friendly and nice. Boy, do you walk quietly and not wriggle.” I took the dagger from his throat and flapping a corner of the cloak over it, pressed it into the small of his back. “You walk before death.”
Well, it was detestable; but he believed me. And, believing, said, “You may kill me, master, if you desire. But I will not betray my mistress.”
“Well spoken lad. Your name?”
“I am called Vaxnik.”
I was astonished. Vax was the name used by Jaidur in the Eye of the World. And Jaidur was Dayra’s twin. I would ask the boy his history when we were safely away. Now, I said, “You have my word as a koter that no harm will befall your mistress. Despite her seeming hatred of me, I love her more deeply than you can understand. I would be cut down before harm should come to her. Now, lead on.”
Brun rumbled: “Do you speak sooth, master?”
“Aye, Hyr Brun, I do.”
“You are a Jikai, master, that is plain. And we do not do well in this evil place. But-”
“Carry your mistress out of here. All will be revealed.”
Cheap and easy words; but they were true, by Vox.
A serving man — for Brun was clearly no slave — carrying an expensive carpet, and an important boy to strut his office, and a dour professional mercenary to guard them, excited no attention in the busy warren. We saw parties of guards searching for those who had broken in. We walked solemnly on and were not challenged all the way down from the Pillars to the beginning of the mists rising and stinking from the niksuth.
Besides the carpet in which was rolled Ros the Claw, Brun carried a leather sack hastily stuffed with portable food, a few bottles of wine, and a curtain stuffed down on the top. He could, I thought, have carried a whole wagon-load of supplies without visible effort. So we walked on and passed parties of guards still searching and began to discern a pattern in the search for the intruders. I fancied we might run into serious trouble at the gates, and Vaxnik led on with an eager step. Now it appeared to me improbable that the outpost guards would have an expensive carpet delivered to their blockhouse. So we would have to re-arrange ourselves for the next step. I halted us in the shadows of a half-ruined building fronting the open space before the gate Vaxnik had chosen, and stared out as Bowmen and churgur guards moved about, parties coming and going, with Deldars yelling and a group of totrixmen spurring across in a swirl of dust and blown leaves. H’mm… There was a double enceinture here, where Vaxnik had led us, and I chalked a mark up to him, the cunning little devil.
Waiting until the open space was completely free of guards would take too long. Time pressed. Norgoth as Jhansi’s lieutenant would be raging with impatience that the intruders had not been found, and I suspected that some, at least, of those unfortunates who had been knocked on the head had recovered to add further to the alarm. So, once more, there was nothing for it. I settled the longsword more conveniently to hand. The shadows lay blue and bright. The suns shone. And then tendrils of oily mist wafted and the whole scene dulled to a dun mange, and a chill descended.
“March straight, Hyr Brun. And you, too, boy. I have a story for those guards yonder.”
A party of diffs wearing the gray slave breechclouts passed in a straggling line. They carried obese pots on their shoulders, no doubt water for the baths of those up in the palaces, if they’d run out of milk. I made a face, and we stepped out.
Two parties of guards approached. That to our right rear was composed mainly of Rapas, with a few apims and Brokelsh. They carried their spears all at the regulation slope and were mercenaries, skilled fighting men. The party advancing through the gate wore the ochre and white, and were armed with a medley of weapons which spoke again of mercenaries, although not the regimented and disciplined kind. I frowned.
Walking along a couple of paces in rear of Brun I readied myself. We attracted no attention from the guards with the spears. They were commanded by their Deldar and would do as he directed. We made a picture that held no menace for him.
A movement caught the corner of my eye and I looked forward again. The open end of the carpet was moving like the trunk of an elephant. How she had done it I do not know. Dayra’s head appeared, and an arm ripped free of the binding silks. Her face was flushed and her eyes looked murderous. She saw the guards. She yelled. She yelled good and loud.
“Guards! Guards! Here is the man you seek! Guards, ho!”
Her triumphant face bore on me, bright, vindictive, filled with passion. Vaxnik squeaked. Brun dropped the carpet.
I saw the guards running on. Their Deldar bellowed and they turned toward us. The other party of guards, attracted by the shouts, also turned toward us. We were trapped between them.
“You’re done for, now, you villainous rast!” shouted my daughter at her father. I ripped the longsword free. Two-handed I gripped the Krozair blade.
“Done for!” shrieked Dayra. “They will not kill you. But you may wish they had.”
“I do not hate you,” I said, stupidly, spreading my fists along the hilt of the longsword.
“Throw down your sword, cramph! Oh that I could get free and sink my talons in you!” And her left hand at last broke free from the swathing carpet and the suns shone through the drifting mist and glittered most vilely upon that curved and cruel claw.
I saw the spearmen charging toward me. I half-turned and saw the guards from the gate pressing swiftly on, their weapons drawn.
And I said, very gently: “I do not think your guards will take me, Dayra. But it was a nice try.”
Chapter Seventeen
The spearmen ran yelling on their doom.
For a short space only I fronted them with the deadly Krozair longsword singing, and then Targon and Naghan and Dorgo and Korero were there, with the others of my choice band clad in their stolen ochre and white uniforms, and the blades clanged and rang. The spearmen were either cut down or ran. The fight was brief and bloody, swift and savage.
“Well met!” I bellowed. “Now back through the gate and into the swamps before they gather their wits.”