I have been called a paktun before and, by Zair, I supposed I was and am. A paktun is a name given only to a mercenary who has achieved considerable fame — or notoriety. I would not lie.
“If you think that, Avec, I shall not quarrel with you. Shall we go up?”
“Aye — with all my heart.”
We crawled up the ladder cautiously and came out onto the lower deck. Above us the upper deck showed a rectangle of night sky. We crept up there and Avec put the watch to sleep, and we slunk down off the voller. Avec padded ahead of me in the pink-lit darkness. I heard his voice, and an exclamation. From the trees of this terrace two figures tangled together, flailing. Then-
“By Havil the Green, you fambly! You make more noise than a pair of calsanys!”
“Onker! Can’t you look where you’re going!”
I sighed. I had a right pair here — and, instantly, flooding me with nostalgia, warm and wonderful memories of Nath and Zolta, my own two oar-comrades, my two favorite rogues, leaped into my mind. There was no love of Hamal in my heart. But although these two, Avec and Ilter, might be of Hamal, I did not care about that impediment in them.
I said, “If you shout a little louder you might wake the guards. I don’t think they can hear you — yet.”
They came closer, dark shadows between the pink shafts of moonshine beneath the trees. Ilter said, “You are something of a wild leem, Dray Prescot. Avec tells me you burst your bonds, and his. They are regulation thongs, manufactured by the government, to government regulations. It is a marvel.”
I almost said, “They were not lesten hide.” But I did not. Hostages are given to fortune all too often for my taste. I would not add to the blabbermouths of Kregen.
We had found odd scraps of clothing after we had diverted some of Muruaa’s lava, and the night was warm enough, up here in Hamal, although in the Hamalian deserts of the altiplano one finds freezing temperatures almost every night. We walked on in the pink darkness, arguing about what we should do. Rather, they argued, and I listened until we reached the soldiers and their mirvol lines. Then I said, “I am not of Orlush. I shall take a mirvol and fly out.”
They stopped whispering, and turned on me together, saying, “Where will you fly to?” and “I am with you!”
“I welcome you, Avec. I know not, Ilter. Where the flyer takes me, I think.”
“He’ll take you straight back to the Strom’s stables.”
“I do not think I would like that.”
Avec said, “I left Orlush many seasons ago, and did well. I return for a visit, to see the onkerish son of my dead sister, and Yurncra the Mischievous clutches me in his talons so that the cramph Lart has me flogged and now the Strom will sentence me to the Jikhorkdun. I shall not return to Orlush again.”
What Ilter’s plans were we never did discover, for we never did ask him. At that moment from beyond the encampment among the trees a soldier appeared bearing a torch which scattered its light upon us. He shouted.
He recognized both Avec and Ilter, for he called their names before my flung stone knocked him down. Ilter said, “It seems, Uncle, I shall have to accompany you, and that is a fate no well-deserving young man deserves.”
The shout would arouse the sleeping camp. We made great speed to select three fine mirvols with full saddlebags still attached, and to release the restraining ropes and hobbles of the others and to beat them into the air. We took off in a veritable welter of wings.
All that night we flew north and east.
The capital of Hamal, Ruathytu, situated on the River Havilthytus lies almost midway between the northern coast and the southern border of the country bounded by the large and impressive River Os, often called He of the Commendable Countenance. Ruathytu is an inland city, situated approximately sixty dwaburs from the eastern coastline. It stands at the junction of the River Mak, known as the Black River, with the River Havilthytus. It was this latter river we followed now, winging through the pink-strewn darkness and seeing the moon’s reflection upon the dark and gleaming waters. The Black River is well named, for when it discharges its inky waters into the Havilthytus they run side by side for a surprising number of dwaburs before at last they mingle and merge.
Ilter waved his arm and pointed down. We let our mirvols plane through the sky and came to ground on a yellow bluff above the Black River. Above us two of the lesser moons of Kregen hurtled past, always in a hurry.
“I do not wish to travel all the way to Ruathytu,” said Avec, his Kregish thickening a trifle more with the local accent. “But I wish to escape those cramphs on our necks, now we have started. What in Kaerlan the Merciful’s name do you want, Ilter?”
“I thought you intended to fly to Ruathytu, the way you were going, by Krun! Had you done so, better to call on Kuerden the Merciless than Kaerlan the Merciful, my onkerish uncle.”
“I’ll strap you across my knee, nephew! By Krun, I’ll-”
I said, “You may fight all you wish. Just give me some idea of a suitable place to find rest and food and I will leave you.”
They glared at each other, chests heaving, faces angry and puffed, hands half raised. I was interested to notice that they did not clench their fists or adopt an unarmed-combat discipline posture. They were like two bantam cocks.
“Rest? Food?” Ilter slowly let his hands drop and looked at me. “Where I want to go, of course, is to Dovad, if only this onkerish fambly uncle of mine will allow.”
“You ingrate! That your father, my dear sister’s husband, is dead! I come to visit you, dwabur after dwabur-”
“My crystal is shattered, oh nit of Nathian girth!”[4]
They really would have gone at each other then, but I stirred my mirvol, and in a fluster of wing-beats shouted down at them, “Where is Dovad, then, dom?”
Ilter leaped into his saddle with such force he almost missed and went slithering over the far side. He caught the pommel and wrenched himself back.
“I’ll fly with you, by Krun, and leave this onker to simmer in his own droppings.”
“By Krun!” howled Avec. He sprawled up into his saddle somehow, pommel and cantle at the wrong ends, so that he had to fling himself around and grab the flying reins, for the mirvol took an extreme distaste to these antics. The mirvol lowered his head, and his neck, and flicked his wings. Long before Avec could grab on to anything that was fastened, off he spun, up into the air, head over heels, and down on the flat of his broad back.
He yelled.
I was no longer amused. I had seen his back.
I quieted my mirvol and kicked him to close his wings, then hopped off to get to Avec, who lay winded, Ilter’s mirvol had responded faster, and when I reached Avec his nephew was already there, bending over him, lifting his head. I saw Ilter’s face.
“I’m all right, Ilter, lad. The beasts aren’t trained like they used to be.”
“I know, Uncle. Lie still for a moment while I-” and Ilter stopped talking and began to feel his uncle’s body. He looked up. “Nothing broken.”
“Help me up, lad, for it fair thwacked me, like the kick of a calsany.”
Avec had made no outcry. I did not wish to shame him by inquiring about his back, for a man of Kregen is touchy about pain and punishment — stupidly so, sometimes.
We took to the air once again and flew steadily on downstream along the course of the Black River. Dovad turned out to be a sizable town, located where the river broadened into a lake before plunging on and through a low range of hills, scantily clad with brush and gorse, for they were rocky and looked of fairly recent origin, being sharp-peaked. I saw the way the river plunged over a smooth bulbous edge of land to fall beyond, the white smother of the foot of the falls out of view as we landed. It seemed sensible to us to remove all signs that these mirvols were military beasts, although the brands on their leathery skins would not easily come out, for obvious reasons. In the end Avec said, “The trouble they will bring is not worth their sale price.”