“We must leave now, Banni Akins,” he said, a pool of calm in the midst of human chaos. The men who had entered first were taking weapons from my father and brothers, sacks of other things from the house, and in general keeping everyone from interfering with Jak. “The others will have taken what they wish from the herds, leaving only what I wish needing to be taken.”
“But—the goats are in their pen, not here,” I protested, still understanding nothing of what was happening. “Who are all of these people, and where have they come from?”
“They are Ohlsuhns and Hwilkees and Bakuhs, all of whom were visiting with my clan, led here for a raid by my brothers,” he replied, sheathing his sword. “I would have come alone had it been necessary, even with no more than one good arm, but Sun and Wind sent a warrior force whose aid I was not so foolish as to refuse. And my desire is not for goats, Banni Akins. My desire is for you. I have come to claim you, and carry you back to my clan with me.”
“But—that would be running away,” I whispered, wishing with all my heart that I really could go with him. “If I run away, I won’t have beaten them.”
“Victory comes in many forms, girl,” Jak said gently as he put his hand to my face, not really having understood what I’d said but replying to it anyway. “Your victory will lie in finding a life with me, one far better than the one you currently live, and you cannot be said to be running away. I have come to carry you off, and no woman like yourself can resist such an effort from a savage.”
His grin made me giggle in a way I never had before, as the absurdity of what he’d said struck fully home. He stood no more than three or four fingers higher than I, only a small bit broader, and still was unable to use his left arm. Had he been in full health he might have found it possible to “carry me off,” but certainly not as he was.
“Girl, you must not let them take you!” Mr. Skeel shouted from where he lay on the floor, trembling back from the men who had knocked him down with their entrance. “You must kill yourself immediately rather than face such a shameful fate, else you will surely be punished with eternal damnation! Do you hear me?, Eternal damnation!”
“Yes, I hear you,” I answered with a full smile, then turned to Jak, took his hand, and eagerly followed him out. I was on my way to eternal damnation, and I could hardly wait.
The Swordsman’s Place
by John Steakley
JOHN STEAKLEY is that kind of larger-than-life personality that can only come from Texas. The author of Armor, he is currently working on a book for New American Library.
Cri had called to me through my dreams nine nights in a row.
I knew what it meant.
I was going back. . . .
1
Some time back something happened to my best buddy, Lanny Weaver, and me. It was the worst thing that could happen to two young bucks with more muscles than sense—we had our wishes granted.
Don’t talk to me about dimensions and different planes of reality and magic and all the rest of it, okay? I don’t know how it worked but somehow he and I were transported to a different . . . Place. A Place described in great detail in the Horseclans novels, our all-time favorite adventure stories.
We were young, understand, like I said. Young and romantic and stupid and convinced that the world— this entire rich and varied Earth—was boring. (I know, I know. I said we were young.) And we used to fantasize about living the Horseclans life, about how much more fun it would be to be swaggering around with our swords, etc., etc., and then . . .
Then we were there and it was just as we had read it was only more so. More beautiful, brighter, more hypnotic. And more bloodstained and more brutal and more piteously savage than any modern war. And if you wonder how I can say that, think of this: A war, even a modern mechanized genocide, ends eventually. In that Place, violence was not due primarily to war, but to life-style. Wanton, slogging anarchy.
You know, freedom.
We told some people there about our world and they were amazed and we told them we liked it there better and they were more amazed and said we were crazy and they were right. Soon, once the fighting started, we agreed with them.
We were awfully glad to be back. Further, we had no desire to return. None. Zero. Only . . . maybe I’d better start with the nightmares. I had a lot of ’em about that Place. But not about what had already happened. Mine were about being back there, being dragged back to the mud and misery.
There ,was absolutely no reason for these fears. I didn’t even understand how I’d gotten there in the first place, so why should I think I’d be forced to return? And Lanny didn’t have those nightmares, I knew, because in a drunken moment I’d confessed them to him and he’d told me so. For a time I did manage to convince myself that only I was having the dreams because I had hated the place, had feared the place, so much more.
Wrong.
I did hate it and I did fear being drawn back there to the stumbling peasants and poleaxe justice and chaotic swordplay. It was awful so often and mindless so much more, a terrible place, and as much as I had hated it and had feared it I had also, God help me, loved it. Not all of it. Not even most of it. But enough of it to tell you a lot about me.
I’m big for six feet and 210 pounds and I’m fast and strong as a bull and I can use a sword like you can a tennis racket and I have no excuse for deciding to learn so senselessly hostile a skill. But I did.
So maybe that’s why I feared going back. For loving just enough of it—for being the kind of man who could love it at all—that maybe, just maybe, I deserved no better.
So when Cri called out to me in my dreams, I knew what was coming.
Cri (from a family name) Palema was the biggest beauty I had ever seen. Long blond hair, glowing eyes, lustrous features of near-perfect skin, all packed into five feet five inches high and 250 pounds wide.
Fat, you say. Well, yes and no. I thought she was overweight—I like ’em skinny. But she didn’t. She knew just what she was doing. She liked her weight, liked the look and the feel of it, and she was by no means alone. How that gal could attract men! Her face and hair were wonderful, of course, but I think it was the way she moved and swirled or maybe it was just the way she had of caressing herself into an easy chair and smiling like the Cheshire Cat. It made a man think of those chubby naked cherubs from ancient wall murals advertising the Eternal Orgy in Paradise. There is something fundamentally carnal in the look of those women. Carnal and, somehow, pure.
Cri had that look. And, therefore, her pick of men.
She had been the only person Lanny and I had told about our experiences. About the Place. About Smada.
Trebor Smada was the main focus of our adventure. He conned us, stole from us (both money and women), outfought us, outthought us, and outdrank us and I never hated anybody so much in my life. Or, I guess, loved, too, and Cri seemed fascinated by our description of him, asking me over and over to try to recall the smallest detail of his appearance. Actually there weren’t many small details—Smada was a bigger-than-life type in most ways. But Cri seemed satisfied with what little I had to offer. And she certainly made the most of it. She was an artist in charcoals and one day I jumped about three feet when I saw a dead-on portrait of Smada in her studio.
At the time, of course, I just thought I’d described him so well. Live and learn.