In less than a bur I would be on duty again, and just before Duhrra and I went to dress into our mail and greens, a fresh interest cropped up in the army. Two swifters came in bringing with them a captured Zairian swifter.
We all trooped down to the beach to look and jeer and shout mocking obscene threats as the Zairian prisoners were marched ashore in chains.
The two swifters were from Gansk, a powerful Grodnim fortress city of the northern coast opposite Zy itself. The Zairian was from Zandikar, a fortress city up the coast to the northwest from Zamu. So, of course, the Ganskian sailors and marines were cock-a-hoop over their victory and very mouthy about it to the men of Magdag.
Duhrra spat. "Zandikar," he said. "I’ve been there myself! I fought a bout there and won two zo pieces. I think they fought well before they were beaten."
The sight of those chained men displeased me. Zandikar, the city of Ten Dikars, was nowhere near as powerful or wealthy a city-state as her next-door neighbor, Zamu; but her small fleet was considered smart and effective and she had a reputation for her archers and her gregarian groves. There was no order of Krozairs associated with Zandikar, not even a Red Brotherhood, but she was of the Red and of Zair, and an ally.
The two Gansk swifters were six-five hundred-and-twenty swifters. The Zandikarean was a five-three hundred swifter.
There must have been great slaughter, for far less than a full swifter’s crew trudged ashore. As for the oar-slaves, they were sorted out, Green and Red, and sent the one to recuperate and rejoin their fellows, the other to further slavery on the oar-benches of Grodnim swifters.
After this excitement Duhrra and I had to be quick about dressing and reporting in for duty. There were more messages on this afternoon than there had been for the entire previous three days. The king had stirred things up, although I had no feeling that Gafard had been dragging his heels. Strong scouting forces had already probed east and west, and weaker patrols had gone south to check out if the Zairians had yet returned to the villages of Inzidia, which had been evacuated earlier when the Grodnims had advanced. I knew that the scouts going east would have to halt long before they reached Pynzalo, for the base camp at which I had met Duhrra, and where he had lost his hand, lay in their way. From the nature of the messages I carried it was perfectly clear that the king endorsed Gafard’s view that a strike to the east, the quick capture of Pynzalo, a consolidation on that strong line, and then a chavonth-like spring to the west represented the best strategy. They both agreed with my views, then. . As the suns were dipping into the sea to the west with the nearest of the confused mass of islands known as the Seeds of Zantristar — the damned Grodnims called them the Seeds of Ganfowang — black bars against the burning glow of sea and sky, it chanced that Gafard called me into the inner compartment of his campaign tent. I went in and saluted and noticed he looked keyed up. He paced about, as he spoke, over the priceless carpet, well pleased over some matter.
The imposing many-peaked tent provided for his lady had been taken down long before the king arrived, and the tent, the lady, her retinue, and a strong guard of Pachaks had left the camp, no man would say where. I had seen the king’s Crebent wandering about looking exceedingly bilious. He was one Grodnim among many we could do without.
"Such news, Gadak!" Gafard greeted me. "We are on the move. The king approves — but these are matters not fit for the ears of a mere aide. Look-" He gestured to a side table. "Help yourself to a drink. It is all Grodnim stuff."
I refused politely. He’d had to stock Grodnim wine when the king came here.
"The King also brought me an item of information interesting to him; an item of supreme importance to me!" He was expansive; I had never seen him more febrile, alert, restless, pacing about, a flush beneath his mahogany suntan giving him even more of that voracious carved beakhead look I know so well from the mirror.
"Yes, gernu?"
"You asked me once if it was sure the great Krozair, Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor, was surely dead. And I answered it was sure. Well, Gadak-" Here, he stopped pacing and turned and glared at me with a look of unholy triumph. "There is news, sure news! The king’s spies brought it; it cannot be doubted. Pur Dray has reappeared in the inner sea from — from where no man knows. He is still alive!"
"You honor me with your confidence-" I began. He brushed that aside.
"It is no confidence. The news will soon circulate. The greater the news the faster it travels. But, Gadak, there is more. . Pur Dray has been ejected from the Krozairs of Zy! He is Apushniad!" Gafard shook his head in bewilderment. "I cannot understand how they can be such fools, such stupid idiot onkers; but the fact remains."
"Then if he is Apushniad," I said, speaking slowly, sizing him up, "you think, perhaps-?"
"Aye, I do! There is a certain matter between us. I must meet him. Now that I know he is alive and not dead I am overjoyed!"
How badly he wanted to overmatch the old reputation of that Krozair of Zy who was dead and was now alive!
I said, "You would seek to come to hand-strokes with him, to slay him, to prove yourself a greater Ghittawrer than he is a Krozair?"
He looked at me as though I were a mewling infant, or a crazy man screaming at the lesser moons to halt in their tracks. He opened his mouth, but the tent drapings ripped up and Grogor, his second in command, appeared, throwing a quick salute, butting in, interrupting: "Gernu! The king! He calls for you
— at once, gernu!"
Gafard’s mouth snapped shut. He whipped up his green cloak and threw it over his shoulders. His longsword clanked once as he strode past me. He said, "Get about your duties, Gadak. Serve me well and you will be rewarded."
"Your orders, my commands, gernu!" I bellowed blankly.
That small incident had shown me in more revealing drama the situation between these two, between King Genod and Gafard, the King’s Striker. For all the talk of brain and hand, of genius and executive, still when the king whistled Gafard ran. Gafard was tough and strong and ruthless and high-handed and all the things a man needed to be to survive upon Kregen and attain a position of comfort — quite apart from power and wealth — and his authority within the army was unquestioned. Still, King Genod whistled and Gafard ran.
Then I checked. Did I not run when Gafard whistled?
The answer to that question should be satisfactorily answered this very night. After the suns had gone down and the Maiden with the Many Smiles began to climb the heavens, I found Duhrra thinking about wandering down to the infantry lines after more dopa, and told him what I was going to do.
His broad idiot face broke into one huge grin. "About time, master! Huh — I’m with you, by Zantristar the Merciful!"
I said, "We will take both the flying boats, for that will be easier. The little one will rest on the big one’s deck."
We gathered up all our fighting gear we would ordinarily use on duty and left our sleeping silks and spare clothing scattered about as though we had just left casually. I wanted to leave a bolthole in case the damned voller was not a first-class example and played up. That is a thing anyone of foresight would do, even though I did not expect to see this place again for a long time. The Maiden with the Many Smiles, Kregen’s largest moon, gave more light than we needed for a desperate enterprise of this nature. But I would not wait. The king might leave on the morrow after his inspection. And my impatience had now boiled over. Rashness and recklessness — they are a mark of my own stupidity, I own.
Acting perfectly normally we walked through the moon-drenched shadows to the edge of the bluffs overlooking the beach. In one of the curved beach hollows fenced on its seaward side the Zairian prisoners had been lodged. They would be chained and the chains stapled to stakes driven deeply into the sand. Here lay one chance; the sand would give more easily than earth. I had brought a length of iron filched from the engineers’ stores, just in case. As it turned out we were lucky here. One of the Rapa guards, who toppled over after Duhrra hit him on top of his crested head, carried keys on a large bronze ring. Cautioning silence, we went among the prisoners, releasing them. They gathered about me in the pink and golden shadows, breathing hard, hardly believing.