Krozair of Kregen

Chapter Sixteen

I do not wish to dwell overlong on the Siege of Zandikar. From that day of the slaughter of the mercenaries in our trap it was a constant round of repelling assaults, of building walls, of keeping awake, of siting varters and catapults in advantageous positions, of keeping alert, of making the rounds, of maintaining morale, and of building walls and building more walls.

Twice more we caught the damned overlords of Magdag in the same trap. The second occasion was noteworthy, for we used a gateway, the gateway on the east of the city called the Gate of Happy Absolution. Instead of building a square of stone walls within the gate, we built a wedge shape, a triangle of death. One of the paktuns whom I felt I could trust repeated the exploit of his compatriot and betrayed us to Prince Glycas. He must have spoken eloquently for he returned with a bag of golden oars and news that all would go as planned.

So the shooting intensified around the Gate of Happy Absolution, and then as the return shots came in, slackened and died away. We began a great shout within the battlemented towers of the gate, shrieking for: “Shafts! Shafts! In the name of Zair bring up arrows!”

From a rearward tower I watched. This time Queen Miam stood to watch with me, and Vax hovered nearby. We saw the mailed chivalry of Magdag trampling up, proud in their power. They formed before the gate as infantry ran in with hide-covered rams and smashed in the gate. We had removed the good stout bars and replaced them with old beams that were artfully sawed and cut so as to break with a satisfyingly genuine rending of wood. The gates flew open. The siege-batterers leaped clear and, heads down, swords pointed, the overlords of Magdag charged in through the gateway. We repeated the previous two performances, and this time we drove our shafts with such an unholy joy that the hated overlords themselves felt each biting head.

After the second trap we had discovered the bodies of several Bowmen of Loh scattered on the rubble where they had been shot attempting to shoot in the attack. So I had a great Lohvian longbow to my hand. I could not stop myself from going down among the archers of Zandikar and showing them what a Lohvian longbow might do in the hands of a skilled archer.

The cruel walled funnel is a bitter trick. The riders rode boldly through and charged on, yelling, and so the farther they galloped the more compressed became their ranks. Confusion set in; they recoiled and men toppled from the high saddles; they shrieked now as the arrow storm sleeted upon them. The bow of Zandikar may be only puny compared to a longbow; but it could wreak havoc in these conditions where the shafts sped so thickly that the air appeared filled with their whispering death. Sectrixes screamed and thrashed their six hooves. Men fell, to be battered to death. The arrows never ceased their spiteful singing. A handful of mail-clad riders reached the far wall and I leaped up, placing the longbow down carefully first, and so went at them on a level with the Ghittawrer blade. It was all pulsing and high excitement for a space; we beat down those who had survived to reach the end of the funnel. They died unable to fall, so great was the crush. Men in the gate towers shot into the riders from above, and great stones fell upon them.

By the time we closed the doors and put the stout beams back and walled up the aperture, my men were stripping off the harnesses and mail, leading away those animals that had not died, carting off the corpses, collecting up the weapons. Details of archers with wicker baskets picked up all the shafts. The broken ones would go back to the factories, where women and girls would reshaft the old heads, fletch them with the feathers of the Zandikarese chiuli bird — a deep plum color, most pleasing.

“How long can they sustain such losses?” demanded Janri.

“As long as this genius king orders them to,” I said.

Thereafter we maintained a careful watch upon all the walls and beat back sudden attacks, and prepared for grand assaults, and listened for mining operations, and so caved in two tunnels upon the diggers beneath. The siege went on.

I said to the Queen’s Council in the High Hall of the Palace of Fragrant Incense, “I think Glycas will try an assault from the sea.”

Pur Naghan ti Perzefn, a Krozair of Zamu, leaped up, declaring, “Let me take the swifters and ram and sink them!”

He was given permission and took as well as our three swifters the four smaller swifters the Zandikarese navy had left of those they had begun the war with. On the day the expected attack developed the land operations demanded my attention. Pur Naghan reported in as the suns sank, smiling, blood-spattered, grim, and triumphant.

“We lost Zandikar Mortil and Pearl,” he said. “But we took four and sank three. It was most satisfactory.”

“Hai Jikai, Pur Naghan,” I said. “The queen will see you.”

Queen Miam, without much prompting from me, expressed her thanks to Naghan, and then said, “We feel it right in the Jikai that you should be known henceforth as Pur Nazhan. Do you agree?”

“I agree, Majestrix. I thank you.”

So Pur Naghan became Pur Nazhan. I was happy for him.

The siege went on.

All this time, for all the power I could exercise in the city, I did not forget that, in truth, I was in deep dire trouble in the areas of life that mattered to me. I might bellow orders and send mailed men scampering into action, whip my blade down and so order the release of five hundred deadly shafts from the bows of the Zandikarese archers, I might chivy and cajole and instruct a queen, I might be imperious with Pallans and Chuktars; all the time I remembered I was Apushniad, outlawed from the Krozairs, debarred from returning home to Valka and my Delia.

And, too, I had most certainly not lost sight of my business with King Genod — the genius at war, who had murdered my daughter Velia — and with Gafard, the King’s Striker, the Sea Zhantil, Velia’s lawful husband.

We knew these two were not with the army of Prince Glycas, and we surmised they were with the Grodnim army of the west, pressing on along the coast, and no doubt thinking about encircling Zimuzz, if they had not already taken that great city. Genod’s plans had worked so far, for he had enclosed various centers of resistance as in a nutcracker. We could afford no assistance to Zimuzz. They could not aid us. Zamu, the next great fortress-city to the east, would be the next to fall, and then it would be Sanurkazz

— Holy Sanurkazz.

Pur Naghan — or, as he now was, Pur Nazhan — had scored a notable victory and as a result four of the Ten Dikars were open again. This was small consolation to us, penned in Zandikar, for we knew there were no forces at sea waiting to come to our relief. We were wrong in our suppositions, and the correction of our misapprehension came one dark night before She of the Veils rose to flood down in fuzzy pink moonlight. I had just completed one of my eternal circuits of the walls and had thrown myself down in the small room of the palace I used for sleeping when I could. Duhrra snored noisily in the corner. Roko, Roz Janri’s dwarf and chief chamberlain, bustled in flat-footed with a girl bearing a torch. He shook me awake.

“A messenger, Dak — a Krozair of Zy! Just come in.” Rubbing the sleep from my eyes and girding on my weapons, I followed Roko to the High Hall. I let Duhrra slumber on. The hall held a narrow cold look and a feeling of meanness in the night as I entered. Numbers of the high officials of Zandikar waited whispering together. The queen arrived shortly afterward and seated herself on the throne, with her handmaidens and guards about her. She had not yet adopted any throne step pets; I’d had experience of neemus and Manhounds and chavonths; I wondered what she might choose when she understood more of her power. Her small elfin face looked sleep-drugged, as did all our faces, for the sake of Zair; but we knew what we were about.

I was prepared for the newly arrived Krozair of Zy to take one look at me and to whip out his sword and bellow, “Pur Dray! The Lord of Strombor! Apushniad!”

But he did not. I did not know him. He looked a proper Krozair, well-built, erect, clear-eyed, with the fierce upthrusting moustaches of a Zairian. We ex-oar-slaves had grown most of our hair back by now, although still somewhat straggly. I looked at the coruscating device on his white surcoat, that hubless spoked wheel within the circle, and I own I felt an ache. He was all business.

“The Grodnims take all along the southern coast to the west. Zy still holds. We have been bypassed. Zimuzz is about to fall. The king is there, may Zair torture him eternally.”

I stood half in the shadows at the foot of the throne steps and I did not speak. Roz Janri stood at the side of the throne, a tall and dignified figure, and he it was who said, “You are welcome here, Pur Trazhan. Have you no good news for us in our darkness?”

This Pur Trazhan smiled. “Yes, Roz Janri. I am bid to tell you that the city of Zandikar must not fall. You must hold. An army is on the way. It is a strange army, for it is composed of men who do not swear by Zair, and who fly in the air in metal boats.”

There was a quick buzz of surprised comment and conjecture at this startling news. I felt a glow all over my limbs. But — of course! — it was Vax who started forward, eagerly, calling excitedly above the hubbub.

“This army of men who fly in the air, Pur Trazhan! Are they of Vallia?”

“Yes, they are.” Trazhan was clearly not quite sure what to call Vax or how to address him.

“Then, by Vox!” exclaimed Vax. “It is Prince Drak and the army of Vallia, with fliers! It must be!”

“That is so,” said Trazhan. “It is Pur Drak, a great and renowned Krozair of Zy, who leads them. Long have we awaited their coming, since the Call went out. And now Pur Drak has answered the Azhurad, as he promised he would when he was given permission to go to his home country, wherever that may be.”

So that explained what Drak had been up to. My eldest son had answered the Call in a typically Prescot way. He’d sought help from his own. I learned that he had brought vollers by sea from Vallia, vollers loaned by his grandfather, the emperor of Vallia. They had sailed all the way in those marvelous race-built galleons of Vallia. I knew why they’d sailed and not flown. The same reason had prompted Rees and Chido to sail and not fly. And, it also meant that the emperor, the tightfisted old devil, had not spared first-quality vollers. He’d let his grandson have those fliers bought from Hamal and therefore suspect, not safe for long aerial journeys. I did not blame Drak for sailing. This way, he brought all his men and fliers into the Eye of the World instead of leaving them stranded all the way across the Sunset Sea, the Klackadrin, the Hostile Territories and The Stratemsk. Soon, he would be here and we would be relieved!

“I have heard of Pur Drak,” said Roz Janri. A frown crossed his face. “He is the son of Pur Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, once the most renowned Krozair upon the Eye of the World. But that was long ago. Now this Pur Dray is Apushniad. It is common knowledge.”

Vax did not say a word.

“Certainly Pur Drak is the son of this accursed Dray Prescot,” said Trazhan. “But Pur Drak is an honorable man. He is well worthy of the trust of the Krozairs of Zy and the respect of ordinary men.”

That was a clear and chilling reminder that Krozairs were not as ordinary men. Nor are they, by Zair!

Vax did not step forward, and his voice was almost steady, as he said, “And his brother, Pur Zeg?”

“At sea, upholding the glory of Zair for the Brotherhood.”

“Do these two brothers speak of their father?”

I heard a noise and saw that Duhrra had rolled into the High Hall, yawning. He gazed around sleepily, puffy faced.

“They say of him that what has been ordained is just.” Trazhan peered into the shadows at Vax. “Why do you ask?”

Before Vax could answer, I said, “Do these brothers hate their father as much as this young man Vax hates his?”

I own I wanted to stir it a bit, feeling vicious; but at the same time I wanted to know the answer to my question.

Trazhan put his left fist onto his sword-hilt. “Who can say? They do not speak of him to others. He is Apushniad and therefore less than nothing. Now I would like to rest, and-”

“You are, Pur Trazhan,” I said, trying not to sound too cold, “I trust, empowered to stay and fight with us?”

“Well-” he began.

I admit, with only a little shame, that I wanted to hit out. I owed the Krozairs nothing at this time. One of their number was fair game. They had done what they had done to me, and I was going to prove them wrong; but right now I would make this high and mighty Krzy wriggle a trifle. “After all, Pur Trazhan, you have admitted that Zy is not attacked, therefore your duty cannot lie there. Zimuzz is about to fall, and so to go there is useless. Here in Zandikar we successfully resist the cramphs of Grodnims and will never surrender. I would have thought a man’s duties lay here. Particularly if he happened to be a Krozair of Zy.”

He took a half-step, and paused, and peered belligerently into the shadows.

“Who are you, who speaks thus to a Krozair?”

“I am Dak.”

“Dak,” he said. “I think the name is familiar-”

“Oh, there may not be as many Daks as there are Naths and Naghans and Nalgres; but there are a lot of us.” I shot the last words at him like crossbow bolts. “Are you staying or not?”

He swung his head at me, and then looked at Miam.

“Who is this man?”

Before she could speak I took a pace or two forward and planted myself in front of him. I glared at him evilly.

“You may be a Krozair of Zy. But you address the queen of Zandikar in a proper and respectful fashion, or, by Zair, I’ll pull your damned tongue out!”

He wanted to start on me, then and there, but I would have none of it, not with poor Miam looking on distressed, and I backed away and bellowed for everyone to calm down. I finished, “And this great and famous Krozair, this Pur Trazhan, will be happy to stay with us and fight for Zandikar. He will honor his oaths. And, anyway,” I ended with gruesome levity, “we have ample mergem to feed him and his crew.”

After the fuss Trazhan agreed to stay and fight. Of course, poor devil, he could do nothing else. Mind you, I was not altogether happy about his performance. No Krozair I had known, for all we put no great store by kings and queens, would have flung up so brusque a question to a young queen like that. To some fabled Queen of Pain, perhaps. . Maybe standards were lowered in the Krozairs and they were being forced to let in a rabble. I own I can be most arrogant when it comes to those people and institutions in which I put value. But I had, at this time, still to remember I was an outcast, Apushniad. Just before we all left about our business, Queen Miam lifted her hand and we fell silent. She said something that was unnecessary and yet, at the same time, it made me feel warm to her. I figured Zeg would be a lucky fellow.

“This man Dak,” said Queen Miam, “is the heart and soul of the defense of Zandikar.”

While it was not true — well, not altogether — it had a pretty ring. I bowed to her, and from somewhere deep in the bowels of Cottmer’s Caverns, I shouldn’t wonder, I scraped up a smile for her. She smiled back, so I fancy my face indicated some grotesque caricature of a smile.

“We shall hold Zandikar, Queen Miam,” I said.

“I wish to talk to you privately for a crooked mur, Dak.”

By “a crooked mur” Kregans mean a minute or two. We went into the small luxurious room behind the throne where she might doff the heavy robes of state and the crown and mortil-headed staff. When she was clad again in her own simple white gown she shooed out her handmaidens and turned to me, one hand to her breast.

“I wanted to ask you, dear Dak, of your goodness, not to mention that you know Prince Zeg, Pur Zeg, to be Vax’s brother. It is a thing he would not wish known.”

“Why does he not ask me himself?”

“I rather think he does not realize what he has let slip to you as to me. If it is known. . Is this Dray Prescot, then, so terrible a beast?”

I looked at her in the lamplight. She was beautiful. I felt for Zeg, not envying him, but feeling happy for him.

“I think most young men take against their fathers at some time in their lives. When they mature they come to a better understanding — if their fathers are worthy, of course.”

“You do not answer my question.”

“No, Miam, I do not. I do not know. I have heard stories. I think it probable he was unjustly stricken from the Order of Krozairs of Zy. To be made Apushniad is a horrible fate.”

“Oh, yes!”

“He will be your father-in-law. I think you would make any man see reason.”

We passed a few more words, then she said, “And you will remember about Vax and his father?” and I said, “I will,” and we parted.

The name of Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, once Krozair of Zy, could arouse as passionate a response here in Zairia as it inevitably could in Green Grodnim. I had heard more than one old soldier curse and spit and say he wished to Zair that Pur Dray was not Apushniad and could be in the forefront of the battle with his comrades in his accustomed place in the struggle against the rasts of Magdaggians. I was there, although they did not know it. But I wanted the Krozairs to reinstate me, not so that I might fight on for Zair, but so that I might go home to Delia.

A few days after that, as the siege dragged on, Prince Glycas tried a new trick. He must have had the beasts landed from animal-carrying broad ships and driven them up to the walls of the city. The shouts rose as the lookouts bellowed the warning in a misty dawn light. By the time I was up onto my favorite tower, midway along the inland wall, with a fine varter to hand, I could see the mists coiling and rising, emerald and ruby in the mingled streaming light of Antares, see the huge rounded backs of the turiloths as they waddled ponderously on, see the crowding warriors following these mammoth beasts.

“Turiloths! Turiloths!” the cries racketed about.

Archers began to shoot. Their shafts simply bounced off the hard gray upper hide. The turiloth’s hide altered in color to a dark bottle-green along the sides and a grayish streak ran along the belly. Sixteen legs has a turiloth, with six tusks and a tendrilous mass of whiplash tails, a veritable forest of Kataki tails at his rear. He has an enormous underslung mouth equipped with suitable fangery, and he is keen scented and he has three hearts. If this description sounds familiar, I assure you it is; the turiloth of Turismond is very similar to the boloth of Chem. I had fought a boloth on a notable occasion in the arena. Now we had twenty of these gigantic beasts plodding along to smash down the gates of Zandikar and let the swarm of warriors in to an orgy of destruction.

A paktun near me screamed, “All is lost! We are doomed! Doomed!” He scrambled madly down the tower, running away. The panic spread.