Krozair of Kregen

Chapter Twenty

“Die, Dray Prescot, die!”

The glittering throwing knife hurtled from the fingers of the king straight at my face. And, in that selfsame instant, as though time shuttered through a macabre repetition, I caught a single flashing glimpse over the side of the voller of a gorgeous scarlet and golden bird of prey in full diving vicious attack upon a shining white dove.

The two scenes merged and melded in my eyes and became one.

The golden and scarlet raptor of the Star Lords, their spy and messenger, striking with black-taloned claws at the white dove of the Savanti, and the glittering terchick, the Kregan throwing knife, hurled full at my face, were one and the same. I saw the Savanti dove hesitate and swerve and the lancing blow of scarlet and gold shriek past. The Genodder in my fist sprang up and twitched in the old cunning Disciplines and the terchick rang like a gong-note of despair, clanging against the blade and springing in a gleaming curve away into the vast reaches of the sky. The king’s mouth slobbered wetly and he began to claw out his Ghittawrer longsword.

“He is a Krozair, Majister,” said Gafard, staring at me with hunger and despair.

“You call this object ‘Majister,’ Gafard. Yet he stole my daughter away from you, and now she is dead. You are a man. I know that. You prated on about the Lord of Strombor, and you emulated my deeds and sought my renown. I would surrender all those deeds and give all that renown if my Velia were back with me, alive!”

He pushed himself up. He had stopped shaking. “I, too, Pur Dray, would give everything I own, everything I am-”

“The girl was a fool, a shishi!” shrieked Genod. “I am the king. It is my right to take-”

“Your rights will be allowed you when you are judged. For I take you back to Zandikar. There you will be judged for murder.”

“Murder?” Gafard’s jaw muscles ridged. He stared at me. His eyes held a look no man should suffer -

a look I had borne as I cradled my Velia in my arms and watched her die.

“Aye, Gafard — murder. This kleesh’s fluttrell was wounded by Grogor’s shot. The bird was falling. Velia was callously thrown off by this kleesh to save himself.”

“It is a lie!” Genod staggered up, distraught, panting, whooping great gulps of air. He had drawn his Ghittawrer blade with the tawdry emblem of his Green Brotherhood upon it. “A lie!”

“I never heard the Lord of Strombor was a Krozair who lied.”

“I speak the truth, Gafard. This kleesh whom you worship threw my daughter down to her death -

threw down your wife!”

Once the first stone is dislodged in a wall or a dam the final pressure mounts swiftly and more swiftly to the point of breaking and utter collapse. This Gafard — the King’s Striker, Sea Zhantil, my son-in-law -

had revered the genius king Genod, the king with the yrium, had worshiped my daughter Velia, and had envied my reputation upon the Eye of the World and had attempted to emulate me. Zair knows, the poor hulu was a tormented man. Struck and buffeted by passions and beliefs, by desires and duties, he had been caught in a mind-shattering trap. Renegade, loyal Grodnim of Magdag, once a loyal Zairian, he now faced the final collapse of everything in his life. He had been tortured in his ib by beliefs and truths beyond the breaking of a mortal man. Even as King Genod, foaming, berserk, launched himself forward with the Ghittawrer blade lifting, so Gafard bellowed and flung himself at the king.

“King Genod!”

“Stand aside, Gafard, you rast, while I cut down this devil.”

“Genod — murderer!” Gafard’s howl pricked the nape of the neck. “I have served you faithfully. I revered you past reason. You repay me by murdering my Velia, the only woman in the world-”

“Lies! Lies!”

They stood for perhaps a half dozen heartbeats, their chests laboring to draw breath as they shouted, their faces demoniac with convulsive rage and revelation.

Then Genod lunged viciously forward, shrieking he would slay us both, and Gafard, with a snarl like a wild beast dragged heels first from its lair into the hostile world, leaped on the king, one hand to his throat, the other around his waist. So they struggled, bodies locked, animated with hatred and passion. The rest of their contorted yells were lost as they struggled. The Ghittawrer blade slashed down and Gafard ignored it and forced the king back. I jumped forward to separate them, for I wanted to take Genod for trial — I truly believe I wished this — and the struggle carried them raving to the coaming of the voller.

Without a pause in their struggle one with the other they toppled over the coaming and pitched out over the side of the voller. I put my hand on the coaming and looked down. Over and over they toppled, falling through the thin air as my Velia had fallen. They still fought as they fell. I did not turn away with a shudder. I watched them as they dwindled and fell away and so I remained, graven, watching as the king and Gafard, the King’s Striker, smashed to red jelly in the central square of Zandikar.

The single thought burning in my brain as I brought the voller to land was that Grogor must not be slain in the coming battle, for Grogor would know where Didi, the daughter of Gafard and Velia, was kept hidden. Somewhere in Magdag or on one of Gafard’s estates; yes, Grogor would take me to my granddaughter.

The kyro filled with a rushing clamor as the people and the soldiers ran. Life, which had for a moment turned aside, now resumed the reins. Gafard was dead. There would be a proper time to mourn. I did not forget that apocalyptic vision of the Gdoinye, the spy of the Star Lords, and its deliberate attack on the white dove of the Savanti. I knew, with that special doom I feel is laid upon me, that the toils of supernatural manipulations had been only temporarily evaded.

The consternation and then the bemused wonder and then the joyful acclamations seized all Zandikar. Everyone understood what the death of this vile king Genod would mean. I had to quiet the uproar, raising my hands, bellowing to make them listen.

“Prince Glycas is not dead. That cramph will lead now. We must still fight!”

“Aye!” they bellowed. And then I heard the name the people of Zandikar shouted, the name they screeched in their determination to resist to the end. “Aye, Zadak! We will fight and never surrender! We fight for Zadak and Zandikar!”

In the hullabaloo I found Queen Miam. Zeg stood at her side and they were both removed from common cares, entranced with each other — as was very proper in ordinary times; but of little use to us here in the siege. Others crowded around.

“Who is this Zadak, Miam? I would care to meet him.”

She laughed — Miam’s laugh was always a wonder. “I think I should like that, also.” She clung on to Zeg’s arm. He looked down on her with that look — well, we all know about that. She beckoned to me.

“I introduce you with the full pappattu to Zadak. For the Dak that was is the Zadak of Zandikar. Do you agree?”

I repeated the formula. “I agree, Queen Miam. I thank you.”

Then they all began cheering. Well, the famous old “Z” had been added to my name, and that was all very well and fine; but the battle remained to be won. The feeling was a strange one. As I seldom had used King Zo’s gift of the title of Sea Zhantil, so I seldom used Zadray. I would always think of the Sea Zhantil as being Gafard. He had earned the title. I said to Zeg and Vax, harshly, coldly, “Come with me.”

Zeg was too mazed with love to bristle, and Vax knew me by now. They followed me, these two hulking sons of mine, and we strode through the people to the cleared area where the king of Magdag and his favorite lay in the dust.

They had fought bitterly until the end. Genod had landed first. Gafard was not, therefore, so badly crushed. The fingers of the King’s Striker were still tightly wrapped around the throat of the king. He had choked the kleesh. I just hoped Genod had not been dead before he hit. I turned them over and freed the gripping fingers. Blood ran everywhere. I pulled Gafard over onto his back. He flopped.

“Look on this man’s face, Vax. Look well.” I spoke with a savage bitterness that chilled Vax. “Look on this man’s face, Zeg. Look well. Remember him. Remember him.”

Zeg started to say something, a farrago about my calling him Pur Zeg and being respectful to a Krozair Brother.

“Look, Zeg, on this man’s face. Make sure you remember every line of it.” I bent down and brushed my fingers and thumb over the black moustaches. I forced them away from their silly downturned Magdaggian shape and brushed them up into the old arrogant Zairian fashion. “Look on this man Gafard. There are those to whom you will be asked to speak of Gafard. Do not forget him.”

I stalked away and Zeg caught my shoulder and said, harshly, “You may be called Zadak of Zandikar now, Dak the Insolent. But I shall not tolerate your insolence! Either you-”

I swung about and shook his hand free. I glared at him. He did not flinch back — for which I was pleased — but he stopped talking. “Do not say it, Pur Zeg, Krozair of Zy, jernu, Prince. Do not say what you will regret.”

What might have happened then, Zair knows; a shrilling shout racketed from the walls and so we all knew the last fight had begun.

There were things to be done. I said to Vax, “Prince Zeg will take care of the queen now. We have one vol — flying boat. Will you take her, with fighting-men, and do what you can?”

Before Vax could answer and so show me up for the onker I was, Duhrra boomed his idiotic bellow.

“Duh — Dak! Vax flew the flying boat when we had to leave you on the beach. I’m going with him. It is all arranged.”

I did not smile. “So be it.” I glared at my son. “And may Zair and this Opaz you speak of go with you.”

Everyone ran to take up their appointed stations. Everyone felt convinced this was the last fight. We watched as the vollers rose from the camp of the Grodnims. They soared up and formed ready to sweep over the walls of Zandikar. We all let out huge shouts of joy when two fliers collided. And we all shouted with joy again when two more suddenly dropped down to crash onto the ground. No one here — apart from myself and my two sons — could understand why the airboats should fall and crash.

“Glycas is out for all the glory himself. Well, we will give him a bellyful before the day is done.”

We all knew the city was doomed, for we had nothing with which to counteract the fliers. In that moment as the vollers, all flying their green swifter pennons and standards, soared up to destroy us, a fresh series of shouts broke out from the seaward walls. I looked back — and up. Queen Miam put a hand on Zeg’s arm, and swayed. Zeg held her. Roz Janri and Pallan Zavarin exclaimed in joy. Up there, sweeping in over the city, flew vollers. And each flier bore the red flags of Zair.

“It is my brother, Prince Drak!” roared Zeg. “It must be! By Zair! He cuts his time fine!”

I was busily counting the vollers sweeping in so grandly with their red banners flying. Fifty! Fifty against over ninety. The plans must change. I bellowed out the orders. Sniz blew his guts out. Messengers galloped. We would hold the walls as we had done for so long. With vollers to fight vollers we had a chance.

As the main bulk of the Zairian aerial armada sailed on over the city to engage the oncoming Green fleet, the lead ship curved through the sky. We waved a multitude of red flags from our tower atop the Palace of Fragrant Incense, and Drak brought his flagship down in a courtyard below. We all met in the High Hall, halfway between up and down, and the greetings! The roarings! The back-thumpings! I stood in the shadows, and I looked at my eldest son.

Drak had been fourteen when I’d been ejected from Kregen and thrust back to Earth. Now he was a big, tough mature man, grown into Kregan manhood. The marks of power were on him, and yet I judged

— I hoped, by Vox! — that he had not forgotten the lessons drummed into him by Delia and me, lessons designed to prevent the disease of uncontrollable power from corrupting him. I had the gloomiest of forebodings that for Zeg power had already done its not-so-insidious work. The two brothers embraced each other with genuine warmth, and Zeg said, swiftly, that Jaidur was here and aloft, at which Drak said that, by Vox, that was where he should be, but he had alighted to learn our plans. So he was not altogether a headlong fool, then.

“And where is Zadak that he may come forward!” said Miam, who was known to Drak and who kissed him with sisterly affection.

It was no use shilly-shallying anymore in the shadows of the High Hall. I stamped a scowl over my ugly old face and stepped forward. If Drak recognized me that would not make any difference to the battle. I planted myself down, and I growled out, “Llahal, Prince Drak, Krozair. If you hold the zigging Grodnim flying boats in check, we will hold the walls.”

Drak looked at me, taken aback. Then his eyebrows lifted by a hairbreadth and a shadow passed over his face. I glared at him malignantly.

“The queen has told me of you, Zadak. I give you Lahal. I am outnumbered two to one. But we will hold the Grodnims until not one of us flies.”

He spoke up in a grave way, as a man with the cares of high office speaks. I liked the set of his head on his shoulders, the way he held himself. If Vax was still a young tearaway and Zeg a haughty and imperious killer, Drak was a darkly powerful man of affairs, versed in the ways of Kregen; a true prince of Vallia.

What a situation! I stood with my three sons, and could not acknowledge them, could not stride forward and clasp them in my arms. I suppose something more demoniacal than mere malignity showed on my face. I half turned away and shouted, “The prince has spoken! We resist to the end!”

“Hai!” came the answering shouts. “Hai, Jikai!”

“You-” said my son Drak. “We have never met, I know, and yet, something in you — it is odd.” On that darkly handsome face of his, in which the beauty of his mother had somehow not been altogether overlaid by my own ugly features, although he was not as handsome as Vax, and not as brilliant in appearance as Zeg, a small, puzzled smile flitted. “It is a long time ago, now, and I grieve for that. But, by Vox, you remind me of my father.”

“And do you hate your father, as your brothers do?”

“Of course he does!” Zeg said sharply. “For we have been cruelly treated. Apushniad! Let us get to work.”

“Hatred?” said Drak. “Sometimes I think — but, this is a private affair, of the family and of honor. I give you respect for your defense of Zandikar, Zadak. But this is not a matter to discuss in public.”

“I agree. Before you go aloft, I beg a favor. Go down with me to the central square. There is a man I would wish you to see before he is dumped in an unmarked grave.”

The last was not strictly true. I’d see that a marker was set up — if I lived. So Drak, too, stared down on the dead face of his brother-in-law. I spoke to him as I had to Zeg and Vax. He understood I wanted to boast of my prowess, and he frowned, and I did not disabuse him. He soared aloft to join his little fleet as the two aerial armadas clashed.

The fight that followed bellowed and clanged away in grisly style. We faced great odds. One enormous advantage we had, for the men of Vallia and Valka flying our vollers were trained men, many of them of the Vallian Air Service, and their experience in the air served them well in the fight against twice their number. Even then I saw a couple of Vallian vollers flutter to the ground, victims of the inferior workmanship with which Hamal cursed all the fliers she sold abroad. The tactics of Glycas were simple. While some fliers attempted to get through and land parties of men inside the city, others settled just inside the walls and made determined onslaughts on the gates to open them to the waiting army. These we attacked with grim and savage ferocity, knowing that the opening of one gate would finish us. We fought desperately. But I saw, as I was staggering back from a charge that had destroyed the men from four fliers but had withered our own men away, that we were losing. More and more fliers settled inside and the green banners waved thickly in clumps, here and there. At any moment now a gate would go down and the damned Grodnims would be in.

“I think.” said Zeg as he wiped his dripping blade, “they have us now.”

“Do not speak like that, Zeg!”

He glared at me, his eyes over bright, his mouth ugly.

“You and I will settle this, if we live. You deserve to be jikaidered for your foulmouthed insolence. Ha!

My brother Drak was right when he compared you with our father! He must be just such a braggart as you.”

If that was not fair I had no time to care as once again we went hammer and tongs into a pack of Fristles running, screeching, from a newly landed flier. Our varters shot-in our attack and we routed them. The Zandikarese archers proved their worth on this day, and my Lohvian longbow sang sweetly whenever a target looked likely. But, all the same, we could last little longer. A particularly fierce attack developed against that nodal central gate of the landward wall. Outside, waiting, the Magdaggian army stood at ease, drawn up in formation, ready to burst in. Over our heads the vollers circled and clashed and men and fliers fell from the sky. Many a green flag smashed into the dust and many a red flag followed. Our strength was being whittled away, and yet even as our fliers dwindled in numbers so did the Grodnim vollers shrink. There remained the force ready to launch itself at the central gate, and here we positioned ourselves to withstand the assault that might end all.

“If only our mean old devil of a grandfather had spared Drak good vollers!” said Zeg, with a vicious burst of anger. “He has them, for our cramph of a father took them in the Battle of Jholaix.”

“We must fight with what we have, lad.” I made up my mind. “If the city does fall, you must take a voller and Miam and escape.”

He roared at me then, as a Valkan prince might roar. I bellowed over his furious protests. “Do you want to see what will happen to Miam? Are you that callous and hardhearted — and stupid?”

“And the warriors and the people, you rast! Do I leave them?”

“If they cannot escape, at least you and Miam-”

He turned away from me, unable to answer so base a suggestion as it should be answered, with a blow or the sword, for through all his Zairian fervor he recognized this Zadak was useful to Zandikar in a fight. He did say, bitterly, “But you will escape?”

I did not answer. Sniz was there, a bloody bandage around his head. “Blow, Sniz! Blow as you have never blown before.”

Everything depended on this gate. Glycas had ceased to throw his fliers haphazardly into the city, where we waited for them and shot his soldiers up as they disembarked. Now he put everything into this last attack. The vollers descended and we could see their brave green banners, the fierce glint of weapons, and hear the ferocious shrilling war chants. “Magdag! Grodno!”

“Zair!” we yelled, and our archers shot. “Zair! Zandikar!”

The Green vollers descended in clouds, like flies onto a carcass. The wall, the gate-towers, the courtyards, filled with battling men. We heard the shrill yelping of men and trumpets from outside. With a crash that tore at our heartstrings we saw the gate burst in with a smother of flying chips of wood. The gate burst and went down and hordes of Green mailed warriors broke through, yelling in triumph.

“Now is the end!” bellowed Zeg and he leaped forward, swirling his Krozair longsword above his head, resplendent, shining in mail and blood, smashing a bloody trail through the Greens. I used the Lohvian longbow and preserved his life, as Seg had done for me in the long-ago. Other red banners pressed in from the side and for a space, a tiny space, we held them. But we could not hold the pressure. We sagged back. We sagged and stumbled back, and wounded men fell and dead men were crushed and it seemed that this final moment was the end.

We saw the ranks of Green draw back a space and knew they summoned up their energies for the last smashing attack. Duhrra stood at my side, splashed with blood, fearsome in his might. Vax was with him. Their flier had been smashed and they had lived so that they might die here, at the gate of Zandikar. Drak was there, calm and powerful, darkly dominant, giving orders that tightened up a flank. Our exhausted men ran to do his bidding. So, for that tiny space, we stood there, Drak, Zeg, and Jaidur — for that was Vax’s name. We stood there, three sons who did not know their hated father stood with them in the final hour, and I, that same father who had so failed his sons.

I saw the green-clad ranks forming for the next charge, saw them sorting themselves out after the skirling charge that had driven them through the gate. Now they formed the phalanx, that phalanx I had created in the warrens of Magdag. I saw the pikes all slanting forward, the halberdiers and swordsmen in the front ranks. The sextets of crossbowmen took up their positions in flank. This was a mighty force, this killing instrument of war. It would roll over us, as we smashed with our swords, roll over us and obliterate us. Theory might say otherwise; but I had trained well and I knew Genod’s father had carried on that training, and King Genod, who was now dead, the rast, had profited by it. So we braced ourselves for the final charge of that superb machine of war. Then I saw men looking up and a shadow pressed down over the gateway. Like a clump of thistledown in lightness and like a floating solid fortress for power, an enormous skyship landed gently before the gate and stoppered the smashed opening with solid lenken walls bristling with varters and longbowmen. The sleeting discharge of darts and shafts shattered the phalanx. The smashing force of varter-driven rocks carved bloody pathways through rived mail and tattered flesh. The Archers of Valka drove their shafts pitilessly into the gaps. The shields of the phalanx could not withstand the magnitude of the blows: rocks and darts and shafts. The phalanx was shredded to pulp.

“By Opaz!” said Drak. “By Zair!” said Zeg. “By Vox!” said Vax.

I did not say anything. Excited screams burst out all about us. The men of Zandikar knew when succor had arrived. I saw the huge bulk of the skyship, enormous, deck piled on deck, all sustained and driven through the air by the power of the aerial mechanism, the silver boxes, deep in her hull. I looked. She seemed smothered with flags. There was the red of Zairia. But, over all, dominating and fluttering in the brave Kregen sunshine — Old Superb! My own flag, the yellow cross on the scarlet ground. Old Superb, my battle flag, floating in the streaming rays of the Suns of Scorpio. At the jackstaff flew the yellow saltire on the red ground, the flag of the Empire of Vallia. Many red and white flags of Valka, famous in song, fluttered from the masts. And there were other flags, also, flags I recognized as the flags of friends.

Another shadow sped across the ground and we all looked up, a flower-bed of faces, and another huge skyship circled up there and rained death and destruction down upon the Grodnim army. As though casually, a varter-sped rock flew and knocked from the sky the last Grodnim voller. It snapped and fell.

My three sons were gabbling away together, and Miam clasped Zeg, and I turned away, for even Duhrra stood by Vax, beaming in his cheerful idiotic way. Roz Janri and Pallan Zavarin joined them. I heard what was said, Drak dominating all.

“We have been saved by warriors from my own country. See the flags, the Vallian, the Valkan. And yet

— Old Superb — our father’s flag. That has not been flown for many years.”

“It is of no consequence!” shouted Zeg as we waited for the people from the skyship to join us. “See the Blue Mountain Boys! See the flags of Falinur and the Black Mountains! That means Seg and Inch! And the valkavol standards of Valka!”

The skyship was lifting to join her sisters in the sky as they went methodically about exterminating the least sign of Green. Now a fresh wonder was vouchsafed us. The people from the skyship were approaching us. But we looked up. A mass of flying specks leaped from the ship, fanning out, and the wide wings of saddle-birds beat against the sky. Orange streamers identified them, if the flutduins had not

— my Djangs! Those ferocious four-armed warrior Djangs! How the fluttrells wearing the green plunged and scattered like breeze-driven smoke!

I swallowed down, hard. By God! I am an old cynical case-hardened warrior. But in that moment — in that glorious moment — I relished as seldom I relished the mingled sunshine of Kregen, the heady intoxicating air, and the deep sure knowledge of friendship I know I do not deserve but which has blessed me in my new life on the planet four hundred light-years from the world of my birth. They were all there. It seemed to me they were all there.

Seg and Inch, striding on, beaming. Turko the Shield, Balass the Hawk, Naghan the Gnat, Oby, Melow the Supple. Korf Aighos was there, Tilly, Kytun Kholin Dorn, his four arms windmilling in his excitement, but Ortyg Fellin Coper was not there, as was proper, for he would hold Djanduin when Kytun and I were both away. And — Prince Varden Wanek strode along brave in the powder blue of the Ewards. And, with him, Gloag! And Hap Loder! Incredible! I gaped. What had she been up to? Raising half of Kregen after me?

The Wizard of Loh, Khe-In-Bjanching, strode on busily talking to Evold Scavander, two wise Sans absorbed in arcane lore despite their surroundings. And there were others there I knew, men like Wersting Rogahan, and Jiktar Orlon Llodar. I guessed Vangar ti Valkanium and Tom Tomor, Elten of Avanar, were aloft conducting the aerial operations and finishing the Magdaggians. Drak and Zeg and Vax took a few paces forward, free of the rest of us, as the crowd from the skyship approached. It struck none of us to rush forward. We stood. And, among the crowd walking toward us all smiling and laughing — I might have guessed! — staggered two rascals skylarking and upturning bottles. “Stylor!” they crowed, beaming and drinking by turns. Oh, yes, they were there, my two favorite rascals, my two oar-comrades, Nath and Zolta.

So the crowd around Queen Miam waited, and the three princes of Vallia stepped forth proudly in this moment of victory. I stood a little to one side of them, in the random shadow of a tower, and I, too, savored the moment of victory. But more than that I savored, I luxuriated in, I stared devouringly at she who walked at the head of all my friends. Slender, lissome, superb, clad in russet hunting leathers, with the brave old scarlet sash about her, the rapier and the dagger swinging at her sides, her long brown hair free about her shoulders with the suns casting gorgeous auburn highlights in that lush profusion of beauty, she walked in light, glorious, glorious. .

Drak and Zeg and Vax who was Jaidur took another step forward. They held out their arms in welcome. I stood to the side and watched, for I could not see their faces, but I know they were smiling and happy. Her three sons welcomed her, and they called, “Mother!” Drak and Zeg and Jaidur, happy, laughing, calling, “Mother!”

She lifted her own arms. She was smiling and I felt myself trembling, felt the choke, the ache in my throat.

“Mother!” called the three brothers and held out their arms.

She held out her own arms and began to run because she could not hold back in regal dignity any longer. The moment for ritual observances had flown. No longer was she the Princess Majestrix, imperial granddaughter of the emperor of Vallia, she was a woman and her heart, like mine, was bursting. Straight toward her three sons she ran. I stood to the rear of them and to the side, in the shadows, and I felt all the crushing weight of twenty-one years pressing down on me. Directly toward the outstretched arms of those three stalwart young men ran their mother and they broke and ran toward her in filial love. Straight past them she ran. Past their outstretched arms, past the welcoming smiles upon their faces, past the three of them, and so I stood forward. And she threw herself into my arms and I held her close, close, and I could not see anything in the whole world of Kregen but my Delia.