A Handful Of Men - The Stricken Field Part 10

"Must not speak impis.h.!.+"

Kadie snorted. "Wanted to kiss her," she said sulkily.

"Kiss in bed, when lodge fire banked. Is obscene other times."

Really! Feeling her cheeks burning, she nudged her pony to a canter. Goblins had absolutely no idea of romance! Blood Beak did not seem to know the difference between a kiss and, er, more intimate behavior.

Kadie was astride a pert little gray, now named Allena the Mare. Her companion was running alongside. He had been doing so all day, burdened with a bow and a quiver and a sword, and yet he matched her new pace with no apparent strain. Behind them, their twenty-four-man guard would keep up just as easily.

"Tell more!" Blood Beak demanded.

It was understandable that he would want her to do most of the talking; she could not imagine how he had breath to speak at all. She must have told him fifty stories in the last few days, all the great cla.s.sics. Yet somehow romances lost something when translated into goblin, and she thought it would be far more appropriate for her to be teaching him impish than for her to be talking goblin all the time. His insistence upon that was ominous and best not thought about.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning warmly and a bl.u.s.tery wind smelled of spring. It also made the farmhouses and haystacks burn well. The eastern sky was muddy with smoke, the landscape in all directions heavily populated with columns of goblins. To spare her mount she was allowed to use the lanes and roads, but the horde itself traveled in a straight line, across the country. The vanguard ran down all the fugitives, even those on horses. The rearguard set fire to anything that would burn. Every few hours the army would reach another town and sack it, raping and killing all who remained therea"like trained acrobats, goblins built human pyramids against the walls and were usually over the top before the defenders had notched their first arrow.

Fortunately Kadie rarely had to watch any of these horrors at close quarters. She had not seen King Death Bird in several days, and no dwarves, either. The dwarvish army had gone its own way. She was a solitary captive princess in a ma.s.s of thousands of brutal savages, the only prisoner who survived the nightly atrocities. She was a tourist, an enforced companion for the king's son.

"All right," she agreed. "One more story. But I'm going to tell this one in impish. It will sound better. Or will that be too hard for you to understand?"

Blood Beak shot an angry glare up at her. He was barechested as usual, his khaki skin s.h.i.+ning with sweat, his greasy queue bouncing on his back between bow and quiver. He was not as tall as she was, but very broadshouldered, and from above she could also see how astonis.h.i.+ngly thick he was, too. She sometimes wondered how he would look in decent clothes. His legs would certainly be impressive in hose, but his face! . . . even if he could be persuaded to shave . . . Long nose, square eyes . . .

"I understand very good. What's this one about?"

"It's about Princess Pearlflower of Kerith and how she was captured by jotunn raiders."

"And rescued, of course?" He showed his big teeth.

"Of course."

"Before she was raped?"

"Yes!"

"Sound not like jotnar." He could speak pa.s.sable impish when he chose, although his accent was thick as mud. "You think someone coming you rescue, Kadolan?"

Of course she dida"princesses were always rescueda"but he would jeer if she said so. She had a magic sword, which everyone else seemed to have forgotten about, and both Mom and the imperor had promised they would get the warlock to help as soon as he could. Where were they all now? Still, distance didn't matter to sorcerers. And her own father was a sorcerer just wait until Dad heard that she'd been kidnapped! Of course someone would rescue her!

If they didn't, she would escape on her own, somehow. Not getting an answer, the goblin said, "No rescue!"

"So? What happens when we get to Hub?"

Blood Beak laughed. Goblins didn't laugh very often, but when they did they sounded quite, er, normal?a"impish. "Burn it!"

Not very likely! Hub had never, ever, fallen to an enemy. Hub had never been sacked like all other cities had. "And then?"

He seemed surprised by the question. "Then go home, maybe."

They were heading up quite a steep hill now, through trees that she suspected might be an orchard and was certain would soon be firewood. Blood Beak was managing the incline better than weary Allena was.

"Is that all? You have no plan, do you? No purpose in all this killing and destroying!"

"Yes, do! Are doing because is fun! Imps now better know than attack the goblins more times. Maybe do this every year!"

She pulled a face. "Now you're talking stupid! Bigmouth goblin! When the Impire gets you bottled up again, it'll brick up every pa.s.s in the Pondague Mountains."

"Then climb over walls! Or not go home. Goblins stay in the Impire and let imps have the forest."

"You admit this is a better place to live?"

He looked up angrily and she thought his cheeks had flushed greener at being trapped. "Is for sissies! Real men grow in forest."

"So you are going back! And you'll see me safely home to Krasnegar?"

"No." He flashed her a sweat-soaked grin. "Will be first wife mine. Promise from Father."

That was what she'd been afraid of, but no one had ever said so and she hadn't asked. That was why he insisted she speak goblin. It was also why she was not being molested, of course. She suspected that otherwise these barbarians would treat even a princess badly.

"And suppose I don't want to be your wifea"first or last?"

"Get beaten," he said happily. "Be beaten anyway."

"Suppose you're killed in the fighting?" She had noticed that he was kept well away from danger, but she wasn't about to say so.

"Marry brother, Big Claws or Black Feather."

Marry the next goblin king and be goblin queen, one day? Raise lots of ugly little goblin princes and princesses? Kadie tried to imagine herself turning up at Krasnegar to visit the family, with her green husband and her green babies. Gath would laugh his stupid head off! Again she wondered how Blood Beak would look in proper clothes. Short and thick, all right from the neck down, but imagine him at a ball or a banquet? In candlelight goblins weren't just greenish but really green!

One of the books she had treasured in her childhood had contained a lithograph showing a frog princea"green face, and very wide mouth, and bulgy eyes. She had never seen a real frog in her life, but Kadie decided she was most definitely going to be rescued! A handsome prince would be best, but Papa would suffice.

3.

As Rap reached out with his right hand, something jerked him off balance. His left foot began to slide. He grabbed blindly, found a flimsy bunch of fronds, and clung tight; heaved his foot back into position on the slippery root and paused, gasping with effort and fright. He was spreadeagled on a slope steep enough to be called a cliff, half buried in a p.r.i.c.kly shrub, every part of him soaked. Rain poured at his head and back. Water cascaded down on his face, on his shoulders, and eventually ran out the toes of his boots. Very far below him a lot more of it roared white over rocks.

This was a troll shortcut.

He had been working his way along this almost-sheer face for the last hour. It was upholstered with a dense mat of shrubs and mosses, which was not always perfectly anch.o.r.ed to the rock. Every once in a while patches would peel away in his grasp. Meanwhile, the strap of his satchel had caught on a twig. That was what had jerked him when he moved. In order to free it, he would have to persuade his left hand to release the death grip it held on a vine. The satchel was an accursed, awkward, heavy thing, but it contained his gold, his knife, and the magic scrolls. Just about everything else had gone, even his sword, but he must not lose the satchel.

First step, thena"test right hand grip. He tugged gently at the fronds. A whole thicket of fern came away in a shower of mud and pebbles . . .

For three days after escaping from Casfrel, Rap had been very glad that he was half jotunn. The fugitives had scrambled up a water-filled gorge, then an ice-filled ravine, several chimneys, and a scree slope, finally crossing the divide by way of a glacier. He had understood then why the Imperial Army had been so unsuccessful at catching escaping trolls, even if he had almost frozen to death during the lesson. At night he had slept within a ma.s.s of three trolls and one jotunn, heaped together for warmth. They had descended the pa.s.s into thick snow, slithering down in avalanches. He had been completely buried twice, being dug out by Thrugg.

Now they were down into the forest, so he supposed he should be grateful for the other half of his mixed inheritance. Jotunn Darad was going insane in the steamy, rainfilled, bug-infested gloom, but a part faun should be able to cope. The trolls were in their element. Visibility had been virtually zero for the last two days, and clothes were rotting away in the never-ending downpour. His left boot had almost fallen apart, and his right was little better.

He was not at all sure how much longer he could cling to this cliff. Of course he was only imagining it, but the roar of the torrent seemed to be developing a hungry tone. It was a long way down. If he fell, he would have several leisurely seconds to review his life before it came to a sudden end.

Trouble was, he would use sorcery. He wasn't brave enough to die without a struggle, but to save himself that way would surely condemn both him and his friends to a slower and much less pleasant death. The Covin was alert now, and he could not count on it blundering a second time as badly as it had blundered at Casfrel.

Powerful though the Covin was, it had failed to subdue the sorceress in its first surprise attack; Ainopple had put up a ferocious resistance and died unvanquished. Even Thrugg had been unable to make out the details, but most likely she had succ.u.mbed to simple old age. She had needed power just to keep herself alive, and in the distraction of the battle her resources had run out. The Covin might have suffered some wounds of its own; at first it had made no search for other sorcerers in the district, or had done so perfunctorily. The hunt had begun in earnest only after a lapse of several days, perhaps when someone used hindsight, or just recognized the significance of trolls escaping. Had Rap and his companions still been in the narrow pa.s.ses, they could have been located easily, but by then they were already on the western slopes, needles in the world's greatest haystack.

Which did not mean they might not be found yet. Day and night, occult vision searched the trees. In the crazy metaphorical plane of the ambience, Rap could see those eyes, hear those ears. He sensed pillars of light or low crooning of voices, and sometimes he thought they were within yards of him. As far as sorcery went, other people were a much more effective cover than trees. A city would be much safer than a jungle.

Which meant he had to do this the hard way. The most insignificant use of magic now might be detected. He had not dared even unroll the magic scrolls in a week.

He thought briefly of Acopulo sitting at ease on a s.h.i.+p. He wondered if his own favorite armchair before the fire in Krasnegar now held the imperor, sprawling back in comfort, chatting to Inos, while Signifer Ylo smothered himself in rustic jotunn maidens belowstairs. He wondered what Warlock Raspnex was up to.

And what he himself was up to. Day and night, something haunted the back of Rap's mind, some brilliant idea that had come to him, some time, some place, and now evaded all efforts of memory to snare it. Something important. Men had gone mad over less . . .

Shrubbery crackled and swished overhead. He looked up and caught a cataract full in the face. He blinked and shouted warnings as a huge bare foot appeared beside his left hand. The undergrowth roiled briefly; the owner of the foot came slithering down to his level in a shower of water and leaves. He caught glimpses of a naked, parchmentcolored body, and then Norp's face was level with his. She grinned, displaying enormous teeth and a mouth full of half-chewed leaves.

Male trolls were bad enough. The females were even uglier, possibly because they lacked beards. Thrugg's face was acceptable as an animal muzzle, but a hairless troll was a grotesque parody of what a human being should look like. Norp was only a child, younger than Kadie, and yet she outweighed Rap himself. She was hideous, and a nice kid.

She grunted a question through a mouthful of vegetation. A troll's idea of a snack was to rip off a branch and eat it wholea"twigs, bark, and all. He deciphered: "Resting?"

"Admiring the scenery." It was difficult to think under the rain's constant hammering.

Another series of leafy mumbles translated to: "This is a bad part, and it gets worse."

How did she know that? Neither Norp nor Urg had any occult powers; neither had ever come this way before, and yet they seemed to understand the landscape by instinct. Thrugg had gone on ahead. Urg was helping Darad bring up the rear. All three trolls had long since discarded their slave clothes. The sun never shone in this rain-soaked land, and their doughy hides were impervious to thorns and insects. Rap thought he had lost about a quarter of his own skin and was still losing it faster than he could grow it back.

"Just unhook that strap for me, then, would you?" He braced himself to try again. Burying his face in the soggy moss, he stretched out as far as he could to his right. He found a tangle of roots and grasped it with frozen fingers. He tugged, and this time it seemed firm enough. He persuaded his left hand to let go. The cliff was not quite vertical, after all. Had it not been so thickly overgrown, he would have called it a waterfall. Then he brought his left foot closer. He had very little skin left on his left foot. He found a purchase, moved his right leg, and everything seemed to let go at the same instant. He yelled in terror as he began to slide.

Norp grabbed for him, and caught the satchel strap. For a moment she took his whole weight as he dangled over the void. Then the strap broke.

Her reflexes were astonis.h.i.+ng. A great paw s.n.a.t.c.hed his shoulder in midair and held him bodily until he found better handholds. His heart thundered.

"Thanks!" he gasped. "Good work!"

"You want . . . me carry you?"

"Oh, I think I'll manage. But that was a nice rescue. I thought I'd gone that time!"

She beamed with childish pleasure.

Rap felt rather proud himself, for he had refrained from using sorcery in that little episode. Nevertheless, it had lost him about half his pants, and the satchel. It was long gone downstream now, scrolls and gold and all. A couple of weeks of this, Thrugg said, would bring them to his mother's place. Fortunately, Rap had always believed in traveling light, but he wished now he had headed for Zark and sent old Acopulo to handle the troll end of the business.

4.

Star of the Morning had made an easy trip from Malfin to Cooplia"easy for late winter, that was. She was a small cargo s.h.i.+p with little room for pa.s.sengers, but jotunn-built and more seaworthy than most; so her master had a.s.sured Acopulo. A lucky vessel, also, he had insisted. Two days out of Coopli, she had run out of good fortune.

At first Acopulo was too ill to mind. He considered it unfair that he always needed three or four days to gain his sea legs, only to lose them again after a few hours in port, but that was how the G.o.ds had arranged the matter. He suspected that They disapproved of imps afloat on principle. He also suspected that he was about to die, but then he always thought that on a s.h.i.+p. The more violent motion added by the storm could do nothing to make him more miserable.

As his faculties began to return, however, he realized that he had never seen a cabin tilt to and fro at quite such remarkable angles. Nor had he ever heard a s.h.i.+p making quite such loud groaning noises. The occasional shuddering motion was new to him, too.

Eventually he dragged himself out of his stupor and vowed to go up on deck and see. Being a cautious man, he sat on the floor to dress, as standing erect was obviously out of the question. Had he tried to dress in his bunk he would certainly have fallen out. Then he set off on hands and knees.

At the top of the steps he stood up and tried the door. It was totally immovable. He had a sudden panicky thought that he might be locked in. The s.h.i.+p heeled abruptly, the door flew open, and he went flying out into madness. Wind and water together bowled him over, sent him hurtling across the deck in a heap, and slammed him into the side. For a moment he was convinced he had been washed overboard, for he was completely submerged. Then the water drained away, the s.h.i.+p tipped at another angle, and he began to slide. Another wave engulfed him, rolled him. Something grabbed his collar, transferred its grip to his arm, hauled him upright, and wrapped rope around him with a deft motion.

s.h.i.+vering, choking, and blinking, he registered that he was bound to a mast, together with a large wet jotunn.

"Getting a little fresh air, Father?"

Acopulo made incoherent noises, remembered that he was supposedly a priest these days, and shouted, "Thank you, my son."

"Need a line if you want to stay up here, Father," the man boomed cheerfully.

A huge green wave came frothing over the side and buried the men to their waistsa"more like chesta"deep in Acopulo's case. It swept his feet away, and the big sailor steadied him. Then it departed.

G.o.d of Mercy!

There was nothing to see but grayness. After a moment he decided that fog and twilight were merely solid rain. It was hard to tell where the sea ended and the air began, apart from a few frothy wave-tops like roofs all around. Star of Morning tilted again and seemed to surge straight up. "Where are we?" he screamed.

"See those rocks yonder?" The jotunn pointed a long arm. "No. I can't see a thing."

"Landlubber eyes!"

The s.h.i.+p plunged downward. Another wave came roaring across the deck, interrupting the conversation.

"Did you see the lights, then?" the jotunn yelled in Acopulo's ear. He was young and apparently enjoying himself.

"No."

"Pity. Real pretty sight, dragons." Acopoulo screamed, "Dragons?"

"We're about two cablelengths off Dragon Reach. Here, we're going up again. Now look."

Rain and spume battered Acopulo's eyes, and he saw nothing. "We're in danger?"

"Well, they don't fly over water, usually. Course we're getting awful close. They can sense the iron in the s.h.i.+p. Thazz what brought *em. *Spect that's why they're blowing so much fire."

How far was a cablelength? Not very far, Acopulo thought. And dragons, while they ravened after any metal, were especially drawn to gold. What had brought them, he suspected, was the heavy moneybelt around his own waist.

"What's going to happen?" he shouted in the next momentary lull.

"I dunno," the youngster said. He shrugged, and the resulting tightening of the binding almost cut Acopulo in half. "She's dragging her anchors, so we'll likely hit the rocks soon. She'll break up quick in this sea. If not, then we'll go aground when the tide ebbs, and the dragons'll get us. "

Acopulo looked up in horror at the cheerful grin. "Aren't you frightened?"

"No." The sailor pondered for a moment and then added, "If I warn't just a dumb jotunn I might be, I s'pose." This sudden insight seemed to wont' him more than the dragons themselves.

"I think I want to go back to my cabin."