A Handful Of Men - The Stricken Field Part 22

a" Clough, Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

SEVEN.

We happy few

1.

"For the hundredth time, no! I will not marry your daughter! Not tomorrow. Not next year. Never! Not ever! At no time between now and the end of the world!"

Sir Acopulo spun around in a swirl of black robe to slouch against the railing. His move was too violenta"the railing creaked ominously and even the balcony itself seemed to sag, as if in sympathy. He backed hastily into the room, seeking safety. The water was a long way down, and none too clean. One of the harbor's responsibilities was to remove the village sewage, but the tide was in at the moment.

"But it is your duty to marry my daughter," s.h.i.+uy-Sh wailed.

He was a scraggy little man, small even by Acopulo's standards. Years of seawater had shriveled his skin like old brown mud, and his scanty hair was turning silver to match the fish scales that embellished his arms to the elbow. His only garment was a twist of dirty cloth, although like all fauns he always seemed to be wearing furry black stockings. Now he stood in the middle of Acopulo's living room and wriggled his hairy toes in emotional agony, twisting and torturing the straw hat he held in his hands.

"It would be blasphemy for me to marry your daughter. Or your nephew. Or your grandmother!" Acopulo wanted to weep. He had been over this argument thousands and thousands of times, and he knew it was useless. He never got anywhere. Arguing with fauns was like trying to eat marble.

Raw.

"But my grandmother is already married," s.h.i.+uy-Sh said, seeming puzzled. With the widespread nose and large mouth of his race, he looked none too intelligent at the best of times.

"I wish she had never been born!" Acopulo wiped sweat from his brow. Ysnoss had a wonderful natural harbor, or so its inhabitants claimed. The price of that harbor was that the village nestled at the bottom of a gorge, a notch cut in high cliffs. Steep rocky walls beetled up on all sides, capturing the noon sun and deflecting the wind. Ysnoss was a gigantic oven. Perhaps "stew pot" was a better description, if one considered the foul steamy stench arising from the harbor itself.

There was no road out of Ysnoss. Most of the shanties were built on stilts, because the land was so steep. Acopulo had been given one of the finest houses in the whole village, two rooms directly over the water.

He had been there a month, and expected to remain there until he went utterly insane, in about another ten minutes . . .

"Tcch!" s.h.i.+uy-Sh exclaimed in annoyance. "Bad dog, Imp! This is the priest's house! Where is your shovel, Father?"

Imp was the size of a small pony, filled with the jubilation of youth and totally lacking in manners. Twice already he had stolen the gift of fresh ba.s.s s.h.i.+uy-Sh had brought, and he had eaten half of it before the faun rescued it the second time.

Wearily Acopulo pointed to the s.h.i.+ngle he retained for such needs. That was another curse of living with faunsa"there was livestock everywhere: dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, parrots. No faun ever seemed to go anywhere with less than his own pack of hounds and a couple of tame macaws. Monkeys and geese were the worst pests. Fortunately there was not enough flat ground in Ysnoss to stand a cow or a horse on.

"My brother has promised a whole pig for the feast," s.h.i.+uy-Sh remarked cheerfully as he sc.r.a.ped the offensive mess through a gap in the floorboards. "And his wife is preparing wreaths of purple and whitea""

"I don't care!" Acopulo screamed. "It is nothing to do with me!"

He stared miserably out over the water to where the sea shone in the gap between the cliffs. About five weeks ago the Ilranian authorities had finally given him permission to leave. He had taken the first available boat out of Vislawna"Curly Nautilus, a smelly little faun fis.h.i.+ng dory blown off course and forced into port for repairs.

For a fee so reasonable that it should have made him suspicious right away, Nautilus's crew had promised to deliver him to a port in Sysana.s.so. There he had expected to catch a more reasonable craft to carry him east to Qoble, or perhaps even all the way to Zark. He would have sailed in a basket to get away from those elves. Fauns, he had soon discovered, were much worse.

Ysnoss was a port, of course. He had not stipulated the port he was to be taken toa"like most imps, he had no clear picture of Sysana.s.soan geography at all. The fact that nothing but the locals' own small craft ever stopped in at Ysnoss was not a violation of the contract. Nor had the negotiations considered the fact that Ysnoss had no priest and both its neighboring villages did, although that had turned out to be a very material detail.

s.h.i.+uy-Sh completed his small ch.o.r.e, tossed the s.h.i.+ngle back out on the balcony, and wiped his hands on his furry thighs. "If you do not wish to come to my house, Father," he suggested with the air of a man making a significant compromise, "then my daughter and nephew will be most honored to be marred here, in your residence. Unfortunately . . ."

"Unfortunately what?" Acopulo demanded, scowling at the little man's woebegone expression.

"Unfortunately, this house is one of the oldest in Ysnoss. Even my grandmother cannot recall who built it. The whole village will be coming to the wedding. Do you not feel we shall be tempting the G.o.ds by filling this place with people? Your faith is very enn.o.bling, Father, but you must forgive the rest of us our doubts."

"I forgive the rest of you nothing! I have told you a million times that I am not a priest!"

"But you dress like a priest!"

Acopulo put his face in his hands. He knew exactly what was coming if he persisted with the conversation: "But the elves said you were a priest." "But it is very impious to dress like a priest if you are not." "But if we believed that you had been guilty of such sacrilege we should have to hold a court . . ."

There was no way to argue with fauns. One might as well wrestle trolls, trust djinns, throw oneself on jotunn mercy, or beg charity from dwarves. A race that had gained a worldwide reputation for stubbornness was not going to start listening to reason now. There were dozens of small boats in Ysnoss. Acopulo had offered more gold than the entire population would see in centuries just for pa.s.sage around the headland to Ushyoas, and not one owner was willing to take him. Ysnoss needed a priest. Other villages had priests.

"I will not marry your daughter! That is final."

"But that is most unkind of you, Father! Would you have her live in sin with my nephew? We have given you a fine residence and we bring you ample provisiona""

"Report me to the authorities!" Please!

s.h.i.+uy-Sh sighed and shrugged his shoulders, causing fish scales to twinkle like sequins. "But," he saida"most faun sentences began with that worda""but I have explained many times. Several princes claim to have authority here." "Any of them will do!"

"But to favor one over another might cause trouble." "Then choose the nearest!"

"But I don't know which is the nearest, Father. We pay no attention to any of them."

Acopulo uttered a heartfelt groan. The humiliation was unbearable. That he, a distinguished scholar, a widely traveled man of letters, a trusted confidant of the imperor, should prove incapable of delivering a letter! Almost six months had gone by since he left Hub on a simple journey to Zark, and yet in those months he had gone barely a third of the way and looked likely to die of old age before he went any farther.

He spun around to the skinny little fisherman and gripped him by the shoulders. They felt like iron. At close quarters his stink of fish made Acopulo's eyes water. s.h.i.+uy-Sh was a nasty little runt, yet when Acopulo tried to shake him, his skimpy form proved quite immovable.

"I am not a priest!" the scholar yelled in his face. s.h.i.+uy-Sh blinked in astonishment, as if he had not been told that hundreds of times before. "But the elves said . . ."

2.

The first thing Gath did when he awoke most mornings was to think over what was going to happen in the next few hours. Probably everybody did that, but in his case he knew. Sometimes he was rea.s.sured and just went back to sleep. Other days he came awake with a rush, foreseeing events that had sneaked up on him in the night.

This morning the first thing he thought about was a very smelly foot in his face. He rolled over, and there was another one on that side. Vork was up to his silly tricks again, obviously. Gath selected the best future, chose a toe at random, and bit it. It tasted really bad, but the yell was just as satisfying as he had seen it would be, and so were the thump and yelp as Vork jostled one of the sailors and provoked a jotunn reaction. He was going to have a thane-size bruise. Serve him right!

The crew slept in the hold, on top of the cargo. Vork could have had the floor in his father's cabin, and the imperor had offered Gath the spare bed in his, but bunking down with the sailors had a lot more appeal. There was something manly about it, even if a load of shovels and picks was not the most comfortable mattress in the world. The talk at night was manly stuff, too, all about sailoring, and being a raider, and women. Gath had learned a lot of new things and confirmed some things he had suspected but not been sure of. Very educational.

Then he saw what the morning had in store for him and woke up with a rush. Holy Balance! G.o.d of Madness! Wow!

For three weeks, Gurx had been riding the spring flood on the Dark River. She was a wallowy old tub. Most of the officers were dwarves, because that was the law in Dwanish, but Thumug the bosun was the real captain, and the hands were all jotnar. The amba.s.sador regarded them with downright contempt, calling them discards and freshwater fish, and of course Vork did, too, although he was careful not to let the men hear him. The crew's ability or lack of it had mattered little on this trip. The current had carried her like a leaf in a gutter, whirling past the dirty, dismal Dwanis.h.i.+an towns. Today she arrived at Urgaxox. All sorts of things were going to happen at Urgaxox.

Gath emerged on deck and looked around, s.h.i.+vering. He dressed like a sailor now, in leather breeches and nothing else. He did sailor things when he was allowed toa"pulled on ropes and scrubbed decks, and it was a lot of fun. He'd developed some good calluses and he thought he had a little more muscle in his arms, or at least his biceps felt harder. Of course it took rowing to make real sailors' arms, and Gurx was no longs.h.i.+p. Unlike Vork, he wouldn't want it to be, but any s.h.i.+p was better than a dwarf wagon. A jotunn was a jotunn. Even half a jotunn.

There was frost on the deck. The sun was just over the horizon. The Zogon Mountains had disappeared two days ago, and now the Kalip Range was in sight to starboard. At Urgaxox the river turned east in its final rush to the sea, and this was the end of Dwanish. Urgaxox was a frontier post of the Impire and the start of Guwush, gnome country. It was where Gurx would unload her cargo, and her pa.s.sengers.

Vork was forward, just tipping a bucket of water over himself. For a moment Gath stood and studied him, sizing him up in view of the very surprising things that were going to happen in the next couple of hours. After three months away from Krasnegar, Gath pined for some friends of his own age. A girl or two would be especially welcome because it was time he got some practice in talking with girls, but Vork could have been an acceptable fellow traveler. So far he had been anything but.

He was Amba.s.sador Kragthong's son, the youngest of Jarga's six half brothers and the only one still living with his father. He was a year older than Gath, but not as tall.

He still had his puppy fat and he still spoke soprano. He was one of those freakish jotnar with red hair and green eyes. His nose was well flattened alreadya"and he seemed to think all these misfortunes were Gath's fault.

Vork had three aims in life and would talk of nothing else. On a scale of years, he planned to be a great raider like his unlamented cousin Kalkor. More immediately, he longed to go home to Nordland and especially to visit the great midsummer moot at Nintor. Gath could agree with him on that one, although he had some reservations about watching men chop each other to bits with axes. Once, maybe, just so he could say he'd seen a reckoning.

Vork's short-term ambition was to smash Gath to jelly. He missed no chance to pick a fight, and Gath's refusal to cooperate riled him frantic. Traditionally, fighting must be done ash.o.r.e. Gurx had tied up only twice in the last three weeks, and both times Gath had stayed on board. Vork called him a coward and Gath didn't carea"much. He knew he could beat Vork if he wanted to.

Clenching himself up to hide his s.h.i.+vering, he stalked over to Vork, then stepped back quickly as Vork tried to drop the bucket on his toes.

"Know what happens today?" Gath said, s.n.a.t.c.hing the bucket.

Vork paid no attention, squeezing water out of his red hair.

"Clean your ears out, you've got fish in them."

"I don't talk to cowards."

"I'll tell you what happens today, then. We tie up at Urgaxox."

Vork swung around with a gleam in his blue-green eyes. "And?" The bruise on his cheek was a great pinky-yellow lump already.

"Time you came ash.o.r.e with me," Gath said, blandly giving the sailors' challenge in shrill falsetto.

Vork flushed scarlet. "Time? . . . I've been trying to get you ash.o.r.e for weeks, you jelly-boned half-breed!"

Gath smiled. "And the other thing that happens today is that I rub your face in the dirt." He put a foot on the line and tossed the bucket overboard.

It wasn't quite certain. He had a very faint foresight of Vork kneeling on his chest and pounding with both fists, but he wasn't going to mention that.

"You're a seer!" Vork said, suddenly wary.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to. I mean, if you're scared."

Vork was jotunn. That settled that.

There wasn't much time. Gath sluiced himself off sailor fas.h.i.+on and rushed down to the galley to grab some breakfast and turn from blue back to pink. Then he hurried up on deck again, still dripping, still gnawing on a hunk of gritty black bread.

Already Gurx was approaching the docks. Urgaxox was even larger than he'd expected, but the river was so high that much of it was hidden behind the s.h.i.+pping. He saw sunlight flas.h.i.+ng off metal on the quays and guessed it came from legionaries's helmets. There would be gnomes, of course, and dwarves, and jotnar, because this was one of the greatest ports in the world. But he wasn't interested in the people at the moment. There were more s.h.i.+ps in sight than he'd ever seen in his lifea"river craft like this one, and oceangoing galleys. They cl.u.s.tered along the piers like suckling piglets. Here and there he saw longs.h.i.+ps, low and sinister. Not the longs.h.i.+p, thougha"not quite yet.

Amba.s.sador Kragthong was leaning on the rail with the imperor at his starboard side, a bull and a pony. Gath hurried over. This was the bit he was looking forward to least of all, but it had to be done. He just managed to beat Jarga to her father's port side. He was taller than she was now, and he didn't think that had been the case three weeks ago. He hoped she wasn't reading minds this morning, but he knew she was not going to stop him.

"Anything happening?" the thane rumbled, speaking over Gath's head to his daughter.

"Much the same. Just have to be careful."

She meant the level of magic, of course. Ever since the warlock's appearance before the Directorate, a week ago, the sorcerers had been reporting Covin activity all over Dwanish. There was a hunt in progress.

The imperor had shaved off his beard in the night and looked surprisingly younger. "Smell that mud?" he said. "The river must be falling."

The thane grunted. "Place always stinks. It's the gnomes."

"It would probably be a lot worse without the gnomes." The big man grunted. "Depends. Uh? . . ."

He had seen the longs.h.i.+p. Then Gurx swept by the end of that pier and it was out of sight.

"Something wrong?" the imperor asked sharply.

"No. No, nothing." Kragthong shot a side glance at his daughter.

"Saw no details," she said softly. "I'd better not look now."

"No, for G.o.ds' sake don't do anything to give us away." They were alarmed, though.

"Do we have to find billets ash.o.r.e?" the imperor inquired. "Or can you line up a s.h.i.+p right away?"

"You'd best all stay aboard," Kragthong said. "I've got men here I can talk with." He mostly meant he wanted to check on that longs.h.i.+p, but the imperor probably didn't know that. Gath did.

The imperor thumped a fist on the rail. "I wish I knew what had happened to Rap! It's not like him not to report. If they got him, then Nintor's a deathtrap for us. On the other hand, if he's been turned, he would probably have tried to string us along. I'm very much afraid he . . ." He had just noticed Gath, concealed by the thane's great bulk.

"I would rather he had died than been enslaved, sir. He would, I'm sure."

"Perhaps," Shandie said icily. "He may just have been robbed and lost the scrolls, of course. I'm a.s.suming that he's all right."

Gath ignored that obvious lie. Dad would never be so careless as to lose his magic scrolls. Would never have been so careless. Oh, Dad, Dad! "But even if Nintor is dangerous for us, sir, it's very important to get your message to all the thanes, isn't it, sir?"

"Yes!" The imperor's tone was even icier. "Have you seen your mother around?"

"I think she's having something to eat, sir."

"Thanks." The imperor walked away.

"Good idea, that," Jarga said, and followed him.

The amba.s.sador remained, still frowning at the s.h.i.+pping. Odious Vork slid into the place his sister had left. He scowled hideously at Gath, obviously suspecting that he was up to no good.

Which Gath was, of course. "Er, Excellency?" The big man did not look around. "Mm?"

"At the Nintor Moot, it's only thanes get challenged, isn't it?" Gath knew the answer perfectly well. Only thanes or thanes' sons could go to the moot. Only thanes could vote. Only thanes could be challenged to reckonings. He just wanted to be sure that Kragthong knew he knew. "Right."

"Sir, would you please lend me some money?"