Scorpio Invasion (8 page)

So Farris might not be able to send of the best. Our money was down to four silvers, only one of which was broad, and we were using the silvers to feed ourselves as well as pay for the lodgings. If nothing arrived soon, I’d have to think again.

The lodging house, not a real inn at all, was known simply as Mother Molly’s. The smell of cooking permeated the place. The stairs were a greasy death trap. Still, this was far cheaper than an inn or tavern.

We had to get out for a breath of fresh air. Well, who could blame us for that? Inevitably, one day someone from the crew spotted Ra-Lu-Quonling. We started off running up the street and immediately there was a pack of them howling on our heels. Ra-Lu ran. As we skidded around a corner and headed past the fish market, he panted out: “I know what I shall call myself. By the Seven Arcades! I shall be Rollo the Runner!”

“Save your breath, Runner, for honoring your name.”

A whole screaming foaming pack of them were streaming along after us and another bunch appeared ahead. No one drew a weapon. The mobs from the fish market joined and now a ring formed about us. The catcalls centered on one subject: “A Wizard of Walfarg! Blatter him into the ground! He’s only a novice and knows nothing!”

“And his companion, the shint!”

“Can you do nothing, then, Rollo the Runner?”

“Nothing.”

I looked about at the taunting crowds ready to beat us to a pulp. We could expect no mercy. There was no way out. I looked about — and then I looked up.

“Thank Opaz the Punctual!” I said, and waved my arms delightedly.

They do not mess about, my lads of the Guard Corps.

Directly before the mobs advancing on us a massive burst of fire and smoke blossomed. Almost immediately another fire pot dropped over on the other side of the ring. The crowds halted, open-mouthed. A fishmonger ripped off his scale-coated apron which had caught alight. He flung it from him with a yelp, and two more bursts of fire and smoke smashed the crowds back. Even then, even then, so unaccustomed were Lohvians to fliers that many did not think to look up.

Perhaps they put the gouts of flame and smoke down to the wizardry of the sorcerer of Whonban. I looked up again in great relief. Rollo the Runner, as I will now call him, looked up with me. He said: “Oh!”

Two airboats circled, and with delicate precision dropped a few more fire pots to keep the crowds at bay. I did not think these folk cared to dare the perils of having combustibles flung down on them from above.

Whilst one voller kept the ring, the other touched down delicately. She was a clean-lined craft possessing that sweet petal shape of all good quality small and medium sized airboats. She was, I judged, a smallish ten seater, as was her companion aloft. A voice hailed.

“This way, jis! Step aboard!”

A hulking fellow in a bright yellow uniform appeared clambering down the short ladder, turning on the last step to wave me on. I said: “Go on, Rollo. Run.”

He started off at once for the voller and the large fellow in the yellow uniform clambered back over the side. He fairly hoicked Rollo up off the ground and hurled him over the gunwale. I followed smartly and clambered aboard. The crowds were yelling now, in anger more than fear.

“Take her up, Loptyg!” bellowed the giant in the bright yellow uniform. He turned to me and bashed his right fist over his heart with force enough to make his kax vibrate. “Majister!”

“Lahal, Ornol Skobog. And am I going to have trouble with you?”

“Me, jis?”

“Aye, you rascal.You.”

He looked down and his face was as red as my breechclout. “You know the chickens were strays and would have wandered off, jis, had I not saved them.”

Very gravely, I said: “That is undeniably true; but Opaz preserve me from their fate.” Then I held out my hand and we shook Vallian fashion.

The voller climbed steadily and took up station with the other. Faces were staring over the gunwales. Now Sko means left and Bog is the name given to a fellow handy at bashing evildoers. This Ornol Skobog was an old kampeon in the Emperor’s Yellow Jackets. I guessed that the Loptyg at the controls would be a rascally fellow called Loptyg the Muncible, serving in the Emperor’s Sword Watch. Trust the two premier guards regiments to send men matched, one for one. I said: “This is Rollo the Runner.”

Thus briefly we made the pappattu. Rollo was gripping onto the gunwale not looking over the side, and his face was the color of moldy cheese.

Ornol roared out: “Queasy in the gut, youngster? Haw!”

Rollo said in a faint voice: “I am perfectly well, thank you.” His voice quavered. “Are these contraptions safe?”

Now he didn’t know it; but a few seasons ago that would have been a question of the utmost significance. These days we could buy reliable vollers from Hamal. “Safe?” bellowed Ornol, his whiskery, leathery face creasing in enjoyment. “If she breaks down you can always get out and push.”

Rollo closed his eyes and clung on.

I said: “Who’s in the other voller?”

He told me their names and I groaned. A bunch of hulus all right, tough, hard kampeons, fanatically loyal to me. Somehow or other enough of a word had got out so that these lads had flown down here. I’d have the devil of a job to persuade them not to fly with me but to go home.

“Where are we going, jis?” demanded Loptyg from the controls.

“For a start, Loptyg you fambly, you and all the rest are going home to Vallia. You belong in ESW and EYJ and not lollygagging about Loh.”

An uncanny silence followed.

They were up to a scheme, no doubt of it. The jurukkers in my Guard Corps, guardsmen of superlative worth, toughened by seasons of campaigns and a score of battles won, formed a
corps d’elite
I had not wished into existence. They had formed themselves to protect me, the Emperor of Vallia. Now I’d shuffled off that job onto Drak he had his own guards. Whatever titles might be used, the units that formed the old ESW and EYJ now considered they served me, personally, and not Drak as emperor. And, by Vox, there was nothing sensible I could do about the situation.

They’d have to go home; I couldn’t have even this handful traipsing about Tsungfaril. Later, probably inevitably, they would be called on.

Ornol coughed and said: “You will take us, jis? When you go adventuring?”

I fixed him with my eye. “You know I can’t, Ornol. What are you now?” I glanced at his rank badges which are different in the emperor’s juruk from those in use in the general army. That was my attempt not to have lower ranks in a guard corps counting as higher than those in the line, a system of some dubiety. “A ley Hikdar?H’m, you’ve flown high lately.”

“But—”

“You are a ley Hikdar serving in the Emperor’s Yellow Jackets. Your duty lies to the emperor — the Emperor Drak. I am no longer the Emperor of Vallia.” I spoke firmly but as kindly as I could. “And how did you find out I was here?”

“As to the second point, majister,” — suddenly very formal — “you know I cannot break faith. I can say the word slipped out as a new born babe slips into the world. As to the first point, the Emperor Drak, may Opaz have him in his keeping, has his own faithful juruk. We are your juruk. We guard you. We are EYJ — oh, and ESW, of course — and you are an emperor still, for all know the truth of the matter. You are the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of Paz.”

There it was again, the idea spreading that some idiot had to take the responsibility of welding Paz together to resist the Shanks, inter alia.

“And how do ELC and EFB feel about this?”

“They and the other regiments may be new in the guard; they are with us.”

“And I suppose the Empress’s Devoted Life Guard is of the same mind?”

“With Chuktar Karidge in command, who can doubt it, jis?”

“Well, I agree with that arrangement, at the least.”

“So we can come with you—?”

I breathed in and I breathed out. If this great rascal of a faithful guardsman thought I was caught in my own spring trap — for they can’t be hoist by their own petards on gunpowderless Kregen — he’d have to be proved wrong.

“Didn’t the Lord Farris assign pilots from the Vallian Air Service?”

Ornol suddenly looked shifty at this. I said: “By Vox! Don’t tell me you chucked ’em over the side!”

“We wasn’t very high up, jis.” Ornol spoke defensively, and Loptyg chipped in: “Not high up at all, jis.”

I groaned. What would Farris say about my crusty guardsmen throwing his smart young fliers over the side?

Now I could see most of the way of it. After all, it is human nature to boast if you are confronted with comrades of a different service. Human nature, yes; but boasting and Dray Prescot parted company before they were acquainted. Farris, on receipt of the message from Deb-Lu, had quietly detailed a couple of his young Air Service fellows. And they couldn’t help talking, boasting, over a wet in the local tavern — probably the Taylyne and Flea — and a few of my rascals had been in there too, slaking their thirsts. So the inevitable had happened. This little lot, led by Ornol Skobog, had kept their own silence successfully. They must have done. Otherwise I’d have had a sky full of vollers carrying ESW, EYJ, ELC, EFB, EZB and probably one or two more of the newer formations in the Guard Corps.

Rollo groaned.

“We’d better set down, Ornol, and let poor Rollo ease his inward parts.”

“Quidang, jis!”

At least Rollo’s discomfort could get us to alight without an argument.

Below, forested land swept past. The red roofs and walls of Hinjanchung had vanished over the horizon. In every direction stretched forest and open spaces, threaded with the glint of watercourses. Few countries of Kregen are populated to a limit that would be imposed by the land. As for overpopulation, yes, that does exist, and to our woe, as you will hear.

“There,” said Loptyg, pointing, and he nosed the flier down.

In a regular circular shape a patch of bright green showed ahead among the trees. The two vollers curved sweetly down and landed in the center.

“I,” quoth Ornol, “with your permission, jis, will step overside. By Vox! I need to stretch my legs.”

This was understandable, for he’d flown all the livelong way from Vallia.

“Blotto!” rapped out Loptyg. I killed my instinctive smile. Blotto, which is Kregish for ditto, I always find amusing.

The two guardsmen jumped down and started to sprint about and turn, running and high-stepping, getting the cramps out of their muscles. The rascals in the other voller hopped over and did likewise. I turned to Rollo.

He said: “Can I open my eyes now?”

I said: “We are safely on good old Kregen.”

He gave a shudder and opened his eyes, staring at me. His face began to resume its natural bright color. “By Hlo-Hli! What an experience!”

“You’ll get used to it.”

He looked over the side. At once a remarkable change came over him. He stiffened up, staring, eyes wide. Then: “No! No! Tell them, get back at once! Hurry! Bratch!”

Now my lads of the emperor’s jurukkers are not infants at war and battle. So they were running about and getting the stiffness out of their limbs. They did not neglect elementary precautions. We might have spotted not a single sign of life among the trees or in the open. That did not mean that danger might not erupt upon us from the trees. After all, we were on Kregen, where immediate peril is a daily fact of life.

A fellow — I did not know his name — from First Emperor’s Zorca Bows had his compound reflex bow strung and an arrow nocked as he exercised. Other guardsmen were clearly ready instantly to form a battle line if attacked. There was, as far as I could see, no sign of danger.

“Hurry!” screamed Rollo. “Come back! Come back as you value your lives!”

Ornol and the others heard. They looked toward the airboat.

I shouted in that old foretop hailing voice: “Back aboard! All of you.At once.Bratch!”

They clumped over and Ornol, out of that sense of duty that seems to ingrain itself in the officers of the Guard Corps, shoved the others on ahead. He would go last. If there was danger, then it was his duty to confront it as the folk under his command scrambled to safety.

He nearly made it.

A sound as of gruel slopping in a bowl, a sucking slobbering noise as of dregs running down a plughole burst up with a disgusting stench. The ground beneath Ornol caved in. At once he was engulfed to his thighs.

“It’s a shuckerchun!” Rollo looked distressed. “It will suck us all down!”

As in any seafaring ship, there were coils of rope aboard the voller. I seized one up and hurled it at Ornol. He bighted a loop around his waist and immediately waist and line were sucked down. “Heave!” I shouted.

We tailed on and hauled. With gruesome sucking sounds Ornol started to lift, and then fell back.

“The shuckerchun will drag us all down!” Rollo was more than distressed now. His face was gaunt with the terror of his knowledge. “They can creep under houses and engulf them. We’re done for!”

“Loptyg! Get to the controls. Lift off!”

He didn’t bother with a Quidang. He jumped for the levers and slammed the lift control over. The voller lurched. I could see the brilliant treacherous green flowing up the side of the other voller like a tide.

“Lift off!” I bellowed.

Loptyg thrust the lever over all the way. The airboat shuddered. She quivered like an exhausted stallion. Ornol’s head was going under.

“Come on! Come on!”

With a sound not quite like a cork coming out of a bottle, or that sound magnified and added to by a sloshing sucking, the voller leaped skywards.

Ornol dangled below, his powerful hands gripping the line, looking up.

“By Vox!” he said, and spat. “It tastes worse than a dopa den’s floor at chucking out time.”

Rollo sagged back. He saw me looking at him.

“I was sure we were all done for. No one can escape a shuckerchun.”

“Unless they fly.”

“Unless they fly.”

Ornol was hauled in over the side. He stank.

“For the sweet sake of Opaz,” he said, spitting overside. “Find a river.” Then he said: “I give you thanks.” To him, the peril was over and now he wanted to clean up. Hard, the men of my juruk.