Читать книгу The Serpentwar Saga: The Complete 4-Book Collection - Raymond E. Feist - Страница 31

Nakor waved.

He had learned years ago that if you didn’t want to be accosted by minor officials, look as if you know exactly what you’re doing. The officer standing on the far end of the dock didn’t recognize Nakor, as the Isalani knew he wouldn’t. Slaves weren’t people. One didn’t take note of them.

And now he didn’t look like a slave. He had ducked out of the slave pen the night before so that the morning and night head count would match. He had wandered around the camp, smiling and chatting, until he had reached the place where he had secreted his belongings when he had run off to play construction worker.

Then at dawn he had wandered back to the slave pens and fallen in a few yards behind the work gang. He had moved along the newly constructed bridge, past a guard who started to ask him something when Nakor patted him on the shoulder in a friendly fashion and said, ‘Good morning,’ leaving the guard scratching his chin.

Now he called to the officer, ‘Here, catch!’ and threw him his bundle of bedroll and shoulder sack. The officer reacted without thought and caught the bundle, then set it down as if it were covered in bugs.

By then Nakor had jumped the five feet separating the end of the bridge and the south-shore foundation of rocks. He landed and stood up, saying, ‘I didn’t want to take the chance of dropping the bundle in the water. There are important documents in it.’

‘Important …?’ asked the officer as Nakor picked up his bundle.

‘Thank you. I must be getting those orders to the Captain.’

The officer hesitated, which was his undoing, for in that moment, while he tried to frame his next question, Nakor slipped behind a party of horsemen riding past, and when they had moved on, the little man was nowhere in sight.

The officer stood peering this way and that, and failed to notice that a few feet away there were now seven sleeping mercenaries around a cold campfire where moments before there had been only six. Nakor lay motionless, listening for any sign of alarm.

He grinned as he lay there, his usual reaction to pulling off a good vanishing act. He found it amazing that most people never noticed what was going on right before their noses. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started to doze.

Less than an hour later, he heard a voice and opened his eyes. One of the soldiers next to him was sitting up and yawning. Nakor turned over and saw that the officer he had flummoxed was standing with his back toward the camp.

Nakor rolled to his feet, said, ‘Good morning,’ to the still-half-asleep mercenary, and moved off down the trail toward where he hoped Calis was camped.

Erik looked up from where he sat, a few feet away from Calis, de Loungville, and Foster, polishing his sword. They had returned to camp after nightfall, and Calis had gone to report to the officers’ tent near the bridge while Erik and the others tended the horses. When he returned he showed no sign of how the meeting went, but Calis rarely showed anything that Erik could read as pleasure or irritation.

But now Erik saw a small betrayal of emotion as Calis rose with an expectant expression: Nakor was making his way across the narrow trail that had been worn by hooves and feet between the Eagles’ camp and the one to the east.

The little man came trudging into view, with his seemingly ever-present grin in place. ‘Woof,’ he said, sitting down heavily on the ground next to Foster. ‘That was some doing, finding you. Lots of bird banners, and lots of red things, and most of these men’ – he pointed in general at most of the other companies nearby – ‘don’t care who’s next to them. This is one very ignorant bunch.’

Praji, who was lying back picking his teeth with a long sliver of wood, said, ‘They’re not being paid to think.’

‘True.’

‘What did you discover?’ asked Calis.

Nakor leaned forward and lowered his voice, so that Erik had to strain to overhear, though he and the others in his squad were trying hard to look as if they weren’t. ‘I don’t think it’s such a good idea to talk about this here, but let’s say that when I can tell you, you don’t want to know what I saw.’

‘Yes I do,’ said Calis.

Nakor nodded. ‘I understand, but you’ll understand what I mean when I tell you. Just let me say that if you have a plan for us to get out of here, tonight would be a very good time to do it. We don’t need to stay any longer.’

Calis said, ‘Well, now that we know where the ford is, we could try to slip across, or bluff our way and tell the patrol at the bank that we’re going out on another sweep to the south.’

Nakor opened his ever-present bag, slung over his shoulder, and said, ‘Maybe one of these passes would fool them.’

Erik tried hard not to laugh at the expression on Foster’s and de Loungville’s faces. They looked at the documents, and de Loungville said, ‘I’m not an expert in reading this gibberish, but these look authentic.’

‘Oh, they are,’ said Nakor. ‘I stole them from Lord Fadawah’s tent.’

De Loungville said, ‘The Queen’s Lord High General?’

‘That’s the man. He was busy and no one noticed, as I was playing the part of a slave. I thought one of these might do us some good. I wanted to poke around. There’s something very funny about that general. He’s not what he seems to be, and if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get my news to you, I would have stayed around to see just what this general really is.’

Calis looked through the four documents. ‘This might do it. It’s a vaguely worded order commanding all units to let the bearer pass. It doesn’t say if the bearer will have a full company of more than a hundred men with him, but I think if we can keep our wits about us, it might work.’

Praji stood. ‘Well, the day’s half done, and if we’re going to be convincing about a local patrol, we’d better be on our way now. Or did you want to wait until tomorrow morning?’

Calis glanced at Nakor, who shook his head slightly in the negative. ‘We leave now,’ said Calis.

Order was passed from man to man to act as if there was little urgency, but to get ready quickly to ride. If anyone in the other campsites took notice, Erik couldn’t see. The surrounding companies seemed intent upon their own business. The coming and going of another troop of men seemed of little interest.

In less than an hour, Foster had the men in file, and Calis motioned for Erik’s squad, the first in line, to fall in behind his own vanguard, Nakor, Praji, Vaja, Hatonis, and de Loungville. Foster would fall back and take command of the rear guard, the most experienced squad in the company. As Jadow Shati and Jerome Handy moved out of line, back to where Foster waited, Erik made a good-luck sign which Jadow returned, along with his broadest grin.

They rode northward, along the path to the road, where they paralleled the river until they came in sight of the bridge. That’s finishing up quickly,’ observed Praji.

‘They have many men working on it,’ said Nakor. ‘I worked on it for a couple of days so I could get across.’

Vaja said, ‘There’re are ample fords nearby. Why all the bother?’

Nakor said, ‘The Queen doesn’t want to get her feet wet.’

Calis glanced at the little man, as did Erik. Nakor wasn’t smiling.

They reached the guardpost and a stout sergeant came forward. ‘What’s all this, then?’

Calis said, ‘Hello again, Sergeant.’

Recognizing Calis from the night before, the sergeant said, ‘Going out again?’

‘The generals weren’t happy with my report. They think I didn’t head far enough south. I’m going out until noon tomorrow, then I’ll be back by morning the day after.’

‘No one said anything to me about your company crossing the river, Captain,’ said the sergeant, looking suspicious, ‘or anyone being out for more than a day.’

Calis calmly held out the pass. ‘The General made up his mind just a short time ago. He gave me this rather than relying on a messenger getting to you before we were ready to leave.’

The sergeant said, ‘Damn officers! We’ve got our orders, and then some captain of some company thinks he can get his drinking buddy to change the way we do things. Which of those strutting peacocks thinks he can just sign his name …’ His voice trailed off and his eyes widened as he saw the name and seal at the bottom of the pass.

‘If you want to send a messenger to General Fadawah to tell him that he’s not observing procedures, and you want confirmation, we’ll wait,’ said de Loungville. ‘I’d just as soon not have to go looking for the Gilani. Hell, I don’t think the general will mind, Sergeant.’

The sergeant quickly rolled up the pass and handed it back to Calis. ‘You may cross,’ he said, waving them past. He turned to the soldiers at the bank and shouted, ‘They’re crossing to the other side!’

They waved back and resumed their bored poses while Calis walked his horse down to where they stood and into the water, taking it slowly and carefully.

Erik felt the back of his neck itch, as if someone behind would start shouting they were trying to escape, or someone else would be warning the sergeant that a pass had been stolen from the General’s tent.

But they moved across the shallow ford in the river until the last company, with Corporal Foster the last man, had safely crossed. Then Calis motioned for them to pick up speed, and they all started moving south at a trot. Erik found himself fighting an unusually strong urge to dig his heels in and get his horse galloping. He wondered how many of the others felt the same way.

When they had moved some distance downriver, Calis ordered them to a canter and they rode at a good rate for another mile before he signaled for them to return to a trot. Nakor shouted, ‘You want me to tell you now?’

Calis said, ‘Yes, before you fall off and break your neck.’

Nakor grinned. ‘It’s bad. You remember our old friend the Lady Clovis?’

Calis nodded. Erik had no idea who she might be, but the darkening expression on Calis’s face said he knew her. What surprised him was that de Loungville registered no recognition. But Praji said, ‘That bitch who was using Dahakon and the Overlord Valgash down at the City of the Serpent River way back when we first met?’

‘That’s her,’ said Nakor.

‘She’s the Emerald Queen?’ asked Calis.

Nakor shook his head. ‘I wish it were so. Jorna, that’s her real name, at least back when we were married –’

‘What?’ gaped Calis, and for the first time Erik saw him totally lose his composure.

‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you some other time. But when she was a girl she was vain, and when we were together she was always seeking ways to stay young forever.’

‘I think if we get out of this you’re going to tell me every detail,’ said de Loungville, obviously as astonished as Calis.

‘Anyway,’ said Nakor, motioning for him not to interrupt, ‘the girl had talent for tricks, what you call magic, and she left me when I wouldn’t tell her secrets I didn’t have, about staying young forever. She was using a different body when she was the Lady Clovis.’

‘A different body?’ said Praji, now obviously confused. ‘How did you recognize her?’

‘When you know someone well, bodies don’t matter,’ said Nakor.

‘I guess,’ said Vaja, obviously amused by the entire conversation.

‘Shut up,’ said Nakor. ‘This is serious. This woman made a bargain with the Pantathians to keep her young forever while she helped them. What she didn’t know was they were using her. I warned her. I told her, “They want more than you can ever give them,” and I was right. They’ve taken her.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Calis.

Nakor’s expression turned grim. ‘What happened to your father, with the Armor of White and Gold.’

‘Yes?’ said Calis, color draining from his face.

‘It’s happening again. Jorna, or Clovis, is wearing an emerald crown and it’s changing her. She is becoming like your father.’

Calis looked shaken and said nothing for a moment; then he turned to de Loungville. ‘Tell Foster I want a rear guard to follow by fifteen minutes. I want to know if anyone tries to overtake us. If they encounter anyone, their fastest rider is to come find us, while the others are to lead whoever’s coming away. We’ll wait for a short time at the cave we found two days ago, then we’ll strike straight for Lanada.’

De Loungville said, ‘And if those who come after don’t take the bait?’

‘Make them take the bait,’ said Calis.

De Loungville nodded once, turned his horse, and rode to the end of the column. Erik looked back and saw Foster and six other men slow and then stop after de Loungville gave the order. They would wait a quarter hour, then start riding after Calis’s company, hoping they would get the chance to catch up in a day or two.

It was midmorning the next day when someone at the rear of the column shouted, ‘Rider!’

Erik looked over his shoulder and saw Jadow Shati riding the life out of his horse. The animal was completely lathered, and from the huge extension of her nostrils, Erik could tell she couldn’t catch her breath. She was blown out and ruined, he was certain. Jadow was familiar enough with horses to realize he was killing the mare, so Erik knew it could only mean trouble. He untied the cord that held his sword in its scabbard, as he did not need to be told that they were about to fight.

For in the distance, less than a mile behind Jadow, came a dust cloud. Erik saw the figures on the horizon, and before Jadow could get close enough to speak, Erik shouted, ‘It’s the Saaur!’

De Loungville asked, ‘How can you tell?’

‘The horses look too big for the distance behind Jadow.’

Just then Jadow came within shouting range and cried out, ‘Captain! It’s the lizard men! They are following.’

Calis turned to de Loungville and said, ‘We stay in the saddle. Skirmish in two lines!’

De Loungville shouted, ‘You heard the Captain! I want the first fifty men dressed left on me!’ That meant that the first fifty men in the column would line up on de Loungville’s left arm, in a straight line. Erik was the man closest to de Loungville when he moved his horse around.

Jadow came reining in, his mount staggering as he leaped off. Calis shouted, ‘Where’s Foster?’

Jadow shook his head. ‘They bought none of it. As soon as I took off, they followed me and ignored the corporal. The corporal turned around and hit them from the flank, buying me a head start. Captain, but …’ He didn’t have to say any more.

Erik thought of the big man, Jerome Handy, who had become something of a friend after being embarrassed by Sho Pi aboard the ship. He glanced to his right and saw Sho Pi, and nodded. Sho Pi nodded back, as if he understood what Erik was thinking.

Luis said, ‘Then we bleed lizards,’ under his breath, but loud enough for those near him to hear.

Erik drew his sword and put his reins between his teeth. He unlimbered his shield and made ready. He’d control his mount with his legs, but he kept the reins in his jaws in case he needed to yank them.

The Saaur’s animals must be as incredibly strong as their riders, thought Erik, for if Jadow’s mount was near death, the Saaur’s looked merely tired. Yet the green-skinned warriors didn’t pause once they saw the line of soldiers facing them.

‘We don’t scare them much,’ observed Nakor from behind Erik, who wouldn’t take his eyes off the approaching riders.

Calis said, ‘When I give the order, I want bowfire; then the first rank will charge. The second rank will hold until I give the order.’

The bowmen, all in the center of the second line, drew back their weapons, and de Loungville half muttered, ‘Wait for it!’

The Saaur bore down relentlessly, and as they approached, Erik started noticing details. Some wore feathers on their helms, while others had strange animals and birds on their shields. The horses were bay and chestnut, with some that were almost black, but while a few were near-white, he saw no buckskins or mottled colors. Erik wondered why he was fascinated by the fact of there being no pintos or buckskins. He fought down an unexpected urge to laugh.

Then Calis shouted, ‘Shoot!’ and the forty archers in the second line let loose. The rain of shafts caused a half-dozen riders to fall, and several of the alien horses screamed. Then Calis shouted, ‘Charge!’

Erik dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and with a shout and a powerful squeeze of his legs told the horse to gallop. He didn’t look to see how the others were doing, but kept his focus on a Saaur with a metal crest topped with a horsehair fall atop his helm. The horsehair had been bleached and dyed a bright crimson, so it was an easy target for Erik.

Erik sensed more than saw when his own horse crashed into the larger animal. He was too intent on avoiding the blow aimed at his neck. The Saaur warrior used a large single-bladed ax, which meant he could bludgeon with it on the backswing, but cut only with a forward blow. Erik almost fell into the gap between the two animals after his own mount staggered away from the larger horse. Erik ducked under the looping blow, but recovered in time to deliver a punishing blow with his sword to the thigh of the Saaur.

He didn’t see if the creature fell from the saddle or rode past, because he was too busy engaging another warrior who had just unhorsed one of Hatonis’s clansmen. Erik charged him and got his sword point under the creature’s shield before it could turn and face him, and the Saaur fell backwards, flipping completely over the rear of his horse.

Erik swore and reined his own horse away as the riderless alien horse lashed out with a foreleg. “Ware the mounts!’ he cried. ‘They’re trained to attack, too.’

Erik moved to help Roo, who was attempting to work in tandem with Luis against one Saaur. He came up on the lizard man’s blind side and delivered a killing blow to the back of the creature’s helm. The Saaur fell over and the helm fell off, revealing an alien face, green and scaled, but covered in scarlet blood.

‘Well, their blood’s not green,’ shouted Biggo, riding by. ‘They’re also dying right enough.’

‘So are we,’ said Roo, pointing. Biggo and Erik turned to see that while most of the Saaur had been unhorsed, for each one killed, one of their own was down as well.

Pushing back his helm, Biggo said, ‘We face them three to one, and still they take us out in equal numbers.’

‘Shoot,’ cried Calis, and the ten archers who remained to him started peppering the five remaining Saaur with arrows.

Jadow said, ‘Look!’ and pointed into the distance.

‘That’s why they’re so fearless,’ shouted de Loungville. ‘These are just the trail-breakers!’

Afar, a large column of dust rose into the sky, and even at this distance the rumble of hooves was thunderous. Erik didn’t wait but set heels to the flanks of his horse and charged after the remaining Saaur, who were attempting to keep the humans engaged as long as possible until their companions could overtake them.

Biggo let out a whoop and charged after him. They rode full into the same Saaur, striking at him from both sides. Erik caught him on the sword arm, shattering bone and cutting deep into flesh, while Biggo hammered relentlessly at the creature’s shield.

Soon it was quiet.

Calis said, ‘Ride for the cave! We’ll stand there!’

Erik sucked a deep lungful of air and willed his tired horse to run. There was no choice. The alien horses were stronger and more powerful and had more endurance. They couldn’t outrun them, it was clear, and at one to one, they couldn’t outfight the Saaur in the open.

Erik hoped that the cave tunnel did lead somewhere, as Praji had claimed. For if it was only a cave in a hill, it would be a lonely place to die.

In ragged order, leaving the remounts to follow or wander, Calis’s Crimson Eagles, exhausted and sore from the short but furious fight, headed toward the distant hillock.

Nakor was among the first to reach it, and without much grace he half jumped, half fell from his horse. He grabbed a waterskin and a bag of rations, then struck her on the rump, yelling enough to send her running away as he ducked into the cave.

As Erik and the others began to dismount, he shouted, ‘There’s a door! Come quick!’

Strike a light!’ commanded Calis, and de Loungville produced a special oil and motioned for someone to give him a torch. A bundle of them was fetched from the baggage along with a few other items the men would carry, but most of the baggage, food, and all the horses must be sacrificed.

De Loungville sprinkled the oil on a torch, then struck flint and steel to cause a spark. The oil caught and the torch was lit, and he ducked inside the cave.

Erik followed after, and had to duck-walk to pass below the low ceiling. After about ten yards, the ceiling rose and the corridor broadened, as the passage moved down into an underground cavern.

Erik looked for the door and discovered it was a huge round stone. It was nestled in a heavy iron and wooden frame, rigged so it could be rolled from its position to the right of the passage to block it. While a few strong men could use large wooden pegs set in the face to move it from inside this cave, those following after would have no handhold on the smooth surface, nor any way to gain enough leverage to move the massive rock.

When the last man was inside the cave, Erik, Biggo, and Jadow grabbed the wooden pegs and struggled to move the rock. Others insinuated themselves against the wall so they could push against the edge once it moved enough.

Slowly, protestingly, the rock budged and then with a grinding rumble moved as the sound of horsemen echoed through the entrance of the cave. Angry shouts in an alien language echoed down the hall as the grinding stone moved slowly to block their retreat.

Suddenly Erik felt resistance and knew that the Saaur on the other side had tried to prevent the closing. ‘Push!’ he shouted, and another pair of hands moved below his, and he looked down to see Roo trying to add his strength to the task. The little man had slipped below and crawled on the floor to find a place from which he could help.

Nakor shouted, ‘Close your eyes!’

Erik was slow and was temporarily blinded by a sudden flash of light as Nakor lit something from de Loungville’s torch and tossed it through the narrow space between the wall and the slowly moving rock door.

A scream and several shouts of rage answered, but the pressure on the door was released and it closed suddenly with a deep and final thud. Erik felt the shock in his shoulders as it slammed into the opposite wall.

His knees felt suddenly weak and he sat down on the cold cave floor. He heard Biggo laugh. ‘That was closer than I like.’

Erik found himself laughing, too, and looked over at Jadow. ‘Foster and Jerome?’

Jadow shook his head. ‘They all died like men.’

Calis said, ‘Bobby, light another torch so we can see where we’re going.’

Do we have another torch?’ asked the sergeant.

A voice in the dark said, ‘In the bundle here. Sergeant.’

Calis said, ‘Biggo, while we’re looking ahead, I want you and von Darkmoor to do an inventory. We’ve left most of what we had outside, but I want to see what we have here.’ He glanced around. ‘Though if there’s not another way out, it really doesn’t matter, does it?’

Without waiting for an answer, he moved off into the gloom as de Loungville lit a second torch, handed it to Luis, and moved after the Captain.

Nakor hurried to grab a few loose rocks and lay them between the stone and the floor. ‘Won’t roll back very well if they do get a grip,’ he said with a grin.

Biggo turned and said, ‘All right, me darlings. You heard the Captain. Look around and tell ol’ Biggo what you thieving rascals grabbed when you ran for your lives!’

Erik chuckled, but knew it was just relief at still being alive. He didn’t know who else had noticed, but when he ran into the dark he had looked back over his shoulder and seen at least thirty of the hundred or more men who had left that morning lying dead on the ground. They had survived the first encounter of a long and bitter journey to come, and almost a third of them were already dead.

He put that thought from his mind and began looking to see what resources they had.

Hours passed, and there were faint sounds from the other side of the rock door, so they knew the Saaur were contriving ways to move the boulder and come after them. At one point Roo wondered aloud what they would do if some Saaur magician came along and used magic to open the door, and the anger that greeted the remark caused the wiry man to fall instantly silent. Erik couldn’t remember a time when Roo had been shut up so quickly or effectively.

When Calis finally returned, Biggo said, ‘We’ve got food for four or five days, Captain. A few extra weapons, but mostly what each of us is carrying. We’ve got plenty of gold and gems, ‘cause the sergeant there grabbed the pay sacks, and we’ve got a fair supply of bandages and herbs.

‘But all our camp gear is gone, and a lot of us are going to be thirsty if we don’t find water quickly.’

Calis said, ‘The tunnel seems to head down gradually, and toward the foothills. I saw signs that someone’s used this route not too long ago, maybe a month, but no more than that.’

‘Tribesmen?’ asked Roo.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Praji, standing up. ‘Unless you’re anxious to face that angry pack of lizards waiting out there’ – he pointed to the door – ‘we go that way.’ He pointed into the gloom.

Calis said, ‘Everyone ready?’

No one said no, and Calis turned to de Loungville. ‘Get them into some sort of order, and let’s start seeing where this passage leads.’

De Loungville nodded once, then turned and gave the command. Once the men found their way to the positions they normally took while riding, a sense of the familiar surrounded Erik, as if following orders made the closeness of the tunnel and the gloom bearable.

Then Calis gave the word and they moved off into the darkness.