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The fight is scarcely worth the chronicling, for I was minded to be merciful to Duhrra. He attempted to
seize me as I advanced and I drew him on. Then, as we had done so many times in the unarmed combat
drills in the fortress of Zy, and later as I had with Turko in our little practice area in Esser Rarioch, I took
him and turned and twisted and for all his enormous bulk he rotated about the grip and flopped back,
toppling, to fall ponderously on the flat of that massive back.
I could not stop myself from saying "Hai Jikai!"
But that was a saying from other places and times.
The crowd stood silently and then, suddenly, burst into roaring applause. I merited no applause. I
reached down and took Duhrra s hand and hoisted him to his feet. I stared into his dark dull eyes and
saw an expression there I recognized; I did not know whether to be joyful or shiver with the
apprehension of a new responsibility.
Naghan the Show waxed highly indignant.
"The gold piece, Naghan!"
In the end he handed it over.
I had the thing, warm from his claw, in my hand, and was bending to don my cloak and belt when the
first shrieks and screams laced the air with panic.
Everyone was running. Pandemonium broke out further along where the bulk of the piled stores cut
against the stars. I heard the fierce warlike yells, the battle cries, and I heard again that hated shrilling of:
"Magdag! Magdag! Grodno! Green! Green!"
The longsword shivered in my grip.
Naghan the Show was screaming. He ran. Duhrra scooped up a red cloak and ran with him. I followed.
They ought to know their way about this showground outside the base store camp. The devils of
Grodnim were raiding from the sea. They aimed to destroy the stores here, in the rear of the army. These
civilians, the tail of the army, the camp followers, were mere meat to be butchered. They must flee for
their lives. I was not minded to flee, but I wished to fight where I felt success would attend my efforts. To
be killed now in a stupid affray would nullify all I fought for in the wider realities. I had to quell that
perfectly natural feeling that I ran like a nulsh from a fight. A fighting man who does not pick his field
usually does not last long. But I admit I felt the shame and the indignity of running before those hated cries
of "Magdag! Grodno! Magdag!"
I owed the Overlords of Magdag. Once I had nearly defeated them with my old slave phalanx of
vosk-skulls. Now I must find the guard detail here and form with them to bash these green sea-leems
back to their ship and burn them there.
So you see I had changed from the old Dray Prescot who had once roamed and fought over the Eye of
the World.
Or so I thought in my folly.
Naghan the Show panted out, "Into the ruins! There we may hide from these cramphs of Magdag."
Duhrra gave a low grunting cry, unintelligible. When Naghan stumbled he caught the slight body up and
carried him as one would carry a feather pillow.
Behind us the sky began to light up as the Grodnims started their fires among the stores. Away to our
right along the shore the dark masses of tents and the long sectrix lines remained silent. If the guards did
not counterattack soon they might as well shut up shop. The crazed mobs of people were running every
which way. Ahead up a slight incline, sandy and scattered with thorn-ivy under the light of the moons, lay
the sere gray skeletal arms of the ruins.
"Careful of that damned thorn-ivy, Duhrra," I said.
"I will . . . uh . . . take care, master."
"I am not your master."
He did not reply but ran on, carrying the complaining form of Naghan the Show over one brawny
shoulder.
Still no sign of the necessary counterattack. We had broken clear of a mass of people. There were
soldiers in that mass. I stopped running.
"Damn it!" I burst out "This won t do! By Zair, I m not running from some kleesh of a Magdaggian!"
Duhrra stopped also. His smooth massive head turned and that blank, heavy-lidded idiot-face gave me
no inkling of what he thought or felt Then:
"I shall fight with you, master."
"There is no call. You are not a soldier."
"Yet I can fight."
"Aye. Aye, by Zair, you can fight, Duhrra."
He put Naghan the Show back on his feet. He patted the fancy clothes into place, perched the tall miter
cap squarely on the narrow head. Naghan squealed.
"What are you trying to do, Duhrra? Ruin me!"
"Zair needs all our arms this night, master."
Turning back, I spread my arms and yelled, as I was wont to yell hailing the foretop in a gale of Ushant
or bellowing at my Djangs in the arrow-storm, halting the running mob. Quickly I roared a dozen or so
soldiers back to a semblance of their duty. One, stricken with fear, insisted on running. Him I struck
senseless with my fist and gave his sword to Duhrra. Then, with little hope but with hard determination,
we went back to face the leems of Grodno.
Fortunately, for the fight would have gone ill for us, the guard eventually turned out and we smashed and
bashed our way against the hated green. In among tall piles of lumber, massive lenken logs needed in
fortress construction by the army engineers, we fought and chased the raiders of Magdag, as they fought
and slew us.
The erratic light from the Twins cast pinkish reflections from burnished armor, caught rosy stars in the
twinkling weapons that withdrew darker red, made seeing difficult. Pursuing a group of Magdaggian
swods  they were apims like me  up an alleyway between stacked lumber, I sprawled headlong
over a corpse whose dark red blanket-cloak completely deceived me in the rosy glow. I cursed and
stumbled up. Ahead of me and backed against the lumber a young man in red fought two Chuliks in
green.
The young man was yelling  screaming  as his sword blurred this way and that. He would not last
long.
He screamed in high desperation: "Dak! Dak! Aid me now! For the sweet sake of Zair, Dak, to me! To
me!"
Past the Chuliks were three other Chuliks and two Rapas, their vulturine beaks gaping with the passions
of battle. Ringed by these five stood a man whose white hair blazed with pink highlights and roseate
shadows, an old man, a man past two hundred years old. Yet, as I staggered about feeling the effect of
that sprawling fall, I saw this white-haired man surge against the nearest Chulik, duck the blow, strike the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]