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straddled above me, laughing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I meet the Blue Mountain Boys and the shorgortz
I reached up and took the rock away from his brown fingers and he had to let it go or his fingers would
have snapped. I threw the rock away. I took his wrists in my left hand, his throat in my right, and I
squeezed a little, not much, just enough to let him know who was master here.
I could kill you now, dom. But I will not. I am not one of Kov Vektor s men. You should have seen
that from my clothes.
He glared at me, his eyes bulging out, a bright and brilliant blue. That was interesting; nearly all Vallians
have bright brown eyes, and brown hair, and some of them have the luck to have that outrageous blend
of chestnut that so glorifies the hair of Delia of the Blue Mountains.
I released my grip a little and he choked and coughed.
A quick glance around confirmed that all the zorcamen were down. I saw one Womox with a broken
horn and blood oozing from a smashed skull. The other I could not see, nor did I ever again see that
particular Womox. A Chulik was backed against a rock, his rapier slashing desperately at the cudgels of
the ring of Blue Mountain Boys. I looked for Stovang, but could not pick him out. The defile looked a
mess, with calsanys and preysanys milling, zorcas standing with drooping reins, the bodies of unconscious
men sprawled everywhere.
Listen, dom. You have a leader. Tell me his name quick!
No thought of treachery occurred to him; he told me what, in other circumstances, could not have been
dragged from him by torture.
Korf Aighos!
I nodded, satisfied. The man was named for the powerful iridescent blue bird of the mountains, a
nickname, as one might say Eagle Jack. The man tried to work his throat, and gulped. And I was
satisfied he was cowed how little I knew of the Blue Mountain Boys, how proud of them I am!
Get up, dom. Shout for Korf Aighos. I would like to have words with him.
The man rose, dragging his ponsho skin about him. He wore decent leathers beneath and his body was
of the whipcord toughness required of a mountaineer. His face, brown and lined, glanced back at me
with a return of his natural arrogance.
Shout, dom, I said.
He shouted.
There was a stir in the Blue Mountain Boys, and a man strode toward me. At first glance I knew I could
do business with this man. He walked with a swinging alert gait, half arrogant, half cautious, that marks a
man ready for what the world may bring him. He carried a sword, short and heavy, more of a large knife
than a shortsword, and its tip shone clean and unbloodied. He was not overlarge, but his chest was
massive and his arms roped with muscle. His eyes, too, were blue.
What is this he began.
I chopped his words off brutally.
Aighos! If you look you will see I am not Vektor s man!
By Vox! You speak out of turn, cramph! You must be a rast of Vektor s, or else why are you here?
A little rascally fellow with snaggly teeth and shaggy ponsho fleeces flapping about his narrow shanks
trotted up. He carried a cudgel almost as long as himself. He had but one eye.
Stick him, Korf Aighos! he cackled, waving the bludgeon. Stick him and take the treasure
Still your tongue, Ob-eye! Aighos glared. I will say who is to be stuck and who not. As for the
treasure, throw it into the river for all I care.
One or two of the ruffians, forming a watchful circle about me, started at this. Ob-eye yelped as though
hurt.
But the treasure! Stick him, I say!
I will stick you, by Vox, you ob-eyed rast! You know the orders of my Lady of Strombor! No killing!
I really felt those solid mountains lurch under me. My Lady of Strombor! I, Dray Prescot, was the Lord
of Strombor! There were only two ladies of Strombor in all Kregen and one, Great-Aunt Shusha,
was still there, as far as I knew, still in Strombor in Zenicce. So so Aighos could only be speaking of
my Lady of Strombor, my Delia!
No real recollection remains of how I covered the intervening space, but I was gripping Korf Aighos by
the scruff of the neck, and twisting him up to me, and glaring down into his face. He glared back and
that dark, betraying shadow passed over his eyes.
What is this of my Lady of Strombor! Speak, and quickly, or I ll snap your neck like a rotten pitcher!
He struggled, and a hand was laid on my shoulder preparatory to my being whirled about and struck. I
back-heeled and a man screeched. I lifted Aighos, beating away his fists, for he had dropped his long
knife, and I swung him about and I shouted at these Blue Mountain Boys.
Listen to me, you creeping mountain cramphs! I mean you no harm. I visit your country and am set
upon! If this rast is your leader then let him speak, or by Zim-Zair, he s a dead man!
I saw Korf Aighos eyes flick toward me, and, suddenly, he went limp in my fist.
I will speak. But first, tell me who you are and, for the sake of Opaz himself, put me down!
I set him on his feet.
I am Drak ti Valkanium, I said and then wondered if that had been the best thing to say. But habit
had become ingrained.
He glanced at me, sidelong. He shook his head. Now, by the Invisible Twins, I wonder!
Tell me of my Lady of Strombor!
At this, as though abruptly recollecting himself and where he was, his face took on an expression of
alarm immediately succeeded by grim determination.
He glanced around. He said, in a whisper, If I tell you that, Tyr Drak, the Opaz-forsaken guards of
Vektor will hear. Then we shall have to kill them all. My Lady of Strombor has expressly forbidden
killing, although Here he spread his hands and glanced around, not, I fancy, with any too-guilty a
feeling. He finished: Sometimes the knife or the rock are the only solution.
A pragmatist, Korf Aighos. We withdrew into a cleft in the rocks, and he eyed me so narrowly that I
tensed up ready to beat him in whatever scheme he was brewing. Instead, and again the rocks of the
solid mountains lurched, he said: You called yourself Drak ti Valkanium. I gave you the honorable title of
Tyr because you are clearly so. But I think if I called you another name you would answer.
I looked at him. I know that old devil s look flashed evilly from my face, for he swallowed, and hurried
on.
Pur Dray, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, Zorcander of the Clan of Felschraung I know I am
not wrong!
Yes, I said, shattered.
The Princess said you would come. Long and long has she waited. By stratagem after stratagem has
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