Short Fiction - Poul Anderson (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

met his sword in a clang of steel. Dougald let him come lunging in, took the cut on his mailed ribs, and swept his own weapon murderously out. Faster than a man could think, the Khazaki had his own blade up to parry the sweeping blow. But he wasn’t quite fast enough; he met it at an awkward angle and the Terrestrial’s sheer power sent the sword spinning from his hand. The hand went too, a fractional second later, and he screamed and fell back and away.

The others were upon Anson. For moments it was parry and slash, three against one, with no time to feel afraid or notice the cuts in his arms and legs. A remote part of his brain told him bleakly: This is all. You’re finished. No lone Earthling ever stood up long to more than two Khazaki. But he hardly noticed.

Suddenly there were only two in front of him. He darted forth from the wall, his sword crashing down with all the power of his huge body behind it. The warrior tried to skip aside⁠—too late. The tremendous blow smashed his own parry down and sang in his skull-bones.

And the last of the attackers died. He tumbled over beside the second, and each of them had a feathered shaft between his ribs.

The bowman came loping through the rain. He paused, in typical Khazak fashion, to slit the throat of the wounded being, and then came up to where Dougald Anson stood panting.

The human strained through the rainy dark. Lightning glimmered in the sky, and he recognized the newcomer. “Janazik!”

“And Anson,” nodded the Khazaki. His sharp white teeth gleamed in his shadowed face. “You seem to have met a warm welcome.”

“Too warm. But⁠—thanks!” Anson bent over the nearest of the corpses, and only now did the realization penetrate his brain. They all wore black mail of a certain pattern, spiked helmets, red cloaks⁠—Gods of Gorzak! They were all royal guardsmen!

He looked up to the dark form of Janazik, and his lean face was suddenly tight. “What is this?” he asked slowly. “I thought maybe bandits or some enemy state had managed to enter the city⁠—”

“That would be hard to do, now that we have the guns,” said Janazik. “No, these are within our own walls. If you’ll look closely, you’ll see they wear a gold-colored brassard.”

“Prince Volakech⁠—but he⁠—”

“There’s more to this than Volakech, and more than a question of the throne,” said Janazik. Then suddenly, urgently: “But we can’t stay here to talk. They’re patrolling the streets, it’s dangerous to be abroad. Let’s get to shelter.”

“What’s happened?” Anson got up, towering over the native by a good quarter meter, his voice suddenly rough. “What happened? How is everyone?”

“Not well. Come on, now.”

“Ellen? Masefield Ellen?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows. Now come on!”

They slipped into the alley. Anson was blind in the gloom, and Janazik’s slim six-fingered hand took his to guide him. The Khazaki were smaller than Terrestrials and lacked the sheer strength and endurance which Earth’s higher gravity gave; but they could move like the wind, they had an utter grace and balance beside which humans were clumsy cattle, and they saw in the dark.

Dougald Anson’s mind whirred in desperate speculation. If Volakech had gotten enough guardsmen and soldiers on his side to swing a palace revolution, it was bad. But matters looked worse than that. Why should Volakech’s men have assaulted a human? Why should Janazik have to sneak him into a hiding place? How had the revolutionists gotten control in the first place, against King Aligan’s new weapons? What powers did they have now?

What had become of the human community in Krakenau? What of his father, his brother and sisters, his friends? What of Masefield Ellen? What of Ellen?

He grew aware that Janazik had halted. They were in an evil-smelling, refuse-littered courtyard, surrounded by tumble-down structures, dark and silent as the rest of the city. Anson realized that all Krakenau was blacked out. In such times of danger, the old Khazaki clandom reasserted itself. Families barricaded themselves in their dwellings, prepared to fight all comers till the danger was past. The city was awake, yes⁠—it was crouched in breathless tension all around him⁠—but not a light showed, not a hand stirred, not a voice spoke. They were all waiting.

Janazik crouched at the base of one of the old buildings and lifted a trapdoor. Light gleamed dimly up from a cellar. He dropped lightly down and Anson followed, closing the door behind him.

There was only one smoky lamp in the dank gloom. Shadows were thick and huge around the guttering wick. The red flame picked out faces, shimmered off cold steel, and lost itself in darkness.

Anson’s eyes scanned the faces. Half a dozen humans: Chiang Chung-Chen, DuFrere Marie, Gonzales Alonzo and his wife Nora who was Anson’s sister, Dougald Joan, Masefield Philip⁠—No sign of Ellen.

“Anse! Anse!” The voices almost sobbed out of the dim-lit hollowness. Joan and Nora sprang forward as if to touch their brother, make sure he was alive and no vision of the night, but Janazik waved them back with his sword.

“No noise,” hissed the Khazaki’s fierce whisper. “No noise, by all the thirteen hells! Volakech’s burats are all over the city. If a patrol finds us⁠—”

“Ellen!” Anson’s blue eyes searched for Masefield Philip, crouched near the lamp. “Where’s your sister, Phil?”

“I don’t know,” whispered the boy. “We’re all who seem to’ve escaped. They may have caught her⁠—I don’t know⁠—”

“Father.” Joan’s voice caught with a dry sob. “Anse, Father and Jamie are dead. The rebels killed them.”

For a moment, Anson couldn’t grasp the reality of that. It just wasn’t possible that his big laughing father and young Jamie-the-brat should be killed⁠—no!

But⁠—

He looked up, and then looked away. When he turned back to face them, his visage had gone hard and expressionless, and only the white-knuckled grip on his sword showed he was not a stranger.

“All right,” he said slowly, very slowly and steadily. “All right. Give me the story. What