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

Corun bounded across the floor, the sword shrieking in his hand. It whirled down to crash through the skull-bones of one guard. Before he could free it, the other two were on him.

He ducked a murderous pike thrust and slipped close to the wielder, stabbing upward with his dagger. The Xanthian screamed and hugged Corun close to himself, fastening his jaws in the man’s shoulder. Corun slashed wildly, ripping open the throat. They tumbled to the ground, locked in each other’s arms, raging like beasts. Corun’s knife glanced off the Xanthian’s ribs and he felt the steel snap over. He got both hands into the clamped jaws, heedless of the fangs, and wrenched. The jawbone cracked as he forced the reptile’s mouth open.

He rolled from beneath the still feebly struggling creature and glared around for the third. That one lay in a hacked ruin against the cell; he had backed up too close to the bars, and the men inside still had their weapons.

Gasping, Corun climbed to his feet. An eager baying of fierce voices rolled out from the cell; men gripped the bars and howled in maddened glee.

“Corun⁠—Captain Corun⁠—get us out of here⁠—let us out to rip Shorzon’s guts loose⁠—Aaarrrgh!”

The Conahurian lurched over to a dead Xanthian at whose waist hung a bundle of keys. His hands shook as he tried them in the lock. When he got the door open, the men were out in a single tide.

He leaned heavily on an Umlotuan’s arm. “What happened to you?” he asked.

“The devils led us down here and then closed the door on us,” snarled the blue man. “Later a group of them in rich dress came down⁠—and suddenly we saw what a slavery we’d been in to Shorzon, suddenly it no longer seemed that obedience to him was the only possible thing⁠—Mwanzi, let me at his throat!”

“You may have that chance,” said the pirate. He felt strength returning; he stood erect and faced them in the flickering firelight. Their eyes gleamed back at him out of the shadows, fierce as the metal of their weapons.

“Listen,” he said. “We might be able to fight our way out of here, but we’d never escape across the Demon Sea. But I know a way to destroy this whole cursed house and every being in it. If you’ll follow me⁠—”

“Aye!” The shout filled the cavern with savage thunder. They shook their weapons in the air, gleam of red-lit steel out of trembling darkness. “Aye!”

Corun picked up his sword and trotted down the nearest passageway. He was bleeding, he saw vaguely, but he felt little pain from it⁠—he was beyond that now. The thing was to find the devil-powder. Tsathu had said it was somewhere down here.

They went along tunnel after winding tunnel, losing all sense of direction in the wet hollow dark. Corun had a sudden nightmare feeling that they might wander down here forever, blundering from cave to empty cave while eternity grayed.

“Where are we going?” asked someone impatiently. “Where are Xanthi to fight?”

“I don’t know,” snapped Corun.

They came suddenly into another broad cavern, beyond which was another barred door. Four Xanthi stood guard in front of it. They never had a chance⁠—the air was suddenly full of hurled weapons, and they were buried under a pile of edged steel.

Corun searched the bodies but found no keys. In the murk beyond, he could dimly see boxes and barrels reaching into fathomless distances, but the door was held fast. Of course⁠—Tsathu would never trust his men-at-arms with entrance to the devil-powder.

The corsair snarled and grabbed a bar with both hands. “Pull, men of Umlotu!” he shouted. “Pull!”

They swarmed close, thirty-odd big blue men with the strength of hate in them, clutching the cell bars, grabbing each other’s waists, heaving with a force that shrieked through the iron. “Pull!”

The lock burst and they staggered back as the door swung wide. Instantly Corun was inside, ripping open a box and laughing aloud to see the black grains that filled it.

For a wild moment he thought of plunging a brand into the powder and going up in flame and thunder with the castle. Coldness returned⁠—he checked himself and looked around for fuses. His followers would not have permitted him to commit a suicide that involved them. And after all⁠—the longer he lived, the more enemies he’d have a chance to cut down personally.

“I’ve heard talk of this stuff,” said one of the men nervously. “Is it true that setting fire to it releases a demon?”

“Aye.” Corun found the long rope-like fuses coiled in a box. He knotted several together and put one end into the powder. The ignition of one container would quickly set off the rest⁠—and the cavern was huge, and filled with many shiploads of sleeping hell.

“If we can fight our way to our ship, and get clear before the fire reaches the powder⁠—” began the Umlotuan.

“We can try that, I suppose,” said Corun.

He estimated the burning time of his fuse from memories of the use he’d seen the Xanthi make of the devil-powder. Yes, there would be a fair allowance for escape, though he doubted that they would ever reach the strand alive.

He touched a stick from the fire to the end of the fuse. It began to sputter, a red spark creeping along it toward the open box. “Let’s go!” shouted Corun.

They pounded along the tunnel, heedless of direction. There should be an upward-leading ramp somewhere⁠—ah! There it was!

Up its length they raced, past levels of the dungeons toward the main floor of the castle. At the end, there was a brighter blue light than they had seen below. Up⁠—up!

Up⁠—and out!

The chamber was enormous, a pillared immensity reaching to a ceiling hidden in sheer height; rugs and tapestries of the scaled Xanthian weave were strewn about, and their heavy, intricately carved furniture filled it. At the far end stood a towering canopied throne, on which sat a huge golden form. Other shapes stood around it, and