It was one of the most dreadful things Pinimmon Vash had ever seen, a dusty black horror as long as a supply wagon, with six thick plated walking legs and two more that each carried a heavy claw. Almost a dozen men pulled at it with ropes but still couldn’t coax it out of its cage at the bottom of the ramp, a box taller than a man, made of heavy wooden boughs woven together like wicker.
“By the gods, what is that terrible thing?” demanded Olin in a tone of horror. Even his guards had turned their backs on him to watch the angry thing swiping claws as large as ox-yokes at its handlers, who although presumably experienced with such creatures looked no happier at dealing with it than anyone else would be, their faces pale and set in tight, fearful lines.
“Have you never seen an askorab?” Vash tried to sound matter-of-fact, but it was not easy with a hissing monstrosity like that only a few dozen paces away, struggling so hard as it was dragged out of the cage that the sand it kicked was landing on the paramount minister’s feet. “I believe you have them in the south of Eion. The Hierosolines call them ...”
“Skorpas,” said Olin, staring as though he could not help himself. “Yes, I have seen them, but never one as big as a wagon… !”
“By my blood, but that is a handsome fellow!” said the autarch, laughing. “Have you ever seen such a splendid machine?”
“Machine? It is a living creature, or I miss my guess,” Olin said. “I can hear its breath piping.”
Sulepis chortled. The god-king was in a good mood. “I meant only that it was a machine in the sense of being something created to fulfill a task, as a plow turns the soil or a windmill turns a stone to grind grain. The forefathers of this brute in the Sanian desert hills were nothing like this big—scarcely larger than a hunting dog. He and his cousins have been bred just for this task.”
“And what task is worthy of such a hideous demon?” Olin asked, but if he meant to sound defiant or disgusted, he failed: even Vash could hear how shaken the man was by the sight of the terrible beast, which had just caught one of its handlers in a flailing pincer and was busy crushing out his life as the others struggled to hold onto their ropes and cursed uselessly, breaking their sticks against the monster’s hard shell.
“Why, to go down into the tunnels beneath your old home and clear them for us,” said the autarch. “The askorabi are hunters. This fellow will make short work of anything alive down there. And he is only one of a dozen!” Sulepis sat up straight. “Ah, look there—they have lured him out at last!”
“Lured” was perhaps not the word that Pinimmon Vash would have chosen, since a dozen more of the askorab-handlers had been forced to run and help their fellows keep the monster from escaping, but with so many more hands on the cords, they had at last managed to drag the hissing black beast out into the direct light. Vash saw that its tail was more slender in proportion than that of its small desert brothers, but still a formidable weapon, coiled over the creature’s back, trembling with the urge to drive the dripping barb at its tip into the handlers, who knew well enough to stay out of reach of the tail as well as the claws.
Most of them knew, Vash amended himself as another handler was abruptly caught up in a massive pincer, tweezed mostly in half, then shoved into the creature’s clicking mouth parts even as he still tried to scream. King Olin turned away, clearly struggling not to be sick, but Sulepis watched avidly.
“Into the tunnels with him!” the autarch shouted. He turned to Olin and Vash. “Then we will seal the entrance with a big stone.” He seemed as pleased as a child describing a new game. “They are all but blind—the beast will go downward in search of food.” He frowned. “They should not have let him eat that slave. He will be sluggish.” The moment of bad humor did not last. “Then we will let the next ones go. Soon the tunnels beneath Southmarch will be full of these beauties.”
Olin looked up, pale and shocked. “But the tunnels beneath the castle—some of them must lead to Funderling Town. And from there, up to the rest of the city.”
“Yes,” said the autarch. “Yes, indeed.”
“And it would be pointless to beg you not to do this,” said the northern king heavily, “wouldn’t it? To say that if you refrain, I will cooperate with whatever you plan?”
“Worse than pointless,” said Sulepis, smiling. “You will cooperate whether you wish to or no, Olin Eddon—your part in what is to come is important but not subtle. And although I have soldiers in the thousands, I myself must go down into the depths beneath your old home. Do you see? In the dark caves there are many places to hide in ambush. But when the askorabi are finished, nothing that breathes will remain.”
“It is not that skorpa who is the monster here,” Olin said.
Sulepis only laughed. It seemed there was nothing the northerner could ever say to make the autarch lose his temper—an astounding talent to have, and one that Vash fervently wished he, too, possessed. “I am another perfect machine, King Olin. I let nothing stand in my way.” He clapped his long, gold-bejeweled hands and his platform was carried away, back toward the massive tent that had been set up in the town square, a new Orchard Palace underneath the skies of the March Kingdom.
The askorab had lifted what was left of the dead handler and had stung it over and over in a raging frenzy until what remained was scarcely recognizable as having once been human. As the shouting handlers slowly drove the many-legged beast toward the rocks, it dropped the tattered remains into the sand. The other handlers, ashen to a man, turned their faces away as they passed. Behind them, scores of other workers were lowering more cages down from the deck, each with its own hideous, hissing passenger.
“We shall probably lose a few askorabi down in the depths,” the autarch said cheerfully. “They are not hounds, after all—they will not return when called. It is interesting to think that generations from now their descendants will probably still be emerging from the tunnels to hunt unwary travelers. ...”
Olin’s movement was so swift it astounded Vash, who had come to think of the northern king as someone like himself—older, passive, a creature of mind and manners. With a shout of rage that clearly had been long bottled inside him, the northerner leaped past his own guards and in a quick two paces had crossed the sand to the autarch’s litter, then began to clamber up onto the platform. The autarch watched with interest, as if the murderous northern monarch was just another entertainment. Olin’s attack was hindered by the alarmed slaves, who in their sudden fear made the whole litter dip and sway precariously, so that Olin slid backward, away from the autarch, but the Leopard guards had already moved to block him. Three of the elite guardsmen grabbed the northerner and yanked him off the litter, then threw him to the ground. Two of them knelt on his arms while the third set his blade against the king’s throat hard enough to draw a thin line of blood.
“Don’t hurt him,” said Sulepis, sounding for all the world as if Olin had done nothing more than startle them all with a clever trick. “He is valuable to me.”
The skin of Olin Eddon’s face was white above his beard and he was trembling in every limb as the guards roughly dragged him to his feet—he looked as though he might even try to attack the autarch again. Instead, to Pinimmon Vash’s great relief, the northerner yanked himself loose from the unresisting guards and stalked away up the beach, back toward the autarch’s camp and the guarded tent that served as his prison. His guards hurried after him.