Natural caution among mercenary-employing nations impelled them to hire mercenaries from many different races. Chuliks, Rapas, Ochs, Fristles — of those I had already met on Kregen — and all the other strange half-men and beast-men I was to encounter, also, when employed by a single government would rest secure in the knowledge that each individual detachment of mercenaries would scarcely ever allow itself to be cozened into a rebellion in association with any other detachment. Mutual suspicion would keep the hired soldiers apart. And no single detachment would of itself be powerful enough to topple the hiring government, when all the others would leap in to combat the first hint of insurrection. In general, then, mercenaries on Kregen can be trusted to earn their hire. But — there were always the exceptions. And I, Dray Prescot from Earth, took a perverse delight in finding those exceptions and turning them to the general good.
Now Umgar Stro and his Ullars from far Ullardrin with their indigo-dyed hair ruled in Rapa Plicla. Naghan the spy had given us exact directions.
We could not, of course, converse at the distance apart the wingspread of the corths forced us to fly, and into the teeth of the blustering wind; but at my pointing spear Seg nodded, and we did as we had been taught with the simple reins of the birds and began to glide down. The tower seemed to grow in size and girth as we floated down to it. Away to the north we could make out the stone-piled enclosures surrounding the Yerthyr trees to keep out the animals of the city. Seg had reported to me on the quality of the trees of Hiclantung. Wherever we went in our travels it was noticeable how Seg’s expert appraising eye dealt with the forestry details. Hiclantung’s Yerthyr trees, according to Seg, were excellent and the bows with which we had been furnished brought a smile of delight to Seg’s lips.
This first rapid approach was to be a reconnaissance. Our corths, which would never be mistaken for impiter or yuelshi, could no more make a landing on the tower or its battlemented curtain walls on either hand as could one of the Ullars’ mounts land on a roof in Hiclantung. The same rules of elementary tactics applied. My corth — a fine fellow with the boldly delineated eye and pigment streaks running from it that distinguish the Earthly cormorant — wheeled with easy power, swooping past the tower and so away again with a giant rustling of wings off into the concealing darkness. A couple of Kregen’s lesser moons were in process of hurtling across the nighted sky, but until the twins rose we had the comforting concealment of semidarkness.
I suppose it is a natural part of nature’s progress that more than one species should exist simultaneously
— many hundreds insure the survival of at least some — and it would have been extraordinary if Kregen had developed through the years only one kind of flying animal or bird. Think of the enormous multitude of birds on Earth, and given the much greater size of the Kregish fliers, partially due, I imagine, to the slightly lessened gravity, it would be unthinkable for only one kind of giant flying animal to exist on Kregen beneath Antares.
The twins would soon roll above the eastern horizon and flood their pinkish light down over the jagged hills and the gaunt towers of Plicla. Seg knew exactly what he had to do, the doing of which as I had ordered being the only reason I had accepted his insistent offer to come along. I knew he would have come, anyway; I just didn’t want to get him killed unnecessarily.
I made a sign to him in the wind-rushing darkness and I saw his wild head nod against the starlight. Swerving my corth back toward the tower of Umgar Stro I began my final preparations. No normal landing was possible. So the abnormal became necessary.
All my old sailor skills surged up afresh as I knotted the leather thongs. The Hiclantung leather was good, even though I considered it not so fine as that of Sanurkazz. The corth’s reins were extended in length. From the flying saddle I unwound the already-prepared thongs and dropped them to swing madly in the rushing wind of our flight. At their ends the trapeze and the loops did not look particularly inviting. I took a breath and then unfastened the flying straps and bands that held me to the saddle and slid over the side. My feet kicked wildly for an instant, then I had control and was able to lower myself down until I sat astride the trapeze, my hands in the loops above me and gripping the ends of the long extended reins that ran over crude blocks on the saddle bow.
An overwhelming nostalgic sweep of memory carried me back to my days in Aphrasoe, the city of the Savanti, and to the swingers. How I had joyed then in swinging in wild free hurtling flight from plant to plant! Now I was swinging again — although this time I clung beneath the hooked talons of a giant flying bird and swung not from pleasure but to save the life of the girl I loved. The cold struck at me shrewdly, but I took no notice.
Umgar Stro’s tower seemed to me to swing and sway before my eyes. I fought to make my reeling senses understand that the tower remained still, that it was me, Dray Prescot, swinging so sickeningly. Long practice over the years in straddling out along the topgallant yardarms saved me, then, and I could estimate distance and force my senses to compose themselves.
Seg’s corth billowed in from the side, the fingerlike wing-tip feathers altering angles and curvatures as with superb aerial control the great bird matched velocities with my own corth and the led bird. Seg would have to grab the reins of my mount — somehow — and keep it ready for our departure. The roof of the tower spiked up toward me.
I pulled on the reins gingerly, and the world tilted; then the tower became perpendicular and I could see the fans of cruel iron spikes, the trip wires, the slanting lines of tiling that gave no secure perch anywhere. I inched forward on the trapeze as the wind bellowed past my head, whipping my hair back, lacerating my eyes and cheeks.
Closer — closer — would the corth never haul up?
At the last moment to the savage jerking of the reins the bird abruptly fluttered his wide vulture-like wingspread. His body reared up into the air exposing his underside, his legs and claws stabbed forward and down. The trapeze hit the tiles with an almighty thump and I pitched off and rolled. As I rolled and slithered to the sheer drop to the cliffs beneath, the corth, without alighting, fluttered hugely and was airborne. The led corth followed and the two birds wheeled away. I had no time to hope that Seg would catch them.
The lip of the slanted roof was coming up at me with frightening speed. If I went over that there would be nothing anymore — no Delia, no Vallia, no Aphrasoe. .
My hand smashed numbingly into an iron fan spike. My fingers curled and gripped without conscious volition. I hung there, spread-eagled on the roof, blatted at by the wind, seeing only the faint star-shot shadows all about me.
After a moment I had breath enough to draw myself up into a posture less exposed. The trapdoor through which inspection parties must come to check the roof defenses opened after I gave it a taste of my long sword. I dropped down, bent-legged, my sword in my fist. Only dust, cobwebs, litter. . From the attic I found the ladder leading below and descended wondering, for the first time, at the silence of this place.
So far the information given me by Naghan, the spy, had proved correct. But he had not penetrated here. From now on I entered unknown dangers. For me, Dray Prescot, that is not an unusual hazard. It seemed to me that the stone wall and floors of the chamber within the tower still reeked faintly of the distinctive Rapa odor. I padded on, guided from one dim pool of illumination in the palpable darkness to the next where torches guttered low. Desperately I sought to convince myself that my mission had not already proved in vain. But the atmosphere here smelled of abandonment — and then I tensed. Voices, ahead of me, talking lazily, in half grumbling, half resigned accents brought all my senses alert as I crept stealthily upon the two Ullar guards.