Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

“I just may do that, then.”

“And if you persist in using those sorcerous trinkets I shall either take them from you or gather up my votaries and depart.” A faint hint of a sneer curled Furkar’s lip, but his tone remained deadly calm.

“I don’t think he’s lying,” Rap muttered. “Looks like the Covin hasn’t got him yet.”

Azak choked, growled, and beat his fists on his knees. “Will there be anything more, your Majesty?” Furkar inquired sweetly. .

“Yes. That jotunn woman was here. She must have escaped when my back was turned. Have the camp searched for her.”

“I hear and obey, Mightiness.” The sneer became more pronounced.

“Doesn’t like being ordered around like a flunky, does he?” Rap remarked cheerfully.

Azak stood up. “Go! And tell Nurkeen to send me another. One of the fat ones.”

Furkar turned and disappeared out the flap without even a pretence of a bow. Azak stood up and cursed at length. “Any idea what all that was about?” Rap inquired loudly. Inos felt a wash of relief. The killer glare had faded. Rap was still enraged, extremely dangerous, but he was rational. ”Yes,” she said. “Did you say you wanted Azak to go back home to Zark?”

The caliph had been rummaging in one of the chests. He slammed down the lid and sat on it to begin pawing through a tangled sheaf of documents.

Watching him intently, Rap growled low in his throat. “I want him dead! But I can’t just kill him. Yes, back to Zark.”

“The sash is the answer!” Inos said. “The Prisoner they mentioned is his son Krandaraz. The women talk of him. He almost overthrew Azak some years ago. He’s supposedly being held in secret somewhere, to be released if Azak dies. That’s how he keeps his other sons in line.”

Rap’s gray eyes had turned to her as she spoke. Now they began to gleam, seeing where her logic led. “Krandaraz must be quite a lad!”

She would have given half her kingdom for that smile. “He must be. The others daren’t move as long as he is alive.” With a muttered oath, Azak threw his papers over his shoulder in a blizzard. He unfastened his emerald sash and tossed it on top of the other chest.

“How obliging!” Rap murmured. He urged Inos forward and they approached the caliph.

Azak pulled off his turban, revealing a hedge of red and white hair around a bald crown. He set to work on his shirt. “Getting ready for the fat one,” Inos said. “I think I’m flattered, but I’m not sure.” She was babbling. The sight of the caliph’s bulging, red-furred torso was bringing back nightmares. “Any idea where this Dreag is?” Rap asked, edging closer to the glittering baldric on the chest.

“No.”

“Well, I expect the—I mean, I expect certain friends of mine can find it. Thank you, dearest. You’ve solved the problem. Oh, yuuch! disgusting, isn’t he?”

Azak had removed his boots. Now he rose and dropped his pants, sitting down to pull them over his feet.

Rap felt Inos’ shiver and bared his teeth. “Hang on to my hand. It’s time to deal with this vermin. By the way, do you recognize the sword?”

As she stepped clear to give him room, he drew a slim rapier and flicked it a few times.

“No. Oh! Rap!”

“It’s Kadie’s. I borrowed it for the evening. She wasn’t any too willing to lend it to her dear papa!” His gray eyes were shining with pleasure now. ”She’s safe, Inos.”

The tent swayed. The lanterns dimmed briefly. “You all right?” Rap cried, steadying her.

She nodded. To faint now, after all this? Never! “Yes. Oh, yes! That’s wonderful!”

KadieKadieKadie! Kadie safe!

Rap started to turn to Azak and then looked back at her hesitantly. “Gath?”

“Gath went off on his own to the Nintor Moot.”

“Oh.” His face ran through a whole bazaar of emotions—surprise, disapproval, confusion, alarm, and then pride. “Well! Nintor? On his own? Did he just? Tell me later. Hang on.”

He reached out with the rapier and lifted the emerald sash of Arakkaran from the chest. It writhed, an angry snake of green light. Azak twisted around and stared blankly at the empty space. He gave the impression of a very puzzled man—not sure what he’d seen or what he should see or why it mattered.

“There! Always wanted one of these.” Rap draped the sash around his neck like a scarf. “Give Krasnegar a bit of class.” He bared his teeth. “Now . . . We’ll leave a note explaining that the sash has gone to Dreag. I plan to write it in blood—Azak’s blood. A fairly serious flesh wound is required, I think. Somewhere appropriate. You want to do it, or shall I?”

“You do it, darling,” Inos said. “Husband’s privilege. But give it an extra twist from me.”

6

After all the potent sorcery Rap had been throwing around, Inos expected the escape from the djinn camp to be a simple matter. Things did not happen quite that way.

Azak’s agonized screams brought a mob of guards pouring in. The big man roared like a camel as he stumbled to the door, clutching his groin and trickling blood between his fingers. He vanished into the horde of brown-clad family men in tumult and commotion. Revenge suddenly felt nauseating.

The first problem was the message. There was plenty of blood, but it soaked into the rugs and even the stains were not all within easy reach, especially as Rap was hampered by the need to stay in contact with Inos. By the time he had scrawled a few words with his finger on the back of a discarded dispatch, the guards were carrying Azak over to the bed, while still more men blocked the doorway. The racket suggested a huge crowd gathering outside.

A rapier had no cutting edge. Rap stabbed repeatedly at the side of the tent, cursing as it billowed, unable to make even a hand hole. One of the fearsome guards brushed against Inos and leaped back with a yell, reaching for his sword. Then he stood and gaped all around in bewilderment while his companions demanded to know what was wrong and he could not remember. Everyone seemed to be shouting at once, and Azak was still screaming.

Furkar had arrived, but he was standing back and watching with a cruel sneer, making no move to assist.

Inos made a fast grab for a dagger tucked in a guard’s sash. As she made contact, he caught a momentary glimpse of the intruders and in turn made a grab for her. She stabbed at his hand; he fell back, yelling in terror. She swung around and slit the fabric with one long slashing stroke.

Rap yelped gleefully and pushed her out through the gap. She caught her foot and pitched headlong, remembering just in time to throw the dagger away lest she fall on it. In consequence she crashed heavily onto the grass, wrenching her swollen shoulder. Pain flashed like red flame, driving every other thought from her mind. Icy panic followed. She had escaped from Azak’s tent, and Azak was injured, and what on earth was she going to do now? The hue and cry was in full spate already. There were tens of thousands of men all around her and they would all be hunting her. Yells from inside the tent told her that the gaping rent had been noticed.

Then strong hands grasped her to help her up and she remembered that Rap was here, also. Oh, good!

Rap set off at a run, dragging her through a darkness full of trees. She stumbled barefoot over the rough and prickly ground. Her garments were nothing to keep out the cold of the night, and the undergrowth seemed determined to strip even those from her. The camp was in an uproar, men running everywhere, and the only light came from the stars and the campfires.

“Had a pony,” Rap shouted. “Can’t get to it. Can hear horses over here somewhere.” He was swinging the rapier like a cane, striking men out of his way like weeds and leaving a trail of near hysteria. He was also blundering through a multitude of branches and shrubs, cursing continuously. Gauze tugged and ripped as she followed.

“You can’t see?” Inos said. “Can you do something about my shoulder? Why don’t you just zap us out of here?”

He did not seem to hear her, but in a moment he came to a halt and lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. “Have you still got the dagger?”

“No.” She was panting. She was too old for this wild adventuring.

“Then hang on to me. Don’t want you to get lost.”

In the dark her fingers fumbled at his neck. She felt the prickly coldness of the emerald baldric. A fortune in itself, it was also the title deed to one of the richest states in Zark, and Azak had redefined it as the symbol of the caliphate. As loot, it was a fair start for a career in theft. She felt she had earned it, though. Her feet were slashed to ribbons and her shoulder was lashing her with sickening waves of pain.