Demetrios’ face had passed from lividity to absolute pallor. So angry was he that he was unable to do more than splutter and beat his clenched fists on the ship’s rail. His features were jerking uncontrollably and a vein in his forehead throbbed violently.
Finally, he managed to gasp, “The gods damn your guts, you putrid, wormy, old swine! You tell us what we want to know, or you’ll be drinking a broth of your eyes and your clacking tongue!”
The brown-skinned man regarded Demetrios without fear, then noisily hawked and spat on the dock. “I’m a-answerin you the bes’ I knows how. I don’ know if you can git away with talkin’ to folks like you jes’ talked to me where you come from, but 01′ Short-Nose’s rules ia thet name an’ threat callin’ is reasons enough to call a feller to stan’ an’ fight, man to man, iffen you’re a mind to.
“Now your ship-master asted me to come over to here and I dropped my work and come right on over. Didn’ I? I done tried to be perlite an’ helpful, cause I could see you was a stranger an’ a landlubber, to boot. An’ I’s took me a pure lot offen you, cause you’s a furriner and I fig-gered me mebbe they don’t teach folks decent manners where you come from. You may be a big mucketymuck in your parts, but you ain’t in ’em now, lordy-boy.
“I be a ol’ man now. But, in my day, I shipped with 01′ Short-Nose an’ with Rockhead, his pa, an’ with Red-Arm, his uncle, too. An’ it’s many a good man’s guts I done spilled—in fac’, thet’s whut they still calls me, Gut-cutter Yahkohbz. Nowadays, I don’t even own me a sword, got no use for one no more; but I do have me a good knife, yet.” He shifted a wide, heavy-bladed dirk around to his right side, where its worn hilt was clearly visible.
“Now, I may be three times as ol’ as you, lordy-boy, at leas’ twicet it, an’ you got you a sword, too. But I’d still lay you a helmet fulla gold to a pot fulla piss thet if I’uz to stan’ for my rights, you’d be a snack for the Orks in ’bout one minute. But I ain’t gonna do it, sonny, so it ain’t no call for you to wet your pants a worryin’.
“I ain’t, ’cause I can take me one look at you an’ tell it wouldn’ be no’ fight nor no fun. B’sides, I got me more important than’s to git done, ‘fore the lasta the daylight’s
gone.”
With that, he spun on his heel and limped back to the rope he had been splicing, casting not another glance at the High-Lord of Kehnooryos Ehlahs.
Between them, Lord Sergios and Master Titos managed to persuade Demetrios not to order his blacks to spear the old pirate, pointing out that, as the man was obviously free, such might be considered murder hereabouts, and the cashless High-Lord called upon to pay a blood price. Far better, they argued, to discuss the incident at a propitious time with Lord Pardos, leaving punishment for the old man’s unpardonable crimes to his own sovran.
The sprawling, three-story residence of Lord Pardos occupied most of an artificial mesa and was built mostly of the dark native stone. For many long minutes after arriving on the hilltop, Demetrios had to lean, gasping and shuddering, his red face streaming sweat, against the wall near the entrance. None of the black spearmen, nor Lord Sergios, nor even the little slave, was in the least winded, but it had been years since the High-Lord had been forced to walk up an entire half mile of hillside.
Within an outer court, lamps and torches flared an orange glow above the wall, while the mingled sounds of bellowing laughter, shouts, feminine squeals, and snatches of wild, barbaric music smote on Demetrios’ ears, and his nose registered the smells of roasted meat and wine.
Outside the high, double-valved gate hung a scarred brass gong. When Demetrios had recovered-sufficiently to stand erect, Lord Sergios drew his sword and pounded on the gong. Abruptly, most ef the noise from within subsided. Then one of the portals was swung half open and they were confronted by a gap-toothed, one-eyed giant of a man, wearing a well-oiled tunic of loricated armor and a brass-and-leather helm, with a huge, spiked ax on his shoulder.