Post by Char-Vell on Aug 5, 2020 15:45:34 GMT -5
I. Waylaid!
I stood at bay, the still-warm carcass of my slain dromedary at my back, surrounded by a half-dozen dwarfish Qllgir hillmen; they brandished long, wickedly-curved knives and their eyes were hidden behind lenses of darkly stained glass. I tore the keffiyeh from my head and spat at them.
“Dogs! Come forth and have done with it!”
In my right fist I gripped the haft of my lance, broken in twain when my mount was felled with a Qllgir arrow, and in my left a heavy dirk. I was under no illusion as to my chances against six of the fiends, but I was determined to sell my life dearly. The Qllgirs began closing the circle. It was then Senai, their leader, stepped through them to gloat. Her words oozed venomously through teeth stained blue by the Ghahaq root.
“Now you learn the price of defying me, toad!”
Senai was no Qllgir. She was a barbarian from the south, crawled up from some frigid hell beyond dread Ibak to plague the arid trade routes of Khemino-Ta. She towered over the squat Qllgirs. Steely sinews coiled under her bronze flesh, and rudely cropped black hair stood out from her uncovered head like a spiked crown. Her grey eyes burned with a lust to cleave my skull with the bronze war-axe carried casually across her shoulders.
To my shame, I was acquainted with her.
“Treacherous bitch!” I bellowed. “You agreed I could cross Qllgir territory unmolested!”
“That was before I discovered your theft, and betrayal!”
Before I could offer protest, she made some utterance in the guttural tongue of the Qllgirs and they were upon me. The first I struck with my makeshift club, which shattered on the man's burnoosed skull and crumpled him to the sands. I narrowly avoided the slash of the second tribesman’s blade and plunged my dirk into his guts. But as he died he grappled my arm and I was undone. I was struck a savage blow to my head that left me sprawled atop the carcass of my dromedary. I resigned myself to death as the cowled visages of the Qllgirs descended over me.
A black shadow reared up behind them, bat-like; there was a flash of steel and a wail of pain. The Qllgirs scattered. I struggled upright and fought to clear my addled senses so I might discern what transpired.
Three Qllgirs remained and now circled he who had descended like a shadow of death among them. He was a rangy youth, with shoulder length red-gold hair that writhed in elegant disarray about a youthful, aristocratic face. His tunic, breeks and tall boots were black, and an ebon cape completed his garb. A long slender sword, stained with Qllgir blood, was held lightly in his steady right hand. One of the hillmen lay dying at his feet.
The Qllgirs lunged as one, and the youth sprang into frenzied action. Sinuously he parried and dodged their cuts and slashes, his slim blade weaving a web of steel around him. One by one the desert wolves fell, skewered through throat, breast, and eye socket. In exultation I cried out, and the effort made me swoon. The youth wiped his blade on the burnoose of one of his foes, and then came to my side.
“Lay still, friend.” said he. His voice was deep and resonant, speaking the tongue of Khemino-Ta with a slight, peculiar accent. He grasped my head and seemed to examine it.
“You are fortunate. Your skull is unbroken. The blow was still enough to jostle your brains. You should be fine. I will fetch my things from my pack and sew you up. Rest here.”
Here I felt a warm wetness crawl down my neck, no doubt I bled from a split scalp.
“Are you a chirurgen?” I asked.
“My father was. He shared much of his trade with me.”
“Did he also share with you the art of man-slaying? Your blade work is extraordinary.”
He smiled grimly.
“My parents thought it prudent to teach me to defend myself.”
“Wise folk.”
The youth wandered from my vision and I lay back. Closing my eyes and seeking to ease my distempered senses. Presently he returned leading a black dromedary. An enormous black slouch hat was now perched on his head. Taking articles from a saddle bag he once more knelt by my side and commenced work on my wounded head. I felt little pain, but the silence in which he worked became distracting. At last I ventured to speak.
“I am Haffbieff of Kairoo, a cartographer by trade.”
“Well met, Haffbieff. I am Anbiko. I ply no trade unless aimless wandering is a trade.”
“I am glad your wanderings brought you here this day, Anbiko. My race was run. But what of the venomous harpy that led those reavers?”
“I know not. A rider fled as I came upon you.”
“Odd. Senai is not one to shy away from violence.”
“I am pleased she did.”
I rose, unsteadily. Anbiko offered his arm but I declined it.
“I must stand alone, friend Anbiko, the desert will not countenance a man who cannot walk unaided, and this is not the first time my old brainpan was rattled. Let us take stock of our situation.”
Anbiko shrugged and adjusted his outlandish hat.
“I fear our situation is grim, Haffbieff. My water skin is nigh on empty, I rode up on your group hoping you might have water for which I might barter, only to find you in battle.”
I looked about. The water skin that hung from my saddle had burst beneath the carcass of my poor dromedary, its contents sucked up by the thirsty sands of the Surah-al-Khemi. The dromedaries of the Qllgirs had either run off or been led away by Senai.
“By the Lightning Fortress of Xoscullian!” I cursed. “We are in quite the pickle, young Anbiko! The journey I was making would have been a near thing with a full skin, now we have not enough to even return to Khemino-Ta.”
Panic began to spread its dread pinions over my soul. Yet when Anbiko spoke his tone was languid and untroubled.
“Aye. This is a tight spot. But fretting over it will avail us nothing, friend Haffbieff.”
I was stung by the lad’s stoicism. And I could find no fault in his logic. Thus calmed, a plan took shape in my mind.
“You speak wisely, lad. We may escape the talons of death yet. Help me lift my poor dead dromedary, so I might retrieve my pack. I have in it a map I would show you.”
In short order we had wrested my pack from under the slain beast and I withdrew a battered parchment. (It was not, in truth, parchment, but some resilient, translucent material that I have yet to identify.) Upon it was delineated a map of the Surah-al-Khemi. Not unusual save for where most maps showed blank nothingness, mine showed a walled city, and detailed a route by which one could reach it from the traditional trade routes. I pointed to the spot on the map.
“Behold. This map was moldering with age when the Ancients plied the heavens in their Sky-Chariots. To be brief, I believe this shows the path to the legendary oasis-city of U'Ad! Have you heard of U'Ad, Anbiko?”
The lad nodded.
“I have read of it. It was swallowed by the sands for angering the gods or some such.”
“Indeed. I think it still exists, hidden by the shifting sands. We may be as close as day's ride from it. It was said to be an oasis, so we might find water. We do not have the water to make it back to Khemino-Ta, nor to Oaniblius, the fortress at Cuar, or any other settlement. If we are doomed anyway, we might as well take our chances with this map.”
“How came you to have the map?”
“That slattern Senai pilfered it from a caravan bound for the library at Kairoo. Learning this, I… insinuated myself into her trust, and liberated it at the first opportunity!”
“Ah! That explains her hostility!” said Anbiko, rather too flatly.
“It is regrettable, but I had little choice. A priceless artifact of this magnitude cannot be left in the hands of a ravening barbarian.”
The lad nodded and fixed me with an earnest, calm gaze.
“Very well, Haffbieff, you and your map shall be our guide to salvation. I trust you have no objection to sharing a dromedary?”
“None.”
“Then let us be off.”
I hastily gathered my meager belongings, and clambered up on the ebon dromedaries' back, behind Anbiko. Consulting my map, I gestured in what I believed to be the right direction.
“That way. Keep the setting sun to our left.”
Anbiko goaded the beast into action, and we set off to lost U'Ad.
