Kyrik and the Lost Queen Read online

  “It's better than nothing," she muttered defiantly.

  It was as she walked back toward him that he heard the footsteps along the outer hall. With a quick gesture of reassurance to the girl, he leaped for the silken panels that hid the walls and slid behind them.

  A man came into the doorway and stood there, staring at Adorla. He was a big man, fully as big as Kyrik, but he had let his body run a little to fat. There were still big muscles under that layer of fat, but easy living had softened them. His hard eyes went around the room swiftly, uneasily.

  He saw only Adorla standing in her stolen silks, close beside the empty food platters. His gaze went to the silver manacles, then to the girl.

  "Are you a witch-woman? A demon?" he asked hoarsely.

  She shrugged and smiled. “And if I am?”

  He seemed uneasy, unsure of himself. His hard black eyes roamed the room even as his hand slid to the hilt of his long-sword. He moved backward two steps, toward the doorway, and his lips lifted from his teeth in a slight snarl.

  “Wizardry," he whispered, and turned to flee. It was then that Kyrik leaped. Like a cat upon a mouse he bounded from behind those silken hangings, his thickly thewed arms reaching, his iron fingers widespread. Those fingers closed about the throat of Olyxus.

  Olyxus was a strong man. He had not risen from the rank of oar-swinger to become a captain of pirates by will alone. Now, as those fingers tightened on his windpipe, his right hand fell to his dagger's hilt.

  He lifted out that dagger and poised to slide its point into the body of the man that held him so mercilessly. But even as he sought to do this, Kyrik shook him as a terrier might shake a wharf rat

  Olyxus tried to breathe, and could not. His eyes, were dimming over, it grew harder to see. Every time he raised that dagger to drive it into the body of this man who held him, those iron fingers dug tighter and the massively muscled arms shook him so fiercely that he drove that cold steel at empty all.

  His legs sagged. If this man with the hard brown face and long yellow hair did not hold him so tightly, he would have fallen. In a little while he would be dead.

  Olyxus thought of all the loot he had taken in . the course of his lifetime. Gladly would he have given that gold, those jewels, to this beast of a man who held him so easily, were he but to ease the pressure of those fingers ever so slightly.

  Hard thumbs dug in, and Olyxus lost his senses. Kyrik lowered him to the floor, but he did not remove his hands. This man must die, lest he alarm his fellows. His life and the life of Adorla Mathandis depended on that.

  When Kyrik rose, Olyxus lay lifeless. He shook himself, growled, then glanced at the girl. She was crouched down, quivering, but her eyes were enormous, and they showed no pit in

  them. Now that the pirate chieftain was dead, she rose to her feet and stretched out a hand.

  "His men will find us,” she whispered. “Na, na. I know a way. Come along.”

  They were moving down the corridor when they heard the sound of feet and the faint clank of metal. Kyrik cursed softly, swung Adorla behind him. His eyes ran up and down that long hall, and in his heart he knew there was nowhere to hide.

  They came around the corner, ten men in all, and they halted at sight of him. Directly before them, a sword naked in his hand, was a tall man, lean almost to the point of emaciation.

  The lean man halted, stretching out an arm to stop his attendants. Lank black hair hung down around his thin face in which black eyes burned. He wore a maroon cloak, and his chain-mail was silvered, ornate with golden pendants.

  "Now this is a strange thing. I see that woman whom Olyxus lusted after, standing free beside the man from whom she was taken." He raised his . voice. “What have you done with Olyxus, stranger?”

  Kyrik rumbled, lifting his hands. "I slew him with these, choking the life out of him."

  The lean man nodded thoughtfully. “We were coming to kill him, ourselves. Too long have we served Olyxus. It is time we took matters into our own hands." He shook his head. "But to have a stranger do it...."

  He lifted his hand. The men with him ran past him with their swords out.

  Kyrik grinned. His own blade came into the faint torchlight, and he ran to meet those men who hungered for his death. With sweeping sword-blade and darting dagger, he met them.

  Bluefang slashed deeply into a man's throat. His dagger rammed its blade into the belly of another. Instantly he freed both weapons, jerking them from the hot flesh in which they were buried, and again he swung and jabbed.

  Men shouted in dismay. They had foreseen an easy victim, a man terrified by their numbers, but in this corridor numbers did them little good. Only two men could face this giant in the flickering torchlight. And two men were of little use against that long sword-blade—and slashing dagger.

  The lean man shouted encouragement, then turned and ran. Kyrik saw him go, knew he was going for reinforcements. Unless he finished this fight soon, men would take him front and rear, and he would die.

  He hurled himself forward, stabbing and slashing so swiftly that men went down before him, caught in the mesh of their amazement that one man should attack so many. He gave them no chance to use their own blades, other than to stab futilely at air where he had been. He thrust and clove with his steel, and men died gurgling on their own blood.

  In moments, the corridor was empty save for himself and Adorla. She stood with her back against the stone wall, eyes wide and fixed on him.

  "What's the matter?" he asked as he came toward her, shaking the blood-drops from his blade.

  "You—you slew them all," she whispered. "If I hadn't, that man who ran would have come back with more men than I could handle."

  His hand on her arm turned her, brought her with him at a run toward the broken wall through which he had entered. He kept looking up and down that corridor, listening for sounds which would tell him when those reinforcements were about to arrive.

  Adorla cried out at sight of the opening. "Into it,"" Kyrik rasped.

  When she hesitated, he picked her up and pushed her feet first into that jagged aperture. Adorla squealed in terror, but her knees found the stones that formed a little platform above the shaft, and she quieted.

  "There's a ladder. Go down it."

  She backed toward the black abyss, peering fearfully over her shoulder. At the last moment, even as her leg poised above the shaft, Adorla hesitated.

  "I'm afraid, she whispered. “There's a ladder there. It's how I came up. Go on, girl. The longer you wait, the sooner that lean man will bring up reinforcements. I can't battle them in that shaft."

  She closed her eyes and leaned backward, further over that dark emptiness. When her toe touched a rung, she gave a sigh, and then began to go down that ladder as swiftly as she could.

  Kyrik came after her, almost stepping on her fingers.

  He could hear the sound of running men, faintly muted, and the cries of outrage when the runners saw the dead bodies in the corridor. Those men would search the hallway, and would discover soon enough the opening through which they had crawled.

  "Hurry!" he called. “Hurry!"

  They were halfway down when the aperture was discovered. Voices shouted, then quieted. Kyrik could imagine one of them slipping through that aperture and trying to peer into the shaft down which they were traveling.

  “Arrows," someone said. "If they're in that shaft, we can put steel into them."

  There was no defense against arrows. Had he a shield, Kyrik would not have worried. He would have held it over his head so that those arrows would glance off it, and no harm would be done.

  Something went past him, faintly whirring in the blackness. Someone had shot an arrow but it had missed them. Kyrik stared upward into the gloom. He could see nothing, it was too dark to see. Yet more of those arrows would be fired down here. It was a simple matter for an archer to stand on that flat platform and send his shafts whistling downward.

  They shrank closer to the ladder as they fled dow
n. Another arrow went past them, and then a third.

  Kyrik realized that the very slight current of air moving up through the shaft might be deflecting those arrows, sending them outward and away from the inner wall. He whispered a prayer to Illis, and wondered if the goddess in the crystal ball could hear it.

  I hear it, Kyrik. I hear and I—respond1 A man shrieked above them and next moment Kyrik felt a rush of air as a falling body went shrieking past them. There was a dull thud below them, and then silence.

  "They won't be so anxious to set foot on that stone ledge now," Kyrik chuckled. “He must have lost his balance in the dark."

  Aided by a slight shove from behind! “Now how could you do that, being in that crystal?”

  A tiny chuckle was his answer. "I have my ways, doubting one. A slight nudge to the man behind him, that man slips forward and hits the archer....”

  Adorla was in the crosswise pipe, now, looking oddly at where she fancied Kyrik might be in that

  Stygian gloom. "Are you talking to me?" she—wondered.

  "To myself, girl. Now get down and crawl. We'll be out of this yet."

  When they had come to the lapping waters of the river harbor, Kyrik said, "I forgot to ask, girl. Can you swim?"

  She shook her head dolefully. "They never taught me. They felt it was undignified in a queen to do anything but be beautiful."

  The warlock-warrior grunted. “Then clasp my neck. I'll swim for the both of us."

  Her soft arms came about his throat. He felt the touch of her breasts and loins against his back. As her arms tightened, he slid into those dark, cold waters, and began his swim. He wanted to be well away from those high walls before he raised his head, for he realized that an archer might put an arrow into him if he showed himself too soon.

  He angled his swim toward the high bank north of the citadel. When his lungs began to strain, he rose to the surface. Above and behind him, he could hear Adorla Mathandis gulping at the cold night air.

  It was then that a giant claw closed about his right leg and began to drag him downward.

  Chapter FIVE

  Kyrik tried to break free. He kicked back, found that the sole of his war-boot touched something soft and rubbery, but the downward tug was not to be resisted. Steadily he was drawn into the deeps of the cold water, with Adorla on his back.

  The girl was hitting him with a fist, as though believing he was playing some game. She did not v know that something had hold of him, or if she did, then she was hitting him in an excess of terror.

  The water was colder now, and Kyrik could feel a vague current flowing. There was something above him—a stone roof the top of an embankment?—and then he surged up into the air.

  He gasped for that air, drew it into his lungs.

  Beside him Adorla was sputtering and splashing. His arm drew her against him and he trod water, staring at a cavern that seemed cut out of rock, that was lighted by a tall pillar of glowing stone. His eyes touched that pillar wonderingly.

  He knew of nothing it could be. Stone that glowed, with the cold radiance of the firefly. Yet it lighted up the cavern, it showed the rock walls and the stone ceiling from which encrustations of stone drooped downward, and the pool of stagnant Water.

  That water rippled, heaved. Kyrik swam for the shoreline, if such it might be called, a low shelf of stone that rose upward from the water to form a little platform. He reached it, one arm about Adorla, and he dropped her, half-drowned, upon its surface.

  He swung about and drew his sword. Whatever had gripped him in that river and drawn him here into its lair was still below the surface. The waters of the pool bubbled and churned, yet nothing appeared. Kyrik drew in deep breaths of the cold, wet air, and stared about him.

  There were skeletons here, and bits of rusted armor, a broken sword, and here and there a golden chain that might have belonged to a woman. A chill raced up his back. Did all those who had been flung down that shaft end up here, in past years?

  If so—how old was that thing which had clutched him?

  "Illis—have you abandoned me?" Soft elfin laughter answered him. "Foolish Kyrik Have you so little faith in me?”

  “Faith or no faith, you've tricked me somehow." You will need the firestar! “Firestar? What magic is that?" He was so intent on what Illis might tell him that he came close to forgetting the thing that had dragged him here. But the waters swirled and broke, and a black head, wet and shining, in which two red eyes gloated at him, broke the surface of the pool.

  His hand tightened on Bluefang's hilt. The monster was coming up for him now. It rose slowly, water ran off its thick black hide, and up in front two arm-like appendages fitted with giant claws came stabbing upward through the air.

  There was no name for this undersea monster—at least none he had ever heard. It was gigantic. He realized he was looking at only part of this thing that seemed almost to fill the pool. Those red eyes that glared at him were unwinking and steady.

  They looked upon him as their prey. At his back, Adorla was sobbing. “What is it? Oh, gods of Alkinoor, what is that thing?"

  Kyrik made no answer. He was too intent on watching those clawed arms that reached for him, that moved steadily closer—closer—as the behemoth moved almost lazily through the waters. Kyrik! Step within those claws—and strike! The thing surged upward. If it had legs, those legs braced and lifted it. Swiftly now those clawed arms reached outward—

  Kyrik leaped. Straight between those claws he drove, and Bluefang was a brilliance in the bluish air as he raised it up high above his head. His nostrils caught the fetid stench of this monster, he saw the red eyes widen, and a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth opened to engulf him.

  At the last moment Kyrik halted. He braced his feet on the wet shelf of rock and caught Bluefang's hilt in both his strong hands as he drove that blade downward through the air. It whistled as it moved.

  Deep into the head of that monster, right between those glowing red eyes, he drove his sword. Deep into the blubbery flesh of the thing his sharp steel penetrated.

  His momentum carried him forward. His war-boots slipped on the uncertain footing of the rock shelf and he almost fell into the open maw of the water-beast. At the last instant he braced himself, hands clinging to his sword-hilt and using it as a brake.

  Now he stove to free that sword, aware that the beast was flinging itself upward onto the rocky shelf, was closing those clawed arms about him. Those claws sank into his flesh, they bit.

  Deeper! Stab deeper! There was frenzy in that voice of Illis screaming in his brain. Those massive arms would crush the life out of him, those claws would dig between his ribs and pull them from his body.

  His hands tightened their hold. He thrust with Bluefang. Deeper into that mass of blubbery flesh went his steel. Still deeper Adorla Mathandis was screaming behind him, and her every screech told him how hopeless his attempts to slay this monster must be. Yet he snarled and thrust Bluefang into the thing until the entire blade, up to the crosspiece, was locked inside it.

  The claws loosed their hold. They slid down his back and fell away. Gradually, so slowly that Kyrik hardly knew it was taking place, that monstrous thing was submerging. His hands were locked to his sword-hilt, and his sword was stuck in its brain-pan. In moments he was going to be drawn down into the water with this creature.

  Perhaps, in the water, it might revive. With every last ounce of strength he could muster, Kyrik yanked at his hilt. One foot he placed between those red eyes that stared balefully up at him even yet, and he tensed the muscles of that leg.

  Slowly, slowly, Bluefang came out.

  Once begun, the blued steel came easily, sliding out even as Kyrik fought to keep his footing on that rock shelf. As it slid free, Kyrik sobbed air into his lungs, turned and lunged for higher rock.

  He fell almost at Adorla's side. She was crouched on her knees, tears streaking her cheeks as she stared in horrified wonder at the man who had driven off that nightmare creature. She saw him lying th
ere, panting for breath, and she moved to him, putting her arms about him, trying to raise him higher onto dry rock.

  When she had him there, he rolled over and stared at the stone ceiling of the vault. "What was that thing?" he asked the air.

  Adorla shook her head, crouched beside him. Faintly he heard that elfin laughter which told him Illis was not far away.

  Lalathor is its name. Born in the long-ago time, it was given immortal life by the wicked Marrassa. In years gone by, it served the kings of Tizone before they abandoned this castle which was their summer home.

  Kyrik closed his eyes. He was bone-weary, he needed rest. His eyes opened to look on Adorla and he grinned at her very faintly.

  "Be easy, girl. Nothing can come at us in here. l have a need for sleep. Watch and wake me if anything happens."

  He slept like that, on his back where he had crawled, with Adorla's help. Kyrik had the instincts of an animal. When he had a chance to get some rest, he snatched at it. For long hours he lay motionless, breathing deeply.

  He woke to the sound of Adorla sleeping within the crook of his arm. Her soft body rested on his chest. He clasped her tighter, felt her stir a little closer in her slumbers.

  Hunger was a living force inside him. His eyes roamed the chamber, seeing everything in the pallid light of that strange pillar. There was no food here, he felt certain that no fish would dare the waters of this enclosed pool with Lalathor here to disturb them.

  He disengaged himself from the girl and rose to his feet.

  Sluggard You've slept long enough. Kyrik chuckled. “ Illis, you’re a goddess. I’m only a man. I tire and I hunger. If you have such powers, give me a feast."

  You will have your food. Take now the firestar1 He ran his eyes around the chamber. He saw the bones of dead men and women and the broken swords and the belt of golden bits, but he saw no firestar.

  The pillar1 The pillar! He moved across the stone floor toward that towering needle of glowing brilliance. It was cold—cold. The nearer he came to it, the deeper the chill which seemed to emanate from it.

  It was translucent, he saw. Through that brilliance, he could see the far side of the cavern. He lifted his head and stared upward toward the ceiling. He was about to lower his gaze when he saw something bright and throbbing, deep inside the pillar.