"Duncan, Dave - Seventh Sword - 03 - Destiny Of The Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

Normally Brota sold the cargo and Tomiyano scouted for
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another, but now the sailors were fretting about ballast and trim, so the roles were reversed. Big fat Brota strapped on her sword, took Mata along to wield it if necessary, and waddled away in search of profit. Tomiyano ordered two bronze ingots laid at the foot of the plank, stood young Matarro beside them, and headed back on board to attend to other business.
He was not left long in peace—traders arrived and Matarro fetched the captain. As a bargainer, Tomiyano was very nearly as shrewd as his mother. Wallie eavesdropped happily from his post on the rail while the discussion raged below him. Eventually the price range was narrowed, and the traders came on board to inspect the main cargo in the hold. Wallie turned his attention back to the dock life.
Tau was Wallie's favorite among all the cities of the Regi-Vul loop, although to call Tau a city was to stretch the term to its limit. As in most towns and cities, the dock road was too narrow for its duties, cramped between the bollards, gangplanks, and piles of unloaded cargoes on one side and the traders* warehouses on the other. The sun was unusually warm for a day in fall and it shone on a scene of loud and colorful disorder. Wagons rumbled and clanked, pedestrians milled, slave gangs sweated, hawkers pulled carts and shouted their wares. There were no rules—traffic went wherever it could find a space. The clamor of wheels mingled with oaths and insults and abuse. Yet the People were a good-natured race, and in the main the tumult was without rancor. The air smelled of horses and dust and people.
Wallie enjoyed watching the horses of the World. They seemed so mythological—the head of a camel and body of a basset hound. They smelled Earthlike enough, though. During fee morning he had observed a herd of goats being unloaded. He had been amused to learn that goats had antlers, not horns. Goats smelled very earthy.
The backdrop for all this noisy confusion was a facade of two-story warehouses that fascinated him—dark oak woodwork and beige parqueting like a movie set of Merrie England; diamond-paned windows and beetling roofs of fuzzy thatch. Yet, however medieval or Tudor the architecture might seem to him, there were no farthingaled damsels or beruffed Elizabe-
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than gallants strutting this stage. The dress of the People was simple and plain—kilts or loincloths on the men and wraps for the women, with the elders of both sexes decently concealed in robes. Youngsters ran naked. They were a brown-skinned, brown-haired folk, lithe and merry, and brown also was tine dominant shade of their garb, the color worn by Thirds, qualified artisans of the three hundred and forty-three crafts of the World. The yellow of Seconds and the white of Firsts brightened the texture, with the rarer orange and red and green of higher ranks scattered around in the surging, scurrying throng.
A skinny youth in a white loincloth ran past Wallie and dashed down the plank to go racing and dodging off through the crowd, narrowly avoiding death under the wheels of a two-horse wagon. He was one of the traders' juniors, so he had undoubtedly been sent to fetch help. That meant that Tomiyano had made a sale. In a few minutes the captain emerged on deck and saw his visitors off. The smile that he then allowed himself told Wallie that the price had been more man satisfactory.
Tomiyano was an effective young man, aggressive and muscular, weathered to a dark chestnut, with hair approaching red, although not as red as Nnanji's. He wore only a skimpy brown breechclout, plus a belt and dagger to show mat he was captain. Craftmarks of three ships were marked on his forehead, but he was a very competent sailor, who could have qualified for much higher rank had he wished. The scar on his face had been made by a sorcerer, and Wallie now knew that it was an acid bum.
Yet Tomiyano was a mere stripling alongside Wallie. Swordsmen were rarely big, but Shonsu had been an exception —very big. The sailor had to tilt his head back to meet Wallie's eyes. He did that now, and his face was full of astonishment.
"Hiding?" he demanded.
Wallie shrugged and smiled. "Being cautious."
The captain's eyes narrowed. "Is that how swordsmen behaved in your dream world, Shonsu?"
It was only within the last couple of weeks that Wallie had taken the crew of Sapphire totally into his confidence, explaining
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that he was not the original Shonsu, swordsman of the seventh rank; that his soul had been brought from another world and been given die body of Shonsu, his skill with a sword, and his unaccomplished mission for the gods- Tomiyano was a skeptical man. He had learned to trust Lord Shonsu—learned with difficulty, for the crew of Sapphire had little liking for swordsmen—but he still had trouble accepting so incredible a story. And tact was not the captain's most conspicuous trait.
Wallie sighed, thinking of plainclothes detectives and unmarked patrol cars. "Yes," he admitted. "They did this quite a lot."
Tomiyano snorted in disgust. "And last time we came to Tau you were screaming because you couldn't find a swordsman. Now the place is full of them."
"Exactly," Wallie said.
That was what he had been studying—swordsmen. Their ponytails and sword hilts made them conspicuous as they strode through the crowds, and sane civilians made way for swordsmen. They walked in twos or threes, sometimes fours or fives. Brown kilts were the most common, of course, but Wallie had seen several Fourths, two Fifths, and even—surprisingly—one Sixth. He had counted forty-two swordsmen in die last hour. Tau indeed was full of mem.
Tomiyano looked down at the busy street for a while and then said, "Why?"
Wallie leaned his elbows on the rail and attempted to put his concern into words. "Work it out, Captain. Suppose you're a swordsman. The Goddess has brought you to Tau and you're on your way to Casr. You have a prot6g6 or two with you. You're a Third, or a Fourth, maybe. There must be hundreds of swordsmen in Casr now... What's the first thing a swordsman will want when he gets there?"
Tomiyano spat over the side. "Women!"
Wallie chuckled. "Of course. Anything else?"
The sailor nodded, understanding. "A mentor?"
"Right! They're going to start banding together. Every one of them will be looking out for a good senior to swear to."
"And you don't want an army?" Tomiyano asked.
Wallie grinned at him. "Have you room on board?" There
DAVE DUNCAN
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would be few Sevenths around, and some of those would be getting old, for only rarely could a swordsman reach seventh rank before he was thirty and already at his peak, although Shonsu had obviously done so—Wallie had frequently studied his face in a mirror and decided he must be somewhere in his middle twenties. He was young, therefore. He was big and steely-eyed. If he were to stand at the top of the gangplank with his blue kilt visible, he would be fighting off would-be recruits in no time.
"No!" the captain said firmly. The thought of a few dozen swordsmen on his beloved Sapphire would be enough to loosen his teeth. He smiled faintly and muttered, "Considerate of you!"
And that, Wallie thought, was almost another miracle in itself.
"Look there!" he said.
The swordsman Sixth was returning and now he marched at the head of a column of ten. A Fifth leading two Thirds passed mem, and sunbeams streaked from blades as salutes were exchanged. Civilians dodged, doubtless cursing under their breath.
Tomiyano grunted and went off to attend to business, while Wallie mused that his explanation to the captain had been less man half the truth. The juniors would be seeking mentors, true, but the seniors would be even more actively recruiting protege's. Followers brought status. Status would be a much sought-after commodity in Casr now.
Which raised the possibility that perhaps he ought to be recruiting an army. He bore the Goddess' own sword, he was Her champion... maybe he was supposed to arrive at the tryst with some status of his own. It would not be difficult. He could accost that Sixth and take him over, together with his ten flunkies. If he balked, Wallie could challenge—no Sixth had a hope against Shonsu. Afterward the man could be bandaged and sent out to round up more.
Might that explain why the Goddess had delivered these particular swordsmen to Tau instead of directly to Casr?
The thought held no appeal for Wallie. The whole tryst held no appeal. He still had not decided whether he was going to collaborate or not. So he let the green-kilted Napoleon continue
8
THE DESTINY OF THE SWORD
his parade along the docks unmolested. If the gods wanted that man to swear to Lord Shonsu, then neither of them would be able to leave Tau until they cooperated. Their ships would merely return to Tau instead of going on to Casr.
Casr was a monstrous thundercloud on Wallie's horizon. He did not know what he wanted to do there, or what might be awaiting him. He knew that the original Shonsu had been castellan of the swordsmen's lodge in Casr, so Wallie must expect to be recognized when he arrived. He might find family or friends — or enemies. Nnanji, for one, was convinced that Shonsu was destined to become leader of the tryst. That might be the case, for certainly he knew more about the sorcerers and their un-Worldly abilities than any other swordsman. But he also knew enough to believe that the tryst was a horrible error. He was almost more inclined to try to block it than to lead it.
Tomiyano had rounded up his men. Holiyi, Maloli, Linihyo, and Oligarro — two cousins and two cousins by marriage. They were taking off the hatch covers and stacking the planks out of the way. Up on the poop deck the remaining children were playing loudly under the watchful eye of Fia, who wielded the unarguable authority of a twelve-year-old.
A wagon drew up alongside and unloaded a slave gang. The trader, a plump Fifth, began shouting unnecessary orders hi a squeaky voice, and the derrick was swung out and put to use. Wallie watched as the bronze ingots from Gi were borne away. He wondered idly which one of those ingots had saved his life from the sorcerers' muskets hi Ov,
Slaves wore black and little of it, for no one wasted cloth on a slave. They were a cowed and smelly bunch, that slave gang — skinny men in skimpy loincloths, working like fiends, streaming sweat while their bony rib cages pumped. Their backs were scarred. They ran, not daring to walk. They strained at the windlass handles until their eyes popped. Wallie could hardly bear to watch, for it was slavery more than anything else that brought home to him the faults of this barbaric, iron-age World. The thatched warehouses might teem with rats and the people with fleas, the alleys smell of urine and the streets of garbage . . . those he could tolerate, but slavery tested his resolve. The slave boss on die wagon brought out a whip and cracked it a few times to
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increase the pace. He did not recongize the danger looming above him at the ship's rail. Had he made one serious stroke—just one—he would have found himself lying on the cobbles, being mercilessly flogged... but he did not know that and he did not find out.