Janazik padded around to stand before him. He was not the only Khazaki
in the cellar; there were a good dozen others. Mostly they were young
males, and Anse recognized them. Bolazan, Pragakech, Slavatozik--he'd
played with them as a child, he'd fared out with them as a youth and a
man to the wars, to storm the high citadel of Zarganau and smite the
warriors of Volgazan and pirate the commerce of the outer islands. They
were good comrades, yes. But Father and Jamie were dead. Ellen, Ellen
was vanished. Only a fragment of the human community remained; his
world had suddenly come down in ruin about him.
Well--his old bleak resolution came back to him, and he met the yellow
slit-pupilled gaze of Janazik with a challenging stare.
They were a strange contrast, these two, for all that they had fought
shoulder to shoulder halfway round the planet, had sung and played and
roistered from Krakenau to Gorgazan. Comrades in arms, blood brothers
maybe, but neither was human from the viewpoint of the other.
Dougald Anson was big even for a Terrestrial; his tawny head rode at
full two meters and his wide shoulders strained the chain mail he
wore. He was young, but his face had had the youth burned out of it
by strange suns and wild winds around the world, was lean and brown
and marked with an old scar across the forehead. His eyes were almost
intolerably bright and direct in their blue stare, the eyes of a bird
of prey.
The Khazaki was humanoid, to be sure--shorter than the Terrestrial
average, but slim and lithe. Soft golden fur covered his sinewy body,
and a slender tail switched restlessly against his legs. His head was
the least human part of him, with its sloping forehead, narrow chin,
and blunt-muzzled face. The long whiskers around his mouth and above
the amber cat-eyes twitched continuously, sensitive to minute shifts
in air currents and temperature. Along the top of his skull, the fur
grew up in a cockatoo plume that swept back down his neck, a secondary
sexual characteristic that females lacked.
Janazik was something of a dandy, and even now he wore the baggy
silk-like trousers, long red sash, and elaborately embroidered blouse
and vest of a Krakenaui noble. It was woefully muddy, but he managed
to retain an air of fastidious elegance. The bow and quiver across his
back, the sword and dirk at his side, somehow looked purely ornamental
when he wore them.
He was almost dwarfed by Anse's huge-thewed height. But old Chiang
Chung-Chen noticed, not for the first time, that the human wore
clothing and carried weapons of Khazaki pattern, and that the
harsh syllables of Krakenaui came more easily to his lips than the
Terrestrial of his fathers. And the old man nodded, gravely and a
little wearily.
Janazik spoke rapidly: "Volakech must have been plotting his return
from exile a long time. He managed to raise a small army of pirates,
mercenaries, and outlawed Krakenaui, and he made bargains with groups
within the city. Two days ago, certain of the guards seized the new
guns and let Volakech and his men in. Others revolted within the town.
I think King Aligan was killed; at least I've seen or heard nothing
of him since. There's been some fighting between rebels and loyalists
but the rebels got all the Earth-weapons when they captured the royal
arsenal and since then they've just about crushed resistance. Loyalists
who could, fled the city. The rest are in hiding. Volakech is king."
"But--why us? The Terrestrials--what have we to do with--"
Janazik's yellow eyes blazed at him. "You aren't stupid,
blood-brother. Think!"