Read Online Omens of Kregen by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online Page B

of the Singing Forests,” she said.
    “Yes, he was a Racter, too, I suppose. He never said much, did he?”
    “Old Clamped Jaws. The point is, the Singing Forests lie due south of the Mountains of the North, immediately to the west of Seg’s Bakan.”
    I saw what she meant at once. Also I noticed she said “Bakan,” the old name, instead of the newer “Balkan.”
    “You think the Presidio will agree?”
    “If you tell them, they will.”
    “I’m not so sure. I don’t want to carry on ruling by fiat. The Presidio must be seen to rule fairly. I’m thinking of starting up elections—”
    “Elections? But we are an empire, Dray!”
    “I was elected to be emperor.”
    “Oh, yes, of course; but that was different.”
    “Well, I’m thinking of it. I’ll speak to Drak about Seg and the Singing Forests. Mind you, Seg might refuse.”
    “He might. But there is Milsi. She is level-headed.”
    Because we were who we were and clearly wished to sit by the campfire and talk, we had been left alone. If anyone wished to speak to us they knew they had only to make themselves apparent. We were accessible in a way previous rulers had not been.
    A slim figure approached the fire, and stopped, and stood waiting. Delia called out: “Yes, my dear? Step forward.”
    The girl walked into the light of the fire. She wore half armor and carried a rapier and main gauche and looked just such a Battle Maiden as existed in their thousands in most of the armies of Kregen. Her face, rosy from the reflected fireglow, did not smile. She looked indrawn and serious. I did not recognize her.
    Neither did Delia. She was not, I judged, a member of the Sisters of the Rose.
    “What is it?” said Delia, and her voice was not quite as gentle as before.
    “A message,” said the Jikai Vuvushi.
    Now I’m no stickler for protocol or for stupid and slavish kow-towing, as you know, by Krun. Yet this girl ought to speak with more civility to Delia on more than one count.
    I started to stand up.
    With a shriek chillingly demoniacal, a scream of utter madness, the girl hurled herself forward, and the long slender Vallian dagger in her fist glittered in the light of the moon.
    That lethal blade struck viciously down at Delia.
    Without drawing a weapon, so filled with terror for Delia and hate and loathing for this murdering girl, I hurled myself forward.
    Now Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, is expert with very many of the varied weapons of Kregen, but if there is just one weapon of which she is the consummate mistress, that is the long slender Vallian dagger.
    My desperate lunge forward, highly dramatic and mock-heroic, was completely unnecessary.
    The silly would-be murderess had no chance.
    Delia twisted lithely aside, took the girl’s wrist, twisted, pulled, there was a sharp cry of pain and a glitter of starlight on steel, and the girl stood laxly staring at the blade pressed against her throat.
    “Well, now,” said Delia. She spoke evenly and her breast rose and fell smoothly with her breathing. What a wonderful girl is Delia; calm, compassionate, tempestuous and passionate, she is all things in all, and then I looked at the slender sliver of steel and I shuddered all the way down to my boots.
    A girl in the russet leathers of the Sisters of the Rose ran up, her bow lifted and arrow nocked and half-drawn. Following her appeared a gang of my lads, and Delia’s girls. They all looked extraordinarily fierce and yet apprehensive in the firelight.
    “It is all right,” called Delia.
    “Had the emperor not got in the way,” said the Sister of the Rose. “I’d have shafted the assassin, clean, the instant she whipped out her dagger.”
    “I’m sure you would, Zandi, and I thank you. Now perhaps you’d ask the girl a few questions.”
    Mind you, I was still shaking; but at the same time I knew I had an enormous smile wrapped all around inside my skull. This slip of a girl, this Zandi, a Sister of the Rose and a Hikdar in