Rogue Queen Read online

  Iroedh dropped her task to hunt up the agricultural officer, who provided her with the necessary pass. She then hurried out to the front gate, where she found Antis and Kutanas waiting, both wearing stolen workers’ cloaks. She escorted them past the glowering guards, who hefted their spears significantly.

  “Where’s Dyos?” she asked.

  Antis answered: “He didn’t come; doesn’t trust Estir. To tell the truth, I don’t either, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing I was afraid of her.”

  “How are you making out, dear?”

  “Not too badly. We killed a wild leipag and had a feast.”

  “You look fit,” she said.

  “Fit if not beautiful.” He laughed and slapped his belly, now nearly flat instead of the normal drone paunch. “This life certainly does things to one’s shape, don’t you think? I don’t know if the queen will like it, whoever is queen tonight. I’m all excited about the duel; I wasn’t yet hatched when Intar slew Queen Pligayr. What will happen if Intar should win after all?”

  “This safe-conduct is good until sundown in any case.”

  “And then we light out for the timber again. Oh, well.”

  They came to the exercise ground where most of the workers of Elham had already gathered. Others were pouring in from the domes of the Community and from the fields around it. A group of workers headed by Gogledh arrived from Thidhem, having been rewarded for industry and efficiency by passes to the combat. The ushers struggled to range the crowd around the four sides of the field, a row of workers squatting on the ground in front, then one of workers seated, then one of workers standing. A picked group was performing a military dance in the open space.

  “I’ve never seen a duel either,” said Kutanas, “and I wish the dancers would stop their dancing and spear-waving and let us get on to the main event. Do they fight in armor or what?”

  “No,” said Iroedh. “According to the rules they must fight naked, with no shields or other defenses. The object is a quick clean victory, preferably with the victor unhurt. They may use any offensive weapons other than missile weapons. Sometimes they carry a spear in both hands, and sometimes a spear in one hand and a hatchet or dagger in the other.”

  The dancers finished and filed off, and a pair of workers under the direction of the grounds officer pushed a roller over the trampled sand.

  An usher said: “Iroedh, these drones with you will have to sit in the drones’ section—Oh!”

  “Yes, they are those that escaped, but they have a safe-conduct,” said Iroedh, waving the document under the usher’s nose. “As they have the status of visitors I think they should stay with me.”

  “Here they come,” said Antis.

  A murmur of the crowd presaged the appearance of Intar and Estir at opposite ends of the field, each with her seconds. Intar’s efforts to train down for the fight had not been very successful. Estir, on the other hand, moved with the deadly grace of a beast of prey.

  Kutanas said: “Everybody’s betting on Estir, but the old queen has some tricks the other never heard of.”

  “You should know,” said Antis.

  The foreign officer (who, with the general still absent, was the senior Council member) read the traditional proclamation setting forth the reason for the duel and the qualities of the combatants. She droned on until the workers were all fidgeting.

  “…so, for the good of Elham, you will enter upon this sacred fray resolved to prosecute it to the death, and may the best queen win! Begin!”

  Intar lumbered down from her end, her rolls of fat jouncing, while Estir trotted lightly from hers. The queen carried a standard guard’s spear in both hands; the princess a dagger in one hand and O’Mara’s machete in the other. The crowd muttered its surprise at the sight of the latter weapon. Iroedh caught phrases:

  “What’s that thing?” “…unfair; the Council shouldn’t allow…” “Why don’t we use those in war?” “I wish to withdraw my bet on Intar!”

  “Iroedh darling!” said Vardh. “I feel just sure Intar will win. Remember the Oracle of Ledhwid:

  “When the female ueg with curving claw

  Shall lop the head of a pomuial bloom,

  She shall stand on her head on a vremoel raw

  Or fall to her doom.”

  “You applied that same stanza to the plague last year,” Iroedh reminded her.

  The queen braced herself, hands wide apart on the spear shaft, and thrust at Estir as the princess came on. Estir threw herself to one side with lightning quickness and swung the machete. Intar parried with the spearhead; there was a clang of metal.

  The females circled warily, now and then making a short rush or feint. Queen Intar thrust with her point, then quickly reversed the spear and swung the butt end at Estir’s ankles in an effort to trip her. Estir leaped over the shaft and made a downward cut at Intar’s head. Intar whipped up the spear shaft and the machete blade bit into the wood.

  “I think,” said Antis, “Estir’s going slowly, to tire out Intar before closing.”

  The fighters were circling again, with long periods of feinting and footwork at a distance and then an occasional quick flurry of blows and thrusts.

  “Ah-h!” went the crowd.

  Estir had not been quick enough in recovering after delivering a cut, and the spearhead jabbed her shoulder. As it was the right, the one that held the dagger, she seemed none the worse, though blood trickled down in a red rill and fell in slow drops from her fingers.

  Advance, retreat, feint, parry, thrust, recover. On and on they went. Intar suddenly rushed in and thrust with surprising agility. Estir parried with the machete and thrust out with her dagger. The point pricked Intar’s sagging left breast. Blood trickled there too.

  Vardh said to Iroedh: “Darling, I’m so sure Intar’s going to win I’ve bet my year’s clothing allowance on her. I’ve been saying a special prayer to Eunmar; did you know I believe in the old gods? If you try hard enough, I’ve found, you can believe anything.”

  After another pause Intar pressed the fight again, driving Estir before her with quick jabs. As the princess parried one at her face with the dagger, Intar jerked the pike back and thrust again, low. The point struck Estir in the thigh—not squarely, but glancing, opening another small wound.

  As Intar withdrew the spear for another thrust, Estir dropped her dagger and caught the spear shaft just back of the head. She pulled it toward herself and struck with the machete at the queen’s right hand. The blade bit into the hand.

  With a yell the queen released her hold on the shaft with that hand. She stepped back, blood spraying the sand, and tugged at the shaft with her good hand. Estir resisted for a second, then pushed. Intar stumbled backward and sat down.

  Estir, leaping forward, brought the machete down in a full overhand slash. The blade sank deep into Intar’s left shoulder. Her left arm went limp and Estir tore the spear out of her grasp and threw it away.

  Intar took a last look at the opponent towering over her, then closed her eyes and bowed her head. The machete whistled through the air and sheared through the queen’s thick neck. Spouting blood, the body collapsed and lay kicking and twitching.

  Estir walked toward the table where the foreign officer sat, kicked the dead queen’s head aside as she went, and cried: “I, Estir of Elham, being a fertile and functional female of pure Elhamny descent, and having slain my predecessor Intar in fair fight in accordance with the laws and customs of Elham, do hereby proclaim myself Queen of Elham!”

  The foreign officer cried: “Homage to the new Queen of Elham!”

  All the workers and drones dropped to their knees, shouting: “Hail to the queen! Kwa Estir! Long life and many eggs!”

  Vardh said to Iroedh: “Isn’t she just the most beautiful thing, like one of the prophecies come to life? I can forgive her for making me lose my bets.”

  Iroedh had to admit that, even with blood still trickling down her skin from her wounds, Estir made a magnificent picture
. It was too bad, she thought, that there were no artists nowadays like those of yore who could do justice to the scene.

  Vardh continued: “Let’s try to arrange to be in her escort to the next Queens’ Conference, darling. The round dances will be ever such fun.”

  Before Iroedh could answer (the noise having somewhat abated) Estir cried: “As the first act of my reign, I revoke the safe-conduct pass given to the rogue drones Antis and Kutanas. Slay them, guards, and arrest the worker Iroedh for treason!”

  Iroedh looked blankly at the new queen, at the foreign officer, and at her drones, who looked equally thunderstruck. She shouted back:

  “But, Queen, you promised—”

  “I promised nothing! Guards, obey my commands!”

  Even as the guards poised their spears and started toward them, Antis and Kutanas moved. Out from under their cloaks came two more machetes—near copies of the one wielded by Estir, but red-brown bronze instead of gray steel, and more crudely made.

  “Stand back!” roared Antis, swinging his machete.

  The unarmed workers scattered. Antis pulled a third machete from the belt he wore under his cloak and thrust the hilt at Iroedh.

  “Take it!” he said.

  “But—”

  “Take it!”

  Though unaccustomed to being ordered around by a drone, Iroedh took the machete just in time to knock aside the point of a spear.

  “Make for the main gate!” said Antis, swinging wildly.

  One of his blows knocked the helmet from the head of a guard; another cut through the shaft of a spear; another laid open a guard’s arm and sent her back, bleeding. Kutanas was likewise busy; a guard went down under his blows with her guts spilling onto the sand.

  Iroedh took a few swipes and heard her blade clank against the brass of the guards’ defenses. Then all at once the way lay open before the fugitives. Antis seized Iroedh’s free hand with his and ran for the gate, right through the flower beds. Behind them they could hear the screams of Queen Estir above the general uproar.

  “Open up!” bellowed Antis as they neared the gate. “Emergency!”

  Whatever the guards at the gate thought, they stood staring in silent incomprehension as the fugitives threw back the bolt and pushed open the gate. Then one of them said:

  “Come back here! There’s something irregular about this. Why are those people chasing you?”

  “Ask them!” said Antis and dragged Iroedh out.

  They ran toward the field of tarhail into which Iroedh had dropped the drones from the helicopter. Behind them came the sound of the pursuit, slowed by the fact that none of the unarmed workers seemed anxious to run on ahead of the guards, while the guards, weighted down with shields and cuirasses, could not run so fast as an unencumbered Avtin.

  They panted across the field and into the woods on the far side. Now, thought Iroedh, the agricultural officer would have another trampled swath to fume about; it was a shame to do such a thing to her best friend on the Council. But since through force of circumstances she was becoming a hardened anti-Communitarian, she did not give the matter much thought.

  Antis led her this way and that along trails through the woods.

  “Old game trails,” he said. “We can rest now. It’ll take them hours to find us in this maze.”

  When Iroedh got her breath she asked: “Where’s Kutanas?”

  “Dead. Didn’t you see the guards get him?”

  “No. I was too busy fighting on my own account.”

  “He looked like a spiny dhug by the time they finished shoving their spears into him. Too bad, because he’d have made a better rogue than that fat fool Dyos, who is always complaining and afraid of his own shadow.”

  “And the fat fool lives, while the worthy Kutanas lies dead. Weu! I feel terrible about having fought my fellow workers. Maybe I even slew one. And to have Estir act in that treacherous manner! If one cannot trust one’s own queen, whom can one trust?”

  “Oneself. Cheer up; such is life.”

  “Where did you get the matselhi?”

  “That old smith I told you about, Umwys, made them from my description. We hauled that statue of Dhiis playing a telh that we found in Khinam all the way to his hideout to supply the metal.”

  “You didn’t!” cried Iroedh.

  “Of course we did! What of it?”

  “But that’s a priceless relic—”

  “Maybe it is, but without that bronze we should all be dead. Since we had nothing to pay Umwys with, we had to give him the bronze left over from the making of the matselhi. He’s been working day and night on those things ever since I saw you at Khinam. Are you rested enough to go on?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let’s go to our rendezvous with Dyos, then.”

  He led her on and on until Iroedh was completely lost, for as she had not had hunting duty for several years, she no longer knew the woods beyond the Community’s fields and pastures very well. At last he came to a little hilltop.

  “Prutha!” he cried. “The rascal’s run away and taken with him that bow-and-arrow set I was making!”

  “What luck! What shall we do, then?”

  “Go on to Umwys’s hide-out, I suppose. If he has some spare food we may get a supper of sorts.”

  He led the way again. The going became more and more rugged as they climbed into the Lhanwaed Hills. Iroedh was staggering with fatigue when Antis put his hands to his mouth and gave a peculiar call. When it was answered he led Iroedh to a place where the brush was almost impassable.

  Antis pushed a mass of vegetation aside and ducked into a hole that led right into the hillside. The tunnel did a sharp turn, and Iroedh found herself able to stand upright again in an illuminated chamber hollowed out of the hill. Wooden props supported a ceiling of hewn boards. Other openings led in other directions.

  A wrinkled old drone faced them. When he saw Iroedh he gave a gasp, whipped up a spear he was holding, and hurled it right at her.

  The point was headed straight for her midriff when Antis knocked it up with his machete. The spear stuck quivering in the ceiling.

  “What’s the matter, you old fool?” roared Antis.

  “I thought you’d betrayed me to the workers,” said Umwys in his whining northern accent. “Every worker’s hand is against me, and mine is against every worker.”

  “Iroedh is no longer a worker, but a rogue like you and me. Now apologize for trying to kill her!”

  “I never heard of a rogue worker,” said Umwys sullenly. “But if he says you are, I suppose you are. It’ll be your fault, Antis, if she brings the whole Community of Elham down upon our necks. What d’you want with me, eh? To buy somewhat more of weapons?”

  “No. I want to know what’s become of Dyos. He failed to meet us as promised, and I think he’s run off.”

  “He may have at that. He was asking about the rogue bands to the north.”

  “Then we’re stuck again. Can you put us up for the night?”

  “You may sleep here, and I can furnish you with a little meat. If she wants a meal she’ll have to get her own, for I have no worker fodder. There be some khal trees with edible seeds on the hillside.”

  Iroedh slipped out to forage; an unrewarding job, taking till sundown to collect enough nuts to half fill her stomach. Umwys, however, had lost some of his hostility in the meantime.

  “You don’t seem like a worker, lass,” he said. “Why, you’re nice!”

  Not knowing quite how to take this, Iroedh munched her seeds in silence.

  “If I were in your fix,” said Umwys, sucking marrow, “I’d head north to Ledhwid and ask the Oracle for advice.”

  “What?” said Iroedh. “You sound like my mystical friend Vardh. All the responses from Ledhwid I ever heard could be taken in any of sixteen different ways.”

  “No, aside from those daft verses, the Oracle sometimes offers canny advice. Nothing mystical, just logical inferences from the news its priestesses bring it. At least that’s th
e best course I can think of. You can’t live off this land; there’s not enough game or wild vegetable food, and if you raid the Communities, with but the two of ye against hundreds of them, they’ll hunt you down.”

  Antis asked: “Why shouldn’t we join one of the rogue bands to the north?”

  “You could, but they’d slay her on sight. The rogues’ attitude toward workers is to strike first and inquire afterwards.”

  “That seems unreasonable,” said Iroedh.

  “Eh, yes, but they feel they’ve been used unreasonably too. Now the band of Wythias is growing so great it could even attack a fortified Community, the way the Arsuuni do. I have enough orders from Wythias for spearheads to keep me busy half a year.”

  Iroedh asked: “If the rogue bands help the Arsuuni to destroy all the Avtiny Communities, what would then become of the drones? The whole race would perish.”

  “You’d better ask Wythias about that; or, better yet, the Oracle, for Wythias wouldn’t let you live long enough to get the question out. If the Oracle can’t think of anything better for you to do, you might be able to take service with it.”

  “With the Oracle?” said Iroedh.

  “Aye. It employs somewhat of—ah—orphaned workers like yourself.”

  “I know. I’ve seen the so-called priestesses. But what would happen to Antis?”

  “How should I know? I don’t think the Oracle employs drones, so he might have to join a rogue band after all.”

  “We won’t be separated!” said Antis.

  Umwys shrugged. “It’s your lives, billies. Maybe he could leave his band to come see you once an eight-day, eh? Though where you two get that unnatural attachment for each other I can’t think.”

  “Ledhwid shall it be then,” said Antis.

  “You’ll need a cloak for her,” said Umwys. “If you have to sleep in the open she’ll get somewhat cold without clothing. And you’d better collect some vegetable food for her. Several of the plants have edible roots and berries and things, but having nought to do with workers I don’t know which is which.”