Swords Of Lankhmar

The rocking of the hut and also its speed increased. Wind pushed in, flapping the edge of Sheelba's hood. Flashes of moon-dappled marsh shot by.

"Who were those riders after me?" Fafhrd asked, clinging to his wall posts. "Ilthmar brigands? Acolytes of the grisly, scythe-armed lord?"

No reply.

"What _is_ it all about?" Fafhrd persisted. "Grand assault by a near numberless yet nameless host on Lankhmar. Nameless black riders. The Mouser deep-buried and woefully shrunk, yet alive. A tin whistle maybe summoning War Cats who are dangerous to the blower. None of it makes sense."

The hut gave a particularly vicious lurch. Sheelba still said not a word. Fafhrd grew seasick and devoted himself to hanging on.

Glipkerio, nerving himself, poked his pansy-wreathed, gold-ringleted head on its long neck through the kitchen door's leather curtains and blinking his weak yellow-irised eyes at the fire's glare, grinned an archly amiable, foolish grin.

Reetha, chained once more by the neck, sat cross-legged in front of the fire, head a-droop. Surrounded by four other maids squatting on their heels, Samanda nodded in her great chair. Yet now, though no noise had been made, her snores broke off, she opened her pig-eyes toward Glipkerio, and said familiarly, "Come in, little overlord, don't stand there like a bashful giraffe. Have the rats got you scared too? Be off to your cots, girls."

Three maids instantly rose. Samanda snatched a long pin from her sphere-dressed hair and lightly jabbed awake the fourth, who had been asleep on her heels.

Silently, except for a single swift-stifled squeal from the pricked one, the four maids bobbed a bow at Glipkerio, two at Samanda, and hurried out like so many wax mannequins. Reetha looked around wearily. Glipkerio wandered about, looking anywhere but at her, his chin a-twitch, his long fingers jittery, twining and untwining.

"The restless bug bite you, little overlord?" Samanda asked him. "Shall I make you a hot poppy-posset? Or would you like to see her whipped?" she asked, jerking a thick thumb toward Reetha. "The inquisitors ordered me not to, but of course if you should command me — "

"Oh, no, no, no, of course not," Glipkerio protested. "But speaking of whips, I've some new ones in my private collection I'd like to show you, dear Samanda, including one reputedly from Far Kiraay coated with rough-ground glass, if only you'd come with me. Also a handsomely embossed six-tined silver bull prod from — "

"Oh, so it's company you want, like all the other scared ones," Samanda told him. "Well, I'd be willing to oblige you, little overlord, but the 'quisitors told me I must keep an eye all night on this wicked girl, who's in league with the rats' leader."

Glipkerio hemmed and hawed, finally said, "Well, you could bring her along, I suppose, if you really have to."

"So I could," Samanda agreed heartily, at last levering her black-dressed bulk from her chair. "We can test your new whips on her."

"Oh, no, no, _no_," Glipkerio once more protested. Then frowning and also writhing his narrow shoulders, he added thoughtfully, "Though there are times when to get the hang of a new instrument of pain one simply must…"

"…simply must," Samanda agreed, unsnapping the silver chain from Reetha's collar and snapping on a short leash. "Lead the way, little overlord."

"Come first to my bedroom," he told her. "I'll go ahead to get my guardsmen out of the way." And he made off at his longest, toga-stretching stride.

"No need to, little overlord, they know all about your habits," Samanda called after him, then jerked Reetha to her feet. "Come, girl! — you're being mightily honored. Be glad I'm not Glipkerio, or you'd be rubbed with cheese and shoved down-cellar for the rats to nibble."

When they finally arrived through empty silk-hung corridors at Glipkerio's bed-chamber, he was standing in mingled agitation and irritation before its open, jewel-studded, thick oaken door, his black toga a-rustle from his nervous jerking.

"There weren't any guardsmen for me to warn off," he complaced. "It seems my orders were stupidly misinterpreted, extended farther than I'd intended, and my guardsmen have all gone off with the soldiers and constables to the South Barracks."

"What need you of guardsmen when you have _me_ to protect you, little overlord?" Samanda answered boisterously, slapping a truncheon hanging from her belt.

"That's true," he agreed, only a shade doubtfully, and twitched a large and complex golden key from a fold of his toga. "Now let's lock the girl in here, Samanda, if you please, while we go to inspect my new acquisitions."

"And decide which to use on her?" Samanda asked in her loud coarse voice.

Glipkerio shook his head as if in shocked disapproval, and looking at last at Reetha, said in grave fatherly tones, "No, of course not, it is only that I imagine the poor child would be bored at our expertise."

Yet he couldn't quite keep a sudden eagerness from his tones, nor a furtive gleam from his eyes.