Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [75]
Kahless wasn’t alone, either. Morath was sitting in a corner, alongside Porus and Shurin, and a heavyset man he didn’t recognize at first. Then he remembered. The man’s name was Badich. He had professed to be a healer when he joined them.
“Kahless is awake!” snapped Shurin.
Morath got to his feet and came closer. “He looks better, too. I think the fever has broken.”
“What did I tell you?” asked Badich, getting to his feet as well, albeit with a good deal more difficulty. “It was the poultice I made him. There’s nothing it can’t cure.
“How long have I been here?” asked Kahless.
“Two days,” said Porus. “Your wounds became infected. You were so feverish, we thought we had lost you.
How do you feel?”
Kahless didn’t answer him. He just grabbed his tunic and slipped it on. It wasn’t easy, considering he hurt in a dozen places, all of which were dressed and bandaged.
“What are you doing?” asked Morath.
Kahless found his belt and cinched it around his waist.
Then, with an effort, he pulled his boots on.
“Where’s Edronh?” he wanted to know.
The others looked at one another. Judging by their expressions, his question was a surprise to them.
“Edronh?” echoed Shurin. “What difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference,” Kahless insisted. “Where is he?”
Porus shrugged. “With his men, I suppose.”
Kahless grunted. “Let us see if that is so.”
Doing his best to forget how much he still ached, he emerged from the tent. It was dusk. The fires of his followers stretched for a distance all around him.
“Edronh and his men are that way,” said Morath. He pointed in the direction where the sky was lightest and the stars already dwindling. “They’re guarding our front against the enemy.”
“Show me,” Kahless ordered.
Morath led him and the others to the place where Edronh was supposed to be encamped. Neither the northlander nor his warriors were anywhere to be seen, nor had their fires been tended lately.
“Maybe we were wrong,” said Porus. “Maybe they bedded down somewhere else.”
Kahless sniffed the wind. Nothing yet. But soon, there would be plenty.
“You were not wrong,” he told Porus. “They were supposed to be here and they are not. They are off betraying us instead.”
Morath looked at him, his brow wrinkled with concern.
“How do you know that?” he demanded.
“I heard it in a dream,” Kahless replied. “Now listen closely. We have to move before Molor takes Edronh’s treachery and skewers us on it.” He turned to Porus.
“Stay here with a hundred warriors. Pretend to sleep, but keep your blades at hand.”
“An d what of the rest of us?” asked Shurin.
Kahless clapped him on the shoulder. “The rest of us will slip away quietly and take up positions along the enemy’s flank.”
“But the enemy is not in the field,” Badich protested.
“He has no flank.”
“Not yet,” Kahless agreed. “But he will soon enough.”
The Modern Age AA’S Picard and his comrades materialized on the perimeter of Muuda’s estate, the first thing that struck the captain was the heavy-handed showiness of the place. it was not a tribute to elegance by any standard, Klingon or otherwise.
All around the lowlying mressawood structure, there were ornate fountains of polished marble and overgrown tran’nuc trees and elaborate stone paths leading through seas of ruby-red fireblossoms.
And statues. Lots of statues.
Ironically, the largest of them depicted Kahless’s epic struggle with the tyrant Molor. In this particular piece, they were locked in hand-to-hand combat, their battelhs broken and lying in pieces at their feet. Both were bleeding from a dozen wounds, eyes locked, muscles straining in a life-or-death battle that would decide the fate of a civilization.
The clone had apparently noticed the statue as well.
“Nice likeness,” he grunted matter-of-factly from beneath his cowl. But he said nothing more on the subject.
Of course, if the scroll were to be believed, Kahless’s encounter with Molor had been of a different nature. But if the clone wasn’t inclined to comment, Picard wouldn’t either.
There was