Beasts of Antares [Dray Prescot #23] Read online

  Turko looked grim, and it was easy to guess what he was thinking.

  “So I march?” was all he said.

  “Aye, kov. The time is now."

  I said, “Have a tenderness for the stromnate of Balkash, Kov Turko. It acknowledges you as its legal lord, or will when Jhansi is thrown out. But, well, you know."

  “Aye,” said Turko, easily. “Balkash remains the stromnate of Dray Segutorio. I count it a joy to me to have Seg's son as a friend. And he will be home soon, so I believe."

  “The quicker the better. Silda wants to see him."

  Now there was nothing to hold me back. Turko was all ready. We stood to see him off. I own I half wished I were going with him, but by the time he had his army positioned and Seg had swung across, I'd be back from Hyrklana.

  Farris provided a medium-sized voller to take the hundred who would go. Delia was there. So, thank Zair, was I. With the remberees thundering in our ears, we lifted off. Flags fluttered. The suns shone. And the flier turned over Vondium and headed south, south for Hyrklana, and Huringa, and the Jikhorkdun.

  I was the emperor of Vallia, and constrained by these hundred stalwarts who had drawn the luck in the lottery. But I just could not see how I was to organize them when it came to the arena. But, also, I was Dray Prescot. I fancied—I hoped, I prayed—that the old Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, might turn a trick or two to get himself unlumbered.

  Then, why then it would be a skip and a jump and some headlong action before the game was played out.

  “By Kaidun!” I said to myself. I looked calculatingly at these hundred companions of mine. I looked at Delia. “By the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax! Now I'm not a cunning old leem hunter if I can't fashion something out of this!"

  * * *

  Chapter ten

  Unmok the Nets

  Standing right in the eyes of the flier with the wind rushing in our faces, Delia and I grasped the rail and stared at the sea far below. Splinters of silver light rayed back and the streaming mingled radiance of ruby and emerald added touches of fire and viridian to the scene. We could see no ships down there.

  “Listen carefully,” I said. “If I am—taken—as I may well be—"

  “Those dreadful Everoinye?"

  “Aye. If I am, promise me you will not fret—well, that may be foolish. Promise me at least, that...” And I stopped, too muddled to go on.

  Delia gripped my arm. “I know what you mean. It is hard, it always has been hard and it always will be hard. But I know. If you have to go away to your silly little planet with only one tiny yellow sun and one tiny silver moon and no diffs at all, only apims, why, then—"

  “By Zair!” I shivered in the windrush. “I don't want to be sent back to Earth!"

  “No. But if you go away, I will understand. But that is all."

  I swallowed. “Promise me you will not go to see Queen Fahia. She is fat and unhealthy; she is also dangerous. Our hundred wild men will not stand against her army forever."

  “You mean you may be sent somewhere else?"

  I spoke the truth, for if I was called by the Star Lords they would send me somewhere else about their business.

  “Yes. You must promise me not to go to Huringa."

  “Very—well. But—"

  I looked at her.

  She sighed.

  “Very well, my heart. I promise. I see the sense of it. It is so unfair, though, so damned hard!"

  “Life is unfair. It is always hard."

  So, you can see into what kind of low-class skullduggery I had fallen, what a proficient liar I was forced to become. But I wasn't having Delia going anywhere near that horrific arena. No, by Zim-Zair! For I and our friends had been lifted to safety from the blood-soaked silver sand, and Delia was all naked and chained to a stake at the center. I shuddered. That had been an experience I would not willingly repeat. Enough of that horror was enough.

  Then she said, “You have seen the golden and scarlet bird?"

  There was no need to lie. The big one had been put across, all else merely followed. “No. But I sense that I may be called. Try not to let this—” Stupid, stupid! Of course my going away would upset her! “You'll have to convince this gang of cutthroats who invited themselves along."

  “They will listen—"

  “They'll listen to you. I expect Turko will find them of use.” I glanced back at those fighting men crowding the decks. “It seems to me whoever rigged the lottery was a master hand."

  Delia laughed. She was determined to throw off all cares until the causes of those cares arrived. “I do not care to inquire too closely into the legality of the lottery. But I agree, there are a suspiciously large number of...” She hesitated.

  “To find the right word for them is difficult."

  They were all our staunchest comrades in this voller. If the lottery had not been fixed, then Five-Handed Eos-Bakchi, the spirit of luck and good fortune called on in Vallia, had answered a goodly number of calls from the ripest fruits of the ESW and EYJ and EDLG. By Krun! And from the sprigs of the nobility whose business had brought them to Vondium at this time.

  Looking at them, I considered my plans had just about matured. All that was necessary now was the timing.

  Looking back as I relate my narrative I suppose I can afford a wry smile. It must be clear to you listening to my words, as it is clear to me—now—that I was living in a dream world.

  Even my Delia was a part of that dream, for she had promised me without overmuch demur. But I was wrapped up in my own schemes. Onker, as they say on Kregen of that particular kind of idiot, onker of onkers, get onker. The Gdoinye liked to call me an onker, and I'd call him one back, too, in those slanging matches which, I suspect, if the stakes had not been so high I'd have enjoyed as much as he did, the onker!

  Southeast we flew, out over the Sea of Opaz which separates Vallia from the island of Pandahem. We would not fly over this latter island, for the Pandaheem, besides their longstanding antagonism to Vallia, were now in the merciless grip of Phu-Si-Yantong. Ever southwards we flew across the Southern Ocean, passing just clear of that lonely island group, Astar, where once the Leem-Lovers, the ghastly Shanks from over the curve of the world, had set up a base to raid and harry and kill the peoples of the shorelines of Paz. A garrison held the islands now.

  “Do we fly direct to Hyrklana, across Hamal?"

  I shook my head. “No, Delia. We avoid Hamal like the plague. We will fly around the coast, out of sight of land. I think we can risk crossing the Risshamal Keys.” These stretch out like skeletal fingers from the northeastern corner of Hamal. Hyrklana lies due south of them, past Arnor and Niklana. To cut across them would save time.

  So that is what we did. Perhaps, had I been less cocksure, less confident and taken us all the way around, well—then it would have been a different story, by Zair...

  Any Kregan needs his six or eight square meals a day and we were capitally provided for. I refused to blink when Deft-Fingered Minch produced a delicacy that was a particular specialty of the palace kitchens. He had spoken to Emder, that was clear.

  Down below us the Keys passed, gray and brown, narrow and humped, some barren and some choked with jungles, for we flew with the equator just to the north of us. On those strings of islands lived among a multitude of races the Yuccamots, a web-footed, thick-tailed race of diffs who lived by fishing and were kind and friendly by nature. And that made me think how Vad Nalgre Sultant, of Kavinstok, who had proved so unpleasant a character down there, had rallied around the Racters when Vallia herself passed through her Time of Troubles.

  “Look at the weather up ahead,” said Korero, flicking his tail hand.

  “Aye. It looks murky."

  The horizon ahead held that brazen copper look, as of a furnace glowing with the fires of hell. Black clouds boiled. If we were in for a twisting blow we'd best batten down, or get down. I measured the extent of the gale—typhoon, hurricane, call it what you will. It pounced with mon
strous speed. One moment we were apprised of its presence, the next we were starting to descend and in the third we were caught and shaken like a ponsho in the jaws of a leem.

  The blackness enveloped us like the cloak of Notor Zan.

  The wind shrieked about us. We were hurled across the sky, blown like a pip from the mouth of a giant. End over end, whirling, we were buffeted and deafened, crushed, by the violence of the elements.

  The voller was well built, one of those we had secured from Hyrklana, that being thought a clever notion as we were flying to that island realm. She was broken in two as a child breaks a reed boat. Chunks fell off. Men fell. We were all wearing the safety belts produced just in time by the wise men of Vondium, and as the voller broke up and we were cast adrift, so we went sailing independently across the sky, mere helpless chips in a millrace of wind.

  The suns might not have been shining in the sky. The darkness blustered about us. For a few moments I caught sight of other hapless wights being hurled and tossed about and then I was swept away into the blackness. Night was not far off. The wind tore at me, filling my mouth and ears, screaming. The twister curled a tail around and the hurricane of wind coiled devilishly, spinning me away—somewhere.

  The time passed in this nauseous inferno of black noise. The howling went on and on and on. End over end I pitched away, one of a hundred separated and scattered leaves in a whirlwind.

  The chances of making a safe landing in this were practically nil. Anyway, I'd probably come down into the sea, for my bump of direction told me I was being hurled toward the south. How long it all lasted was easy to calculate after the event. While I was being driven hither and thither, swung up and belted down, the time stretched so that it seemed I'd spent all my life being tossed about in the black gullet of that blow.

  That blow!

  Afterward I learned that a whole fleet of argenters, stout, beamy craft, had been lost. A squadron of swordships had been tossed onto the rocks of one of the Risshamal Keys and thoroughly reduced to flinders. And a wing of the massive skyships of Hamal had been contemptuously smashed into the ground. The gale broomed sea and sky and swept them both clean.

  The end of it for me was a sensible lessening of the wind and the sight of a flake of the Maiden with the Many Smiles, gleaming fuzzy pink light through cloud wrack. For the rest of that night and the following day I was tumbled along southward. Sea, and only sea, stretched below me. I was hungry and thirsty—I was thirsty, by Krun! But there could be no hope of letting down to the sea. All I could do was hope to last out and put the thirst torturing me out of my mind and so let the wind hurl me on.

  The second night was unpleasant.

  If these wonderful belts we'd invented had possessed the power of independent movement through the air ... But, then, that was the secret we still had not fathomed, the prize Hamal and all the countries who manufactured vollers kept close.

  I tried not to worry overmuch on the fate of Delia. My friends were a hundred tough and resourceful desperadoes, and if I'd been chucked off by the wind, I trusted that some of them had been able to link up with Delia. Korero had been with me when the voller broke up. But I was alone, singled out, a tiny speck in the vast sky above the vast ocean.

  When the island came into sight, far to the south, a mere black smudge upon the glittering sea, I heaved a sigh of relief and then started paddling desperately to strike a course for that haven. If I missed it...

  The fates, or whoever has charge of handing out favors or black marks—certainly not, I fancied, either the Savanti or the Star Lords—guided me near enough to the island for me to slide the silver boxes apart along the belt and drop gently into the sea. Then it took me a couple of burs to swim in.

  The beach was white sand, smooth and inviting, and only twice I was forced to lift up on the safety belt to avoid gaping jaws and serrated teeth from some hungry predator of the sea. I lay on the beach, spouting water, breathing easier, and then rolled over and surveyed what I'd dropped and swum into.

  Practically every coastline on Kregen—not all—is festooned with islands, large and small. It was perfectly possible that this little beauty appeared on no maps anywhere at all. But the ground was solid underfoot as I rose. Then I realized the wind was still strong, still blowing half a gale, and I went running up the beach, half propelled by the wind and half drawn by the fruit hanging on the trees.

  That fruit tasted good, by Krun! My thirst tended to be fierce, and my face was smothered with fruit juice. Water was a prime requisite, and I struck along the coast looking for a stream. Tropical islands are veritable paradises—if certain things are available and certain things are absent.

  Well, I found water, and drank—cautiously. I bathed the salt off my skin. I perked up. A craggy mass of rock chopped off the next bay and, after a time, I rolled along to have a look-see.

  An argenter floated in the bay, bold as brass, real, no mirage, four anchors out, and the rocky headland giving her beautiful shelter. I studied her most carefully before I walked down to the waterline and hullooed across.

  She bore the colors of Hyrklana. Mainly green, of course, seeing that Queen Fahia was a fanatical follower of the Jikhorkdun and her chosen corner was the green, the emerald neemu.

  “Ahoy!"

  A head poked over the bulwarks. A spear point glittered.

  No doubt they wouldn't be surprised to find a cannibal. After all, desert islands are desert islands and have a reputation to keep up.

  In any event, they took me aboard Pearl of Klanadun and instead of killing me out of hand fed me two square meals and a gallon of Kregan tea. If I treat this whole episode matter-of-factly, that is the way I tried to treat it while it was happening. But it was a fraught old time, I can tell you.

  Drifting over the sea, nothing in sight save sea and sky, slowly starving and thirsting to death—no. No, I do not believe I enjoyed that.

  Because I did not usually wear a Krozair longsword when not engaged in something strenuous, I was not carrying one with me now. I'd been talking to Korero, digesting a good meal, and dressed in a light tunic for the tropics. Naturally, I had a rapier and main gauche. Well, they—the Jiktar and the Hikdar—tend to grow on a fellow after a time, so it seems. I was extremely careful to let these folk in the argenter see that I had no intention of drawing weapons against them.

  Pearl of Klanadun held a smell, a wild-animal smell that wafted up through the gratings in her wide decks. Down below in her capacious holds the owners of that wild-beast smell were caged in iron bars.

  “Yes, Horter Jak,” said the captain, bluff and genial, rotund of belly and purple of nose. “This is what I am reduced to.” A vein throbbed alongside his nose. “I cannot lay the blame at the feet of Havil the Green, for I am a religious man, and mindful of the obligations a sea master must never forget. But, all the same—” And he gestured in a manner at once helpless and comical at the gratings. “A mere freighter of wild animals for the Jikhorkdun! Is this my reward for a hundred years of sea apprenticeship?"

  “But, Captain Nath,” I said, “there are many men engaged in this work. The Jikhorkduns of Hyrklana are never satisfied."

  “True, true. My brother, who commanded our late father's ship, was gored to death by an Ilurndil—the second horn went clean through here.” And Captain Nath the Bows jabbed a thumb into the side of his stomach.

  I didn't much care for Ilurndils, six-footed battering rams with leather hides you could make roof tiles out of—that roof tiles were made out of—and a pair of horns superimposed between piggy eyes. As for Nath the Bows, as he said, his father's name was Nath and what was good enough for him was good enough for his boys. They were twins, Nath the Bows and Nath the Stern. It wasn't new.

  Pearl of Klanadun was a natty enough argenter. Her topmen were Hobolings, among the best in the business. She had a lot of Brokelsh in the deck hands. Her marine guard consisted of half a dozen Undurkers with their canine faces and snooty looks and smart bows and notched arrows. We sailed
along as soon as the storm abated enough to make passageway comfortable for the wild beast cargo.

  Down in the saloon I met the owner of the cargo. I was fully prepared to dislike him on sight. After all, running animals in for the arena, where they would first of all chomp up criminals and condemned slaves, and then be cut to bits by kaidurs who knew how to handle weapons, is not the kind of occupation guaranteed to endear any man to me.

  But it was extraordinarily difficult to dislike Unmok the Nets. He was an Och. He did not, however, have six limbs like Ochs are supposed to have. As he said, “There was I, minding my own business—I was in selling beads and bangles at the time, not much but a living—and this chavonth came at me. Chewed out my middle left. Still feel it twinge come rainy days. Took sinews outta my lower left, too. Dratted chavonth. All teeth and claws and that mess of blue-gray and black hexes."

  Unmok the Nets limped. As an Och he stood shorter than Hunch, who as a Tryfant had to stand on tiptoe to look over the big guy's bar. His Och head was the usual lemon shape, with puffy jaws and lolling chops, although he favored a kind of heavy woolen muffler.

  “Since that danged chavonth got me I feel the cold."

  We were only a few degrees south of the equator here.

  He liked to talk. I cannot repeat most of it, all small talk larded with dollops of Och wisdom, which might suit a small race of diffs with six limbs; it's only marginally applicable to an apim with only four limbs. I tried to remember some to tell my Djang friends.

  He started to tell me how he'd got into the wild-beast catching business when we went down to the dinner table to eat, and he went right on, interrupting himself and going off into unrelated subjects and getting back to the point. He never did finish. I gathered, more as a matter of guesswork, that after his mauling by a savage big cat he rather wanted to get his own back. For a little crippled Och, well, that took some doing, petty and vindictive though some folk might take it.

  There was always a demand for wild animals in the arena. And for human fodder. We sailed on down south toward Hyrklana and, despite some of my chaotic feelings, Unmok the Nets and I got along famously.