Legions of Antares [Dray Prescot #25] Read online

  And this made me even more keenly aware of the strangest part of this whole business.

  I was unarmed.

  On Kregen, a man does not care to be parted from his arsenal of weapons.

  Now I do not wish to impugn the honesty of that village, or the gaffer to whom I had spoken, or his headman. But my surmise is, and I apologize to those unknown Hamalese if I am wrong, my surmise is the gaffer ran off at once to his headman, robe flapping around his ankles, slippers flicking dust, and the headman, fondling his chain of office, nodded sagely and ordered a signal fire lit. It would be a small signal fire. I saw the plume of smoke rise, tall and straight, and I frowned.

  Directly ahead a stream crossed my path with a stand of trees from which the village would have been invisible. They were so damned anxious they hadn't even waited until their signal smoke would not be seen by the potential victim.

  The smoke rose, thin and unwavering. A one-man signal, that, I guessed.

  I splashed across the stream and looked around in the little copse. Finding a length of wood in a forest is not as easy as it sounds. Oh, yes, there is wood aplenty, lumber by the yard. I wanted a stick of a certain thickness, length and shape, and I took perhaps a little longer than circumspection might suggest was advisable. I found the stick. Barehanded, freeing it from its parent involved a deal of grunting and twisting and straining, and I used my teeth to trim up the ends to a rough symmetry. Some three feet long—some meter long, I suppose you latter-day folk would say—it snugged firmly in my fists, spread apart to give leverage. I swung the stick about. It was not a simple cudgel or bludgeon or shillelagh, admirable though they are in the right hands. This length of simple wood held the feel and balance of a Krozair longsword, and with that potent and terrible brand of destruction a man might go up against devils.

  So, swinging my pseudo-longsword, I marched off out of the wood and I kept screwing my head around and staring aloft.

  They were not long in making their evil appearance.

  The piece of wood stopped its circling motions as I loosened up the old muscles. The end where it had ripped away from its parent glistened yellow and clean and sharp, very sharp, a wooden splinter like a fang.

  Dots against the brightness of the sky, stringing along in a skein, oh, yes, there they were...

  On the exotic and cruel world of Kregen there are many men who make a fat living from the enslavement of other men. There are many varieties of slavers, slavemasters: Aragorn, Katakis, Makansos, and their ilk. From the way these four up there flew they proclaimed themselves flutsmen, reiving mercenaries of the skies. Four would be considered ample to snare up a lone man. They'd flown from their camp, somewhere in a fold of the hills, summoned by the signal smoke. Crossbows would be pouched to their saddles; but they wouldn't want to damage the merchandise and so wouldn't choose to feather me unless they had to.

  No doubt my lips ricked back and my ugly old beakhead turned into that devil's visage, destroying the placid look I adopted as a mere common-sense precaution. Well, by Krun! They'd have cause to—good cause!

  They spotted me and circled. There seemed no reason to make it easy for them. A few straggly bushes at the side of the path might prove amusing. This land in the rain shadow of the mountains will sprout green crops if watered, as evidenced by the bounteous plenty of the fields around Paline Valley; here beyond the village's stream the land dusted and grew a sparse grass and thorn bush. I did not take up my position in an ordinary bush; rather I hollowed a space beneath a thorn bush. The flutsmen finished circling and dived steeply down.

  These four nasty specimens who wanted to sell me off into slavery annoyed me. The feeling swept over me in an uncontrollable burst of animosity. I had to get to Paline Valley and find out if I could move freely in Hamal, and these four flutsmen detained me. Also, I did not want to use the pit under the thorn bush except as a last resort. I marched out into the open and stared up, shading my eyes.

  The flutsmen whooped as they dived, high thin shrieks of ferocious intent. This is a familiar and dreadful sight in many parts of Kregen, this headlong attack from the air by flutsmen who care for no one and nothing besides their own greed.

  The first two swung down with a net stretched between them. Like a giant scoop the net swished toward me.

  The wing tips of the saddle birds swept scurries of dust into the air. Their beaks extended forward and their eyes fastened on me. Fluttrells, they were, powerful if unsubtle saddle birds with that ridiculous aft vane at the back of their heads. The flutsmen leaned in their saddles, pulling the net taut, guiding themselves one each side of me so that the net would snatch me up as though a giant hand from the sky had reached down to return me to the velvet-lined balass box.

  Hard yellow fibers formed the net, bristly and tough; even if I'd had a knife it would have been a chancy business to cut a way free before I was swirled up into the sky.

  “Hai! Rast!” screeched the left-hand flutsman. His right fist brandished his long polearm, a sword blade mounted on a shaft to give him reaching effect aloft. His comrade hauled the net as the bight sagged, spouting dust and debris of dead grass. The fluttrells inclined outward a fraction. The net lifted from the ground.

  Straight forward I dived. Down flat on my nose and with the wooden stick angled above my head. I felt the sliding hiss of the net as it whipped up across the stick, sliding on and away. Instantly I was on my feet, not looking back but at the next pair of devils.

  They wouldn't shoot me yet.

  If I knew flutsmen they'd be pleasantly surprised. Someone was not to be snapped up meekly. So—there was sport to be had here! They'd have me in the end, so they would think, and enjoy themselves in the doing of it. I would provide a spot of fun for them.

  This little encounter was merely a hindrance to my plans. It was quite unimportant. All the same, a fellow could get himself killed in just this kind of insignificant encounter.

  As the first pair of fluttrells winged around in a wide careful bank so as not to rupture the net, I caught sight of them. I ignored them. The second pair alighted in flurries of wingbeats and the riders hopped off. They came for me in a rush, swirling their swords. They'd knock a simple country bumpkin over the head with the flat and pop him into the net. Easy.

  Two metal swords, the straight cut and thrusters of Havilfar called thraxters, against a length of lumber. Well, the length of lumber was wielded by a Krozair of Zy who understood the Disciplines of the Sword of the Krozairs. The two came on together, which made it more interesting.

  They did exactly as I had surmised. Left hand took a welting great swipe at my head, and right hand slashed at my legs. A sideways lean, a little jump, the wood swirling around as my wrists went over and a neat one, two, thunk, thunk. The wood gonged against helmets. They wore brave clumps of feathers in their helmets, and their flying leathers glistened in the red and green radiance all about, and they went over on their backsides. Blood gushed from right hand's nose and mouth. Left hand could not see, for his helmet jammed down over his face. They both lay on the dusty ground and they did not offer to rise. They did not move at all. Terrible is a Krozair longsword, and terrible even when merely a length of wood, in the hands of a Krozair brother.

  A giant rustling of feathers through the air warned me. I skipped sideways very smartly, and went flat down again and rolled and the net skittered past flailing dust and dead grasses.

  I stood up. Two metal swords lay fallen from nerveless hands. The fluttrells waited twenty or so paces off. The pair with the net circled again. Two polearms, which the flutsmen call ukras, lay in the dust. There were crossbows pouched on the waiting birds. I kept my grip on my length of wood...

  Clearly not fully understanding what had befallen their comrades, the pair with the net tired of trying to snare me. They landed and, together, charged.

  When the dust settled I was in possession of the complete equipment of four flutsmen, including their mounts.

  One of the sky reivers was not quit
e dead. I bent to him. Blood dribbled from his ears. His eyes were unfocused. I loosened his flying scarf and eased him, finding water in a bottle strapped to a bird's saddle. Moistening his lips gave him a dying spurt of energy.

  “Who—who are you?” He croaked the words.

  “Rather, dom, who are you? Your band is near?"

  “We gather—in the hills."

  Whether or not he knew he was dying, I could not say. But he wanted to talk, and he spent his last few moments on Kregen telling me that an army gathered, here in the sparse land by the Mountains of the West. There were mercenaries from all over, and the flutsmen were hired out to join the army as aerial cavalry. He did not know the numbers involved; but he said the army was large—"Many tents, many totrix cavalry and regiments of paktuns—"

  “Not all mercenaries are paktuns,” I said. “Have they all then won so much renown as to be dubbed paktun and wear the silver mortilhead on its silken ribbons at their throats?"

  “You mock me, dom. But there are many hyrpaktuns with them who wear the golden zhantilhead, the pakzhan, at their throats. You will not—I think—mock them."

  “I do not mock you. But the trade of mercenary has sadly fallen away in these evil times."

  I was not about to tell him I had been a flutsman and mercenary myself; he was dying, and so, discovering he worshipped his god, Geasan the Opulent, with some fervor, I was able to administer the last rites he desired. He was lucky. Many and many a man dies on Kregen without that comfort simply because his god is unknown in the place of his death.

  Better to be like me, who acknowledges Zair and Opaz—and Djan!—who need no flummery of that kind, being of the spirit.

  After he was dead I left him and his comrades to be buried by the birds of the air.

  A disturbing and puzzling fact he had mentioned in his dying ramblings was that this army being gathered here was not for use in the west. There were constant incursions of reivers and other unhealthy fighting creatures from the wild lands to the west, and Hamal's borders here had to be kept tight. So where was this army headed?

  When I was ready to fly off, riding one bird and the other three in trail on halters, I looked down. I saluted gravely; not the Jikai, certainly not that! His name had been Olan the Stux. His bird carried in a stuxcal eight of the heavy javelins. They might be useful. If he hadn't been so damned anxious about the merchandise—me—and had shot me or stuxed me, he might still be alive. All passes under the hand of Opaz.

  With that sobering thought to remind me of the murkiness of the future, crowded with perils, I took off for Paline Valley.

  * * *

  Chapter four

  Of a Spark in the Cells

  To carry out nefarious undertakings in Hamal was a mite trickier than in most of the lands of Paz, the grouping of continents and islands on our side of Kregen. The iron-hard laws of the Empire of Hamal saw to that.

  Flying due north and resting the fluttrells from time to time, feasting from the food in the saddlebags, I headed for Paline Valley. This place, if any in Hamal, I could consider home. The possession of a cover name that was perfectly genuine had proved of inestimable value. The way of it had been simple and touching, for when the wild men from over the mountains slew the old Lord, Naghan, and his son Hamun, I had fought for them and Naghan, dreadfully wounded, had with his dying breath commended Paline Valley to me. He implored me, he demanded from me, he exulted in his plan to make me his son, and faced with this barrage I had accepted the rank of Amak and the name of Hamun ham Farthytu.

  I was Hamun ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley.

  Palines, the lusciously delectable berries that grow just about everywhere on Kregen, it seems, were certainly not growing on the parched land beneath. The ground looked like a rhinoceros's hide before his daily dip. Dust devils whirled. Not a sight of humanity, not a single solitary sight, greeted the eyes of the wayfarer on this route. So it was that the importance of the valleys folded into the foothills would be difficult to overestimate. Here cultivation thrived. Paline Valley was, in my biased opinion, the most beautiful and delightful of them all.

  Up here, in the far northwest of Hamal, squeezed in between the Mountains of the West and Skull Bay to the north, Paline Valley was remote and cut off from the rest of the empire. All the same, signs of activity grew as I slanted in.

  Lest the sight of four fluttrells winging should be mistaken for a prowling flutsman outflyer force, I was circumspect in landing. Palines grew in riotous profusion about me as I jumped off the lead fluttrell and quietened the others down. They had accepted me readily enough. Their beaks gaped and they twisted those silly head vanes about; they were thirsty.

  The people who congregated gaped at me. They were slaves.

  I felt a furious anger. I felt dismay. As the Amak here I had given my comrade Nulty strict instructions; no slaves were to be handled in the valley. Nulty knew my name was Dray Prescot. He had served the old Amak loyally, and now he served the new. I'd paid a few quick visits here, from time to time; but the last, because of all the unpleasant happenings in Vallia at the Time of Troubles and what followed, had been some time in the past. Even so, I couldn't believe barrel-body, husky, cheerful Nulty would have taken on slaves. Perhaps he was dead? I sincerely hoped not, for he still had a goodly span of his better than two hundred years of life left yet.

  The slaves took care of the fluttrells. Clad in flying leathers, yet left loose and open for the heat, and wearing the best of the captured swords strapped to my belt, I walked along toward the gated entrance of the compound. Paline Valley's main village had been burned to the ground in that dread encounter, and Nulty had rebuilt. Now the oval-shaped area with all the houses facing inward so their backs formed a protective wall was of a greater size than it had been, and there were two protected ovals, joined like an hourglass. The shade trees, the well, the people and dogs and calsanys and all the scuttle and bustle of a busy estate brought back the memories.

  Two hefty fellows carrying exceedingly knobby sticks walked down and accosted me. Their hairlines and their eyebrows were on nodding acquaintance. They were apim, like me.

  “Haiu, dom, and what do you want?"

  “No Llahal?” I said, calling their attention to their lack of courtesy in not using the universal form of greeting for a stranger. “And who, dom, are you?"

  “You are a Havil-forsaken yetch of a flutsman."

  “No. Where is the Crebent?"

  Nulty was the Crebent, a kind of bailiff and majordomo and chief troubleshooter rolled into one, and I trusted him.

  “There is no Crebent, dom. But there are two of us. You'd best come along quietly, for all you wear a sword. We are used to swords. The Amak will want a word with you."

  “The Amak?"

  This so much surprised and amused me I allowed myself to be escorted along to the imposing four-story house at the end of the compound. A lot was going on. A few soldiers lounged around the well, laughing and joking. They did not look particularly bright specimens of swods, the ordinary soldiers, and their uniforms were more raggedy than was seemly for representatives of the iron legions of Hamal.

  One of my escorts, the one whose nostrils bristled hair, snorted. “Useless onkers."

  His companion, who was missing his left ear, spat into the dust. “Line of Supply. They eat us out of house and home. The quicker they go the better."

  “But,” I said. “Do they not protect you against the wild men from over the mountains?"

  Both escorts laughed, showing black snaggly teeth.

  “The Amak has the mirvols, beautiful flyers all, and powerful men to fly them. And you speak small when the Amak addresses you."

  The mirvol perching towers, indeed, were loaded with splendid flying animals. The two-story house nearby was the barracks for the Amak's personal force. In the old days they had been volunteers from Paline Valley. This new Amak, whoever he was, would have hired mercenaries, I did not doubt.

  The house struck cool. Rush mats
covered the floor and walls. The light of the twin suns was muted. Water tinkled.

  Whoever this fellow was who called himself the Amak, he'd built a splendid house. As I was the Amak, I rather fancied I would enjoy living here.

  Although I had removed most of the flaunting marks and feathers and streamers from the flying leathers, the supple clothing was still enough to brand me a flutsman. The four fluttrells also would give this impression. There had seemed no reason not to fly straight to the valley. How I erred in this! After all these seasons, I could still make the most elementary mistake in life on Kregen. The seriousness of this mistake bore in on me only slowly—two stout overseers with cudgels, well, they had not amounted to much. The talk of some resident Amak would be straightened out. But the rank of paktuns who waited for us in the hall and who stuck to me like glue were quite another matter.

  “Keep silent. March with us. If you run you will be cut down."

  The words slapped out crisp and yet, somehow, flat. The Deldar in command possessed a face much worn away by drink. We marched along the corridor to see that the Amak and the two overseers, their duty done, went back to their work. They could be going up to the paline fields or out onto the dusty grasslands to see that the cattle were herded properly. I confess, I am still enthralled at the sight of vast herds of cattle being handled not by men riding animals on the ground, but flying saddle birds of the air. To see the swift flight, the swerve, and the way the cattle instinctively obey—that is a sight, by Krun!

  We marched out under a curved tile roof and the suns blinded down. I blinked. This small open space, after the fashion of an atrium, contained besides the expected fountain and pool and green plants and flowers, the ugly blot of a flogging frame.