Avenger of Antares [Dray Prescot #10]

by Alan Burt Akers

  Although, I truly believed then, the manhounds were rapidly losing the last vestiges of true humanity and were lapsing back into primordial savagery.

  Up here only a few degrees south of the equator the weather was warm enough for me to throw off the blue shirt and trousers, to kick off the boots. Once more I was ready for action clad only in my old scarlet breechclout, my weapons about me, a few oddments of gear in a lesten-hide purse at my waist.

  Inquiries made some time ago had given me the name of the Kov of Faol's capital city, Smerdislad, but I would avoid the place. The Kov's lands were mainly untended, agriculture existed merely on a subsistence level, but the jungles rioted, for all his wealth came from the manhounds. In his evil hunts and in the breeding and selling of jiklos lay his fortunes. So Smerdislad existed to bolster Encar Capela's grandiose dreams of power and wealth; the caves and cages of the poor devils who ran shrieking from his slavering jiklos were far removed from his glittering city.

  Despite my frantic rush through the sky I had a neat and workmanlike plan arranged in my head. By Zair! If I couldn't get my fingers around the throat of that arrogant nulsh Nalgre and choke a little sense into him, my name wasn't Dray Prescot!

  Well, man grows corn for Zair to sickle, which is another way of saying man sows and Opaz reaps. I saw the skein of fluttrells, high, as I came over the straggling edge of the jungle. I squinted up against the emerald and ruby fires. Black and ominous, the fluttrells hung there, stark against the radiance. In clear air a fast voller can outrun a saddle-bird with ease; Rees's personal flier was very fast, as I had proved.

  When the fluttrells, their wings half folded to give them extra speed in the dive, slanted in for the attack head on, I thought in my pride at Delia's masterly teaching of the ways of airboats that I could simply shoot ahead, passing either under them or through them, I didn't much care which.

  The flutsmen up there were reiving mercenaries of the skies, hiring themselves out to anyone who cared to pay their exorbitant fees for dirty work. The weapon-glint brought a rick to my lips. By Krun! If they wanted a fight I'd not oblige them! I wanted simply to burst through and away, to Saffi; I did not wish to have to make a detour here.

  The flutleader was clever, I will grant the cramph that.

  He split his forces and sent a half-skein to box me in on either side. I bored for the gap. I could see the flutsmen now, astride the fluttrells, and as I neared them, crossbow bolts hissed through the air toward me. I swerved the flier. Another shower passed to starboard. Again I swerved. A third flight of bolts hissed away to larboard.

  I felt I was through the gap. I half turned to stare up as the fluttrells opened their wings to plane up out of that mad downward dive; and I never knew, to this day, just what devil it was who chunked a crossbow quarrel through the light skinning of the flier and into the lenk and bronze orbs supporting the flier's silver boxes.

  The voller went mad.

  It flipped end over end. I clung on for dear life. It pirouetted up for the sky, and fell on its beam ends, and smashed toward the trees. I gasped as wind buffeted me and tree branches lashed my body. Down through the branches crashed the flier, and the devils up there were still shooting at me, crossbow bolts hissing and thudding into the trunk as I went spinning and crashing down. All the stuffing was knocked out of me. I recall the impression of the jungle coming up like a gigantic green fist.

  Notor Zan, with whom I have had a nodding acquaintance in my spirited times on Kregen, came up with outstretched hand. He did not wish to shake hands with me, though; the final blow stretched me senseless across a branch a hundred feet up in the fetid air of the jungle.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Into the caverns of the manhounds

  How are the mighty fallen! How ridiculous I, Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy, Lord of Strombor, must appear in this undignified descent to earth. With what furious oaths I had started out to rescue Saffi, the golden lion-maid, and with what painful shamefulness had I carried out that task!

  I knew where I was when I awoke—instantly.

  Around me sounded the sob and moan of slaves. In my nostrils was the stale stench of naked and unwashed humanity. I opened my eyes and, yes, there were the crumbling and water-soaked cave walls, and the solid lenken logs used as bars to seal off the opening. Beyond was the jungle clearing, lined with the papishin-leaved huts of the heavily armed, patrolling guards.

  My head ached, but that would clear. This time I had not been hurled into this situation by the Star Lords. Of late those aloof and unknowable beings had left me alone and had not called on me to hurl myself headlong into some desperate scrape to rescue a wight whose eventual destiny they could read and influence. But, all the same, I was in the same fix. I was naked and unarmed and pressed into a slave bagnio. From the masses of milling slaves about me, the guards would bring out a few at a time to be herded into the jungle or onto the open lands to be hunted. Were those treacherous guides still going out with the quarry, bolstering their courage with false stories of help and so making them run with good heart? Well, no doubt, in Zair's good time I would find out.

  Then the truth in all its awful humbling effect hit me. Saffi! I had come to rescue her, and was now myself merely another prisoner!

  With that I lurched to my feet. The pains in my head and back must be ignored. All around me in the cave stood or sat or lay the other miserable occupants. I guessed that the horn soon would blow for mealtime; then there would be the usual mad stampede within the caves to get to the meal room first and so grab a portion of eatable food. The weak would find only dilse, a poor grain, and that would but meanly sustain them.

  I selected the one I would question with some care, a young Brokelsh, still very strong, with his black body-hairs bristling. I spoke to him without arrogance, with, rather, a humble awareness of my task. But he knew nothing of any lion-maid. I did not lose my temper. I tried another young man, an apim, but he merely looked up at me stupidly and a trickle of spittle ran down his chin.

  Keeping a grip on myself I tried others, gradually working my way through the caves. While at first I asked young men, for they are very apt to notice beautiful young maidens, I extended my inquiries to girls, also, for they, too, have an eye for a rival, even in places as dolorous as these.

  No one had seen or heard of a golden lion-maid.

  Had Que-si-Rening been wrong? Had his trance-state given him nothing? Had he lied to me? I sweated as I prowled like a leem through the caves searching for Saffi or anyone who might know of her and her whereabouts.

  These miserable people were being held here ready to be taken out and used as human quarry. In their Jikai villas the great hunters would be sipping cool drinks and munching palines as their slaves cleaned and polished their crossbows, swords, and spears. The manhounds would be slavering at the bars of their cages, ready to run on the scent of these poor naked people. A beautiful girl was not wasted here, as I had once thought; she would bring particularly high bidding from those who wished to hunt her down. So I prowled on, searching, and feeling the match of my temper burning faster and faster.

  Among all these people there was not one young man, with a strong, well-muscled body and the alert look of a hunter about him; there was not a single guide. These guides were introduced to give the slaves the false idea that they might escape; and with hope to sustain them the poor devils would run the harder and thus provide more sport. There were no guides. And, as I noticed on my frantic search through cavern after cavern, there were fewer slaves penned here than I remembered. Either the Kov had not been replenishing stocks or the hunts had been exceptionally severe of late.

  At last the time for feeding arrived and like leaves driven by gales the slaves sped madly for the feeding cave. Here the fighting still went on to reach first into the piles of food; while there were fewer slaves there was also less food. I secured a hunk of vosk and a heel of bread, for I was sharp set. I stared about, for here, if nowhere else, would one expect
to see everyone within the caves. Among all that congested rabble of miserable humanity I could see not a single Numim girl. At the shrill call of the stentor's horn the slaves started up in their maddened exit. I went with them smartly enough, although angered, for that horn signaled the arrival of manhounds set to chase everyone out and back to the barred caves in the cliff-face.

  Naked, I went with the rest.

  Those flutsmen, reiving mercenaries of the skies, had been acting according to their natural lights when they'd attacked me. They were held on contract by the Kov of Faol. To their own accounts would have gone my belongings, all the weapons and the gear from the smashed flier, and my clothes. They had turned over my body to the slave-masters here, making a nice profit from the whole transaction. No one flew over Faol in security; that was obvious.

  A chill foreboding, very painful to me in my state of heightened frustration, grew on me that not only had I landed back in Faol in circumstances different from those I expected but that I might have made a profound and stupid mistake. Well, that would not be the first mistake I had made in my life, nor was it to be the last, as, if these tapes last, you shall hear. Again and again I recalled to mind exactly what the Wizard of Loh, Que-si-Rening, had said.

  A frantic search of my memory brought me back to those last fateful words: She is being sold to the masters of the Manhounds of Faol...

  Then what did the last few words mean ... as a mere bargaining piece ... ?

  The chief concern was allayed in the answers given to me by a Brokelsh whose spirit had not been as much broken as the others of various races confined with us.

  “No, dom,” said this Brokelsh, shaking his heavy head. “There have been no hunts for a sennight."

  “You are sure, dom?"

  “If you doubt my word I will gladly break your back."

  Well, he might try.

  “I do not doubt your word.” I eyed him. Like most of the members of his race, this Brokelsh was covered with a thick coarse mat of black bristly hair. His pugnacious face glowered on me. With an eye to the future, I said, “And would you break the backs of the guards if you were loosed?"

  “Aye, dom, with great pleasure, as the Resplendent Bridzilkelsh is my witness."

  Beneath that coarse coat of bristle his muscles rippled his skin. He would be a useful man in a fight.

  “What is your name, dom?"

  “Men call me Bartak the Hyrshiv, for I am the twelfth son of Bartak the Ob."

  “Then when I break free, Bartak the Hyrshiv, I will welcome you at my side."

  He grunted and turned away. I gauged his feelings. He considered me a mere boaster, a bladder of wind. So be it. I felt little more than that, by Zair!

  He did not ask my name, and that was convenient, for I had no time to waste thinking which one of my grandiose collection of names I would use. Prescot the Onker. That, as the scarlet and golden raptor of the Star Lords joyed in calling me, that was the right name for me now. Dray Prescot, Onker of Onkers.

  The thought occurred to me that I had outflown Vad Garnath and his Kataki slave-master, the Chuktar Strom. Perhaps Rees's swift voller had brought me here before Saffi had had time to be sold. I did not think that, the more I mulled it over. The thoughts led me on. A bargaining piece? And Que-si-Rening had mentioned another Wizard of Loh, this Phu-si-Yantong. There had been in Rening's face and manner when he mentioned San Yantong a hidden reserve of emotion, a feeling I had given scant attention at the time. But had Rening been cautious, apprehensive—frightened, even—of this unknown wizard, Phu-si-Yantong? Could he figure into this devilish equation?

  One fact remained crystal clear. Saffi was not confined with these miserable folk, held as quarry for the Great Jikai. Therefore I had no business to remain here a mur longer.

  The words of the wizard recurred again and again: Sold to the masters of the Manhounds of Faol.

  So I had sped here like a credulous idiot, where I myself had been incarcerated once: here, where the victims of the manhounds and the mighty hunters were held.

  But ... the masters of the Manhounds of Faol .. .

  The masters.

  On the instant I swung to the thick logs of lenk barring the cave and hailed one of the patrolling guards. He was a Rapa, his fierce, beaked, vulturine face hard with the authority of his position, his weapons giving him all the confidence of the strong among the rabble of naked, defenseless slaves. I beckoned this Rapa.

  He stalked across, thwacking a rattan against his gaitered legs, his forest-green tunic stretched tight upon his shoulders.

  “Rapa,” I said, not too loudly. “I would like to talk with you."

  He sniffed through his beak. Like all Rapas, he exuded an odor that, I admit, grows less offensive with every season as I grow older. “If you call me over for no good reason, yetch, you will be striped. I shall like that."

  He came close to the bars and now his rattan licked up like a snake ready to slash at me between the wooden bars.

  I said, “I have a good reason, Rapa. You stink."

  He gaped at me, his beak quivering, that vulturine face showing avian shock.

  “Nulsh!” he screeched and jumped in, slashing the rattan down. I moved sideways to the next log, reached out so that my arms avoided the blow which whistled harmlessly past. I took his long gobbly neck between my hands and I gripped and I lifted him off his feet. I choked him enough so that without a sound he slumped. I opened my fists and let him fall.

  The Brokelsh, Bartak the Hyrshiv, grunted with surprise.

  “You are a dead man, dom."

  Another guard had seen, an Och. The Ochs are small and have six limbs. This one ran across and tried to spit me with his spear at the same time setting up a shrill yell of alarm. I choked him, too. It needed but the one hand.

  Bartak said: “You have a plan?"

  “Yes. Let's go into the next cave. We may have sport ourselves, before long.” And I handed him the Och's spear. He took it. Like any man who is dependent on his muscles and his weapons for his life upon Kregen, he handled the spear in a knowing way. I took the Rapa's thraxter and we moved into the next cave. From its bars we could see a knot of guards running. They were angry. They shouted.

  “I hope your plan works,” said Bartak. He was not a man to wear his emotions too lightly in anything save touching his honor.

  “If it does not, we shall chill our rumps on the Ice Floes of Sicce."

  The Rapa's sword was a cheap affair, with a black-painted wooden grip, a brass hilt, and the steel of the blade would probably snap across if used against armor. It was a perfectly satisfactory weapon to use on the naked bodies of slaves.

  Behind the series of barred cave openings in the cliff lay the warren of slave quarters. Bartak and I moved through the various caves, not running but not dawdling. When I fancied we had gone far enough I stopped. Bartak stood, gripping the spear, looking at me. He seemed perfectly satisfied to follow my lead. “We will wait until they run past. I do not think any of the slaves will betray us."

  “In that you are right. They run like ponshos fleeing from leems."

  The slaves were screaming now, running pell-mell, colliding, fighting and struggling to get as far away as they could from the guards now pouring in through the cave where lay the unconscious bodies of their two comrades. We waited, the Brokelsh and I.

  Presently I said, “Most of the guards have passed now. If we meet any latecomers—"

  “I have used a spear before, dom."

  “I had noticed."

  We went back to the cave and from the depths of the warrens the uproar of the searching guards and the shrieking slaves reached us in echoing thunder. We saw only two more guards, and from these Bartak obtained a sword and I a stuxcal. The carrier with its eight stuxes was a most useful addition. We went on, and now Bartak's spear and my thraxter were stained with blood.

  The first stux came free from its clips and I balanced the javelin as we approached the pushed-open gateway in the lenken bars. The
guards had left only one of their number to prevent an escape, and he went down with the stux through his throat. Like any reiver of Kregen I retrieved the weapon as we passed. I also took his thraxter in its scabbard. We did not bother to take any clothes, but ran headlong into the clearing and made straight for the huts with the papishin-leaf roofs.

  We dodged into the shadows out of the opaline brilliance of the Suns of Scorpio and glared out cautiously.

  Bartak said, “I think we are unobserved, dom.” Then, with a lift of his blunt and powerful face, he said, “I would esteem it an honor to know your name."

  So, because it meant nothing, I said, “I am Dray Prescot."

  “Then, Dray Prescot, let us run into the jungle and be gone from this pest hole, for I think the Resplendent Bridzilkelsh smiles on us this day!"

  “And on others, also.” I nodded back. From the opened gateway in the barred cave-mouth other slaves were running. They ran out, some shrieking in joy, others running with grim determination, others hobbling along with all the remnants of their strength. I could not aid them, but I wished them well.

  “Do not tarry, Dray Prescot! Run, dom, run!"

  About to follow his advice, I paused. The escaped prisoners were running with intent. A man with a shock of black hair led them in giant bounds, waving them on. They ran toward a corner of the clearing where leafy roofs rose beyond a thin screen of jungle. I frowned. Was that man a false guide, luring them on?

  Bartak the Hyrshiv answered the question on my mind. “That is Nath Palton, a guard who was broken and condemned as slave."

  “Aye!” I said. “And he leads to the fliers or the fluttrells, I'll wager!"

  “Yes."

  I admit that I felt a great wave of relief. I had been torn between following the slaves, and my own task. I was certain the dread forms of the manhounds would soon sniff upon their trails. Now, I realized, the slaves would never have attempted to run, knowing the jiklos would destroy them, if they had not trusted Nath Palton. They did not need my help, then.