Fires of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #29]

by Alan Burt Akers

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  Fires of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #29]

  by Alan Burt Akers

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  Science Fiction/Fantasy

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  Mushroom eBooks

  www.mushroom-ebooks.com

  Copyright ©1983 by Kenneth Bulmer

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Fires of Scorpio

  Alan Burt Akers

  Mushroom eBooks

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  Copyright © 1983, Kenneth Bulmer

  Alan Burt Akers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

  First published in USA in 1983 by Daw Books, Inc..

  This Edition published in 2007 by Mushroom eBooks, an imprint of Mushroom Publishing, Bath, BA1 4EB, United Kingdom www.mushroom-ebooks.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  eISBN 1843196484

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  Fires of Scorpio

  Fires of Scorpio chronicles the headlong adventures of Dray Prescot on the marvelous and mystical, beautiful and terrible world of Kregen, under the twin star Antares, four hundred light-years from Earth.

  Dray Prescot's own words convey most strongly the sense of a powerful and dominating personality. He claims he is a “plain sailorman” and, certainly, he received his early education in the horrendous conditions of Nelson's Navy, but his character is complex.

  He is described as a man above middle height, with brown hair and level brown eyes, brooding and dominating, with enormously broad shoulders and powerful physique. There is about him an abrasive honesty and an indomitable courage. He moves like a savage hunting cat, quiet and deadly, sudden.

  The bright lands of Paz are threatened by the Shanks, reivers from over the curve of the world; yet most of the peoples of Paz continue on in their own feckless ways. As an adventurer who, among a list of titles, has collected the job of Emperor of Vallia, Prescot knows that he faces a dark future. At the moment he is on the island of Pandahem after a brush with adherents of Spikatur Hunting Sword and their witch leader in the many recesses of a mountain, about to go hurtling into a fresh series of adventures.

  Facing a dark future? Yes ... But we know from what he says that for Dray Prescot no future can ever be totally dark, that he will never give up hope, while life holds Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, and he may clasp her in his arms under the mingled streaming lights of the Suns of Scorpio.

  Alan Burt Akers

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  Chapter one

  Seg learns what frightened me

  Stumbling around at night in a jungle alive with ravenous monsters is not a pastime to be heartily recommended. Particularly when that jungle sprawls hungrily on the horrific if beautiful world of Kregen four hundred light-years from Earth.

  The fetid stench of the place choked from rotting vegetation, putrid stink-flowers, decomposing—things—of indeterminate character. The darkness pressed down as black as the armpit of a demon from hell. All I wore was a scarlet breechclout and all I carried was a longsword. Those two items have seen me through many fraught adventures in the past. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind they will see me through many more in the future.

  Each step was a probing forward venture. Dagger-sharp spines, a mass of corruption, a razor-edged leaf or a killer vine all could lie waiting for the next unwary step.

  An incautious movement might precipitate me into a spiny-ribcrusher, and the spines would close with a meaty chunk and the juices would melt me down to a puddle.

  Ahead in the pervasive darkness a faint line of pinkish radiance fuzzed into view and a coughing roar growled menacingly at my back.

  Instantly, I was down on one knee, crouched, glaring back. To anything following me I would be silhouetted against that faint wash of moonlight. The sword snouted.

  Breathing lightly, unmoving, poised, I waited.

  Waiting, patience, silence, these spell survival in the jungle.

  The coughing grunt smashed out again to be followed by a piercing scream and a thrashing crunching pandemonium of noise among the trees. Whoever or whatever had hunted, stalked, leaped and fastened fangs on his victim had seized a tougher prey than he had envisaged. Bad cess to the both of you, I said to myself, and cautiously rose and shuffled along to the slot of light.

  Keeping bent over to make myself as small as possible against the radiance, I moved on and I did not press too close to any vegetation.

  A tentacular looping horror, a spiny vine insensate with blind hunger, slashed. There was just time to see the whiplash against the rosy moonlight. The longsword switched up.

  The killer vine coiled and thrashed and half of it swished back among the trees and the other half wriggled underfoot like an overturned can of worms. I stepped over and went on.

  Shadows moved across that slot of fuzzy pink and golden moonlight. I stopped stock still.

  Without a sound, without a movement, I peered from the blackness of the jungle out into the moonlight of the tangled clearing.

  A face showed clear in the radiance. Sharp, in focus, the face turned directly toward where I stood.

  The skull-face, covered by a tightly stretched pebbly skin of gray and green granulated texture, was blunt of jaw with the roots of the teeth exposed, the nostrils sunken slits, and the eyes, overhung by bony projections, of a smoky sullen crimson. The radiance of the moon fell full on that face, illuminating the rotting teeth, the decomposed nose, the crimson demon's eyes. Out of nightmare, that face, out of the deepest levels of subconscious horror...

  I stepped out into the clearing.

  “Hai!” I said. “Now I am mighty pleased to see you!"

  The rotting teeth parted in a gasp. A sword flashed.

  Then: “Lahal. I thought you were dead."

  “And I, you."

  “You are alone?"

  “Yes. I was told a falling block of stone parted you from the main company. Your people are nearby, Skort?"

  Skort nodded that ghastly head which was merely the normal head and face of a Clawsang, one of the many magnificent races of Kregan who are not made in the image of Homo sapiens.

  “Yes. I think we are thoroughly lost. It seems to me that block walled us off from the rest of you and when we followed obvious tunnels in the mountain we came out into the jungle through a cave exit. We are lucky to be alive."

  His people clustered a little way off and they had a shielded fire flickering. The smell of roasting meat made my mouth water. Skort saw the way I licked my lips.

  “Come and sit down. It is little use trying to move off until dawn. Eat and drink."

  “Thank you."

  They had cleared an area of unpleasant jungle inhabitants of the smaller and creepier kinds, and I sat down on a tuft of dry ground. They made me welcome, and soon I was chewing on a bone. It was pointless to inquire what the meat might be. Some of Skort's men were patiently cleaning their swords and spears. They were a hardened lot, tough and experienced, and by reason of their graveyard faces inured to the askance look, the repressed shudder. I asked Skort what he intended to do now.

  He paused for a moment, and the moon
light caught in those crimson eyes. “First, tell me what befell you in that place of horrors."

  “The party adventured farther after gold and treasure. Some were killed. There is a Witch of Loh in there.” I stopped. Skort flinched back when I mentioned a Witch of Loh. That is a very proper reaction to any reference to those powerful wizards and witches. Mind you, they are not your Satany black-magic kind of witch, who is not really a witch at all. A witch is merely the recipient of the old religion, attempting to carry on in face of the newer religions, abhorring the blasphemies of those who take her name in vain. Skort motioned for me to go on, and I pushed the finer nuances of nomenclature away for the moment.

  Here we were, trembling in a clearing in a horrendous jungle outside a cave-riddled mountain in which lurked untold treasures and untold horrors. Any normal man would be forgiven for wishing to be gone from this accursed spot as fast as possible.

  I said, “I have to go back in there to find out what happened to my friends."

  In the short time I had known him, during this expedition, Skort had said little. He appeared anxious to talk now. His crimson eyes widened.

  “I, too, must return. But—not for friends."

  Waiting, not wishing to probe, knowing if he wanted to tell me he would, I gnawed on my bone. The Star Lords who had brought me to this wonderful world of Kregen to help in rearranging the planet's destiny had lifted me out of the caverns and tunnels to show me a vision of Delia. She had gone through experiences that had made me shout and bellow like a callow child, made me tremble and shudder. All I wanted to do now was leave this accursed spot and return to Vallia where I would find my Delia, as she would find me. But, first—and I knew Delia would approve—I had to make sure Seg was alive and well. Seg Segutorio was a blade comrade. He and I—well, we'd been through the fire together, as the saying has it.

  Skort addressed himself to some of his people, and they stopped making too much noise.

  “You do not ask me why I wish to return."

  “You have your reasons. I have told you mine."

  His skull face turned fully toward me. He said, “Did you find the queen?"

  “No. We found a cell block and a lady, the Lady Milsi—"

  He nodded, quickly. “She is handmaid to the queen."

  Slowly, I said, “She is well but saddened. There was another woman in an adjoining cell who was dead. The Lady Milsi was sorely disturbed."

  Skort put a hand to his head.

  “That then, is the end of my duty. I serve Queen Mab. She and the Lady Milsi were seldom parted. I sorrow for a great one of the world."

  He was moved, that was clear. Also, this did serve to explain why he had joined the expedition to venture into the area where first the king and then the queen had disappeared.

  I spoke a few words of condolence, and then said: “This means you will not be going back with me?"

  “I think not."

  Before I could make a fool of myself, or a faux pas, or say something else stupid—for Skort's decision was so eminently sensible it warranted no comment—a shrill shocked scream ripped across the clearing. In a boil of shrieking confusion men spilled away from the fire.

  A thing reared above them, swarming from the jungle in tendrilled bunches of horror, smashing down on waddling clawed feet, sweeping with those tentacled clumps. A man was seized up and stuffed whole into the maw slung low and rimmed in writhing feelers which swayed all together and so closed on him.

  A smell as though a compost heap had been opened up prematurely belched from the monster. It reeked. And it scooped up men and stuffed them into its insides.

  Skort ripped out his sword. He flung himself forward. He had a rapport with his people, and would account for every one. I did not fling myself headlong after Skort.

  Instead among the bedlam of yells and shrieks and the confusing criss-crossing of shadows as men ran and fell and the monster-thing swept its tendrilled bunches of horror upon them, I dived forward. I kept low. I skirted the damn thing with its gray rotten hide and its hairs and its swinging tentacles. My target was the fire. That had been abandoned at once as the thing burst in from the jungle.

  A whiplash flicked at me and I went head over heels along the ground. My ear went into a plate of cold porridge and I skidded. That—probably—saved me. The tentacle that slashed down to seize me completely misjudged my distance as I went sliding along on my ear. I hit the ground, let out a great “Ooof!” and then was up. The longsword flamed into my fist and a single slice cut the tentacle into a little wriggler upon the ground.

  But there were far too many tentacles for one sword to amputate in time. The fire! The longsword snicked back into the scabbard, blood and ichor or not, and I seized up a flaming branch and flung it full at the ghastly monster-thing. Another followed, arching in a wheel of flame, spitting fire. I tried for the thing's eyes; but they were well-protected under hanging mats of coarse hair. Tentacles flicked my way; I burned the first one off.

  After that, Skort's men saw what was needed, and we simply threw firebrands at the monster thing until we drove it off. Either that, or we'd have burned it up. It was, said a man who knew about these things, an oiklt, and not a very big one at that. It made a strange mewling cry at the end, drawing off. It had lost tendrils, and much hair had been burned off, and it was discomfited. But the oiklt had eaten four of Skort's men, and this was cause for lamentation.

  Despite that, we had seen the thing off relatively easily, and—truth to tell—I had experienced no feelings of imminent doom when we fought. Perhaps that was merely the after effect of our experiences within the mountain.

  Carefulness for other peoples’ feelings, as well as sheer common sense, made me draw away from the Clawsangs as they set about their tasks. They would observe all the necessary rituals for their lost people. This was all a part of life on Kregen, as of any world where men and women of sensitivity are to be found. Their religious observances, although obscure to me and entailing a quantity of wailing and of plastering mud upon themselves and of doing nasty things with twig-made quirts, still conveyed their own deep appreciation of the sanctity of human life and of their grief that life had been wantonly spilled.

  I kept an old sailorman's eye open in case the monster's mate happened by, or the first oiklt decided to come back and risk a burning for some more dinner.

  The night passed thus, and presently Skort came across and said that having remembranced the dead, he would post guards and I could therefore go to sleep—if I wished.

  Odd, the way a boon is presented. Of course I was deathly weary. Of course I wished to sleep. But if I did so I might never wake up. If I did not, I would insult Skort. All a pretty little entanglement of motive and feeling, race and race.

  Eventually I thanked Skort and sat myself down and closed my eyes and Skort put a hand neatly on my shoulder and I woke up and it was full daylight. I had slept.

  In the mingled streaming radiance of the Suns of Scorpio slanting into the clearing and lighting up the world for us, the dark events of the night passed away as though mere dreamstuff. I stretched and sniffed and Skort made that hideous grimace, all rotting teeth and glaring eyes, that is a Clawsang smile.

  “Yes, you smell correctly. Breakfast."

  As we ate, I sensed some reservation on Skort's part. He clearly wished to say something, and nerved himself to utter the words, and then withdrew and said some inconsequential observation of our present situation.

  So, guessing what he wished to say, I said: “I wish my duty was concluded, as is yours."

  The green-slime around the exposed roots of the rotting teeth glimmered. Skort nodded. He was well-pleased.

  “Yes. I must return to report the queen dead. It is a sad duty."

  I swallowed the last of the food and took a last mouthful of tea. I stood up. All I owned was—one, a scarlet breechclout, and, two, a Krozair longsword.

  Skort stood up. His people looked on. They were travel-stained with ripped and torn clothing
; but at least they had escaped from the mountain intact. What my friends would be like—well, that I had to find out.

  “Remberee,” said Skort.

  “Remberee,” I said, and struck off along the trail leading from the clearing toward the mountain.

  The face of the mountain, caught at this early morning sun angle, bewildered by its vastness and variety of carvings. Vines looped and trailed across the rock; but the very profuseness of decoration could not be concealed. The lake opened out to my left with the usual activity on the brown sandspit. One proceeds with caution under these circumstances. I did not leave the concealment of the trees at once, and with daylight and the twin suns I could see the damned vines that sought to loop my neck and throttle me. I could see the nasties and the creepy crawlies, and that, by Vox! is a great help.

  My skills as a hunter and stalker are not inconsiderable. Well, to stay alive on Kregen in some of the more robust spots such skills are de rigueur. But I have known men and women who can move through any terrain like ghosts, unheard, unseen, unsuspected until they strike. I do not profess skills of that high order; but, crouched unmoving in the cover of leaves that did not seek to choke or chew me, I was at a considerable advantage. So in the long level streaks of suns light as Zim and Genodras, the great red and the smaller green sun of Kregen, rose over the treetops, I blinked my eyes with shock.

  A figure appeared soundlessly beside the track. It was concealed from all observation except from where I crouched, I judged, and that due to a casual alleyway between the leaves. I most certainly had not arranged that slot of vision. The figure did not move, made no sound, and had made no sound in reaching its present vantage point.

  Often my comrades joyed in stalking one another, seeking to leap out with a joyous shout of surprise. Seg Segutorio was our master and our mentor. Inch and Turko and Balass—Balass the Hawk!—and Korero were very good indeed, and Oby had learned much. When we could we played pranks, one on the other, and led a riotous life. But that very life had sent us off about business in the world, and our days of laughter in mutual comradeship were circumscribed by duties reserved to nobles and lords of the land.