Manhounds of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Oh, yes!”

  “Then,” I said, with a mischievousness somewhat out of place, perhaps, given the subject and the day, “we will have many more free Koters and Koteras to cheer for us!”

  “And aren’t they cheering!”

  Delia drew back that shimmer of veil from her face. The veil, I knew, had been the gift of her grandmother, laid by in a scented cedar-wood chest against the day when it would frame the glorious face of my beloved. Her eyes regarded her people of Vallia with a warm affection, and her cheeks flushed with a rosy tint that, however naive it may make me sound, captivated me again. And her hair! That glorious chestnut hair with those outrageous tints of auburn, her hair glowed and shone against the whiteness of the veil.

  “You are happy, my Delia?”

  “Yes, my Dray, yes. Oh, yes!”

  We performed the necessary functions at the sacred places and we did not miss a single fantamyrrh. The people lined the streets and boulevards as we passed at a slow zorca pace. I saw flowers, and ribbons, flags and banners, many silks and shawls depending from the open balconies. Petals showered upon us in a scented rain. The Suns of Scorpio shone magnificently upon us. Truly, then, as we drove to the acclamations of the multitudes, I had grown into a real Kregan!

  At my special request — which Delia, with a regal lift of her chin, had instantly translated into a command — we drove past the Great Northern Cut and past The Rose of Valka. There had been wild moments in this inn, and the raftered ceilings had witnessed many a scene of joyful carouse. Even with the crisp and concise stanza form adopted for that song, The Fetching of Drak na Valka, it takes a deucedly long time to sing it in its entirety, and usually we sang a shortened version. The old friends of Valka were there, hanging out of the windows, cheering and shouting and waving, and then someone — it was Young Bargom for an ob! — started up the song, and they were singing it out as we drove past. I knew they’d go on singing and drinking all day and all night, for that is the Valkan way.

  As was proper we were to finish our promenade of the city by narrow boat.

  The water glittered cleanly as we stepped from the zorca carriage and went aboard a narrow boat so bedecked with flowers and colors, with flags and banners, I wondered where we were to sit. The bargemasters had everything organized, and soon Delia and I found ourselves sitting on golden cushions high on a platform in the bows, sumptuously decorated, with a side table bearing tasty snacks, miscils, various wines, gregarians, squishes, and, of course, heaping silver and golden dishes of palines.

  No happy function of Kregen is complete without as many palines as may be managed.

  The water chuckled past the bows. I knew that water. Sweet is the canalwater of Vallia — sweet and deadly. I felt a comfort to know that through the immersion in the pool of baptism in that far-off River Zelph of Aphrasöe, my Delia was, as I was, assured of a thousand years of life as well as being protected from the fearful effects of the canalwater.

  And now it was the turn of the canalfolk to cheer and shout and wave. The Vens and the Venas turned out on their freshly painted narrow boats, lining the banks of the cut as we passed. We had a specially picked body of haulers to draw us, for I had — rudely, viciously, intemperately — refused the Emperor’s offer of a gang of his slave haulers. We did not see a single slave that glorious day, and although we knew the poor devils were hidden away in their barracks and bagnios, we could take comfort from our determination to end the evil, once and forever.

  All day we traveled about Vondium, and as the twin suns sank we saw the monstrous pile of the imperial palace rearing against the last suns-glow and knew we were going home.

  “I am so happy, my love, happy and not at all tired,” said Delia, and then yawned so hugely her slender white hand looked more slender and moth-white in the dusk than ever.

  “Yawning, my Delia, on your wedding day?”

  She laughed and I laughed, and we watched as the narrow boat was drawn through the rising portcullis of the palace’s water-port. We stepped down from the high platform and the Crimson Bowmen of Loh surrounded us and the Archers of Valka were there, too, and the Pallans, and the nobles and the high Koters, and we went up the marble stairs into the palace.

  It had been a perfect day.

  A girl’s wedding day ought to be, should be — must be — a perfect day.

  I was taken off by Seg and Inch and Hap, by Varden and Gloag, by Korf Aighos and Vomanus. We spent some time drinking amicably, but in low key, for none of us subscribed to the barbaric code that demands a groom become stupidly intoxicated on his wedding night. Grooms who do that have scarce love for their new brides.

  The room was low-ceilinged and comfortable, with softly upholstered chairs and sturm-wood tables, with Walfarg-weave rugs upon the floor, and with an endless supply of the best of Jholaix and all the other superlative wines of Kregen. Even so, as the Prince Majister, I could order up Kregan tea, than which there is no better drink in two worlds.

  Off in a corner I was able to have a few words with Vomanus.

  “So you’re my brother-in-law now, Vomanus.”

  He cocked an eye at me, lifting his glass, and drinking.

  “Half-brother-in-law, Dray.”

  “Aye. I doubted you, when the racters told me you sought the hand of Delia.” I am a man who never apologizes and never begs forgiveness — at least, almost never. Now I said: “Do you forgive me for doubting you, Vomanus?”

  He laughed in his careless way and tossed back the wine. He was a rapscallion, careless, lighthearted, but a good comrade.

  “There is nothing to forgive. I know how I would feel toward a man who tried to take a girl like Delia from me.”

  “You are engaged — no, that is not the word — you have a girl of your own?”

  “A girl, Dray? Of course not.” He yelled for more wine. “I have girls, Dray — hundreds of them!”

  Hap Loder came across, bringing more tea for me, and a handful of palines on a golden dish. We talked of the clans and of the new chunkrah herds he had been building up. He was now the power in the Clans of Felschraung and Longuelm, but he had given obi to me and I was his lord and so he would remain faithful to me forever. I knew that he was my friend, and that was more important than mere loyalty.

  Tharu of Valkanium and Tom ti Vulheim were there, and I was joyed to see they had brought Erithor of Valkanium. I shouted across: “Erithor! Will you honor us with a song?”

  “Right willingly, Strom Drak,” he began, bringing his harp forward, and then halting, and, striking a chord, said: “Right willingly, Prince Majister.”

  “Strom Drak,” I said. “Well, it is Strom Dray, now, in Valka for me. But the great song will never change.”

  Others broke in, begging Erithor to sing, for he was a bard renowned throughout all of Vallia. I recalled the song Erithor had been making, after we had cleansed Valka, and the girls of Esser Rarioch, the high fortress overlooking Valkanium, had unavailingly badgered and teased him into revealing its words and melodies. He might sing that song now. If he did, this would be another historical mark to go down beside the other great songs he had made that would live forever.

  He saw me looking at him, and lifting his head, he said: “No, Prince Majister. I will sing the marriage song of Prince Dray and Princess Delia only when both are there to hear it together.”

  Someone — I do not know who it was to this day — roared out: “Then you won’t sing it this night, Erithor!”

  They all shouted at this, and Erithor struck a chord, and broke into Naghan the Wily, which tells how Naghan, a rich and ugly silversmith of Vandayha, was trapped into marriage by the saucy Hefi, daughter of the local bosk herder.

  Everyone roared. Kregans have a warped sense of humor, it seems to me, at times.

  How wonderful it was to be here, in this comfortable room, drinking and singing with my friends! I am a man who does not make friends easily. I can always rouse men to follow me, to do as I order, and joy in the doing of it . .
. but friendship. That, to me, is a rare and precious thing I seek without even acknowledging I seek it, except in moments of weakness like this.

  Seg’s Thelda would be busily clucking about Delia now, and knowing Thelda, I knew she would be full of her own importance as a married woman with a fine young son — called Dray — and with all the good will in the world exasperating by her own importance and knowledge of the marriage state.

  It was time I rescued Delia.

  I stood up.

  Everyone fell silent.

  Erithor had been singing on — the time passes incredibly quickly when a skald of such power sings — and now he finished up an episode from The Canticles of the Rose City wherein the half-man, half-god Drak sought for his divine mistress through perils that made the listeners grip the edges of their chairs. The thrumming strings fell silent.

  I cleared my throat.

  “I thank you all, my friends. I cannot say more.”

  I believe they understood.

  They escorted me up the marble stairs where the torchlight threw orange and ruby colors across the walls and the tapestries and the silks, where the shadows all fled from us.

  Delia was waiting.

  Thelda bobbed her head and Seg put his arm around her and everyone carried out the prescribed gestures and spoke the words that would ensure long and happy life to Delia and me. Then, already laughing and singing and feeling thirsty again, they all trooped downstairs and left Delia and me alone.

  The bedchamber was hung with costly tapestries and tall candles burned unwaveringly. Refreshments had been tastefully laid out on a side table. Delia sat up in the bed with that outrageous hair combed out by Thelda gleaming upon her shoulders. I confess I was gawping at her.

  “Oh, Dray! You look as though you’ve eaten too much bosk and taylyne soup!”

  “Delia—” I whispered. “I—”

  I took an unsteady step forward. I felt my sword swinging at my side, that wonderful Savanti sword, and I reached down to take it out and throw it upon the table, out of the way — and so, with the sword in my hand, I saw the tapestries at the side of the bed rustle. There was no wind in the bedchamber.

  They must have waited until they heard everyone else depart, and only Delia’s voice — and then my voice. That had been the signal.

  Six of them there were.

  Six men clad all in black with black face-masks and hoods, and wielding daggers.

  They leaped for the bed in so silent and feral a charge from their concealed passage behind the arras that almost they slew my Delia before I could reach them.

  With a cry so bestial, so vile, so vicious, so horrible they flinched back from me, I hurled myself full upon them.

  Their six daggers could not meet that brand.

  The Savanti sword is a terrible weapon of destruction.

  Had they been wearing plate armor and wielding Krozair longswords I do not think they would have stood before me.

  So furious, so ugly, so absolutely destructive was my attack that I had slashed down the first two, driven the sword through the guts of the third, and turned to strike at the fourth before they could swivel their advance to face — instead of the beautiful girl in the bed — me.

  “Dray!” said Delia.

  She did not scream.

  In a lithe smother of naked flashing legs and yards and yards of white lace she was out of the bed, snatching up a fallen dagger, hurling herself upon the sixth man. He stood, horrified. I chopped the fourth, caught the fifth through an eye — the mask could not hope to halt the marvelous alloy-steel of the Savanti blade — and swung about to see Delia stepping back from her man.

  The six would-be assassins lay sprawled on the priceless Walfarg-weave rugs.

  “Oh, Dray!” said Delia, dropping the bloody dagger and running to me, her arms outstretched. “They might have slain you!”

  “Not with you to protect me, my Delia,” I said, and I laughed, and caught her up close to me, breast to breast, and so gazed down upon her glorious face upturned to my ugly old figurehead. “Sink me! I feel sorry for the poor fools!”

  Later I carried the six out to the door and dumping them in the passage roared for the guard and half a dozen Crimson Bowmen appeared. The Hikdar wanted to rouse the palace, but I said: “Not so, good Fenrak.” He was a loyal Bowman who had fought with us at The Dragon’s Bones and had been promoted, to his joy. “This is my wedding night!”

  He shook his head.

  “I will see to this offal, my Prince. And in the morning, then . . .” He started his men into action. He was a rough tough Bowman of Loh, and thus dear to me. “I wish you all joy, my Prince, and eternal happiness to the Princess Majestrix.”

  “Thank you, Fenrak. There is wine for you and your men — drink well tonight, my friend.”

  As they carted the black-clad assassins off, I went back to Delia and closed the door on the outside world.

  I must admit, knowing what I do of Kregen, that this was a typical ending to a wedding day. It had roused the blood, though, set a sparkle into Delia’s eyes, a rose in her cheeks. How she had fought for me, like a zhantil for her cubs!

  In the morning — and I a married man! — we made inquiries. The story was simple and pathetic. The would-be assassins, being dead, could not tell us what we wanted to know, but one of them was recognized by Vomanus as being a retainer of the Kov of Falinur, who had fled. This had been his last throw. This is what I believed at the time. Then, the truth did not matter; later I was to wish I had prosecuted more earnest inquiries, for what Vomanus told us was correct. What he could not then know was that this assassin had left the employ of Naghan Furtway, Kov of Falinur.

  When we talked of this, and used the name, Thelda pushed up very wroth, her face flushed. “I am the Kovneva of Falinur! And my husband Seg is the Kov! Do not speak of the Kov of Falinur as a traitor!”

  Delia soothed her down. Being a Kovneva was greatly to Thelda’s liking, although Seg had laughed and said that being a Kov would not drive his shafts any the straighter when he was hunting in his hills of Erthyrdrin.

  Naghan Furtway had been stripped of his titles and estates. Henceforth I knew we must think of him as Furtway, and he would seek to injure us in some way. And this was the man, together with his nephew Jenbar, whom I had rescued from the icy Mountains of the North at the behest of the Star Lords!

  * * * *

  I will not go into details of my life after that in Vondium, the capital city of Vallia. That life was remarkable in its activity, for I had much to do, and in its uneventfulness. I took the palace architect, one Largan the Rule, and we went ferreting about in the secret passages. I have mentioned the usual custom in great palaces of having secondary passageways between the walls. These I inspected, and found many fresh alleyways of which even Largan the Rule had no knowledge, and so had those that would be weak spots bricked up.

  It seems I had the knack of poking my beaked nose into all the places I was able to investigate and find some way of improving what went on. High on my list of priorities was organizing the canals better, in such a way that arguments over rights-of-way need not take place at crossings. Until a great program of canal building could be undertaken to create overways and underways on the cuts, I instituted a country wardens service, which provided for families of men and women to live near the crossings and superintend the traffic.

  As was to be expected I spent a great deal of time at the dockyards and slipways making myself thoroughly familiar with the great race-built galleons of Vallia. I looked into their artillery, the catapults, the varters, and the gros-varters which Vallia herself had developed.

  As for the Vallian Air Service, a body of fliers I had always held in the highest respect, we discovered that Naghan Furtway had contrived through his contacts to disperse the Air Service during the time of his abortive coup. I met again Chuktar Farris, the Lord of Vomansoir, who aboard Lorenztone had plucked Delia and me from midair where we flew astride Umgar Stro’s giant coal-black i
mpiter. I thought I detected about his exquisite politeness an edged air of pleasure, as though his love for Delia found equal pleasure that she had at last married the great ruffianly barbarian she had chosen — against all common sense.

  “We searched for you, Prince Majister, and found instead the Kov of Falinur and his Kovneva.”

  I saw Delia smile at this, and had to chuckle myself.

  How high and mighty we all were with our titles these days, and then we had been a draggle-tailed bunch running and hiding across the Hostile Territories!

  I asked after Tele Karkis, the young Hikdar of the Air Service, and Farris frowned and said: “He left the Air Service. He — disappointed us in that. I have not seen or heard of him for a long time.”

  Naghan Vanki, he of the sarcastic tongue and the silver and black outfit — an approximation to Racter colors, those — was still active, although away in Evir in the north at the time.

  My sojourn in Vallia had already given me a feeling that blue was the color of Pandahem and therefore of an enemy. I was able to instantly quell this irrational feeling my own way by thinking of Tilda of the Many Veils, and her son young Pando — a right little limb of Satan if ever there was one. But, still, it was strange to see the Vallian Air Service men clad in their smart dark blue, with the short orange capes. The blue was so dark as almost to be black, and I guessed had been given that blue tinge to take away the odd dusty shabby look unrelieved black gives.

  Delia and I flew a considerable amount of the time on our journeys to the Blue Mountains and to Delphond. Court officials worried over this, for the airboats were always giving trouble and were not to be relied upon. We visited Inch in the Black Mountains, and soon found he had palled up with the Blue Mountain Boys, and he and Korf Aighos, who ran the place from that eerie and cloud-capped mountain city of High Zorcady, were hatching plans that would further unite in friendship the whole mountain area. We flew all over Vallia. We went up to Falinur where Seg had betaken himself, with Thelda, to take charge. Seg had chosen an ord-Kiktar to run the Crimson Bowmen of Loh in his stead when he was away on his estates. This man, a veteran, intensely loyal, was called Dag Dagutorio — I believe I have not mentioned the system in Erthyrdrin over names and what the torio means, but that must wait for now — and I saw the Emperor felt more at ease when Dag was around and Seg was away up in Falinur. That must have been the motive of the munificent gift of a Kovnate to Seg.