Manhounds of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Good, Turko. We march now to freedom.”

  But we both knew we meant much more than merely escaping from this fortress-prison of Mungul Sidrath.

  With both crossbows spanned and ready, with Turko at my back with his shield, and the girls following on, we padded on away from the dungeon and on toward the cavern of the waters.

  Halfway across the bridge I halted. In the noise and confusion of water spouting, great wheels creaking, and slaves screaming as whips whistled down, we could not fail to attract attention. But the danger lay ahead. On the far side of the bridge a body of men appeared and instantly they were revealed as the nobles and officers come down to question their prisoners, and, perhaps, to have a little sport with them.

  In the forefront, as I had cynically expected, stood Hikdar Markman ti Coyton.

  He screamed and pointed and dragged out his sword, his words unheard in the din of rushing water, creaking wood, and other screams so much more brutally dragged forth.

  At Markman’s side stood a man who blazed with the stiff regalia of pride and authority. This Canop had to be the commandant of Yaman. For good measure I put the first shaft into him. I saw his mouth open as he fell, but did not hear his dying scream. Rapechak let fly and slew a Chuktar directly to Markman’s rear. Markman turned and tried to push back through the officers. Being officers and having come on a sporting occasion they had no bowmen handy, but very quickly bowmen could be deployed and then we’d be skewered, there on the open bridge with the roaring water beneath.

  I put my face close to Turko’s ear.

  “Over with you, Turko! And breathe deeply!”

  I said the same to Rapechak.

  They both wanted to argue and Rapechak, bending his great beaked face close to mine, barely avoided the quarrel that sizzled past to thunk into the wooden railing in a showering of yellow chips. They were arguing about the girls. There was no time to reload. Turko moved forward, and in a twinkling crossbow bolts stood in his shield like angry bristles. He screened us. I was not sure of the Rapa’s capabilities as a swimmer, and Turko was in no real condition to look after anyone but himself.

  I pushed them both over and grabbed the girls about their waists and leaped. Half a dozen crossbow bolts ripped the wood of the bridge as we hurtled down. We hit the water in a fountain that vanished almost instantly in that smooth, heavy flow and the current swept us frighteningly fast down and into the arched opening leading onto darkness.

  Sword and crossbow had gone and I now had armfuls only of wet and terrified girls. I lunged up, my head above the surface, and dragged them up. There was no sign of the others. “Breathe!” I yelled, and then took a frantic quick breath, as deeply as I could in the time left, and then we were over and falling in the midst of the cascade, with only darkness, and water, and noise all about us.

  Accounted a superb swimmer and able to dive for long periods I may be, but that gulp of air had not been enough. I felt the pains in my chest, the flecks of fire before my eyes that were wide open and staring blindly into the roaring darkness. On and on we were tumbled, turning and twisting like chips in a drainage ditch. I felt then that for a surety I was done for. This was the end. This was where they tossed the broken and bleeding corpses of the dead slaves after they had worked until they died, this was where they disposed of the prisoners they had questioned beyond the limits of tolerance. Down and down we went and on and on and then I knew I had finished and there was nothing else to do but end this agonizing pain and open my mouth.

  But, being Dray Prescot, a stupid onker, I kept my mouth shut and I fought the pain and we swirled along like refuse. I felt a sudden rising shock as lights stung my dazzled eyes, and cool night air laved my face and we were afloat on the surface of the River Magan.

  Turko waved an arm and yelled. I did not see Rapechak.

  We swam into the bank and on the oozing mud a severe session of arm-pumping and kissing brought the girls around. They were shattered by their experiences and unable fully to comprehend that we had escaped. I felt that we would have little time. Finding a boat was easy enough and I selected a craft typical of river work, with sharply flared bows and a broad beam, shallow-drafted and with a sail and awning. At the oars — at the oars! How eerie and strange a feeling that was to be sure! — we pulled around in circles, calling as loudly as we dared for Rapechak. But we did not find the Rapa. I would not think of that. At last, and with regret, I set the bows downriver and pulled steadily away in the dying light of the Maiden with the Many Smiles.

  By dawn we were well down the river. We had a few scraps of clothing, no weapons, and no money. But we had our lives.

  “I can sail this boat well enough,” I said. Hell! If I, Dray Prescot, couldn’t sail a boat the end of two worlds was in sight! I felt relieved, light-headed, and yet let down. This was the end of this adventure, for there was food and wine in the boat and fishing lines and bait, with a breaker of water, and so all this evidence pointed to a fishing party this day. We might be pursued. If the boat had belonged to a Migla, I did not think the halfling would report its loss to the Canoptic authorities.

  Turko said, “The girls ought to know this country, Dray. If we can sail out of the country of Migla we can find friends. If what Saenda says is true . . . and what Quaesa boasts of is so.”

  The girls shivered in the dawn as the mists rose from the sluggish river and a little breeze got up. We could set some canvas very shortly, for the wind blew fair.

  “My father—” began Saenda. She swallowed. “If we could reach Cnarveyl, on the coast to the north, or Tyriadrin, the country to the south, we would find agencies of my father’s. Or we might try one of the islands — but they are infested with renders.”

  “Take your pick,” I said with a cheerful note in my voice. “The wind is fair for either.”

  Quaesa spoke up then. Both girls had drunk a little wine and pulled their fingers through their hair — a sovereign remedy, that, for miserable feelings — and they fell to arguing which country would be the better, having a mind to their father’s vast interests and agencies. Turko looked at me and raised his eyebrows, and smiled.

  Turko, who had taken half a dozen crossbow bolts into and through the shield, arguing with me there on the bridge, before I pushed him over. I would not think of Rapechak. He must have swum clear and been taken in a different direction by the sluggish current. He had to.

  Well, whether it was to Cnarveyl to the north or Tyriadrin to the south, we would equip ourselves with clothes and money and the girls would go home aboard one of their father’s ships or vollers, and I — I would go home, too, to Valka. And Turko would go with me. He wanted that, I knew. And, now, I wanted him with me. He did not know what a Krozair of Zy was, but he had seen what their unarmed combat techniques could do, and he was prepared to grant me all the khams he cared to.

  The banks lightened under the suns and I considered. They were well wooded, with many muddy creeks, and again I cocked my eyes at Zim and Genodras just glowing through the mists, turning them into a chiaroscuro of emerald and ruby, and I considered, and then turned the boat toward the opposite bank.

  “We lie up for the day,” I said. No one thought to argue with me or question the decision.

  That day, hidden beneath overhanging missals, we saw the boats passing down the river, long lean craft propelled by a single bank of oars, twenty to a bank, and I could guess the Miglas were rowing there, under the lash of the Canops.

  From time to time fluttrell patrols passed overhead, swinging in their ordered skeins across the pale sky. Vollers, too, searched for us. They could not see us through the screen of leaves, the oared boats did not push far enough in up the creek, and the land patrols riding totrixes or zorcas could not approach the banks here by reason of the mudflats, which were very treacherous. So we waited the day out, eating and drinking frugally, and the girls calmed down completely and fell to arguing over me, and trying their wiles on me, whereat Turko harrumphed and took himself off.

/>   Just before I was ready to push off I, too, went up the bank. I stared up at the sky and thought that very soon I would see my Delia again, my Delia of the Blue Mountains, my Delia of Delphond! And, too, I would hold in my arms those two tiny morsels of humanity we had called Drak and Lela. Oh, yes, I yearned to return home. I had done what the Star Lords commanded. No blue radiance had dropped about me. No hideous Scorpion had lowered on me to transit me back to the Earth of my birth four hundred light-years away, the planet that, I admitted with joy, I could no longer call home.

  In the last of the light, in that streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio, I turned to go down to the boat and push out into midstream and so ghost down to the mouth and sail away from this miserable land of Migla.

  I turned, one foot was in the air — and a beat of wings above my head, a flash of scarlet and gold, and a hated voice screeched down on me from above.

  I looked up.

  The Gdoinye circled there, low, terrible of form, glorious and shining and altogether hateful.

  “A fool, Dray Prescot! Nothing less!”

  “Go away!” I shouted up. My passion broke out then in foul words. I shook my fist, for I had no other weapons of steel now, and yet I had proved that a man’s hands are more terrible than the sword.

  “You think you obey the Star Lords? You who do not understand a tenth, no, a millionth part of their purpose? You are an onker, Dray Prescot! Why did you bring the Mighty Mog here to her home in Migla which is cursed by the Canops?”

  When I heard him refer to the Migla witch, old Mog, as Mog the Mighty, I knew. I knew! The agony of it struck in shrewdly and almost I fell to my knees and begged the Gdoinye to let me be. But I knew the penalty of refusal. I knew I must do what the Star Lords commanded, or I would be banished to Earth four hundred light-years away, and might languish there for years as my twins, my Drak and my Lela, grew up into wonderful children, and my Delia pined for me as I hungered for her.

  “What is it the Star Lords command, bird of ill omen?”

  “That is better, Dray Prescot! You should know you have not completed your task. Not until the land of Migla is cleansed of the Canops and Migshaanu is returned to her rightful place — for a time only! — will your work be done.”

  “I am almost naked, I have no weapons, no money, two girls depend on me, the whole country is up in arms against me. You are hard taskmasters—”

  “You have been naked before, Dray Prescot, and weaponless. You will do this thing.”

  With a loud and harshly triumphant squawk, a cry of triumphant rage, the raptor winged away into the fading suns-glow. Zim and Genodras, which hereabouts I should call with all hatred Far and Havil, sank in a smoldering angry blaze of jade and ruby, firing bloodily into a savage crimson glow dropping down over the horizon. Darkness closed over the land of Migla upon the continent of Havilfar on Kregen.

  Stunned at the enormity of the sentence passed upon me I went down to the boat.

  In the darkness, before any of the seven moons of Kregen rose, I pushed off and in silence took the looms of the oars into my hands.

  What I must do I must do.

  Oh, my little Drak, my little Lela!

  And — my Delia, my Delia of Delphond — when would I see her again and hold her dear form in my arms?

  About the author

  Alan Burt Akers is a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer. Bulmer has published over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction.

  More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at

  www.mushroom-ebooks.com

  The Dray Prescot Series

  The Delian Cycle:

  Transit to Scorpio

  The Suns of Scorpio

  Warrior of Scorpio

  Swordships of Scorpio

  Prince of Scorpio

  Havilfar Cycle:

  Manhounds of Antares

  Arena of Antares

  Fliers of Antares

  Bladesman of Antares

  Avenger of Antares

  Armada of Antares

  Notes

  [1] Notor: Lord. Prescot has used notor a number of times previously in his narrative and I have amended it to lord. I feel, though, that notor is peculiar to Havilfar and so have used it throughout as Prescot does. A.B.A.

  [2] Prescot has used this oath of the Rapas before and I have deleted it; here it sounds absolutely right. He spells it out and pronounces it with a clearing-of-the-throat sound. A.B.A.

  Copyright © 1974, 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 by Daw Books, Inc. in 1974.

  This Edition published in 2006 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.

  ISBN 1843193728