Manhounds of Antares dp-6

by Alan Burt Akers

  We fled through the rock gullies with the overhanging trees making the way alternately dark and light, shot through with the last rays of the sinking suns, so that all the world turned an angry viridian blood color, most unsettling.

  Farther on I caught up with Naghan and Sosie, who ran, gasping and panting, in a way distressing to me. We paused for a quick breather and in that space of hard-drawn breaths we heard the click and patter of jiklo claws following us. Sosie screamed again, and Naghan clapped a hand across her face — but gently.

  “If we split up we will stand a better chance,” said Naghan, the young man who claimed with so much pride to come from Hamal.

  “Agreed,” I said. Then: “I wish you well, Naghan, and you, Sosie. May Zair go with you.”

  Of course they had no idea what or who Zair was, that was quite clear, but they understood, and commended me to the care of Opaz.

  “Remberee!” we shouted, and then ran as fast as we might over the rocks and splinters up separate gullies.

  After only a short time I hoisted Lilah to my shoulder and was able to progress at a faster rate. Only a short time after that we heard the most horrendous screams and shrieks, the snuffling howling of jiklos, the blood-crazed shrieking, and we knew that Naghan and Sosie would never return home to Hamal. There was nothing I could do about that, and I thrust all thoughts of the despicable way I had been acting lately out of my mind. I had to free this Princess Lilah, otherwise the Star Lords would hurl me back to Earth.

  This I knew.

  She of the Veils rose into the sky and very quickly the Twins added their combined pink light so that we could press on without fear of falling into a crevasse or pitching over the precipice of a river bank. The trees thinned away and we had to decelerate our rapid onward march as the land trended downward. We skidded and rolled in a great sliding whoosh down a sheer scree-clad slope — highly dangerous, is scree, to one without experience — and at the bottom we found rocky inclines which led us out onto the hard banks of a river. Perforce, we had to turn south and follow the river, seeing its waters slide and gleam below us in the encompassing pink light. Occasional rocks and falls interrupted the river’s flow, but I made Lilah walk on all night, with stops to rest now and then, and in the end carried her, fast asleep on my shoulder.

  There was no question of my being tired.

  By morning the river banks had sunk to a nice level meadow-like embankment. Through the early morning mists I could see the supple sheen and glide of the river, smooth and unmarred, and presently, after a little rise and a few gorse-like bushes, we came to the sea. The sea.

  Well, I wondered if that harsh interdiction of the Star Lords against my venturing out onto the sea still prevented me from doing what I had for so long missed.

  As to that, ever since my cruel transition here to the manhounds’ island of Faol I had not been acting as Dray Prescot would ordinarily act, and I had rationalized that out. I was most dissatisfied. Lilah let out a cry of joy.

  “Look, Dray! Across the strait! The White Rock of Gilmoy!”

  I looked across the sea. Over there the dark bar of land penned in a strait which was, so I judged, in flood. Standing proudly forth, like a sentinel finger, was a tremendous pillar of rock on that opposite shore, white and blinding on its eastern edge where the light struck it, shadowed on the west.

  “You know where we are, Lilah?”

  “Yes! That white rock is famed throughout Havilfar. It stands on the northern shore of Gilmoy and I have flown over it many times. I had no idea Faol was close.” She shivered at this.

  “Then we must find a boat.”

  The notion struck my fancy. The Star Lords had forbidden me to journey by sea; they had also bidden me rescue Princess Lilah, and to do that I must take to a boat. Now let the Star Lords unravel that knot

  — I cared not a fig for them. We walked along the beach. I could see no boats at once, and in that I felt disappointment.

  A house, set back against the line of gorse-covered hills backing the beach, showed a thread of smoke from its chimney. In a pen at the side two dozen or so flying beasts flapped their wings and shrilled. They were sitting on lenken bars into which their claws sank, and they were chained by iron. They looked to be not as large as the impiters, those coal-black flying animals of The Stratemsk, but larger than the corths. Their coloring varied, tending generally to a beige-white and a velvet-green, and their heads were marked by large vanes after the fashion of pteranodons. They looked to be nasty brutes, well enough. Lilah took an eager step forward.

  “Fluttrells!” she exclaimed. “We are in luck, Dray. The wind-eaters will carry us swiftly over the strait to Gilmoy, and from thence home to Hyrklana!”

  Before I could answer the door of the house burst open and a ragged mob of men wielding weapons sprang out. They did not stop or pause in their rush but came on with an intent I have fronted many times. The pen was to hand. There was only one thing I could do. I grabbed Lilah and fairly ran her across to the sturm-wood bars of the pen. I selected the nearest fluttrell, and gave it a great thumping flat-handed smack around its snouted face to tell it who was master — I had no shame in this brutalization, for death ran very close to our heels — and hoisted Lilah onto the bird’s back.

  “Can you fly one without stirrup, clerketer, rein?”

  “I am perfectly at home in or on anything that flies in the air.”

  The feel of the flying beast between her legs had changed Lilah — either that, or she was scenting her homeland. She looked at me with a triumphant expression.

  “Mount up, Dray! Let us be off!”

  “Not so, Princess.” Swiftly I released the locks of the chains holding the fluttrell. “You must fly for your home. If I take off with you these men will follow and we will surely be caught. You must go — I will hold them off until you are well clear.”

  “But, Dray! They will slay you!”

  “I do not think so, Lilah.”

  I gave the fluttrell an almighty thwack and with a bad-tempered squawk it fluttered its wings and rose into the air. Lilah had to cling to its neck, ducking her head beneath the great balancing vane. She looked down on me. I snatched up a length of timber from the pen and with this cocked in my fists — and my fists spread in the old Krozair longsword way as I had done aboard Viridia the Render’s flagship when I fought her Womoxes — I awaited the onslaught of the men from the house.

  “You will be slain, Dray Prescot!” she called down.

  “You are safe, Lilah! Now go!”

  She kicked the sides of the magnificent flying animal. “I shall not forget you, Dray Prescot!” And then, faintly as she rose into the limpid morning sky: “Remberee, Dray Prescot!”

  I admit it now — I can look back and see and understand my feelings then — I welcomed the coming fight. I had run and crawled and pulled my forelock long enough. These men might be justified in their instant attack upon us — although I doubted that — but they would rue the day they tangled with me. No doubt the Star Lords thought that a good joke, too.

  As I held that length of lumber prepared to show these yokels a little sword-practice, I felt, suddenly, treacherously, the shifting sensations and the blue radiance close about me, and I could no longer feel the wooden longsword — and I was slipping and sliding into the radiant blue void.

  Chapter Eight

  Prey of the Manhounds of Antares

  The stink of slaves lay in my nostrils with that thick choking odor so familiar to me. A voice said: “I can guide you out, Golan, by Hito the Hunter! But you must run-”

  “I can run, Anko! And I will reward you, liberally, magnificently! I am a Pallan-”

  “And me! And me!” other voices lifted, beseeching, begging, pleading to be led to freedom. I opened my eyes.

  I had failed the Star Lords.

  The brazen notes of a stentor’s horn filled the caves and passageways and like swirling weeds at the turn of the tide all the slaves raced madly off to the feeding hall. I s
tood up. By the Black Chunkrah! I’d go down to the feeding cave and take my food if I had to snatch it from all the Khamorros in Havilfar and all the guides in Faol!

  So the Princess Lilah of Hyrklana with the golden hair and the beautiful form had not been the one I had been sent here to rescue.

  There was but one thing I could do.

  I must find the correct slave to be rescued and take him or her out to safety. Guide or no guide. Down in the feeding cave I saw a lithe and limber young man with dark hair, very alert in carriage now he was alone with only slaves about him, talking earnestly with a bulky man who had once been plump. His face, much sunken in, still contained traces of the habitual power of command he had once wielded. This was Golan, and he had been a Pallan, and had been betrayed, and so sold into slavery and found himself dispatched to Faol, where slaves brought a high price.

  Golan?

  I lifted my chunk of vosk — a Rapa who had thought to dispute with me its possession lay on the floor unconscious — and shook it at the rocky ceiling. “You stupid Star Lords!” I said, but I did not speak aloud, for I did not wish to attract unwelcome attention to myself, and although insanity was common enough among slaves, it was still regarded with a leery suspicion. “Idiot Everoinye! How am I supposed to know whom to rescue out of this mad crowd?”

  I received no answer, and expected none, and so sank my teeth into the vosk and stared sullenly at my fellow slaves.

  My beard had grown and my hair, too, making me look even more wild and uncouth and slavelike. All the same, Tulema recognized me instantly.

  “Dray! I thought — how did you-? Have you crawled back through the caves?”

  “No, Tulema. I didn’t go.” Then, to allay her suspicions, I said: “Here, finish this vosk for me. I am heartily sick of this place, for I thought I was safely away, and then I was not.”

  Instead of saying, as one would, “Tell me about it,” she seized the remaining chunk of vosk with my teethmarks sharp upon it and wolfed it down. No one, it was clear, had been looking out for Tulema. Could my target be this girl, with her lithe body and dark hair, all matted with dirt, her savage ways, this girl who had been a dancer in a dopa den? I did not think so. It was, in truth and given the circumstances of my return, far more likely to be this Golan, who had been a Pallan. A Pallan, as you know, is a minister of state, a high official, and if he had been disgraced and sold as a slave, it might be my duty to return him and thus affect some great design in the political structure of Kregen. Lacking any other clues, I decided it must be Golan.

  Of one thing I could be sure. If it was not Golan then I would be seized by the blue radiance and hurled back into the slave pens tunneled into the caves.

  Then again — if it came to the worst, I might not be. I might be flung back to the Earth of my birth.

  “Listen, Tulema. I mean to go again and this time I mean to break through to freedom. Will you come with me?”

  “I dare not, Dray! You know why — the manhounds. .”

  “They are most fearsome beasts — no — fearsome men. But I will look out for you.”

  As you will instantly perceive, I was trying to copper-bottom my bet. If by chance Golan was not the target, and Tulema was, then I would be safe.

  “You will, Dray! I think — I believe-”

  Then this rough tough dancing girl from a dopa den turned away, and I saw her smooth shoulder with the dirt marks upon it quivering as she sobbed.

  I felt pity for her — of course I did. But she was just one in exactly the same situation as all of us. I started to work at once. I took her shaking shoulder, and shook it, and her, so that she quivered, and I said: “This Golan, who was once a Pallan. Was he there when you and I first met?”

  “Yes, he was.” She sniffed and sniveled, and I brushed the tears from her eyes.

  “There is no need for tears, Tulema. We will go out together from here, you and I, in safety.”

  She eyed me from under her long lashes where the teardrops trembled. “Lart the Khamorro. Did he?”

  About to say, “He is dead,” I paused. I lied. I said: “I do not know, Tulema. I told you, I was thrown back unwanted.”

  “Oh.”

  That evening after the meal I fixed up with Anko the Guide that he would include me in his party. He looked at me with approval.

  “You look as though you can run.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I can run.”

  The tame slaves were let in and they swept out the refuse and muck. Most of them were sly, inventive, cunning creatures. The old Miglish woman whacked her broom about crossly, swearing at everyone in her vile way, threatening them with all manner of horrendous fates at the hands of Migshaanu the All-Glorious. Tulema squeaked and caught my arm and we moved into another cave. I kept my eyes open for any other Khamorros. They would be useful on the hunt if only they would learn to rein and bridle their arrogance and contempt for other people.

  The following sequence of events was much the same as before. Nalgre came with his whip and his customers and guards, and the bunch of slaves who clustered most urgently against the lenken bars were chosen. Anko the Guide gathered his little group about him — fourteen of us — and the barred gates were open.

  I looked about for Tulema.

  She was not visible.

  Golan was about to be herded through. I seized him by the arm intending to haul him back and go find Tulema, for I did not wish to split my options, but a hefty guard seized Golan by the other arm and pulled.

  Golan yelled.

  “Let me go! Let me go, you hairy yetch!”

  The guard hit me and I put my hand up and another guard hit me, and Golan was gone and two guards lay on the floor, unconscious, and then I was bundled out with the rest. At once I shoved my way into the middle of the crowd of slaves blinking in the sunshine. Tulema would have to take her chances, now, and I must not miss Golan. She had evidently allowed her fears to overwhelm her at the end. Anko the Guide looked at me in some surprise as I shuffled along with the slaves.

  Nalgre and his guards were dragging out the two unconscious guards in their leaf-green tunics — their helmets had rolled and were instantly snatched back into the crowd of slaves, as is the slave way with all unattached objects — and were yelling and banging their whips and looking for whoever had done this heinous crime.

  “You are not a Khamorro,” said Anko the Guide.

  “No. And look downcast, slave.”

  He gulped. “Yes. Yes, that is right.”

  We were taken to the slave barracks, where all went as before, except that there was no pathetic brave and foolish Lart the Khamorro to throw away his life so uselessly.

  In the slave barracks this time there were two other parties of slaves ready for the great Jikai. We had some conversation, but I knew none of them, and now was more convinced than ever that Golan was my man.

  Next morning Nalgre, with his admiring customers in attendance, went through his little routine with his pet jiklo. The female creature frisked about, lolling her red tongue, rubbing her flanks against his legs, sniffing us. Then we set out through the jungle. The other two parties went north and east. We struck south. As Anko said: “We do not wish to draw too many hunters down upon us, no, by Hito the Hunter. We cross the great plain, and then we will be safe across the river.”

  This Anko was much like Nath, and I hoped no untoward accident would befall him, also. He found his cache of clothes and food and shoes and knives, and cheerful at the prospect of liberty before us, we set off. The jungle was left far in the rear and we tramped across a wide plain where palies and that deer-like animal of such grace and beauty, the lople, ran and grazed in herds. We might run across leem here, too, and I kept my hand on the hilt of the cheap knife Anko had passed out from the cache. The palies were the easiest to catch of the plains deer, and we caught, cooked, and ate one before settling down for the night. I own I felt the tiredness on me. I had suggested we march on by the light of She of the Veils, but Anko had l
aughed and said the high and mighty hunters did not relish hunting by night. He added, losing his smile: “They like to see their quarry.”

  Faol, as I was to learn, is mostly jungle in its northern half, nearer the equator, but a shift in the land height and the more southerly aspect give this part of the island a more open terrain. The plain over which we now trod curved around to merge with that over which I had marched previously, right across to the river. Now I felt an unease I put into words to Anko the Guide before sleep.

  “We are exposed here, Anko. Would not the jungle have afforded us more cover?”

  “There is some truth in what you say. But to the north the chances of complete escape are more limited.”

  Well, he ought to know. Once more I was struck by the bravery and self-sacrifice of the guides. Anko told me a little more of their philosophy, which was not based, as I had thought, on the twin-principle so common on Kregen, in which the Invisible Twins and Opaz figure so prominently. The guides came from a people of Faol who believed in absolute evil as a principle of life, unarguable and factual, and they were therefore dedicated in opposition to this force. He would not speak of the manhounds. I took this as a wise precaution, for the fears that had destroyed the courage of Tulema were rife among all the slaves. Only the presence of a guide gave them the courage to run. When a bunch of slaves were chosen to be hunted without having arranged for a guide to be among them their chances were nil. Luckily, so Anko said, the guides usually contrived to be with a party due to be hunted. When I said to him, “And what do you guides seek in this work?” some of my old uncouth sailor ways slipped out. But he smiled.

  “For every successful party guided to safety, we receive great honor in our own land, which is on the southern coast. Our young men regard this as a duty laid on them for the honor of their forefathers. Also, the more runs a young man makes, the prettier are the girls from whom he may choose his bride.”

  You couldn’t argue with that.

  Yes, he had heard that the Kov of Faol’s name was Encar Capela, that his greatest pride was his packs of manhounds, but beyond that he knew nothing of him.