The mystery of the serial killings of young girls entered the conversation when the Star Lords informed me that my suspicions about Duven were, indeed, correct. His motives were quite clear. He sought to discredit the Dokerty cultists. I felt sorry for the idiot and also angry at him. His actions were just as mad as any real maniac who went about mass murdering without any lofty ideals. This also meant the Dokerty people were not as bad as was thought.
When the blue radiance dropped down about me and I looked up, there, hovering, immense, the Scorpion took me up into cold and darkness. The sensation of madly rushing through space, of being hurled down blindly into danger — oh yes, by Vox, these were the familiar sensations of my transactions with the Star Lords.
I’d had my fill of being an emperor. I’d been the Emperor of Vallia. Delia and I had abdicated in favor of our son, Drak, and his wife, the lovely Silda, daughter of our blade comrade, Seg Segutorio. The Star Lords were damned demanding. Of course, by Krun, they could afford to be. Their powers remained unknown to me; I did know they could banish me back to Earth, four hundred light years away, and there let me rot.
Mind you, making myself some kind of puffed-up emperor was one thing. Uniting the various countries of Balintol to resist the Shanks was quite another. That was a deed worth the doing.
My feet hit marble. The giant Scorpion disappeared. The blue misty radiance cleared.
I stood in an entrance hall with white marble floor, flanked by black marble columns. Jasmine blew on the air. Lamps burned mellowly. Ahead a lenken door stood ajar, near enough to be reached in a dozen strides.
On the floor at my feet lay the ripped body of a guardsman. Screaming in a futile effort to scrabble away across the marble, a woman shrieked for help. Savaging her was a black and white striped wersting, snarling, fangs dripping, shaking his head from side to side.
The Krozair brand ripped free. A single precise blow took the Wersting’s head off. It span away trailing blood.
Lifting the woman tenderly I saw her legs were torn and bleeding but that she was otherwise unhurt. She was Sana Besti, Kov Brannomar’s sister.
She shrieked again, unintelligibly; but what she was trying to say was abundantly clear by the racket roaring from beyond the door. Through her pain and fear she gestured impatiently towards the door.
The scene beyond the door was ugly. I hardly took notice of the elegance of the chamber. Brannomar’s guardsmen were being ferociously attacked by a wersting pack. The black and white striped hunting dogs, snarling, yellow fangs lethal, leaped and bit, were cut down, and writhed in agony — but more and more leaped. The guardsmen were going down in the welter of their own blood.
To the side the controllers of the pack were taking no part in the combat. They were laughing and urging their dogs on. Whips in right hands and the leashes coiled up along their left arms, they were thoroughly enjoying this hideous spectacle.
The werstings first. Then the controllers. Chief among them the florid face and bulky shoulders of Jiktar Nath ti Fangenun stood out. That cramph saw me and his laughter changed to mean hatred. He had no whip. He drew his sword. I ignored him — for now, by Krun, for now! — and went hell for leather into the werstings.
Laying about me with a will I cleared a way through the black and white bodies towards Brannomar. The scar across his bronzed face looked like a vivid weal. He fought well, keeping his footing, using his sword with skill.
The noise of snarling dogs, of screaming men, the stink of blood, the raw choking stink of the whole combat, all blended into a bloody turmoil.
Brannomar was a great noble. In all the ferocity of the combat he saw me and panted out: “Lahal, majister. You are well met.”
“Lahal, kov.” I sliced the Krozair brand into a dog’s body and he shrieked and dropped. Like our hyenas of Earth, these werstings’ jaws could exert a pressure on their rear teeth of seven hundred pounds per square inch. They crunched bones into splinters. If they fastened those fangs into you, well then, by Krun, you were in deep trouble!
Slashing and slicing away, keeping the ring, we formed a group about Brannomar. His guards fought well. The numbers of dogs lessened. These poor beasts by nature and training were intent on killing. Pity for them, oh, yes, I felt that. They were like the scorpion and did what they did because that is what they did.
They were not going to chomp me up, no, by Vox, and whilst I stood they weren’t going to savage Brannomar.
Fangenun and his wersting handlers saw which way the fight was going with my entrance onto the scene. Weapons in fist they closed in to finish what their dogs had begun.
Well, then, if this was the last great fight then so let it be, so let it be. A Krozair of Zy knows how to die.
The clash of blades grated in that ugly menacing scrape so familiar to me. Fangenun joined in the fight now, thinking it won, instead of hanging back as he had in Nandisha’s solarium. He struck with savage force, streaming sweat, scarlet of face, bulging of eye.
The paid swordsmen fighting alongside him were professionals, stikitches, and their style of fighting was altogether more compact and economical. I just managed to interpose the Krozair longsword between a guardsman and a braxter seeking his internal organs. A twist and an instant thrust and the stikitche went down with his guts instead of the guardsman’s hanging out.
Shouts ripped through the chamber. Calls for assistance, brittle warnings of backstabbing, screams as the steel brutally slashed down, all jumbled into a cacophony of death.
I began to think we might prevail. Most of the werstings had crawled off, dragging bleeding bodies on trembling legs. The men pressed and we fronted them. The grating clang of steel on steel, the screams of anguish, the spouting blood, the stink of it all, sickened me.
A voice ripped through the turmoil.
“Notor! Hold on!”
Lord Jazipur, Brannomar’s right hand man, led a rush of new combatants from the door. Immediate confusion embroiled us all as stikitches tried to switch their weapons around to meet this new peril, we hurled into them with vengeful brands, and the newcomers sought their targets.
After that the fight did not last long. An eerie silence fell.
We gazed around stupefied on the hideous scene of carnage. A few bodies twitched and writhed. Slowly the shrieks and moans of the wounded splintered into our consciousnesses and we realized the silence had only been in our heads, a reaction from the battle clamor.
Some of the survivors sank down, panting, white-eyed, overjoyed still to be alive. Brannomar stood straight and tall and splashed with blood. He stared levelly at Lord Jazipur.
“You are welcome. I expected you before this.”
Jazipur made one of his gracious gestures. He indicated the men he had brought to our aid. They were a patrol of the City Guard.
“There was no one else, notor. I was fortunate to find a patrol so quickly. I am happy to see you alive.”
Brannomar nodded. “Where is that scoundrel Fangenun?”
A Jiktar spoke up smartly, still wiping his sword. “He is not among the dead or injured, notor. He must have escaped.”
“His day will come.”
I said: “He is Ortyg’s man. The young prince is a fool if—”
Brannomar interrupted very gravely. “Yes. But he has outrun his patience. His palace falling about his ears decided him.”
“And Khon the Mak?”
“He was forced to leave the city after the disastrous earthquake he and his sorcerer initiated. He has at last shown his hand.”
So — events were moving swiftly. My task for the Everoinye remained. At Brannomar’s next words I felt a deathly chill grip into my blood and choke up my breath.
“Hyr Kov Khonstanton has gone to the Chulik Islands to recruit an army. Prince Ortyg has treacherously thrown in his lot with the King of Caneldrin in return for his aid. Both of them will lead armies against King Tom, against me. They have taken the final step to outright war.”
I felt the horror of an und
eserved fate crushing me into a darkness like the cloak of Notor Zan.
Southern Balintol was about to be ripped apart as armies and factions clashed in a megalomaniac desire for power. Wars and Civil Wars promised a ghastly red-lit future.
And the Star Lords had ordered me to unite the continent! Failure would send me hurtling back four hundred light years — no. Oh, no! By all the deformities and defects of Makki Grodno and the Divine Lady of Belschutz! I wasn’t having that.
Somehow, I, plain sailorman Dray Prescot, had to save this situation. These idiots must be talked to, their heads knocked together to make them co-operate instead of feud. A way must be found.
My Val! My future was one of near impossible tasks that must be accomplished. For my sake, and, supremely, for the sake of Delia without whom everything was dust and ashes, whatever might be needed, that must be done.
“Selah!”
About the author
Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.
Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer’s works were published along with the works of other authors under "house names" (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.
Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series.
More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at
www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.
The Dray Prescot Series
The Delian Cycle:
1. Transit to Scorpio
2. The Suns of Scorpio
3. Warrior of Scorpio
4. Swordships of Scorpio
5. Prince of Scorpio
Havilfar Cycle:
6. Manhounds of Antares
7. Arena of Antares
8. Fliers of Antares
9. Bladesman of Antares
10. Avenger of Antares
11. Armada of Antares
The Krozair Cycle:
12. The Tides of Kregen
13. Renegade of Kregen
14. Krozair of Kregen
Vallian cycle:
15. Secret Scorpio
16. Savage Scorpio
17. Captive Scorpio
18. Golden Scorpio
Jikaida cycle:
19. A Life for Kregen
20. A Sword for Kregen
21. A Fortune for Kregen
22. A Victory for Kregen
Spikatur cycle:
23. Beasts of Antares
24. Rebel of Antares
25. Legions of Antares
26. Allies of Antares
Pandahem cycle:
27. Mazes of Scorpio
28. Delia of Vallia
29. Fires of Scorpio
30. Talons of Scorpio
31. Masks of Scorpio
32. Seg the Bowman
Witch War cycle:
33. Werewolves of Kregen
34. Witches of Kregen
35. Storm over Vallia
36. Omens of Kregen
37. Warlord of Antares
Lohvian cycle:
38. Scorpio Reborn
39. Scorpio Assassin
40. Scorpio Invasion
41. Scorpio Ablaze
42. Scorpio Drums
43. Scorpio Triumph
Balintol cycle:
44. Intrigue of Antares
45. Gangs of Antares
46. Demons of Antares
47. Scourge of Antares
48. Challenge of Antares
49. Wrath of Antares
50. Shadows over Kregen
Phantom cycle:
51. Murder on Kregen
52. Turmoil on Kregen
Copyright © 1994, Alan Burt Akers
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 Heyne Verlag in German in 1994.
This Edition published in 2008 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 9781843197430
Contents
Dray Prescot
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter eighteen
Chapter nineteen
Chapter twenty
About the author
The Dray Prescot Series
Gangs of Antares Page 17
