Warlord of Antares [Dray Prescot #37]

by Alan Burt Akers

  While everyone was busy I glanced up to see the ghostly form of Deb-Lu standing beside me. He nodded and tried to make his serious look revert to his usual kindly expression. This time he whispered: “It is the only way."

  “Yes, for we will not go back."

  “May the Lords of the Seven Arcades go with you, Dray.” He rustled up the hint of a smile. “And Vox and Djan and Zair, of course, also."

  He vanished.

  Seg came across and said: “He has no more news?"

  “Only that this is the way out."

  “That's all right then!"

  And Seg swung off to shout at a girl fumble-fingering a botch of a knot.

  “You'll ride on that raft, shishi, and if it falls to bits, you'll only have yourself to blame."

  “Men!” she flared up at him, swirling red-brown hair about her naked shoulders. “You should be tying this."

  “I'll show you—then you finish the rest."

  This was quite unlike the Seg Segutorio I knew who was always punctiliously polite and gallant to women. He did not much care for the bunch we'd saved from the malkos, that was clear. Apart from the Rumay fanatics, whose beliefs and actions were self-explanatory, others of these women held secrets that made me wonder just how much trouble we were storing up for ourselves. It could be the women had been imprisoned after a process of justice, even in the Coup Blag. I doubted it; but it was possible.

  Nath the Impenitent's whole attitude was quite different. He had already sorted out the women in his own mind. He had the leems and the ponshos marked.

  The two girls he had been caring for were, I had to admit, in a different class from the others. Nath had chosen well, and yet these two, pretty though they were, shared all the toughness and spirit of the Rumay fanatics.

  No one questioned Nath's right to share a raft with these two girls: Seg and I sorted out who would sail with whom, and suggested to Nath he take more of the ladies with him.

  “The three of us will have to take different rafts, that is obvious. I don't like it; it is a duty laid on us."

  “It is, my old dom, a duty only if we choose to accept it."

  “By Chozputz, Seg! You are right, and yet I'd far rather we did not have to accept the mission, take on this heavy burden."

  Nath rumbled out: “The Rumay women can handle themselves, doms. It is the others we must care for."

  In the end we had it sorted out and the little armada of rafts lay on the bank of the river, waiting.

  We ate of the cooked fish and of handfuls of palines. Among the trailing vines and plentiful leaves of the trees against the cliff, small agile figures clambered to gibber at us. The women left here would not need to exist on an exclusively fish diet.

  I didn't fully trust to the lianas to lash the rafts and so had insisted on using other materials as well: split bark twisted and plaited, proved excellent. The rafts were serviceable. I hadn't served as a Powder Monkey and as a First Lieutenant in Nelson's Navy for nothing. Well, by Krun, I had got nothing for it, that was true, and I suspected my lack of success on Earth had a great deal to do with what others considered my considerable success on Kregen.

  We ripped up blankets of moss and heaping mounds of leaves to form pliable cushions and we lashed everyone down with many strands of our plaited ropes. When all was ready Seg, Nath and I launched the other rafts, then Seg and I lashed Nath down and launched him, and I lashed Seg down and launched him amid an icy silence of reprobation that he was not the last.

  As the current swirled him off he yelled back: “One of these days you'll take a risk too many, you stiff-necked hulu! I can be spared from Kregen; you—"

  “Close the black-fanged winespout, my old dom!” I hollered back. “Save your breath for breathing!"

  In the next instant Seg aboard his raft whirled into the black demon-guarded opening.

  Lashing myself down as securely as I could, I felt my priorities of safety had been correct. Going first was not the peril that going unsecured would be.

  Using forearms only, I thrust the long branch at the bank and eased the raft the last few inches off the mud. The current caught us at once, and we spun about, caught and sucked along with instant force. The smell of the mud, of the algae, of the water, struck up with physical force as we hurtled along.

  The girls aboard my raft squealed; but they were very good and tried to keep silent. I think three of them fainted as we burst from the soft green radiance into the unholy darkness of the tunnel.

  Phocis, a dark-haired girl with a full fresh face who clutched a spear at her side, stared up at me in the stern. At the moment, the raft had swirled around and I was going first. The branch with which I had equipped myself as a pole and rudder was completely useless for the moment.

  Then Phocis and all the others vanished in the gloom.

  As I saw it the main problem would come if the roof descended low enough for us to strike our heads. A makeshift arrangement of branches lashed upright and with cross-members would never protect us from the jags at this speed; it might give us a little warning.

  Well, I will not dwell on that horrendous ride along an underground river in almost total darkness. Phosphorescence glimmered along the walls from time to time, enough to show us the long sliding gleam of the water. I managed to twirl the craft so that I was at the stern and able to steer. The girls lay low at my feet. Phocis still clung onto her spear. We hurtled along, a chip in a millrace, and all our fates were in the hands of whoever controlled them; certainly they were not in ours.

  No, I will not dwell on that experience.

  A thought occurred to me and, oddly, it comforted me in that ghastly situation. No one had volunteered to return through the mazes of the Coup Blag. All had chosen the perils of the underground river in preference to the horrors of Csitra's domains.

  More than once the roof descended so that I, the highest of the crew, had to duck fiercely. The rock looked highly unfriendly, ready to slice like razors.

  And—all the time and with deadly meaning—the river increased the speed of the current flow.

  To dwell on that spirit-shrinking experience? No. I may be Dray Prescot, called by those whose paths I have crossed the Bravest of the Brave; I do not wish to repeat, even in remembrance, the journey down that subterranean river.

  Twice we saw strange mingled lights falling upon us from rifts in the roof. I judged that we were approaching the edge of the mountain where faults in the structure allowed the streaming radiance of Zim and Genodras to filter down to this underground world. We were close to the outside now and in moments we shot out into the resplendent brilliance of daylight.

  Here was the moment of truth.

  Here we could win or lose all.

  The river spewed out of its worn hole in the side of the mountain and fountained down in a waterfall. The noise boomed enormously. Spray engulfed us. I held on and counted and as each figure followed the next as we went helter-skelter down that slope of water I felt the rise of a bubble of nausea into my throat.

  We hit.

  The raft splintered into fragments.

  Everything went up and down and around and around.

  There was only noise and sickness and water and confusion.

  Deep under the surface we plunged. Instinctively I thrashed with arms and legs. The lungful of air would not last long. The surface held life, and I fought fiercely, feeling the bruising battering of that headlong smashing impact.

  My head broke through and I gulped in glorious Kregen air. Tossing the hair back and staring around, I saw heads in the water, and, also, saw the danger in which we still remained.

  Phocis spluttered up at my side, still clutching her spear.

  We began to grasp the wretched girls and swim with them away from the impact area of the fall. The noise engulfed us. Spray sleeted into a white mist. Slowly we managed to drag ourselves farther off and strike out for the bank.

  Ghostly memories of my original arrival on this marvelous planet of Kregen oc
curred. Then I'd sailed down the River Aph aboard a leaf boat and had dared the might of a waterfall by many many times higher and more spectacular than this exit of the underground river from the mountain of the Coup Blag. Those days did not seem dim and distant, rather, they formed a portion of the living tapestry of my career on Kregen. Just as this very day as we reached the bank and hauled ourselves out, dripping wet and panting, formed another of the links in the living tapestry.

  “By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! That was a tidy little to-do!"

  “Aye. I see we have lost some of the women."

  “An unavoidable tragedy, Bogandur,” said Nath. “We have saved the majority, and for that we must rejoice and give thanks to Opaz the All-Glorious."

  “That is so,” said Seg, “and to Erthyr the Bow. One of the Rumay women's rafts vanished completely."

  “If they are caught in the eye of the fall, then by this time all hope must be abandoned for them."

  Gradually we dried ourselves off and sorted ourselves out. Phocis, who had kept herself very much to herself previously, proved a tower of strength in soothing and helping the weaker women. The Rumay fanatics were fit and ready, it seemed, to take on a crack regiment of Chuliks.

  “We,” said Shalane, making a direct statement, “will move off at once. We cannot stay here."

  Her dark hair was already drying and frizzing out, and now it had had a wash it gleamed far more splendidly than ever it had done in the maze. Her fierce downdrawn face showed she was in no mood to argue.

  Around us the banks stretched to low cliffs crowned with bushes cutting off further vision. The sky beamed gloriously above and the twin Suns of Scorpio cast down their mingled streaming radiance to light the world in an opaline haze of splendor.

  Sniffing with enormous appreciation at the wine-rich Kregan air, looking upward and expanding my chest, I saw an airboat fly into view above the bushes.

  Her hull was a dense black. Her upperworks, painted in a bewildering variety of clashing colors, were squared off and hard, pierced for throwing engines, frowning ominously above us.

  “By all the imps in a Herrelldrin Hell!” burst out Seg in fury. “Dratted Shanks. That's all we need right now!"

  “Keep absolutely still!” I bellowed, yet not so loud as to reach up through the air to that silent flier up there. “Do not move as you value your lives!"

  * * *

  Chapter nine

  Of bushes, beliefs and airboats

  The deadly Shank voller up there flew with ponderous purpose across the river. We crouched low and still, deathly still.

  This vessel must be from the fleet we had fought on our way over Pandahem. If our own fleet had managed to regain contact—and anything could have happened during the time Seg and I had been stumbling about in the Coup Blag—then I had to hope a Vallian voller would fly over soon.

  No one moved a hairsbreadth until the Shank vanished over the farther bushes.

  “Of course,” said Seg, helpfully, “he could have spotted us and given no indication, and be landing troops right now out of our sight."

  “He could,” said the Impenitent in that grunting gruff way of his. “And there could be one of our own fliers about right now, ready to pounce on him."

  “I'll go for a scout around.” Seg didn't waste time arguing but started off at once to the bush-lined crest.

  Shalane, spiky and venomous, spat out: “Our fliers, man?"

  Nath opened his mouth and I said: “There are many other islands and continents in Paz, Shalane, besides Pandahem. All of us, together, fight the Shanks."

  “If they are men like other men then I will fight them,” she said, in an offhand, dismissive way.

  “Oh,” I said. “You'll find them somewhat different, if you haven't fought them before. But I don't doubt you'll be able to cut a few trophies."

  “Sanka,” she said to one of her girls. “Get up there and scout. I don't trust a man to do a proper job."

  Sanka scurried off, all frizzy hair and naked flesh, with a nasty-looking sword swinging at her side.

  Shalane swung back to Nath. “You said ‘our fliers', man. What nation in Pandahem are you from that has airboats?"

  Nath cast a glance at me that summed up fury and annoyance at his lapse, and, also, I sensed, a great deal of damn-you-to-hell with respect to this ferocious woman.

  “We have come through quite a deal together, Shalane.” I returned the scorching stare she gave me, with interest. “But we are not yet comrades in arms. There is much you do not know that you will discover later."

  “Now."

  “Perhaps."

  “You said there are other islands besides Pandahem."

  “And continents."

  “Other islands. I thought you three men strange. I have heard of Vallia."

  “Have you heard, Shalane, that Vallia and the nations of Pandahem are now allies against the Shanks?"

  She showed the chiseled teeth in a grimace of malicious amusement. “Even the Bloody Menahem?"

  “Well—” I started, whereat she laughed aloud.

  “Man, man! Your words fall upon you and crush you."

  With what I considered exemplary patience I went on: “By Chusto, woman, listen! With the exception of those idiots of Menaham all of Pandahem stands with Vallia."

  “I shall believe that when I see it. I have heard, also, of this Emperor of Vallia, Dray Prescot. The stories in the souks are marvelous but quite unbelievable."

  “Those stories are trifles to amuse children.” Then, because even here I couldn't malign the good-heartedness of the Vallian and Valkan storytellers, I added: “There is a kernel of truth to them. It is enlarged upon."

  Nath rumbled out: “Dray Prescot! Emperor of Vallia! I'd as lief crush him beneath my heel as give him a Lahal."

  “So you, Impenitent,” snapped out Shalane waspishly, “are not Vallian also?"

  Nath—who, remember, was ferociously proud of being Vallian—puffed up his cheeks into scarlet globs and his scowl would have cracked a window at fifty paces. “As to that, woman—” he started, rumbling like a volcano.

  I cut in.

  “No more time for shilly-shallying, Nath. Tell this poor woman Shalane the truth."

  Her fist clenched convulsively on her sword hilt.

  “Poor woman, man! I'll—"

  Sanka came into view fleeting down the slope waving her arms. Seg ran astern of her and, I suppose, some deviltry got into him so that in all this petty wrangling he didn't intend to be beaten into second place.

  Seg speeded up and slid past Sanka so that she seemed to be running backward. I cast a quick glance at Shalane and tried not to take any glee from her black look of anger at this fresh indignity.

  “The rast is returning,” said Seg, breathing evenly, completely unruffled. “And there's another following him."

  I'd not been entirely consumed by the arguments with Shalane and had selected a likely site where bushes grew thickly to the margin of the river. I pointed.

  “All in there and still as woflos when chavniks prowl!"

  We all ran across and huddled in the bushes.

  This vegetation wasn't thorn ivy; I did not believe any Thorn Ivy Trap would be sprung here.

  Our joy at escaping from the grim confines of the maze had been swiftly transformed into sick apprehension at sight of the dreaded Shanks.

  Some of the women had been bruised, all had been battered, and I wanted to get them into the care of a puncture lady as soon as might be. I most certainly did not want to get into a fight with them on our hands. Yes, the Rumay fanatics would fight, of that I had no doubt; just how well they would do against the incredible ferocity of a fish-headed, trident-armed Shank remained conjectural.

  As far as I could see, they had not done at all well where the malkos were concerned. Again the idea crossed my mind that all these women were criminals imprisoned in the maze. That might, for all the oddity of it, square with Csitra's character.

  As we waite
d and trembled crouched over in our bushes I tried to put that thought together with the notion that the vast and beautiful cavern from which we had taken passage down the river was outside the witch's jurisdiction. If not that, then that Deb-Lu-Quienyin had curtailed her power in that direction.

  That Deb-Lu had not put in a recent appearance I judged was caused by his attention to other duties. He had a vast realm in which to be constantly vigilant and, unlike those ordained as kregoinye by the Star Lords, could not be in two places at one and the same time.

  With an eyeball screwed to a chink in the leaves, I watched the steady and catlike progression of the Shank flier.

  I knew Seg was chafing to shaft the cramphs up there, and clamping down on his very natural desires to shoot.

  In this situation all we could hope to do was wait for the Shank airboat to fly away. A nasty problem troubling me was—why had the bastard flown back?

  A slender but sinuously-muscled form at my side stirred and an elbow dug into my ribs.

  “Keep still, Phocis. If not to prevent the Shanks seeing us, then for the sake of my bruised ribs."

  “By the Wooldark Mitraeus, Jak! You are enough to make a girl forsake her vows."

  Then, for she was looking out at an angle from me, she said in a sharper voice: “Something dark came flying out of the hole where the waterfall begins. I lost it in its descent. Like a log."

  “I hope it wasn't one of our poor girls trapped on a rocky ledge in there and washed down after us."

  Seg whispered: “There's the second voller."

  Even as he spoke both ships of the air speeded up and rose. They circled and raced across the river and then I saw something that made me clench my teeth together until the jaws ached.

  A Vallian flier swooped down trying to evade the pounce of the two Shanks. She was a scouter, trim and fast; but they hemmed her in and all the time they were shooting at her.

  The outcome of that fight could not be in doubt.

  Battered and smashed, her steering gone and her lift decaying rapidly, the Vallian dropped down.