Rebel of Antares [Dray Prescot #24]

by Alan Burt Akers

  As I rode back to the camp quite expecting to see Unmok riding toward me on his way to Huringa to settle accounts and to hire mercenaries, I decided what I would do. It was a simple statement of alternatives, something I had been unable to do before. Unmok could make up his own mind. He could choose to carry on in the beast-handling business. Or he could choose to go to Vallia. I would not have to explain everything, merely indicate that my secret was of sufficient size to encompass his well-being for the future. Unmok and Froshak, both. Yes.

  Feeling the weight of indecision sloughing away made me brisk up wonderfully. Shilly-shallying about was a sin to which I owned, and detested, recognizing the symptoms. Now that I'd made up my mind, the world took on brighter colors and the air smelled even sweeter and the laughter and music from the bands of people going toward the city fell on my ears most melodiously.

  Even my urvivel, Snowdrop, welcomed this early return and he trotted along cheerfully.

  The wooden bridge over the stream clattered a welcome as Snowdrop trotted across. But it was not quite the welcome I expected. One of Unmok's tame slaves lay on his face on the farther bank, with a tall brown-fletched arrow protruding from the middle of his back.

  Even as I looked up from the slave's dead body toward the camp past the edge of the bushes, a cacophony of sadistic yells shivered into the air.

  * * *

  Chapter four

  Of the Simple Pleasures of Bandits

  They'd locked Unmok into one half of an iron-barred cage with a savage beast in the other half and they were having great fun lifting the iron grille separating man and beast and letting it go, and lifting again, and letting go. Great fun.

  As the chain rattled up, the wild animal—he was a hexagon-patterned chavonth—leaped slavering for Unmok, and down would come the grille with a crash. The great cat hit the iron bars in a bundle of spitting snarling fur, and a taloned paw raked through trying to reach Unmok. When the chavonth drew off, baffled, the chain would rattle again. His fur in the pattern of gray, blue and black hexagons gleamed in the lights of the suns. His six legs spurted sand as he sprang.

  The grille dividing the cage lifted to chest height and as the chavonth leaped the iron clanged down, infuriating the beast even more and arousing it to frustrated frenzy. He was just a killer denied his kill. The men clustered around the cage and roaring their amusement as Unmok jumped in time to the grille were worse than mere killers in the scales of inhumanity. Froshak was tied insensible to another cage. Insensible or dead, I couldn't tell from where I watched from the cover of the bushes. The large area where fur was missing from his face revealing the membrane beneath did not glisten pink. It shone a vivid red. That was why Froshak was called Froshak the Shine.

  There were eight or nine men taunting Unmok. I felt myself chill, there in the bushes. Not good enough. In a situation like this, an estimate of numbers was just not good enough. I counted more carefully. Nine. Right. I had no bow so could not fletch a few of them before I charged. Just how long I had before they hauled up the chain for good I didn't know. Judging from previous experience with unpleasant gentry of similar inclinations, they'd carry on the joke—their idea of a jest—for as long as they could. Probably until Unmok passed out.

  Froshak presented a problem, but if he remained insensible he ought to be all right.

  These men were the usual mix of diff and apim. They were dressed in gaudy finery, with much cheap jewelry and an awesome assortment of weaponry in the Kregan fashion. Their leader wore a bright blue and yellow tunic over a brigandine, and he was exceedingly hairy. He was an angerim and his enormous ears had been cropped. They were mere flat ridges alongside his skull. So I knew who he was from what Unmok had told me.

  This Maglo the Ears preyed on honest traders. He took the wild beasts from their caravans and sold them in Huringa as his own. No one had caught him. He had a finite way with him. Also, I did not doubt that as he could sell at a hundred percent profit, he could afford to distribute bribes on a scale lavish beyond the means of traders like Unmok. I frowned. Our cages were empty. So that could only mean that Maglo, coming along toward Huringa with a stolen caravan, had stumbled across Unmok and was dealing in this unholy fashion with a man with whom he'd tangled before. That explained the presence of the chavonth. The grille lifted, higher this time, and Unmok stumbled back to the far side of his cage, and the grille came down only just in time to halt the chavonth in mid leap. The screech of baffled fury spat like the scintillant bolts from the sorcerers’ Quern of Gramarye.

  “Finish him off!” yelled some of the men.

  “Play him longer!” shrilled others.

  Maglo the Ears strutted. He wore three swords on his left side, and they jutted up all at different angles. He was a big man, a spitting barbaric angerim, and he gloated in his power.

  Working my way around between the clustering clarsian bushes, I momentarily lost sight of the cage. I could still hear the shouts of the men and the spitting fury of the chavonth. When I was positioned directly abaft the cage and cautiously peered out, Maglo was just walking across to the men on the chain. I guessed he meant to pull the chain for the last lethal time himself.

  My first leap took me to the cage. The second landed me on the iron bars along the top and I plunged down and sprawled out flat. The door at the front was fastened by an iron staple. The staple came out in a long screech of metal on metal. I hurled the staple full at Maglo. Without pausing to see if it hit him or not, I drew my thraxter and reached down through the bars and hit the chavonth an almighty thwack up the rump.

  The beast shrieked and spat and then, in a single sinuous bound, leaped clean through the open door.

  The men screamed, and ran, and fell over, and goggled terror. A Rapa's head went one way as a taloned paw swiped, and his body toppled the other. A big Brokelsh stumbled and fanged jaws crunched. Dust smoked into the bright air. The noise racketed among the bushes. Unmok yelled. Froshak dangled in his bonds, and began to stir, lifting his cat's head.

  “Stay still, Froshak, as you value your life!"

  The Fristle had handled big cats for a long time. He did not move a muscle. Of us all, now, Unmok was in the safest spot.

  Being a prudent man despite all seeming to the contrary, I stayed where I was. The chavonth went about his task of destruction with the unleashed fury of a cyclone. Men ran or died. The chavonth was in no mood to settle down with a nice juicy chunk of meat between his paws. Treacherous are chavonths, and this one vented his spleen in awesome fashion.

  He vanished up the road after the last of the fleeing men. I hopped off the cage and slashed Froshak's bonds free. Then the chain was lifted and Unmok walked out. He was dazed.

  “That Maglo!” We walked across and looked down on the bandit chief—or what was left of him. The chavonth had taken a bite in passing.

  “You've one less damned animal bandit to worry about now."

  “Aye, Jak. And, but for you..."

  “Say nothing—"

  Froshak joined in. I said, curtly, “Is there a caravan?"

  “Maglo taunted me.” Unmok cradled his middle left stump. He'd had a shock. “Down the road a space, out of earshot. He sent my tame slaves there, all except poor Nog who tried to run."

  “I saw him. Let us take weapons and pay a call on Maglo's caravan. It will have been thieved by him."

  “And we,” quoth Froshak, abruptly pleased, “will take it for ourselves."

  “Well, now,” said Unmok as we stared about. “It won't be as easy as that. But—” He brightened. “May Ochenshum be my witness! We deserve it."

  So, making sure none of the bandits still infested the place, and keeping a sharp lookout for the chavonth, we set off.

  After the initial shock, these two got over the incident quickly. In one way, that merely reflected the hard knocks of their lives. When Unmok asked me why I'd come back, when we'd concocted a plan, I merely promised to tell him when we'd sorted out the matter in hand. At that point we had to sk
irt the remains of a Fristle, and so we pressed on with our swords clear of the scabbards.

  The late Maglo the Ears had parked his stolen caravan beside the road and the uproar from the animals brought a quick frown to Unmok's face. “They are starving! That bastard Maglo—he kills the caravan owners and steals their wares, and then he does not feed them! Froshak—we'll have to see about this."

  “Aye,” quoth Froshak. “If there is food here."

  If there was not, that would present a poser. The slaves huddled at the side of the road. They'd found shoots in the hedge and were chewing them and spitting green. Froshak roused them and they went off to attend to the animals. There was no sign of any of the bandits or the escaped chavonth.

  “He is no longer hungry. He will probably not return."

  “If he does, his hunger will be appeased and we can catch him as we would any stray."

  Unmok yelled at a slave, a stranger, hurrying past with a bucket and a broom. The slave trotted up, half-bent, cowed, a once burly Brokelsh but now a man much fallen away. He mumbled his jaws and clenched and unclenched his fist on the bucket handle.

  “Yes, masters. Ungarvitch the Whip. He was our master. The drikingers killed him. There was much blood."

  “So you are a masterless man now, until your late master's creditors sell you."

  The slave merely blinked his granulated eyelids and nodded.

  I said, “Get Avec to find a good lawyer. You will have a claim on the animals, at the least."

  “I will, Jak, I will. And we do, we do. I think I will leave Froshak in charge to get things sorted out. I am for Huringa and Avec and the law. There is gold in this."

  I did not smile, but I felt like smiling. Good old Unmok!

  “And you, Jak. What is it all about, hey?"

  Very carefully, I said, “If there were a certainty that you would be received with great honor in a certain country, where you could take up whatever profession you desired according to your abilities, and Froshak with you, and where your position would bring copious quantities of gold, would you give up the animal-catching business—as you have promised time and again?"

  He stared up at me with his quizzical Och face only half-puzzled. If I chose to speak in riddles, he seemed to be saying, that was my business. As for him, he had important affairs to conduct. “Well, Jak, if you will not tell me, I must see Avec and—"

  “I am trying to tell you, you five-limbed infuriating Och!"

  “For a great hairy apim, you bluster tolerably well."

  I had not really regarded Unmok as a blade comrade. But I warmed to him, I warmed to him. A thought occurred to me.

  “I suppose you can fly a voller?"

  “Naturally."

  Well, it wasn't really naturally, but in Vallia it was uncommon among the generality of folk to find airboat pilots. Here in Havilfar piloting was much more common. And I fancied in this I could, as Seg Segutorio would say, take two korfs with a single shaft.

  “I am hardly likely to buy a voller I could not test fly myself. Now, if you have enjoyed your jest—"

  “I do not jest, Unmok. I give you my word on this. Before I decide what is best to do, we must thrash out the whole business of the partnership—"

  “You wish to terminate our agreement?"

  “No, by Harg, no!"

  “Well?"

  “Leave it until the arrangements with Avec are made. But think on my words. It is you who must make up your mind, you and Froshak. Think of what is offered—assuming—assuming—"

  “Assuming what?"

  “Assuming I live to tell you."

  There was no answer Unmok could make to that beyond the conventional one that I should confide my fate into the hands of Ochenshum and Havil the Green—and any other gods who would look kindly upon me.

  A hullabaloo broke out with much shouting and cracking of whips, and presently Froshak came up to say the chavonth had been taken and placed back in his cage. We all breathed easier.

  Froshak looked tensed up with excitement, and he spoke at a rate that, for him, was loquacious. “Come and have a look at this. It is remarkable. Come and see."

  Unmok regarded the big Fristle with his eyebrows drawn down. “Come and look at what? You're being very mysterious."

  “Come and look!"

  “Do I, Froshak, or do I not, employ you and treat you well and pay you out of all proportion? I do, indeed I do. So no more of this mysterious nonsense. Tell me!"

  But Froshak's fierce cat's face wrinkled up, his whiskers quivered, his bald membrane glistened, and he just nodded his head and started off, beckoning to us to follow along the line of cages. Unmok looked helplessly at me, and I set off after Froshak, so Unmok trailed on, loudly lamenting the evil days and the way loyal retainers had fallen away in the duty they owed their kind employers.

  Halting before a large cage, Froshak pointed. He had all the air of a proud proprietor showing off his choicest wares.

  We looked into the cage.

  Well.

  Unmok swallowed. He swelled. Tears stood in his eyes.

  “Poor Ungarvitch the Whip!” That was his thought. “To have secured such a prize, and then to be killed! How he must have regretted not being able to go into Huringa as he died!"

  Froshak beamed, as though the proud proprietor had pleased his clientele. “She is a magnificent churmod, such a churmod as I have never seen before, and I have handled three in my time in the trade."

  I looked at Froshak in genuine amusement. This savage and malevolent wild beast had roused him and loosened his tongue. Unmok continued to stare into the cage. He shook his head slowly, and I could see he could hardly credit his good fortune.

  “Look at the way she puts her eight legs down, and the size of her, and the talons! She could rip a boloth to shreds! And those jaws—she will fetch a fortune.” He glanced up at me. “A word of caution, Jak. Churmods are unpleasant beasts, surly and sadistic and vicious. Never trust one. Never take your eyes off one unless strong bars protect you."

  “Aye,” amplified Froshak. “Churmods are beasts from the depths of Cottmer's Caverns. Nasty."

  “And valuable,” I said.

  “Queen Fahia. She, alone, must be offered this churmod. To do aught else would be foolish.” Unmok waved his stump about, letting the excitement out. This ferocious and malignant wild beast would make a man's fortune. The lawyers Avec Parlin found on our behalf would fight hard for this prize.

  The churmod turned her head and stared at us. She did not rise, but her eight sets of claws extended, curved and shining, and she stretched with arrogant laziness. Her hide was all a silky slatey-blue, uniform, without patterning, and she looked like a silent silvery-blue ghost there in the center of the cage.

  Her eyes were mere slits of lambent crimson in the blunt head. She looked magnificent and, at the same time, profoundly repellent. She was larger than a well-grown leem; but much as I detest leems I found another altogether more pungent feeling of distaste for this churmod rising in me and, displeased on that account, as though it demeaned my own sense of fair play, I turned away abruptly.

  “Yes, Jak,” said Froshak in this new loquacious way, “they do work on a fellow. Just watch yourself with her, all the time."

  Fascinating though this splendid and vicious wild animal might be, we all felt that repugnance, and soon we moved away and Unmok and Froshak fell into a one-sided conversation about the running of the caravan and camp while Unmok was away in Huringa. He suggested we ride in together, and fake our quarrel there before witnesses. This was agreeable to me. If we could draw off Vad Noran's antipathy from Unmok onto me, that suited me. Unmok, to give him credit, did not see it like that. He saw the practical side of being able to manage our affairs in peace.

  We walked down the road toward our camp and this time the swords were safely snugged in their sheaths. As we went I turned for a last look at the menacing slate-blue form with those smoldering crimson eyes.

  * * *

  Chap
ter five

  Valona

  “A churmod,” said Jaezila. “Your partner will make a packet with him."

  “She's a her. And I hope Unmok does. He deserves to."

  “Just steer well clear of them, that's all I will say,” said Tyfar, and his mouth closed up tightly.

  “Agreed. Have you had the news you expected yet?"

  “I await the spy—” Here Tyfar looked around quickly. We were not overheard. The twin Suns of Scorpio, Zim and Genodras, flooded down their streaming mingled lights and filled the air with glory. We stood at one of the little open-air bars, a mere hole in a wall with a counter, where refreshing drinks could be had for the price of a copper ob or two. No one else was within earshot, and the crone serving the drinks had gone into the back at the wailing cry of a baby. Tyfar went on: “Just what it is about I am not sure. But fat old Homan ham Ambath won't let me meet the fellow anywhere near the embassy."

  “That makes sense,” said Jaezila, and she sipped her sazz.

  “It is just as well he did not arrange to meet near the Kyro of the Happy Calsany. I do not think we would be welcomed there."

  “We are not welcome anywhere in Huringa in Hyrklana,” said Jaezila. She drank off her sazz with a defiant gesture.

  “And this stupid protocol demands that our comrades Kaldu and Barkindrar the Bullet and Nath the Shaft must wait apart from us merely because they are your retainers.” I half turned to lean back against the bar and so looked across the suns-drenched square toward another bar in the adjacent building where our three comrades stood, drinking easily, and keeping a watchful eye out. These finicky matters of rank seem to mean—by Krun, do mean—a great deal to most Havilfarese.

  As I watched, a slinky sylvie, exhibiting all the flaunted sexuality of the sylvies, undulated up to the bar and engaged the three men in conversation. They did not stop looking out and keeping an eye on us, but they were engrossed with the sylvie, which was natural, given that they were men and she was a sylvie. She wore a dazzling garment of a rich dark blue, slit to the upper thigh, and her gems—imitation, of course—glistened in the light of the suns. She was probably a respectable girl who worked locally, out for a breath of air and a break from routine.