Manhounds of Antares [Dray Prescot #6]

by Alan Burt Akers

  She shook her head. “No, Dray. They are all gone."

  “Except you."

  “Yes. And you!"

  “Oh. Me.” At the stentors’ call I smashed my way through the crowds of newcomers and took two heaping helpings of the best. I wanted Tulema fit and well for the break, and she had been eating dilse for a long time.

  There seemed to me a need to keep a record. I ticked off all the people as Tulema recited their names. “And Tosie? She went out?"

  “Yes. Right after that Lilah who put on such airs."

  “I hope she is safe."

  “Oh, she'll be safe. Anyone like her who pretends to be a queen will be safe, no matter what."

  Yes, I thought, more cheerfully, yes, Tulema must be the one. There was a rough fire about her, practically obliterated in these conditions by her uncontrollable fears of the jiklos. She had heard too many stories of what the manhounds did to pretty girls.

  The old Miglish crone began her eternal sweeping-up and Tulema shuddered and drew me away. I thought the dark thoughts I had thought when I'd seen the blood spots near Anko the Guide's blankets ... but I was going out and Tulema was the one, so—did it matter?

  Of course it mattered.

  I took the Miglish woman by the shoulder and I could feel the narrowness of her, the bony hardness. She tried to twist away, leering up at me with her pouched eyes, her witch-face hideous, like a rubber mask melted in the fire. She revolted me, this halfling monstrosity.

  “Do you betray the guides, Migla?"

  She cackled, trying to hit me with her broom.

  “I betray nothing! By Migshaanu the All-Glorious, may your eyes dribble out and your guts cave in—"

  “Enough of that, crone!” I snarled. “Remember: if any guides are betrayed, you will be flayed and your skin hung up for all to see!"

  Of course, I could not prove anything, and she would not be frightened into revealing her guilt. She might have nothing to do with the tragedy, but she was an old witch, and hideous, that was plain to see, as Tulema said, with a shiver.

  I remembered what Nath the Guide had said about human beings, and I could see a point. There were no Chuliks among the slaves, as I have remarked; they are a very fearsome race of half-men, half-beasts. But something about this old Migla made all my Homo sapiens ancestry rise up in revulsion.

  In that foul nose of hers black hairs sprouted. She always kept herself tightly covered up by her gray slave blanket and the breechclout was capacious and droopy enough to conceal her legs down to her knees. Her calves were always smothered in filth. Her hair remained a wild and tangled mass of knots and mud and caked filth. Truly, she was an abomination.

  But, for all that, I could not prove she was the traitor.

  Last time, when I had rescued Latimer to no avail, I had kept awake most of the night and still the guide had disappeared. I had not seen or heard it done. As usual, the guide had slept a little apart from the rest of us, to be on guard. This time, I vowed, I would afford him the protection he tried to give us.

  The reason for this stealthy betrayal seemed obvious enough to me. Surely, by this time, even Nalgre, the slave-master, must have noticed how willing the slaves were to be run, to be sent out to a hideous death. This would please Nalgre and his master, the Kov of Faol. They would wish to maintain this satisfactory state of things, and continue the guides in their desperate undertakings. I wondered, not without a shiver of anger, what the guides’ villages were making of the non-return of their fine young men. Truly, the ways of man and man are mysterious and barbarous beyond belief.

  In addition, these thoughts also showed me that the old Migla witch, if she had been truly to blame, had no further need of betrayal. Once Nalgre caught wind of the conspiracy to free the slaves, then he would take up the savage and sorry business from there.

  With all the numbers of fresh slaves within the barred caves cut into the rock I could not easily find a guide. Most of the slaves pushed and shoved, seeking better sleeping places, arguing, fighting, the girls looking for protectors, and everyone racing whooping like mad people when the stentors’ horns blew for feeding time. Tulema had to be built up in strength before I could risk taking her out to be hunted. While there was a ready supply of slaves, Nalgre could not care how many managed not to be selected for a Jikai; so long as there were enough for his customers and they were kept happy, then Nalgre would not worry over the few slaves who were never picked.

  I did see one incident that indicated how he solved the problem if it became too acute.

  An old slave—it may have been the same Xaffer, or another, for they are a strange and remote race of halflings—was dragged out, screaming, and lashed to a wooden stake. He was flogged to death there. Tulema stared dry-eyed, hard and contemptuous, seeing in the fate of the Xaffer the possibility of her own ending.

  “That is what happens to skulkers who are too old for the hunt,” said Tulema. “If they are not employed as tame slaves to clean and cook like the old Miglish witch and her friends."

  “That will happen to you, then, Tulema, if you can eat only dilse."

  “Better, perhaps, ol’ snake, than the manhounds."

  I shook my head. “You are coming out as soon as you are fit and strong, Tulema. There is no argument. But the guides are few."

  “They know when there are customers. Who can blame them if they do not wish to spend time they need not, in here, with us slaves?"

  So there was time for Tulema to eat well and to shed that half-starved look on her face that came from dilse, and for her supple body to be genuinely lithe and firm again, on good food. A day came when the stentors” horns blared out in the call that summoned the manhounds, and drove us slaves to the lenken bars, to be selected for the great Jikai. I looked at Tulema. As always, she shrank back, but she was as fit and well as she might ever be in this dreadful place, and I could not wait any longer.

  Out on the compound splashed with its jade and ruby light stood Nalgre, with his whip and his guards, talking in his important, belly-thrusting, strutting way with a group of customers. I recognized one man there; he was the heavily built Notor with the pudgy face from too many vosk-pies who had led the hunt when Lilah and I had escaped. Nalgre was speaking to him.

  “Indeed, it is strange, Notor Trelth."

  “And you have no explanation, Nalgre? A long way, we went, a very long way, and a scuffle in rocks and trees. I looked for a kill on the plains."

  “Why not try the jungles this time, Notor Trelth?” Nalgre spoke with quickness, eagerness, anxious to please.

  “Yes. I will give it thought,” said this high-and-mighty Notor Trelth.

  Tulema whispered: “There is a guide here, Dray—"

  “Good.” At once I looked about for the lithe young man with the dark hair who was risking his life for us. I saw him with a group and pushed my way across with Tulema. Whether the guide might be persuaded to take us or not, he would listen to me when I told him the disastrous news.

  * * *

  Chapter Ten

  Of the two faces of Hito the Hunter

  Of course the guide would not believe me. He scoffed. His name was Inachos and he was as young and athletic as the other guides. Also he was a little impatient.

  There had been no time to tell him in the barred caves, for the guards had thrust through and taken out the slaves Notor Trelth selected, and in the resultant confusion Tulema and I had been pushed out with the rest. There were eighteen of us, this time, a large party, and only when we had settled down for the night in the slave barracks had I been afforded the opportunity of talking privately with Inachos.

  “What you are saying is lunacy. By Hito the Hunter! No guide would be taken unawares."

  “So I had thought. But it has happened, three times to my certain knowledge."

  “And you have told no one else?"

  “To alarm the slaves would not have been wise. Their fate rests in the hands of the guides. You must take the news back to your villages and w
arn them."

  He looked at me, his head on one side, looking very alert and handsome. “I cannot believe what you say. But a warning must be taken, just in case."

  “I shall stay awake all night,” I said.

  “If it pleases you."

  A cocky youngster, I thought to myself, one who believes no secret party of assassins can creep upon him in the pink moonlight.

  Inachos the Guide must act his part as a cowed slave the next morning as we went through those ghastly preliminaries Nalgre the slave-master carried out with such relish. With Tulema near me, generally held by my left hand, I kept very close to Inachos. If he refused to take me seriously, I knew that tonight his eyes would be opened.

  Nalgre approached us and Inachos stiffened up, but the slave-master flicked his whip lightly over me—I bore it! I, Dray Prescot, bore it!—and then turned away as Notor Trelth called. Inachos relaxed, breathing hard through pinched nostrils, looking frustrated. I felt sorry for him.

  Very soon thereafter we were trotting away. Inachos said we could strike north through the jungle and find the coast easily where we might pick up a vessel from the island of Outer Faol whose people, simple fishermen, he called them, would call for the sake of the alligators in the mud-swamps. Faol was not really close enough to the equator or well-watered enough to possess a really dense rain forest. The jungle was capable of being traversed by many trails, although, of course, not being a pleasant place. I thought of what had previously been said about the northern jungle offering no real safety, but Inachos knew his business, and fisherfolk and a boat so close to hand sounded more tempting than another long slog over the plains.

  Just over half a dwabur along the trail through the dim green and russet twilight of the forest, Inachos halted us to produce his cache of clothing, food, and knives. I put the shoes on, with a grimace, and took the cheap knife with the thought that around me there was literally a forest of wooden longswords.

  The longswords existed literally within the tree branches, as the greatest statues of two worlds already existed within the stones from which they were carved.

  From my previous experience I did not believe the hunters would tackle us before the next day. That night Inachos found a comfortable dell by a small and somewhat marshy stream and we set up camp. He handed us the wine and my fellow slaves upended the leather bottles with great gusto. Tulema was exhausted. She sat with her back against the bole of a tree, licking the last of the paline juice from her fingers. I took a wine bottle over and she drank greedily. Inachos called: “Have some wine yourself, Dray Prescot. You will have need of it."

  “I like wine,” I said casually. “But I prefer tea."

  “Drink,” he said.

  Tulema had left a few dregs swilling in the leather bag, but to please Inachos, for he had risked much stowing the wine away in the cache, I lifted the leather and drank what there was and went on drinking thereafter, miming. Inachos chuckled.

  “Tomorrow we will be through the jungle. We will find a boat. And tonight, nothing will disturb our rest."

  We took precautions against the nocturnal denizens of the jungle. There are but a few snakes on Kregen, and these poor and miserable of spirit—with the exception of a breed of horrors of which I will speak later—but there were other perils and we twined vines about ourselves on the branches of trees, and rammed hard and thorny spikes in the wood to make a palisade. Already the slaves were yawning. Tulema was fast asleep. I fancied a conversation with Inachos, but he grunted and took himself off to a branch lower than those on which we slaves perched, saying that we must rise early.

  A Gon moaned uneasily in his sleep. His chalk-white hair glowed an eerie color in the light of the Maiden with the Many Smiles striking pallidly through the leaves. Even in the warrens of Magdag the Gons had been able to shave that white hair of which they are so ashamed. I kept my weather eye open for Inachos, who lay, a darker blot, against his tree lower down.

  My eyes closed.

  How long I sat there, wedged against a branch springing from the main trunk I do not know. I remember I recollected there was some powerful and compelling reason why I must keep awake this night. I had slept well on those other nights when we slaves had been run as quarry for sport, and the last time, with the voller merchant, Latimer, I had kept awake most of the night, or so I believed. I opened my eyes, blearily, gummily. I looked down.

  Inachos no longer sat in his tree perch.

  Instantly I was wide awake.

  I picked out his form, creeping down the tree, going carefully, and as he went dropping dark drops down onto the wood from a wooden vial he had unstoppered, a wooden vial I had taken to be a stick. He was going carefully so as to make the dark drops splatter effectively, and so as not to lose his hand- and foothold; he was not, I judged, going carefully so as not to awaken the slaves.

  Quietly—and when I wish to be quiet it takes a very sharp ear indeed to hear me—I unlashed the vines and crept down the tree after him. He jumped very lithely to the packed leaf-droppings of the forest floor and ran swiftly along the trail ahead. Quietly, I followed.

  After a few moments we reached a clearing, and on the brink I paused. Inachos stood in the center of the clearing, bathed in the radiant pink light of the Maiden with the Many Smiles, with She of the Veils adding her own luster to the scene. He reached up his arms.

  Silently, a flier ghosted down into the clearing.

  No further evidence was needed.

  The man in the flier had no need to lean out and shout cheerfully to Inachos: “Ho, there, Inachos. By Hito the Hunter! I shall sink much wine this night."

  And Inachos the Guide had no need to reply: “And I, also! This work makes a man thirsty! The yetches stink so!"

  No, there was no need for them to say these words to convince me, to make me see what a credulous fool I had been.

  Everything fell into place.

  With a shout full of bestial hatred I charged into the clearing, bounded across the open space, struck Inachos senseless with a smashing blow to the nape of his neck, and reached in my hands and hauled his companion all tumbling onto the jungle floor.

  Even then, I swear, I did not mean both of them to die, for I wished to question them. But Inachos must have had a weak skull, or my blow must have been too hasty and impetuous. As for the flier pilot who had come to pick the guide up—when I turned him over I saw the hilt of his knife thrusting up from his chest. As he tumbled out of the flier the knife had sliced whicker-sharp between his ribs. I wrenched it out with a foul Makki-Grodno oath.

  What a credulous idiot I had been!

  The guides were not being murdered by assassins sent by Nalgre. Oh, no! Nalgre hired the guides. They came into the caves and told the slaves they would take them out to safety, and the poor deluded fools went out, gaily, expectantly, filled with hope. They thought they were being taken to safety, and then, every first night, the guide would disappear and the slaves were on their own. They would be ripe fodder for the great Jikai! How much more cunning this system was to get the slaves out and running. Without hope, they might run, but they would not give sport.

  The quarry were given a reason to run by the guides. They thought that with a whole day's start they stood a chance. And, too, I saw another sound reason for this dastardly plot. The different parties of slaves could be channeled into different parts of the island. Then different hunts would not become entangled and Nalgre would not have to face irate customers whose quarry had been snapped up by neighboring hunters.

  And—that doughy-faced Notor Trelth had agreed to hunt through the jungle and the guide, Inachos, had directed us northward so as to keep within the confines of the jungle!

  The more I considered the foul scheme the more I saw its elegance and simplicity—and its horror.

  Maybe there were no real rear entrances to the caves.

  Certainly, the manhounds had entrances there, to herd the slaves out for selection. All the time I thus reviewed the diabolical schemes of th
e Kov of Faol and his slave-master, Nalgre, I paced back and forth in the moonlight.

  Then I went back to the tree where my companions slept and tried to rouse them.

  Every last one was fast asleep in a drugged stupor.

  That provided the last evidence. The wine so thoughtfully provided by the guides, which they did not drink through care for their charges, was drugged. The guides simply got up and walked away and were picked up by flier.

  If I bashed a length of timber against the tree in my anger, I feel that needs no explanation.

  In the end I had to unlash all the slaves, every one, and Tulema first, and carry them, snoring, over to the airboat. The flier would just take all the eighteen of us, although we were jammed in—no novelty to slaves accustomed to being jammed in hard together in barred prisons.

  Delia had given me instructions in the management of airboats. I took the flier up quickly, savagely, sped low over the jungle in the streaming light from the moons of Kregen.

  The flight had to be undertaken right away; it would have been madness to have waited until the morning. Come the morning, though—and here I believe my lips ricked back over my teeth in a most ungentlemanly fashion—the great hunters on their manhunt would find no quarry for the manhounds to drag down, for them to loose at with their gleaming beautiful crossbows, for them to chop down with sword and spear.

  When, at last, Zim and Genodras—or, as here in Havilfar, Far and Havil—dawned over the jungle levels I brought the airboat down into a cleft in the trees. Below, a river ran, a broad sluggish ocher-colored river, with mud-banks and the scaled and agile forms of water-risslaca active about their own form of hunting. At least, much as I was wary of risslaca and with horrific memories of the Phokaym, they, at least, hunted for food.

  I took the airboat low along the dun water and at last found what I sought, a place where the banks had eroded and fallen and the jungle had voraciously grown over the tumbled earth and so created a roofed space beneath. Management of the voller was a tricky business, but I got her neatly inserted under the overarching leaves. She was a craft built along somewhat different lines from those I had been accustomed to in Vallia and Zenicce, being altogether sturdier of construction, with lenken planking and bronze supports, although still of that swift and beautiful leaf-shape.