Mazes of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  “When I worked in the voller yards of Sumbakir,” I said, “we built mostly personal fliers. But I recognize like and like. We’ll not catch that fellow unless he does something extremely foolish.”

  “That may be. But he has to come down somewhere, some time. Then we’ll drop down on top of him.”

  “Aye.”

  The air tanged with heat, now, the sea below a sweltering shimmer. The rush of the breeze blew as a solid wall of heat, hot and choking in our faces.

  “Southeast Pandahem,” I said. “I don’t know that part of the world, Seg.”

  “I know nothing definite, either. There was a fellow I knew — a paktun with one ear missing and a ferocious squint, old Frandor the Schturmin — told me he’d once served a king or prince down in the southeast. Stinking jungles, he said. Potty as notors, the lot of ’em, so Frandor said.”

  “I can believe it.”

  Then Seg let rip his chuckling grunt of good humor.

  “I agreed with him, too. That was before you made me a damned notor, a jen, and dumped me in it. All lords are stark staring bonkers. It is a law of nature.”

  “That,” I said, and I spoke mildly, “I do not believe.”

  “No? Well, maybe. All I will say is that if the jungle is our destination, we’ll sweat a trifle.”

  The dwaburs passed away, and as we had anticipated, the food ran out.

  I eyed Seg.

  He saw me looking at him.

  I licked my lips.

  “You look fat and healthy, Seg,” I said. “I wonder how much seasoning you will need.”

  “You could put all the salt on my tail you liked, my old dom. I’d still be too damned stringy.”

  “As to that, that I do believe.”

  We almost lost our quarry in a build-up of clouds over the coast.

  The voller ahead darted into a white canyon of billowing cloud. We followed, and we had the speed lever notched over past its rightful halting place. We held on; but it was a near thing.

  Thunderstorms raged among the clouds.

  Twice we were hurled end over end, and twice we righted ourselves, clinging on with gripping fingers, to hurl our voller on in pursuit.

  The storms held us both up, pursuer and pursued alike, and presently the flier carrying Pancresta began a series of maneuvers which, apart from wasting time, gained them not a palm in distance upon us.

  At last we broke free of the storms and the darkness and sailed on over jungle, steaming in the new radiance.

  A wide river rolled along below, brown and smooth, carving its path through the forest.

  “If you can believe what old Frandor the Schturmin told me, and if I’m right, that’ll be the River of Bloody Jaws.”

  I nodded. There was no need to enlarge on who owned the jaws in the Kazzchun River.

  “She flows down from the Central Mountains all the way to the Sea of Chem.” Seg gestured over the coaming. “There is a fair amount of traffic.”

  On the broad brown surface boats moved, mostly propelled by long sweeps all working in unison. There were a few more rakish craft tacking along. We saw a few small habitations in clearings along the banks. Whoever lived down there made what they could out of their surroundings.

  We flew on, deeper into the island. Pandahem, like Vallia, in size is on the order of the size of Australia; there was a lot of it. Hereabouts, quite clearly, the river formed the main and best, possibly the only, means of communication.

  Scraps of cloud drifted by. We saw flocks of waterfowl, wide-winged and long-necked, rising in multitudes from the waters. Brown mudflats gleamed. On those banks the ominous forms of risslaca showed. No one was going swimming in the River of Bloody Jaws without regretting the notion.

  “I don’t expect to see any fliers here in Pandahem,” said Seg. “But they must be known. The folk down there do not pay as much attention.”

  “Hamal and Hyrklana never would sell vollers to Loh or Pandahem, among others. Now we have these damned Shanks to fight I think the Pandaheem will get their vollers.”

  “They’re surely needed in this part of the world.”

  We flew so grandly over the tops of the trees. What it would be like down there, trudging along, was something I did not wish to find out. Even the river for travel would be a headache.

  Up ahead the forest lifted to a shallow range of hills. They were not mountains. But there were a lot of them, serried ranks of rounded slopes, one after another, and every one crammed with the ferocious vegetation of the jungle. The rain forest swarmed up over the rounded hills.

  “The river trends away to the east,” said Seg.

  “I see. Is that a town near the beginning of the bend?”

  Seg used the spyglass.

  “Yes. Now, I wonder...?”

  But the voller flew on, over the town in its riverside clearing, on and rising to soar over the unending roundnesses of the jungle-clad slopes.

  We no longer flew a trifle west of north following the course of the river as it rolled down southeast. Now we flew on over solid jungle.

  Seg had the spyglass trained neatly on the voller.

  I thought I glimpsed a flicker of movement among the trees ahead of the path of the voller.

  There was just a sudden movement there, a hint of a cloud of black dots, and then the sky over the trees was clear.

  “Seg! Train your glass down, ahead of the voller — there — there where that rounded hill slopes over that valley—”

  He did as I said, instantly.

  After a moment, he said, “I see only trees.”

  “I thought I glimpsed — something — there.”

  “Only trees, now.”

  He handed me the glass.

  I looked. The tops of the closely packed trees jumped into focus. I was looking down onto the crowns of the denizens of a rain forest, and no prying with human eyes would descry what lay on the forest floor.

  I handed the spyglass back.

  “Nothing, save the trees. But—”

  “Yes? What was it?”

  I took a breath.

  Seg believed I’d seen something.

  “Like a flock of birds—”

  “All right. Nothing unusual in that.”

  “Agreed. But at this distance — they must have been large—”

  “Saddle birds?”

  Seg’s tone was sharp.

  “Aye.”

  He looked seriously at me, his fey blue eyes regarding me calmly. “Pandahem does not have flyers.”

  “I know. So that means...”

  “I’ll cast loose the guidance ropes. We’ll be ready to go down at once.”

  “Good.”

  I stared eagerly at the airboat ahead.

  But — but the wretched thing just went sailing on, flying high and fast, going pelting along. She just flew over whatever mysteries lay beneath. Perforce, we followed.

  Taking up the spyglass I leaned over the coaming and studied the ground underneath. Rather — the tops of the trees...

  Anything could be concealed under that luxuriant foliage. We hurtled out over the rounded top of a hill, and on the far side a fair-sized lake opened out. The water was as brown as the waters of the River of Bloody Jaws. A few islands studded the surface. There were no boats. A few birds quarreled on a brown mud spit. The suns light glinted up off the water. Sounds rose, the birds, the roars of hunting beasts, the distant splash of water I took to be a waterfall.

  Swiveling, as our voller flashed on, I looked aft.

  The edge of the hill fell sheer into the lake. It was buttressed by tall columns of rock, grey and weather-beaten and festooned with lianas. Birds cavorted here, too. A spume of white mist was just visible over a rising shaft of rock.

  Even in the rush of the breeze, the strong and pungent smell of flowers stung my nostrils.

  “Spiny Ribcrushers,” said Seg. “Like syatras.”

  “They smell — juicy.”

  “That’s right. They’ll melt you down to your
boot soles.”

  The lake whisked away below, the tall buttresses of rock vanished aft. Ahead the voller bore on steadily. The rain forest started on the very edge of the lake, and continued, unbroken. Probably there was a small tributary down there.

  Seg put the control levers back on the guidance ropes and presently he called: “The hills are flattening out ahead. And we have the river back.”

  It was clear that the River of Bloody Jaws, coursing down to the southeast, made a vast loop to go around this outcropping of hills.

  I stared ahead, far into the distance.

  There was no sign of the Central Mountains.

  Still the voller sailed on.

  At the apex of the curve of the river where it turned to skirt the jumbled upheaval of forest-clad hills stood a town. As we flashed past above we could see the town was stockaded, small but neat, with jetties extending into the river. There was no sign of a single vessel. Smoke rose and the smells of cooking lifted. Seg made a face and rubbed his stomach.

  “Old Frandor told me they were a devilishly mixed bunch here, with screaming cannibals in one valley and a high level of civilization in the next. Something to do with the difficulties of communication after the old empire went.”

  “We saw something of that in the Hostile Territories — Seg? You remember?”

  And then I wished I hadn’t mentioned the Hostile Territories of Turismond and thus brought up memories of our adventures there. Delia and me — and Seg and Thelda. I said at once, “Look! The fellow’s turning!”

  Whatever made the voller carrying Pancresta choose that moment to turn, I blessed. Whatever it was saved me from a nasty moment.

  Seg said, “He’s turning gently — now what is he up to?”

  We began to edge out to starboard to cross the angle of the other flier’s turn and so meet him. But he was a clever flier and kept away, using all his speed, turned so that soon we were heading directly back the way we had come.

  And, still, we followed.

  But we had narrowed the gap considerably. If only we’d had a couple of db’s more speed — but that was foolish. If we’d had those, we’d have caught Pancresta hours ago.

  The reciprocal course was taking us away to one side of the town over which we had passed. Speeds in the air are phenomenal if compared with speeds on land.

  Seg abruptly stiffened. The spyglass twitched and was held, rigid. He stared ahead.

  Then he said, “You were right about the saddle flyers.”

  Of course! Pancresta’s flier had shot on ahead, over that lake and the rearing columns of rock where I’d imagined I’d seen flyers. The voller had drawn us on, and then gently turned, taking all the time needed, and reversed course. The saddle flyers had risen in a cloud to follow.

  And now we were heading smack back into them.

  Very carefully, I said, “I think Pancresta will escape. I count thirty birds. By the time we’ve finished with them, she’ll be gone.”

  “I think you are right.” Seg picked up his two longbows, letting the spyglass fall. He looked at each one. “We’ll feather them, all of them, I have no doubt. But that scheming woman will be vanished.”

  “We know where to, though. We’ll find her.”

  “Aye, my old dom. We’ll catch up with her, in due time. But, now—” And here Seg selected a bow and drew it gently, and so took an arrow and set nock to string, “—now we have a fight on our hands.”

  Chapter eight

  Seg Quenches a Fire

  Shooting through the windrush of a voller’s flight is a truly difficult business. Seg had little difficulty aiming with the uncanny marksmanship of a Master Bowman of Loh. Seg had finished off my training as a bowman, after my ferocious Clansmen of Segesthes had taken me in hand, and I tried to match Seg, shaft for shaft.

  “One gold piece, Dray, or — perchance — three?”

  The wind caught at his dark hair, tumbled the locks over his forehead. His fey blue eyes challenged me right heartily. The wind blew, the hostile saddle birds dropped upon us — and, as ever, Seg was out for a wager or two, a side bet on the outcome in addition to our own lives.

  “Three, I think,” I said with a judiciousness that brought a delighted curl to Seg’s lips.

  Up aloft the birds winged in.

  They sparkled with light. Radiance reflected from burnished accoutrements. The leading saddle flyer bore brilliant golden ornamentation over his breast feathers. That gold would be wafer-thin, beaten out into hollow shapes, strapped on with narrow leather bands. His wings held stiff in the attacking dive.

  Seg sniffed, looking up. “Brunnelleys,” he said. He held the new bow down, relaxed, the shaft crossing the stave and beginning that smooth draw of the master bowman.

  The wind buffeted into our faces. The birds up there, gaudy of color in mauves and blues and browns, with yellow beaks and scarlet clawed feet — all four legs bore claws — swooped with that eager pounce of the brunnelley. Powerful saddle birds, brunnelleys, and like just about any other kind of saddle flyer, unknown in the island of Pandahem.

  “Aye. And the riders are not flutsmen, either.”

  “No. I fancy Spikatur has a hand in this.” And then Seg lifted the bow, drew and loosed.

  The shaft missed.

  I looked not so much amused as dumbfounded.

  In his turn, Seg looked at the bow. His brows drew down. He pursed up his lips. I shot and put a shaft through the wing of a brunnelley which wasn’t going to do the bird a great deal of harm.

  Seg threw the bow down into the bottom of the voller.

  He picked up the other bowstave, and shook it.

  “Thus do the prideful take a tumble, and the mighty are cast down. The stave does not cast true.”

  I knew he had no stupid boastfulness in equating himself with pride and mightiness; just that the aphorism fit and appealed to our sense of humor. With his second cast he sent the shaft clean through the breast of the rider.

  The fellow screeched and fell off, to dangle all upside down in the straps of his clerketer under his bird’s tail feathers.

  “H’m,” quoth Seg. “That is marginally better,” and so shot again, thwack thump and sent a shaft clean through the eye of the next.

  I tried to match my companion; but when Seg got himself into a paddy and shot with real intent, there was no man alive on two worlds, I devoutly believe, who came within a million dwaburs of him.

  We began to take the diving formation apart, and such was the ferocity of our shooting the plunging birds parted and screamed down with whistling feathers on either side of our voller.

  That was merely round one.

  In the brief respite before the next attack we glimpsed Pancresta’s flier diving steeply ahead, going down with tremendous speed to soar out over the river.

  “They’re gone,” said Seg, arranging his next series of shafts in the quick-release sockets along the gunwale.

  “Aye. For now.”

  “Here they come again.”

  Once more we shot sufficiently well to drive off the attack. Four shafts plunked into the woodwork of the voller, and a handful more cut through the canvas.

  We were aware of height and wind and of rushing progress through the air. The Suns cast light and shadow, and the birds wheeled about us now, their riders shooting down. One or two cast javelins, but I made no attempt to snatch a javelin from the air and hurl it back. At this moment the bow was the superior weapon.

  Our voller ploughed on, slowing down, surrounded by the furious cloud of birds.

  “They thin out.” Seg shot and took up shaft and drew and shot again.

  “True.”

  I put my head over the coaming and looked down.

  “The rasts.”

  Half a dozen riders closed in on their birds, the wings beating perilously close together, aiming to strike up at our exposed underside.

  Three quick shafts took three of them out; but the balance bored on. Golden ornaments glittered. The men riding
the birds hunched in tightly buckled cloaks, not streaming flamboyantly, and their small round helmets gleamed with purpose. This group carried crossbows. A bolt punched up through the canvas past my nose, and I jumped back.

  “I count that as three gold pieces to me,” said Seg, and he laughed.

  “Indubitably.” I looked over again, in time to put a shaft into the nearest fellow. He looked up with the utmost surprise on his face, one-eyed, for the shaft through the other one impeded his vision somewhat.

  He fell off his bird, and the brunnelley curved away, carrying the dangling rider like a pendulum clock.

  Seg sniffed.

  At once disabused of the notion that he was passing a comment on my shooting, I sniffed also.

  We looked quickly about.

  Shafts hissed in, to feather into the voller and start to turn her into a flying pincushion.

  Smoke blew flatly back.

  “They’ve set us afire, my old dom. But where is the flame?”

  Smoke suddenly choked back in a great evil-smelling cloud.

  “Wherever it is, the wind drives it flat, and the smoke obscures the source.”

  Then I cursed myself for a ninny, a nincompoop, for the kind of man no captain of a seventy-four would ever employ as his first lieutenant. When I served in the Royal Navy of Nelson’s time we habitually doused fires before going into action, and sanded the decks, and took the utmost precautions against being set alight.

  And, now, I’d just forgotten to douse the fire in the combustible box, and it had been struck by a shaft, and overturned, and set our voller aflame.

  Even as this stupid, time-wasting self-recrimination echoed in my silly old vosk-skull of a head, the fire burst up and enveloped the voller. Flames blew flatly aft. Seg yelled.

  He leaped for the controls and threw off the guidance ropes. He shoved the levers down and the flier’s nose dropped and we fell out of the sky like a brick.

  A flashing glimpse of a bird, upside down and with a broken wing where we’d struck him — a man slashing with his long flexible aerial spear — another fellow loosing and his bolt splintering into the coaming under my nose — and then we were hurtling down and down toward the ground.