Beasts of Antares [Dray Prescot #23]

by Alan Burt Akers

  I nudged my zorca.

  “No sense in hanging about."

  We rode slowly down the path which glimmered into smokey grayness as the first moon lifted. The Maiden with the Many Smiles shone bleakly, it seemed to me, cutting a pallid sickle in the sky. Soon she would take on her usual pinkish hue and the shadows would warm to a russet fuzz. We rode on.

  This little village was called Infinon of the Crossroads, and the inn with the sign of the Headless Zorcaman squatted in one angle of the cross. The other houses were fast shuttered. The stillness and the ghostly moonlight were broken as men rode out with a clatter, casting bars of shadow across the road, to surround us. A few quick words between their leader and Naghan and we went on, riding up to the inn and dismounting.

  A warm fug of ale fumes and cooking and sweat met us as we entered. The place presented the appearance one would expect from a small village in a prosperous countryside, and the ale would be good.

  The floor was swept clean. That floor was made from sawn planks, not beaten earth. Pots glittered. The enormous fireplace gaped black and empty, save for a brass jar filled with dried flowers. The men who escorted us and the others who awaited our coming wore ragged clothing of a raffish, free-flowing kind. They were much burdened with weapons. Almost all were apims. They sat about on the settles and benches, and I surmised they would keep quiet as their chief spoke. If there was trouble—I gave them a glance that appeared casual and which totted them up and assessed them.

  Twenty. Twenty ruffians, guerilleros, as ready to slit your throat as to greet you with a pleasant Lahal.

  One of them, a fellow who wore a gaudy sash of a color I took to be plum, so dirty and festooned with gold lace was it, walked forward. His face looked like an old boot. His hair was lank. But he smiled.

  “Llahal, koters,” he said, giving us the name of gentlemen of Vallia. “The Chuktar will be here in but five murs."

  Karidge would have started hotly demanding to know why the emperor should be kept waiting, but I silenced him. I looked about, saw a long lanky lout with his feet on a bench. Walking over, I pushed his legs off, so that his heavy Vallian boots crashed to the floor, and sat on the bench. I took off my wide-brimmed hat, placed it on the table, and said, “I will wait five murs."

  As a mur is shorter than a terrestrial minute, the ball was, as they say, in Mevek's court.

  The long lanky lout glowered, but he said nothing and straightened himself up. The eyes of the others in the taproom—by Krun! You could feel them, like a pack of drills.

  My companions remained standing. The fellow with the unmentionable sash and the face like an old boot swallowed.

  “I am Vanderini the Dagger. I will fetch the Chuktar—"

  He went out through a rear door in something of a hurry.

  Karidge chuckled nastily. A chuckle can express many profound emotions.

  Turko and Korero looked as though offensive smells were obfuscating the pleasures of life. Naghan the Barrel let one of his wheezing laughs shake him up, the tears pouring from his eyes. He clapped his belly.

  “I am parched. Will no one fetch a stoup, for the sweet sake of Mother Dikkana, who brought forth the saint who gave us ale?"

  Someone laughed—that was easy to do with Naghan the Barrel—and tankards were forthcoming. I sipped.

  Four and a half murs, all that took. On the fifth, as the calibrated clepsydra on its shelf above the mantelpiece showed, Chuktar Mevek walked into the taproom.

  To sum him up in a single glance would be easy, and probably completely wrong.

  This Mevek, who called himself a Chuktar, the equivalent of a brigadier general, was quite clearly hard as nails, hard-bitten, hard as old leather. He was strongly built, with a flat, impassive face in which his brown Vallian eyes were deeply set. He looked like his men, save that he wore more ornamentation. Yet I judged that to have accomplished what he had, in raising so many people willing to stand against Layco Jhansi and his mercenaries, he had a spark, a charisma, a touch of that genius Kregans call the yrium. He looked at me carefully. He reminded me by that stare, by his impassivity, of a wild animal in the moments before it leaps.

  Then: “Llahal, majister. I will not give you the full incline as all emperors are due. I hear you have banished such flummery."

  “You are right. Llahal."

  “They say the kov who ran off is a friend of yours."

  “You are right and wrong."

  He merely lifted one dark eyebrow.

  “Kov Seg Segutorio is a friend of mine. He did not run off."

  “He was not here when—"

  “I have heard this before. It is unworthy of you if you wish to prove your friendship. Kov Seg Segutorio was about business for the empire—for the old emperor—and those to whom he confided the care of Falinur failed him. He did not fail them."

  “You fight for your friends—"

  I broke in. “This wastes time. The past is dead.” Well, that is not strictly true ... “What do you wish to tell me?"

  Now he did not exactly lose that coolness, but he reached out and fingered one of the many loops of precious gems encircling his neck and depending on his harness. His eyebrows drew down.

  “Perhaps it is you, majister, who has somewhat to tell me."

  I stood up.

  “Shilly-shallying, Mevek, is for those who have all the time in the world. I do not. There are mercenaries, reiving rasts, cramphs from Hamal, abroad in Vallia. The people called me to be their emperor and free them from tyranny. That I will do, although I did not seek the task. If you can help me win back Falinur, all well and good. If you are powerless, then we have nothing to say to each other."

  He digested that. Then, as I had suspected he would, he picked out the item that touched him most nearly.

  “Powerless? Me? Oh, no, majister, I am not powerless."

  “Do not think these men here can stop me from leaving.” And here I put on a little of the bravado I detest and which, sometimes, serves well. Sometimes it is a disaster. “I do not think you could stop me if you had twice as many men,"

  He wiggled those eyebrows of his again, and I came to the conclusion that, impassive as his flat face was, those eyebrows were weather indicators to his state of mind.

  “I have been told you are Jak the Drang."

  “Yes."

  “Then I believe you."

  I nodded. “Then we understand each other.” I pulled my riding cloak off and tossed it on the table. I sat down. “I do not think you are powerless. Now, let us Rank our Deldars and see what we can agree."

  At that familiar opening challenge from the famous game of Jikaida, Mevek, nodding in his turn, visibly relaxed. We had sparred. His amour propre had been maintained. Now we could get down to cases.

  His story followed the lines I expected. When Jhansi's mercenary troops deteriorated in quality with the hiring of more and more of them from dubious sources, the country folk began to suffer. That was a normal risk run by any commander who hired mercenaries. The defeats in the south were almost matched by unhappy encounters with the Racters in the north.

  The Racters, once the most powerful political party in Vallia, were now penned in the far northwest where a concentration of their estates gave them a base. Jhansi fought them and the battle did not go well.

  “What you are saying is now that Jhansi's fortunes are at a low ebb, you wish to change sides."

  His eyebrows flared.

  “No, majister, not so. Many of us have opposed the Kov of Vennar from the moment he crossed our borders."

  “As I am the emperor, you may understand that Layco Jhansi is no longer the Kov of Vennar. His province lies under an interdict. His head is forfeit to the empire. He is a traitor."

  “Just so. But he still runs his kovnate, whether he is kov or not, and he still sends his damned mercenaries to keep us down."

  I said, “You have intelligence of the battles we have won? You know our armies have cleared Vindelka?"

  “Aye."<
br />
  “Then you must realize that the time will soon come when we will march north, through this very spot, and go on into Falinur and west into Vennar, and Layco Jhansi will swing very high indeed."

  In a low tone, almost surly, he said, “You will need my help."

  “I welcome your help, Mevek. As to needing it—that may be a different matter."

  Vanderini the Dabber, he with the sash and the face like an old boot, stepped up. That face wore a scowl.

  “By Vox! But this new emperor has a stiff neck! If I did not hate Jhansi so much, why—"

  “There will be a place for you, Vanderini,” I told him, without a smile. “In the new Falinur after we have liberated the province. At least—” And here I judged the time had come to apprise these desperadoes of their new lord. “At least, if the new kov I have appointed listens and approves of you."

  They swung to glare at me on this.

  “New kov?” growled out Mevek. “What new kov?"

  “Kov Seg Segutorio is about vital business for the empire. He has relinquished Falinur. Your new lord is appointed. He is Kov Turko, whom you will obey in all things."

  Now, as you know, the rights and the law on Kregen regarding titles and property and inheritance are not quite the same as on this Earth. Necessarily, they must differ.

  Mevek hoisted his eyebrows. I began to suspect that he was well aware of his eyebrows, and used them on purpose, to fool credulous folk into thinking they could read his mind.

  “If this Kov Turko proves himself—"

  “He will."

  “Then we will give him the welcome that is his due. But I recall the old kov, Naghan Furtway, and his nephew Jenbar. They had little love for the emperor. Their seed still grows here."

  Perhaps this was the root cause of the disaffection in Falinur. The past is not dead, its tendrils twine and choke the new bright growths...

  “You know Naghan Furtway proved a traitor and fled overseas. He is allied with the Empress Thyllis of Hamal, and that mad woman seeks only evil for Vallia. You know."

  “I know."

  “So that Kov Turko will bring a new light and spirit to Falinur. You will see."

  Now, all this time Turko had been standing there silently. I could see him. His face, that handsome Khamorro face, remained impassive. But the muscles in his arms roped and jumped. He would wait just so long for me to fiddle around like this and then, why, then Turko the Shield would start to show these hardy, near-bandit guerrillas that he was their new kov and they'd better get to like it...

  Korero the Shield stroked his beard with his upper left hand in a most judicious way. He had kept his two lower arms well inside his cloak, and his tail with its powerful grasping hand was tucked up out of the way, so that he did not look like a diff but could pass as an apim like us. Now he smiled.

  “It seems to me we are all agreed, but we cannot reconcile ourselves.” His voice carried that tinge of mockery he knows so well how to intimate; goads to infuriate his listeners.

  Mevek almost bit.

  “Agree! Of course we agree that Jhansi must be put down, but as for this new kov—” And then he caught himself, and that dull, impassive look settled again on his features.

  “Good,” I said brightly. “When do you think the Kov of Falinur should show himself to the people? I do not think he is a man to wait until after the victory."

  “Indeed, no,” put in Korero.

  Turko said nothing.

  Mevek said, “If he is the kov for us he will lead us in battle. I have Freedom Fighters, in hiding. We lack weapons of quality, but we fight. Send for this new Kov Turko and bid him join us—if he dares!"

  Turko opened his mouth. I lifted my hand.

  “We will send weapons. Our armies will march north. They will be commanded by Kov Turko of Falinur. You will send word to your people. They will rise. Together, we will sweep Jhansi and his mercenaries back to Vennar. Then..."

  I had overlooked a point. Not all the Falinurese felt the same fierce detestation of Jhansi shared by the men in that room.

  As Turko looked at me, his head up, his handsome face verging on a scowl—for I sensed he was not completely sure of what I was about—I went on in a heavy voice, for what I had to say did not please me.

  “When we beat Jhansi's men at Ovalia, they were led by a damned Hamalese, a Kapt Hangrol, and by Jhansi's toady, Malervo Norgoth."

  “Hangrol has gone back to Hamal—"

  “Poor devil,” I said, whereat they looked at me strangely. They did not know the kind of punishment the Empress Thyllis handed out to people who failed her.

  “And Tarek Malervo Norgoth skulks somewhere in Vennar. He is out of favor, serve the rast up stewed black."

  “We were attacked by hordes of screaming savages—yet they were once ordinary citizens of Vallia. This is sorcery.” I did not miss the flicker of fear in many faces. “This displeases me. Can you contain this? Can you handle these misguided fanatics? Will you succumb to the sorcery of Rovard the Murvish?"

  This did not go down at all well.

  Many were the protestations, many the oaths, many the knotty fists thumped on tables. But these men had felt the breath of fear. Rovard the Murvish, an initiate in the Brotherhood of the Sorcerers of Murcroinim, an adept of real powers, had almost trapped me in a web of sorcery. Jhansi had a trenchant tool in this sorcerer.

  At last Mevek said over the hubbub, “We have seen the misguided men this wizard has spelled. Yes, they fight like crazy animals. But, they may be killed."

  This, then, was the nub of my displeasure.

  We talked for a space, with Turko growing more and more tense and showing every symptom of blowing up, quite unlike his usual distant mockery of me. I inquired about various people whose welfare in Falinur obsessed me, including Lol Polisto and his wife Thelda and their child, and learned he was known in this part by reputation; but his guerrilla deeds took place dwaburs away across the hills. The problem of the men under the thrall of thaumaturgy, fighting like maniacs for Jhansi, would have to be faced. When we fought and met them in battle, they would, as Mevek had so crudely said, be slain if we were to free the country.

  “At the least,” I said, “you can always smell Rovard the Murvish a bowshot off."

  They ventured hesitant laughs at this. Sorcerers, to the ordinary man, are no joking matter.

  A man wearing a fur cap poked his head in the doorway and said, “Nath says there are men skulking about to the north of the village."

  My first thought was that I'd misjudged it badly when I'd tallied Mevek's band at twenty. He still had outposts.

  Mevek jumped up at once.

  “That will be that damned rast Macsadu and his foul masichieri.” Masichieri are very low-class mercenaries, barely better than bandits. “He has been scouring the countryside for us. Well, we owe him, and tonight he'll bite off more than he can chew."

  Vanderini walked quickly to the door, drawing his sword. The others followed, their weapons making a fine show.

  Mevek eyed me, “It is best, majister, if you remain here where you will be safe. Macsadu does not know I have more men than usual, more than he expects."

  “No,” I said in a mild voice. “I do not skulk—"

  “You are the emperor!” Now Mevek looked astonished, and his eyebrows formed a black bar. “Emperors do not—"

  “Jak the Drang does,” I said.

  He nodded, convinced at once. He jerked his head at Turko. “The stylor had best hide when the fighting begins."

  Because Turko bore no weapons, Mevek had judged him to be a stylor, outside the scope of fighting men, a stylor being a man who can read and write and as a scribe carries pen and ink and paper instead of sword and spear.

  Now Turko's mouth opened in earnest.

  I said, “This Macsadu. I hear he is a by-blow of Jhansi's."

  “Aye. A vicious man-hunter. He slew his own mother when Jhansi tired of her. Now he extorts taxes and tortures for pleasure. We have a score to s
ettle."

  Turko got out, “I'll be at your side in the fight, Mevek, and judge how you conduct yourself."

  The guerrilla chief gave Turko a puzzled look, started to say something, changed his mind, said, “Please yourself, stylor. If you are chopped, do not blame me."

  Nath Karidge drew that curved sword of his. “It appears to me, Mevek, that you have been lax in your scouting and have sucked us into a trap. You had no business arranging this meeting if you were being followed."

  Very quickly I stopped the argument. Outside the inn the sudden sounds of combat flowered in the night. Perhaps Mevek had made a mistake; we were in for a fight and that was that.

  Somewhat surlily, Mevek said, “I have enough men to thrash that cramph Macsadu, do not fear—"

  Vanderini catapulted through the doorway. His old boot of a face bore a huge bloody gash. He was yelling. He twisted and slammed the door, shoving the bar across.

  “Scores and scores of the bastards! They've tricked us!"

  The noise outside faded and then increased. The door bulged. The bar broke. In a smashing welter of splinters fierce armed men thrust through. Their weapons glimmered darkly with blood.

  “You stupid onker!” yelled Karidge.

  He fairly hurled himself forward, shouting, “Into them before they deploy!"

  Korero threw back his enveloping cloak. His four arms raked up and his tail hand curved. Steel glittered.

  With a whooping rush the mercenaries charged.

  In the next instant a confused and murderous struggle began across the cleanly swept floor of the taproom in the Sign of the Headless Zorcaman.

  * * *

  Chapter two

  Of the Disobedience of Nath Karidge

  The windows exploded in fountains of splintered wood and patterned glass and struggling men collapsed inward to sprawl, still fighting, over the tables and settles. The guerrillas and the mercenaries hunting them fought madly across the floor.

  Korero's glittering figure swirled like a lightning bolt of destruction.

  Nath Karidge, characteristically the first to get in among his foemen, swung his curved sword with precision and gusto.