Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 05] Prince of Scorpio (pdf)

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Over most of Vallia that might have any hand in this business the third party had cast the web of their
intrigues so that here, in isolation, the Emperor might be murdered and the new leader proclaimed. This
was more than a palace revolution; this work would drench the empire in blood and overturn old
dynasties, set men s thoughts and actions into new paths that might last a thousand years.
Around the campfires I took a heaping handful of roast vosk. I was not too proud to eat with these men,
for all that I might be slaying them before the Maiden of the Many Smiles had crossed the heavens. I
shoved the six quivers of arrows away on the strap holding them together; I kept my eye on them.
Hai, Strom Drak! said Larghos, very merry, quaffing his wine, his eyes beads of glitter in the firelight.
He swaggered over with a bunch of men of whom I knew some, and whom I knew I would make myself
acquainted better later on. The leader is busy, there is much to do, but he will see you when he can
spare the time.
I swallowed vosk and nodded.
The thought came to me then that it might be accounted a great deed as true Jikai if when we met
I plunged my rapier through the body of this leader.
Even today, I cannot say if I would have done that deed or not.
The leader stood by a great fire, half turned from me, talking to a group of the nobles of the third party
caught up in his schemes. With them stood the Chuktar of the Undurkers. At the leader s side stood a
younger man, laughing and full of merriment. This was the third party s candidate for the hand of the
Princess Majestrix, through whose marriage the leader would seek to legitimize his claim to the throne.
Larghos led me forward.
Here is Berran, Vadvar of Rifuji, said Larghos. And here also is Drak, Strom of Valka.
We went forward into the firelight.
The leader turned, a goblet of wine in his hand.
I saw him.
It was Naghan Furtway, Kov of Falinur.
At his side, laughing and jesting, stood his nephew, Jenbar.
I froze, for a stupid moment held in a stasis of self-contempt. These were the two I had rescued from the
Mountains of the North at the instance of the Star Lords. I had saved their lives so that they might
destroy mine and the girl s I loved.
Jenbar stopped laughing.
Who? he said. He peered closer.
Berran, Vadvar began Larghos.
No. The other.
Drak, Strom of Valka.
No, by Vox! said Jenbar. His laughter returned, bright and evil in the firelight. His uncle looked at me.
Kov Furtway stared at me and I knew his thoughts, as those of his nephew s, went back with mine to
those icy slopes and snowy mountains. They had known and had planned all this, then, and how they
must have mocked their secret knowledge of me, then!
Furtway said, We were surprised and disappointed when you disappeared from Therminsax. We
would have taken you to Vondium, as you wished.
Aye, by Vox! said Jenbar, chuckling. And the Emperor would have been mightily pleased to receive
you.
As, indeed, he did receive you. Furtway s smile altered in character. Although how in the name of the
Invisible Twins you escaped him I do not know.
What? said Trylon Larghos. What are you saying, Kov?
Why, Nath Largos, do you not know who this man is, the man you call Drak, Strom of Valka?
Larghos saw the evil undercurrents running here, and he stammered, and was silent. His fear of this
leader, who was Kov Furtway of Falinur, was very great.
I poised.Flight! I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombar, Krozair of Zy, must run from my foemen! Well,
I had done that before, not often, and would do so again; now I must live to reach my Delia, stand by her
side, and defy the might of Vallia arrayed against us.
Chuktar Uncar, said Furtway. Feather me this fool with arrows! Pull him down as the trags pull down
a leem!
The Undurker unshipped his bow. Larghos was babbling. Jenbar was laughing.
That man, you fools, shouted Furtway, is Dray Prescot! That wild clansman, the Lord of Strombor!
Slay him!
I swung about and ran from the firelight and into the avenue of dinosaur bones. And as I ran the
whispering rain of arrows whistled about me and clanged from those millennia-old bones in a sleeting
shower of death.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
. . . fit to be called Prince Majister of Vallia.
The very tangle and interlacing tapestry of bones over and under which I leaped and dived saved me.
One arrow only nicked me, a slicing shear through the leather over my left shoulder; a scratch, nothing. I
dodged and ducked as best I could. These ancient bones, fossilized over the millennia and then cast adrift
once again on the desiccated surface of the secret crater where these great beasts had trekked to die,
surrounded me and in a weird and ghoulish way afforded me protection.
The arrows sleeted about the iron-hard bones. I heard their chiming, like the bells of the damned, and I
ran and leaped. One chance alone was left me now. A roaring bellow of rage pursued me. Kov Furtway
had let loose his mercenaries, and the Undurkers, their proud supercilious noses high, were after me.
I remember as I ran, hurdling risslaca vertebrae and all the scattered skeletons of giants of the past, that I
had a most uncharitable thought about these halflings from Undurkor. Their long noses meant they could
not turn their heads when loosing, otherwise the strings would have given them bloody stripes down those
snouts. They used a short compound bow, and they must draw it as far as they might, to the chest, the
lip, the nose. It is from the long throw of the great longbow that all its awful power is obtained, that long
energy-storing thrust that gives range and penetration, when the shorter flatter staccato of the small bow
slaps out jerkily.
Mind you if an Undurker arrow skewered me now it would be just as painful as a cloth-yard shaft.
The moons of Kregen floated past above and the shadows shifted strangely among that fossilized forest
of bones. The hard clatter of booted feet pursued me. I ran. I dodged. There was no time for that old
Krozair trick I so joyed in employing, of turning about and swatting the arrows away with my sword,
something after the style of a flick-flick gobbling up flies on the wing.
I ll marmelize you! a voice screeched at my back.
I ignored that kind of drivel.
I kept my bowstave horizontal so as not to foul the arching rib cages. Had my bow been strung for
like any frugal bowman I kept the stave unstrung when possible I d have risked a turn and a shot. But [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podobne