Manhounds of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  Even then, Saenda said to Quaesa, “Did you hear what that awful one with the ridiculous side-whiskers said?”

  “That’s Planath the Wine—”

  “He called me a shishi! I’ll give it to him when I get a chance. Nobody calls me a shishi and gets away with it.”

  “Nor me!”

  “What will you give him, Saenda?” I hoped I was stirring things up.

  “Humph!” she said, with her nose in the air, and so disposed of my question.

  I didn’t care. Mog was home with her people. These Migla were gathered in secret to celebrate a rite of Migshaanu and so the news of the high priestess’ return would that more quickly spread over the city. I had done my work. Now I would go home.

  Yes, I had decided. There would be time in the future to find out about the airboats and to question the scarlet-roped Todalpheme on the whereabouts of Aphrasöe. Do not think I had dismissed the importance of either of these projects, but I hungered to see Delia again, and to hold little Drak and little Lela in my arms, and tell Delia of my undying love.

  Momentarily, I shuddered at the prospect of that blue radiance dropping about me with the great presentation of a scorpion, but I thought I knew, now, that I had done the Star Lords’ bidding. The two girls prattled on, one in each ear. Although only half listening to them, being far more interested in what Mog and Planath were saying of conditions in Migla, I could not fail to become aware that the girls’ intentions were becoming far more serious by the mur. Each wished me to take her to her own home, the idea that one should go to the other’s as an honored guest having, apparently, been abandoned. They waxed warm.

  “My father’s totrixes are renowned over all southeast Havilfar.”

  “My father’s merchant house has agencies far beyond southeast Havilfar.”

  “The Migshaanu-cursed Canops took Mackili, only last week, and impaled him over by the ruins of the temple.”

  “The ruins are infested by rasts.”

  “Methydrin is a wonderful country, with riches to spare!”

  “In Dap-Tentyra we could be so happy. It is more of a city these days than a smot.”

  “We starve if we do not work and work is only given to those who worship Lem, the silver leem.”

  “And, dear Dray, you would not find me unappreciative.”

  “And, my Dray, I would be kind to you.”

  “It is death, slow and horrible and certain, to be found on the streets with a weapon.”

  I leaned forward, to ask a question about the spears, which had been restowed beneath the benches. These spears were ash-shafted, with heads wide yet short, exceedingly sharp, and fairly heavy in the hand so that a cast from them would spit a target with most ferocious thoroughness. So I leaned forward and the soft breathy whispers in my ears sharpened.

  “Dray! You’re not listening!”

  “Dray! You haven’t heard a word I’ve said!”

  “On the contrary, appreciation and kindness are fine. But they are not for me. I am not going your way.”

  Their soft bodies, pressed so suggestively close to me, stiffened, and moved away, and bright color mantled their cheeks. Their competition remained as fervent as ever; for neither would give an inch and almost immediately I felt them approach to engage yet again in this allurement for their own ends.

  Standing up, I left them whispering sweet nothings to each other across six inches of empty air, and went across to Planath the Wine. He cocked his eyes up at me, somewhat apprehensively, I thought, so I sat down and did what I could about making my face less the unholy figure-head lump exposed to wind and weather it is.

  “Tell me, Horter Planath. These spears of yours. You may not carry them openly on the streets?”

  Turko butted in, mockingly. “They would be difficult, by the Muscle, to carry concealed.”

  I ignored him.

  “That is so, Horter Prescot. The casting spear, the stux, is our weapon — for we are a peaceful people and know little of swords and bows — and hitherto we have kept ourselves to ourselves. We hunt the vosk with the stux, for they roam in their millions among the back hills and forests.”

  “A goodly weapon. And the Canops?”

  Mog worked herself up into a denunciation, to which all the Miglas listened with profound attention. When she had finished, Planath the Wine said with grave politeness, “They are fierce and vicious and horrendous. They crushed us with ease. But we would have fought, despite that we would certainly have lost, but for—” Here he paused, in some distress, until Mog jumped up, swinging her arms, and finished for him.

  “Aye! But for the degradation of your religion and the profanation of Migshaanu’s shrine and the defamation of your high priestess! Aye, they were reasons enough.”

  They all began talking then, as Mog sat on the floor and drew up a crimson covering they had given her. I thought of the stux, the usual name for the heavy throwing spear of Havilfar and of how they would have fronted these deadly Canops and all hurled, with their deadly aim, and then the arrows would have whistled in and the sword-wielding mercenaries would have cut and thrust them to pieces. Maybe they were better off, now; at least, they lived.

  With only a little more conversation, in which the name of Mag was mentioned — I did not pick up the reference and so pushed it away to be dealt with later — the Miglas rose and took their leave. They did not take their spears, however, and these remained secreted in the cavities beneath the benches. Even so, the adherents of Migshaanu took their lives in their hands as they made their way home under the lights of the moons.

  We were quartered in a garret room under the crazy roof, and, as we had during the nights of our escape, we all slept more or less together. Mog, alone of us, was conducted elsewhere. Tomorrow, I told myself, before going to sleep, tomorrow I would start for home.

  In the night both Quaesa — first, and very prettily — and Saenda — second and most urgently — came to my pallet. I turned them both out, and I did not scruple to kick Saenda’s remarkable rear to help her on her way to her own pallet. In the morning neither girl referred to the night’s pantomime, but I knew they were storing everything up against me.

  Discovering that the busy and highly populated country over on the eastern shores of the Shrouded Sea contained the homes of both girls, I could afford to forget them. That part of Havilfar, extending from the river border of Hamal in the north, the coast opposite Hyrklana in the east, and open ocean in the southeast, to the river running from the southern end of the mountain chain into the top of the Shrouded Sea on the west, had been settled for thousands of years. Kingdoms and princedoms and Kovnates riddled it with boundaries and capitals and petty rivalries. All the girls had to do was hire a passage aboard a voller or a ship and cross the Shrouded Sea and they would be home.

  Planath the Wine looked at my scarlet breechclout and my scarlet cape and clicked his teeth. He was not a human being of Homo sapiens stock, but he was a man.

  “Crimson is the color of Migshaanu the Blessed. We wear it only on high occasions, for it is proscribed.” Truly, this morning he wore a brown smock with wine stains upon it. “I think, Horter Prescot, if you will pardon, that the Canops will resent that brave scarlet.”

  I pondered. As you know, previously I would have made some uncouth remark, involving a diseased portion of Makki-Grodno’s anatomy, and said that, by Zim-Zair, scarlet was the color of Strombor, my color, and the color of Zair. No monkey-faced Canops would tell me to strip it off. But I pondered, as I said, and thought of Delia and the twins, and so changed into a dull and offensive brown sack Planath called a robe.

  But I kept the breechclout even as I unstrapped the sword.

  Rapechak surprised me — but only for a moment.

  “I am a mercenary. I could take service with these Canops. If they paid enough.”

  “You could, Rapechak.” I eyed him.

  “I do not think I am old enough to return home. Anyway, it is too cold down there. I have grown used to warmth.�
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  “Very sensible.”

  “And I have not made my fortune — so far.”

  “It distresses me to hear it.”

  Turko stood by, listening, that mocking half-smile on his damned handsome face. Rapechak cocked his beaked head at the Khamorro.

  “Turko has nowhere to go.” He rubbed that beak of a face of his, that Rapa face of which so many have been beakless and no longer faces when I got through with them. “You have not as yet said where you are going, Dray Prescot.”

  “That is true. I have not said.”

  There hung a silence in the back room of The Loyal Canoptic.

  Both girls started in presently claiming that I was taking them home, and may Opaz rot the idea of going anywhere else.

  “There are deldys enough to pay your passages,” I said. “And you may have all mine, except a handful for food and wine. I am not going your way.”

  “Well, then! Which way do you go?”

  “That is my affair. Come. I will see you to the voller offices — or the shipping agents, if you prefer.”

  Backward though Migla might be, and relatively poor if compared with many of the nations of Havilfar, nevertheless I knew there would be passenger services operating.

  Migla was a case of a mild and overly religious country being taken over and subjugated by a smaller but infinitely more ferocious group of people. The other nations around the Shrouded Sea would not help; probably they had all been relieved when after the earthquakes that destroyed their island home the Canops had gone to Migla.

  From all that I heard of them, these Canops were a very nasty bunch indeed.

  The halfling Miglas went in deadly fear of them, the beast-men convulsed by terror at the thought of acting in any way that would bring down the sadistic and destructive retribution of the Canops. The tiny handful who still met to worship Migshaanu did so with terror in their hearts and, as I was the first to say, with high courage and selfless devotion to their own ways and religion. I am not an overly religious man, as you know, but I know what I know, Zair knows!

  Into the back room of the tavern from the stairway entrance walked a halfling woman clad all in crimson, with heavy gold lace and embroidery, with jeweled rings upon her fingers, and a massive golden, silver, and ruby crown upon her head. Her face shone. Her lips were rubbery-thin the Migla way, and her hooked beak nose and toe-cap chin jutted arrogantly. She carried a great staff of plated gold in one hand — the likeness of the head of that staff I shall not say, at this time — and jewels flashed and coruscated from every part of her crimson and golden person.

  Hovering with a mixture of awe and pride Planath the Wine and his wife, Ploy, followed this gorgeous halfling creature into the room.

  Saenda and Quaesa ceased their silly babbling. Turko flexed his muscles, and was still. Rapechak twisted his great beak of a face, and hissed beneath his breath, and was silent.

  “All hail!” called Planath, a little huskily. He wore his crimson robe, but now across it had been slung a glittering gold cloth baldric, and in his hand he carried a small silver replica of the staff of power in the Migla woman’s hand. “All hail!” Planath said again, and his voice grew and the quaver vanished. “All hail the high priestess of Migshaanu the Glorious!”

  No one said a thing. I didn’t care much, one way or another, for all my selfish thoughts were set on Delia and Valka, but I felt that those gathered there looked to me. For the sake of Mother Zinzu the Blessed I cannot say why, but, not then wishing to spoil the effect, I lifted up my voice and said loudly: “All hail the Mighty Mog!”

  Which, I thought, was a suitably ironic comment, when all was said and done.

  The old witch caught my meaning at once.

  “You may mock me, Dray Prescot! But I am what I am. One day, Migshaanu willing, I shall return to a rebuilt temple and once more the people of Yaman shall worship their true god.”

  You couldn’t say fairer than that.

  “I devoutly hope it will be so, Mog,” I said.

  With that, as though she had achieved what she had set out to do, Mog swept her stiffly brocaded garments about and swept out — in the sense that a loose scrap of straw caught in her skirts swept away with her. I did not smile. Truth to tell, I already knew there was more to Mog the witch than appeared. The Star Lords did not fool with worthless people.

  “Well!” said Saenda. “Such airs! Anyone would think she was a queen.”

  I admit to a relief that Planath had gone, also.

  I said, “With regard to Mog, Saenda — and you, too, Quaesa — you will oblige me by keeping a civil tongue in your head. Otherwise I shall not hesitate to show my displeasure.”

  “If you were in my father’s hacienda!” began Quaesa, very hotly, her dark eyes regarding me with fury.

  “If my father ever found out about you, Dray Prescot!” began Saenda, interrupting. The girls started another of their arguments. For a moment they forgot me in their quarrel, which suited me fine. Neither of the little idiots had much idea of how they had become slaves. They might live in different countries, but the way of their taking sounded suspiciously alike to me. They had gone to a party and had thereafter remembered nothing until they were en route for Faol. I thought that the Kov of Faol paid hired kidnappers to procure pretty girls and handsome men for him to run as quarry for his customers. There was still, in my mind, the idea that I might pay a call on this Kov of Faol one day.

  On our way through the suns-lit streets of Yaman with the Miglas hurrying about their work and not looking too happy about it, I pondered on what had so far befallen me in Havilfar. I knew that nothing I did for the Star Lords was without a reason. Ergo, if I had rescued four people the Star Lords did not require they would hardly have let me rescue them and return them to safety. Of them all, Lilah, the first, had been in the most peril at the end, and I was in two minds to go and visit Hyrklana, to make sure. The Star Lords guided me; what I did today might be of use twenty seasons into the future. That this was true you shall hear, and the wonderfully cunning way of it too, into the bargain.

  Miglas ahead of us on the street began running.

  These houses were strange spiky houses, tall and narrow, with crazily pitched roofs and toppling tall chimneys and roosts jutting up at geometrically alarming angles. Many of the roosts gave resting places to fluttrells and other saddle birds. The idea of this, with my experience of the Hostile Territories, affronted me. But then I saw that here in Havilfar everyone was accustomed to saddle birds and flying animals; therefore they were merely a part of the armaments of each country, and thus deployable in war as any other force. Given that Havilfar was in many respects further advanced than Segesthes or Turismond, they were not faced with the implacable barbarian winged horde.

  “What is happening?” demanded Saenda, in her imperious, petulant voice.

  “Protect me, Dray!” screamed Quaesa, clutching my arm. The little onker clutched my sword arm. Granted I had no sword — but: “If you trap my sword arm, Quaesa, I shall not be able to help myself, let alone you.”

  “Oh! You’re impossible!”

  With Miglas running every which way around us I hauled the girls into the shelter of an awning-draped store where a few amphorae stood in sardine-rows against the wall and an old Migla who looked like a washed-out edition of Mog shrieked and fled indoors and slammed her shutters. We had seen a few apims, human beings of Homo sapiens stock, walking about and we had attracted little attention, even Rapechak. We had seen a couple of Ochs, a Brokelsh, and a few Xaffers chewing their eternal cham; we had seen no Chuliks. So it wasn’t us that caused this commotion.

  Down the center of the street came a body of men. They marched in step. They wore armor, scaled and gleaming in the light of the suns. They carried thraxters belted to their waists, and crossbows all slanted at one angle across their bodies. Their sandals had been solidly soled, and the clicking crack of iron studs on the cobbles sounded loudly, harsh and dominating. Their helmets were tall, crested
with the peacock-bright feathers of the whistling faerling — which is the Kregan peacock — and they looked hard, confident, and extraordinarily professional.

  At their head marched four men with brazen trumpets, but they had no need to sound these. Following the trumpeters strode the standard bearer. He was gorgeously attired. The standard consisted of a tall glittering pole, wrapped around with silver wires, a multicolored banner flaring, and atop that and arranged most ferociously, the silver representation of a leaping leem.

  Strange, I thought at once, that men should take the leem as their symbol!

  Then I saw the men’s faces as they marched with machine-like step in their quadruple ranks. Harsh, domineering, intolerant, yes, all these things. But I have seen many men’s faces with those characteristics and, as you know, I admit to my shame that my face bears those betraying marks. There was about this something more, something yet more horrific. The halfling Miglas were running now and scurrying out of sight. The old Migla put her head out of a crack in the shutter and called to us: “Bow your heads! Bow your heads or you will be sorry!” and, smack, down came the shutter fully.

  Rapechak, the old mercenary, understood at once.

  I suppose I did, in a weird way I would not tolerate or believe. Turko came from an enslaved people and so he, too, bowed his head as the silver leem, the symbol of Lem, went by.

  The officer — he was a Hikdar — strutting at the head of the main body, with his armor splashed with silver and golden medallions, turned his head. He saw the girls, and under the visor of the helmet, thrust upward and hooked, his dark eyes betrayed all the thoughts I could understand so well.

  Turko reached out with both hands and, with his supple khamster skills, bent the heads of the girls down. He couldn’t reach me, and, anyway, even then I doubted if he’d try.

  The Hikdar looked down his nose at me and yelled.

  “Nulsh! Bow to the Glorious Lem.”

  I did not bow.

  Me, Dray Prescot! Bow to a stinking leem! Even if it was only a silver toy called Lem.