Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 13] Renegade of Kregen (pdf)

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Gahan, it seemed, had been in Magdag when I had led my old slave phalanx of vosk-skulls against the
overlords. He had seen and he had remembered. The old king had been only too thankful that this
dangerous insurrection had been crushed. He, like the Magdaggians, put his trust in mailed men riding
sectrixes, armed with the longsword.
So Gahan had experimented and fashioned an implement. But it had been his son, Genod, who with all
the ardent fire of youthful genius had seized on the implement and turned it into the most formidable
fighting machine yet seen, who had used it to take Laggig-Laggu, to overturn the mercenary hosts of
Magdag, to humble the overlords, and, eventually, to make himself king, the All-Powerful, the Revered,
the Holder of Men s Hearts.
I knew that fighting machine. The solid ranks of armored pikemen, the halberdiers and swordsmen in the
front ranks, the wedges of crossbowmen shooting in their sixes. And, because the fighting-men of
Segesthes and Turismond commonly derided the shield, the shield-protected phalanx could simply march
forward and topple all the mailed chivalry sent against it.
"It was this same Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor, who created the first phalanx. He was defeated and
slain. And Genod Gannius now rules in Green Magdag."
"But suppose," I said, feeling the emotions in me boiling up in a rage comical and ludicrous, "this same
Dray Prescot was not slain?"
He reined in his sectrix with a lunging thump of hooves.
"What mean you?"
"Only, gernu, is it certain sure he was slain?"
He eyed me. He licked his lips above the black beard.
"No," he said, at last, reluctantly. "No, it is not certain."
"And has there been no news of him since?"
He smiled, that ironic half-smile. "I can say what is common knowledge, that men tell stories of two
Krozairs of Zy who claim this Dray Prescot as their father."
How my heart leaped!
"And do they speak false?"
He flicked the reins and kicked in his heels. "Who is to say what is false and what is real? I would that it
was true, though, by the Holy Bones of Genodras!"
"Aye," I said. "So that we might go up against this great Krozair and measure swords with him."
"Not so, Gadak!" He spoke too sharply. He saw my expression and kicked in, harder, and sent his
sectrix bounding off. The woman spurred up, also, and raced after him. I was left looking at their flying
animals, and their tensed bodies, their capes flying, and wondering.
Well, there are none so blind as will not see. But, by the Great and Glorious Djan-kadjiryon, how could
I be expected to see then?
I shook up the reins and cantered after them, the sectrix s six legs going in that damned ungainly lumber.
The hunting horns had shrilled and died; the cries of the beaters dwindled and faded to silence. The
sectrix lumbered along. I heard a scream. I rammed in my heels and we picked up speed and came
galloping out onto a scene that in all its ugly drama made me furious and, had I known it then, would have
made me go cold with horror.
Gafard had shot cleanly and had dismounted to dispatch his kill, a small tawny-colored plains ordel. The
hunting lairgodont had caught him totally unprepared. The sectrix had wrenched free of its reins and
bolted. The woman s sectrix, equally terrified, bolted also and bore her off. After that first scream, which
I suspected had been ripped from her when Gafard and she had first seen the lairgodont, she remained
silent, wrestling to keep her beast under control.
Gafard stood there, his longsword out, his feet spread apart. Dust puffed as the lairgodont drew itself up
ready to charge.
Not so much large in their strength, the lairgodonts, as vicious and quick and damnably difficult to kill.
Scaled and clawed, sinuous as to neck and back, with those skull-crushing talons and those serrated,
steely fangs in the gap-jawed mouth, the lairgodont presents a terrifying spectacle of feral horror.
Scarlet gaped the fanged mouth of the lairgodont. Pricked ears lay back on its scaled head. Hissing, it
advanced, one taloned claw after another. That long forked tail rippled high. When that tail straightened
and became a rigid bar. . .
I was minded to let Gafard, the renegade, go to his fate unmourned.
I knew I could not make the sectrix advance any farther. It pawed the ground, trembling, arching its
neck and shrilling in fear. Hastily, I dismounted and hitched the reins to a projecting rock. If I was slain
the sectrix would provide a fine second course.
Yes, Gafard, arch-traitor, a man who had betrayed the Red of Zair, yes, why not? Why not let him be
pitched to the Ice Floes of Sicce under the fangs and talons of this vicious monster?
The bow in my hands spat four times as fast as I could draw string and let fly. The four arrows struck.
Two bounced away, broken. The third penetrated one staring eye. The fourth took the lairgodont in the
belly, for it leaped with the shock, not charging. I lugged out my longsword and ran in, yelling.
"Hai! Lairgodont! Your dinner is this way!"
It whipped about so that Gafard went into its blind side. Then its forked tail lashed sideways and
knocked Gafard head over heels. There would be no support from him, then. . .
What an onker I was! Charging into this mess when I should have wheeled my mount away and let
nature take its course.
"The ordel is not yours this day, my friend," I said, and I leaped.
Chapter Seven
The Lady of the Stars
I leaped.
The longsword is a cruel weapon.
Even this longsword, this Ghittawrer blade Gafard had allowed me to keep without comment, could do
its work with cunning and smashing power in the hands of a Krozair Brother.
And, as I leaped, I even shouted: "Hai! Hai!"
The sword licked across the beast s near foreleg and almost severed it, crunching into bone. I leaped
nimbly away. The tail hissed above my head. Again I leaped and as the vicious head struck at me so I
came down and went on, rolling, to come up with the sword blurring for the other eye. The eye vanished
in a gout of blood and slime. A blow like well, a blow like a ripping slash from lairgodonts talon [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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