Alan Akers - Manhounds of Antares

Then old Mog the witch glared at me as she ducked her head as the spears went down. And I knew!

Oh, I knew! She was saying to me: “Well, Dray Prescot. You brought me here, why I know not, so now what to do, hey, onker?” And, also: “And you put your spear down, too, idiot, or they’ll cast for sure and spit you like a paly!”

I lowered the spear.

A moment of natural tension was heightened as both Rapechak and Turko turned and jerked the spears from the lenk. Even then, I had time to say, just so that they could hear: “What, friend Turko? A spear?”

To which Turko the Khamorro replied: “I thought you might need another if your first missed.”

I chuckled. Oh, yes, that seemed a worthwhile moment to chuckle.

After that, with Mog the witch acting very much as Mog the Mighty — by Makki-Grodno’s worm-eaten liver! Old Mog, called Mog the Mighty! Incredible and laughable and hugely enjoyable! -

after that, as I say, we all sat down to eat and drink and for Mog to tell her news and to catch up on what had been happening in Yaman in the land of Migla in her absence. Somehow or other Saenda had seated herself on one side and Quaesa on the other, and they were both holding my arms and snuggling up against me, pouting their lips and trying to claim all my attention, and I couldn’t be too hard on them. By Vox! But they’d had a scare!

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 Aphrasoe. 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.