Alan Akers - Manhounds of Antares

“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. The Hikdar rapped out a command and every right foot bashed down perfectly alongside a left and the column halted.

The Hikdar strode over. He swaggered. He drew his thraxter as he came and there was on his dark face that look of enjoyment that has always baffled me.

“You bow, nulsh, before it is too late.”

I said, “You are Canops?”

He reared back as though I had struck him.

“Filthy nul! Of course we are Canops! I am Hikdar Markman ti Coyton of the Third Regiment of Canoptic Foot. And you are a dead nulsh!”

The horror of it almost made me slow. The horrendous, the vile, the vicious, the despicable Canops -

were human men like me! I felt the sick revulsion strong upon me. I saw the thraxter jerk back for a lethal thrust.

I said, “So you are Canops! I do not like you, Hikdar Markman, and I detest your race of kleeshes.”

And I kicked the Canoptic Hikdar in the guts.

I say I kicked him in the guts. I had not forgotten he wore armor, and so my kick went in lower and at an angle and it did the business I intended well enough.

Before he had time to spew all over me, although he was turning green in the face already, I yanked him forward, took away his thraxter, clouted him over the nose with the hilt, and said to Turko, Rapechak, and the girls: “Run!”

To our rear lay a maze of alleyways and hovels and I fancied the smartly disciplined men of the Third Regiment of Foot would not welcome breaking ranks and chasing about in there. I knew, also, that in the next few seconds the crossbow bolts would come tearing into our bodies. Turko did not hesitate, and neither did Rapechak. They grabbed a girl each — Saenda fell to Rapechak and she squealed — and they vanished into the mouth of the alleyway where the crazy houses hung their upper stories over the cobblestones.

As you may well imagine, I was furiously angry.

Angry with myself.

What an utter onker! Here I’d been, all nicely set to take off for Valka, and this stupid imbroglio had burst about my ears. I had been too stupid for simple cussing.

Mind you, the shock of discovering that these detestable Canops were apims, men like myself, had been severe.

I recognized their breed, all right. They were not the mercenaries to which I had grown accustomed in the other parts of Kregen I had up to then visited. These were men of a national army. Their discipline would be superb. They had a far more sheerly professional look about them than had had the rather unhappy army of Hiclantung. These men were trained killers, and they fought and killed and, no doubt, died not for cold cash but for hot love of country.

Theyvwould present a problem far graver than I had anticipated.

The Deldar leaped out from the leading rank and began yelling and the lines of crossbows twitched up. If I hung about any longer it would be pincushion time. The mouth of the alleyway struck cold across my shoulders. I dodged against the near wall and ran — oh, yes, I ran! — and the bolts went chink, chink, chinkaroom, against the far wall. Maybe these soldiers would have been trained to penetrate alleyways, to leap up and down steps covered by fire from their files. This Kasbah-like maze might hold no terrors for them. I ran. I had been running a lot lately, and that, I assume, was the reason I hadn’t bowed to the silver leem. I just do not like running, although it can be, as I had demonstrated on the jungle trail back in Faol with underhand and cunningly vicious traps, an absorbingly interesting pastime. There was no sign of the others and I guessed they had pelted hell-for-leather as far and as fast as they could.

Following them, as I thought, I rounded corners, leaped offensive drainage ditches, hared through archways, and roared down the flights of narrow steps, flight after flight I saw no one, but, of course, many eyes watched me as I ran, and, no doubt, as well as marveling consigned me to Sicce as the greatest onker ever spawned.

By the time I reached the last alleyway and debouched onto the wide steps leading down to the quays, I knew I’d missed Turko, Rapechak, and the girls. For the first time in a very long time, I was on my own. That could not, however much I welcomed it, be allowed to continue. Through my stupid action the others had been put in danger of their lives. I had, if for no other reason than my stupid stiff-necked pride