Alan Akers - Warrior of Scorpio

Back there Thelda’s nactrix had taken an arrow in the belly.

She was sprawled across the grass to one side of the following wedge of cavalry. Arrows nicked the air. Arrows feathered into men and beasts. The carts rolled and bucked as they bounced after the cavalry wedge, their wounded occupants shrieking in time to the jouncing. Dust spurted. In all the crazed uproar I knew Seg could see only Thelda.

As he reached her a flying wing of Chersonang cavalry swept over them. I saw his long sword shining red; then he was down.

Somewhere in that melee of spurring beast-men and trampling nactrixes, of cutting steel and thrusting lances, lay Seg and Thelda.

I thought of Queen Lilah, and of my place at the apex of the wedge — but we were in retreat, we were not charging to victory. I brought the nactrix around with as much cruelty as Seg had shown, dug in my spurs, sent the half mad beast crashing back.

Harfnars with their flashing weapons reared before me.

Arrows cut the plumes from my helmet. Arrows clanged away flintily from the armor. One sank deeply into the neck of the nactrix. It went on and over in a somersault. I flew from its back, turning over, still grasping my long sword. I did not see Seg and Thelda again in that maelstrom of barbaric savagery. Then, for a space, I did not see anything at all save a red-flaming blackness. During this period of misted movement and dulled perception I was aware of a voice speaking in the common language of Kregen, so I knew it would be an indigo-haired Ullar talking to a Harfnar of Chersonang.

“Bring him. He will furnish sport for a while.”

There followed movement and the sensation of flying and the thrashing sounds of great wings beating the air. The ache in my head diminished to proportions just short of bearable and I came back to my senses chained and bound and strapped up to a granite wall in a dark dungeon. Dungeons are dungeons, as I have remarked before, and some are worse than others. This particular specimen contained all the unpleasant features a human-operated dungeon would have, plus a few the Harfnars had thought up out of their own culture of bestiality.

A groaning and moaning sound told me there were others of the men of Hiclantung with me, reserved for sport. There was no need to elaborate on what was in store for us. Cultures approximate, given the original dark impulse that began the gene trail.

By the time the first set of jailers flung open the lenken door and descended the greasy steps toward us I had freed my left wrist and partially broken away the links chaining my right. Under the impression that it was now or never I exerted all my force. My shoulders are not only wide, they are blessed with roping muscles that can surprise even me. The last link parted with a ringing ping. In the fresh dazzlement of light I blinked and caught two of the Harfnar jailers about their throats and squeezed and flung them into their companions. All the time a low bestial growling rumbled and raged in the dungeon. The Harfnars hoisted themselves up, yelling, and their swords flicked out. They approached me warily. I was still securely fastened by my legs, so that between fending off the beast-men with swung chains I bent and tried feverishly to unfasten my legs, only having to straighten up and lash out again to make them keep their distance.

“Put down your chains, you Hiclantung cramph!”

“I’ll slit your belly up to your throat, rast!”

At first I did not deign to answer them as they yelled at me and I worked on my bonds and swung the chains and all the time that sullen bestial roaring boomed and thundered in the dungeon.

“Keep them occupied!” shouted a Hiclantung cavalryman. The other captives were attempting to break their bonds, but they could not succeed. I still do not recall the exact strengths I exerted to snap those chains.

“Smash him over the head!” screeched the guard commander.

They danced in, one went down with his face ripped off, then they had entangled the chains, were bringing up spears to strike at me.

“Come on, rasts, and by the Black Chunkrah, come to your deaths!”

As I shouted the words, that bestial roaring stopped in the dungeon. Only then was the realization borne in on me that it was I, Dray Prescot, who had been roaring and thundering in so savage a fashion. The shock sobered me.

In that instant the dungeon door was blocked off by the entry of a bulky half-man and the guards finally lost their patience with me and one thrust hard and in deadly earnest. His spear point darted for my breast.

I smashed it away and took him by the throat with my left hand, held him squirming and kicking in the air as I snap-reversed the spear and de-gutted the next guard. Then I hurled the one I held into their midst and swung the spear down again in low port.

“What are you waiting for, offal and dung feeders?”

They hesitated. They were splashed with the blood of their comrades. They could see the dead bodies sprawled on the dungeon floor, dreadfully mutilated. And all this from a man chained up by his legs!

The newcomer shouted, harshly, loudly, angrily, beside himself with fury.

“Dunderheaded dolts! By Hlo-Hli the Debased! I’ll flog every man of you! Take him! Take him now! ”

Goaded by twin fears, the Harfnars flung themselves upon me in a body. They entangled my left arm in flung ropes and dragged me down cruelly. I gasped and forced myself upright. A spear blade slogged down on my temple and I only half broke its force. But I slashed through the ropes — the flint-headed spear was sharper than any cheap steel — and reared back, blood obscuring my vision, my legs clamped as though trapped by a chank of the inner sea.

The man giving the orders moved closer. He peered at me in the light streaming down the dungeon steps. He put both hands on his hips and jutted his head forward, so that his indigo-stained beard shot forward like the ram of a swifter.

“You must be the one they call Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor.”

“And if I am, much good it will do you!” I shouted and hurled the spear full into his stomach. He gobbled and fell back, his hands clawing himself, seeking to stem the dark rush of blood welling past the neat flint-knapped semicircles of the blade.

His opened mouth sought to shriek, but only blood poured forth.

He fell.

And then I, Dray Prescot, laughed.

It did not last long after that.

The other captives were taken out one by one and when it was my turn I was tightly wrapped around in chains and ropes and carried up the dungeon steps. I saw clearly on the square boxlike faces of my captors a gloating kind of good humor. They knew what lay in store for me and they joyed in their dark fashion for the horrors I must endure. Indigo-haired Ullars met the cortege — an apt word, I remember thinking, wryly — at the entrance of arched brick where the brilliant hues of the suns of Scorpio flooded down in topaz and opal and incandescent light.

We entered an open area rather in the fashion of a theater or arena. The anti-flier defense had been rolled away, and hung in nets at the sides, rather after the style of a Roman velarium not paid for by the gladiatorial promoter presently putting his show on and awaiting the next one, who had. The amphitheater-like atmosphere continued in the storied series of seating terraces, all jam-packed with spectators. Dark blood lay seeping into the sand. Ullars moved about officiously. I looked for Umgar Stro. He must, I considered, be the chief man among the lolling group of dignitaries and nobles gawking down from an awning-draped box over the arena steps.

In the air and cutting through the familiar reeks of spilled blood and dust and sand and sweat a new and strangely disturbing odor laid a nasty taste in my mouth.