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A Victory for Kregen

a Mushroom eBooks sampler

Copyright © 1980, Kenneth Bulmer

Alan Burt Akers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

First published in USA in 1980 by Daw Books, Inc..

This Edition published in 2007 by Mushroom eBooks,
an imprint of Mushroom Publishing,
Bath, BA1 4EB, United Kingdom
www.mushroom-ebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This is a sampler of A Victory for Kregen by Alan Burt Akers. If you enjoy reading these sample chapters and would like to read the rest, you can buy the complete Mushroom eBook edition from the usual bookshops online, or find more details at www.mushroom-ebooks.com.

Contents

A Note on Dray Prescot

Dray Prescot is a man above middle height, with brown hair and level brown eyes, brooding and dominating, an enigmatic man, with enormously broad shoulders and superbly powerful physique. There is about him an abrasive honesty and indomitable courage. He moves like a savage hunting cat, quiet and deadly. Reared in the inhumanly harsh conditions of Nelson’s navy, he has been transported by the Scorpion agencies of the Star Lords, the Everoinye, and of the Savanti nal Aphrasöe, the Swinging City, to the savage and exotic world of Kregen, under the twin Suns of Scorpio, four hundred light-years from Earth.

Here, in the unforgiving yet rewarding world of Kregen, struggling through disaster and triumph, Prescot has made his home. Called on to shoulder the burden of being the Emperor of Vallia and of freeing the islands from the cruel grip of invaders, he is determined, once the country is once more united and free, to hand all over to his son Drak. But the Star Lords have dispatched him on a mission for them in the southern continent of Havilfar, and Prescot and eight comrades have barely escaped with their lives from an underground labyrinth of horror. Now Prescot must battle his way home to resume his work for Vallia.

Dray Prescot relates his story on cassettes, and each book is arranged to be read as complete in itself.

Chapter one

Tyfar Wields his Axe

The gray-beaked fellow flourishing his bronze decapitator fondly imagined my name was written on that wicked curved blade. His one desire in life was to keep my head as a precious souvenir. He even provided himself with a wicker basket swinging at his belt all ready for the trophy.

“Hai! Apim — now you die!”

The path down the side of the artificial mountain led here under overarching branches and the mossy-trunked trees stretched about us, ancient and gnarled, patched and puddled in the light of the suns.

As is my custom in a fight, I do not waste breath replying to taunts or battle chants, unless base cunning indicates the advantage of an even more coarse taunt in return, so I bent my head beneath the horizontal slash of the decapitator. The sword in my fist thrust once. The wicker basket, the bronze-studded armor, the leather boots, and the decapitator all fell away to the side, sloughing like too-wet dough, slid off the path and away down the slope between the trees.

The fellow was not alone.

Other headhunters pressed on, yelling, screeching their taunts, seeking to take the heads of us nine — who sought merely to escape off the mountain with our lives.

By chance it happened I led the descent of the mound and so these decapitating warriors met me first. They were not apim like me but those hard, gritty diffs men call Nierdriks, with coarse-skinned, high-beaked, hooded-eyed faces like killer turtles, and compact muscular bodies equipped with only two arms and two legs and no tails. Their bronze blades glimmered molten in the smoky shafts of crimson fire from the red sun, and their hides sheened muddy emerald in the fire from the green sun. With shrill yells of hatred they leaped for me.

My comrades were yelling, hullabalooing to get on along the path and at the Nierdriks. The first two attackers were seen off with no great difficulty. The shifting light and shade beneath the trees and the rutty slope of the path made the action precarious.

My foot turned on a knobby tree root snaking like a swollen vein across the path.

I pitched headlong. My sword switched up instinctively and parried the flurry of blows. The ground came up — hard. The decapitators were held off easily enough; but I was on the ground and smelling the ages-old dust puffing up into my nostrils, feeling that damned tree root gouging into my back.

With a slash measurably faster and more intemperate than those that had gone before, I slashed the nearest fellow’s ankles and then had to twist aside to avoid the thwunking great blow of his comrade’s head cleaver. There was no real danger. In the next instant I would be up, on my feet, and that bloodthirsty head-and-body parter would go tumbling down the slope spraying blood.

There was no real danger — but, in the instant as I gathered myself, a shadow moved over me and two firm, muscular legs straddled me, and Tyfar was yelling and swinging his blade over my head.

“Hold, Jak! I’ll cover you!”

He was remarkably lucky I hadn’t chopped him. He stood over me, swinging and smiting, his shield well up, his axe a silver-stained blur in the dappled shadows.

This was a new and remarkable experience. The sensation intrigued me. Here was I sprawled on the ground in the middle of a fight, and this fine young prince Tyfar stood over me battling off our foemen!

Remarkable!

Also — highly amusing.

All the same, by Zair, comical though it was it could not be allowed to go on.

I wriggled away and degutted the Nierdrik who sought to sink his brand into Tyfar’s unshielded side and then sprang up and clouted the next one over the head. His big turtle nose burst and sprayed purple fluids into the shadows.

“You are unharmed, Jak?”

“Aye. Aye, I’m unharmed — Prince.” And then, because he was young and vehement and very much your proper prince of honor, I said — and with warmth, “My thanks.”

More Nierdriks dropped from the trees upon us and for a space we had a merry set-to. In the confusing shadows, twinned in jade and crimson, we fought. Presently the headhunters drew off and gathered in a bunch a few paces below us on the path. Many bodies strewed the ground between, and they must have realized now that they had sought to slay and take the heads of a party unwilling to allow them that liberty.

Abruptly, one of the turtle-faces spun about, silently, and collapsed.

Barkindrar the Bullet said, “They are real, then.” He took out another leaden slingshot and began to fuss with his sling.

Tyfar said, “Yes. It was in my mind they were mere phantoms.”

“Not phantoms,” said Deb-Lu-Quienyin. “I would have known.”

He would, too, not a doubt of it. The kharrna, the powers, of a Wizard of Loh would certainly have told Quienyin if we faced hallucinatory projections. He had taken no part in the combat, as was right and proper, and with a typical little hitch to his turban, setting it straight, he was visibly becoming a proper Wizard of Loh, respected and dreaded.

An arrow winged like a sliver of wrath and skewered a Nierdrik through that turtle neck.

“And,” quoth Nath the Shaft, “I’ll have that one back when we go past.”

“You didn’t see where my bullet went, Nath?”

“I did not. If you must sling lead then you must expect to lose it. If you must be a slinger then you must—”

“I’ll knock the next three over before you clear your quiver, you great fambly!”

Well, that was normal. Nath the Shaft and Barkindrar the Bullet arguing over their respective skills, and wagering any and everything on the outcome of their shots, provided a never-failing source of joy and amusement to us through the horrors we had endured. The Nierdriks clustered in a rocky clearing among the trees, a dozen yards or so below us, and the radiance of the Suns of Scorpio fell about them. They provided capital targets.

Another leaden shot and another feathered shaft flew.

“Ha! Your man is only winged!”

“He’ll never fly again, for sure!”

These two, archer and slinger, prepared to cast again. They were Prince Tyfar’s retainers, the only two he had left to him from his father’s expedition. But, for all the fun and frolic, we had to get down off this artificial mountain before nightfall, and that was not too far off...

An abrupt shriek rent the air.

Two shrieks shattered past us as the Pachak twins bounded down the trail. Ordered, methodical, intensely loyal, Pachaks, but when they loose their yellow hair and turn berserk, then it is prudent for any man to guard himself. Screaming war cries, the twins hurtled down the path. Their weapons glittered. Like maniacal savages of a primitive time before the dawn of civilization, they burst in among the astounded head-hunters.

Barkindrar and Nath held their shots, and only just in time.

“We are with you!” shouted Tyfar. He started in running down the trail after the two Pachaks, whose right arms were going in and out twinkling with fighting fervor. The Pachaks’ two left arms apiece held their shields slanted expertly, and their tail hands swept razor-sharp steel in lethal slashes. The Nierdriks fell back, gabbling, some already turning to run.

So I lumbered down and saw off a man or two and, lo!, the path was clear.

“Well done!” panted Tyfar. “By Krun! That was a sight!”

The two Pachak brothers, Logu Fre-Da and Modo Fre-Da, bent to clean their weapons with methodical care on the scraps of cloth twisted around the corpses. Often it took a considerable time for a Pachak to regain normalcy from that fierce fighting frenzy; but I, like many men, considered that this berserk image of the Pachaks was carefully fostered, designed to impress and intimidate. It formed a part of their life-style only when they chose. All the same, there was no doubt that, often and often, something in that skirling onslaught got into their blood.

The Wizard of Loh, Deb-Lu Quienyin, was looking pleased. So was I. We had arranged with the two Pachaks to look out for the old wizard, and although they had not yet entered his employ and given their nikobi, which code of loyal service would have bound them, they were actively aware of their responsibility.

There were nine of us, nine adventurers seeking to escape from this artificial mound, this Moder which contained treasure and horror, and now I turned to look at my two rascals who came walking down toward us.

Nodgen, the tough Brokelsh, carried a bloodstained spear.

Hunch, the Tryfant, poked apprehensively at one of the Nierdriks, who flopped over, his arms limp.

“Are they all—?” began Hunch.

“You great fambly!” roared Nodgen, in his coarse Brokelsh way.

I did not smile. I was aware of the decline of the suns, and the lengthening jade- and ruby-tinged shadows beneath the trees.

“Let us get on.”

Yes, there were nine of us, and we wended down the side of the Moder and we kept a very sharp eye out for more unpleasantness.

We had chosen to descend by a path different from the one up which the expedition had toiled to the summit, and now as we went down, the sweet scent of twining plants filled our nostrils, and the tinkling sounds of hidden brooks made a mockery of the horror contained within the Moder. Hunch kept on casting glances back up the path. Well, that was fine. That meant we had our backs covered.

To look at us as we came to the base of the descent and surveyed the belt of thorny scrub ahead would no doubt have occasioned either amusement or disdain in any splendid court of Kregen. We had outfitted ourselves with fresh clothes; but now these were ripped and torn and stained. But our weapons were sharp. I noticed with interest that Quienyin continued to carry his shortsword strapped to his waist. Perhaps his powers had not fully returned? He had lost his powers as a famed and feared Wizard of Loh, and within the lowest depths of the Moder he had regained them. But — perhaps he had not satisfied himself? It seemed to me he was not prepared to put full trust in himself or his powers just yet. That made sense, given the harsh and terrible nature of much of Kregen.

The sense of power being exercised wantonly, the crushing feeling of oppression, and the expectation of impending doom we had lived with during our time in the Moder did not magically lift the moment we stepped off the mountain. Naïve to expect it would. The Wizard of the Moder might have been tamed; now we had to face the terrors of the Humped Land, the sere and unforgiving land clustered and clumped with the artificial mounds, each containing fortune and horror.

The land ahead of us and barring our escape would test us all.

“You two,” said Prince Tyfar with that habitual note of command tempered by the feelings of comradeship, “scout the entrance where we came in. It is just possible a few beasts have been left us.”

“Quidang, Prince!” said Barkindrar and Nath, and they took themselves off, moving very circumspectly among the foliage.

The members of the main expedition, from whom we had been parted in the depths of the Moder, would have been long since gone. They would be spurring back to civilization bearing the loot. I looked at Tyfar and he saw my quizzical glance.

“I know, Jak, I know. But we must try.”

“Yes.”

“Let me bustle around and make a fire while those two are gone,” said Hunch, the Tryfant. “I am famished—”

“Very well. Do I need to caution you over the fire?”

“No, no, Jak — I mean, notor — no need.” And Hunch shivered and looked across at the trees where there were more shadows than the last of the suns shine.

He had taken a sack stuffed with goodies from the abode of the wizard, after we had humbled that proud and cruel man — if the thing had been a man at all — and when the fire was going well within the little dell beneath a bank we had picked, Hunch shook out his sack.

We all stood back. The stench offended.

“By Tryflor!” yelped Hunch. “The damned Moder lord—”

“The rast has tricked us!”

“The food — putrid!”

“Well,” I said over the hubbub. “Maybe it is just as well. That cramph of a Moder lord might have magicked the vittles in our insides. I do not care to contemplate that, by Krun!”

“You have the right of it, Jak,” observed Tyfar. “But we are hungry.”

“The Humped Land will not be so sere that we cannot find aught to eat.”

Tyfar made a face. He was a prince — admittedly, a prince of Hamal, which great empire was locked in deadly combat with my own land of Vallia — and the idea of chasing rodents and other lowly creatures for food did not appeal to him. Then he smiled.

“When you come to the fluttrell’s vane, Jak, one must do what one must. I shall not care for it, no, by Krun. But I will eat a green lizard when my guts rumble!”

“Nodgen,” I said, “do you go and see what fruits there are on those bushes.”

“Aye, Jak — notor — that will be something.”

These two, Hunch the Tryfant and Nodgen the Brokelsh, had been slave with me, and my trick of freeing them and giving them manumission before witnesses still had not quite overcome the old freedom of speech. It mattered nothing to me. But I fancied our deception had to pass muster, at least in the eyes of Tyfar. He was a man with high ideals, studious and yet quick with his axe; but he had been brought up in a culture in which slavery was a mere part of life. I wondered if he would ever be brought to understand what we were trying to do in Vallia, and if he shared the blind hatred of that island empire of his fellows. He thought I came from Djanduin. Well, I do, in a very real sense — but if he discovered I was a Vallian...

I brushed these tiresome thoughts away. We had to survive to cross the Humped Land. I had not forgotten the fearsome swarth riders, who infested the land between the Moders; but I forbore to mention them at that moment, for fear of what would happen to the water pot Hunch was carrying across to the fire.

We set watches and the suns sank and Barkindrar and Nath returned. They reported the compound was empty of life, not a riding animal to be seen. But they did bring a few crusts of bread and a packet of palines wrapped in leaves somewhat shriveled.

“Whoever dropped this and cursed for his loss did us a good turn, by Belzid’s belly,” quoth Barkindrar.

By this I understood that he and Nodgen, Brokelsh both, were compatible.

“You did not believe the Wizard of the Moder had let us get away with his food, then?” said Quienyin. He was clearly interested in Barkindrar’s reasoning.

The slinger looked down, despite all his bluff toughness, discomfited by this direct interest in him by the Wizard of Loh.

“It was in my mind, San. We got away easy, like.”

“We put the damned Moder Lord down,” said Tyfar. “I still wonder if we did the right thing not to kill him. I see it was right and a kind of a small Jikai; but, all the same... He has played a scurvy trick on us.”

“It was right not to slay him, Prince.” I spoke briskly. “Now, if you agree, we will eat up this princely meal, stand our watches, and when the Twins rise we will set off.”

They all gaped.

“But — Jak—”

“I do not think you will enjoy travel in the heat of the suns. And if we are to find ourselves mounts, we must look to the future. Or do you wish to remain a heap of moldering bones here?”

There was no answer on Kregen under Antares to that.

After our exertions and despite our hunger and the conditions in which we found ourselves, we found sleep. The watches changed, and no one felt inclined for conversation. Our thoughts, I feel sure, dwelt on the confrontations of the morrow when we could expect to be visited by the swarth riders. They had shepherded the expedition to this particular Moder out of all the hundreds dotting the Humped Land. They were mysterious, enigmatic; but they were some kind of men and therefore amendable to the argument of steel.

But, for all that, they possessed the only riding animals that we could expect to lay hands on around this desolate place.

With the rising of the Twins, the two second moons of Kregen eternally orbiting each other, we rose also and gathered our weapons and set off marching across the Humped Land.

Under the moon glitter, the dark and ominous shapes of the Moders rose from the plain about us. They stretched for mile after mile, set in patterns, and at random, some relatively small, others encompassing many miles of subterranean passages.

“D’you fancy going down another one to see what we can lay hands on, Hunch?” I overheard Nodgen speaking thus, and half-turned. Hunch spluttered a passionate protest.

“What! Has your ib decayed, Nodgen! Go down there again!”

“It was a thought,” said Nodgen, and he laughed in his coarse, bristly, Brokelsh way.

The Pachak twins marched in silence, and their eyes remained alert and they scanned every inch of the way.

The slinger and the archer marched one each side of their lord, Prince Tyfar. He strode on, head up, breathing deeply and easily. Yes, I had seen much of goodness in this young man during those periods of horror; now, with our way ahead at least for the moment clear, I hauled alongside him and we fell into a conversation about — of all things — the state of theater in Ruathytu, the capital of Hamal.

“A few houses play the old pieces,” he said. He sounded aggrieved. “But by far the majority play these new nonsenses, all decadence and thumping and sensation. It is the war, I suppose.”

“Yes. Fighting men—”

“But, surely, Jak, a fighting man needs the sustenance of the inner spirit? Needs to have himself revitalized?”

“You mean, when he isn’t trying to stop his head coming off?”

Tyfar breathed in. He eyed me meanly. “You mock me, Jak.”

“Not so. I agree with you. But you are a prince—”

“I am! But — what has that to do with it?”

“Just that you have had the advantages and privileges of an education that was not primarily aimed at earning a living.”

I probed deliberately here. I had opened a gambit — in Jikaida I would have been opening the files for the Deldars to link ready for the zeunting — and he was aware that I meant more than I said.

“You know no man may inherit his father’s estates and titles as easily as he climbs into bed, Jak. You know that, one day, when — and I pray to all the gods it is a long and distant day — my father dies I shall be called on to fight for what is mine. You know that. The law upholds. But a man must uphold himself as well as the law. I have been trained as a fighting man, and much I detested it at the time.”

I had heard how he had always been running off to the libraries as a young lad, and how he had taken up the axe as a kind of reproach to those who taught him.

The conversation at my nudging came around to his axe and he repeated what the slaves had said. He preferred the knowledge that came from books; but he had become an accomplished axeman as though to proclaim his independence from that emblem of many things, the sword. I thought I understood.

There was in this young prince an inner fire I found engaging. His diffident manner, so noticeable when in the company of his father, had all fallen away under the tutelage of the horrors of the Moder. He gave his orders with a snap; yet one was fully alive to his own estimation of himself and what he was doing, as though he saw himself acting a part on a stage of his imagination.

Our conversation wended along most comfortably, and Quienyin joined us to debate again what we had discovered and our chances of the morrow. Our voices were low-toned. And we all kept a sharp lookout.

“We must seek to move from one point of vantage to another,” I said. “If we get our backs against good cover we can deal with the swarth folk. Once one of them is dismounted we will see what his mettle is on his own two feet.”

“Yes,” nodded Quienyin. “I fancied they did have only two legs apiece. Although, of course, you cannot be sure.”

“Quite.”

“I couldn’t make out what kind of diff they were,” said Tyfar. “There was something of the Chulik about them—”

“No tusks, though,” said Quienyin.

“No tusks. But something about the jut of the head.”

“We shall find out when the suns are up,” I said, and that tended to end the conversation for a space.

The Moders rose from the rubbly plain something like a dwabur apart. Walking those five miles gave us an itchy feeling up the spine, traipsing as we were across relatively open ground. The trouble was, that open ground was probably safer than the areas in the immediate vicinity of the artificial mountains, the Moders, the tombs of the ancient dead and their treasurers and magics.

The rosy shadows of the next Moder enfolded us, and Hunch, for one, let go with a sigh of relief.

“Still!”

Modo’s piercing voice reached us, thrown so as to tell us the position and not to reach to the danger he had spotted ahead. We stopped stock-still. A few scrubby thorn bushes threw splotchy shadows from the Twins. In this dappled shade we stood and watched the file of Nierdriks pad past.

They looked like ghostly silhouettes, animated dark dolls against the radiance of the moons. Silently they padded past, one after the other. They were walking. I, for one, was content to let them go. Had they been riding, now, straddling any of the magnificent assortment of Kregan riding animals — why, then, I do not think my companions would have let them go...

When the last had gone, vanishing into the shadows of the Moder, we resumed our progress.

And we kept even more alert, staring about even more vigilantly.

Quienyin kept up with us, struggling along without a murmur.

“Prince,” I whispered quietly so that the Wizard of Loh would not overhear. “I think we must rest for a moment or two—”

“Rest, Jak? I thought the plan was to march as far as we might in the light of the moons and rest in the heat of the suns.”

He saw my gaze fixed on Quienyin, who had not turned to stare back at us but was doggedly ploughing on over the rubbly surface.

“Ah — yes, of course. It is thoughtless of me.”

Tyfar hurried ahead and checked the Pachaks in the vanguard.

We all rested, although of us all only Quienyin needed the break.

Again I pondered on Prince Tyfar. Many a haughty prince would simply have gone on, ignoring anyone else’s discomfort. That Quienyin was a Wizard of Loh was now known to my companions; but that had not caused Tyfar to call a brief halt.

We discussed the fate of our dead fellows of the expedition, and we expressed ourselves as confident that the survivors had escaped. We had seen them emerging into the sunshine before we had been trapped within the Moder, and Tyfar, it was clear, could not countenance any thoughts that his father and sister had not escaped to safety.

“And, Jak, do not forget. Lobur the Dagger was there and he is mighty tender of my sister Thefi.”

“As is Kov Thrangulf.”

“Oh, yes, Kov Thrangulf.”

That pretty little triangle had its explosion due, all in Zair’s good time.

When we set off again Quienyin unprotestingly marched stoutly with us. Dawn was not far off. The sweet smell of the air, only faintly tinged with dust, the host of fat stars, the glistering glide of the moons, all held that special pre-dawn hollowness, that waiting silence for the new day.

I began to spy the land with more stringency, seeking a strong place where we might rest. What I needed was precise and as we dipped down into a little groove or runnel in the ground, with thorn-ivy crowned ridges each side, I felt we had come as near as I could hope for. This was not perfect; it was as precise as we would find.

“Here, I think, Tyfar.”

He stared about. I watched his face, wondering if he would suffer a character change now that we were out in the fresh air.

The thorn-ivy, vicious stuff that flays the unwary, clustered thickly on the two ridgeways bordering the runnel. This was the real spiny ivy of Kregen. The Kregish for ivy is hagli. If we kept low we would be out of sight of a rider approaching at right angles. We chose a kink in the runnel so we could arrange one avenue only to watch. The clumped bushes shone a lustrous green and the thorns prickled like an army of miniature spearmen.

“You think so, Jak?” Tyfar looked uncertain.

The three principals stood together. The other six would not offer their opinions until asked, although the two Pachaks had every right to speak up.

Presently, Tyfar called, “Barkindrar, Nath. We camp here.”

I nodded to myself.

That was the way it ought to be done. Confidence. The two Pachaks said nothing; silently they got on with cutting thorn-ivy and fashioning a form of boma around the open angle of the kink in the runnel. Old campaigners, these two Pachak hyr-paktuns, capital fellows to have along with you in a chancy business.

“I am quite fond of bright-leaved hagli around the door,” said Quienyin. “But this stuff is murderous.”

We hauled the thorn-ivy around, using sticks and weapons and not touching the stuff, and so fashioned the boma. I spied the land in the first flush of light. Jumping out, I walked a way off, turned to check the look of our hide.

It looked innocent enough.

Going back along the runnel I felt a burst of confidence.

We could hole up there all day and never be spotted unless some damned rider fell on top of us.

If that was what was in Tyfar’s mind, it most certainly was not in mine.

Hunch was in no doubt.

“We can hole up here all day,” he said to Nodgen. “We’ve water to last us and we can march on to the next stream tonight.” He yawned. “I think I shall sleep all day.”

“The dawn wind will blow our tracks away,” said Nodgen. “But you’ll stand your watch like the rest of us, you skulking Tryfant.”

“At least I don’t always need a shave—”

“Quiet, you two,” I said.

They froze.

“All of you — still!”

As the light brightened with the rising of the red sun, Zim, and the green sun, Genodras, and the shadows fleeted across the sere land, specks drifted high against the radiance. We squinted our eyes. Yes — Flutsmen. They were flutsmen up there, sky flyers sweeping across the land on the lookout for prey. True mercenaries of the skies, the flutsmen serve for pay in various armies; but they mostly enjoy reiving on their own account. And no man is safe from them.

We remained perfectly still.

High and menacing, the wings of their flyers lifting and falling in rhythm, the flutsmen circled twice, rising and falling, and then lined out and headed north.

“May the leather of their clerketers rot so they fall off and break their evil necks,” said Hunch. He shut his eyes tightly. “Have they gone?”

“They’ve gone, you fambly — you can stop shaking.”

“The trouble is,” said Hunch the Tryfant, opening his eyes and looking serious. “I couldn’t run away then, and you know how it upsets me not to have a clear run.”

There spoke your true Tryfant. But Hunch had proved a good comrade, despite his avowed intention of running off if the going got too tough.

We composed ourselves for the day. I positioned myself so that my head was just under the lowest prickly branch of a thorn-ivy bush, where I had to be careful. The view afforded lowered down — the dusty surface, ocher and dun, blowing a little with the dawn wind, and the prospects of the Moders, massive artificial mounds that gave the Humped Land its name of Moderdrin, spotting the landscape for as far as I could see. Slowly, the Suns of Scorpio crawled across the heavens. And we waited and sweated.

The first sign came, as so often, in a patch of lifting dust.

I narrowed my eyes against the glare. The dust plumed white streamers and grew closer. A body of men rode out there. Logu Fre-Da, who was on watch, called down gently, “Swarths.”

We remained still. The dust neared.

Dark shapes, fragmentary, appearing and disappearing, thickened beneath the dust. We waited.

“How many, Logu?”

An appreciable pause ensued before he replied.

“At least a dozen, notor — perhaps as many as twenty.”

“They will ride nearer.”

“Yes.”

Perhaps twenty — twenty of those hard dark riders who had hounded our caravan toward one particular Moder. Their swarths, agile, scaled risslacas with wedged-shaped heads, fanged, terrible, would carry them in a thumping rash if they spotted us. They would have no mercy, seeing we were not an expedition but merely victims for their sport — or so it was easy to believe.

For very many of the mysterious races of Kregen that is just how it is, no matter that there are many splendid races on Kregen who regard that kind of bestial behavior with abhorrence. There was no mistake with this little lot. If they spotted us they’d seek to have sport with us before they slew us.

“Not a squeak out of you,” said Prince Tyfar. “Or you’ll be down among the Ice Floes of Sicce before you’ve finished yammering.”

Not one of these men crouching with noses in the dust would make so much as a bleat. Now we could hear the soft shurr and stomp of the swarths. From their angle of approach they were making for the nearest Moder. They would pass within three hundred paces of our little thorn boma. They’d never see us. Not from where they would pass, avoiding the line of thorn-ivy. All we had to do was remain perfectly still and silent and we’d be safe.

Gently, making no fuss over it, I stood up.

I climbed out past the edge of the thorn-ivy.

“Jak!” screeched Tyfar. I heard the others cursing.

I walked a few paces forward, toward the swarth riders. I lifted my arms high. I shouted.

“Hai! Rasts! Over here! You zigging bunch of cramphs — what are you waiting for?”

Chapter two

Of the Testing of a Wizard of Loh

Hunch’s agonized wail floated up at my back.

“He’s mad! Oh, may the good Tryflor save me now!”

The ground felt hard and rocky underfoot. The air tasted sweet. The brightness of the day fell about me.

“Hai! Rasts of the dunghill! Why do you tarry?”

Sharp-edged, brittle, black against the radiance, the swarth riders crowded forward. They saw me, standing clear of the thorn boma. I stood alone. The runnel led directly toward me. The vicious heads of the swarths jerked around, dragged by reins in equally vicious fists.

White dust drifted away downwind. The smell of tiny violet flowers crowning spiky bushes, shyly hiding in crevices along the crumbly sides of the runnel, reached me. The suns shone, the wind blew, the flowers blossomed — and I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, challenged this glorious world of Kregen to do what it could against me...

As Hunch the Tryfant had said, shocked, I must be mad. Well, he was not above four foot six tall, and a Tryfant, and so there were excuses for him. I took a step forward, seeking a secure purchase for my gripping toes, and I drew forth the Lohvian longbow.

The saddle dinosaurs were coated in that white dust, but as they moved and jostled the sheen of their purply-green scales glittered against the thorn-ivy. They began to move, urged on by the riders perched on their backs. All those long, thin lances descended from the vertical, slotting into the horizontal, and lethal steel point was aimed for my heart.

Four abreast — that was all the runnel would allow. There was some jostling and cavorting for positions. Each swarth-man was determined to be in the front rank of four, knowing that those following on would have only tattered rags and blood to take as an aiming point.

I banished my comrades from my mind.

Now the Lohvian longbow mattered — the great longbow was the only thing that mattered, that and the shafts fletched with the blue feathers of the king korf of Erthyrdrin. The longbow I had found in the crystal cave that provided what I lacked and its arrows fletched with the rose-red feathers of the zim korf of Valka had vanished with all the other phantasmal artifacts of the Moder. This longbow, these shafts, came from the Mausoleum of the Flame, and they were real.

The bow drew sweetly. The first shaft sped. The second was in the air, and the third was loosed before the first struck. The fourth followed instantly.

Four honed steel bodkins drove in to a cruel depth.

The shrieks and the bedlam, the racket of crashing swarths and hurtling riders, might sound sweetly, but there was no time to contemplate them. Two more shafts sped and then I was up and through the little gap in the thorn-ivy we had made dragging bushes down for the boma. Out on the lip of the runnel I could flank those harsh riders. More shafts arched.

The dust swirled. The uproar boiled. Now Nath the Shaft, using his composite bow, joined in. Barkindrar the Bullet swung and hurled.

The dust obscured much of the tangle.

We shot into the mess.

Three swarths cleared the obstacles to their front. They raged down the runnel, heads outstretched, scales glittering between the dust streaks. The lances reached forward. The riders, heads bent in metallic helmets, short cloaks flaring, bellowed down the slot.

One I took. One Nath took. One Barkindrar took.

Nodgen was up and leaping about, waving his spear.

“Leave some for me!”

The two Pachaks were running forward, their tail hands stiff above their heads, the daggered steel brilliant.

“They run!” yelled Tyfar, beside himself, running on with his axe poised.

Four swarths galloped madly away; and one carried a dead rider lolling from the saddle, one sped with empty saddle, and the other two were being urged on with whip and spur.

These two last were shot out by Tyfar’s retainers. I had thrown down the Lohvian longbow which had served so well and, ripping out the thraxter, the straight cut and thrust sword of Havilfar, leaped headlong into the dust.

It was all a bedlam of heaving scaled bodies and wicked fangs and lashing blades. Some of the Chulik-like riders attempted to claw their weapons free. They could be given no chance to fight back, of course, and we set on them with a will. We had seen what they had accomplished, and we did not wish to suffer a like fate. The fight was quick and deadly. The thraxter slimed and lifted, struck and thrust, withdrew with more ominous streaks along the dulled blade.

Tyfar fought with a wild panache, his axe blurring in short lethal strokes. The two Pachaks fought as Pachaks fight. And Nodgen’s thick spear thrust with all the power of his bristle body.

And — there was Hunch, his bill cunningly slanted, cutting the legs away from the riders who attempted to smite down on him. Yes, Tryfants will put in a wild, brave, skirling charge, magnificent in attack. It is the retreat, in the withdrawal, when doubts arise, that Tryfants rout so easily.

The suddenness of the attack, the ambush that had shot them into pieces, and then the headlong rush of fighting men undid these swarthmen. None escaped. Modo Fre-Da, curling his tail cunningly out of the way, leaped astride a swarth. He seized up the reins and jammed in his heels. The animal shot ahead. Furiously, the Pachak hyr-paktun galloped after the dead rider lolling in the saddle of his fleeing swarth.

We others gathered up the reins of the surviving animals, quieting them in the dust and turmoil, sorting them out and calming them. No one was bitten, which was a thankfulness.

The saddle dinosaurs were middling-quality mounts, with two among their number of superior breed. These two had the thickened scale plating over their eyes, which were fierce and arrogant, and their tails were triple-barbed. Once you know how to handle a swarth, he is a tractable enough mount. Mind you, I would take a zorca or a vove any day of the week.

“Did you see—”

And: “That fellow bit on the shaft!”

And: “He went over backward and his head—”

We looked at the corpses of the swarth riders.

“Muzzards,” said Quienyin, walking up and standing, his head on one side to balance his turban before he pushed it straight. “Ugly customers. There are a lot of them down south in the Dawn Lands.”

They did look a little like Chuliks, at that. They did not have the oily yellow skin of the upthrust tusks, but their build and thickness and stance — when they were alive — suggested the Chulik morphology to our eyes.

Their skins carried a leaden hue, which had not been caused by death, and they exuded a musky stink I, for one, found unpleasant. Modo returned with the dead warrior still lolling in the saddle, and so we nine stood, looking down on the dead. The living animals clustered farther along the runnel and began tentatively to rip off the thorn-ivy, munching it up quite oblivious of the thorns. Tough, your Kregan swarth — although their trick is simply to twist their fanged mouths around to get the thorns in sideways and then get their masticating dentures at the sharp spines.

This, as I saw it, was just another example of that peculiarly Kregan marriage of convenience between conflicting demands. The omnivorous animal comes equipped with two sets of implements. At the time I was still, despite my conversations with a Savapim, unsure if these Kregan eccentricities were part of natural evolution — either on Kregen or some other world — or if they were the result of artificial interference with nature’s handiwork.

“Cut-price, unsophisticated Chuliks,” said Logu Fre-Da, nodding to his brother. “These Muzzards.”

“They bear harness and weapons, brother.”

“Aye, brother.”

The Pachaks were mercenaries. I, too, have been a paktun in my time. We were not long in stripping harness and weapons and collecting the loot in a pile. The bodies we left for the carrion-eaters of the Humped Land to dispose of, in nature’s way. I know I did, and I am sure some of the others must have also, said a short prayer to Zair for the well-being of these lost souls in the Ice Floes of Sicce.

Then we crawled into the shade beyond the boma and contemplated the pile of harnesses and weapons.

“Which, Jak,” said Tyfar, “reminds me you never did change your scarlet breechclout.”

“Why, no,” I said. “But we were rather — busy.”

“Yes.”

“I shall keep it, as I am sure there is nothing hygienic on these Muzzards. But I admit I am not averse to a stout coat of leather, studded with bronze. And a helmet, too, although—” and here I picked one up and turned it on my hand— “they are poor specimens, of iron bands and leather filling.”

“They put the wind up me, I can tell you.”

“Is that all they put up you, Hunch?” Nodgen guffawed. “Then you’re lucky.”

Because the two Pachaks were hyr-paktuns, wearing the golden pakzhan at their throats, I knew they would be able to handle the long lances from swarthback. I said to Hunch, “Can you manipulate a lance? Or would it be a waste for you?”

“A waste, notor,” he said at once, without preamble. “I like a long-staved weapon; but these are ill-balanced, as I judge.”

And, by Vox, he was right.

“Let me cut an arm’s length off the end,” said Nodgen. “Then I’ll have a capital long-spear.”

“Each man to his own needs,” I said, and looked at Tyfar. “Prince?”

He smiled.

“I will stay true to my axe.”

In the saddlebags we found comestibles of a hardtack kind, such as a warrior would carry. There was also wine in leather bottles. Tyfar and I exchanged glances.

“Water for now,” I said. “I’ll answer for Nodgen and Hunch.”

“And I for Barkindrar and Nath.”

Quienyin said, “The brothers Fre-Da will, I think, answer for themselves, as is right and proper.”

The Pachaks lifted their tail hands in acknowledgment.

“When the suns are over the yard arm,” I said, although in the Kregish it was not what I said at all. We lay back, munching hardtack, sipping water sparingly, and every now and then a white gleam in Hunch’s face told of his roving eyeballs gazing fondly on the wine skins.

Truly, Moderdrin is an amazing and forbidding place. The mountains stud the plain with their humps, crowned by jumbles of towers and domes and walls, smothered in vegetation, with tumbling waterfalls and bosky avenues in which, as we knew, were to be found savage denizens.

But, those denizens were nowise as monstrous as the horrors within the artificial mountains.

We dozed and kept watch, and the water remained stoppered in the bottles. Prince Tyfar showed signs of wishing to protest, after the first sips had ceased to refresh him.

“Prince,” I said, and I spoke evenly, “if you drink now you will simply sweat the precious liquid away, wasting it. Wait until the worst of the heat goes.”

“But my mouth is afire—”

“Suck a pebble.” I nodded at the Pachaks. The cheeks on each hardy Pachak face bulged.

He did as I bid; and he had the sense to see the sense in it. I felt he was a young man, prince or no, who grasped the uses of sense in a way that would be approved, at least, by men who thought as I did. For your full-bloodied, rambunctious hell-for-leather rampant princeling, Prince Tyfar was altogether too much of an intellectual — and a superb axeman, withal.

He had gone raging into the Muzzards. There was no dilly-dallying there. I fancied he was more of a proper prince than most of that ilk in Hamal.

Three times during that day we spotted flights of flutsmen, and we stayed close. The swarths were lying down and dozing against the heat, shivering their scaly tails every now and then. We were not observed by those sky reivers.

That night we drank sparingly, mounted up on nine of the animals, and led the remaining six bundled up with all we thought necessary to take. The ground scavengers had been at work on the corpses, but our presence had deterred the warvols from swooping down on rustling wings to join in the devouring. By morning there would be left only bones.

At my insistence, Tyfar and Quienyin rode the two superior swarths. Tyfar, I noticed, just took the best one without even thinking about it. Quienyin looked across at me, and it was then I insisted he take the beast.

So, mounted up, not quite as thirsty as we had been, we set off again across the Humped Land, the Land of the Fifth Note. The strong probability was that the Moder Lords organized these Muzzard swarth riders, and agreed among themselves which mound the arriving expeditions of gold-and magic-hungry adventurers should be directed into. Well, the wizards had their fun running poor crazed folk through their tombs, torturing them and extracting the last jot of enjoyment from their anguish. As for the magic items we had taken, they had been expended in our troubled ascent to the surface and escape. There would be no spells of paralysis, no more burning drops, no more tail-shrivelers for us now. Now we must rely on steel and muscle to see us through.

That night passed and toward dawn we ventured to close one of the mounds where we filled the bottles at a stream and set up, stalked, and slew our supper. Everyone cheered up.

“If it means steering out of here from Moder to Moder—”

“Aye, Jak!” said Tyfar. He beamed. “We will be back into the grasslands in no time. And then we will hear word of my father and sister, I am sure.”

I looked at the Wizard of Loh, who sat by the fire munching a leg of one of the birds brought down by Barkindrar the Bullet.

Again we had chosen a strong place for our camp, beneath a rocky outcrop where the fire was shielded by cut branches of thorn-ivy. The swarths rested after their exertions of the night, and I fancied they were well content that their new masters rode them at night and rested them by day here.

“I feel sure you are right, Tyfar. We follow their tracks, I believe, although the wind wipes them out smartly enough.”

“Once I am back in Hamal — once we are both there, Jak — you do not forget my invitation to a bladesman’s night out in the Sacred Quarter?”

“I do not. I anticipate it with relish.”

By Vox! Did I not!

What, I wondered, would he say if I said, quite casually, “Oh, and, Prince Tyfar of Hamal, by the way, I am Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia, the chief of your country’s sworn enemies?”

That, I felt, would repay in the glory of his face much discomfort.

But, of course, he would not believe me.

How could he?

He would think I jested with him, and in damned poor taste, into the bargain.

He knew nothing of me, save what I had told him, and that was going to have to be altered, soon. He would ask what on Kregen the Emperor of Vallia, the great rast, was doing down here in the Dawn Lands of Havilfar. That was, by Vox, a good question. Tyfar knew nothing of the Star Lords and their engaging habit of putting me into situations of peril in order to affect the future course of the world.

Well, I had done the Star Lords’ bidding here and was now free to return home to Vallia. I longed to get back, to see Delia again and my comrades and what of my family deigned to show up when their grizzly old graint of a father returned from one of his wild jaunts over the world. There was so much still to be done in Vallia it defied all common-sense evaluation. The island was split by war and factions; the people had called on me, had fetched me to be their emperor, and I was in duty bound to honor that trust and that demand. The island would be united and healed. Then I would hand it all over to my fine son Drak, and with a thankful sigh shake the reins of empire from my sticky hands.

And, make no mistake, this was what I intended to do.

All the same, Drak was in Vallia now, and I had many outstanding councilors and generals. I could leave the country to get on well enough without me for a space.

For — I had other fish to fry.

Down here in the Dawn Lands I was not too far away from Migladrin, from Herrelldrin, from Djanduin. Also, in the opposite direction lay Hyrklana. In all these lands I had business.

“Jak!”

I did not jump. I realized I had been sitting brooding on the Wizard of Loh.

“By the Seven Arcades, Jak! You were far gone in your thoughts — I did not pry,” he added, quickly. I did not wish to understand just what he meant, although the gist was plain enough. I did not smile; but I was aware of an easing in the graven lines on my craggy old beakhead of a face.

“Yes, Quienyin, I was thinking. Prince Tyfar would like news of his family and friends, and I do not doubt the others of us nine would, also.”

“And you?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, half to himself.

“You miss Hyrklana, Jak?”

Before I could open my mouth — for thus suddenly had come up the change in the story of myself that Prince Tyfar of Hamal must know — the prince spoke.

“Hyrklana? That nest of pirates? What has that to do with you, Jak of Djanduin?”

I sighed. There, displayed before me, was the reckoning for the sin of lying about one’s origins and playing at cloak and dagger for the fun of it. I had told Quienyin I hailed from Hyrklana, that large and independent island kingdom off the east coast of the continent of Havilfar, and I had told Tyfar I came from Djanduin, the remote, massive peninsula in the far south and west of the continent.

And, as you know, I had not lied in saying I was from Djanduin. I never forget I am King of Djanduin.

Usually, it is not particularly helpful in maintaining a good cloak and dagger cover to say you come from a country you know nothing of and have never visited.

Dressed up in a disguise and wearing a gray mask, I had successfully convinced Lobur the Dagger, one of Tyfar’s father’s retinue, that I was of Hamal. Other priorities had supervened in my description of my place of origin, and I felt it high time I sorted out the tangle.

Looking about as the suns smote down, shedding their streaming mingled lights, I sighed. How we practice to deceive and then come a cropper in the nets of our own weaving!

“Well, Jak?” Tyfar, your proper prince, was a trifle tart. “Are you from Djanduin? Or Hyrklana?”

“Would it make any difference, Tyfar?”

He waved a hand. “No. I think we have been through enough together by now — I think I know you — I thought I knew you. But Hyrklana. You know what they think of the Hamalese there.”

“I do. I have visited Hyrklana and I have unfinished business there.”

“But,” interposed Quienyin. “You are not Hyrklanian?”

“No.”

“So you are from Djanduin?”

I could have left it there. Djan knew, I was well enough cognizant of all Djanduin to claim it completely as my country. As long I had fought for that beautiful land against her enemies and won.

“I have land in Djanduin,” I said. “I love the place — it is unspoiled so far.”

“So you are a notor of Djanduin, as we believe?”

“Yes.”

Tyfar was continuing to stare at me. “You know that because of the war waged by the Empress Thyllis, Hamal is not much cared for in many lands of Havilfar. This is simple knowledge. Perhaps you are from a land that has been invaded by Hamal. Perhaps, Jak my friend, you conceive yourself as an enemy to me?”

I had waited on his last words in some trepidation. But I was able to relax. He had said, “enemy to me.” Had he said, “enemy to my country” my reply must, in all honor, have been different.

The trouble was, Tyfar was quite right. Mad Empress Thyllis had alienated just about every country within reach of her iron legions.

And, also, I had the feeling, substantiated only by intuition and a few scraps of idle converse, that Tyfar’s father, Prince Nedfar, was both not happy with Thyllis and not in her good books. And I had suggested to Lobur the Dagger that I worked secretly for Empress Thyllis. I squared my shoulders.

“I cannot tell you, Tyfar, all that I would wish to tell you. Suffice it to say that I know the Sacred Quarter, I can walk it blindfolded, I have ruffled many a night away as a bladesman. I have wide estates in the country — well, not so much wide as passing fair and rich — and I work for the good of the country.”

That was true.

He was surprised.

“You are Hamalese?”

I have estates in Hamal. I am called there Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley. But I was not Hamalese. If anything, I was Vallian, not being born on Kregen.

These things I could not tell Tyfar — or Quienyin.

“I work for the good of Hamal,” I said. Again, I spoke the truth, even though, perhaps, Vallia would have to put down the worst excrescences of Hamal, chief of whom was the Empress Thyllis. “I deplore what the empire is doing to neutral countries—”

“So do I, by Krun!”

That declaration, by a prince whose father was second cousin to the empress, really was nailing his colors to the mast.

I managed a smile.

“Then we see eye to eye in that, Tyfar. Do not press me further. Only remember: what I do I do for the good of Hamal and for all of Paz. For the eventual good.”

“And you will not confide in me?”

“Not will not.”

He frowned and then banished the scowl and replaced it with a smile, uncertain, but a smile nonetheless. “I — see.”

And Deb-Lu-Quienyin, that puissant Wizard of Loh, sat looking at me, and he had stopped gnawing on his bone.

“Hyrklana, Djanduin, or Hamal,” he said briskly, waving the bone, “it does not matter, not to me. I have gone through so much with Notor Jak that if he came from some hellhole in Queltar — where no man should have to exist — by the Seven Arcades, he is a man and a friend—”

“Well said, San.” Tyfar stood up. Now he did smile. “I see you are about secret business, Jak. Well and good. That is your affair and none of mine. You have given me your word that you work for Hamal. I, too, work for Hamal, as does my father. I trust we do not work in opposition.”

I shook my head. “Now, now, Prince. You will not worm it out of me like that!”

He laughed. Some princes I knew would have called on their retainers to spit me there and then.

So, because I did not wish to drop into a maudlin scene, I took up the thought that had been in my mind when this scene began.

“We would all like to know that our families and friends are safe.” I addressed myself to Quienyin directly. “You know what I talk about, San. It is nothing new. But we have no rights to your kharrna, no claims—”

“Come now, Jak — do not belittle what we nine mean one to the other!”

I nodded. “So be it. If you go into lupu you can tell us what is happening far off. I think Tyfar would more than welcome news that his father and sister are safely out of this desolate place.”

We all sat, still and silent, looking at the Wizard of Loh.

He stared at me. I could guess what he was thinking. He had sustained a nasty accident and had lost his powers and now he had recovered them, or most of them, in the lowest zone of the Moder. He had explained that the Wizard of the Moder had no real conceptualization of what awful powers he had locked up in the lowest zone. An ordinary wizard, one Yagno, a sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis, mightily puffed up with pomp and pride in his own prowess, had ventured down into the lowest zone and had never returned. This was not so much a useful gift to us in telling us what we wanted to know. This was much more the testing moment for Quienyin himself.

And he saw that very clearly.

How strange, thus to read the riddle of a Wizard of Loh!

They are rightly feared and respected; but they are mortal, human men, and many a mighty warlord and king has his own Wizard of Loh to serve him as he sees fit. My own Wizard of Loh — although it is foolish, really, to call any Wizard of Loh as a normal retainer — had been sent back to Loh. No man unless he has other powers will willingly cross a Wizard of Loh. They are rumored to be able to do terrible things. And, in Zair’s truth, I have seen wondrous deeds. And, here we were, calmly realizing that a Wizard of Loh was on trial with himself.

What other proof could be required to show how our experiences had made of us nine a special band of brothers?

Speaking with all that old bumbling hesitancy completely banished, Quienyin said, “Very well.”

Very carefully, he made his preparations.

Some Wizards of Loh I have known were able to go into lupu very quickly, with a minimum of fuss, and so send a spying eye out to reveal what transpired at a distance. Others go through a rigmarole of mental agility, physical activity, and magical mumbo jumbo to achieve the same result.

Deb-Lu Quienyin was, as it were, starting from scratch. He was like a novice wizard, seeking to insert his mind along the planes of arcane knowledge. Very sensibly, he went back to basics and set about going into lupu with all the trappings that thaumaturgical art form required.

Equally, just as Tyfar’s attitude to us had been tempered from princely choler by our mutual experiences and new-found comradeship, so Quienyin’s wizardly contempt for ordinary mortals had been modified. We watched him in no sense of judgment whatsoever; rather we actively sympathized with him and wished him well and in however minor a way sought to partake of his struggle. But, when all is said and done, the ways of Wizards of Loh of Kregen are passing strange...

We could only sit and stare.

Deb-Lu-Quienyin composed himself. He sat cross-legged, his head thrown back, and his eyes covered by his hands. I noticed how the veins crawled on the backs of his hands; yet his hands were plump and full-fleshed. He remained perfectly still, silent and unmoving.

Respecting Quienyin’s preliminary insertion of his kharrna into unspecified but occult dimensions, we also sat still.

Quienyin began to tremble.

His whole plump body shook. His shoulders moved. He brought his hands down slowly from his face. His eyeballs were rolled up, and the whites of his eyes glared out in a sightless blasphemy of a gargoyle head. Hunch choked back in his throat. We sat, enthralled, knowing how Quienyin battled himself as he sought to hurl his kharrna through realms unguessed of by ordinary men.

Breathing almost at a standstill, Quienyin appeared to gather himself, as a zorca gathers himself at an obstacle. With a wavering cry he rose slowly to his feet. His arms lifted, rising out from his sides, lifting to the horizontal. His fingers were stiffly outthrust. Gently at first, and then faster and faster, he revolved, whirling about, his arms razoring the air.

As always, my mind conjured the vivid impression of a whirling Dervish, a maniac cyclone, a hurricane-whirled scarecrow.

Abruptly, Quienyin ceased to whorl about so madly. He sank to the ground and resumed that calm pose of contemplation. Both his hands rested flat on the ground.

And then he looked up at us and was ready to answer our questions.

Rather, he was ready to speak to Prince Tyfar.

What the Wizard of Loh had to say reassured the young prince. Had it not done so, I own, I would have found the subsequent confusion inconvenient.

Yet, even as I relate these events, I am touched by the weirdness of it all. Here Quienyin sat, and he was aware of and could tell us of events transpiring dwaburs away across the land. Just how far a Wizard of Loh can see in lupu is a matter of serious conjecture. They, for sure, give nothing of their secrets away to the casual inquirer. True, in conversation with Quienyin I had learned much. But, then, that was before he had recovered his powers. I wondered, as he spoke to Tyfar, if he would recall with displeasure what he had said, and seek in some nefarious and occult way to rob me of the knowledge.

“Is it possible, San—?” began Modo Fre-Da.

“May we crave, San—?” began Logu Fre-Da.

Both spoke together.

So Quienyin told them what they wished to know. I listened, for I needed to learn of my comrades, bearing in mind what I half-purported toward them. They asked for their mother, for their father was long dead, having met his end gallantly on an unmarked battlefield. She lived in Dolardansmot, whereaway that was I did not know, and they were very tender toward her. They made inquiry about no other person.

Nodgen and Hunch, Barkindrar and Nath, all received news, good or bad — Barkindrar’s younger brother had died of a fall down a disused well, which depressed him for a space, until he reflected, half aloud, that what the Resplendent Bridzilkelsh ordained must be accepted as one accepts the needle — and they all turned to look at me.

“Well, Jak,” said Quienyin, kindly, although he looked tired, “and where in the world of Kregen shall I seek for your loved ones?”

Chapter three

The Bonds of Comradeship

Before replying, I pulled off the boot taken from a dead Muzzard and chucked it down. The boot was not so much either too tight or too loose as badly fitting; it was well enough for riding, but walking in it and its mate would be agonizing. I wriggled my bare toes. The eight pairs of eyes regarded me expectantly. I scratched under my anklebone.

“Well, Jak? And is there no one in the whole wide world?”

“Without disrespect, San — you are clearly tired. Your exertions have exhausted you.” I pulled off the other boot and wriggled those bare toes in turn. “And, you are quite clearly possessed of very great powers indeed, for you have been able to give us news of our relations, people you have never met or seen. This, I know, is unusual—”

“Yes, Jak. Although I do not think I am fully recovered, I am able to do more in lupu than many Wizards of Loh.”

Deb-Lu-Quienyin spoke simply. There was no boasting here. Also, in the comradeship forged between us nine in the horrors through which we had successfully fought, Quienyin’s own history had been, at least partially, revealed.

“Come on, Jak,” spoke up Tyfar. “If San Quienyin is willing, then surely you must long to know.”

Interesting how, when the Wizard of Loh displayed his supernatural abilities, we’d all resumed calling him San.

“Or is it that you do not have any blood relatives still alive?”

Again I scratched my foot.

“There is a man whose whereabouts I would like to establish. If I know him aright he will be tossing people about like split logs. He is a Khamster, A Khamorro, a high Kham. No doubt he will be in Herrelldrin now.”

“And he cannot then be any kin to you.”

“No. A good comrade. As we are down—”

And then I hauled myself up, all canvas flapping. By Krun! I’d been about to say, “down here in Havilfar,” which was a perfectly logical thought to a Vallian, or anyone from the northern hemisphere of Kregen. But if I claimed Hamal, which was the most powerful empire in Havilfar, the southern continent, I’d hardly talk about being “down here.” So I scratched my foot again and reached over for a small piece of meat clinging to a leaf platter, and said, “down not too far it will be convenient for me to go to Herrelldrin and seek him out. If he is there. If you can scan him, San.”

“No blood relation?”

“No.”

He sat quite still for a moment, looking on me. He had put his ridiculous turban aside after the last items of news had been passed on in lupu, and his red Lohvian hair stuck out like the feathers of the rooster with the wind up his tail. His old face had lost many of the lines and wrinkles, and had filled out, and his clear and piercing eyes looked astonishingly young. And I felt he was looking at me as though I were a glass of crystal-clear water.

Sink me! I burst out to myself. I had too much at stake in Kregen to allow a tithe of my secrets to be spilled here, even despite the special comradeship we nine felt.

“No blood relation, this fearsome Khamorro. I suggest you sleep now, Quienyin, and then we can talk on this matter later.”

“You are very desirous of finding this man?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will sleep for a space. Wake me at the hour of mid, when the suns burn in the zenith. I may be able... Well, no matter, Jak the Sturr. I did you a pleasant repose.”

And with that Deb-Lu-Quienyin rolled over onto his side on the spread cloths and seemed immediately to fall into a deep slumber. I chewed my morsel of meat and gazed at the Wizard of Loh. I did not mind if he read some of my riddles. And the six retainers, also, were men amenable to reason of one kind or another. But Prince Tyfar, this brave, bright, bonny princeling of Hamal, my country’s bitter enemy? What would he say, what do? No. I must continue with my deceptions. And, by Krun, they were not petty deceptions, either!

Tyfar shook his head, smiling.

“I am mightily glad my father and sister are safe. I thank Havil the Green for that. The news for you will be as good, Jak — and did you notice the sudden formality of Deb-Lu-Quienyin? He called you Jak the Sturr, which you claim is your name.”

“And, Tyfar, I notice you do not give a warm thanks to Havil the Green. Mayhap, Krun of the Steel Blade merits a greater gratitude?”

We trod thin ice here.

He eyed me.

“Aye, Jak the Sturr. Aye.”

“So be it.”

Havil the Green presided as the chief god of many lands of Havilfar. He had, in the past, represented to me all that was evil and to be destroyed. I was over those impulses now, and could even come out with a good rolling Hamalian prayer or two addressed to Havil the Green. All the same, fighting men tend toward Krun... as must be clear from the conversations peppered with his name.

“And also, Jak, the Sturr — I do not think your name can be Sturr. It does not fit.”

I lifted an eyebrow. Sturr is the slang name given to a louche fellow, a morose, silent, boorish kind of chap who is all left feet and ten thumbs. “No? I thought it suited me.”

“The Lady Ariane nal Amklana dubbed you Jak the Unsturr.”

“She — let us not talk of her.”

“Willingly.”

The Lady Ariane nal Amklana, of Hyrklana, had not turned out quite as we’d expected during our recent adventures. I had thought Tyfar was inclined to become romantically attached to her. Now I knew he was not. He deserved a far finer mate than Ariane.

“Let us take up the question of your name, Jak.”

“Before that, I will just say that one should not be too hard on Ariane. She was sore pressed. By Krun! But she does have fire—”

“A fire that is inwardly directed only.”

“Let us talk of our plans to get out of here—”

“The Sturr — or the Unsturr?”

I just looked at him. We sat in the grateful shadow and the watch was set and the others were lying back and no doubt reviewing what Quienyin had told them and, an ob would bring a talen, wishing they were out of Moderdrin and safely back with their loved ones. Although — well, there were arguments about that, also...

Once a young man sets his feet on the mercenaries’ path and seeks to become a paktun and then a hyr-paktun, he must banish foolish longings for home. He will return in the fullness of time, bearing his scars and the choicest items of his loot — if he is lucky — and take a wife and settle down and raise more fine young men to go off adventuring across Kregen. But daydreaming of home is weakening. Thanks to Opaz — men are weakened every day doing that!

“Should, Jak, I call you—” said Tyfar. He was half-laughing. “Should I dub you Muzzardjid?”^[1]

“I think not.”

“It is a fairly won name.”

“Maybe. Not for me.”

“I just do not like Sturr. I am a prince and empowered to confer names upon the worthy. You are — although you have not said — I guess, of a middling rank of nobility?”

The name of Hamun ham Farthytu had been conferred upon in all honor; it was not just another alias. And the rank of Amak is at the bottom end of the higher nobility; there is the wide range of the lesser nobility, of course. But caution held me. Even in this, the old harum-scarum, rip-roaring Dray Prescot who would go raging into a fight without an ounce of sense in his head, would have held back. The Amak of Paline Valley was an identity, a real identity, that I did not wish to reveal as yet.

So, leaning back on an elbow, I said, “It is of no matter, Tyfar. What concerns me is the slow progress we make.”

He looked as though he was going to carry on with his thought; but he must have changed his mind, for he contented himself with, “Very well, Jak. But as soon as the time is ripe I shall dub you with a name more fitting. So you have been warned.” He wiped his lips with a cloth and closed his eyes in the heat. “As to our making better progress, I think it still too risky to travel in daylight. But, if we must—”

“Think of Quienyin.”

“I am.”

“Given an opportunity, we can change our mode of travel. But it will be chancy—”

So we talked, low-voiced, and then ceased this prattling and sought the deeper shade and tried to sleep. We had ample water, thanks to the stream from the Moder, and our swarths were cared for. We had food, meat, and fruits. But we all felt the screaming need to get out of this damned place.

Promptly on the hour of mid Quienyin woke up and, reaching for his turban, looked around our little camp. He saw me. He opened his mouth and I spoke quickly, quietly.

“Tyfar is asleep. I would prefer not to awaken him.”

He nodded and then caught his turban and slapped it down, hard. The blue cloth was dusty and cracked, and many of the fake pearls and brilliants had been lost. But it still gave him that aura of omniscience so necessary for the credulous folk.

“Do you wish...?”

“When the suns are gone down a little more.”

“We will see what a Wizard of Loh can do, then.”

“Remember, Quienyin, I do not ask this of you, do not beg or plead. I know nothing of the cost to you; but, I—”

“There is no need to go on. Of course I shall do all I can. Are not we all comrades?”

This was, truly, a most strange way for a feared Wizard of Loh to talk. But, by the insufferable aroma of Makki Grodno’s left armpit — he was right.

“You have never been to Loh, Jak?”

“I paid a fleeing visit to Erthyrdrin, and—”

“Well, they are a strange, fey lot up there, and hardly call themselves Lohvians at all.”

“That is sooth. You have traveled widely?”

“Mainly in this continent of Havilfar. I, I must confess, regard travel as a means of arriving somewhere.”

“As we did in that caravan across the Desolate Wastes?”

“Grim though it was, the time had its pleasant moments.”

“You have been to Hamal?”

“I shall not return to that empire.” His gaze twitched to the sleeping form of Tyfar, and then away. I would have to ask Deb-Lu-Quienyin what had chanced in Hamal. I felt he did not care for the place. “I did make a quick trip to Pandahem; but that was not successful.”

“And Vallia?”

He glanced up at me.

Was there a special note in my voice, a tremor, an inflection, as I spoke the name of the country of which I was emperor? Did he truly see so much more than ordinary mortals?

“Vallia? No, Jak. I have never been there.”

I took a breath. Tyfar slumbered. The others were either asleep, dreaming, or standing watch. I summoned my courage.

“I think, Quienyin, if you visited Vallia you would be received with proper respect. You would like it there.”

“Oh? You speak with — authority — of the empire at war with the empire of Hamal.”

“You remember I asked you about the Wizard of Loh called Phu-Si-Yantong?”

“I do. San Yantong is a most puissant adept — I was sorry to have missed him.”

I jumped, startled. “You mean — he was there — in Jikaida City?”

“I thought so. I am not sure. His kharrna is very powerful, superb, superb. I did not press too hard.”

I swallowed down. By Vox! That devil Phu-Si-Yantong, so near! Yet — could he have been and not struck a blow at me?

“When I asked you of Yantong before you said he was marked for great things. You expressed the hope that he would prosper. You also said nothing about his little difficulty.” I know my old beakhead of a face had grown grim and like a leem’s mask as I spoke, and I could do nothing about that. One cannot always hide emotions behind a placid countenance. I went on and the words ground out like vosk skulls being crushed in the grinders. “Do you still harbor good wishes toward Yantong? Have you learned nothing of him since we spoke?”

He was abruptly intense, concentrated. He looked at me and those lines that had been vanishing on his face deepened and grooved. The force of his power shocked out.

“You speak in a way that could offend a Wizard of Loh, Jak. I will not be offended. But it is necessary that you explain yourself.”

Given the awesome powers of the Wizards of Loh, given their aloofness from the petty concerns of normal men, given that they regard others as, if not inferior beings, then beings without the same necessities of the inner life — what Deb-Lu-Quienyin said to me was perfectly rational.

Any man of Kregen would tremble if a Wizard of Loh spoke to him thus.

“By Hlo-Hli! Jak! Speak!”

“If you seek—”

“No ifs, Jak, by the Seven Arcades!”

“Seek the truth of Yantong. I promise to speak then. Although—” and I glowered down on my comrade, Deb-Lu-Quienyin “—although, my friend, my words will then be unnecessary.”

“You speak now in riddles.” He breathed in and then out, deliberately. This was an exercise in self-control. I waited.

Presently he said, “I will do as you suggest — and only because of our comradeship, which is something precious to me because it is something I could never fully experience as a Wizard of Loh. This is a matter I do not expect you to understand.”

“I do understand something, probably more than you realize. I have had dealings with Wizards of Loh before.”

“Then let me go off a ways and try my newfound kharrna.”

The shadows lay very short now, mere blobs of reddish and greenish discoloration under the thorn-ivy. Everything possessed two shadows. Quienyin and his two shadows went off to crouch down by the rock face. He took up a position which, although I had no idea of its significance, I recognized to be a position of ritual. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable, too.

Four times during the course of the day skeins of flutsmen had sailed over us, high and distant, mere forbidding specks, potent with disaster. They worried me. I looked up now as Quienyin sat so uncomfortably, and up there another wedge of flutsmen winged over. Slotted like nits in a ponsho fleece as we were down here, we were not likely to be espied easily. But the worry remained. The flutsmen were active and I wondered what caused that. Something, of a surety, had stirred them up.

Common sense indicated that I should try to catch some sleep. I did doze off for a few burs. I was awakened by Nath and Barkindrar coming off watch and the two Pachaks going on. I decided not to raise a ruckus over their waking me up; I know I sleep lightly, ready to leap up almost, it seems, before the danger that stalks me would leap for my throat. It is an old sailorman’s trick.

The Shaft and the Bullet were not too sleepy, and were carrying on with great vehemence the argument that had absorbed them during their watch.

“Jikaida! Now you can take your Jikaida and—”

“Now, Barkindrar! What you say against Jikaida can be said against Vajikry. Do not forget that!”

They wrangled on about the merits or otherwise of Jikaida, which is the preeminent board game of Kregen, and of Vajikry, which is of not quite so universal acceptance but which is, as I know to my sore cost, highly baffling and irritating and calculated to arouse the itch in any man or woman. Vajikry takes a special kind of twisted logic, I suppose, to make a good player.

So, with that as a starter, I found myself running an old Jikaida game through my head, move and countermove, and so I closed my eyes and, lo! I was being shaken awake and the shadows were measurably longer. Thus does abused nature force her just demands on the physique.

The hand shaking me, the footstep, the low voice, were all devoid of menace.

I sat up.

“Time to go on watch, Jak — notor.”

I looked at Hunch.

He licked his lips. “You said — you said you would stand a watch, Jak.”

“Aye. I did and I will. And I could wish you and Nodgen did not have to keep up with this notor nonsense.”

Nodgen said, “We have talked about this, Jak. We were all three slave together. You escaped. You have made something of yourself and have manumitted us before Prince Tyfar. But we think you are truly a notor, a great lord.”

“That’s as may be. But your freedom is very real to you, because the word of Tyfar, Prince of Hamal, is worth much.”

“Oh, yes, we will take the bronze tablets. But we still believe you to be a great lord, and therefore we do not mind calling you notor. Only,” and here Hunch screwed his Tryfant face up, “only, sometimes, Jak, it is hard to remember.”

“By the disgusting diseased tripes of Makki Grodno! I do not care. But you will have the outrage of an offended princeling if you forget in his hearing.”

“Aye, that we will.” They both sounded marvelously little alarmed. This special sense of comradeship developed between us, and the terror of the Moder worked on us all, paktun, retainer, escaped slave, wizard, and prince.

And, as though to underline those thoughts, the voice of Deb-Lu-Quienyin, who was privy to Hunch’s and Nodgen’s secret, reached us. He sounded troubled.

“Tyfar would overlook that lapse,” said Quienyin. “Jak, I must speak to you — and at once—”

“Assuredly.” I stood up. Quienyin stood back in the shadows, so that I could not discern his expression. He wore his turban. A fierce bellow cut the air from the thorn-ivy.

“Vakkas! Riders heading for us!”

I spun to look. Tyfar was sinking down behind the thorns and the others were flattening out, steel in their fists.

Beyond them, across the flat and clear in the slanting rays of the suns, a party of riders broke from a clump of twisty trunks, the crinkly leaves down-drooping and unmoving in the breathless air.

The men rode totrixes, zorcas, hirvels. There was not a swarth among them. They rode hard, lashing their beasts on, and the dust rose in a flat smear behind them, hanging betrayingly in a long yellow-white streak. I looked up. Up there the flutsmen curved down, the wings of their flyers wide and stiff, and the glint and wink of weapons glittered a stark promise of destruction over the doomed party of riders below.

That's the end of the sampler. We hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to find out what happens next, you can buy the complete Mushroom eBook edition from the usual online bookshops or through www.mushroom-ebooks.com.

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About the author

Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.

Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer’s works were published along with the works of other authors under "house names" (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.

Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series.

More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at
www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.

The Dray Prescot Series

The Delian Cycle:

1. Transit to Scorpio

2. The Suns of Scorpio

3. Warrior of Scorpio

4. Swordships of Scorpio

5. Prince of Scorpio

Havilfar Cycle:

6. Manhounds of Antares

7. Arena of Antares

8. Fliers of Antares

9. Bladesman of Antares

10. Avenger of Antares

11. Armada of Antares

The Krozair Cycle:

12. The Tides of Kregen

13. Renegade of Kregen

14. Krozair of Kregen

Vallian cycle:

15. Secret Scorpio

16. Savage Scorpio

17. Captive Scorpio

18. Golden Scorpio

Jikaida cycle:

19. A Life for Kregen

20. A Sword for Kregen

21. A Fortune for Kregen

22. A Victory for Kregen

Spikatur cycle:

23. Beasts of Antares

24. Rebel of Antares

25. Legions of Antares

26. Allies of Antares

Pandahem cycle:

27. Mazes of Scorpio

28. Delia of Vallia

29. Fires of Scorpio

30. Talons of Scorpio

31. Masks of Scorpio

32. Seg the Bowman

Witch War cycle:

33. Werewolves of Kregen

34. Witches of Kregen

35. Storm over Vallia

36. Omens of Kregen

37. Warlord of Antares

Lohvian cycle:

38. Scorpio Reborn

39. Scorpio Assassin

40. Scorpio Invasion

41. Scorpio Ablaze

42. Scorpio Drums

43. Scorpio Triumph

Balintol cycle:

44. Intrigue of Antares

45. Gangs of Antares

46. Demons of Antares

47. Scourge of Antares

48. Challenge of Antares

49. Wrath of Antares

50. Shadows over Kregen

Phantom cycle:

51. Murder on Kregen

52. Turmoil on Kregen

More info about "A Victory for Kregen"