Talons of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Read Free Book Online Page A

now.”
    The two vessels eased close alongside running sweetly, and the galleon shortened sail to reduce her way and so pace the argenter. She creamed along, handled superbly, and the snouts of her varters and the arms of her catapults bore upon us. Her flags were of Vallia — the new Vallian Union of the yellow cross and saltire upon the red field — and the crimson and pale blue of Ovvend. The symbol of the kovnate of Ovvend down on the southwest coast of Vallia is a galleon. That is fitting.
    For what seemed to me a damned long time the ships sailed together and the canvas all about me drew strongly. With a rat-tat of the drum and a shrill of calls accompanied, by the slap of bare feet upon planking, thankfully,
Tuscurs Maiden
responded and lost way, her canvas fluttering as she first backed her main tops’l and then gathered her canvas in. No doubt Linson had performed the evolution in this manner as a sign to the hostile ship’s captain that he did so under pressure.
    Whatever the reason, the argenter lost way and soon we rolled sluggishly as the galleon, matching us, paced alongside.
    Men clustered at the falls of a longboat over on the galleon’s spar deck. A boarding party would come fully armed and ready for trouble. Now, it was all down to me...
    The water looked a long way down.
    That was the quickest route.
    Once, I had dived into the Eye of the World, the inner sea of Turismond. That had been a longer dive, far longer; I took a breath, readied, and dived.
    The water came up like a brick wall.
    Deeply under, with the water thick about me, turning palms upward and so planing around and rising, rising... The blueness turning from indigo through the lightening colors until the silver sky above my head broke into a bursting dazzlement. My head popped up. I felt fine, strangely enough. Instantly, suspecting the worst, I drew a breath and dived again, twisting as I went down.
    I’d been right.
    A vicious scaled form flicked for me, tail thrashing. Jaws opened and rows of needle-teeth gaped.
    The old sailor knife, well-greased, slid from the sheath over my right hip.
    If this Opaz-forsaken Styrorynth thought he was going to gulp me for his lunch he would have to be persuaded of the error of his belief. He was infernally quick and lethal in his own element. Accounted a superb swimmer and diver though I may be, I’d only have the one chance against him.
    He swooshed in, mouth wide, needle-teeth ready to clench upon this tasty tidbit. Sliding down and under him, foaming in his pressure wave, I managed to avoid that rat-trap mouth. The knife scored along his underside and the water fouled. Without waiting to hang around I kicked hard — not for the surface but in a direct line for the dark shimmering hardness ahead that was the galleon’s keel.
    The Styrorynth rolled away aft and no doubt those little fishes upon whom he preyed would swarm up to feast. Swimming strongly, feet churning, I went clean under the galleon’s keel. Before I surfaced I checked — as far as was possible — to see no other predators of the deep waited to seize me in their jaws.
    For the distance I could see underwater with that shimmering silver sky dancing above my head there appeared to be no further danger. No danger, at least, from that direction. When I broke the surface and looked up not a single face peered over the bulwarks upon me. The galleon rolled gently. Well, they had no doubt seen a man fall from the argenter and vanish into the sea. They knew what manner of beasties lurked below the surface. They might cast a cursory look down; they would hardly expect to see the self-same man surface on the other side of their ship.
    I hollered.
    Three times I sucked a deep breath and dived, knife in fist, warily watching, and three times, seeing nothing, I surfaced and shouted.
    On the last time a shock of hair showed over the bulwark above me and thick voice said: “Whey-ey! Where’d you come from, dom?”
    “Throw down a rope and