Warlord of Antares by Alan Burt Akers Read Free Book Online Page A

then, master.”
    Loriman opened his mouth and I cracked out: “Do it!”
    She cut and held her trophy aloft and Loriman, face congested, swung toward me.
    “What do you know of this, Jak the Bogandur! This is women’s evil work against men—”
    “Alive yes; dead, is it of consequence to an unbeliever?” I gave him a hard stare and he, while not exactly flinching back, braced himself. “Or, Kov Loriman the Hunter, are you, too, a believer?”
    “Were I not under a vow to desist from chastising you, Jak, I would challenge and strike you down where you stand!”
    Seg laughed.
    The Impenitent, enormously pleased at that moment, sang out: “Here, doms! There is food and wine!”
    Loriman gave me a look that might have drilled through the best armor steel. He breathed in so that his harness creaked. Then he hunched up his left shoulder, swung his sword around in a gesture of complete contempt, and went off to where Nath had found the victuals.
    Seg said: “He’ll do himself a mischief one of these days.”
    “I am glad to see he is getting back to his old self. And, I tell you this, Seg. He won’t want to leave the Coup Blag when we do.”
    “Quite.”
    The truth was obvious to both of us. Loriman would now insist on finding Csitra and dealing with her. She, or rather her hermaphrodite child Phunik, had slain the Lady Hebe. Loriman would never forget or forgive that. His desire for revenge was a cancer that burrowed far too deeply for rationality to alter.
    We went off to the table where Nath and Loriman were stuffing their faces.
    The women gathered around to eat and drink, and a weird-looking crew they were.
    We elicited their stories, which were sad and cruel and painfully familiar.
    Kidnapped, they’d been brought to the maze and employed on menial tasks, abused and ill-treated, seeing their only escape in death.
    “So we shall have to take them all along with us.” Seg braced himself up. “Well, if we have to, we have to. By the Veiled Froyvil, we can do it!”
    Nath nodded in agreement.
    Now people speak of your complete soldier very often as a man or woman who thinks, lives and talks only of soldiering. There are such unhappy wights about, on Earth as on Kregen. They are not complete human beings, that seems clear. They have their uses. A fellow takes up soldiering because he has to, there being no alternative at the time. As soon as he can, he finishes with it.
    My misfortune on Kregen had been that circumstances dictated that my life and soldiering had been intimately intertwined for a long time, a damn long time, too long a damned time, by Krun.
    So Nath, a Vallian, was in my eyes a complete soldier who understood far more than simple soldiering.
    Loriman chewed and swallowed and said: “I agree the women must be saved, if that is possible. But they will be an encumbrance when we face Csitra.”
    “Ah,” said Seg.
    “What, Horkandur, does that ‘ah’ mean?”
    A noble very much used to having his own way, this Kov Loriman. As a kov, the Kregan rank approximating an earthly Duke, he did not have to be too careful in considering other people’s finer feelings. He’d arrived at the conclusion that Seg and I were not to be treated in quite the offhand and unthinking way he handled other people. This understanding, being new to him, clashed with his natural instincts. He intended to go and find Csitra the Witch of Loh and exact revenge. He couldn’t quite comprehend that we did not share that desire.
    “It means,” said Seg, “there are other shafts in the air.”
    “Explain yourself!”
    I caught Seg’s eye, and he smiled that damned mocking smile of his, and nodded, as much as to say: “Righto, my old dom, you have a go at this onker.”
    I faced up to the Hunting Kov.
    “Listen, Loriman, and listen good. You need to exact revenge upon Csitra. I, also, have suffered at her hands, as has Seg, as have many of our friends.”
    Loriman tried to interrupt, as much in anger at my tone as what I