Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 21] A Fortune for Kregen (pdf)

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deck of a swifter I would have to fight now. It was all hard, merciless, practical fighting and none of your
fancy academy fencing...
The thraxters slashed for me. The Krozair brand blinded, whirling like a living bar of light, chunked
through the shield, bore on to score a deep wound all down the Kildoi s chest. Before he had time to
yell, before he had time to fall, I bounded away and swung into action against his fellows. They bore in
from each side, cunning, clever, supreme fighters. And as these superb Kildois attacked they did not
understand they faced an old Krozair Brother, a Krozair of Zy who knew more tricks than the
Krozairs, by thunder! The longsword swept dazzlingly. A thraxter scored across my right shoulder and
then the first Kildoi was down, minus a tail he had flung unavailingly across to protect his throat. Tail
blade, tail hand, throat, vanished in a welter of purple blood.
The second flung himself forward, shield up, spear aiming for my eye. I slid his blow, brought the
Krozair brand around, quick, quick! Ah, the Krozair Disciplines teach a man how to stay alive, by Zair!
Whether they were real Kildoi retainers of the Moder-lord or whether they were illusions, I did not
know. But their steel would kill.
The fight was over. Three dead Kildois lay on that inlaid representation of the symbol for vaol-paol, and
their purple blood dripped thickly. I stood back. I panted only a little.
By the Wizard of ! said Quienyin, shaking.
By the Black Chunkrah! Now that opened the old pores a trifle! Let us, San, hurry on and get out
of here!
As we came up to the purple-draped chamber and the noise of the people of the expedition arguing
away at the top of their voices as usual I said, and I admit rather slyly, to Quienyin, San, tell me
that Bracelet of Blades you wished me to wear how would it have worked there? For all three
Kildois? Or the first one only?
He gave me a look along his nose. You are a hard man, Jak.
Aye to my sorrow.
Hunch and Nodgen appeared glad to see me and the Wizard of Loh still alive. They told us that the lever
had at last been pulled, that a wailing pack of Lurking Fears had writhed out, that the warriors, although
quaking with supernaturally-induced terror, had managed to slay all the Lurking Fears.
And, shouted Hunch, the lever did two things
The ninth part of the key in a secret cavity! shouted Nodgen.
and the keyhole in an onyx wall there!
And now, said Nodgen, they are fiddling about putting the bits of the key together. That is brainy
work.
A triumphant shout racketed down from the far wall. Nedfar waved the completed key aloft, his face
radiant. We have it!
Everyone felt that we must hurry. Urgency drove us on, for we were all confident that at any moment
fresh horror would prowl down upon us. The purple draperies were pushed aside to reveal the onyx wall
and the keyhole. It had to be a keyhole! There was no other way.
Something dire will happen when that key is turned, said Prince Tyfar. He looked excited and wrought
up in a way far different from his usual diffident manner.
Ariane shuddered and drew away from him.
Lobur the Dagger held Princess Thefi close. Retainers and paktuns held their weapons ready, a forest of
steel blades. We looked about the chamber and back to Prince Nedfar and the onyx wall with the
keyhole. He placed the key in the lock. He paused. Then: In the name of Havil the Green! He pushed
the key in and turned it.
The purple draperies vanished in puffs of smoke. The odor of charred flesh gusted. The solid wall peeled
back to reveal a colossal statue of Kranlil the Reaper, a full hundred feet tall, crowned, ferocious,
malefic, wielding his flail.
Between the mammoth columns of his feet a narrow door groaned open, bronze bound, crimson,
double-valved, the door slowly opened.
A long upward slope was revealed. And at the far end, tiny and distant light! Daylight! As our
eyes made out the drifting shapes up there we saw clouds and the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns
of Scorpio.
And then, as the first mobs broke through, shrieking their joy, a whirling darting maddening cloud of
stinging insects broke down about our heads. They poured from the opened casket in the claws of
Kranlil the Reaper. They tormented us as we ran, stinging and lacerating and driving us mad.
The vial of yellow poison kept my skin partly immune, so that I felt the stings as light prickles, like
nettles.
Men were screaming, and flailing their arms, and running, running, tearing madly up that long narrow
corridor.
Tyfar screamed and caught at his collar. I grabbed him and twitched out the little horror that was clinging
to his neck. It was banded in yellow and green, gauzy-winged, and its sting was black and hard and
tipped with a globule of moisture. I threw it away. I could not see Nodgen and Hunch in the bedlam.
We pushed on and Logu Fre-Da and his twin, Modo Fre-Da swiftly assisted Ariane along. Her hair was
covered with insects. She screamed, trying to beat them free. Modo let out a yell and fell, clasping his
legs. Both limbs crawled with the insect horrors. Logu bent to him.
Leave him, you fool! screamed Ariane. Help me!
Shrieking, Ariane stumbled. Tyfar caught her, helped her up. He was covered with the stinging insects.
He choked, trying to go on, and fell. Quienyin grasped my arm, shaking, beating at the air. Tyfar was on
his knees, looking up imploringly, still gripping Ariane s white dress which crawled with banded green
and yellow.
Ariane princess
Let go, you rast! I do not care a dead calsany s hide for your life!Let me go !
She struck Prince Tyfar. She wrenched free and ran screaming and sobbing up the slot, pushing and
beating at the backs of the people struggling on. The two hyr-paktuns watched her go.
Quienyin said, chokedly, Let let them go the insects will follow He let go my arm and beat at
himself. I am on fire! The hideous uproar persisted, a cacophony of torture.
Barkindrar the Bullet and Nath the Shaft sprang to the side of the prince. All three hummed and buzzed
with insects.
We must go on! I shouted.
We staggered and stumbled on. We were the last. The two Pachaks struggled along side by side,
helping each other.
Our little group fought a way through the swarming clouds of insects. Hunch and Nodgen, trying to shout
and making mewling noises, lurched on up the slope. Up there the daylight showed, bright and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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