Golden Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Page B

have been most solemnly informed that only I have the power to raise the magic within the ring. Only me! I have been told and it is true.”
    Poor silly stupid girl!
    She went on, and now she spoke in a breathless, winsome way she supposed must flatter me, overbear me, favor me with all the forbidden paradises known to Kregen. “Why have you been so good to me, Jak? You saved me from the Iron Riders. Then you saved me again from Cansinsax. You ride with us and are a good companion. Why do you do all these things?” She leaned down from her branch to where I sat with my back shoved against the wood. “Perhaps I can guess, Jak the Drang. Perhaps I know the secret of your heart.”
    I couldn’t laugh; but the statement, the situation, demanded a great gut-bursting bellow of crude and raucous laughter.
    What did she know of me? What, indeed!
    “The ring is in Hawkwa country, and the Iron Riders—”
    “You do not fear them. Do you not carry their weapons, ride their mount?”
    About to bellow out some uncouth comment, I was struck dumb.
    Among all the scuttering beetles and ants and tumbling woodlice under the rotting wood a bright orange-brown form waddled out. On eight hairy legs he poised, his arrogant tail upflung. I stared, feeling the bile rising. Larghos sat with his booted foot less than six inches from the scorpion, and did not move, did not see. He was not a scorpion. He was The Scorpion.
    The forest fell silent. The leaves no longer chirred in the breeze. The very suns’ beams lay quiescent, with motes of dust trapped and motionless.
    The arrogant stinging tail lifted and dropped. The Scorpion surveyed me very deliberately. So I knew.
    After a space of time very sinister to me, The Scorpion ambled to the flaking-barked log and disappeared. The breeze blew, the leaves whispered and the dust motes danced within the radiance of Zim and Genodras.
    And not a word had the damned Scorpion spoken!
    “Very well, kovneva. I will go to Nikwald and bring back the Ring of Destiny.”

Seven
    In the Camp of the Iron Riders
    Lumpy carried me jogging across Aduimbrev and over the Therduim Cut and so into Sakwara. I’d called this shaggy old gray benhoff Lumpy out of a mixture of disreputable feelings; but, truth to tell, he wasn’t all that bad. It is difficult to feel at odds with a faithful saddle-animal for very long.
    Seeing the kovneva and her party safely into Thiurdsmot, I had refused the offer of a flying mount from the Hamalian aerial cavalry squadron. They acted under the orders of Marta Renberg. People in Vallia were becoming more and more used to flying cavalry, great birds of the air being used as saddle flyers; but I refused the offer of a fluttrell since I considered that would attract more attention than a benhoff, attention I wished to avoid. I had insisted on going alone. Larghos had offered to accompany me, which made me look at him afresh; but I managed to convince him his duty lay with the kovneva. Truth to tell, he might have attempted to prevent my return with the ring, seeing that if Marta did as she intended then it would be a quick exit for Larghos.
    A different route from the one I had followed previously swung me a trifle to the north. The same gradual trending of the land from forest to grassland to the sere plains progressed. On a bright morning I broke camp and set off and just before the Hour of Mid observed a dark mass approaching over the plain. Lumpy and I took ourselves as quickly as might be into a hollow. I watched.
    These people were Vallians. They wore Vallian buff and their colors were a mixture of many of the provinces of the North East. But they were no advancing army bent on conquest. Carts were piled high with homely possessions. Women strode along with children clinging to their skirts. The men rode guard on the flanks. They were Hawkwas, well and true; but they were refugees, seeking to escape from the wrath of the Iron Riders. They passed away traveling west. I mounted up again