Masks of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Page A

grasping Jespar, “do you scry and warn kov Pando. Tell him we are headed directly for Erronskorf. If he rides hard he may come up with us to be of use.”
    “But—” she began.
    “You would be well-advised to do it,” said Pompino. He spoke gravely. He meant what he said.
    Jespar squealed in my grip.
    “Lord, lord! I cannot ride a jut, let alone aspire to straddling a zorca!”
    “Oh,” I said. “You won’t have to worry about riding any animal the way we’re going.”
    And, so, without more ado, off we trooped to gather our lads and to take after Strom Murgon and his silver leem masked rogues and the Vadni Dafni.

Chapter nine
We drop in on Korfseyrie
    Hurtling through the windrush under the Moons of Kregen we pelted headlong for Erronskorf.
    Pompino gave orders for the crew to sleep by watches; I suppose some of us caught a few moments of sleep as we hurtled on in that streaming radiance from She of the Veils and the Maiden with the Many Smiles. One of the small moons bustled past above, swinging wildly through the star fields.
    Because these Pandaheem were totally unacquainted with vollers, Dayra and I had to fly Golden Zhantil ourselves. Dayra proved a first-class pilot — well, by Zair! and didn’t she ought to be, seeing her mother had taught her? Delia had also taught me my piloting. As for Delia, well, no doubt there were better pilots who flew vollers all day for a living, no doubt; my view remained exactly the same as the view which told me that Seg Segutorio was the best bowman of Kregen — Delia, likewise, was the best pilot in all the world. So said I.
    Sitting quietly at the controls with the port-windows thrust wide I was privy to a vastly entertaining conversation between Rondas the Bold, our Rapa paktun, and the diminutive tump, Jespar the Scundle.
    “Now, tump,” said Rondas in his big blustery way, “you are very welcome to join our company. Why, we are fearsome and ferocious paktuns, aye, and at the moment we are serving without pay, seeing it was all fined away from us by a scoundrelly woman.”
    “I never thought to live to see the day mercenaries would serve without pay—”
    Ronda’s answering snort must have riffled his feathers splendidly. “No more did I, tump, by Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls! But, and listen good, we are in the habit of going agio when we go into action—”
    “Agio?” Jespar’s voice was an alarmed squeak.
    “Aye, dom, agio! You see, all of us put in our gold, into the kitty, all of it. Then, when the battle’s over we share it out again.”
     
    “You mean, to keep it safe?”
    “Fambly! No! Why, those who share it out are less than those who put it in, onker! That way a fellow can make a little on the side from a fight.”
    “I don’t think—”
    “It’s all fair and above board. It’s in every paktun contract, I expect — anyways, it’s in ours. So, you see, tump, when we get to wherever this fight is to be, your roll of gold will be in good hands.”
    “But...!”
    I concentrated on flying the voller. By Krun! But they were a rascally bunch, right enough.
    The two girl varterists came up and when Jespar appealed to them, they gravely told him that as far as they were concerned they went in for agio and — had they any gold about them — it would have gone into the kitty along with Jespar’s roll of gold inlay.
    “Why don’t I just keep my own gold—?”
    “What! And suppose you are killed!”
    “Why, as to that,” said Jespar, “I don’t intend to get into any fights!”
    “Amazing!”
    “Incredible!”
    “Not believable,” amplified Rondas. He must have been mournfully shaking his great beaked head, very vulturine, very menacing. “Coming with us and not getting into a fight!”
    “I didn’t want to come!” squeaked Jespar. “Anyway, I’m just a guide. I wouldn’t have come at all if that great hulking apim fellow hadn’t hauled me along—”
    “Oh, you mean our Jak. Why, dom, you want to walk very small