Masks of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Page B

when he’s about. He’d as lief fry you up and gulp you down as a tasty morsel between meals.”
    “I don’t—” began the tump.
    Alwim, very hard, said: “You’d better believe it.”
    “I do! I do!”
    “Just as well,” said Wilma, as hard as her sister.
    With the light of two gorgeous Moons of Kregen in the sky we deemed it not altogether opportune for a swift and undetected onslaught. Below passed away forested hills, very ghostly silver, most eerie in that streaming light. Those we pursued would have ridden hard at the beginning, and then have husbanded their mounts. We could cover in a single bur the distance it would take them to progress in ten or twelve.
    This thought occurred to Pompino, for he walked up and said, “I think we may reach this damned place before them.”
    “That is likely. I hope so. The advantage will lie with us, then.”
    “Only if this tump Jespar the Scundle speaks right.”
     
    “He speaks right, as far as he knows and guesses. If he is wrong—”
    “I’ll chop his ears off!”
    “It seems to me our little tump Jespar is in for a very rough ride...”
    “Oh, he’ll survive. Very tough, they are. And I’ll tell you something else. They’re not as dull and stupid as the Ifts make out. Both races tend to want to occupy the same areas of forest, the Ifts for the trees and the tumps for the gold under the ground. Why they don’t go and dig for gold somewhere else escapes me.”
    “Why should they? If the gold is in the ground, they’ll dig it out, and if a few trees are in the way—”
    “The Ifts are mightily upset, by Horato the Potent!”
    Because we took a circuitous route so as not to fly directly over the hamlet of Erronskorf we took longer than the flight strictly required. All the same, we were very quickly there, and Dayra guided the voller down into the shadow of the trees.
    “And you are sure this is the path they must take?” demanded Pompino.
    “Aye, lord, this is the path.” As we crowded out of the voller under the stars and gazed around on the gently swaying masses of trees, Jespar sounded confident. He was back on his own stamping grounds.
    That perked him up.
    He pointed upward along the path between the tree-clad slopes of the mountain.
    “Up there lies the mine — more than one, belonging to different branches of the family. Down there—”
    and the jerk of his thumb was highly dismissive, “lies the forest of the Ifts. This is the path they will follow to go up past the mines to Korfseyrie.”
    I just hoped Jespar was right, as much for his ears as anything. Murgon could hide Dafni away up here and no one the wiser. Then he could strike where he willed.
    He as good as held the provincial capital, Port Marsilus. He was entrenched in the Zhantil Palace there.
    Now he sought to erode further Pando’s fast waning power.
    Pompino’s mind must have followed a similar train of thought, for he growled out: “A pity that flat slug of a King Nemo did not burn with his damned temple and palace in Pomdermam. While he rules and supports Murgon—”
    “Murgon has a free hand here. Aye.”
    A pair of voices that were usually lovingly gentle broke out in passionate argument in the shadows. We turned.
    “Lisa! You are the most stubborn and willful of women!”
    “And you are the most thick-headed and stubborn of men!”
    Pompino brushed up his whiskers. “I would not care to step in to settle that,” he observed, in a fine free way.
    Quendur the Ripper quite clearly had not heard Pompino’s heartfelt remark. His face alive and working, with passion, Quendur stormed over to us. The golden mask hanging from its straps in his fingers shook violently.
    “Horter Pompino! I appeal to you! Tell Lisa the Empoin that as I love her I will not have her with me in this fight! Tell, horter, spell out the recklessness of her folly!”
    Pompino flung me such a look I had to turn away.
    “Well, Quendur — you see — that is—” Pompino stamped his foot. “By