Savage Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers

luster, threw odd shadows from the battlements. The damned carriages were not there. Someone had unmistakably purloined them, for they had been left firmly tethered under the colonnade, and the krahniks, useful draught animals, had shown no inclination to break free and trot off.
    I caught Seg’s arm.
    “We walk,” I said into his ear.
    “The emperor—?”
    “Once we clear the palace precincts we become a drunken party with a casualty. There are eight of us. We should not be molested—”
    That, onker that I am, was as far as I got.
    The devils were clever and they were quick and they very nearly had us.
    The deadly glitter of steel in the moonlight . . . The quick indrawn breath as killers pounced. . . The scrape of sandals across time-worn stones. . .
    My own rapier jumped into my fist and I swear it was only a fraction of a second faster than my comrades’, for we were a right tearaway bunch and, after the first quick shock of the ambush, a certain pitying sorrow for our would-be slayers afflicted me. In that, I suppose, the old haughty pride we all fight down reared more of its ugly head than is strictly desirable. Turko’s brand-new parrying stick flashed with smooth-oiled steel and balass, and a lunging rapier skipped and twanged away. Turko put his hand on the fellow and the cramph went sailing up, spread-eagled marvelously against the moons.
    “Hai!” said Turko, reflectively, unruffled, taking a sober enjoyment.
    Hap’s short clansman’s axe whirled and bit, withdrew and bit again — fast, fast!
    Inch licked out deftly with his great Saxon-pattern axe, and lopped, and reared up, stark against the stars, and so went with the swing, rhythmically, shearing blood and ribs and backbone in a dark welter of spraying offal.
    Seg and Vomanus, who had been carrying the litter between them, placed the emperor down as fast as was decently possible. One of the attackers, mere ghost-like figures bundled in dark cloaks, shrieked and shrieked as he held, unbelievingly, onto his insides which were now outside. Silence was of no more consequence.
    “Leave a few for me!” bellowed Seg, ripping out his blade, plunging on.
    “And me, by Vox! Can’t a fellow have any fun!” And Vomanus twinkled his rapier out, very smooth, in that typical careless way of his.
    Balass and Oby, in the rear, struggled to get out.
    I, Dray Prescot, just stood. I just stood there, my rapier glinting in my fist, and I wanted to laugh. Yes! I wanted to bust a gut laughing. What poor fools these fellows were, to attempt to slay a mean bunch like us. How comical!
    So I took no part in that swift and deadly struggle beneath the Moons of Kregen. Balass got in a few whacks with his superb new sword we had built back in Valka. The others stood, weapons ready, crouched, looking about into the shadows.
    Young Oby stalked out, mightily upset. His wicked long-knife gleamed sharp and clean.
     “Not one,” he said. “A right leem’s nest. You might at least have saved me one.”
    The others laughed. Gravely, with broad smiles, they promised Oby first pick next time. They were not speaking altogether idly. So, I stepped out at last.
    “Pick up all the gear. We are all reivers, mercenaries. We do not scatter good weapons about. Bundle the offal into the canal. And do not take all night about it. The guards will be here in less than no time.”
    “Aye, Dray,” they said, but softly, already at work. We did not know what further hostile ears might be listening, affixed either side of eyes that had witnessed horror. I thought that no other stikitche who had witnessed what had happened to his comrades — there had been twelve of them — would want to come rushing out upon his death.
    We all knew, deeply and with conviction, that this attack must herald some fresh horror, that what all Vondium feared must come to pass and the future lay drenched in blood. This was a prospect that appalled me, careless as I may be in these things. We had to take the