Savage Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Page A

emperor to Aphrasöe and there effect a cure and so bring him safely back to his capital and reseat him on his throne, defeat the dark plots of his many enemies, and bring a fresh period of peace and stability to all Vallia.
    “Take up the emperor. Quick and sharp. Pull your scarves about your faces.” I glared at Inch. “And, tall man, hunch yourself over. We have to win back to the inn.”
    Silently, feral as leems, we padded away moments before the guards arrived with much heralding of their coming, made our way back to
The Rose of Valka
where the supplies and the fliers were waiting for us.
    Among the gear we had stripped from the corpses were twelve fine metal masks. I will have more to say on the subject of metal-work and masks, for the Masks of Kregen form a fascinating, beautiful and horrible story of their own, but for now I will say that these masks were built of fine-quality steel, crafted by a mastersmith. They were all alike; triangular nose, curved lip opening, cunningly slotted to slide above an apim’s ears, with brow ridges over the eye orbits chiseled into the semblance of hair.
    Mass production is, as you know from Hamal, practiced to some degree on Kregen; but of necessity hand-crafted objects like these must differ in detail, one from the next. They were genuine stikitche masks, most costly; but they did not match the assassins themselves. Each one had worn ordinary clothes, buff, green, amber. I shook my head.
    “Although it may seem a foolish thing to say, these do not appear to have been professional stikitches.”
    They all took my meaning. No assassin is going to parade around with a special badge that lights up and proclaims he is an assassin. But some marks of the trade do sometimes show.
    “Look at these,” said Oby, his nimble fingers turning over the badges in the lamplight of the snug.
    The twelve badges were of a wersting with a korf in its jaws.
    “The bitch!”
    “Yet they must have followed us to the palace and waited — they cannot report back to her,” I said. “This is serious. Ashti Melekhi considers herself powerful enough to assassinate the Prince Majister.” No ridiculous thought of self-importance crossed my mind, only the facts as stated. “This must not deflect us from our purpose. The emperor comes first.”
    “I think,” said Hap Loder, judiciously, “that I may return through Vondium. I may have a few words for the lady.”
    So we all laughed. Clansmen are regarded as the devils of barbarians they truly are in Vondium — was not I a Clansman?
    Thelda was all tears and alarms as we bundled the masks and badges into a big black cloak; but Seg hushed her, and young Dray gently took her for a fortifying sip of strong wine. Sasha simply took Inch’s fearsome axe and tut-tutted, and taking up a cloth began to polish until the true steel shone. Inch caught my eye and smiled. “The lassies of Ng’groga are trained to support a man, in more ways than the merely amorous.”
    At this, Tilly bristled up, her fine slanted eyes catching the lights and gleaming, very cat-like.
    “You apims think we Fristle girls are trained only for the arts of love, like your sylvies! Well, you are wrong—”
    “But, Tilly,” said my son Drak, very chivalrous. “All the world knows how the Fristle men care for their womenfolk.”
    “And we can show our claws, too, Prince Drak!”
    I knew that to be true, by Zair!
    Melow the Supple, recovered from the wound she had taken in defense of Delia, a story they would not tell me because it concerned the Sisters of the Rose, let rip one of her curdling, snarling chuckles. A ferocious Manhound, once of Faol and now of Valka, she said: “Women know how to look after their brats where I come from.”
    And her son, Kardo, who never voluntarily leaves the side of Drak, broke out with his own harsh laugh at this. I did not marvel. But I knew a whole lot of people on the Island of Faol who would never believe Manhounds, the fearsome jiklos, savage