Seg the Bowman by Alan Burt Akers

wish. The Och is almost out of sight.”
    They followed on with the swift stalking gait of the fighting man. Umtig went about his task with perfect confidence. He peered about most carefully up into the trees. Presently he uttered a little Och exclamation of delight, and whirled the vine rope with deft precision.
    The loop spun up into the air. Umtig jerked the line. With a swooshing rush a bundle of multicolored fur tumbled down. Umtig caught the little monkey with a cry of delight.
    “This is a spinlikl,” he said, and at once set to crooning and making baby-mewing sounds to caress the monkey to quietude. The small creature wriggled and struggled, his eight limbs swishing about, and then he quieted down. His body was no larger than a fair-sized melon, and his eight limbs each stretched out farther than a man’s full armreach. Each limb had a fully formed hand, lithe-fingered, deft, powerful, with sharp nails. The spinlikl made no sound, but squirmed against Umtig’s chest and settled himself comfortably, three or four arms wrapped about the Och’s neck, the rest wrapped about his upper body.
    Umtig beamed his pleasure.
    The Chulik and the Khibil looked on, waiting for the Och to return to the main party, then they set about cutting staves with which to fashion spears.
    Umtig, returning in his personal triumph to the camp, ripped a paline branch free from a handy bush and began feeding a steady stream of the berries to the spinlikl. These sweet yellow cherry-like fruits found growing over most parts of Kregen proved a source of constant delight, a sovereign remedy for a hangover, a necessity with which to conclude a meal, a digestive of the first order, a boon to all humankind.
    “My supremely clever spinlikl,” Umtig said to Seg. “I will soon have him trained into the veritable paradigm of invisible deftness. I shall call him Lord Clinglin.”
    Milsi smiled. “I had a little mili-milu once who was called Pantor Fotaix. How we silly humans love to give our pets grand titles!”
    Such was the good humor of the party now that they had clothes of a sort, the promise of money and every chance of rescue, no one appeared to express any high-minded and respectable abomination of Umtig’s new pet. For, of course, he was no ordinary household pet to be loved and adored and played with. He was a most adept adjunct in the trade dedicated to and cared for by Diproo the Nimble-fingered.
    When all was declared ready they watched for a suitable craft passing up the river. Still no one wished to chance descending the Kazzchun River, despite the general belief the Katakis would write off the lost merchandise and look for more. By the time they reached Lasindle they should be dressed properly and able to escape instant detection as escaped slaves... But...
    “There!” said Milsi with great confidence, pointing. “Set the fire.”
    The craft to which she pointed paddled along with forty paddles aside going in and out and up and down with perfect rhythm. Her after parts carried a covered-in cabin from which flags flew.
    Hundle the Design tossed a brand into the pile of stump and twigs, of leaves and greenery and soon the smoke lifted, thick and coiling, and only slightly blown by the tiny breeze. Everyone jumped up and down and waved.
    No one really believed the ornately large Schinkitree would paddle grandly past and leave them. No one really believed that... But... The moments passed with excruciating agony before, at last, the bows turned and the boat became a foreshortened spear aimed at them with her paddles churning either side. The flags flew and the foam spurted and she came churning up to their little mud bank.
    Very few people ever leaped into the water to drag a boat up onto the bank in the River of Bloody Jaws.
    Most boats possessed a small laddered ramp, something like a corvus, which ran out and provided a safe way to shore. The anchors were often merely large stones pierced with a hole for the chains or ropes. This