Free Gangs of Antares by Alan Burt Akers Page B

him on the nose with a clenched fist. He flopped back into the pile of bodies.
    A bellowed roar: “Back! Set back, fanshos!” and we Nagzallas tumbled back out of the wreckage.
    They were all panting, blood-smeared, evil of eye. We pulled back to rejoin the rest of the gang in their positions. For a space now it would be shooting until another charge could be mounted.
    “By Reder, Brory!” The advang’s snout was all aquiver. “We nearly did it! Another push and—”
    “And we’d be cut off and chopped!”
    That was true, by Krun. More Volcanoes had been closing on the barrow in the moments before it collapsed.
    Brory the Bold eyed me. He were standing in the shadows of a doorway and every now and then an arrow fleeted in. “You fought well, skulker. Your name?”
    “Kadar the Hammer.” The name popped into my head. I’d used it before and it was serviceable.
    He grunted. “Stick close by me when we attack again.”
    When I’d kitted myself out for this jaunt I’d selected a simple tan leather jack with a few greenish brass studs here and there. I’d taken off the shamlak and under the jack wore a common brown tunic. The braxter was munitions quality from Nandisha’s armory and I was surprised and pleased the thing hadn’t snapped across yet. In view of that almost inevitable happening I carried another scabbarded alongside the rapier. Brory the Bold gave the rapier a leery look.
    “Fancy yourself with the toothpick, do you, dom?”
    I summoned up a casual shrug. “When necessary.”
    He grunted again in that coarse Brokelsh way.
    He did not comment on the short-hafted single-bladed axe I had slung over my shoulder. Axes are useful in some fights. This specimen was not unlike one of the axes wielded by my Clansmen on the Great Plains of Segesthes. That, of course, was not surprising as those fair grazing and hunting grounds lay to the north over the mountains.
    High above our heads a cluster of lights traveled slowly from one hill to the next. Up there, riding in the calimer on the invisible cables, haughty folk wouldn’t even bother to look down at the chasms beneath. The lights of the cable car, high against the dark sky, did look romantic and mysterious. Down here it was all blood, dirt and death.
    Most of the gangs organized themselves into sub-divisions called chapters and with conscious ostentation named their leaders with military ranks. This Brokelsh, Brory the Bold, turned out to be a chapter Jiktar, meaning he ran the chapter. Dimpy had told us he’d been a chapter deldar in his broken-up gang. Now the Jiktar busied himself putting together a fresh force for the next attack.
    In my not un-extensive experience of street fighting I’d found that charging maniacally up an open street was usually a sure recipe for disaster. We generally burrowed our way through the buildings flanking the street. It seemed to me that Brory considered the barricade no real obstacle. Well, by Djan, it was a ramshackle enough structure; it had already proved too tough a nut for these bully boys to crack.
    A pang shot through me. By Vox, yes! I could envisage my swods of the Emperor’s Sword Watch or the Emperor’s Yellow Jackets cleaning up this street like a giant broom. And the brumbytes of the Phalanx — they’d just swarm over the chairs and tables and carts like a tidal wave. Oh, well, they were far away and no doubt busy.
    So that the next whooping charge met with the same fate as the previous efforts.
    Although the valley was narrow the central roadway was flanked by buildings. I eyed them meanly. In my bones I could feel strongly that the Star Lords would not allow me to disport myself like this for much longer. They’d want me back on duty. They’d hoick me out in the very near future, that I darkly surmised. It behooved me to get that move on I’d promised myself some time ago when the Suns were flooding the opposite crest with opaline radiance. Now the slot lay in total darkness, and The Maiden with