Free Seg the Bowman by Alan Burt Akers Page B

crossing the square were herding the coffle aboard.
    Diomb settled the whole thing.
     
    He skidded to a halt. His blowpipe twitched up.
    “Dratted Katakis!” he said.
    His cheeks puffed, the first dart sped.
    Seg howled in frustration; but the damage was done.
    He slapped up his bow, nocked an arrow, and Diomb had puffed a second dart. Two Katakis clapped hands to their necks above the rim of their harness, startled. They saw the pygmies, they started to jeer at them, and then they fell down.
    Another took a clothyard shaft through his throat and a fourth yelped as a dart stung his lowering face.
    He, too, fell down shortly thereafter.
    The fifth and sixth were punched clean through by arrows. The seventh tried to run and, ironically, the dart took him in the fleshy root of his tail. He ran on and could not stop and tumbled headlong into the water.
    A furious splashing followed, and the crunch of jaws.
    Seg roared up to the canoe-like craft, known as a Schinkitree in these parts, and stared down on the slaves.
    “Who is willing to paddle to freedom with me?”
    “I!” and “I!”
    “All right. You—” pointing at the Och, “find the keys. You—” with a fierce stab at the Chulik,“chuck the dratted Katakis into the river when we have the keys! Bratch !”
    At that command the slaves bratched. They jumped.
    The key was found, the clever fingers of the little Och released the first of the slaves on the chain, the Chulik, after a dour look at Seg, started hurling the Katakis into the river. Jaws crunched.
    “Get aboard, all!” called Seg. “Hurry!”
    The two dinkus even in this extremity of urgency assisted Milsi aboard, waiting for her. She went into the Schinkitree with a regal step that looked most becoming. Seg pushed off. He stared back across the waterside to the first of the wooden houses.
    From the ragged alleyway men were running out, apims, Katakis, Rapas, all yelling and waving weapons.
    He did not bother to shaft them. There had been no time to cut out his arrows, and he did not wish to waste any more. The boat was off from the riverside, surging out into midstream as the freed slaves took up the paddles and dug deep.
    Then the rain slashed down.
    A solid curtain of water hid the bank and the forest and the township.
    The Chulik roared out: “By Likshu the Treacherous! I am free again! Downstream. Paddle downstream.
    We will make Mattamlad at the mouth of the river. I have friends there—”
    Seg chopped him off brutally.
     
    “I am in command here, Chulik. We paddle upstream. That is without question.”
    His bow, arrow nocked, aimed at the Chulik’s breast.
    “Apim yetch! I am Nath Chandarl! Nath the Dorvenhork!”
    “That is as it may be. But, by the Veiled Froyvil, dom, we paddle upstream — unless you wish to become flint-fodder.”
    The Chulik started. He stared from those narrow eyes at Seg, saw the bow, heard what he said. He lowered his fist.
    “You are a Bowman of Loh?”
    “Yes.”
    “In that case—”
    “Look, dom. They will expect us to paddle downstream. That is where they will search. We have a goodly craft, strong paddlers. We go upstream and they’ll never find us. Later, when we have made our fortunes, we may return downstream and you can rejoin your friends.”
    “That does, by Likshu the Treacherous, make sense, apim.”
    The current, lazy though it might still be here, was carrying them downstream. Seg, without taking his gaze or the aim of the shaft from the Chulik, Nath the Dorvenhork, said with a harsh emphasis: “Paddle, doms. Paddle upstream and let us lose ourselves in the rain.”
    “Yes,” shrilled the Och, wildly. “As sure as my name is Umtig the Lock, the apim speaks sooth!”
    Once more the paddles bit. This time the boat turned and headed upstream. The paddlers, slaves only moments before, drew their blades through the brown water with strong and determined sweeps. They had been slave; now they were free. Not one of them would voluntarily return to