Free Allies of Antares by Alan Burt Akers

openly. I want to see you father, Nedfar, Emperor of Hamal.”
    Tyfar put a hand to his bandage. “Yes, but—” He walked on. “We have no real support. Thyllis saw to that. She maneuvered father away from the center of power. He was included in the high command only because he is an astute soldier. No, Jak. No one would stand with father—”
    I took a breath. I said, “Suppose the alliance stood for him? Suppose Djanduin and Hyrklana and Vallia all said Prince Nedfar, Emperor of Hamal, Jikai! What then?”
    He controlled his contemptuous anger. “You mean treat with our enemies? Supplicate them, be beholden to them? Fawn on them as slaves fawn on their master who brings the slopbowl of porridge?”
    “One thing, Tyfar, you’d have to get straight.” His honest anger nettled me. “If it is to work you’d have to get rid of slavery. I can tell you that is one thing the Vallians and Djangs won’t tolerate.”
    His cheeks were pinched in and white. “I detest slavery, too, yet it is a necessity for ordered life—”
    “We won’t go into that now. I know your point of view. I respect you too much to think you a hypocrite. But leave that for now. Think about your father as emperor, with friends at his side—”
    “Friends!”
    “Aye, Ty, you ninny! Friends!” Jaezila was as wrought up as the man she loved and who loved her — although they fenced one with the other, afraid, it seemed, to acknowledge their own emotions.
    “I don’t understand this.” Perplexity made Tyfar calm. “What authority do you have to make this suggestion?”
    Not now. Not the right time...
    “It is a serious proposal I heard about. You and your father were not available, and so could not be approached. But you will be. The Vallians are in deadly earnest about this. They don’t want continual war with Hamal. There are the damned Leem-loving Shanks—”
    “I know, I know. But here come the wildmen and they are our first concern...”
    So we took up our weapons and went smashing into action again, slashing and thrusting and driving the moorkrim back over the lip of the ledge. They went flying over, their skins and furs and feathers a panoply of savage warriors, our steel in their hearts. We fought them. But we lost men and our numbers were thinned and we knew we would never last too many assaults of that ferocious nature.
    Tyfar panted. “The devils! By Krun! If only we had a voller!”
    The medicaments were holding out and we patched up our wounds. We drank thirstily from the stream. The water was ice cold. As for food, that was in good supply and we could eat heartily, in the grim understanding that we were likely to be killed before we starved to death.
    Jaezila finished putting a gel-impregnated bandage on Barkindrar the Bullet’s leg. He was a hairy Brokelsh, a faithful retainer to Tyfar, a comrade with whom we had gone through perils. Nath the Shaft, a bowman from Ruathytu, tut-tutted and said: “You stick your leg out when you sling, Barkindrar, and you expect to get a shaft in it.”
    “It’s just a hole. Had it been a slingshot it’d have busted my leg—”
    “All right, you two,” said Jaezila. “Save your temper for the wildmen.”
    “Yes, my lady,” they said together. They put great store by Jaezila, did these two, Barkindrar and Nath, Bullet and Shaft.
    Intrigued by Tyfar’s passionate yearning for a voller, I asked him what one voller would do, since he had lost four.
    “Do? Jak! Why, man, get Jaezila to safety, of course!”
    A pandemonium of yells and screams at our backs coincided with the next onslaught. Wildmen roared onto the platform and as we fought them others dropped like monkeys from the caves in the cliff, howled down upon our backs, trapped us in jaws of death.

Chapter six
    Seg and Kytun Are Not Repentant
    Like big fat flies dropping off a carcass the wildmen plummeted out of the holes in the cliff. They howled down upon our astonished soldiers. The wildmen in front and now these