Free Beasts of Antares by Alan Burt Akers Page B

veritable man-mountain.
    “Not while I live, majister!”
    A chorus of affirmation followed. Vanki whispered close to my ear, his breath fluttering, “My people will handle this.” He was not there when I turned to answer. In his customary way he had blended into the background when the crowd arrived. A spymaster he was, Naghan Vanki in his black and silver, and a damned slippery fellow with it.
    Delia was making covert signs and the gathered people began to drift away. Something of the sense of petulant frustration that had shaken the old emperor, Delia’s father, was going to rub off on me pretty quick, by Vox! I felt caged. I felt as those savagely noble wild animals, caged and chained for the arena, must feel as they are whipped and prodded behind the iron bars.
    I, Dray Prescot, puissant emperor, was caged up.
    We stood alone.
    “It seems to me—” I started to try to express my feelings of being shut off, caged away from the hurly-burly of Kregen.
    Delia was sharp with me.
    “The trouble with you, Dray Prescot, is that you are feeling sorry for yourself!”

Chapter six
    Sword for Delia
    The Lord Farris flew in with more problems. As commander-in-chief of the Vallian Air Service, Farris was entitled to fly about in an airboat. But we were desperately short of fliers. A fresh source of supply for the powered airboats had to be found. I greeted Farris warmly, for his dedicated loyalty to Delia always warmed me, and we got down to the latest series of headaches.
    Anyway, I’d had the last laugh on that crowd at the dance at the Bankers Guild. The people sent off after the news reported that the eloping couple — whom they found in an inn enjoying themselves — were not Voinderam and Fransha.
    So, I could afford a nasty laugh at their expense.
    Farris sat down across from me in my little study and sipped his wine, for it was evening.
    “It is these slaves we have freed,” he said. “They have received their plots of land and their allotments of seeds and implements and animals, and they work hard enough — although if they work as hard now as they did when they were slaves and were whipped for nothing, I cannot truthfully say.”
    I waited for him to go on.
    “They must be protected. The farms on the borders mainly, of course.” He saw my expression. Both of us detested the idea that within the island of Vallia there should be borders between us and our enemies. All Vallia was one country, or should be. “The flutsmen drop down from the sky and raid and burn and kill. We have had incursions over ten dwaburs into what we regard as Vallian soil—”
    “It is all Vallian soil!”
    “Aye. But these damned raiders don’t understand that yet. And the truth is, the troops we have on the ground cannot be everywhere. The sailing fliers are subject to the winds. And my force—” He spread his free hand.
    “There is one clear answer. The freedmen must be able to defend themselves.”
    “They fight well enough, given the chance, for it is their homes and wives and children who suffer.”
    “Right. I shall see to that. Is there any news out of the Dawn Lands on vollers?”
    “Nothing. Anyway, down there in Havilfar they are a strange lot. You might stand a better chance in Hyrklana.”
    “If I ever get away.” I told him what had happened at the Bankers Guild. And Farris laughed. I glared at him reproachfully, whereat he laughed the harder.
    “I remember when we picked you up in the Hostile Territories,” he said. “My Val! If I’d been told then that you would be the emperor who has my undying loyalty, why—” He stopped himself. His shrewd brown Vallian eyes appraised me. He nodded. “Yes, I think I half-understood it, even then.”
    “And Naghan Vanki was with you—”
    Then a messenger announced himself to say that Filbarrka nal Filbarrka had arrived.
    “Send him in! By Vox, he will be a sight for sore eyes.”
    When Filbarrka came in he was just the same. Bouncing, roseate of face, twitching