Free Rebel of Antares by Alan Burt Akers

in the radiance from the roof glistened with full passion. Some peculiarity in her face, some characteristic, struck me with a chord of memory. I did not know her, but I felt I ought to know her, although we had never met before now.
    “The Hyrklese hate the Hamalese, some of them, as you say, rast. But I am not of Hyrklana.”
    And she sprang.
    As she leaped so she foined with the rapier and then — and then!
    Her left arm whipped up. Her left hand reached for my face.
    Razored steel flashed before my eyes. Her left hand was sheathed in talons, steel tiger-claws that could shred and rip and blind. And I knew she was exceedingly cunning in the use of this metal claw.
    Without hesitation I leaped away, jangling the rapiers, and moving off and away from her. I did not wish to kill her. I could not, seeing she was of Vallia, and a sister of the Sisters of the Rose.
    “I am not of Hamal,” I said. I know I spoke breathily, caught up in the wonder of a girl of the SoR being here, here in the capital of Hyrklana.
    “A cowardly lie to save yourself. You are Hamalese and therefore you will die.”
    “You are wrong on both counts.”
    I moved away, circling, the rapier up. I was ready for her next spring, rapier and claw working together sweetly, to lunge and to rip.
    “Your armies have laid waste to my land and you, at least, will pay the price, here and now. Die, Hamalese!”
    The rapier moved with precision, the feint lunge coming in exactly so, and the claw striking across with a glitter of steel. I made no attempt to parry but leaped away.
    Again, we fronted each other.
    “You are a man. Why do you not stand and fight? Do you fear my claw so much?”
    “I am a Vallian—”
    “You lie, rast! You lie!”
    “I know you are of the Sisters of the Rose—”
    “That is easy enough to discern. It is common knowledge, who I must be. Even you cramphs in Hamal have heard of the SoR — to your sorrow!”
    This was becoming farcical. Here was this splendid girl trying to send me down to the Ice Floes of Sicce, and her deadly companions were off chasing Tyfar and Jaezila, and who knew how many more of them there were waiting below? I had to settle this, and settle it fast.
    “Look, Valona the Claw—”
    “That is not my name.” But she hesitated.
    “Valona, then. Listen, girl. Forget your preconceptions. Yes, the two who came here with me are Hamalese. But I play them, as I must. There is much at stake — you are here, far from Vallia. You must understand that... Perhaps you know of Naghan Vanki?”
    “I know the name.” Now her rapier lowered.
    Naghan Vanki was the chief spymaster of Vallia. I wasn’t going to say that, just in case she did not know. If she did not know I did not want her to have that information, and should she know, then Vanki was probably her employer. I knew he had spies in every country of importance to us. And if she was one of Vanki’s people, she would understand what I was talking about.
    She swung the razored claw about. “My father has a friend called Naghan Vanki. Not that my father knows much about what I do. But I do not think I believe you. I think you are a damned Hamalese spy who knows more than he should. It is the Ice Floes of Sicce for you, Jak the Hamalese rast!”
    She was going to spring in the next instant.
    I said, “There is no time to waste any longer on you, young lady. I know that you have been through Lancival...” Lancival was the place where the Sisters of the Rose were trained up to use the claw, those that did so, for not all the girls of the SoR wore the claw. No one would tell me where the place was, would not even tell the Emperor of Vallia. But the name itself, alone, might cause this Valona, who was not Valona the Claw, to stop and think.
    The hammering on the door that was subdued red baize with brass studding on one side and solid iron on the other increased. The door shook. It had been designed to keep out thieves from this store chamber, but Barkindrar and