Free Talons of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers

stretched and thumped his glass down.
    “Time?”
    I stood up. Preparations had all been made. So there was but the one rejoinder to make. I said it.
    “Aye.”

Chapter six
    The Lady Nalfi hides in the Chunkrah’s Eye
    “Where in the name of Suzi the Bowgirl have you been, Nalfi?” Larghos the Flatch sounded both distraught and relieved.
    The Lady Nalfi laughed lightly.
    “Why, you silly man, I went ashore to buy certain things a girl must have, with the money you gave me. And I became lost—”
    “Think what could have happened to you! Why didn’t you ask me—?”
    “You were all so busy. Anyway, it is of no moment.”
    We were crowding down onto the jetty, the four calsters were manipulating Tilda’s chair down, we were trying to keep quiet and stop our weapons from clinking. Murkizon was breathing like a whale.
    “Once Larghos rescued you, my lady, you placed yourself under his protection. I have done so, and joy in it.”
    “As you stand by me, Cap’n,” burst out Larghos. He looked wild. He’d had a fright.
    The Twins shed light enough, too much for nefarious purposes I fancied, with an uncomfortable hitch to my shoulders. Somehow or other, and even allowing for my act with Pompino, the whole business of this night looked awry to me, not quite handled in a logical and successful fashion. But Pompino was trying to shout in a whisper, and his Chulik, Nath Kemchug, dropped a spear, which clattered, and Rondas the Bold, still not abandoning his mail, let it clash slightly as he negotiated the gangplank. Pompino looked to the Moons and stars above, and clutched at my arm.
    “A pack of famblys, the lot of them, by Horato the Potent, famblys all.”
    I did not reply but looked about into the moon-shot darkness of the jetty. The black sheds glistened with runnels of moonshine. The cobbles swam in glisten. I could see no shadows moving out there.
    Tilda’s chair had been draped with canvas to make it appear less grand, and the fake chair done up out of packing crate wood and painted canvas had been sent off earlier with most of the escort. That should have drawn off any unwelcome attentions; now we simply ran straight for the palace.
    That, as I say, was the plan...
    We were to follow in a slightly different path from the decoy party. The walls and towers of the palace provided a clear target, and I was perfectly prepared to wake Tilda up and shake information out of her if we could not find an easy road through.
    As the Owner, Pompino had selected the composition of the parties, and he had undeniably put more weight into the genuine escort. The Ship Hikdar, Boris Pordon, commanded the fake escort with more men in numbers but not, Pompino judged, in fighting ability.
    Also, the fake escort with its wood and canvas dummy chair carried torches to light the way. We, with Tilda in the real gherimcal in our midst, hurried along with only the light of the Twins to guide us. And, as I have indicated, that light was of a sufficiency enough.
    Past shuttered houses we sped, the gherimcal swaying as the bearers moved in rhythmic steps. Nath Kemchug had his spear firmly grasped, and Rondas the Bold’s mail — as befitted a proud Rapa paktun — no longer chittered, link against link. As was his right and duty, Pompino led. Because of that old itchy feeling betwixt my shoulder blades — usually an infallible sign, not always, of approaching danger and action — I prowled along at the tail end. My head kept on trying to twist itself off my shoulders as I turned this way and that watching our backtrack. Every window could conceal a marksman, every shadow a shrieking swordsman, every archway a charging axeman...
    The Brown and Silvers hit us from up front.
    They were waiting for us.
    They simply rushed out into the mouth of an avenue leading to the palace, fronting a square, and charged.
    At the first yell, the first clatter of iron-shod sandals on stone, I was raging up, quivering — and remaining in the rear. Pompino