Free A Life for Kregen by Alan Burt Akers Page A

many; but they do exist.
    As you will hear, there were some I should not have trusted, for betrayal touches high and low alike, friend and foe, and is indeed a foul stink over life.
    I said: “Nath. Do you dispatch a guard to request Tyr Jando ti Faleravensmot to return to Vondium. There are questions to which he must give the answers. Oh — and tell the guard commander to make sure the cistern does not spoil any more flour.”
    “Quidang, majister!” barked Nath, and turned to one of the Pachak Jiktars.
    There was no particular cleverness in the investigations we had made leading to the establishment of Renko’s innocence. Had the questions been asked at the trial the outcome would surely have been different from what it had been. And people had made certain that Renko had been found guilty. He told us that he had been given no opportunity to speak then.
    Another important detail had to be settled.
    “Make further investigations into the Fristle fifis. The villain or villains must be brought to justice. Setting the innocent free is a half of the matter.”
    “Quidang, majister!”
    Justice of a sort had been done here. That was cause for partial satisfaction. Jando ti Faleravensmot would have to answer for his conduct. Tabshur the Talens had paid Tyr Jando twenty gold pieces.
    I wondered how much the minions of Phu-Si-Yantong had paid him.

Chapter Six
    Yellow Sun, Silver Moon
    When you live on a world as wild and ferocious as Kregen, for all its beauty and splendor, missions of mercy such as rescuing girls in distress or marching to the relief of a besieged city are a natural order of life, given the way of the world. Although I would not go so far as to claim they are of the same order as worrying about the overdraft, or the state of the automobile, or the parlous conditions of employment or where the next meal is coming from on this Earth, the parallels are clear and ominous.
    One has to do what one can against the strokes of Fate and, really, that is all there is to it.
    We all worked in those days as our plans matured. The crumbling walls of the city occasioned a great deal of worry, and much effort was expended in rebuilding the fortifications. Over the sennights, what began as rumors hardened into facts. Unpalatable facts. Spies and scouts brought in sure word that a host marched on Vondium from the southwest.
    All that wedge of Vallia remained locked in mystery since the victories there of the minions of Phu-Si-Yantong. His insane ambition to rule all Paz had received a set-back in the island, and he was set, with or without the help of the Empress of Hamal, on imposing his will on us all.
    So we labored and set our house in order and sharpened our weapons.
    With the new threat from the southwest there could be no thoughts of our marching north. The Racters and Layco Jhansi would still fight each other, no doubt, and the reverberations of that conflict would be felt in Inch’s Black Mountains and in Delia’s Blue Mountains. East of them across the Great River we held the land. There was, again, no thought of a westerly expansion for the time being.
    The imperial provinces around Vondium were now almost wholly in our hands, pockets and enclaves still being held by insurgents and reiving bands of aragorn, slavers. There remained also a number of roving gangs of flutsmen, mercenaries of the skies, who flew their great winged saddle animals in raiding descents wherever they sensed the pickings were easy. Strong detachments of the army had to be posted not only on the borders of the imperial provinces, but in strategic loci from whence they could march out forthwith against the threat wherever it might be found.
    The whole island presented a patchwork of warring factions. How we were to bring peace to the whole land exercised our minds wonderfully.
    And if you comment that the peace we brought merely represented the rule of me, Dray Prescot, well, then — yes, I suppose you are right. But I had fought that battle