Arena of Antares Read Online Free PDF Page A

splayed on broad feet, his ears flapping, beaming the idiotic Miglish smile. He lifted his blackjack, beer slopping down the dark cracked leather.
    “A toast! A toast to Dray Prescot who will go in the safekeeping of Migshenda of the Stux.”
    “Aye,” rumbled from the assembled Miglas, and they stood and lifted their goblets and glasses and blackjacks, and drank.
    It was a pretty gesture. But that was all it was, a gesture.
    As the Miglas resumed their seats one man remained standing. He lifted his pewter mug to me.
    “I will go with you, Dray Prescot.”
    I looked at him.
    Apart from the facts that he was a young man, that he looked fit and healthy, that he held his chin high, there was nothing to distinguish him from all the others.
    “You will be killed for sure, Med Neemusbane!”
    “Oh, no, Med!” A girl leaped to him, clasped her arms about him. He stood there, and for all the ridiculous appearance of the typical Migla morphology, an aura of dignity and determination made him not ridiculous at all.
    Planath the Wine said, again, “You will be killed for sure, Med Neemusbane. But if you must go, we will pray for you.”
    “Aye,” said the others. “At the temple, among the ruins, we will pray for you.”
    “Oh, Med!” moaned the girl, clasping him.
    I had no desire to push this youngster into a danger he probably did not understand. I knew from his name that he had already won fame. A large proportion of the economy of Migla revolved around wild-vosk hunting in the back hills. From the vosk came rich and succulent joints, and supple voskskin, and this Med Neemusbane must be a hunter of great repute.
    He said, “I shall go.”
    Turko said, “A neemu is a most vicious and beautiful beast, a machine of destruction. Even a leem will not willingly encounter two full-grown neemus.”
    “So be it,” I said. I had a plan for this headstrong youngster. “And the thanks of us all, Med Neemusbane.”
    Although as you know I had figured in a rebellion before, when I had led my old vosk-skulls against the overlords of Magdag, I had been cruelly wrenched away from that final victorious battle by the Star Lords. The rebellion had had no time to flower into a revolution. The time when, as the great song,
The Fetching of Drak na Valka,
says, I had cleansed my island of Valka of the slave-masters and the aragorn did not really count as an organized rebellion. That had been a people aroused in a just anger against rapacious oppressors who raided and reaved. Here, in Migla, the Canops had taken over every aspect of the country and had settled in as the masters. I had no real experience of revolution as I knew it must be handled here. But, as in my avowed way, I would learn.
    The problem of returning Saenda and Quaesa worried me; but Planath the Wine assured me he could arrange travel for the two female apims, one to Dap-Tentyrasmot, the other to Methydria, without too much trouble, provided they did as they were told. They had become accustomed to doing as they were told during their period as slaves, when they were being readied to run as quarry for the Manhunters of Faol. Just lately, after our escape, they had tended to revert to their usual hectoring and faultfinding ways. I spoke to them and I deliberately put that old vicious cutting rasp into my voice.
    They quailed as I spoke.
    “You both claim to be high-born ladies. You have prated on about the kools of rich grazing land and all the merchant agencies your fathers own. This may be so. But if you wish to cross the Shrouded Sea and return to your homes, you will do exactly as Planath the Wine tells you. He is a man to be trusted. If you give any trouble at all, I’ll clip your ears, by Vox, and send you back for sport in the fangs of the Manhounds of Faol!”
    “Oh, Dray!” wailed Saenda.
    And, “Oh, Dray!” wailed Quaesa.
    A vivid image flashed into my mind.
    I saw myself in a muldavy with her dipping lug of the Eye of the World, and I heard myself cutting