Avenger of Antares Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Alan Burt Akers
sea and gradually the twin suns of Kregen, Zim and Genodras, the red and the green, sank to the horizon.
You may feel I have overemphasized the repulsiveness of these shanks. This could be so. But from them rose a foul aroma, the decaying stench of rotten fish. We gagged as we fought. But, then, I suppose it would be true to guess we stank in their slit nostrils.
We fought. The suns declined. Backward and forward swayed the fight, first upon our deck, then upon theirs, and then back again as men shrieked and died and others ran to take their places.
“Vallia! Vallia!” shouted our men.
“Ishtish! Ishtish!” screeched the shanks.
I must now relate what was to me a strange phenomenon. In the lands of Kregen whereon I had wandered this far in my life, the grouping of continents and islands so familiar to me, a grouping that in after years came to be called Paz, I had always found that among all the myriads of local dialects there ran the strong sure thread of the Kregish language. That tongue had seemed universal. But now, to my astonishment, I discovered that my people of Vallia could not understand the language of the shanks.
A few moments’ reflection convinced me that this was a more natural state of affairs than that around the curve of the world, on that other grouping of islands and continents, they should speak the tongue we called Kregish. This reflection was accompanied by much physical exercise in slitting throats, and gouging fishy eyeballs, and inspecting what fishy tripes might be like.
During this stage of the combat I began to have hopes that we would win.
The coded genetic language pill given to me by Maspero so long ago in Aphrasöe, the Swinging City, ensured that with a little application I could perfectly understand the language of these fishy people. In the heat of conflict I discarded that information and bashed on.
“Vallia! Vallia! Opaz is with us!” The shouts grew triumphant now as we smashed the shanks back, over their own brown-painted bulwarks, down onto their decks. Bodies lay everywhere, and there was no time to feel pity at the redness of the blood mixed with the green. Time only for a fleeting and wry acknowledgment of the antipathetic colors, the red and the green, forever locked in mortal combat in the sky, and now once again matched in the very blood of mortal foes!
Many a good man was down.
Hikdar Insur came cleaving his way through a crowd of shanks, and as his brand scorched and flayed them I noticed their resistance faltering. We were beating them!
“The Risshamal Keys close to larboard, Prince!” panted out Insur.
That was grim news. The breeze would push both our craft, entangled as they were, down on those reefs and rocks. If we were lucky we might strike a long sandy beach, a low-lying cay. Either way, with night coming on and the breeze at last freshening, we’d be shivered to pieces.
I saw Captain Ehren busily engaged. The Chuliks fought still with their ferocious disciplined violence. We were gradually overcoming the fish-men, but the task was nowhere near completed, and would grow sterner as we grew tired. I leaped for the shank’s quarterdeck followed by a ragged scrum of sailors. We used our clanxers and our spears, clearing away the massed tridents opposing us. We forced our way up onto the quarterdeck. The aftercastle, beyond, towered above us, and fish-men were shooting from it.
Our bowmen replied.
We should have shields,
I thought uselessly, and forged on. The command center of the vessel would be positioned here, and here was where the shank captain would be found.
He stood there, phalanxed by a bodyguard, resplendent in golden-scaled armor, a trident in his hand. His fishy face meant nothing to me. I could see differences in the faces of the shanks, the difference between a trout and a pike, say. To the shanks, I guessed, these were differences of great importance, nation by nation. This captain had the face of a barracuda.
He waved his trident
You may feel I have overemphasized the repulsiveness of these shanks. This could be so. But from them rose a foul aroma, the decaying stench of rotten fish. We gagged as we fought. But, then, I suppose it would be true to guess we stank in their slit nostrils.
We fought. The suns declined. Backward and forward swayed the fight, first upon our deck, then upon theirs, and then back again as men shrieked and died and others ran to take their places.
“Vallia! Vallia!” shouted our men.
“Ishtish! Ishtish!” screeched the shanks.
I must now relate what was to me a strange phenomenon. In the lands of Kregen whereon I had wandered this far in my life, the grouping of continents and islands so familiar to me, a grouping that in after years came to be called Paz, I had always found that among all the myriads of local dialects there ran the strong sure thread of the Kregish language. That tongue had seemed universal. But now, to my astonishment, I discovered that my people of Vallia could not understand the language of the shanks.
A few moments’ reflection convinced me that this was a more natural state of affairs than that around the curve of the world, on that other grouping of islands and continents, they should speak the tongue we called Kregish. This reflection was accompanied by much physical exercise in slitting throats, and gouging fishy eyeballs, and inspecting what fishy tripes might be like.
During this stage of the combat I began to have hopes that we would win.
The coded genetic language pill given to me by Maspero so long ago in Aphrasöe, the Swinging City, ensured that with a little application I could perfectly understand the language of these fishy people. In the heat of conflict I discarded that information and bashed on.
“Vallia! Vallia! Opaz is with us!” The shouts grew triumphant now as we smashed the shanks back, over their own brown-painted bulwarks, down onto their decks. Bodies lay everywhere, and there was no time to feel pity at the redness of the blood mixed with the green. Time only for a fleeting and wry acknowledgment of the antipathetic colors, the red and the green, forever locked in mortal combat in the sky, and now once again matched in the very blood of mortal foes!
Many a good man was down.
Hikdar Insur came cleaving his way through a crowd of shanks, and as his brand scorched and flayed them I noticed their resistance faltering. We were beating them!
“The Risshamal Keys close to larboard, Prince!” panted out Insur.
That was grim news. The breeze would push both our craft, entangled as they were, down on those reefs and rocks. If we were lucky we might strike a long sandy beach, a low-lying cay. Either way, with night coming on and the breeze at last freshening, we’d be shivered to pieces.
I saw Captain Ehren busily engaged. The Chuliks fought still with their ferocious disciplined violence. We were gradually overcoming the fish-men, but the task was nowhere near completed, and would grow sterner as we grew tired. I leaped for the shank’s quarterdeck followed by a ragged scrum of sailors. We used our clanxers and our spears, clearing away the massed tridents opposing us. We forced our way up onto the quarterdeck. The aftercastle, beyond, towered above us, and fish-men were shooting from it.
Our bowmen replied.
We should have shields,
I thought uselessly, and forged on. The command center of the vessel would be positioned here, and here was where the shank captain would be found.
He stood there, phalanxed by a bodyguard, resplendent in golden-scaled armor, a trident in his hand. His fishy face meant nothing to me. I could see differences in the faces of the shanks, the difference between a trout and a pike, say. To the shanks, I guessed, these were differences of great importance, nation by nation. This captain had the face of a barracuda.
He waved his trident