Talons of Scorpio Read Online Free PDF Page A

Chuliks and Rapas are hereditary enemies, this is not strictly and invariably true. Of course, some Chuliks and some Rapas are always at one another’s throats, just as there are misguided apims who are hereditary enemies — here on this Earth just as much as Kregen, more’s the pity. But an employer will hire on mercenaries from many different races, and they will serve alongside one another for pay, and not quarrel overmuch. This system, as I have indicated, works to the employer’s advantage in that there is less likelihood of plots against him or her from the ranks of the paktuns taking pay.
    The combustibles were set, the children and the Lady Nalfi drew away to a safe distance, and Pompino personally set the first flame.
    We had seen no sign of the Brukaj slave who waited on the man we had followed here, and I, for one, could entertain a hope that he had escaped. Slaves are controlled, and do not always believe what their masters or mistresses believe.
    Flames ran and crackled and laughed gleefully to themselves. Smoke began to waft in flat gray streamers, filling the place with a soft veil, hiding the horrors.
    Retracing our steps up the blackwood stairs we encountered the little Och woman at the top, wringing her hands, crying.
    Some of us were for cutting her down where she stood, there and then. Others of us, though, counseled mercy as we could not know the full story and there was certainly no time to wait to find out. Pompino shouted alarmingly, and the Och woman ran off, throwing her apron over her head. The rest of us, the children and the Lady Nalfi, came up and we headed for the front door.
    Now even on Kregen in a civilized city a cutthroat gang of rascals with blood-spattered clothing and blood-reeking swords will claim attention if they attempt to march down the High Street. We halted on the steps, staring about.
    The Lady Nalfi in her soft husky voice said: “I know a way. The back alleys. Come, quickly.”
    Agreeing, we trooped down the steps and cut into the side alley between this house and the next. Murkizon trod on a gyp which howled and scampered off with his tail between his legs. Nothing else untoward occurred as we hurried along the alleys, past the backs of stores and houses, and so came out to a place where three alleys met. Here stood — or rather leaned — a pot house of the most deplorable kind. Only four drunks lay in the gutter outside. No riding animals were tethered to the rail. The Suns shone, the air smelled as clean as Kregan air ever can smell clean.
    Pompino looked at Nalfi.
    Larghos held her close and it was clear he would not relinquish her.
    “If we clean off the blood—”
    Pompino nodded. So we all went at the pump outside the pot house, sluicing and sloshing. Larghos eyed the four drunks calculatingly; but Murkizon told him that their clothes were far too ragged — and alive — for the Lady Nalfi.
    Speaking in a solemn, careful way, in almost a drugged fashion, Larghos the Flatch said: “I shall see to it that the Lady Nalfi is dressed as befits her, in the most perfect clothes it is possible to find. Such beauty must be dressed in beauty.”
    Nalfi did not reply; but her blue gaze appraised Larghos. He swelled with the importance of the task he had set himself. Pompino caught my eye, and smiled; I did not respond. Not all marriages are made in Heaven, and not all end in Hell.
    When we were cleaned up we set off still keeping to quiet and less-frequented ways down to the docks.
    Confidentially, Pompino said to Cap’n Murkizon: “Captain. It would be best if you asked Larghos, quietly, what he knows of this Lady Nalfi.”
    Murkizon leered; but agreed.
    The sea sprung no untoward surprises, sparkling pale blue with that tinge of deeper shadows past the rocks, which, in their furry redness sometimes looked perfectly in place and at others oddly out of keeping. Gulls flew up squawking as we walked along the jetty.
    “Thank the good Pandrite!” exclaimed Pompino when