Read Online Krozair of Kregen by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online Page B

and likewise issued. There were insufficient bows to go to all those who clamored for them.
    I saw Nath. He had a piece of cloth. He saw me and waved and then stood on the bulwarks and dived cleanly into the water.
    One or two men yelled and they would have started an outcry.
    “Silence, you famblys! Nath the Slinger goes to collect pebbles.”
    A few other men turned out to be slingers and they went off to collect ammunition. Rukker turned up again; he was growing tiresome, but I wanted to humor him, for not only did he intrigue me, I needed his bull-strength in the bows as a prijiker when the attack came in. And that would not be long now. He wore a mail shirt and a helmet. He carried a longsword. He looked exceedingly fierce.
    “I do not know why I suffer your impertinence, Dak. But after we have taken those ships—”
    I turned to Vax.
    “Why have you not put on a mail shirt, Vax?”
    “Because they are all taken already.”
    That was the obvious answer to an unnecessary question.
    But Rukker took the point. His face went more mean than ever, and he began to bluster. I pointed forward. “They are almost here.”
    He swore — something about Targ and tails — and stormed off to the bows. He had selected a strong prijiker party, those stern fighters who were the cream of a crew.
    Again I went a little way up the mast. Grodnim swifters still had only the one mast, apart from the smaller one for the boat sail forward. I studied the oncoming swifters. Their tall upflung sterns towered. Men clustered their quarterdecks and poops, armed and armored men, anxious to revenge their fellows in
Green Magodont.
    I called down to Fazhan standing on the quarterdeck.
    “Get under way and aim for the rast to larboard.”
    He was a merry soul, this Fazhan ti Rozilloi, when not being flogged at the oars.
    “I have ample volunteers to act as whip-Deldars, Dak. But not many oar-slaves.”
    “We do not need a great speed. Just enough to get our beakhead onto his quarterdeck.”
    “That I will do.”
    Vax met me as I reached the deck.
    “And the cramph to starboard?”
    “If Rukker can handle his swifter, I’ll take that one.”
    “Then I will stand with you.”
    I lifted an eyebrow, but did not comment. Truth to tell, at that moment I was pleased to have him with me in the fight. Rukker had his party poised, and I saw he had about twenty Katakis with him. Again the incongruity of Katakis actually being slaves, instead of slavers, struck me.
    We could all hear the steady double drumbeat from the oncoming swifters. Their helm-Deldars kept them sweetly on course, going stern first, and I fancied they would both be smart ships. This was not going to be as easy as many of the ex-slaves seemed to think, screeching their joy at freedom and their malefic hatred of the damned Green Grodnims.
    Duhrra said, “The one to starboard is
Vengeance Mortil,
Duh — just let me get aboard of her. . .”
    Vax lifted his handsome, fine-featured face, with the blood staining under the skin. “It will give me exquisite pleasure to chastise her whip-Deldars.”
    I said, “And each time you strike you will strike at your father, no doubt.”
    He flung me a scorching look.
    “It is likely, for he and they have much in common. He has done me a great injury and I shall never forgive him.”
    “My old man,” said Nath the Slinger, walking up dripping wet, carrying a leather bag filled with stones, “used to knock the living daylights out of us kids. But he meant well, the old devil.”
    “Back in Crazmoz,” said Duhrra, fussing with his hand, “my father was always chasing the women. My mother used the broomstick on him right merrily. Duh — how we all ran!”
    My father had died of a scorpion sting, back on Earth; but now was no time to consider how that had affected my life.
    “Just so long as we get onto the deck. By Zair! We hold the Grodnims in play and the men slide below and release the slaves. That’s the only way we’ll win.”
    It was