Read Online The suns of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online
Authors: Alan Burt Akers
Ads: Link
“Three silver oars, master,”
she wheedled.
“Two.”
Genal was fidgeting next to me, and Pugnarses rumbled thickly: “May Makku-Grodno take the girl!
What does the money matter? Let her make haste!”
Genal said quickly: “She must act her part.”
The bargain was struck at two silver oars and two copper oars — those tarnished coins of Magdag with the crossed oars on their reverses, a variety of vapid faces of Magdag overlords on their obverses. The man bent his head to follow Holly into the doorway, with a lascivious chuckle on his lips, his hands already reaching to strip away the shush-chiff. Genal and Pugnarses, one on each side of the door, struck the man over the head and as he collapsed soundlessly forward into my arms I dragged him bodily inside. Not one of us said a word. I stared at Holly in her shush-chiff and, indeed, she was exceedingly beautiful, young and fresh and soft, sweet with the promise of youth.
Then she went to stand once more flaunting her beauty insolently in the pink moonshine, as human bait. That night, my first at the task, we picked up six men who wished to sample Holly’s wares. We bound them and gagged them and took their finery, personal jewelry, money, and weapons. This facet of Holly amazed me; I saw she could act with all the sure purpose of a mature woman. The men would be sent into the warrens by certain paths Holly knew. From there, naked and bound, they would find their way into distant slave gangs over the other side of the building complex. It would be impossible to prove their identities when confronting the immediate response from the overlords and the guards, which was usually a blow to the head. Holly, however, seldom took even that risk. She usually insisted the men be sent to the galleys; who would not tremble at that simple phrase? Sent to the galleys. When I asked why the hated overlords and guards were not killed out of hand, Genal looked at me as though I were mad.
“What?” he exclaimed. “Send them straight up to Genodras, to sit in glory at the right hand of Grodno, before they have suffered here on earth? I want to know they suffer, first, before they die and are received into the Green Glory.”
I did not say anything.
What had impressed me as a vital element in the structure of the Eye of the World was that while the slaves believed in the red-sun deity, Zair, in general, the workers, whose allegiance should have wholeheartedly belonged to Grodno, were most lax and loose in their beliefs. This feeling that death would release them to go to their hopes of glory in the green sun was perhaps the strongest religious tenet they tolerated.
The surrounding countryside was terrorized by the mailed men. They took anything they wanted outside the immediate bounds of their city limits and the enormous machine-run, factory-type farms. By galley and by their mounted cavalry, they dominated the northern littoral. There were other cities on the northern shores, but none approached Magdag in size, power, or magnificence. So far I had seen no zorcas or voves, those magnificent riding animals of Segesthes. The overlords rode a six-legged beast rather like a skittish mule, blunt-headed, wicked-eyed, pricked of ear, with slatey-blue hide covered with a scanty coarse hair that overlords trimmed and oiled. I wondered at their suitability as mounts; the six-legged gait is often awkward and uncomfortable for a rider. The riders did not wield lances, relying on their long swords. I saw little evidence of bows, and those I did see were the standard short, straight bow; neither the reflex compound bow of my Clansmen nor the long English yew bow were in evidence in Magdag. The riding beasts, the sectrixes, seemed to me good sturdy animals, although I doubted their hardiness; they did not, in my estimation, stand enough hands high to give a Clansman all the room he would like in which to swing his ax or broadsword. More and more I was coming to see Magdag as a great
she wheedled.
“Two.”
Genal was fidgeting next to me, and Pugnarses rumbled thickly: “May Makku-Grodno take the girl!
What does the money matter? Let her make haste!”
Genal said quickly: “She must act her part.”
The bargain was struck at two silver oars and two copper oars — those tarnished coins of Magdag with the crossed oars on their reverses, a variety of vapid faces of Magdag overlords on their obverses. The man bent his head to follow Holly into the doorway, with a lascivious chuckle on his lips, his hands already reaching to strip away the shush-chiff. Genal and Pugnarses, one on each side of the door, struck the man over the head and as he collapsed soundlessly forward into my arms I dragged him bodily inside. Not one of us said a word. I stared at Holly in her shush-chiff and, indeed, she was exceedingly beautiful, young and fresh and soft, sweet with the promise of youth.
Then she went to stand once more flaunting her beauty insolently in the pink moonshine, as human bait. That night, my first at the task, we picked up six men who wished to sample Holly’s wares. We bound them and gagged them and took their finery, personal jewelry, money, and weapons. This facet of Holly amazed me; I saw she could act with all the sure purpose of a mature woman. The men would be sent into the warrens by certain paths Holly knew. From there, naked and bound, they would find their way into distant slave gangs over the other side of the building complex. It would be impossible to prove their identities when confronting the immediate response from the overlords and the guards, which was usually a blow to the head. Holly, however, seldom took even that risk. She usually insisted the men be sent to the galleys; who would not tremble at that simple phrase? Sent to the galleys. When I asked why the hated overlords and guards were not killed out of hand, Genal looked at me as though I were mad.
“What?” he exclaimed. “Send them straight up to Genodras, to sit in glory at the right hand of Grodno, before they have suffered here on earth? I want to know they suffer, first, before they die and are received into the Green Glory.”
I did not say anything.
What had impressed me as a vital element in the structure of the Eye of the World was that while the slaves believed in the red-sun deity, Zair, in general, the workers, whose allegiance should have wholeheartedly belonged to Grodno, were most lax and loose in their beliefs. This feeling that death would release them to go to their hopes of glory in the green sun was perhaps the strongest religious tenet they tolerated.
The surrounding countryside was terrorized by the mailed men. They took anything they wanted outside the immediate bounds of their city limits and the enormous machine-run, factory-type farms. By galley and by their mounted cavalry, they dominated the northern littoral. There were other cities on the northern shores, but none approached Magdag in size, power, or magnificence. So far I had seen no zorcas or voves, those magnificent riding animals of Segesthes. The overlords rode a six-legged beast rather like a skittish mule, blunt-headed, wicked-eyed, pricked of ear, with slatey-blue hide covered with a scanty coarse hair that overlords trimmed and oiled. I wondered at their suitability as mounts; the six-legged gait is often awkward and uncomfortable for a rider. The riders did not wield lances, relying on their long swords. I saw little evidence of bows, and those I did see were the standard short, straight bow; neither the reflex compound bow of my Clansmen nor the long English yew bow were in evidence in Magdag. The riding beasts, the sectrixes, seemed to me good sturdy animals, although I doubted their hardiness; they did not, in my estimation, stand enough hands high to give a Clansman all the room he would like in which to swing his ax or broadsword. More and more I was coming to see Magdag as a great
Similar Books
