Fires of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers

of that house of death, while true, was also laughable as a reason. A jungle child, she’d seen far worse already in her four years.
    At the well in a secondary yard, walled in at the rear, we washed off. Ashti’s white dress was, once again, in need of laundering. Also a large rip was spreading along the hem. And, it seemed to me, the cloth was decidedly thin under the arms. Ashti, of course, being perfectly used to running about without the encumbrance of clothes, was resolutely determined not to be parted from her white dress.
    Eventually, looking as spruce as we could, we set off along Lower Squish Street for the Swod’s Revenge.
    The thraxter, cleaned up, snugged in the scabbard. And I’d taken a couple of tridents. If they represented ill luck or a talisman of good fortune, I did not know. But they would act as a catalyst, that seemed certain sure...
    The dusty road had no appreciable affect on Ashti’s bare feet. And I’d been going barefoot when I was her age — aye, and much later, when I was a powder monkey in Nelson’s fleet and, later still, in my adventures on Kregen. The vegetation bordering the road gleamed a brilliant dark green. Each leaf appeared freshly polished. Humming from the greenery and the quick flitting darting of insects told of the myriad life forms all fighting and struggling for existence. How life mocks us all! We fight and struggle and think ourselves grand and proud and mighty because we achieve a few shining goals, and, in the scheme of things, each one of us is just the same as any one of those gauzy-winged shining insects, flitting among the leaves.
    And so, with these maudlin — if arguably true and demonstrably banal — thoughts echoing in my old vosk-skull of a head, I trudged on along the dusty road and a high and a fierce voice roared: “Duck!”
    So, grabbing Ashti, I dropped and rolled full length. Ashti let out a startled yell.
    The flung billy hissed through the air where my head had been a heartbeat ago.
    She was quick on the uptake.
    “Durkin!”
    “Aye.” One of the Durkin brothers — the one without the towser cut — dodged back into the leaves.
    “Who shouted?” Demanded Ashti. She wriggled around and half-sat up. “Hai!” she called. “Durkin cramph!”
    “Ashti!”
    The fierce, dominating voice that had told me to duck, roared again: “Still in trouble, then, Jak! I don’t know how you’ve survived without me to look after you.”
    So I stood up. Ashti clung to my fingers. A man flew up out of the bushes and landed on his head. He landed, to be accurate, on his towser cut. His brother followed. Then a Khibil broke through the screen of leaves dragging the man who had flung the billy at me. He was being drawn along by an ear. He was not very happy about the situation. The Khibil landed a soggy kick and the third Durkin brother reeled away.
    “Clear off!” ordered the Khibil, not even bothering to gesture. “Schtump! Before I lose my temper.”
    The three tearaways picked themselves up, groaning, and slouched off along the road. It had not, all things considered, been their day.
    “I don’t know,” said Pompino. He looked full at me.
    I looked back. It had been some time.
    He was grandly — no, no, sumptuously dressed. He wore silken robes of a brilliant blue, emerald sharp, sapphire soft. A quantity of gold chains hung about him and bullion and lace decorated the cunning curves and folds of the garment. He carried a thraxter and a dagger in jeweled scabbards. His hat was a broad floppy feather-fluttering creation. He looked, in short, splendid.
    I said, “You look splendid, Pompino. Been to a fancy dress party?”
    “And you, apim, look as though you’ve just been in a fight and not come off well.”
    Very calmly, and quickly, I said, “Ashti. Do not bite the Khibil — no! Do not kick him, either. He is a friend and he just saved our heads from being knocked off.”
    Ashti swung back. Pompino looked at her. He smiled.
    “Ashti, is it? I