Manhounds of Antares by Alan Burt Akers Page B

foxes, hereabouts called inklevols, black against the dying suns-glow.
    Nath the Guide pointed ahead across the open land, dotted here and there with clumps of trees, gently rolling and gradually undulating away to a distant horizon.
    “Tomorrow we cross the plain and then—”
    “Then we are free!” exclaimed a Brokelsh, rubbing his black bristle body-hair in his excitement.
    We made our little camp in a hollow, surrounded by trees, in the bend of a small river. Nath showed the usual skills of the hunter in preparing a smokeless fire and of shielding the flame-glare by a palisade of twisted rushes. The knives he had provided were poor things, it was true, but they did enable us to cut wood and leaves and so fabricate a softer bed than the ground. We ate and drank water from the stream, and Nath had been able to provide a little wine for us. Truth to tell, freedom was the wine we all craved.
    We sat for a short space, talking, Nath and I. I had said to Naghan earlier: “Sosie and Lilah will sleep side by side, and you and I will sleep outside them.” And he had replied: “It is a good plan.”
    Now I said to Nath: “And is manhunting the chief occupation of the high ones of Faol?”
    “Yes. It is their ruling passion. Nobles come from all over Havilfar, and the lands beyond, to go on a Faol Jikai.”
    He sounded proud of that, which was strange, but he added: “They bring in money, which helps my people, and we arrange for the escape of the slaves.”
    “The hunters did not reach us, as you suggested they might.”
    “No. Tomorrow will be a day of careful marching.”
    I was itching to ask about Lilah who, as a princess, would in the societies I had previously known on Kregen be far more valuable as a subject for ransom than as a subject for a hunt. I put the point to Nath the Guide, who yawned, and said carelessly: “Oh, there are many girls who claim to be princesses and queens, and, mayhap, some of them are. But then — if a customer knew he was hunting a princess, and with all that would follow at the end of the hunt, think how much more the pleasure!”
    “I see,” I said.
    It did make sense, of a kind that sickened me anew. I rolled over and pushed up against Lilah where she lay asleep, one arm outflung across Sosie, and so let my eyelids close.
    Tomorrow we would cross the plain and reach safety and then I could deliver the Princess Lilah of Hyrklana to her friends and take off for Vallia. As sleep overcame me, I wondered vaguely if I might not prosecute two of my obsessions on Kregen as I was so near Havilfar. For on Havilfar lived the scarlet-robed Todalpheme who had taken Delia to Aphrasöe and who might therefore tell me where that marvelous Swinging City was situated on the face of Kregen. And the other obsession was to discover more of the fliers, the vollers, and their manufacture.
    So I slept and with the first rays of Far and Havil striking low over the plain I awoke, sat up and rubbed my eyes, and reached for the cheap knife and stood up — and Nath the Guide was gone.

Chapter Seven
    Princess Lilah of Hyrklana rides a fluttrell
    In a babblement and confusion the slaves ran about looking for Nath the Guide. They shouted along the stream and broke through thickets, and looked behind clumps of rocks. I studied where the guide had slept. His gear still lay where he had left it — blanket, shoes, knife, a leaf with a few palines — and as he had slept a little apart from us, whatever had taken him in the night had rested content with the one meal.
    Lilah shivered. “Poor Nath!”
    “Leem, by Hanitcha the Harrower!” Naghan said fiercely.
    “We are on our own now.” The squat-bodied Brokelsh rubbed his black body hairs as he spoke. “We had best move now!”
    “We will eat first,” I said. “And then we will march.”
    I did not anticipate an argument, and broke bread and gave some to Sosie and Lilah. We shared out what we had. In truth, it was little enough, and I fancied I must hunt