The voller bore me up and away and I left those fearsome fighting shtarkins to slaughter the good people of Vilasca.
The shtarkins employed the tall asymmetric bow instead of the short compound reflex bow. I had no real knowledge of the asymmetric bow, but the thing shot an arrow fully as long as a great Lohvian longbow and was reputed accurate to prodigious ranges. Seg would have had his keen professional instincts immediately aroused. The arrows, cloth yard shafts, were tipped with long serrated heads. I saw one burst clean through a running woman, and as she fell my hands twisted the levers to bring me down. But a vision arose, a vision of another woman falling beneath the arrows of the Leem Lovers. And that woman was Delia. With agony, with remorse, but decisively and with bitter determination, I smashed the levers back and shot the voller up and away.
I had selected this airboat as the fastest of the three, and my faith in my own judgment was proved as I cleaved the air, heading east and south. Somewhere far over the northwestern horizon lay the main island of Vallia, that great and puissant Empire of Vallia of which Delia’s father, my children’s grandfather, was Emperor. They would have to buckle to, now that they were thus cruelly beset. As for the Star Lords — I would see them abandoned to the Ice Floes of Sicce before I would abandon Delia and Drak!
So I shot on. Looking back, I suppose the Star Lords, having always seen me operate in obedience to their commands before, held their hand. Once before I had taken a flier and left the scene of my labors to raise an army. That had been in Migladrin, when Turko and I had flown back to Valka to bring those fighting men of mine who had won the Battle of the Crimson Missals. But then I had not left a scene where immediate action had been necessary. Always before, when I had been hurled all naked into a strange part of Kregen, I had jumped up and obediently gone into action to save the lives of those the Star Lords wished preserved.
This time I had turned my back.
A bur ticked by, then a quarter of a bur.
Below me the sea clumped with the Nairnairsh Islands.
Not long to go now! My men must resist. They must hold out until I was once more back among them to lead them to victory.
So puffed up with pride are the princes of the two worlds.
A shadow fleeted across me. I looked up. The scarlet and gold messenger of the Star Lords swung up there, circling lazily, riding the air currents. He was watching me, I did not shake my fist. I ignored him. Frail hope!
He stooped, swooping down on the voller. He screeched.
'What is this thing you do, Dray Prescot?'
I said nothing.
'Onker! You destroy yourself!'
I flared back at him. 'You great nurdling onker! Do you think I can leave my wife and my child in mortal danger for you?'
'Yes.'
I hurled abuse at him, shaking my fist, screaming. The voller surged on. And there, below me the village of Panashti!
I slanted the voller down headlong through the air.
The shanks had put in an attack, for bodies sprawled before the stockade. Activity in the forest edge indicated a fresh attack at any moment. I had to be there, leading my men, fighting to protect my Delia and my son!
Even as the Gdoinye swooped in fast, I saw the scaled and fishy forms leaping forward with a shower of arrows to cover them. And, among the arrows, there blazed forth fire-arrows. Pots of fire were being hurled. Wisps of smoke lifted from the huts as the fire-arrows struck, as the pots of fire burst. Men and women ran with their water buckets to douse the flames.
Almost there! I was yelling and shouting and beating my fist against the speed lever. I scarcely heard the Gdoinye.
'Onker, Dray Prescot! This is not for you! This is not the way of the Everoinye!'
'Get away, rast!' I bellowed. 'I am needed below!' Part of the stockade was burning. The shanks were making a determined attack there. They were running with ladders made from cut branches. I saw men struggling, the flash and wink of steel. Faintly through the wind’s rush I could hear the bestial screams and shrieks. My fist beat the lever, I shouted and the Gdoinye swerved in and alighted on the very gunwale of the voller. I had never seen him so close before. He was truly magnificent, full of throat where the golden feathers encircled him, his scarlet feathers ruffling in the slipstream. His predatory black talons fastened on the wood and canvas of the voller. His black eyes, lit with inhuman intelligence, regarded me implacably.
'You are to be given another chance! Dray Prescot, get-onker! You are to serve the Star Lords. They grant you a boon, a boon never granted to you before.'
'Keep your boons, nulsh!'
The burning corner of the stockade was down. The shanks were smashing in with axes. Men were running. My Valkan Archers were running up to reinforce this threatened corner. The swordsmen were already in violent combat inside the palisade. More and more fishheads were clambering over the ruin of the walls. I screamed in baffled fury and swung the voller to alight directly on their heads. I would smash down from the sky clean on top of them. That should give my men a chance to rally. The moment was coming. I measured the drop and checked the speed of the flier. In a knot of struggling men I saw the glittering armored figure of Balass the Hawk, striking fishheads down. Turko the Shield appeared from a hut, struggling — struggling with Delia! She was trying to run after Drak — and Drak was racing headlong to hurl himself into the fray!
I shrieked — I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair Of Zy — I shrieked like an insane man. Melow the Supple and her son Kardo appeared, raging, striking down fishheads with the awful venom of the manhound. Their jagged teeth ran green with the spilled blood of the Leem Lovers. All the others were there, battling desperately to protect Delia. The voller slowed, for if I smashed headlong into the shanks I’d as likely kill myself as well as them. Any minute now. I perched up on the gunwale just abaft the windscreen, ready to leap into the fray.
Turko still held Delia and his great shield deflected two arrows that caromed away, spinning.
'Remember the great gift the Star Lords bestow on you, Dray Prescot, you onker!' And then the scarlet and gold bird shifted and changed and flowed and the blueness of the Scorpion enfolded me.
Falling. . Falling. . Dropping down and down. .
I felt the dusty earth at my back. I heard the shrieks and cries of battle and I knew that this battle was not the one into which I wished to plunge but that other, strange, uninteresting, unwanted battle on the island of Vilasca.
I sprang up.
Then, instantly, I realized this great gift of the Star Lords.
For the very first time on Kregen I had been transported and had not arrived naked. I wore all my battle gear, the trappings in which I had flown off to fight the shanks.
'I curse you, Star Lords! This small thing is no great gift to me! I defy you!
Again I set her toward the east and south and this time I did pray, pray that I could arrive in time to see my Delia and Drak alive, to hold my dear Delia in my arms once more.
A ripping sound brought me around, the rapier instantly in my fist. The long barbed serrated head of an arrow thrust up through the floor of the voller. I cursed the thing and thrust the rapier back. Bending to pick up the arrow, dragging it through, I thought to assuage the pangs of agony tearing at my mind by learning what I might of the shtarkins.
The hateful voice croaked by my ear as I straightened up.
'The Star Lords are most wroth. You have sinned mightily.' The Gdoinye perched on the rim of the voller. His feathers glittered in the light of the suns, glittering golden and scarlet in that streaming opaline radiance.
I said nothing. I whipped the longsword from my back, hefted it in that cunning Krozair grip, swung it full- force horizontally.
Had the Gdoinye been a mortal bird he would have been sheared in two. He skipped lightly away and the great blade hissed through thin air.
'You have made a mistake, Dray Prescot, and now you must pay. No man defies the Everoinye!'
