Renegade of Callisto
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Callisto #8
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Renegade of Callisto». Краткое содержание книги:
Far from his adopted home, the Golden City of Shondakor, Koja, self-exiled insectoid of the Yathoon Horde, has blundered into the savage land he had renounced, accompanied only by little Taran, ward of Prince Jandar. Lost in the treacherous scarlet plains, the two are hurled to separate, unnamable fates —Taran forsaken in shackles, along with the lovely Princess Xara, while the renegade Koja is locked on a perilous course of vengeance for the evils done to his clan. All destinies collide at the Great Yathoon Games in the hidden valley of Sargol — the impenetrable citadel girdled by a seething mote of flames.
In the spine-tingling tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter again transports us to a strange and sublime landscape pulsating with the flash of swords, secret splendors, and ever-lurking danger.
“Then we shall not give this aharj the swift execution generally afforded to aharj warriors when captured,” decided Fanga. “We shall save him for the Games.”
“And when, O Fanga, do we leave for Sargol?” inquired Uthak, newly raised to full chieftaincy to fill the command position left vacant by the death of Gothar.
“That has yet to be decided,” growled Fanga moodily. “But it will be soon enough, I warrant,” he added with a cold, gloating look at the impassive figure of Koja. “Too soon, for some among us. Take these captives away.”
Hoog, who had charge of the captives of Uthak’s tribe, set Taran to work grooming the thaptors. Koja he chained next to Borak on a work detail, and all that morning they labored together. During infrequent rest periods they found further opportunities to talk a little.
“How was it, Borak, that you came to lose your position among the Haroobs?” Koja asked during one of these brief respites from the day’s toil.
In measured tones which reflected absolutely no emotion, Borak related that he had ridden with his Clan into the grasslands that lay about the city of Tharkol about two years earlier. At that time he had been only a komor of the Haroobs, merely one of the dozen or so chieftains who led the several Haroob tribes under the command of Tugar, the high chief. Borak had taken several humans prisoner during a hunting expedition, it seems, and when these captives escaped, which was very soon after he captured them, the Clan was thereafter attacked by Shondakorian legions searching for these same lost humans, who were evidently persons of considerable importance in the Golden City of the Ku Thad.
Now, as it happened, Koja had independent verification of this part of Borak’s tale―for those people he had taken prisoner two years or so ago had been none other than Ergon and Glypto, Zamara of Tharkol, Darloona, my Princess, and I, Jandar.*
In their escape, the humans had driven away all of the Haroobs’ thaptors in a stampede staged as a diversion: therefore, when the legions came, the Clan was forced to fight on foot, and suffered enormous losses. Tugar, the high chief, accused Borak of criminal negligence and laxity in guarding his captives so carelessly, and would have had him put to death had not Borak claimed his right to challenge the high chief to personal combat.
This right, called tharaj, is a privilege that accompanies the rank of chieftain. Any chieftain may challenge the high chief of his Clan to personal combat at any time, just as any Clan chief may challenge the mighty Arkon or emperor of the whole Yathoon Horde to combat at any time.
Borak told of the battle, which had been a grim and terrible ordeal. After suffering many wounds he had at length slain the high chief and become high chief himself. But in gaining the throne of Tugar, he had incurred the enmity of a rival chieftain named Gorpak, who had never been particularly friendly with him when they had been of equal rank, and who now became his deadly enemy once he had achieved a rank superior to that of the vindictive Gorpak.
Gorpak, it seems, had either bribed or cajoled one of Borak’s followers, a natural-born schemer named Hooka, to incriminate Borak in a clever plot. The rivalry between Gorpak and Borak was well known to the warriors and chieftains of the Clan, and when Gorpak fell suspiciously ill of a complaint whose symptoms were similar to those caused by a certain poison called axad, and a phial of axad was found concealed among Borak’s trove of treasures, it was obvious to all that Borak had poisoned Gorpak in order to rid himself of a dissenter.
Of course, Gorpak was only faking his illness, and the phial of axad had been placed in Borak’s trove by the cunning Hooka.
The crime was an affront to the honor of warriors. Borak was deprived of the rank of high chief and declared aharj and driven into exile and outlawry, later taken prisoner by the Garukhs. Thus did Borak become a slave. Gorpak, making a miraculous recovery from his “poisoning,” had replaced Borak in the role of high chief.
Koja nodded, saying nothing. It was a cruel tale, and a hard turn of Fate. But life itself is hard and cruel in the wilderness of the Great Plains, where the savage and restless Horde wanders forever, at war with itself and with every other living thing upon the face of Thanator, the Jungle Moon.
9 Xara of Ganatol
Several days after these events, Koja was attached to another work detail and found himself chained next to the handsome young woman named Xara, who Borak the Yathoon had said was a Ganatolian of the royal house. He observed her unobtrusively, discreetly, curious as to her history, yet too diffident to strike up an acquaintance with a female of another species.
The Ganatolians are unique among the races of Thanator in that they most closely resemble the human inhabitants of my native world. Indeed, dress a citizen of Ganatol in human clothing, and you could set him or her down in the streets of Chicago or Seattle or Boston without attracting the slightest attention to his appearance.
This cannot be said, of course, for citizens of the Bright Empire of Perushtar, who are all bald and as red of skin as a ripe tomato. Nor can it be said of my own Shondakorians, who, with their golden skin, crimson hair, and green or amber eyes make a decidedly exotic appearance. Nor can it truly be said of the extinct or scattered races, such as the Sky Pirates of Zanadar or the bandit warriors of the Chac Yuul, whose physical characteristics differed considerably from earthborn humans.
The Ganatolians, in fine, have fair skins, eyes of blue, black, or brown, and sleek dark hair. They look like ordinary Englishmen or Americans, and are among the most highly civilized and cultured of the races of Callisto.
And Xara could only have been a woman of Ganatol. Her skin was as tender and as fair as that of a camellia’s petal, and her long thick hair was black as midnight and fine as silk. Her eyes were large, fringed with black lashes, and blue as any sapphire, and her lips were perfectly shaped, ripe, and luscious.
She was, in fact, a remarkably beautiful and desirable young woman. Even Koja, as alien to her kind as any insect might be to a mammal, had mixed with human beings long enough to recognize that she possessed an extraordinary loveliness.
She seemed sad and depressed, but resigned to her fate, saying little to her fellow captives, simply performing whatever tasks were assigned to her with docility and strict obedience. However, she affected not even to notice the presence of Koja at her side, never looked at him or spoke to him, and beyond a slight, disdainful wrinkling-up of her nostrils―as if she smelled something disgusting or repulsive―made not the slightest sign that she was even aware of his existence.
It is true that Koja, like all of his kind, possessed a distinct odor characteristic to the Yathoon. It was a sharp medicinal smell, as back on my native world, Earth, certain insects smell of formic acid. In point of fact, however, Koja’s odor was neither disgusting nor particularly disagreeable: in fact, I rather enjoy his smell. And, for Koja’s part, he once informed me that, to the senses of a Yathoon, humans also possess a distinct and characteristic odor which he does not find unpleasant.
He decided, however, that for whatever the reason, Xara did not wish to converse with him, and she desired him to leave her alone as much as possible. Some of the people of Thanator regard the Yathoon insectoids as lowly or subhuman forms of life, and even have a name for them―capoks. The word does not have complimentary associations.