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.
Within the vast, domed hall, guards were stationed and slaves scurried under the lash of the overseers to serve food and drink for the princes of the Horde.
Grim and silent was this feasting of the Yathoon lords, for they were a somber and humorless people, devoid of the gentler arts of civilization. Music and the dance were unknown to them, as were literature, drama, and poetry.
As akka-komor, or high chief of the Kandars, Koja occupied a position of great prestige, and was seated near the foot of the dais itself, in token of the honor his Clan enjoyed.
Upon the dais squatted the mighty Emperor, Kamchan, supreme overlord and Arkon of the Horde, surrounded by his slaves and servitors.
Among a race of mighty warriors, Kamchan was spectacular. His chitinous hide was scored with the scars of countless wounds from the innumerable duels and battles in which he had fought. His grim, expressionless visage was hideously disfigured. One knobbed brow-antenna had been sheared away in some long-ago battle. An axe blade had crumpled the corner of his mouth, and the wound had healed with a jagged scar that lent his face the likeness of a mirthless and horrible grin.
The Yathoon―clad as they are in a crablike shell of armor―customarily wear no garments but a weapons belt and baldric. Kamchan, however, was covered with costly ornaments of precious metal, studded with numberless gems. His hideously scarred and towering body was one scintillant mass of dazzling gems.
He observed the surprising fact that Koja, long lost and long since believed slain, had somehow returned to his Clan and had now, obviously, risen to its highest rank. But he asked nothing about how these events had transpired, lest he lose dignity in so asking.
Eventually, however, the Arkon could contain himself no longer. While the thin, sour beer which the arthropods drink in lieu of the fine wines enjoyed by higher civilizations was served to the chiefs in bone goblets hollowed from the skulls of former enemies, he spoke up at last.
“We perceive, O Koja, that you have replaced the redoubtable Gamchan in the supremacy of the Kandars. How came this to be?” he inquired in somber, growling tones, harsh and heavy and rasping.
“O mighty Arkon, I was fortunate enough to best Gamchan, the former akka-komor, in a duel,” said Koja expressionlessly. He then, at the urging of his Emperor, recounted the battle in some detail, which the Arkon pretended to enjoy hugely.
Actually, as—things would have it, the Emperor of the Yathoon was severely displeased. A cruel and sadistic bully himself, he had been a crony of Gamchan of the Kandars, for like appeals to like, even among the emotionless insectmen. And he had never liked Koja, whose majestic and solemn dignity was natural and instinctive, and not feigned, and who possessed the finer and nobler traits of a brave and chivalric gentleman.
In another, these traits would have earned the scorn and the contempt of the Arkon, for he despised the softer sentiments of civilization and respected only indomitable courage and prowess. These, however, Koja also possessed, and the Arkon knew this well and from his own experience.
Upon more than one occasion the Arkon had faced Koja in the Arena during the Great Games, and had narrowly escaped his blade. He knew the Kandar for a formidable and courageous opponent, and, where in a nobler-hearted warrior than the Arkon Kamchan this would have won for Koja the admiration and respect of his Emperor, in the cruel heart of Kamchan it earned him but little. For he recognized in Koja, and always had, a potential rival for his throne.
Therefore, it did not in the slightest please the Emperor that Koja had returned from his wanderings to rejoin the Horde and had won for himself the chiefship of his Clan. He had thought Koja safely dead and buried years ago.
Koja concluded his brief and modest description of the battle in which he had bested and slain the former high chief of the Kandars, and the Arkon made no comment, merely giving a surly nod. Thereafter he ignored the new chief.
Koja returned to the tents of his Clan, which had been pitched against the edges of the forest that grew to the south side of the Arena, and composed himself for slumber.
He was well aware of the dislike the Arkon had always borne for him, and knew in his heart that by rising to the chiefship of the Kandars he had stepped into a new and perhaps dangerous prominence. As long as he had been merely a chieftain he had not really been important enough to be viewed by the malignant and cunning Emperor of the Horde as a foe and rival. Now everything was different.
Koja resolved to watch his step and to avoid giving affront to the Arkon Kamchan if he could possibly do so.
Otherwise, by crossing the river of living flame, he might find himself stepping out of the frying pan and into a hotter spot …
Night had fallen upon the Jungle Moon. The stars blazed, clear and brilliant, in the pure skies here near the pole.
One by one, the glorious and many-colored moons of Jupiter rose above the edges of the world to flood the snowfields and, with their vivid hues, to gild the peaks of the Black Mountains with colored fire.
Sentinels from the Clans of the Horde stood watch over the narrow pass which led through the impassable wall of these mountains to the Sacred Valley hidden in its heart.
They stood, also, upon the cliffs and ramparts of the range, so as to give warning should an enemy force approach the heartland of the Yathoon race. Just because no such enemy had ever come into the frozen southlands was no reason for their vigilance to relax or their attention to become negligent.
Keen of sight and tireless were the sentinels of the Horde. However, even their black and jewel-like compound eyes, lidless as are the eyes of the insects they so closely resemble, did not detect the approach of a most unlikely foe.
For days now the burly and indefatigable othode had journeyed south across the interminable plains. By night he had rested, and by day his strong, bowed legs had carried him ever onward with no discernible lessening of his strength or of the unshaken resolve to find Taran and Koja and Fido, which burned in his mighty heart.
Only hunger and thirst could turn him aside from his undeviating descent into the south. When thirsty, he sought a stream or pool from which to quench his thirst; if his keen senses failed to detect the nearness of water, he then would track down one of the peculiar perambulating jinko trees whose bladderlike leaves stored fresh water.
And when his belly growled for food, he would turn from his path to hunt for game, to track it down and slay it, and then he would pause only as long as it took him to devour his kill.
And now Bozo the othode had come to the foot of the Black Mountains. The snow-fields had not been easy to cross, and neither had that crossing been comfortable. But nothing could deter the brave and loyal beast from his aim.
With his sensitive nostrils it was not particularly difficult for Bozo to track the Yathoon and their beasts through the maze of the foothills which rose before the soaring rampart of the Black Mountains. Nor was it difficult for him to slink furtively from shadow to shadow, eluding the watchers posted above the narrow pass.
But the wall of living flame he could not pass.