(eng) Alan Burt Akers - Dray Prescot 41 by Scorpio Ablaze

Author:Scorpio Ablaze [Ablaze, Scorpio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter eleven

Smashed and pummeled by the water, bashed by black boulders, charged by drifting logs and lashed by overhanging branches — yes, I can say that unknown river in darkest Chem gave me one of the roughest rides of my career, a career, as you who have listened to my narrative can testify, not without its full freight of rough rides.

Away I went, hurly-burly, scattering foam as I tried, damn feebly, too, to claw a way to the bank and out of this maelstrom.

Rolling over and over like one of those confounded logs that kept battering at me, I saw streaming black and white water and then a whisk of a green-leaved bank and then the black branch-laced sky. The current possessed the power of a thousand leems. The boulders were positioned with the cunning animosity of Mak Grancesi the Malignant himself. I could feel the bruises starting up already. If I didn’t hoick myself up out of this tout de suite I’d run my head full tilt into a rock, and as what there might be of brains oozed into the water, that would be the end of Dray Prescot.

One of those Opaz-forsaken branches that kept on whipping me as I thundered past proved the saving of my carcass. The thing took a vicious swipe at my head as I was rolling, all splashing and flailing arms and legs, and turning face uppermost. I reached up with arms and fists seeking life.

The grip I took was the grip of death. I felt the shock of the sudden check in my helter-skelter progress. I hung on, panting, and after a bit, gritting my teeth, started to haul myself up. By the time I’d got my legs up out of the clutching jaws of the stream and gripping the branch, I felt as though I’d been beaten with laths. When I got my breath back I swung leg over leg and fist over fist to the bank.

I wasn’t fool enough to imagine my troubles were over. No, by Vox!

Here I was, dumped into a hostile jungle, pelted by rain so that visibility was practically nil, isolated, with only my wits and weapons to save me from becoming some predator’s lunch. Well, as you know, this is no novel situation for Dray Prescot even if each situation is different one from the other. Previous experiences would be invaluable; the unexpected will always turn up and must therefore be expected.

Because this was Kregen, where you take your weapons for even the shortest trip, I was not unarmed. There were spare strings for the Lohvian longbow in the waterproof pouch on my belt. I had the Krozair longsword and the rapier and main gauche. My old sailor knife snugged over my right hip. And, inevitably and correctly, I wore the brave old scarlet breechclout.

Well, now...

As abruptly as it had begun, the rain stopped and the incessant hissing drumming was replaced by the steady drip drip drip as the leaves shed the surplus water. Everything began to steam like the hot rooms of the Baths of the Nine.

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