Read The Warlock of Rhada for Free Online Page B

the peasant who wished to carry iron weapons. But he had seen a Vulk: eyeless, noseless, hideous to view--a creature with terrible mental powers, far more potent and dark than those of any mutation. The soldiers had told him that the Vulk could touch minds across thousands of kilometers of ocean and mountain, that he could turn humans to stone with an incantation, that he ate the hearts of children and drank women’s blood. All that and much more, as the Protocols explained, were gifts to the Vulkish people from their masters the Adversaries, Sin and Cyb.
    “Are you certain about this thing, Shana?” he asked. “A Navigator would not travel with a Vulk.”
    “I have heard of them being together,” Tamil Hind interjected. “The priests have spells that can enslave the creatures. Sometimes they break free and then the Navigator is damned, but I have heard of this thing Shana’s eagles saw.”
    “The eagles did not see a Vulk,” Shana said rudely. She did not like Tamil devouring her with his eyes, seeking her favor by telling tales like this one. “I sensed something strange. It could have been one of them, that is all.” She turned her eyes, so silvery gray they reminded Shevil of Shevaughn’s, on her father. “Tell us what we must do, Shevil. The Navigator will burn us.”
    The others broke out in angry murmurs of agreement. They muttered of the Warlock, as Shevil knew they would.
    Still, what else was there? Half a hundred herdsmen and women could not defend themselves against the-Lord Ulm’s warmen. Damnation had fallen upon them with the coming of the Warlock. But death as rebels was more real, and it was coming upon them from the southern ridge of the valley, probably with the rise of the sun. “Very well,” the hetman said, “we will go to the mountain”--he paused and swallowed the bitter taste of fear--”and there we will seek the protection of Sin and Cyb.” He said over his shoulder to Tamil, “Snare a fat weyr for sacrifice,” then he turned to the other elders. Their dull, stupid faces made him ache with anger. Was the world always like this, he wondered? Had there ever been a life without fear? Had there ever been, in fact, a Golden Age --and if so, would there ever be again?
    Heavily, he said, “Perhaps the flesh of the weyr will please the Warlock, but I must tell you that I do not believe he cares for such things. If he is a true son of Sin and Cyb, his price for saving us may be much greater.”
    He raised his daughter to her feet and spoke to the folk who crowded about his open doorway. “Go and make ready. A member of each family must climb the moraine with the elders.” He stroked Shana’s dark hair and said, “Dress in your best, daughter, and cover yourself. The Warlock must not think us savages.” And he thought of a line from The Warls: “From the wrath of the warmen, who will deliver us?” Who, indeed, he wondered bitterly.
     
    On the ridge, where the soldiers bivouacked, the cooking fires burned low. Glamiss prowled the outposts studying the sky for further attacks from the eagles of Trama. But the birds seemed to have vanished from the sky and now, as evening drew near, a thin skin of high clouds began to cover the sun and the wind turned bitterly cold as it blew across the ice-fields and snowy peaks of the northern mountains.
    At the picket line he stopped to inspect Blue Star’s injuries once again. The mare was still nervous and angry and she showed her teeth at his approach, scratching at the hard ground with her deadly claws.
    “Fight,” she said. “Fight the flying things, Glamiss.”
    “Soon,” the Vykan said.
    Blue Star shook her head savagely and snorted. Idly, Glamiss stroked the soft, dark, furred skin of her muzzle. The mares would suffer if there was a freeze in the night. They were a hardy breed, accustomed to the grassy plains of Rhada where they were born, but they were lowland animals, bred for thousands of years on sea-level tundras. On Rhada,