Book 2 - Warlock by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

cruelly Reugge bonds live so we silth can
be comfortable here? That much I have seen from the
wall.”
    Dorteka did not reply. She, too, was fighting anger.
    “If I must have company and protection, send my packmates,
Grauel and Barlog. I am certain they would be happy to accept your
instructions.” Her sarcasm was lost on Dorteka.
    She and Grauel and Barlog had been at odds almost since the
confrontation with the most senior. The two huntresses had been
making every effort to appear to be perfect subjects of the
Community. Marika did not want them to surrender quite so fast.
    “I will consider that. If you insist on going out
there.”
    “I want to, mistress.”
     
    The great ground-level gate rolled back. Grauel and Barlog
stepped out warily. Marika followed, surprised at their reluctance.
Behind her, Dorteka said, “Be back before dark, Marika. Or no
more passes.”
    “Yes, mistress. Come on!” She ran, exulting in her
freedom. Grauel and Barlog struggled to keep pace.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
    “It stinks,” Grauel said. “They live in their
own ordure, Marika.”
    And Barlog; “Where are you going?” Already it was
evident that Marika had a definite destination in mind.
    “To the tradermale enclosure. To see their flying
machines.”
    “I might have guessed,” Barlog grumbled. “Slow
down. We’re not as young as you are. Marika, all this
obsession with flying is not healthy. Meth were not meant for it.
Marika! Will you slow down?”
    Marika glanced back. The two huntresses were struggling with the
cumbersome long rifles they carried. “Why did you bring
those?” She knew Grauel preferred the weapon she had gotten
from Bagnel.
    “Orders, Marika. Pure and simple and malicious orders.
There are some silth who hope you’ll get killed out here. The
only reason you get a pretense of a bodyguard is because you have
the most senior’s favor.”
    “Pretense?”
    “Any other silth would have at least six guards. If she
was insane enough to come out on foot. And they would not be so
shoddily armed. They would not have let
us
come except
that we are two they won’t miss if something
happens.”
    “That’s silly. Nobody has been attacked since
we’ve been here. I think all that is just scare talk. Good
old grauken in the bushes.”
    “No one has been foolish enough to walk these streets
either, Marika.”
    Marika did not want to argue. She wanted to see airships. She
pressed ahead. The tradermales built machines that flew. She had
seen them in her education tapes and from her tower in the nether
distance, but it was hard to connect vision screen images and
remote specks with anything real. The airfield lay too far from the
cloister for examination from her tower.
    An aircraft was circling as Marika approached the fence
surrounding the tradermale enclave. It swooped, touched down,
rolled along a long concrete strip, and came to a halt with one
final metallic belch. Marika checked Grauel and Barlog for their
reactions. They had seen nothing like it before. Servants of the
silth saw very little of the world, and tradermale aircraft were
not permitted to fly near the cloister.
    They might have been watching carrion birds land upon a
corpse.
    “Let’s get closer,” Marika said. She trotted
along the fence, toward a group of buildings. Grauel and Barlog
hurried after her, glancing over their shoulders at the aircraft
and at two big transport dirigibles resting in cradles on the far
side of the concrete strip.
    The advantage of being silth, Marika believed, was that you
could do any All-bedamned thing you wanted. Ordinary meth would
grind their teeth and endure. She breezed into an open doorway,
past a desk where a sleepy tradermale watched a vision screen,
dashed down a long hallway and out onto the field proper, ignoring
the startled shout that pursued her. She headed for the
freighters.
    The nearest was a monster. The closer she ran, the more she was
awed.
    “Oh,” Grauel said at last, and slowed.