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

Marika
stopped to wait. Grauel breathed, “All bless us. It is as big
as a mountain.”
    “Yes.” Marika started to explain how an airship
worked, saw that she had lost both huntresses, said instead,
“It could haul the whole Degnan pack. Packstead and all. And
have room left over.”
    Tradermale technicians were at work around the airship’s
gondola. One spotted them. He yelled at the others. A few just
stared. Most scattered. Marika thought that was amusing.
    The fat flank of the ship loomed higher and higher. She leaned
back, now as awed as Grauel and Barlog. She beckoned a male either
too brave or too petrified to have fled. He approached tentatively.
“What ship is this, tradermale?”
    He seemed puzzled by that latter, dialect word, but got the
sense of the question. “
Dawnstrider.
”
    “Oh. I do not know that one. It is so big, I thought it
must be
Starpetal.
”
    “No.
Starpetal
is much larger. Way too big for
our cradles here. Usually only the smaller ships come up to the
borderlands.”
    “Borderlands?” Marika asked, bemused by the size of
the ship.
    “Well, Maksche is practically the end of the world. Last
outpost of civilization. Ten miles out there it turns into Tech
Three Zone and just gets worse the farther you go.” He tilted
his ears and exposed his teeth in a way that said he was making a
joke.
    “I thought I hailed from the last outpost,” Marika
countered in a bantering tone. “North edge of the Tech
Two.” If she could overcome his awe, he might have something
interesting to say. She did realize that most meth considered
Maksche the end of the world. It was the northernmost city of
consequence in the Hainlin basin, the limit of barge traffic and
very border of Tech Four-permitted machine technology. It had grown
up principally to service and support trade up the Hainlin, into
the primitive interior of the vast and remote northern Reugge
provinces. “Well, savagery is relative. Right?
We
are civilized.
They
are savages. Come, Barlog.
Grauel.”
    “Where are you going?” the tradermale squeaked.
“Hey! You cannot go in there.”
    “I just want to look at the control cabin,” Marika
said. “I will not touch anything. I promise.”
    “But . . . wait . . . ”
    Marika climbed the ladder leading to the airship’s
gondola. After a moment of silent debate, Grauel and Barlog
followed, shaking visibly, driven onward only by their pride. A
Degnan huntress knew no fear.
    Dawnstrider
was a freighter. Its appointments were
minimal, designed to keep down mass so payload could be maximized.
Even so, the control cabin was bewildering with its array of meters
and dials, levers, valves, switches, and push-buttons. “Do
not touch anything,” Marika warned Grauel and Barlog for the
benefit of the technician, who refused to leave them unsupervised.
“We do not want this beast to carry us away.”
    The huntresses clutched their weapons and stared around.
Marika was puzzled. They were not ignorant Ponath dwellers
anymore. They had been exposed to the greater meth universe. They
should have developed some flexibility.
    She did not remain impressed long.
Dawnstrider
was a
disappointment, though she could not pin down why. “I have
seen enough. Let us go look at the little ships.”
    She went down the ladder behind the technician, amused by the
emotion betrayed in his every movement. She was getting good at
reading body language.
    She did not sense the wrongness till she had moved several steps
from the base of the ladder. Then it was too late.
    Tradermales rushed from beneath the airship, all of them armed.
Grauel and Barlog snapped their weapons to the ready, shielded
Marika with their bodies.
    “What is this?” Marika snapped.
    “You do not belong here, silth,” a male said.
“You are trespassing on brethren land.”
    Marika’s nerve wavered. Yet she stared the male in the eye
with the arrogance of a senior and said, “I go where I
please, male. And you mind your manners when