Earthblood by Keith Laumer, Rosel George Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

yards thick at the base, rising like a column of buttressed white stone set with daggers of crystalline lime. It wasn't hard to climb, as long as he just held on with his knees and elbows and didn't touch the spines; and the branch, the one that reached out to the wall—it wasn't very big, but it would probably hold all right—even with the weight of a sixteen-year-old Man on it.
    Roan started up; the first fifty feet was simple enough, the spines were as big as Roan's wrist, set well apart; he could even use them as footholds. He reached for a higher grip—and a spine broke under his foot. His hand snapped out to seize a razor-edged spine while his knees gripped the narrowing buttress between them. Pain tore through his hand and snaked down his arm, red pain and blood. Roan hated the dumb way his hand had grabbed, like the Soetti's claws, at whatever came near. The Soetti's claws couldn't learn but maybe Roan's hand could, if it hurt enough. And it did hurt enough and now it was slippery as well.
    Pain was a taste of death in Roan's mouth, like the time he'd broken his foot. But something else Roan could do was force himself to forget things. He ignored the hand and went on.
    The branch that stretched over the wall had patches of peeling bark adhering to it. Roan brushed them away before stepping out on it; he couldn't take a chance on losing his footing; with his slippery hand, he might not be able to hold on if he fell. He wiped his hand again on his tunic, then clenched it to hold in the pain and the blood. The branch moved gently underfoot as he walked out on it, swaying to the gusty wind, and dipping now under his weight. Raff was right; he did grow too fast. He was heavier than an old gracyl brood master. The tip of the branch was level with the top of the wall now; and now it dipped lower, the shiny blue leaves at its tip clattering softly against the weathered masonry. But he was close now; the whine and thump of the noisemakers were loud above the chirp and bellow of the crowd beyond the walls, and he could see the blue-white disks of the polyarcs glaring on the dusty midway. The last few yards were hard going. The tiny spines were close together here—and sharp enough to stab through his bos-hide shoes. If the slender bough sank much lower under his weight, he wouldn't be able to reach the wall. But he knew. He knew from the gracyl games how much weight a tree limb could hold.
    Balancing carefully, Roan started the branch swaying, down, up, in a slow sweep, down, heavily, then shuddering up . . .
    On the third upward swing, Roan jumped, caught the edge of the wall, raked at loose rubble, then pulled himself up and lay flat on the dust-powdered surface, still hot from the day's sun. He opened his hand and looked at it. The blood had formed a blackish cake with the dust. That was good; now maybe it would stop running all over things and spoiling his fun. He patted it in the dust some more, then crawled to the edge of the wall and looked over into the glare of the grounds—
    Sound struck him in the face like a thrown chunck-flower: the massed roar of voices, the shrill clangor of the noisemakers, the rustle of scaled and leathered bodies, the grating of feet—shod, horned, clawed, hooved. The cries of shills and hucksters . . .
    It was dark now. Twenty feet below Roan, the heads of the crowd stretched in a heaving sea of motion, surging around the pooled light of the midways, alive with color and movement. There, a jeweled harness sparkled on tandem hitched bull-devils; there a great horned body, chained by one leg, pranced in an intricate dance; and beyond, caged dire-beasts paced, double jaws gaping.
    Roan forgot to breathe, watching as a procession of scarlet-robed creatures with golden hides strode into view from a spotlighted arch, fanned out to form a circle, dropped the red cloaks, and rushed together, cresting up into a living pyramid, then dropping back to split and come together like a wave breaking