Hostiles (The Galactic Mage series) by John Daulton Read Free Book Online Page B

not his way.
    Thinking was.
    With a thought, he teleported himself back to Prosperion. There was one other possibility.

Chapter 6
    K azuk-Hal-Mandik leaned out over the edge of the stone wall, peering down into the cavernous arena, down the face of the rock into the shadows below and around to the left. He’d seen where Drango-Kal’s killer had looked before he disappeared, before he’d vanished from the base of the mound of dead orcs. But now the teleporter was nowhere to be found, the light from the torches around the ancient shaman was too bright, spoiling his vision for the dark edges of the vast death pit below.
    He reached into a rabbit-skin pouch and pulled out a small fold of vellum. He opened it and extracted a silver ring, a thing of the humans. Small and fragile like they were. But smart like them too. He slipped the ring over the little finger of his left hand. It barely fit at the tip, squeezing tightly to the green flesh only midway down his yellowed fingernail. It was good enough.
    His vision shifted then, from his eyes to his hand, and in that instant it seemed as if he held his vision at the tip of his finger. This was the sight. Kazuk-Hal-Mandik had no magic sight, not by nature, not by the gift of God. But the ring gave it to him, the ring itself a gift of God, the one God who had appeared to them, the conqueror of the old gods, the God who brought them Discipline, the God that would lift them from the shadows and give them a rightful place among the races of Prosperion. Respect from Discipline. That was God’s promise.
    He pushed his vision down into the vast dark arena, slipping over the edge and sliding down the wall like a winged thing swooping for its prey. He descended and slipped into the shadows along the edge of the cavern, wending his way around boulders and stalagmites, seeking the new leader of the contest. Where had the teleporter gone?
    He ran his vision all the way down to the far end of the chamber where it began to arc around and head back on the other side. But there was no sign of the teleporting shaman with the stone. Kazuk-Hal-Mandik thought he must have missed him, Drango-Kal’s killer, crouched in the shadows somewhere. He had not seen any movement across the open center of the empty aquifer, the bloody grounds of this great contest. He lifted his vision some, gave himself a higher angle, this time two spans above the ground. He drifted slowly back along the wall, watching, listening. He had almost come back beneath Warlord’s suite where he’d started this search when he heard a sound, something faint, very small. He stopped. He stared down into the darkness, scanned every nook and crevice of the area nearby. He could see nothing. There was no one there.
    He heard it again. Something falling. A pebble perhaps.
    He turned back and let his vision drift once more toward the back of the cavern. A whelpling could crawl faster than he moved. He dropped back down to a span’s height off the floor. He heard it again. Behind him.
    He spun back. Still nothing. So he waited.
    He began noticing a pulse. Not so much a pulse of light, but a pulse of less darkness. Not steady, no rhythm, but visible motion in the darkness, something pale, and small, very small.
    He moved to it. There was the stone. The yellow stone, the purpose of the contest, embedded in the face of the cavern wall. Half in, half out, and perched atop a leaking oblong expanse. Dark fluid ran down the rock. The stone flashed, or more accurately, vanished for a moment and became visible again. This happened twice more.
    He noticed then the face above. An orc’s face protruding from the rock, the rest of its head buried in the cavern wall. He saw a hand above that, poised as if about to hammer down a blow, though the fist was loose and open now.
    The yellow stone vanished and reappeared, as if it were blinking, followed by the sound of a stone chip hitting the floor. This time Kazuk-Hal-Mandik heard a hiss to go with it. A