Warlock by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

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 you speak —”
    “You are out of line, pup. No one comes into a brethren enclave without permission of the