Fires of Scorpio Read Online Free Page B

to the north and start off for home.
    The three men stepped out onto the sand and began slurping their way toward the ship temple.
    Belted to their waists they carried swords. A glance showed me these weapons were the Pandahem pallixter, a straight cut and thrust weapon very much like the familiar Havilfarese thraxter. More often than not these swords were called thraxters. It seemed to me that I would need a sword in the immediate future.
    The chance of cutting these three down had gone. They were in sight of anyone watching from the ship. I turned quietly back to the jungle. Some more of these perverted worshippers of a vile creed would be along soon.
    The next two worshippers came in sight along the trail not long after, and of the two one was a woman. Well, as women claim equality in most things and more than equality in the rest, that made no difference.
    The man went to sleep most peaceably, and the woman followed him before she had time to cry out. I dragged them off the trail into the bush. They would slumber for some time but I judged it best to tie them up. The brown robes ripped easily enough — I used those from the woman — and I gagged them for good measure. Pulling on the robes and adjusting the fastenings and the silver tassels, I quelled a feeling of distaste. From a leather pouch I drew out the man’s silver mask. This was a quality item, stamped and fashioned into the likeness of a leem’s snarling face and covering forehead, eyes, nose and cheeks and sweeping down to cover the jaw bones. It was held by leather straps. I put it on. I fancy my eyes glared as madly from the eye slots as those of any leem.
    The suns shine lay warm and mingled in radiance across the sands, mocking what went forward in that upturned ship. There would be guards, heavy men, sweaty in leather harness, and well-armed. They would have to be dealt with.
    The woman carried a canvas bag of provisions — white bread, cold meats, cheeses, fruits, and the man a straw-wrapped flagon of a middling Stuvan. Their purses yielded golden deldys and silver dhems, and a mixture of other coins, so what with the Pandahem pallixters, I judged I must still be on the island of Pandahem.
    From the position of the suns I was on the south coast of the island, and the jungle at my back confirmed that. Where I’d left Seg at that Opaz-forsaken mountain was in the southeast corner of the island, so I was farther along to the west. So, very well. After this little lot I’d simply walk along toward the east. If I could find a riding animal, even better. I would not, I fancied, find an airboat very easily. They were still rare in Pandahem.
    Sounds reached along from the trail. More worshippers were hurrying to their blasphemous rituals. I heard a heavy voice saying: “And after we’ve conulted him, we’ll sew him in a sack and dump him in the sea.”
    “Agreed!” cried a second voice.
    If they were talking about this fellow called Pudor the first group had been contuming, he was in for a bad time. Conulting someone is to deliver him a tremendous buffet about the heart, either physically or psychically. It is not a pleasant experience.
    Conulting, though, was just the kind of experience that would suit these worshippers of Lem the Silver Leem.
    Letting this next batch go past and keeping well down, I waited until they were well out across the sands. With a most careful check of the backtrail, I rose to my feet, stepped out onto the sand and started off for the upturned ship.
    She had once been a fine craft, broad and bluff-bowed and high-pooped, able to breast the waves and send the white spume scudding. Now she was just an upturned keel. It seemed to me there was another sacrilege going forward here, that a once-fine ship should have sunk into so low and degrading a function.
    The followers of Lem have themselves branded upon a sensitive portion of their anatomies. Down south in the city of Ruathytu, capital of the Empire of Hamal, I’d once been