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bay and plug himself into the socket that would deactivate his circuits and
send him for a while into blissful oblivion. He awoke refreshed and recharged,
with new bearing liners, filters, electrical contacts, and fluids; fresh
plating gleamed on his abraded surfaces. With feelings of well-being, Thirg
was ready to face the new bright that lay ahead. There would be no rest on the
next dark, for apart from infrequent top-ups taken from the wild-grown hydride
cells which they would carry with them, the riders would not find food again
until they reached the far side of the Wilderness.
Before Thirg was even fully awake, Geynor rushed in from the street. "Good,
you're up. We have to get out fast. Come on!"
"What? Are the soldiers here?"
"No time to explain."
Thirg followed Geynor outside and found the whole village in panic. Most of
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ifemaker.txt the doors and windows were heavily barred. A few fearful faces
peered out here and there; in the central square between the houses, the
village
Headrobeing and a group of elders were haranguing Dornvald and his outlaws,
who were loading up their mounts and obviously preparing to move out in a
hurry. On the far side of the square more robeings were down on their knees
chanting hymns. Groork stood in front of them, his arms spread wide in
supplication, gazing up at the sky. Everything was bathed in a radiance of
ghostly violet that seemed to be coming from overhead.
Thirg had taken three paces across the square when he stopped dead, his head
tilted back and his body frozen into immobility with disbelief. A
smooth, slender, elongated creature, with rigid, tapering limbs and plumes of
light streaming from its underside, was hovering motionless in the sky to the
east, as if watching the village. There was no way to judge its size or
distance with any certainty, but Thirg's immediate impression was that it
couldn't be all that far away. He stood, and he gaped.
"The Lifemaker has sent His angel of wrath down upon us!" the village
Headrobeing moaned, wringing his hands. "Begone from our midst, Dornvald,
Bringer-of-Woes and Dealer-with-the-Accursed. See what retribution awaits even
now us who accepted your treacherous bribes."
"Take your followers from this place," another cried. "Truly you are but
living dead, risen from the dismantling tombs."
"I shall carry no fear of His wrath within me, Nor shall I tremble at His
coming, Nor harbor terrors of the beasts of darkness, For my feet have trod
the path of righteousness.
I have not strayed ..." Groork's voice recited from across the square.
"Mount up!" One of the outlaws reined to a halt with Thirg's steed held
stamping and snorting alongside his own.
Thirg shook himself from his trance and mounted hurriedly. "But what of
Groork?" he called to Dornvald, who was turning to join the rest of the band
as they grouped in the square.
"He hears only his voices and speaks only to the sky-dragon," Dornvald shouted
back. "We must leave."
Then a body of villagers brandishing staffs and blades advanced round the
corner ahead, following a huge, grim-faced robeing who was carrying a club of
lead-weighted pipe. "You shall not escape, Accursed Ones!" the leader shouted.
"The angel calls for a sacrifice in atonement. Let it take you who brought it
here, not us!"
"Ride!" Dornvald drew his sword and urged his mount into a gallop, and the
others closed in solidly behind with weapons already unsheathed. Thirg had
blurred impressions of bodies reeling back in confusion on both sides as the
ground raced by below, of shouting coining from all around him for a moment
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and then falling away behind . .". and then the road out of the village was
opening up ahead with the last houses slipping out of view. The riders
remained at full gallop while they passed through the outlying fields and
slowed their pace only when they had emerged into the wild scrubland beyond.
When they looked back, they saw that the flying beast had moved from its
station and was following them nearer the ground than before, and off to
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ifemaker.txt one side. Then it moved forward rapidly to circle ahead of them,
still keeping its distance and directing a cone of pale, violet light at the
riders as if to study them from all angles. The column slowed to a cautious
pace, and the dragon stayed ahead of them for a while. Finally it moved fully
round to come behind them once again, then climbed higher once more and
disappeared from sight moving back in the direction of the village.
Time passed, and it failed to reappear. Gradually the fear that had gripped
Thirg and his companions began to abate.
"What have you to say now about myths of sky-creatures, Seeker-of-Answers?"
Dornvald asked Thirg when the latter looked as if he had recovered
sufficiently to be capable of speech. "Have you an answer to offer for this?"
"I have none," Thirg replied numbly. He thought back to Groork's recent
insistence that voices from the sky warned of the imminence of great events.
Had he been mistaken about Groork's voices all along? Thirg said little more
as the bright lightened. Slowly the hills flanking the mouth of the last
valley flattened out and receded away on either side, and the scene ahead
opened out into vast wastes of dunes, scattered boulders, and undulating
desert as far as the eye could see.
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