Free Book 2 - Warlock by Glen Cook Page B

work.”
    Marika ran that through her mind, looking at it from every angle
but the logical. She already knew the argument made no logical
sense. She must have missed something because she still did not
understand after trying to see it as silth. “Mistress, I do
not understand.”
    Dorteka had forgotten already. “What?”
    “
Why
should we not build a metal darkship if it
is within our capacity? When it is all right for us to build a
wooden one? Especially if the tradermales are working against
us.” There was some circumstantial evidence that a tradermale
faction was supporting the ever more organized efforts of the rogue
males plaguing the Reugge.
    Dorteka could not explain in any way that made sense to Marika.
She became confused and frustrated by her effort. She finally
snapped, “Because that is the way it is. Silth do not do
physical labor. They rule. They are artists. The wooden darkships
were works of art. Metal ships are machines, even if they perform
the same tasks. Anyway, we have tacitly granted that they fall
inside the prerogatives of the brethren.”
    “We could have our own factory inside the
cloister . . . ” Marika gave it up.
Dorteka was not interested in a pup’s foolish notions. Marika
invested in a series of mental relaxation exercises so she could
clear her thoughts to enjoy the flight.
    The darkship did not pursue a direct course toward Akard. It
roamed erratically, randomly, at times drifting far from the river,
on the off chance contact would be made with nomads. The day was
far advanced when Marika began to see landmarks she recognized.
“There, Grauel. What is left of Critza.”
    “The tradermales will not be restoring that. That
explosion certainly took it apart.”
    Bagnel had set off demolition charges in what the nomads had
left of the packfast, to deny it value to any nomads who thought to
use it later.
    “Now. There it is. Straight ahead,” Barlog said as
the darkship slipped around a bend in the river canyon.
    Akard. Where Marika had spent four miserable years, and had
discovered that she was that most dreaded of silth, a strong
darkwalker.
    The remains of the fortress were perched on a headland where the
Hainlin split into the Husgen and an eastern watercourse which
retained the Hainlin name. It was webbed in by scaffolding. Workers
swarmed over it like colony insects. The darkship settled toward
the headland.
    It was a scant hundred feet off the ground when Marika felt a
sudden, strong touch.
    Hang on. We have a call for help.
    That was the Mistress of the Ship with a warning so powerful
even Grauel and Barlog caught its edges.
    Marika barely had time to warn them verbally. The darkship shot
forward, rose, gained speed rapidly. The robes of the Mistress and
bath crackled in the rushing wind. Marika ducked down through to
examine the altered relationship between the Mistress and bath. The
Mistress was drawing heavily on the bath now.
    The darkship climbed to three hundred feet and arced to the
east, into the upper Ponath. A few minutes later it passed over the
site of the Degnan packstead, where Marika had lived her first ten
years. Only a few regular lines in the earth remained upon that
hilltop clearing.
    Marika read grief in the set of Grauel’s upper torso.
Barlog refused to look and respond.
    The darkship rushed on toward the oncoming night. Way, way to
her left Marika spotted a dot coming down from the north, angling
in, occasionally spilling a crimson flash as sunlight caught it.
Another darkship. Then to the south, another still. All three
rushed eastward on intersecting courses.
    Marika’s ship arrived first, streaking over a forest where
rifles hammered and heavier weapons filled the woods with flashes.
A clearing appeared ahead. At its center stood an incomplete
fortress of logs. It was afire. Huntresses enveloped in smoke
sniped at the surrounding forest.
    Something black and wicked roiled around Marika. The darkship
dropped away beneath her, plunging