Free The Wordsmiths and the Warguild by Hugh Cook Page A

name was terror in the lands around
Chi'ash-lan.
            "You have outlived
your life," snarled the Zenjingu fighter, raising his sword.
            The baron snapped his
fingers. An archer standing behind him unleashed an arrow. The Zenjingu fighter
lurched, dropped his sword, threw up his arms, then waddled round in circles,
gasping as he clutched at the arrow, which had pierced his throat.
            "Thus we do in the
highlands," said the baron, striding forward with an easy gait.
            As the Zenjingu fighter
tottered, the baron hacked into the unruly fellow's head. On the third blow,
the man dropped dead at his feet. Whistling tunelessly, the baron turned his
attention to the remaining trespasser.
            "Get back!"
shouted the survivor. "Get back, or I kill the girl."
            "The life of a
female Suet is nothing to me," said Baron Chan Poulaan, who saw no harm in
telling the truth. "Go ahead. Make my day."
            "No!" screamed
Togura, launching himself at the Zenjingu fighter.
            The fighter threw Day
Suet into the odex, which had been described to him as a Door. Then he jumped
in after her. Both were briefly visible, then gone, disintegrating - with a
jangle of music - into a storm of colours. An ilps, popping out of the odex,
celebrated the occasion with hearty laughter.
            "So much for
that," said the baron crisply, wiping his sword then sheathing it.
"Come along, Togura, we're going home. What is it, boy? Not crying, are
we? Now now, don't be a baby."
            "I loved her,"
said Togura wretchedly.
            "I'm sure you
did," said the baron, unsympathetically. "We all suffer these fevers
in our youth. Stop snivelling, boy!"
            "You killed
her!" screamed Togura.
            "She's gone into
the odex," said the baron. "I've heard the Wordsmiths say that it
stores whatever's fed into it. If that's so, then get them to unstore it. Or do
it yourself. Or if it can't be done, forget about it. Suets copulate like
ferrets. There's plenty more where that came from. Come come, there's no use
crying over spilt milk."
            When Togura continued
crying, the baron slapped him briskly. Togura clenched his fist and smashed
him. His father fell unconscious at his feet, poleaxed. There was a murmer
amongst the bowmen and the spearmen.
            "Take him,"
said Togura, in a thick wet ugly voice. "Him and his sword. Take him, and
get him out of here!"
            The men obeyed.
            The two wordmasters who
had tried to prevent Baron Chan Poulaan from entering their stronghold muttered
to each other. Togura Poulaan, now of the Wordsmiths, had made war on the head
of the Warguild: no good would come of this.
            They had more to mutter
about shortly, for Togura, bloodlust in his heart, began to attack the odex.

Chapter 8
     
            The night was cold, but
Togura Poulaan was hot, feverish, burning. Armed with a sword which had
recently graced the hand of a Zenjingu fighter, he was attacking the odex,
hacking and slashing at its soft, yielding surface. It bled colours and music.
As he fought, he became lost in a cloud of jangling rainbows, in a delusion of
humming auras, in sprays of pealing orange and rumbling red, in veils of
hissing mist and belching steam.
            Finally, he stopped. He
was panting harshly. His legs were shaking. Blisters had puffed up hard and
ripe on the palms of his hands where the hard labour of battle had taken its
toll on his innocence; he had never used a sword before, except in the
occasional desultory half-hearted sparring match. The odex reformed and
repaired itself, effortlessly, making itself perfect once more. The last
free-floating colour died with a chord of music.
            Togura hawked, and spat,
and swore.
            As he swore, an ilps
jacked itself out of the odex and hoisted itself to the sky, smacking