Seg the Bowman Read Free Page A

upon the seat and the arms, see the mantling canopy rearing out above the throne. That canopy was fashioned into the likeness of a dinosaur’s wedge-shaped head, jaws agape, fangs glittering silver. The eyes were hooded ruby lights. Anyone approaching the throne must perforce stand in awe and terror of that demoniacal head above.
    And — all these awesome appurtenances were as nothing beside the woman who sat on the throne.
    Clad in black and green, picked out in gold, with much ornamentation and embroidery, she sat stiffly erect. Her pallor of countenance made Strom Ornol look as flushed as Master Exandu. Her eyes were green, sliding luminous slits of jade. Her hair, dark, swept in long black tresses about her shoulders and descended into a widow’s peak over her forehead. She wore a jeweled band about that sleek black hair, and a smaller representation of the horrific dinosaur wedge-shaped head jutted from the center.
    A guard lifted his bow. He was a Brokelsh, a member of that race of diffs who are coarse of body hair and coarse of manner. He loosed. Everyone saw. The arrow struck cleanly into the woman’s breast. It passed on, transfixing that glowing phantasm, shot on and curved out and down to plunge into the jungle.
    Somebody screamed.
    As though nothing had happened the woman peered down from her throne. Her mouth was painted into a ripe bud shape of invitation. There was not a single line or crease upon that pallid countenance. Gold leaf decorated her eyelids. She looked down upon the mortals below.
     
    Each one felt the force of her gaze pass over, a psychic probe, questing and passing on.
    Fregeff the sorcerer stood supremely still. His bronzen flail did not quiver.
    With a gesture that even in so simple a movement was all seduction, the woman lifted her left hand.
    Diamonds glittered. She made a sign, her forefinger pointed down at the camp in the clearing.
    Among them all, Seg devoutly believed that lightning, fire and destruction would pour from that condemning finger.
    Instead, the apparition wavered, the outlines flowed like gold within the smelting pot. The throne lifted away, turned, vanished beyond the tops of the trees.
    In the next instant a horde of flying creatures swept out over the trees, the men astride them brandishing weapons. In an avalanche of fury, the flying warriors swept down upon the camp, lusting for the kill.

Chapter two
Seg the Horkandur collects arrows
    Seg’s instincts clashed.
    His first instinct was to loose as many shafts as he could, skewer a clump of these damned flyers, and then rip out his sword and go plunging into the fight.
    But, also, his first instinct was to grasp the Lady Milsi about the waist and, honoring his sworn promise to protect her, hurry her into the problematical safety of the jungle.
    He could follow either course.
    Where lay the course of honor?
    His old dom, whom these people called the Bogandur, used to say that honor didn’t bring in the bread and butter. Despite that, he was the most honorable of men that Seg knew, his concept of honor not being of the rigid kind. Rather, it adhered to seeking the best solution to any problem that arose.
    Without turning, Seg rapped out: “Milsi! Run to the edge of the jungle! Hide! Do not go too far in—”
    As he spoke he lifted the bow, drew, released and had another shaft across the stave, nocked, and the bow lifting for the second shot, all in a twinkling.
    Milsi said: “If you think I’m going to run off and leave you—”
    “I do not want you to be killed.” He loosed again, and again with that incredible speed slapped up another shaft and loosed. “Run, Milsi — please !”
    “No.”
    “Then I must take you.”
    “You would not dare!”
    His three arrows had knocked over three of the flyers. They were not all apims like him, some were diffs, for he saw Rapas, Brokelsh, a Gon, a couple of malkos.
    The saddle birds they flew were brunnelleys, large and powerful, wide-winged, gaudy of coloration in