The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5 Read Free Page A

one but he had the reddest hair of all and knew just what to do.
    He raised his stone high and proclaimed the words that he had learned so well. “Semperor says: Strangers die in Syland!” He fired. And then did his brothers too.
    The gourd-shaped stones lurched head over handle on their crude arc toward the nearest og. One fell short, another long, but Pyr’s was true and strong.
    Crack!
    The pummel stone splintered and rained down shards, some sharp or hard, on the folk of the field. The og, unhurt, flapped off with a fury and turned back at the boys.
    “What armor wears that warbird?” wondered Pyr’s elder brother Ayr.
    “I think we’re soon to learn,” said Pyr, squinting at the sky. “It comes.”
    The angry og dove and the crowd fell back , all in a great commotion. But the brothers, defenseless yet brave, held their ground.
    “Here lad!” called the quick-thinking elderwoman. She hurled Pyr her irony wooden rod. He plucked it out of the air just in time and took a swat in the very same motion at the approaching raptor. He hit the flesh of prey dead on.
    Suddenly Pyr was on his back and staring at the stars. In his ringing hands he held one half of a broken toiling stick. He shook his head, confused. “Did I slay it, brothers? Is it killed?”
    “No Pyr, no,” answered Ayron, the youngest. “It wheels for more… its twin now too.”
    “Rise brother,” said the elder Ayr, pulling Pyr back to his feet. “Let’s face these headless hunters together, live or die tonight!” Each took grip of the shattered stick and held it up prepared to fight.
    Someone screamed. “ Don’t harm them! Please!” It was Jixy, the ragtag orphan girl. She bounded from the older man and entered the fray with the boys and beasts.
    “Careful dear! Those are from the wild.” Morio had a look of concern and turned to the young man for help. “John Cap?”
    But John Cap was way ahead of him. He had shadowed Jixy’s run and stood guard towering over her and the sons of Hurx on the battlefield. Quickly he lifted his mighty right arm and spoke four words of a tongue unknown to the puzzled youngsters. And to their wonder a blade-thin shield unfolded from that limb of his. It sprung into form as a curved oval shell that parried the ogs’ dual aerial blows with ease and the sound of heavy thuds.
    “He is well armed,” said Ayron the Innocent.
    “Who is this warrior?” questioned Ayr.
    “No Sylander,” muttered Pyr under his breath.
    The assault was over , order restored. Everyone seemed to let down their guard. John Cap’s armor rolled up and vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, and the two wild ogs came to land in a patch just in back of the tall young woman. They looked even more imposing aground, quivering masses of muscle and flesh as wide as a plainsman’s reach. But at least they were behaving.
    She turned to them and spoke in the tone of a mother to her wayward boys. “You’ve had your sport. Now off with you.” And she pointed to the north. “Go.”
    The pair retook to the air but slowly, whimpering off as they climbed the night sky. Each beast glanced back sheepishly once or twice but kept one another on course this time with just a gentle nudge. No fight. And so they disappeared in the distance, swallowed up whole by the eventide.
    The young woman whispered her farewell. “Your help will not be forgotten.”
    “Goodbye friends!” called Jixy Mox. “Until I see you again.”
     
    A blanket of silence fell over the field as folk wondered what they had witnessed. But soon enough from that baffled hush arose a foulish murmur.
    “We’ve been played for fools tonight.”
    “If only the Guard were here.”
    “Right.”
    “But maybe it’s them. Maybe they test us.”
    “You are the fool, Boxbo. How could that be?”
    “They are in disguise I think.”
    “What, as flappy flying things?”
    “No, you woodwit. Them. Do you recognize those three?”
    “Well, not the tall ones