Fires of Scorpio Read Online Free

of his throat, staggered, the dinosaur — all scales and fangs and claws — screeched and turned tail and blundered back into the bushes. A tremendous sloshing splash sounded. After that a succession of sucking noises, and splashes, and a screech or two, indicated where the denizens of the lake were feasting.
    “Quick,” I said.
    “No. The first shaft hit before I loosed the second.”
    “True. Slow, then.”
    “No. The third was in the air before the second struck.”
    “True.” I cocked my head judiciously. “There was no wager on it, though. Had there been—”
    “One, two, three,” said Seg.
    And I laughed.
    More than one person had judged this little foible of ours — of gambling on the outcome of shots in battle — as degrading, decadent, altogether horrible. In truth, it was some of those things. But, also, it served a deeper and more fundamental purpose in the horror of battle. My daughter, Princess Majestrix of Vallia, the Princess Lela whom we called Jaezila out of love, had instantly perceived the inner truths we men so clumsily sought to express by this betting on shots.
    We had gone adventuring across the face of Kregen, Jaezila and I. Now, as Seg and I walked along the path leading to the camp where the rest of the party waited for us, I reflected that I was like to do much more of this adventuring than of ruling as an emperor. And, I would have it this way. My son Drak, the Prince Majister, would run the Empire of Vallia, and run it well. We had superb advisers, men and women we could trust.
    Echoing my thoughts, Seg said: “So we’ll be off adventuring again, then?”
    “We will, Seg, if the Star Lords do not demand some fresh service from me. There is no way, as yet, that I can stand against them, for they are superhuman. But I am working on some few ways of attempting to resist them. One day, I hope, I shall be able to take charge of my own destiny.”
    The smell of woodsmoke reached us. In daylight, away from the jungle, the air was freer, we could talk, and not feel the pressures of instant destruction all about us.
    Seg laughed. “It seems to me you’ve run your destiny pretty much as you willed it. By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! Look what you’ve accomplished!”
    “Titles, ranks, some property here and there. They mean little, all save one. I count as far more important the family and our blade comrades.”
    Pursuing his thoughts, Seg said: “And you’ve no idea where you will be sent by the Everoinye?” He used the word Everoinye, Kregish equivalent to the Star Lords.
    “None whatsoever. If I disappear, do not think harshly of me. Just remember I do all in my power to rejoin my family and friends.”
    “There is a great deal still to be done in Vallia—”
    “Yes. But the Star Lords pursue their interests over all of Paz, over all of this side of the world. To them, Vallia is no more important than this island of Pandahem, of the continent of Havilfar, or any of the others.”
    “They must be a right weird lot. And you’ve never seen them?”
    “Not one. They are superhuman. But not, I judge, immortal.”
    “I wish,” said Seg, “I wish they’d take me along with you—”
    “So do I!”
    “A scorpion, did you say?” Seg pointed. “Look!”
    He strutted out from a rock beside the path, reddish brown, glitteringly black, his stinger held arrogantly aloft, waving from side to side — waving at me.
    I felt the familiar constriction in my throat.
    The scorpion of the Star Lords — would he herald the Scorpion, the phantom blue Scorpion so huge he encompassed the world?
    He did.
    Blueness caught me up in a chill embrace. Unseen winds howled. I was falling. End over end, stark naked, winded, I was seized up by the Everoinye, tossed end over end and dumped down blinded and gasping upon some other part of Kregen to sort out a problem for the inscrutable purposes of the Star Lords.
    If... if they had not contemptuously tossed me back through four hundred light-years