High Sorcery Read Online Free

easement of his suffering.
    The Black Hood drew in. Craike’s probe could make nothing of them. But they could not hide their emotions as well as they concealed their thoughts. The Esper recoiled from the avid blood lust which lapped at the two by the cliff.
    A semicircle of the black jerkined retainers moved, too. The man who had led them lay on the earth now, moaning softly, but the girl faced them, head unbowed. Craike wanted to aid her. Had he time to climb down the cliff? Clenching his teeth against the pain movement brought to his shoulder, the Esper went back, holding a mind shield as a frail protection.
    Directly before him now was one of the guards. His mount caught Craike’s scent, stirred uneasily, until the quieting thought of the Esper held it steady. Craike had never been forced into such action as he had these past few days. He had no real plan now; it must depend upon chance and fortune.
    As if the force of her enemies’ wills had slammed her back against the rock, the girl was braced by the cliff wall, a black and white figure.
    Mist swirled, took on half substance of a monstrous form, was swept away in an instant. A clump of dried grass broke into flame, sending the ponies stamping and snorting. It was gone, leaving a black smudge on the earth. Illusions, realities—Craike watched. This was so far beyond his own experience that he could hardly comprehend the lightning moves of mind against mind. But he sensed these others could beat down the girl’s resistance at any moment they desired, that her last futile struggles were being relished by those who decreed this as part of her punishment.
    And Craike, who had believed that he could never hate more than he had when he had been touched by the fawning“hound” of the mob, was filled with a rage tempered into a chill of steel determination.
    The girl went to her knees, still clutching her hair about her, facing her tormentors with her still-held defiance. Now the man who had wrought the magic which had drawn her there crawled, all humanity gone out of him, wriggling on his belly back to his captors.
    Two of the guards jerked him up. He hung limp in their hands, his mouth open in an idiot’s grin. Callously, as he might tread upon a worm, the nearest Black Hood waved a hand. A metal ax flashed, and there came the dull sound of cracking bone. The guards pitched the body from them so that the bloodied head almost touched the girl.
    She writhed a last frenzied attempt to break the force which pinned her. Without haste the guards advanced. One caught at her hair, pulling it tautly from her head.
    Craike shivered. The thrill of her agony reached him. This was what she feared most and had fought so long to prevent. If ever, he must move now. And that part of his brain which had been feverishly seeking a plan went into action.
    Ponies pawed, reared and went wild with panic. One of the Black Hoods swung around to face the terrorized animals. But his own mount struck out with teeth and hooves. Guardsmen shouted, and above their cries arose the shrill squeals of the animals.
    Craike stood his ground, keeping the ponies in terror-stricken revolt. The guard who held the handful of hair slashed at the tress with a knife, severing it at a palm’s distance away from her head. But in the same moment she moved. The knife leaped free from the man’s grasp, while the severed hair twined itself about his hands, binding them until the blade buried itself in his throat and he went down.
    One of the Black Hoods was also finished, tramped into a feebly squirming thing by the ponies. Then from the ground burst a sheet of flame which split into balls, drifting through the air or rolling along the earth.
    The Esper wet his lips; that was not his doing. He did not have to feed the panic of the animals now; they were truly mad. The girl was on her feet. Before his thought could reach her she was gone, swallowed up in a mist which arose to blanket the