Lore of the Underlings: Episode 6 ~ Meeting Minyon Read Online Free Page B

judgment hour is all but here. I’ll have to foretell
in a nutshell.”
    Just then from the settlement hill tolled a
hellish warning bell.
    Minyon Myne pressed on nonetheless. “It was
the brute’s distempered blood, cold to the touch and sour to taste,
that told me first to test the heart. That organ showed signs of a
fabled animal — mighty, brave but gravely ill, as if wounded by a
hound of hell or perhaps a creature more feline…”
    “Ooo!”
    “Amazing!”
    “On the nose.”
    “So, so sad to say but so…”
    “Whoa is the great vell Arrowborne.”
    “The brother Treasuror’s very own…”
    The congregation seemed poised to sing the
praises of the graceful steed. Until Minyon interrupted them.
    “And speaking of that woeful one,” he said in
a plush and velvet tone, “I spied troubled times ahead for our dear
and fearless leader. A season of wither, storm clouds coming, in
the murk of the bared bull’s phlegm…”
    “Thank heavens you’re back to warn him!”
    “Is there hope for a savior?”
    “Some higher power?”
    “Lord willing,” smiled the elderman.
    “And what about strangers?” asked Teely Tynn.
“Were there any portents of them?”
    The augur thought and stroked his chin. “Yes,
now that you mention it. Deep down in the belly of the beast, I
found food enough for a three-day feast — vermin and varmints of
all shapes and sizes — provisions as if for an epic quest. To me
these were symbols of wayfarers, three, from distant lands on a
mission of mercy. Emissaries bearing gifts, envoys with long tales
in hand.
    “And…”
    Minyon hesitated a moment, pondering, then
went on.
    “I sensed something else, next door in the
liver… Not always trustworthy but I’ll tell…
    “The smell of its bile foreshadowed a leaver,
one drenched in the stench of the Wild’s vast swamps through which
he’d tried to run and hide. A young fool making a fateful mistake.
An error of Eros. A futile trial. And then in the end an
unspeakable sentence, bloodless but fatal — or so it seemed —
judging by the spleen.”
    Again Mrs. Tynn was keen to chime in. “Word
is the leaver’s a son of Yin and a prodigal one if you know what I
mean. Thank God that they’re not my bloody kin. No Yin is even a
neighbor of mine. And those strangers? Just his lawyers. Yes, fancy
ones from a bench or bar in the court of public opinion…”
    No one could get a word in edgewise. Even
Minyon. She droned on.
    “Either that or they’re tourists on vacation
who took a really wrong turn…”
    But then a hubbub from the mob up ahead
finally squelched the woman’s spiel. Minyon squinted to catch the
cause but his vision was screened by the groundswell of people.
    “Hmmm, it seems I did not foresee…”
    He enjoined his young crusaders again, a calm
but curious look on his face.
    “Go my children. Investigate…”
    The daughter answered by grabbing her spear,
the son by unsheathing his jagged dagger. Then Axon and Eela plowed
through the crowd to scout out the source of all the commotion.
     
    They seemed not to see the folk in their way,
so driven were they by basic instinct — a distinctively animal
passion. It turned their walk into stalking again, just as in
Minyon’s unspun yarn. And they spoke in a tongue of growls and
grunting, the primal language of preying, hunting…
    Well, up until they broke into the open. For
that’s when they first laid eyes on him, John Cap the hunky
anchored man.
    “Who?!” They froze in unison, waving their
weapons in his direction.
    This visitor was news to them, these
cloistered two, the spawn of Minyon. A stranger in shackles, still
lady-killer. Some young man in manacles knocking ‘em dead.
    “They called him Captain,” someone
answered.
    “You don’t know jack — it was Johnny
Cat.”
    “As you please, but I’d say he’s some big
cheese.”
    “So sharp!”
    “And cut…”
    “With a rank like that.”
    Axon spat while Eela watched the dude do
battle with his