The Wordsmiths and the Warguild Read Online Free Page A

clears."
            "We might be here
all day," said his father. "We'll go on."
            And they did.
            Visibility swiftly
became zero. The road abruptly became peat bog. After floundering around in the
mist for a while, they staggered out of the bog, hauling their animals along
with them, only to find themselves waist-deep in flourishing gorse. The baron
cursed and struck out with his sword, accidentally clouting Prick with the flat
of the blade.
            Fortunately, it then
began to rain, causing the fog to dissipate swiftly. Unfortunately, they found
themselves on a small gorse-covered island surrounded by peat bog.
            "There's the
road!" said Togura, pointing to an indeterminate ribbon of mud and stones
lying some distance from the island.
            "Your powers of
observation astound me," said the baron grimly, leading the way back into
the bog.
            Kloggles the Mule was
most reluctant to leave the little island, but, after a savage battle with no
holds barred, they forced him back through the bog to the road. By this time,
they were mud from ankle to shoulder. Fortunately, the rain was rapidly
becoming a solid downpour, suggesting that they might be able to strip off
their dirty clothes, take a shower in the rain then change into clean clothes.
Unfortunately, they had no clean clothes to change into.
            "I think,"
said Togura, "that perhaps this is not the best of days on which to go and
visit the king."
            "You are young, my
son," said his father, "but not entirely devoid of wisdom. Come, let
us make for home."
            And they retreated back
down the road, which was rapidly becoming a quagmire.
            The next day, in fine
clear weather, they set out again. The road was muddy, but they reached the
outskirts of Keep in good order. It was then that they encountered what appeared
to be a free-floating monster.
            In some places, this
apparition might have been taken for a ghost, a hallucination or a trick of the
light, but this was Sung, and they knew the intruder for what it was - an ilps.
            The ilps was very large.
             It had seventy-nine teeth,
shared between two mouths of generous dimensions.
            Five of the teeth were
poisoned.
            It stank of rotten
oranges.
            Its fingernails smoked
with blue light.
            "Who are you?"
said Baron Chan Poulaan, speaking roughly.
            "Ska," said
the ilps.
            "Where do you come
from?"
            "Ska. Nanesh
stel."
            It was fading rapidly.
            "Where were you
born?"
            One of its mouths
collapsed.
            The baron assaulted the
ilps with harsh, insistent questions. Disintegrating under the attack, it
started to retreat. But he followed, urging his horse forward, asking one
question after another. Finally, battered to death by his verbal assault, it
broke apart into a dozen rainbows, which scattered into discordant chords of
music.
            Nothing remained but the
smell of rotten oranges.
            "That was a large
one," said Prick.
            "They get larger
all the time," said the baron. "And more numerous. Unless someone
brings the Wordsmiths to heel, we'll have a regular disaster on our
hands."
            The Wordsmiths claimed
that their precious odex held all the knowledge of the ancient long-lost
civilizations which had existed before the Days of Wrath. They claimed to be
learning how to control and manipulate the odex, but all they had produced so
far was a string of distorted monsters.
            Baron Poulaan could
reasonably claim to be the most powerful man in Sung, but that meant little; as
yet, he lacked the power to challenge the Wordsmiths, for his fellow barons
were not yet convinced that the odex was a bad thing.
            Brooding about the ilps,
the odex and