Lords of Destruction Read Online Free PDF

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    Gath picked up his axe, moved to the snakeman and straddled him. When the
stunned creature came to, he found the cutting edge of the axe poised on his
Adam’s apple and the menacing face of the horned helmet looking down at him. He
held perfectly still, not daring to swallow.
    “What has happened here?” Gath demanded.
    An inarticulate hiss was the reply.
    Gath leaned slightly on the axe, drawing a trickle of blood. The snakeman
flinched with pain, and terror swam through his eyes as he blurted an answer. It
was in a language Gath had never heard before.
    “The entrance to the underworld?” Gath snarled.
    The creature replied with a long, rapidly spoken and seemingly lucid flow of
words, as if he understood Gath perfectly. But again he used the foreign language.
    Gath lifted his axe angrily to pulp the creature’s head, and the man fainted
with a whimpering hiss.
    Gath inspected the snakeman carefully, but found nothing that told him what
he wished to know. He hesitated thoughtfully, then, without untying the jar with
the holes drilled in it that dangled from his belt, lifted it, feeling its
warmth, and gave it a shake. The captive in the tiny prison moved about
vigorously, causing the jar to move on Gath’s palm. Satisfied that it still
lived, he lowered the jar and looked over the battlefield without satisfaction.
The helmet, its hunger unfulfilled, still churned and boiled for satisfaction,
and his pride still cried out for a worthy challenge. There had been no glory or
honor in this day’s work, only bloody labor.
    Gath dragged the unconscious snakeman to his feet and threw him across the
clearing beside the stallion. Then, tying him securely, he tossed him over the
saddle facedown and walked the horse through a gully and out of the clearing.
    In a nearby area was a flat spread of lava with a large irregular bowl-like
depression in the middle. It was about fifty feet across and easily twenty feet
deep at its lowest point. He dropped the reins and descended the steep incline
of the bowl. About ten feet short of the lowest point, he set his axe on the
ground, squatted and untied the earthen jar from his belt. He lifted it to his
ear, listening, then held it in front and away from him. With the jar resting in
one hand, he took hold of the cork and hesitated, did nothing for a long moment.
    The helmet was hot and heavy against his head, sinking low and weaving back
and forth as if trying to throw him down. He fought it back into place, and
flames erupted angrily. He sat still, forcing them to abate, then firmed his
grip on the cork, took a deep breath and, in one fluid movement, ripped the cork
out and rolled the jar down the slope toward the bottom of the bowl.

Seven
    THE SKINK

    T he jar spun around like a chubby dancer and rolled to a stop in the deepest
depression. A moment passed, and a thick-scaled, shovel-like head peeked out of
the open neck. Its heavy-lidded eyes blinked against the glare of daylight.
    Gath, axe held across his thighs with both hands, rose into a crouch, as if
facing a dragon instead of a tiny Skink snake.
    The small creature probed the air with its tongue and wiggled partway out.
Its brown wedge-like body had four tiny legs, no more than wrinkled memories
degenerated from its primordial past. A short struggle and its puffy body popped
free, fell on its smooth white chin.
    The Skink gathered, and staggered about uncertainly, trying to burrow into
the ground and hide. The lava was too hard. With a swimming motion, it hurried
up the shallow incline, saw the axe and the man holding it and retreated. It
tried to climb the steep sides of the bowl several times, but each time slid
back to the bottom. Exhausted, it looked directly at Gath. The heavy lids
lowered and the head tilted slightly. Waiting.
    Gath took a step back.
    The Skink spread its jaws wide, as if laughing silently, and yellow fumes
issued forth, like a long vaporous tongue. They billowed and