Seg the Bowman Read Online Free PDF Page A

dubbing their profession a robbery. They don’t just dig up graves and take away the grave-goods. Far from it. They venture into dungeons and caverns and perils where the owners set traps, both physical and sorcerous, to slay them. I’d say they earn their living. And, anyway, the whole business is a kind of game.”
    The trail wended past immense trees, each one isolated by its own capacity to discourage rival growths, and the way was relatively easy. Milsi looked up at Seg, and shook her head, and tut-tutted.
    “When someone is out to kill me, I hardly call that a game!”
    “It’s not an unreasonable way of looking at it, though. At least, it helps to take the edge off the horror.”
    “All the same. They are stealing treasure which is not theirs.”
    “As I just said, my lady, if they merely robbed graves then I would agree with you. But the owners of the dungeons and tombs the Pachaks visit agree to a kind of compact with the intruders. It goes something like this: ‘If you venture in here after treasure, then I will try to trap you. If you win through, you are welcome to what you have found.’ In my reckoning, a great many parties of adventurers never do get out alive.”
    She lifted her shoulder at this.
    “I suppose you are right.”
    “I have heard of a place called Moderdrin, where the land is studded with mounds covering immense dungeons. There the wagers go on all the time. It is well known that parties fly in from all over Paz.”
    “Paz?”
    Seg looked at her in astonishment.
    “What, my lady?”
    “Paz. What is Paz?”
    Seg almost groaned aloud. If his old dom were to be here and listen to this!
    He explained.
    “The grouping of continents and islands on this side of Kregen is called Paz. It includes this island of Pandahem, and the island of Vallia—”
    She fired up at once.
    “Don’t talk to me of Vallia! A vile lot! They’re worse pirates than those drikingers from whom we’ve just won free. Vallia, indeed!”
    “Well, my lady, that is as may be. Paz contains the three continents of Havilfar, Segesthes and Turismond, and also the continent of Loh, which is barely regarded these days after the collapse of the ancient Empire of Loh.”
    “You surprise me, Seg. How do you come to know all this, or are you merely amusing yourself at my expense?”
    He didn’t even bother to deny the charge.
    “I know, my lady, because the union of all the countries and peoples of Paz is essential if we are to face the dangers of those who raid us all.”
    “You speak of the Schturgins?”
    “If you mean the fish-headed reivers who sail up from the other side of the world and slay and burn all our peoples and places, yes. They are variously called Shants, Shtarkins, Shanks. Usually, they are killed whenever the opportunity offers. But they are very hard to slay.”
    “I have heard of them only. As I said, I do not wish to go to Selsmot or this Dragon’s Roost, which sounds a most deplorable tavern. I am from farther inland, upriver, where the jungle no longer chokes everything, and the plains are free...”
    She stopped abruptly.
     
    Seg could guess she was homesick for the superior climate farther north, nearer to the massive mountain chain that bisected Pandahem in an east-west direction.
    He said, bending to her as they walked along: “I have nothing to detain me in Selsmot. Do you know the way to wherever it is you wish to go?”
    “No questions, Seg?”
    “Are questions necessary?”
    “No. I find myself hardly believing in you.”
    He wrinkled up his eyebrows at this. He was not fool enough, after what had passed between them in the unspoken way of growing confidence, to think she meant she did not believe what he said. But he shied away from the idea of thinking that her disbelief stemmed from what she obviously meant, that he was her perfect jikai.
    Seg had seen the folly of boasting. He had seen the idiocy of bloated self-esteem. This idiot Strom Ornol, for all his high-handed ways, was a