The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5 Read Online Free PDF Page B

his battle pike three times into the gauntlet he wore on his right. Then he dexterously turned it in air to rest across his heavy breastplate, a vestment adorned by an artisan’s skill in a pattern of yellow leaves and shoots that sprung from a long thorned vine. The same markings covered the intricately carved shaft and handhold of the pike.
    He called out from behind the visor of his full face mask and helmet, which allowed no window to the wearer but a wide, thin eye slot. The sound was nearly song, strong but highish pitched:
     
    Till the grave
    Plow this row
    Reap their souls
    Sovereign, ho!
     
    The bull began to lumber forward. But then , all of a sudden…
    “Hi-ho sirs! Hello!”
    Stranger three, the fattier folkish one, stood out betwixt the taller two. His arms were open wide and he gave a cheery smile.
    “May I call you ‘ sirs’?”
    Fyryx looked back over his shoulder. Bull’s-eyed Sovereign set his sights.
    “Permit me please, very quickly, to introduce myself. Morio Yoop at your service.” Morio made the briefest bow while keeping one eye bullward. The other he shifted to send John Cap a cheeky secret wink.
    John Cap squinted at him with a question on his face. “What?”
    But his eager colleague did not wait to answer or elucidate. Instead the fuller fellow was off on a venture of his own invention. In other words, that is to say, Morio set some scheme in motion…
    To begin he took a slight step back and said something odd like , “Psst! Tuck and run,” in a whisper to the tall young woman. She tipped her head, puzzled, and frowned at the words. Meanwhile his foot found the fleshy mass of friends lying low amongst the tufts and he kicked it hard with his soft shoe heel. “Tusk and run Ogdog,” he half hushed. “On my mark!”
    Beneath the shielding skin something seemed to stir and wake… with a weak cry and a muffled voice.
    And the brawny bull was upon them. Morio bounded to meet the beast with a leap like a hoppalope then thrust his hands up high in the air. The chevox was nimble and stopped on the spot, so near that its nostrils flared in the stranger’s face and sprayed him in a mist, a warm shower of sour mucus.
    Morio turned his head to breathe. “You can see, noble sirs, that I bear only arms.”
    The rider leaned over the neck of his mount.
    “But for even further fellowship, I hope you will accept my full and unconditional submission to your will and every whim!”
    The black Guard raised his battle pike to strike the stranger down.
    A score of strides away, the vell shoved Pyr Hurx in the back with its long and boney nose. Somehow that gave him the pluck to speak. “Hold there, honored Guard! Forgive me, Uncle…”
    Syar-ull swung. Morio ducked, but the weighty stick still struck his shoulder with a glancing blow, barely so, but enough to fell him aground. “Mmmph.”
    Fyryx fired a livid look. “Mind your place, boy!”
    “But Uncle…”
    “The Guard do not take orders from children. Nor do I.”
    “But Uncle…”
    “Silence! Go. Tend to your animal.”
    Morio gazed up from the sodden grass having fallen flat upon his back. The dark pikesman loured over him, unmoved by the man’s cherubic look or that friendling kind of face. He gripped his weapon spearwise and then spiked the fat foe through his ruckscoat’s right side, just by a wide but solid belly, to pin him to the spongy sod.
    Morio made to wriggle or roll but could not move at all. “Kudos, good warlord! Your mastery of the rod is real, or really unreal… I am awed… Owww!” He reached to rub his arm. “Your hand will come in handy.”
    John Cap peered through the darksome drops at the flailing of his friend. He twitched as if about to act but the tall young woman shook her head.
    Morio gave a hard lurch left and heard his ruckscoat rip. “But pleasantries aside,” he said, “I wonder whether you’ve had the chance to chat with your cohorts or associates on a matter that I mentioned earlier tonight.