Their Master's War Read Online Free PDF Page A

think so; maybe it was a messenger or a servant of the Gods. Except, if this was a messenger, what were the Gods like? He wanted to turn his mount and crash back down the path. He wanted to run, to flee. He wanted to keep on running until he was someplace where the Gods couldn't find or reach him. And yet he had no will. He couldn't do it. It was as if his arms and legs were no longer his own. He was truly and deeply scared, and there was nothing he could do about it. The red ball abruptly lifted, rose into the sky, and vanished behind the nearest hill. Harkaan leaned forward and calmed his mount by patting its neck. Its scales were slick with greasy sweat. A strange silence seemed to have settled over the procession, and the only sound was the rattle of the animals'
    footfalls on the loose rocks. 1 he riders and even the mounts appeared to have passed She hooked her foot into the stirrup and swung her leg over her mount's back. "You are different." By noon, it was possible to see a dozen or more groups all riding slowly toward the hills. It seemed that every tribe on the plains, and even those from beyond, were sending their tribute to the Gods. The nearest party was now close enough for him to make out faces and even tribal markings. There were no threats, not even signs of recognition or salute. They simply rode parallel to each other, no party acknowledging that the others existed. That night, the fires on the plain were like stars in the sky. All six of the Ashak-ai stood and stared, overawed by the sheer size of this migration. Halfway through the next day, there was no longer the slightest doubt that the end of the journey was in sight. Every group of riders was converging on the same narrow pass that wound up and through the first line of hills. There were now so many riders that there was a certain amount of congestion around the mouth of the pass. It was almost the time of single shadows when the Ashak-ai mounts were finally able to start picking their way up the narrow path. The path proved to be little more than a rock-strewn, dried-out watercourse that twisted andj turned between steep barren slopes and around folds in< the hillside. Dust and the smell of animal apprehension hung in the air. The mounts stepped gingerly on the un* even surface. Both humans and animals felt very close to something infinitely strange and infinitely powerful.
    There was an alien sound in the air, a high-pitched hum somewhat reminiscent of the nightwhine of the air beetle. Then the noise grew louder and louder, and it was nothing like any sound Harkaan had ever heard. And then the thing appeared around a turn in the trail, and the noise, frightening as it was, became completely secondary. Harkaan had no word for it. He was sure that no the point where they could continue to be afraid. Numbness had descended and gripped them. They had no alternative but to continue up the pass and into the unknown.
    Nothing in the world had prepared any of them for what they saw when they crested the top of the pass and started down the other side. There was no doubt that it was the Valley of the Gods. The valley itself was a perfect place, long and broad, with a bright stream meandering down its length and a flat, irregular floor covered with a lush layer of meadow grass. It could have been a paradise except for the God that floated above it.
    The God was huge. Harkaan found that he simply didn't have the language to describe its size. It shouldn't have been possible for such an enormous bulk to hang there in the air, just at the height of a tree. Its vast pair o shadows covered the whole center section of the valle floor. As far as Harkaan could see, the God was predom inantly made of metal—yet that was impossible. There was no way that so much metal could exist in the same place at the same time. The most metal that Harkaan had ever seen were the tiny arrowhead slivers that were kept] in the Lodge of the Spirits. It was all the metal that th