Warrior of Scorpio Read Online Free PDF Page B

distaste as a sailorman I felt for the task I had set myself had to be quashed.
    Seg let loose a great sigh and lifted the bow to me. He shook his head. “Had I my own great bow I’d guarantee to pick off those sorzart rasts so fast they’d be pincushions before the first one hit the deck.”
    He surprised me. You must realize, you who listen to my story as these tapes rustle through your little machine, that despite Seg’s black hair I had taken him to be a Proconian, who are, as I have said, mostly fair-headed. The remarks about his people I have made refer, of course, to his own true people; but they are remarks made from hindsight, a crime you must forgive a man who has lived as long as I have. “Great bow?” I said.
    He laughed. “Surely, even you — who are a stranger of strangers — must have heard of the longbows of Loh?”
    “You are of Loh?”
    Again he laughed. “Yes — and no!” That ancient look of blood pride suffused his face, an arrogant, proud expression so familiar in those who trace their ancestry back and back into the dawn of their culture. I can understand it; but in many ways I am glad I do not share it, for that kind of pride so often leads to the chinless wonders who have so blighted life on our own Earth. But, with Seg Segutorio, as you shall hear, pride in race and ancestry burned with a steadier and truer flame.
    “I am an Erthyr, of Erthyrdrin. . .”
    Of Erthyrdrin, that convulsed mass of mountains and valleys forming the long northern promontory of Loh, I had indeed heard. I had used longbowmen from Loh as a special sniper force in my slave army when we went against the overlords of Magdag, and some of them had had red hair, and some had not, and all had been superlative archers; but none had come from Erthyrdrin, although they had spoken of the place with some awe, some respect, and not a little bile.
    Although tempted to contest a little in words with Seg over the relative values of my Clansmen’s horn and steel compound reflex bows, I desisted. The wind was just right. The trees selected and bent and staked. The grasses gathered.
    Now only the flame remained to be kindled.
    “Go down to the Lady Pulvia, Seg. Prepare them. You know the boat. If I am delayed — do not wait for me.”
    “But—”
    “Go, now—”
    He handed me the bow, his face glowering. “I see that at a more suitable opportunity, Dray Prescot, I shall have to teach you some respect for a warrior of Erthyrdrin.”
    “Willingly, my friend. I trust the good Zair will grant it—”
    “Pagan gods!” he said, with a flash of cutting temper. “The mountaintops whereon the veiled Froyvil sends out his divine music from his golden and ivory harp would soon teach you the true values, my sad and unhappy friend.”
    “As to that,” I said, taking the bow and squatting down to work, “I make no claims for Zair beyond those his followers make. And,” I added, looking up suddenly, “they have been known to claim by the edge of the sword.”
    He made some kind of exasperated snort and hurried off down to the rock cave.
    I shook my head over Seg Segutorio. From what I had heard of Erthyrdrin, that mountainous promontory of the continent of Loh thrusting up into the Cyphren Sea between eastern Turismond and Vallia, he was a good representative of his race. They were reputed reckless and wild, forever screeching crazy songs and thrumming on their harps; yet I knew of the strong streak of realism stabilizing their characters and lending always the calculated risk to the actions that other men called foolhardy.
    So Seg was a longbowman. That could prove interesting.
    The little bow whizzed rapidly back and forth twirling the drill of harder sturm-wood against its sturm-wood hole wherein chippings and dry grasses awaited the first ember. Gently and then with greater boldness I blew on the glow. You, who are so accustomed to flicking your finger for heat or light or a naked flame must remember that I had known flint