Read Online Lords of Destruction by James Silke, Frank Frazetta - Free Book Online Page A

thirty yards across, an undulating white bed of gravel and boulders
carried down from the mountain by centuries of spring floods. Narrow slow-moving channels of water meandered through it, and twenty yards away, on the far
side beyond nearly impassable boulders, the main channel flowed swiftly,
churning its liquid-green body into white foam as it crashed against large rocks
lining its sides and rising from it.
    Gathering his torn, stained tunic above his knees, he scrambled across the
gravel and splashed through a shallow channel, heading downriver toward faint
sounds of drums.
    He fell twice, the second dropping him into a deep channel. Its current swept
him forward, bounced him off a large boulder and deposited him in the tangled
branches of a dead pine tree which had fallen into the river. The sharp branches
played with his face and back for a while, then he climbed onto the trunk and scrambled across it to the river bank.
    Puffing, soaking wet and wearing a scowl that cut so deep into his wrinkled
cheeks it could have supplied enough tragedy for an entire act of one of his own
melodramas, he ran along a bald dirt footpath siding the river and saw his
dancing girls in the distance.
    They were far out on the river bed, tiny colorful figures against the white
rocks. Their trim bodies were now wrapped in diaphanous yellow-green cloth, and
they wore green-gold dragonfly wings on their naked backs. They stood beside the
main channel where it narrowed into a funnel of white-water rapids for about
twenty feet, then spewed out over a wide flat rock forming a natural slide which
flowed around a bend in the river. Unseen beyond the bend was Clear Pond, and
the waiting audience and musicians. But he could not hear them now. The crash
and spill and roar of the rapids was deafening.
    The girls looked anxiously toward the wagons on the spur, as if expecting
Robin to join them any minute, and held their small rafts steady in the water,
waiting to jump into them when they were cued. The sunlight glistened on their
bouncing curls of red-gold hair, and at that distance they all looked remarkably
like Robin Lakehair.
    Realizing this, Brown John groaned with fresh panic, dropped his tunic and
cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting, “Zail! Belle! Wait! Don’t go in the
water!”
    The girls did not hear him.
    Brown John, slipping and sliding and jumping, descended the sheer bank and
started across the rocky bed, shouting, “Zail! Wait! Wait!”
    The girls took no notice, and he ran recklessly forward, fell facedown, and
boulders kissed his cheek, chest and shins. Slightly dazed, he climbed painfully
onto his hands and knees and held still. The shrill clear notes of a horn were
rising above the roar of the rapids. The cue.
    Brown John jumped up and screamed, “Wait!”
    The girls still did not hear him. Zail, the lead girl, kneeled on her raft
and, hanging on to its rope handles, rode it, squealing and laughing, down the
funnel of water. One by one the others followed, bobbing wildly and nearly
spilling over as the water tossed their small rafts about and washed over their
lovely bodies and laughing faces.
    They swept onto the natural water slide, swirled around the bend in the
river, and the unseen audience waiting at Clear Pond roared approval.
    In reply, each girl raised an arm, unclenched a tiny fist, and streamers of
glittering yellow and green unfurled behind them.
    The audience applauded, and tambourines and drums caught the rhythm of the
streaking beauties, turning the ride into a dance.
    Brown John stood limply, his exhausted body heaving for breath. He could see
Clear Pond now, and the girls were performing beautifully, just as he had
trained them to. But without that extra sparkle he had planned on. Only Robin
Lakehair had the skill, and nerve, to ride her raft in a standing position.
    One by one the girls splashed into the large pond and rode the current,
twirling their rafts and posing