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

provocatively for the audience lining the shore.
    Grillard strongmen, standing on a shelf of rock several feet under the water,
waited where the pool widened. More shelves of rock rose out of the water behind
them to form a natural stage which faced the audience on the opposite shore. The
stage was backed by boulders which rose like massive stepping-stones up the
blunt face of the mountain spur. More strongmen stood in a chainlike line which
wound its way across the stage, then up over the boulders to a promontory rock
out of which grew a scrub oak.
    Brown John knew the spot well. It was here that he had first seen Robin
Lakehair and asked her to help him save the forest from the Kitzakks.
    As the girls neared the waiting strongmen, they lay down on their backs,
crossed their arms across their breasts and held themselves as rigid as arrows.
The first strongman plucked Zail off her raft, raised her over his head and
passed her to the next strongman. In this manner she traveled across the stage
and up through the boulders to the promontory rock where the two largest
strongmen waited. As she began her ascent, her body was rolled over and over,
and her diaphanous wrap began to unravel colorfully, much to the delight of the
men in the audience.
    When she reached the top, one of the strongmen took hold of the end of her
wrap while the other raised her arrowlike body high over his head. With a
grunting heave, he threw her out over the deepest part of the pool a hundred
feet below. Just before she began to fall, the strongman holding her wrap gave
it a hard yank, and Zail spun around in mid-air. The wrap swirled away from her
body in a flurry of colorful circles, and she dove out of their center, naked
except for the glittering yellow jewels gracing breasts and groin, and plunged
into the water.
    The crowd rose as one body and applauded, whistled, wanting more, and one
after the other the girls obliged.
    Brown John could not refrain from smiling, then suddenly his blood ran cold.
    Two strongmen on the promontory had pitched forward and were flailing
awkwardly in the air. One landed safely in the shallow water, but the other hit
a rock with a loud grunt. He rolled several feet, then lay still. The audience
gasped. The girls, now all in the pool, screamed. Then all movement stopped, and
a hush fell over Clear Pond.
    A huge man, nearly seven feet tall and massive, had emerged from behind the
scrub oak and now stood poised on the promontory rock. A plain tattered cloak
covered him, but his stance was proud, arrogant, regal. With a deliberate
flourish, he removed his cloak and let it fall to his feet. His armor was
smooth, a rainbow of plates fading from indigo at his shoulders to smoky blues
to roses to white at his legs. A silver-white helmet graced his big-jawed head,
and he stood in a whiplike stance. Rising off his back was a silver-grey stump,
like the dorsal fin of a shark.
    Brown John almost whimpered.
    The audience gasped and edged back.
    The Grillards, as if driven by unseen adversaries, fled off the spur and
gathered together on the stage. Among them were Brown John’s sons: Dirken, in
his black tunic with its grave umber patches, and Bone, in his giant codpiece as
red as his hair. They moved to the front of their tribe, facing the demon spawn
standing above the stage, and stopped short.
    A small hooded man with a smooth grey face had appeared beside the huge
warrior and laughed mockingly. Suddenly he stopped and raised a fist, shouting
in a language the bukko did not understand.
    A dozen short, thick men promptly appeared along the rim of the spur, and the shadows of more could be seen among the
trees behind them. Their flesh was a greyish brown, and their faces had nostrils
but no noses. Their tiny ears were pointed, and tufts of fur sprouted between
the seams of their leather armor at their shoulders and elbows. Swords and
quivers and knives rode their belts, and they held loaded