Read Online Var the Stick by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page B

and poise not given her away, Var might have mistaken her for a child because of her diminutive stature. Was this what all underworiders were like? Small and old and smocked? No need to worry about the conquest, then.
        She glanced at the bread, then beyond-and stopped.
        There, in the scant dust, was Vat's footprint. The round, callused ball, the substantial, protective, curled-under toenails. She might not recognize it as human, but she had to realize that something much larger than a rat had passed.
        Var charged her, both sticks lifted. He had no choice now.
        She whirled to face him, raising her small hands. Somehow his sticks missed her head and he was wrenched about, half-lifted, stumbling into the wall, twisting, falling.
        He caught his footing again and oriented on her. He saw her fling off her smock and stand waiting for him, hands poised, body balanced, expression alert. She wore a brief skirt and briefer halter and was astonishingly feminine in contour for her age. Again-like Sola.
        He had seen that wary, competent attitude before. When the Master had captured him in the badlands. When men faced each other in the circle. It was incredible that a woman, one past her prime and hardly larger than a child, should show such readiness. But he had learned to deal with oddities, and to read the portents rapidly and accurately.
        He turned again and scrambled into the tunnel.
        On the dark side he rolled over and waited with the sticks for her head to poke through the narrow aperture.
        But she was clever: she did not follow him. He risked one look back through and saw her standing still, watching.
        Quickly be retreated. When he deemed it safe, he began to run, retracing his route. He had a report to make.
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    The Master- listened with complete passivity to the report. Var was afraid he had failed, but did not know quite how, for he had found a route into the mountain. "So if she tells the mountain master, they will seal up the passage. But we could reopen it-"
        "Not against a flamethrower," the Nameless One said morosely. Then, amzingly, he bent his head into his hands. "Had I known! Had I known! She, of all people! I would have gone myself!" -
        Var stared at him, not comprehending. "You recognize the woman?"
        "Sosa."
        He waited, but the Master did not clarify the matter. The name meant nothing to Var.
        After a long time, the Weaponless spoke: "We shall have to mount a direct frontal attack. Bring Tyl to me."
        Var left without replying. Tyl was no friend of his, and Tyl was in his own camp several hundred miles away, and Var did not have to follow any empire directive. But he would go for TyL
        Jim the Gun intercepted him as he departed. "Show him this," he said. "No one else."
        And he gave Var a handgun and a box of ammunition. And a written note.
        Tyl was impressed by power and therefore fascinated by the gun. In some fashion Var did not follow, but which he suspected was influenced by the note Tyl's wife read, the chief set aside his standing grudge and cultivated Var for his knowledge of firearms.
        Var had good memory for any person who had ever threatened his well-being and he had not at all forgotten his embarrassments of the first meeting with this man. But Tyl was one of those who, though~maddening when antipathetic, could be absolutely charming when friendly. As surely as he might have courted a lovely girl, Tyl courted Var.
        And by the time Tyl and his vast tribe reached the mountain, he and Var were friends. They entered the circle together many times, but never for terms or blood, and under Tyl's expert guidance Var became far more proficient with the sticks. He saw that he had been a preposterous fool ever to challenge Tyl with this weapon; the man had never had cause to fear him in the circle.
        A dozen times in practice Tyl