Read Ebook: Dark Destiny by Swain Dwight V

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Ebook has 953 lines and 30267 words, and 20 pages

Now, as Haral reached the front of the crowd, the coleopteron stalked forward, towards the Ulno. Hideous and deadly, it stood nearly three feet tall at the thorax. Its protuberant multi-faceted eyes glittered evilly. Mandibles clacking, the misshapen head moved from side to side in short, menacing arcs.

The crowd roared its blood-lust, its tension.

Revulsion touched Haral. But he gave the sadistic show no heed beyond it. Bleakly, he looked across the ring, to Sark himself.

Here, looking at the raider chief for the first time, a wave of incredulous loathing, disillusion, rose up within Haral. Was this gross slug the best the warrior worlds could offer? Could a creature as soft and slack as this wield the power that had shaken half the void?

The bitter ashes of his own thwarted drive for empire ate at the blue man. The world swam with a crimson haze of hate and fury.

Then that mood passed, and Haral noticed other things.

For the raider's fat-rimmed eyes were never still, and the lights that gleamed deep in them told of craft and savage cunning. There was a brain behind those eyes--a brain so lightning-fast and wary that against it mere physical strength alone meant nothing. That was how he ruled this pack; that was why none lived to challenge.

And now, as he watched, Haral observed another thing: though the webbed fingers of Sark's left hand splayed out along one tree-like leg, kneading and clenching as if he were at one with the coleopteron, thirsting for the Ulno's very life, his right hand never moved from a switch set in the chair-arm.

Narrow-eyed, the blue man shifted for a better view. As best he could see, a cable led from the switch down to what appeared to be a bulky, black, cymosynthesizer box slung beneath the seat.

Frowning, Haral pondered. Almost unconsciously, he caressed his light-lance.

Then a new shout from the crowd drew his attention back to the arena.

In the ring, the wild-eyed, shaking Ulno was retreating before the giant beetle. One of his four hands already was shredded beyond all recognition. Blood gushed from a wound in another arm, slashed open to the bone. His two heads turned jerkily this way and that, desperately seeking some avenue of escape, some sign of mercy.

But no sign came. No path appeared.

The beetle poised. The point of its dagger-like antenna dropped a fraction lower.

With a shrill cry, the Ulno darted along the interlinked cables that bounded the arena in a last frantic effort to escape.

The coleopteron lunged. Beetle and primitive crashed together in wild, paroxysmic conflict.

Then, suddenly, the Ulno was reeling, falling. Again, his awful scream of pain and terror rent the air.

Like great, saw-toothed pincers, the coleopteron's mandibles stabbed in. The Ulno's cry cut off in bubbling death.

The crowd shrieked savage exaltation.

Once more, contempt, revulsion, gripped Haral. Thin-lipped, he worked his way around the ring towards Sark.

Laughter--ghoulish, obscene--rocked the raider chief. His rolls of fat shook. Tears of sheer sadistic glee spilled down his puffy cheeks.

But he still kept his hand on the switch set in the arm of the riding-chair.

In the same instant, he caught himself wondering whether Sark would laugh as loud by the time this day was done.

Or whether either he or Sark would live to laugh.

He smiled wryly.

But now, for the time, the raider's mirth had passed. A sudden air of suppressed tension came into his manner. His fleshy hand came up in a curt, peremptory gesture.

But this time their prey was no quaking Ulno.

Instead, they held a woman.

But more than her face or body, it was her garb that held the blue man.

The blue man could see the tremor that rippled through the girl at Sark's grisly touch. But she did not quail. When she spoke, her voice was steady.

"That is true."

"Xaymar, queen of storms...." the raider chief repeated softly. He leaned back in the riding-chair, eyes sleepy and low-lidded. "She once lived, did she not, in mortal form? Here, on your planetoid of Ulna?"

"Yes. That is what the stories say."

"At her command, the storm-clouds gathered? She hurled the lightning bolts against her enemies?"

"So it is written in our sacred books."

"But then she went away," Sark murmured. "She left all you who were her people."

The girl called Kyla did not answer.

"Or did she?" Of a sudden the raider's lidded eyes were not so sleepy. His bulbous head came forward just a fraction. "There is another story, priestess ... a story that says the goddess Xaymar was truly woman--the most beautiful woman your world had ever seen. And because she was woman, human, she could not bear the thought that she must age and wither. So she commanded that she be placed, still young and in the full bloom of her beauty, within a secret crypt in frozen sleep, so that she might live forever as she had been."

For an instant Haral thought he could see a new tremor touch the priestess Kyla's slim young body. But only for an instant. Then her shoulders straightened. Her tone was cool, disdainful: "These are old wives' tales our stupid Ulnos tell--empty, without meaning. Xaymar was not even of my people, if indeed she ever lived. The old books say she came from a forgotten alien race, long vanished."

Haral felt a sudden rush of admiration--a kinship, almost, born of the girl's poise and unbending courage.

What path had she traveled to this final meeting? What forces had driven her to do whatever she had done to catch Sark's notice? Why was she playing for such stakes in a mad world filled with monsters?

Even Sark....

The raider chief was smiling now--a slow, smirking, secretive smile that was somehow horrible and loathsome. "But the other part, priestess? Is it true? Was your Xaymar really sealed in frozen sleep in a hidden vault here on your pygmy world of Ulna?"

It was coming now, the moment of crisis. Haral could see it in their faces.

Grimly, he gripped his light-lance.

But Kyla still faced the raider chieftain boldly. "I cannot help what others say. I do not know."

The squat monster in the riding-chair leaned back once more, still smiling his secretive, sinister smile. A strange horror clung to his very calm, the deadly benignity of his soft-spoken words. It was as if he were some great toad, toying tenderly with a lovely, captive moth that its agony might last the longer.

Slowly, the color drained from Kyla's face. A spark close akin to panic lighted in her eyes. She did not speak.

"Why do you blanch so, priestess?" Sark prodded. "I only seek to help you. Tell me where your goddess lies and I'll find her for you, in spite of the coleoptera. I'll bring her here, revive her, let her reign again among you--"

"You talk nonsense!" the girl cried. But her voice broke. Her whole body trembled.

"No, no--"

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