The Warlock Enraged-Warlock 4 by Christopher Stasheff

Author:Christopher Stasheff [Stasheff, Christopher]
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction - Science Fiction, Epic, Fantasy, Juvenile Fiction, Science Fiction; Fantasy; Magic, Fantastic fiction, General, Science fiction, Science Fiction - General, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780441873401
Publisher: Warlock 04
Published: 1985-12-01T08:00:00+00:00

THE WARLOCK ENRAGED 131

He was gratified to see the young man redden a little—

but the boy's suspicion wasn't quite finished yet. He ran a trained eye over Fess. "How comes a poor dirt farmer to have so fine a horse?"

Panic! Anxiety! The one thing that men might really blame him for. Rod had been caught. And hard on the heels of that emotion, came a surge of shame. He glanced at Fess. Eh, my wife was beautiful, ten years agone! Small wonder that Sir Ewing took notice of her....

He turned back to the young man. "Sir Ewing gave him to me, saying he was too old to bear an armored knight still."

The suspicion was still there in the young soldier's mind; it just changed direction. The young man was trying to find a flaw in the story. "Why would a knight give even a castoff charger to a poor peasant?" The shame again. Rod let it mount, burning. "Why, for

... favors... we did him, me and mine." Mostly 'mine.'

There was a brief, lurid image of a strapping, tow-headed man in bed with a voluptuous young woman, with chestnut hair—not that you could see much else of her... and the vision was gone. But the shame remained, and rage mounted under it. "For favors." Rod's face had turned to wood. "Not that 'tis any affair of thine."

"'Affair,' is it?" The young man let a mocking grin spread.

"Aye, thine 'affair' now, is only the selling of thy cabbages, I warrant." He turned to the sergeant. "Why do we linger, wasting time on this peasant, Auncient?"

"Why, for that he hath not set his horse to going," the sergeant growled. "Be off with thee, fellow! Get thy cart out from our station! Get thee hence to the market!"

"Aye—and I thank thy worships," Rod said sourly. He turned away and slapped the reins on Fess's back—but very gently, to avoid the metallic ring. Fess started up again, plodding away.

Rod kept a tight rein on his thoughts. It was such a huge, aching temptation to indulge himself in speculation! But he was certainly still in range of the young telepath, and would be for several miles at least—even if the kid's powers were weak. And if they were strong... No, Rod kept a steady mental stream of embarrassment and anger seething. That 732 Christopher Stasheff

the young bastard should have subjected him to such personal questions! What a filthy mind he must have! And where did such a low-born serf's son get any right to be questioning him, old Owen, about his comings and goings?

Underneath that surface spate, in bursts of pure thought not encoded into words, boiled the host of questions. Interesting, that the ranker had asked the questions, and the sergeant hadn't even seemed to notice that his authority was being usurped. Interesting, that the sorcerer's sentries would pose as underlings; they had, at least, some craftiness in their disguises. That the young warlock was one of those who had volunteered to work for Alfar,

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