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rebound. If we made it back it would soar. Our coup would stun the Rebel
movement.
If we made it back.
We lay motionless upon steep lichened limestone and dead leaves. The creek
below chuckled at our predicament. Shadows of naked trees stippled us.
Low-grade spells by One-Eye and his cohorts further camouflaged us. The smell
of fear and of sweaty horses taunted my nostrils. From the road above came the
voices of Rebel cavalrymen. I could not understand their tongue. They were
arguing, though.
Scattered with undisturbed leaves and twigs, the road had looked unpatrolled.
Weariness had overcome our caution. We had decided to follow it. Then we had
rounded a turn and found ourselves facing a Rebel patrol across the meadowed
valley into which the creek below flowed.
They were cursing our disappearance. Several dismounted and urinated down the
bank....
Feather started thrashing.
Damn! I screamed inside. Damn! Damn! I knew it!
The Rebels yammered and lined the edge of the road.
I smacked the woman's temple. Goblin clipped her from the other side.
Quick-thinking Silent wove nets of spell with tentacle-limber fingers dancing
close to his chest.
A ragged bush shivered. A fat old badger waddle-ran down the bank and crossed
the creek, vanishing into a dense stand of poplars.
Cursing, the Rebels threw rocks. They clattered like dropped stoneware as they
skipped off boulders in the streambed. The soldiers stamped around telling one
another we had to be nearby. We could not have gotten much farther on foot.
Logic might undo the best efforts of our wizards.
I was scared with a knee-knocking, hand-shaking, gut-emptying kind of fear. It
had built steadily, through too many narrow escapes. Superstition told me my
odds were getting too long.
So much for that earlier gust of refreshed morale. The unreasoning fear
betrayed it for the illusion it was. Beneath its patina I retained the
defeatist attitude brought down from the Stair of Tear. My war was over and
lost. All I wanted to do was run.
Journey showed signs of getting frisky too. My glare was fierce. He subsided.
A breeze stirred the dead leaves. The sweat on my body chilled. My fear cooled
somewhat.
The patrol remounted. Still fussing, they rode on up the road. I watched them
come into sight where the way curled eastward with the canyon. They wore
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scarlet tabards over good link mail. Their helmets and arms were of excellent
quality. The Rebel was getting prosperous. They had started out as a rabble
armed with tools.
"We could have taken them," someone said.
"Stupid!" the Lieutenant snapped. "Right now they aren't sure who they saw. If
we fought, they would know."
We did not need the Rebel getting a line on us this close to home. There was
no room for maneuvering.
The man who had spoken was one of the stragglers we had accumulated during the
long retreat,. "Brother, you better learn one thing if you want to stick with
us. You fight when there ain't no other choice. Some of us would have gotten
hurt too, you know."
He grunted.
"They're out of sight," the Lieutenant said. "Let's move." He took the point,
headed for the rugged hills beyond the meadow. I groaned. More crosscountry.
My every muscle ached already. Exhaustion threatened to betray me. Man was not
meant for endless dawn to dusk marching with sixty pounds on his back.
"Damned fast thinking back there," I told Silent.
He accepted praise with a shrug, saying nothing. As always.
A cry from the rear. "They're coming back."
We sprawled on the flank of a grassy hill. The Tower rose above the horizon
due south. That basaltic cube was intimidating even from ten miles away-and
implausible in its setting. Emotion demanded a surround of fiery waste, or at
best a land perpetually locked in winter. Instead, this country was a vast
green pasture, gentle hills with small farms dotting their southern hips.
Trees lined the deep, slow brooks snaking between.
Nearer the Tower the land became less pastoral, but never reflected the gloom [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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