[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"Which, it seemed to me, made the search for you pointless. But, just in case,
I headed north, up the coast, on the grounds that it might be a good idea to
scout out Guild strengths in some of the coastal cities; we don't like to work
that close to Pandathaway, but maybe we're going to have to, way pickings have
been.
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%20rare).txt (77 of 177)15-8-2005 22:41:09
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt
"In any case, I found that there were fewer guildsmen around than there ought
to have been skeleton crews everywhere, and they looked scared."
He drained his ale and signaled for more; Riccetti himself refilled it from
the hogshead in the corner.
"I'm not the best swordsman around, and I'm not too good with a gun. But
there's two things I'm real good at: I can blend into the furniture, and I can
drink any two men under the table. I got a couple of them drinking, and then
drunk. And they started talking.
"Seems that Ahrmin and all of his shorebound force died in Melawei."
That didn't surprise Jason; Walter Slovotsky had said that he wouldn't let
anyone kill Karl Cullinane and live to brag about it.
"When their relief force got there, they were stinking in the sun. And there
was a note left behind, pinned to one of the corpses, part of it in a language
that the slavers didn't understand and part of it in
Erendra. There were three signatures to the note. The part in Erendra read:
The warrior lives.
"Scared the shit out of the slavers, but what could they do?"
Jason swallowed. The warrior lives. The same thing somebody had said in the
Enkiar tavern. He walked to the mantelpiece and ran his fingers along it, the
heat from the fire beating against his legs, even through his trousers.
Outside, leathery wings rustled in the night.
*What do you think?*
I don't know. What do you think?
There was no answer as Aldren went on: "Then, about six tendays ago, a
guildsman in Lundeyll woke up next to one with his throat cut. Another note,
also with three signatures. The word is that a dozen men, several of them
Mels but not all of them caught a ship out of there the next morning, just
ahead of Lord Lund's proctors."
"Shit." Tennetty slapped her hand down on the arm of her chair and laughed.
"He could be alive.
Leaving town just ahead of trouble is the Cullinane family trademark, Jason."
Lou Riccetti's smile and nod were distant. "Lundeyll was the first town we
fled from, on This Side." His smile vanished; he shook his head. "Your
namesake died there," he told Jason. "He was my best friend."
Riccetti bit his lip. "I'm sorry go on, Aldren."
"Another note, also with three signatures." Aldren reached for a map. "In
Wehnest, on the way back, I
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt (78 of 177)15-8-2005 22:41:09
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt picked up news that it's happened again, on Menelet. In any case,
the slavers believe that your father and his two comrades are somewhere in the
Shattered Islands, or maybe on Salket. Every guildsman is either hunkering
down, hoping they'll hit somewhere else, or trying to hunt them down."
Lou Riccetti leaned forward. "Aldren just got in yesterday. I was putting
together a team to go hunting for them, too. But your arrival suggests another
idea."
Kethol nodded. "With Ellegon to place us, we've got a good chance of getting
to them before the slavers do, particularly if we can figure out where they'll
hit next."
*Thanks for the vote of confidence. But it all depends on where they're going
to hit next, and on how well we can guess.*
Aeia smiled. Jason had to admit that his adopted sister was lovely when she
smiled. "We know where they're going," she said. "Just draw a line. They're
headed for Endell. Probably Ahira's idea; when they get close to dwarvish
territory, they'll be safe. If the slavers don't catch up with them or cut
them off first."
*That seems to be generally true, but I doubt that Karl or Walter are going to
draw a straight line for the slavers to follow.*
"We have to know." Jason began to pace back and forth. "We have to tie it all
down, and quickly."
Lou Riccetti raised an eyebrow. "Before the slavers get to them?"
"It's not that." Jason dropped heavily into his chair. It was like ripples on
a pond, like the skipped stones.
When Jason was a boy, his father had little time to play with him, and after
they moved to Holtun-
Bieme, that time had dropped off to virtually nothing.
But he remembered a day, when they were back visiting Home on some business,
and an evening, as the sun set, when his father took him down to the lake and
taught him how to skip a stone across the water.
The trick was to pick the right stone, to curl your index finger around it,
then throw it sidearm, just right, and it would bounce five, six, seven times
across the still, flat water, each bounce sending out a circular, expanding
ripple.
Word that Karl Cullinane was alive was spreading after the strikes, like the
splashes of the stone that day.
"If he's alive, he can handle all the slavers in the world," Jason said. "It's
not that; we have to nail this down, tight, before word of this reaches my
mother."
He stood. "My father's death hit her hard." Harder than any of you know, or
are going to know. "I won't have her hopes raised and then dashed. We have to
settle all this and get back to Biemestren before word reaches Holtun-Bieme.
We find out if my father's really alive, and we find out fast."
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%20rare).txt (79 of 177)15-8-2005 22:41:09
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt
Ellegon spoke up. *I can drop you off along the coast and rendezvous later,
but I have a run that can't wait forever. Daven's team is not going to be able
to hold out without a resupply.*
And more; Ellegon might be needed to extract Daven's team, a few at a time.
There was another matter. I want you to check in on my mother, and stay with
her if necessary.
Doria was a good Doria had been a good healer, but she wasn't a healer
anymore, and she couldn't read minds.
*True. But I don't like picking her brains. It's not like with you.*
Page 57
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Do it anyway.
Still, it shouldn't take many of them. They had more of a Walter Slovotsky job
than a Karl Cullinane one: Locate, find, make contact and extract. Get them to
a rendezvous with the dragon and get them all out. And back to Biemestren.
"Best to start from the other end," Tennetty said. "Endell; work our way
south, hoping that we don't pass them by, or if we do, that we pick up a live
trail."
Kethol nodded. "Just you, with Durine and me to keep an eye on your back.
Small and fast. We find them, rendezvous with Ellegon and lift out."
"And me," Tennetty said, quietly. "You can't leave me behind. Not for this."
"And Tennetty," Durine said. He studied her with a curious intensity. "But
that's all."
Lou Riccetti nodded. "That makes sense. Take tomorrow to rest up there's some [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
"Which, it seemed to me, made the search for you pointless. But, just in case,
I headed north, up the coast, on the grounds that it might be a good idea to
scout out Guild strengths in some of the coastal cities; we don't like to work
that close to Pandathaway, but maybe we're going to have to, way pickings have
been.
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt (77 of 177)15-8-2005 22:41:09
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt
"In any case, I found that there were fewer guildsmen around than there ought
to have been skeleton crews everywhere, and they looked scared."
He drained his ale and signaled for more; Riccetti himself refilled it from
the hogshead in the corner.
"I'm not the best swordsman around, and I'm not too good with a gun. But
there's two things I'm real good at: I can blend into the furniture, and I can
drink any two men under the table. I got a couple of them drinking, and then
drunk. And they started talking.
"Seems that Ahrmin and all of his shorebound force died in Melawei."
That didn't surprise Jason; Walter Slovotsky had said that he wouldn't let
anyone kill Karl Cullinane and live to brag about it.
"When their relief force got there, they were stinking in the sun. And there
was a note left behind, pinned to one of the corpses, part of it in a language
that the slavers didn't understand and part of it in
Erendra. There were three signatures to the note. The part in Erendra read:
The warrior lives.
"Scared the shit out of the slavers, but what could they do?"
Jason swallowed. The warrior lives. The same thing somebody had said in the
Enkiar tavern. He walked to the mantelpiece and ran his fingers along it, the
heat from the fire beating against his legs, even through his trousers.
Outside, leathery wings rustled in the night.
*What do you think?*
I don't know. What do you think?
There was no answer as Aldren went on: "Then, about six tendays ago, a
guildsman in Lundeyll woke up next to one with his throat cut. Another note,
also with three signatures. The word is that a dozen men, several of them
Mels but not all of them caught a ship out of there the next morning, just
ahead of Lord Lund's proctors."
"Shit." Tennetty slapped her hand down on the arm of her chair and laughed.
"He could be alive.
Leaving town just ahead of trouble is the Cullinane family trademark, Jason."
Lou Riccetti's smile and nod were distant. "Lundeyll was the first town we
fled from, on This Side." His smile vanished; he shook his head. "Your
namesake died there," he told Jason. "He was my best friend."
Riccetti bit his lip. "I'm sorry go on, Aldren."
"Another note, also with three signatures." Aldren reached for a map. "In
Wehnest, on the way back, I
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt (78 of 177)15-8-2005 22:41:09
Page 56
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt picked up news that it's happened again, on Menelet. In any case,
the slavers believe that your father and his two comrades are somewhere in the
Shattered Islands, or maybe on Salket. Every guildsman is either hunkering
down, hoping they'll hit somewhere else, or trying to hunt them down."
Lou Riccetti leaned forward. "Aldren just got in yesterday. I was putting
together a team to go hunting for them, too. But your arrival suggests another
idea."
Kethol nodded. "With Ellegon to place us, we've got a good chance of getting
to them before the slavers do, particularly if we can figure out where they'll
hit next."
*Thanks for the vote of confidence. But it all depends on where they're going
to hit next, and on how well we can guess.*
Aeia smiled. Jason had to admit that his adopted sister was lovely when she
smiled. "We know where they're going," she said. "Just draw a line. They're
headed for Endell. Probably Ahira's idea; when they get close to dwarvish
territory, they'll be safe. If the slavers don't catch up with them or cut
them off first."
*That seems to be generally true, but I doubt that Karl or Walter are going to
draw a straight line for the slavers to follow.*
"We have to know." Jason began to pace back and forth. "We have to tie it all
down, and quickly."
Lou Riccetti raised an eyebrow. "Before the slavers get to them?"
"It's not that." Jason dropped heavily into his chair. It was like ripples on
a pond, like the skipped stones.
When Jason was a boy, his father had little time to play with him, and after
they moved to Holtun-
Bieme, that time had dropped off to virtually nothing.
But he remembered a day, when they were back visiting Home on some business,
and an evening, as the sun set, when his father took him down to the lake and
taught him how to skip a stone across the water.
The trick was to pick the right stone, to curl your index finger around it,
then throw it sidearm, just right, and it would bounce five, six, seven times
across the still, flat water, each bounce sending out a circular, expanding
ripple.
Word that Karl Cullinane was alive was spreading after the strikes, like the
splashes of the stone that day.
"If he's alive, he can handle all the slavers in the world," Jason said. "It's
not that; we have to nail this down, tight, before word of this reaches my
mother."
He stood. "My father's death hit her hard." Harder than any of you know, or
are going to know. "I won't have her hopes raised and then dashed. We have to
settle all this and get back to Biemestren before word reaches Holtun-Bieme.
We find out if my father's really alive, and we find out fast."
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt (79 of 177)15-8-2005 22:41:09
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Joel%20Rosenberg%20-%20The%20Warrior%20Lives%20(very
%20rare).txt
Ellegon spoke up. *I can drop you off along the coast and rendezvous later,
but I have a run that can't wait forever. Daven's team is not going to be able
to hold out without a resupply.*
And more; Ellegon might be needed to extract Daven's team, a few at a time.
There was another matter. I want you to check in on my mother, and stay with
her if necessary.
Doria was a good Doria had been a good healer, but she wasn't a healer
anymore, and she couldn't read minds.
*True. But I don't like picking her brains. It's not like with you.*
Page 57
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Do it anyway.
Still, it shouldn't take many of them. They had more of a Walter Slovotsky job
than a Karl Cullinane one: Locate, find, make contact and extract. Get them to
a rendezvous with the dragon and get them all out. And back to Biemestren.
"Best to start from the other end," Tennetty said. "Endell; work our way
south, hoping that we don't pass them by, or if we do, that we pick up a live
trail."
Kethol nodded. "Just you, with Durine and me to keep an eye on your back.
Small and fast. We find them, rendezvous with Ellegon and lift out."
"And me," Tennetty said, quietly. "You can't leave me behind. Not for this."
"And Tennetty," Durine said. He studied her with a curious intensity. "But
that's all."
Lou Riccetti nodded. "That makes sense. Take tomorrow to rest up there's some [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]