[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Yes, ser.
Four abreast! orders Nytral.
Column by fours! echo Shofirg and Dubrez.
Captured mounts to the rear, adds Nytral.
For a time, the only sounds are those of the mounts heavy breathing and their
hoofs on the frozen ground.
Are the raiders always like that in the winter? asks Lorn.
Pretty much, ser. answers Nytral. They ll run if they can, and fight if
they can t. In the spring and summer, they fight. Don t ever seem to run
then.
Lorn nods, his eyes searching the area to the west, but the slight rise beyond
Page 57
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the holding blocks any view of the Fifth Company, and there are no flashes
that would indicate the use of firelances.
As they ride westward, past the dike and the end of the stock pond-if that is
what it is-Lorn studies the buildings of the holding. The door of the house
hangs crookedly on one iron strap hinge, and a single figure in gray lies
beside the door. Lorn cannot tell whether the corpse is a man or a woman.
Another dark-haired figure lies on a bale of hay beside the barn door. That
figure is of a girl, one not yet a woman, all clothes ripped off her. Lorn
swallows as he sees the slash across her throat. He swallows again.
As they reach the west side of the holding, beyond the barn, Lorn can see over
the rise where the Third Company has formed up. Zandrey s lancers are walking
their mounts toward the holding and Lorn s company.
As the captain sees Lorn and his company, Zandrey gestures for the Fifth
Company to halt.
Halt them, Lorn tiredly tells Nytral.
Company halt! orders Nytral.
Squad halt, echo Shofirg and Dubrez.
Zandrey rides up toward Lorn, and Lorn continues toward the captain. Both
officers rein up with less than a score of cubits between their mounts.
Lorn s eyes are flat, cold, as he waits for the senior officer to speak.
Good job! booms Zandrey. Not a one got away. Most of the time, we can t do
that with one company, and some escape.
Lorn nods.
You did just the right thing in charging them toward us, Zandrey continues.
Too bad about the peasant holders, but if we d have charged before you got
down the hill, most of the raiders would have escaped.
The wind whines, and the chill drops around Lorn. He glances up to see that,
sometime during the fighting, the sun has dropped behind the hills to the
west, and the cold of winter in the Grass Hills had returned.
We ll overnight here, Zandrey says. Barn s big enough for the men, and the
dwelling for us and the squad leaders.
Lorn nods, unwilling to speak for the moment, his thoughts on the dark-haired,
dead herder girl not that much younger than his own sister Myryan& and the
charge that Zandrey had never considered making.
XXVI
In the dimness of his cold quarters, under the flame of a single lamp, Lorn
sits on the edge of the narrow bed, holding a green-silvered book, marvelling
at the clarity of the angled characters that date back to the founders. The
cover remains pristine, unmarked, its silver shifting from one faint shade of
green to another as he turns it in his hands. With all he has had to learn,
and the tiredness that comes from that and seemingly endless riding, he has
read little. He looks at the back cover, but it too is untouched by time.
Yet the slim volume is missing two pages, and Lorn suspects that one would
have been a title page and the other would have born the name of the writer,
for there are no inscriptions anywhere within it that say when the book was
written or for what purpose or by whom. There are no numbers, no strange
cursives or codes. There are just the poems, and no one in Cyad writes poems,
not publicly, not that Lorn knows. And no one has in generations, at least not
poems shared beyond a family or a lover, and not that there is any restriction
on writing them. It is just not done.
His lips curl. Just as it is not written that a student mage who is not
properly reverential shall not become a full mage.
He fingers the pages of the book again. He can scarcely see where the cuts had
been made to remove the pages, and the material of each page seems stronger
than shimmercloth. No knife he knows would cut such tough material so cleanly.
But the pages have been removed.
He opens the volume, almost at random. He has promised to read it, every page.
He knows Ryalth must have had a reason, a reason well beyond sentiment, for
though she has feelings, those emotions will not betray her.
He reads the words on the page before him once. Somehow, unspoken, they are
Page 58
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
not satisfactory. He murmurs them softly as he reads them again.
Although the old lands are in my heart,
in towers that anchored life with certain art, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
Yes, ser.
Four abreast! orders Nytral.
Column by fours! echo Shofirg and Dubrez.
Captured mounts to the rear, adds Nytral.
For a time, the only sounds are those of the mounts heavy breathing and their
hoofs on the frozen ground.
Are the raiders always like that in the winter? asks Lorn.
Pretty much, ser. answers Nytral. They ll run if they can, and fight if
they can t. In the spring and summer, they fight. Don t ever seem to run
then.
Lorn nods, his eyes searching the area to the west, but the slight rise beyond
Page 57
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the holding blocks any view of the Fifth Company, and there are no flashes
that would indicate the use of firelances.
As they ride westward, past the dike and the end of the stock pond-if that is
what it is-Lorn studies the buildings of the holding. The door of the house
hangs crookedly on one iron strap hinge, and a single figure in gray lies
beside the door. Lorn cannot tell whether the corpse is a man or a woman.
Another dark-haired figure lies on a bale of hay beside the barn door. That
figure is of a girl, one not yet a woman, all clothes ripped off her. Lorn
swallows as he sees the slash across her throat. He swallows again.
As they reach the west side of the holding, beyond the barn, Lorn can see over
the rise where the Third Company has formed up. Zandrey s lancers are walking
their mounts toward the holding and Lorn s company.
As the captain sees Lorn and his company, Zandrey gestures for the Fifth
Company to halt.
Halt them, Lorn tiredly tells Nytral.
Company halt! orders Nytral.
Squad halt, echo Shofirg and Dubrez.
Zandrey rides up toward Lorn, and Lorn continues toward the captain. Both
officers rein up with less than a score of cubits between their mounts.
Lorn s eyes are flat, cold, as he waits for the senior officer to speak.
Good job! booms Zandrey. Not a one got away. Most of the time, we can t do
that with one company, and some escape.
Lorn nods.
You did just the right thing in charging them toward us, Zandrey continues.
Too bad about the peasant holders, but if we d have charged before you got
down the hill, most of the raiders would have escaped.
The wind whines, and the chill drops around Lorn. He glances up to see that,
sometime during the fighting, the sun has dropped behind the hills to the
west, and the cold of winter in the Grass Hills had returned.
We ll overnight here, Zandrey says. Barn s big enough for the men, and the
dwelling for us and the squad leaders.
Lorn nods, unwilling to speak for the moment, his thoughts on the dark-haired,
dead herder girl not that much younger than his own sister Myryan& and the
charge that Zandrey had never considered making.
XXVI
In the dimness of his cold quarters, under the flame of a single lamp, Lorn
sits on the edge of the narrow bed, holding a green-silvered book, marvelling
at the clarity of the angled characters that date back to the founders. The
cover remains pristine, unmarked, its silver shifting from one faint shade of
green to another as he turns it in his hands. With all he has had to learn,
and the tiredness that comes from that and seemingly endless riding, he has
read little. He looks at the back cover, but it too is untouched by time.
Yet the slim volume is missing two pages, and Lorn suspects that one would
have been a title page and the other would have born the name of the writer,
for there are no inscriptions anywhere within it that say when the book was
written or for what purpose or by whom. There are no numbers, no strange
cursives or codes. There are just the poems, and no one in Cyad writes poems,
not publicly, not that Lorn knows. And no one has in generations, at least not
poems shared beyond a family or a lover, and not that there is any restriction
on writing them. It is just not done.
His lips curl. Just as it is not written that a student mage who is not
properly reverential shall not become a full mage.
He fingers the pages of the book again. He can scarcely see where the cuts had
been made to remove the pages, and the material of each page seems stronger
than shimmercloth. No knife he knows would cut such tough material so cleanly.
But the pages have been removed.
He opens the volume, almost at random. He has promised to read it, every page.
He knows Ryalth must have had a reason, a reason well beyond sentiment, for
though she has feelings, those emotions will not betray her.
He reads the words on the page before him once. Somehow, unspoken, they are
Page 58
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
not satisfactory. He murmurs them softly as he reads them again.
Although the old lands are in my heart,
in towers that anchored life with certain art, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]