[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Half-a-league; no more.
Duncan pulled his horse to a halt. Alix, seeking to remain upright on the
animal, caught at Duncan's waist. She felt the tension in his body as if it
were her own.
He half-turned in the saddle, muttering something under his breath. Then, "I
must find a place for you."
"You will fight them?"
"They will give us no choice, Alix. Why do you think they come, save to slay
us all?"
Alix opened her mouth to retort but suddenly could find no words. Her mind was
ablaze with sound so intense she knew it was not something she beard with her
ears. She thought her head would burst with words, and it was only grabbing at
Duncan's waist that kept her on the horse. She mumbled something, closing her
eyes against me weight of voices, and vaguely heard the approach of a horse.
Page 44
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Duncan took no note of her sudden weakness.
"Well, rujho." Finn's voice said, "the princeling did not lie.
He has given us little time."
Alix forced her eyes open and glared at him, though a part of her attention
was still claimed by me multitude of voices.
Do they not hear them? she wondered.
Duncan peached around and caught her arm, easing her down from the horse until
she had to scramble to stay upright. "Take her," he told Finn, 67
Alix forcibly detached her mind from the other voices. "No!
Not with him!"
"See to her, rujho,^ Duncan said calmly. "I will not have her harmed. These
men will see only a shapechanger woman, and would do her injury. I leave her
to you.'*
Finn grinned down at her. "Do you see, met jha7 The clan-
leader passes you back to me."
"I wilt have none of you," she said with effort, trying to speak beneath the
weight of words in her mind. "Do you hear?"
Duncan said something to her but Alix heard nothing; she saw only that his
mouth moved. She clapped hands over her ears and bowed her head, trying to
withstand the patterns and tones in her mind.
Finn's hands came down on her shoulders. Dimly she saw
Duncan lead his horse away, leaving Finn on foot with her. She peered at him
uncertainly.
"You have been given into my keeping," he announced. "I
do not intend to let you out of it."
"Is it sorcery?" she gasped. "Do you seek to take my mind from me?"
Finn scowled at her. "You do not make sense, meijha. But I
have no time to listen to you now . . . can you not hear them?"
"I hear their voices'" she cried, trembling. Finn's look on her was strange.
"I speak of their horses, mei jha. I hear no voices."
For a moment she pushed away the soundless words and listened to reality.
Through me forest came me sounds of men battering their way through delaying
brush. Her eyes flew to
Finn's.
"They will slay you," he said gently.
The weight began to fall from her mind. Faintly she heard echoes of the tones
and patterns, but she did not feel so bound by diem. Her strength was spent.
She nodded wearily at Finn and did not protest as he led her deeper into the
forest.
"Storr?" she asked softly.
"He is behind, watching. He like the others will fight the
Mujhar's men."
Finn pulled her down under cover of a broken tree trunk leaning drunkenly
against another. Quickly he set deadfall over them, weaving a rapid shelter.
When it was done he pushed her down on her stomach and kneh beside her. Alix,
still shaken from the silent voices, watched from a distance as he loosened
his belt-knife and effortlessly nocked a yellow-fletched black arrow to his
compact, powerful bow.
68
Alix put her head down on one arm and longed for the security of her father's
croft.
"Watch my back, mei jha," Finn said roughly. "I have no time for women's
fears."
She wrenched her head up and glared at him. His back was to her, presenting an
excellent target for a furious fist, but the precariousness of their position
was uppermost in her mind. She put away the urge to do him harm and turned
Page 45
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
instead to watch behind him, as he had bidden.
Alix's head ached. She scrubbed at her forehead as if to drive the pain away,
but it did no good. The voices were gone, only a figment of memory, but it was
enough to leave a residue. Her entire body ached with me indignities she had
been forced to endure: sores remained on her legs from continued riding;
brusies dotted her flesh and her bones and muscles felt like rags. Her mind,
she knew dimly, was as exhausted. For all they insisted they would do her no
harm, the Cheysuli had accounted for more pain and fatigue than she had ever
thought possible.
At first she thought it was a Cheysuli horse crashing through the brush toward
their thin shelter. Alix stared silently up at me man a moment before she
realized he was a mailed man-at-arms in the scarlet-and-black tunic livery of
me Mujhar, sword drawn.
Relief flooded through her. She would escape Finn and the others now, putting
herself into the care of a Mujharan guardsman, who would surely rescue her
from her plight. Alix sighed in relief and crawled forward as the man's eyes
fell on hers. The beginnings of her smile of greeting faded.
The sword lifted in a gloved hand, swinging back over his shoulder.
Transfixed, Alix stared at the bright blade. It hung over her, poised to fall,
and in a blinding flash of realization she knew Duncan's words were true. They
would slay her where she stood, and call her shapechanger.
Alix lunged backward into Finn. He turned sharply and hissed something, men
saw why she moved. He said nothing more. The arrow's flight was unmarked in
passing, but Alix saw me feath-
ered shaft quiver out of the guardsman's throat. He fell back in the saddle,
crying out something in a gurgling voice. Then he tumbled from his bolting
horse.
She stuffed a fist into her mouth to keep from screaming, aware only that Finn
had left her and was fighting hand-to-hand with yet another guardsman. Alix
recoiled, staring open-mouthed at me straining men. A bough jabbed her in the
small of her back, tearing through me woolen fabric and into her flesh, but
she was oblivious to me pain.
Finn bent the man's knife arm away from his throat, a fearful
69
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]