accusingly at me. His whole stance, his shining face, screamed out: “You might have warned me!”
I said, “Why, some shrewish fishwife who landladied it at our last inn. Now, we had best hurry. Those paktuns looked as though they know their job. And if Sorgan did betray you they’ll know we have an injured man.”
“Yes,” she said, instantly forgetting the pettiness of impending annoyance at Tyfar’s incautious words.
“We must get on. Kaldu! Make for Horter Rathon’s.”
“Quidang, my lady.”
We all ran down the alley, and we ran away from Blue Vosk Street and headed for the thick stand of tall timber.
“There is a section of bog in here, lady,” said Nod the Straw. “No one ventures here.” His eyes rolled.
“I do not like to go in — but—”
“Needs must when you come to the fluttrell’s vane, Nod.”
“Aye, my lady.”
“This Rathon,” I said, “to whom we are all running like a flock of ponshos. Did Sorgan know of him and his house?”
“No,” said Kaldu.
Tyfar wanted to bristle up at the incivility. But I restrained him with a quiet word. How odd it is that a prince will stand for uncouthness when an arrow is aimed at his heart, and prickles up when it is not!
Although, to give Tyfar his dues, he wasn’t the least afraid of arrows in the normal course of things. That a beautiful and well-formed woman had been the person aiming the shaft at us — that, I think, had thrown him off balance.
The trees closed over us, a mixture of the beautiful as well as the ugly in Kregan trees. The path became distinctly moist. I looked back. Our footprints were perfectly legible to the eyes of a tracker.
“It gets a lot stickier ahead,” said Nod. “Unfortunately.”
“There is a boat,” said the woman. She spoke briskly. “We can cross the river without trouble, and lose ourselves in the Aracloins.[2]Horter Rathon will give us shelter.”
“Why did you not go there first, instead of to Blue Vosk Street?”
She gave me a withering look.
“That was nearest. We did not know who Barkindrar and Nath were when the watch tried to take them up. When we realized they were Hamalese, of course, we stepped in.”
“You are revolutionaries?”
The moment I spoke I heard the fatuity of my question.
She said, “Kaldu! Watch your step.”
He did not answer but plunged on with Barkindrar slung over his back. The Bullet had taken a nasty cut along the leg. The wound was bound — and bound expertly, too, the handiwork as I guessed of this surprising woman.
Along by the edge of the river where this boggy section was difficult to tell from river itself, we threaded along the narrow path. Nod the Straw led, and he was not at all happy. In any niksuth, any small marshy area, of Kregen you are likely to find uncooperative life. Teeth and fangs, spines and stings, they hop up out of the bog and seek to drag you down for a juicy dinner. Even in a city like Khorunlad. Aware of this delightful fact of Kregan bogs, I loosened my thraxter in the scabbard.
“If no one comes here,” I said. “The watch will not think we have. There is no need to hurry, they will not know how long we have been gone from the stables.”
“There was a quantity of blood spilled on the straw,” she said.
“I see. Then we had best hurry.”
“Jak,” called Tyfar.
I swung about to look.
He was half off and half on the path, and one leg was going deeper and deeper into a foul-smelling stink of blackness. Tendriliferous vines snaked over the oozing mud. But he got a grip on a clump of weed and arrested his sucking-in.
He had been following up last. The girl at my side said, “The oaf!” She spoke tartly.
Tyfar got a better grip and started to haul himself in.
A head appeared over his shoulder, one of those snouting, fanged heads of Kregen, all scale and tendrils and gape-jaws. The eyes were red slits. It hoisted itself a little free of the ooze with two broad paddle-like forefeet. In the next instant it
I said, “Why, some shrewish fishwife who landladied it at our last inn. Now, we had best hurry. Those paktuns looked as though they know their job. And if Sorgan did betray you they’ll know we have an injured man.”
“Yes,” she said, instantly forgetting the pettiness of impending annoyance at Tyfar’s incautious words.
“We must get on. Kaldu! Make for Horter Rathon’s.”
“Quidang, my lady.”
We all ran down the alley, and we ran away from Blue Vosk Street and headed for the thick stand of tall timber.
“There is a section of bog in here, lady,” said Nod the Straw. “No one ventures here.” His eyes rolled.
“I do not like to go in — but—”
“Needs must when you come to the fluttrell’s vane, Nod.”
“Aye, my lady.”
“This Rathon,” I said, “to whom we are all running like a flock of ponshos. Did Sorgan know of him and his house?”
“No,” said Kaldu.
Tyfar wanted to bristle up at the incivility. But I restrained him with a quiet word. How odd it is that a prince will stand for uncouthness when an arrow is aimed at his heart, and prickles up when it is not!
Although, to give Tyfar his dues, he wasn’t the least afraid of arrows in the normal course of things. That a beautiful and well-formed woman had been the person aiming the shaft at us — that, I think, had thrown him off balance.
The trees closed over us, a mixture of the beautiful as well as the ugly in Kregan trees. The path became distinctly moist. I looked back. Our footprints were perfectly legible to the eyes of a tracker.
“It gets a lot stickier ahead,” said Nod. “Unfortunately.”
“There is a boat,” said the woman. She spoke briskly. “We can cross the river without trouble, and lose ourselves in the Aracloins.[2]Horter Rathon will give us shelter.”
“Why did you not go there first, instead of to Blue Vosk Street?”
She gave me a withering look.
“That was nearest. We did not know who Barkindrar and Nath were when the watch tried to take them up. When we realized they were Hamalese, of course, we stepped in.”
“You are revolutionaries?”
The moment I spoke I heard the fatuity of my question.
She said, “Kaldu! Watch your step.”
He did not answer but plunged on with Barkindrar slung over his back. The Bullet had taken a nasty cut along the leg. The wound was bound — and bound expertly, too, the handiwork as I guessed of this surprising woman.
Along by the edge of the river where this boggy section was difficult to tell from river itself, we threaded along the narrow path. Nod the Straw led, and he was not at all happy. In any niksuth, any small marshy area, of Kregen you are likely to find uncooperative life. Teeth and fangs, spines and stings, they hop up out of the bog and seek to drag you down for a juicy dinner. Even in a city like Khorunlad. Aware of this delightful fact of Kregan bogs, I loosened my thraxter in the scabbard.
“If no one comes here,” I said. “The watch will not think we have. There is no need to hurry, they will not know how long we have been gone from the stables.”
“There was a quantity of blood spilled on the straw,” she said.
“I see. Then we had best hurry.”
“Jak,” called Tyfar.
I swung about to look.
He was half off and half on the path, and one leg was going deeper and deeper into a foul-smelling stink of blackness. Tendriliferous vines snaked over the oozing mud. But he got a grip on a clump of weed and arrested his sucking-in.
He had been following up last. The girl at my side said, “The oaf!” She spoke tartly.
Tyfar got a better grip and started to haul himself in.
A head appeared over his shoulder, one of those snouting, fanged heads of Kregen, all scale and tendrils and gape-jaws. The eyes were red slits. It hoisted itself a little free of the ooze with two broad paddle-like forefeet. In the next instant it
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