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let her know they were coming.  Trans-port, she said.  We ll be leaving for
the mountains fifteen twenty minutes no more.
Yaril and Jaril brought three mules, two bays and a blue roan. They were
saddled and bridled, with water-skins, long braided ropes tied on, a half a
sack of seed-grain snugged behind the blue roan s saddle. Brann raised
her brows.  I see why you took so long.
 Town was pretty well closed down. Jaril s eyes flicked toward the silent
brooding figure of the sorceror, turned back to Brann.  We decided since we
were leav-ing three golds behind and one of them could buy ten mules and a
farm to keep them on and since we didn t know how well they, a jerk of his
thumb toward Dan-iel and Ahzurdan,  could ride, we might as well make it as
easy as we could. We raided a stable and the gear was all there, no problem,
so why not.
While the children flew overhead keeping watch and Ahzurdan stood aside
pulling himself together and re-building his defenses, Brann and Daniel
Akamarino dis-tributed the gear and supplies among the three mules and roped
the packs in place. By the time they were finished the tip of the sun was
poking around the side of Isspyrivo, a red bead growing like a drop of blood
oozing from a pinprick.
Following the lead of the two hawks they wound through brushy foothills for
the better part of the morn-ing, a still, hot morning spent in the clouds of
dust and dying leaves kicked up by the plodding mules. They stopped briefly
at noon for a meal of dried meat and trail bars washed down with
strong-tasting lukewarm water from the skins. Even Daniel wasn t drinking any
of Tungjii s wine, he was too hot, sweaty and sore to appreciate it (though he
did go behind a bush, drop his trousers and smooth a handful of it over his
abraded thighs).
During the morning Ahzurdan had been braced to fend off an attack
from Maksim. Nothing happened. He prowled about the small grassy space where
they stopped to eat, watching ariels swirl invisibly over them coming and
going in that endless loop between them and Settsimaksimin. Nothing happened.
They started on. With Yaril plotting the route and Jaril on wide ranging guard
swings, they climbed out of the hills and the rattling brush into the mountain
forests, trees growing taller, the way getting steeper and more difficult as
they rose higher and higher above sea level.
Ahzurdan flung himself from the saddle, landed in a stumbling run waving his
arms to stop the others.
 Brann, he shouted,  to me. Daniel, hold the mules. He braced
himself, hands circling, spreading, smoothing.  Bilaga anaaaa nihi ta yi ka
i gy shee ta a doo le eh doo ya ah tee, he intoned as the earth about them
rippled and surged, great trees toppled, roots loosened as the soil about them
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fluxed and flowed and formed into eyeless giants with ragged hands reaching
reaching, deflected from them by the sphere Ahzurdan threw about them. Brann
ran to him, flattened her hand in the middle of his back, fed energy into him,
steady-ing him. The mules were squealing and sidling, jerking about, trying to
break free from Daniel who was too busy with them to worry much about what was
happen-ing. Yaril darted from the sky, changed from hawk to shimmersphere in
midcourse and went whipping through the earth giants emerging into greater and
greater definition as the attack intensified. She went whipping through
and through them, drawing force from them until she was swollen with
it. She dropped beside Brann, extended a pseudopod to her spine and fed
the earthstrength into her. Brann filtered it and passed it slowly, steadily
to Ahzurdan. As soon as Yaril emptied herself, she was a hawk again, powering
up to circle overhead while Jaril passed through the giants and stole more
from them and fed it to Brann. Turn and turn they went while the attack
mounted. Trees tumbled but never onto them, hurled aside by the sphere of
negation Ah-zurdan held about them, the earth outside boiled and shifted,
walked in manshape, surged in shapeless waves but the earth beneath them
stayed solid and still. Ah-zurdan sweated and strained, his back quivered
increas-ingly under Brann s hand, but he held the sphere intact and none of
the raging outside touched the peace and silence within.
The turmoil quit.
Ahzurdan screamed and collapsed.
The mules shrilled and reared, jerked Daniel Aka-marino off his
feet until the Yaril and Jaril shimmer-globes darted over and settled
briefly on the beasts, calming them.
They darted back to Brann, shifted to their child-shapes and knelt with her
beside Ahzurdan. He was
foaming at the mouth, writhing, groaning, his face twisting in a mask of pain
and fear. Brann flattened her palms on his chest, leaned as much of her weight
on him as she could while Yaril melted into him. She closed her eyes, reached
into him, guided by Yaril s gentle touches, repairing bruises and breaks and
burns where the lifestuff of the elementals had traumatized him. Jaril flung
himself into the air, a hawk again, circling, watching. Daniel soothed the
mules some more, managed to pour some grain into the grass and got them
eating. He popped the stopple on the wineskin, squeezed a short stream into
his mouth, sighed with pleasure. Brann looked over her shoulder, scowled.
 Daniel, dig me out a cloth and bring some water here.
He shrugged and complied, stood over her watching with interest as she wiped
the sorceror s drawn face clean of spittle and dirt. Ahzurdan s limbs [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]