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weeds grew in the dry soil and even the weeds were dying. The stone flags were
littered with bits of paper, dead leaves, passar droppings. As she clipped the
rope back on her weaponbelt, she looked up. The small window above was still
dark and empty. She smiled with sat-isfaction. "Bit on something that bit
back," she murmured. "Serves you right."
No Hern yet. She shook her head and moved toward the front of the
Inn, listening intently. The thick walls defeated her ears but through
the outreach of her eyespot she sensed a growing turmoil inside.
Hern came around the corner, riding one macai and lead-ing a second.
Serroi felt rather ashamed of herself for sus-pecting him of desertion,
especially when she saw that he'd taken the time to switch gear to fresh
beasts. She shook her head, her rueful smile widening to a grin as she took
note of the fineness of the beasts and realized that they probably be-longed
to the Norit. She swept him a deep bow, tucked the bundle more securely under
her arm and swung up into the saddle. "There's a gate in the back wall."
He lifted a brow. "Looks quiet out front."
"Won't be." She rode past him and was pleased when he followed without a word.
The gate was barred, the hinges rusty and stubborn, but Hern dealt easily
enough with it. When he was mounted again and riding beside her, she
said, "The Norit was waiting for me. He's blocked now, but he won't stay that
way long." She turned her macai into the shadow of a small grove on the edge
of the commonlands. "You hear? Waiting for me."
Hern snorted. "Fighting shadows, meie. No one followed us. No one saw us."
She shook her head. "No one had to. The Norit's been here a full passage. You
heard what Braddon said." She held her mount to a rapid walk as she threaded
through the trees, skirting the garden patches (mostly empty now of all but
weeds, the produce pickled in crocks or stored deep in root cellars against
the rigors of winter). "He knew I'd have to leave the Valley. He stirred up
the Kry so there'd be only one way for me to go."
"He. Always He. Who is this 'he'?"
She glanced at his scowling face, looked away. "The last of the Great Nor,
Dom," she said somberly. "The others are dead now, most from challenging him.
The domnor of the Nearga-nor. The driving force behind all this or so I
think. No, I'm sure of that." She felt his silence, looked at him, shook her
head. "You couldn't touch him, Hern. I don't know who could."
Where the commonland ended she saw the tatty hedge she'd expected, the
boundary hedge of Hallam's Tar. Sweet
Hal the feckless, everyman's friend.
"Puts us back on the road," Hern's voice was mild but she couldn't miss the
understated sarcasm.
"No." Biting at her lip, she frowned along the hedge. "Which way . . . which
way. . . . When Tayyan and I were coming north to take ward at the
Plaz, we stopped off to see Braddon and Matti. The tarom of this holding is
the laziest creature on the Plain. He let a small hole in his hedge wear big.
A herd of hauhaus got out and started making a mess of the commons." She
flipped a hand at the open lands behind them. "We rounded up the beasts and
fixed the break with some poles and wire. Ah, I remember now. This way." She
started east along the hedge.
Hern gave an impatient exclamation and started after her. When he caught up
with her, he said, "After three years?"
She chuckled. "You don't know Sweet Hal. Long as the patch held he wouldn't
see any reason to fuss about it." She pointed. "See?"
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There was a narrow gap in the hedge, bridged by neatly woven poles and wire.
"Teh! Look at that. Hallam's still
Sweet Hal." The bushes about the gap were tattered and dy-ing, the wire wound
precariously about brittle dead limbs.
"Looks like a breath would blow it over. Hallam's luck that it lasted through
the Gather storms." She edged the macai closer, reached down and tugged the
patch loose with a series of small poppings from the thorn hedge. "Sweet Hal,
bless him, even the Followers can't change him."
Hern followed her through the gap, slid off his macai and wired the patch
upright again, cursing under his breath as the dry thorns stung him. Sucking
at his knuckle he came walk-ing back toward her. Standing by her stirrup, his
lips pursed prissily, he said, "One doesn't leave gates open in pastures. It [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]