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He was about the same color as Fred Thurston but otherwise unalike, a slight wiry man in his thirties with a ready smile that didn?t reach his eyes. Ingolf had done business with him years before when he ran a salvage outfit; they both disclaimed friendship. ?OK,? he said, leaning against the doorway.?Look, I owe Ingolf. I owe him money and favors. So I?ve got that ship he wanted waiting at the docks in Dubuque. I don?t owe him my life, or my wife and kids? lives, which is what tangling with Captain Denson of the State Police would mean. So you?re not going to do any crazy stunts from here, or from anyplace I own. Understand? Do you folks want to get on your way, or not? That?s up to you.?
There were vague hulking shapes on the stairway behind him, probably hired muscle. That didn?t bother Ritva; she had a high opinion of her companions, and an even higher one of herself. The problem was that Tancredo was their only defense against the State Police. None of them knew their way around Des Moines? enormous dirty warren-and a walled city was a hard place to get out of. ?Excuse me, my son,? a quiet voice said on the stairs. Father Ignatius beamed at them as he came into view.?I fear we must move, my children, and quickly. Collect your gear.?
Usually Ritva felt a slight irritation when the Christian priest called them that, although she liked him well enough. He was only a few years older himself. And the more so when he assumed an authority only Rudi and Ingolf had in this band, since she was no part of his flock.
This time she beamed back at him.
TheSwordoftheLady
CHAPTER SIX
A horse whickered. Rudi Mackenzie gri
He gri
And herself as sweet and bouncy as the clover that fine night, the Foam-Born Cyprian?s blessings on her for being patient with my boy?s clumsiness, he thought.
He?d danced at her handfasting to Bram the Smith four years later, too; pranced and tumbled and leapt and spun with goat horns strapped above his ankles amid the other youths, to lead her and her flower-garlanded maidens to the dun?s nemed. Nowadays she was a hearth-mistress and High Priestess and a potter growing famous for her slip-glazed ware, and had a pair of little girls as pretty as two young jays and a baby boy at the breast.
And so to business. I?m seeing to their safety, and that of all the Clan?s hearth-homes, and more.
He felt alive at the thought, intensely conscious of himself and the moment. These were the things for which he had been made, the deeds that were his very self.
Besides which, this should be fun. The stealing part, at least. My totem is Raven, after all… and doesn?t that One love to carry things off? More, I?m doing it for Matti and my friends, and it is a relief beyond words to be moving, not just persuading and cajoling, the which is needful but drives a man mad!
The horse nickered again, more urgently, but he wasn?t particularly worried that the sleepy guard-riders would be alarmed.
If there?s one thing that a herd of any size will always produce, it?s that sound; the which is why it?s easier to steal forty horses than one. And it tells me everyone?s in position.
The night had become dense-dark anyway with the setting of the moon sliver several hours ago. Patches of high cloud ghosted across the sky, hiding the bright Belt of the Goddess, and denser black masses piled to the west with a flicker of distant lightning now and then, too far for even the faintest rumble of thunder. It was three hours past midnight, the time when old men died and sleep was deepest. But it wasn?t still. The cicadas were loud here, as loud as he?d ever heard them, and the tall prairie grasses made a peculiar sound not quite like anything he knew, a long hsssssss that swelled and died away as the ripples passed him by.
It?s like the sea, he thought.
He?d heard something a bit like this once while he single-handed a ketch off Newport, the Corvallis sea town, on a day when the Pacific whitecaps marched from the farthest horizon to his boat?s bow. A seal had swum alongside for a while, and sometimes heaved itself up for an instant to peer over the gunwale at him with great brown eyes. He?d bowed back gravely, and laughed as it dove away with a flick of the tail that shot cold saltwater into his face and made him nearly luff as he came about on that tack.
Yes, it sounds like waves. And the breeze is picking up. ?I don?t like having to rely on the Southsiders, Chief,? Edain said quietly-whispering?s sibilants carried farther than the tones of ordinary speech.?Sure, and they?re good-hearted and brave, but Tamar?s favorite team?-his elder half sister was well known as a trainer of oxen-?knows more about the which of the where.? ?At sneaking through the dark, they?re skilled enough,? he replied.?They?d have been dead long ago else.?
A glance at the stars to confirm his i
They both rolled to their feet, their longbows in their hands. The arrows they needed were stuck point down in the sod, and Rudi flicked open the improvised beechwood firebox with the tip of his bow. Air struck the banked embers within, and they glowed for an instant beneath the covering of white ash with a hot dry smell. He set one of the arrows to the string, and dipped the lump behind the head into the coals; the ball of frayed wild flax soaked in oil flared up immediately. Then Rudi turned and shot, the fire-arrow?s point up at a forty-five degree angle as he sank into the draw inside the bow, using the backside-down posture best for distance work. The ball of flame traced a red line through the night; three more were in the air before it struck. ?And there?s a sign that?s sayin?: Hurrah, we?re here! Tasty and fookin? edible and doing ye the great favor of cookin? ourselves!? Edain grumbled beneath his rhythmic grunts of effort as he shot. ?Last one!? Rudi said.
Between them they?d sent sixteen flaming missiles westward into a tin derbox fa
It was surprisingly hard to push through, especially in the dark; the grass itself was thick, and there was a dense understory of knee-high forbs and thistles. Once an ancient tangle of barbed wire caught at his foot, but it was rusted through and crumbled when he tugged. Garbh seemed to have an easier time of it, bounding silently at Edain?s side. It was her check and quiet growl that alerted them, an instant before the thud of hooves. ?Ssst!? Edain said; that brought her quivering-silent.