Janny Wurts The Cycle of Fire 2 Keeper of the Keys

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cranny just as Brith lunged. His boot struck the animal a glancing blow in the
ribs. The cat yowled and fled. Distracted, Jaric glanced sideways for a
fraction of an instant. Brith's blade hooked his cross guard and, with a
single stroke, disarmed him. The sword pinwheeled from the boy's hand and fell
ringing onto wood. Deafened by a chorus of cheers and groans from the on-
lookers, and pressed hard against the lumber by the points of his opponent's
steel, Jaric panted and shifted his dagger to his right hand.
"Desist," snapped Brith. He also breathed heavily from exertion. "You're
beaten now. If you don't quit, I'll have to hurt you." His sword flicked like
a snake.
Flattened against stacked planks, Jaric missed his parry and, trapped in
another bind, caught a warning scratch on the wrist from his opponent's
dagger.
"Drop your knife," commanded Brith. His sword arm flexed, bearing painful
pressure against the boy's stressed wrist.
Still Jaric refused to relinquish his weapon. "How many times did you warn
that chance can ruin a victory?" And his brown eyes showed a hint of laughter
as a board thrown from the sidelines struck the weaponsmaster squarely in the
back of the neck.
Brith buckled at the knees and crashed at Jaric's feet. The swordmaster's head
had barely struck planking when a familiar, one-handed figure darted from the
crowd and piled squarely onto his shoulders. Breathless, the beggar lifted his
face to the boy. "Kicked my cat, this lout sure did."
"I saw." Jaric grinned. He bent wearily and recovered his sword, then gathered
up Brith's weapons as well. "Can you hold him long enough for me to cast the
lines off my boat?"
The beggar raised both eyebrows and answered with a gap-toothed smile.
"Surely, boy, surely."
"Thanks." Jaric flexed bleeding fingers, and hurled the swordmaster's weapons
over the lumber pile. They plunged with a splash into the shallows by the
breakwater. Brith could find them easily enough, but only at ebb tide. By then
Callinde should be well beyond the harbor. Jaric could buy provisions in one
of the fishing villages north of Landfast; after that the rain would hide him
from further pursuit. Ivainson tossed a silver to the beggar, collected his
bundle of belongings from the dock, and shoved through the bystanders who now
argued loudly over the validity of winning bets, since the beggar had clearly
foiled Brith's victory. By the time the boy boarded
Callinde, the shouts had transformed to a brawl. As a uniformed guard on a
war-horse thundered over the docks to in-
tervene, none but the beggar noticed the fishing boat slip her docklines and
hoist sail for the open sea.
In keeping with the advent of summer, weather from the south brought low
clouds, and then mist which lowered clinging and gray and turned finally to
drizzle. Light winds held
Callinde to an easy, northerly course, but she was not the only craft to ply
the Corine Sea. North and east, on a close-hauled course for the heart of the
Free Isles' Alliance, a scarred old fishing boat with no flag of registry
sailed under orders from Shadowfane. Her sails were gray with mildew and her
hull dark; the face of her helmsman was the toadlike countenance of a Thienz.
Alone of seven companions, it hunched over the compass, rain dribbling runnels
over the ornamental crest of its headdress. Yet the others huddled in the lee
of the mainmast were not sleeping. Joined mind to mind, they bent their
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thoughts toward
Landfast, whose barrier ward shone to their perception as an icy halo of
light. This no demon could cross without rousing the wrath of men. Though
their quarry lay on the other side, this difficulty did not distress the
Thienz, who tuned their every resource to the hunt. Humans by nature had short
memories for trouble; sooner or later they grew complacent and misjudged, and
for the day such folly overtook Ivainson Jaric, the Thienz waited with a
patience no human could match.
Night fell. Rain blew cold in the face of the helmsman, and he rose with a
whuff of his gill flaps and shook droplets from his headdress. At his movement
the tranced Thienz stirred from their huddle. They shambled to ungainly feet
and sought a meal of fish, snatched live from a barrel by the masthead. Then,
with backs hunched against the gunwales, they gnawed through scales and fins
and cartilage. The youngest of them whistled soulfully, deploring the salt in
the flesh. Its elders rolled tiny, half-blind eyes in shared sympathy. Though
water was the natural abode of their kind, the deep pools of fresh streams and
lakes were their proper element. Boats were a curse to limbs designed for
swimming, and the surrounding sea an evil best not mentioned. Its rich
solution of minerals could leach the gills of an immersed Thienz, bring death
by poisoning and suffocation. For seagoing brothers, awareness of mortality
permeated every lift of the swell.
Yet Lord Scait commanded. The company sent to hunt Jaric licked fish from
webbed hands, oppressed and silent with a distress they dared not express.
At length the Thienz who had served as helmsman groped its way to a nook by
the mast. One of the others took its place in the stem, knuckles gripped to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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