Joel Rosenberg KOTHW 02 The Silver Stone

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before he could hurt himself trying, Ian laid a hand on his shoulder and eased
him back to the stretcher. "I think you'd best let us carry you, for a while
at least. Rest, Hosea. Please."
Arnie Selmo had put the medical kit away, and was already on his feet.
"Anybody got a direction?"
They weren't more than three, maybe three and a half hours out of the hidden
exit from the Hidden
Way when Arnie Selmo, walking point, froze just short of the crest of a
ridge.
"Down," Arnie Selmo hissed from up ahead, dropping three steps back, then
following his own order.
By the time Ian and Ivar del Hival had lowered the stretcher to the green
strip of moss that edged the dirt road, Arnie had shed his rucksack and gear,
and was down on his belly, snaking his way back uphill, toward the crest of
the ridge, moving easier than a man his age should.
Ian wanted to crawl up to where Arnie lay, but decided he had better check on
Hosea first.
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Hosea was sleeping again the jouncing of the stretcher.seemed to put him
right out. But his dark skin had an ugly grayish pallor, and his breathing was
slow and ragged. Torrie felt Hosea's throat for a pulse. The skin was cold and
clammy, but the heart beat slowly and regularly.
This was good; Hosea had refused Arnie's offer of medicine, and Ian was
relieved that Hosea seemed to be improving although slowly.
One good thing for sure: he hadn't had any seizures since they had entered
the Hidden Way.
Hosea's eyes fluttered, then opened, and he looked up at Ian, glassy-eyed. He
licked his lips, once, and tried to speak, his mouth moving wordlessly, until
Ian silenced him with a finger across the lips.
Not now,Ian more mouthed than whispered.
Hosea gave the slightest of smiles, and let his head loll back. But the eyes
kept watching Ian. There was always something special, something strange,
about those eyes. The eyes of a judge maybe, constantly evaluating everything
they saw, and behind them an intelligence that was neither warm nor cold,
completely comfortable with what was, no desire to control or change anything.
Rest,Ian mouthed, then, with a quick nod from Ivar del Hival, Ian made his
way up the ridge toward where Arnie lay, first ducking down, then dropping
into an awkward crouching walk, and then to all fours and finally snaking his
way the last few feet on his belly.
"Easy, boy," Arnie whispered. "We've just missed bumping into a troop of
horsemen moving east, all, er, dressed to kill." The smile in the lined,
homely face wasn't warm, or particularly friendly. "Don't know as we don't
want to meet them but I don't know as though we do. Want to take a look?"
Ian started to creep up toward the crest of the ridge, stopping when Arnie
rugged at his foot. "No. Not the top." He jerked his thumb toward where a
patch of gorse sprawled across the crest of the ridge. "You don't want to show
an outline. Give yourself some cover."
Arnie's sureness wasn't only making Ian feel his own clumsiness at this; it
was beginning to be irritating. "And if there hadn't been some cover?"
Arnie smiled. "Then, say, you tie a headband around your head, and stick some
small branches in the back of it. Just a few, now the idea is to break the
outline of your head. Or, if you don't have branches," he said, the smile on
his lined face suggesting that he had anticipated Ian's objection, "a few
sheaves of grass." His mouth twisted. "You want another lesson, or you want to
go look?"
With a frown and a nod, Ian dropped to his belly and snaked his way over to
the gorse patch, careful of the spines. It wouldn't have been possible to make
his way into or through the patch without getting scratched all to hell, but
the edge of the patch broke on a low cairn of stones, and Ian was able to work
his way to a notch without getting too badly scraped.
The ridge dropped to a small, silvery stream twisting through the valley
below; the stream separated the grasslands from forest beyond, as though
something or someone had decreed that no trees were to grow on the western
side of the stream. Which was possible, Ian decided.
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Beyond the stream, a narrow road rimmed the edge of the forest, probably wide
enough for one car or one horsecart, as was probably more relevant. A line of
horsemen plodded along the road in a double column.
The front of the column had passed around a bend in the stream; Ian counted
fifteen pairs of horsemen before the final pair disappeared, leaving a thin
haze of dust in their wake.
"Not good." Ivar del Hival was suddenly at his side. Ian hadn't been paying
attention, and that was bad.
Ivar del Hival grunted. "Best to wait a while. Can't see what standard
they're carrying, but the armor is Vandestish and that doesn't bode well for
anybody."
"This is Vandescard." Why should it be a surprise that there would be
Vandestish soldiers in their home country?
Ivar del Hival nodded. "But why is there a troop of veteran cavalry
patrollinghere? Off in the south, surely; they'll be campaigning against the
Beniziri forever, perhaps." His thick lips pursed. "But here, in the East?
Could be they're relieving some town outpost, but if so, where's their baggage
train?" He shook his head. "Let's give it a little while, and head on down."
He jerked his chin at the road below. "We'll not only avoid some of the dust,
but we'll miss having to explain ourselves to any stragglers."
Ian frowned. "We've got something to hide?"
Ivar del Hival's smile was a trifle too broad for Ian's taste. "Well, truth
to tell, I don't feel like explaining what a minor noble from the House of
Flame is doing in Vandescard with three strange-looking folks no offense
intended. If I'm on a trade mission, where are my trade goods? And if I'm
after a word with, say, the local margrave, where are my
letters-of-commission?" The big man pulled a flask from his rucksack and took
a measured swig, offering one to Ian with a quick raising of the eyebrows; Ian
declined.
"So," Ivar del Hival said, "that might make me a spy, and while I could
likely be ransomed or just pardoned, there are those soldiers... and even
possible spies can be hoisted on the all-too-certain end of a lance, apologies
to come later, if ever."
Ian nodded, and turned to go back down the ridge, toward Hosea, rising to his
feet only when he was sure that the crest of the ridge hid him.
His breathing had slowed, and Hosea had gained enough strength to turn on his
side; he had taken the canteen strapped to the rucksack Ian had dropped next
to him.
"Are we winning?" Hosea asked, his smile crooked.
"So far, so good. Arnie spotted some local cavalry, and Ivar del Hival seems
to think that's strange."
Hosea rose to one elbow. "Cavalry?" He nodded. "He's right. That is strange.
Horse-borne soldiers are usually minor nobility and there's little glory and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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