[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

the firing lever forward. The device hummed, and red-limned light flashed
skyward missing the pteridon at the point of the wedge. He swung the beam
again, and this time, sliced through the wing of one of the giant fliers on
the flank. For a moment, he watched as the pteridon cartwheeled out of the
air, throwing its rider clear, a nomad in blue who spun like a doll in the sky
before plunging earthward. Then he forced himself to aim at a second of the
fliers. Again, he missed, as he did a third time.
The pteridons were now almost overhead, and dropping into a near vertical
dive right at him. An eerie scream rose to the west. From the corner of his
eye, Vestor thought he saw a blaze of blue flame shoot skyward. Something blue
flashed above him, and the heat was like a furnace, but passed quickly except
that another blast flared to his left.
A high whine started, and began to climb. Vestor threw himself to the ground,
as did the archer immediately to his left. Before either quite settled on the
green spring grasses, fragments of metal flew around and past them. Vestor
looked at his left arm, then eased a small splinter of metal from his tunic
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
and out of his arm, although it had barely broken the skin. Another burst of
blue flashed over the hillside, and the screams of agony shivered the air once
more, with another wave of heat, and the sickening stench of burned flesh.
Vestor lurched to his feet, and glanced at the tripods. Where the two farthest
to the west had been, blue flames had flared, and were beginning to subside.
The tripods half-collapsed were sticks of charcoal.
The third tripod had vanished, the archer nowhere in sight. The next two
tripods and their archers were untouched. Vestor looked up.
The pteridons had swept past, and were turning for another pass.
 Aim ahead of them! Just a bit! Vestor followed his own advice& and missed. He
readjusted& and saw another pteridon go down, and then another, its wing
severed by one of the other archers. The lead flier and its rider were less
than a hundred yards away, when Vestor managed to slice through the long neck
of the beast to the left of the leader. For some reason, he had trouble
focusing on the leader.
Then more blue fire swept across the ridgetop, and Vestor threw himself to the
ground, feeling the air turn furnacelike where he had been standing moments
before.
When he staggered up, he discovered he was the last one standing, and his
tripod was the only one erect. He glanced to the west, but where the Praetor
and his banner had been was nothing but a mass of blue flame, and greasy
white-and-gray smoke.
The device on his tripod was beginning to whine, and Vestor slammed the
apertures closed and spun the clamps open, before pulling the device from the
bracket and running to the cart to try to get a replacement before the
pteridons turned once more.
He glanced up to see another group of fliers sweeping from the northwest, and
flames flaring across the entire ridgeline. As the flames and the lines of
blue light that fed and created them flashed toward him, he dived and rolled
for the back side of the hill.
A combination of overtaxed crystals and skylance flames exploded, pushing him
into a series of rolls that tumbled him a good hundred yards downhill.
For a time, he just lay sprawled on the damp grass.
 Engineer! Is that you?
Page 74
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Vestor struggled into a sitting position, then made out an officer the
overcaptain of scouts, riding toward him, leading a mount without a rider.
 You want to see Alustre again, mount up. The Praetor s dead, and those
things 
 Pteridons, Vestor said involuntarily.  They re pteridons.
 Whatever they are. They re burning everyone to cinders. Don t think they ll
do well in the pass. Not enough room for them to get close. The marshal s
ordered everyone to retreat to the pass.
Vestor struggled up into the saddle, one-handedly, realizing belatedly that he
could move neither his left hand nor his arm. Then he rode after the
overcaptain. He did not look back.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
34
On the last Quinti before the turn of summer,in the dry and dusty midmorning,
under a sky of blazingly clear silver-green, Alucius rode eastward along the
river road at the head of the second squad. A half vingt ahead rode a pair of
scouts, and to his left rode Anslym. Although it was barely midmorning,
Alucius found himself blotting his forehead with the back of his tunic sleeve,
wiping away both sweat and grit, and having half emptied one of his water
bottles.
 Haven t seen a trace of raiders in almost a month, sir, Anslym said.  Think
we ll see any more anytime soon?
 I wouldn t think so, Alucius replied,  but common sense said that the two
groups we fought off shouldn t have even been out here. He shook his head.  I
hope we don t see any. We ve only got enough ammunition for patrols, and not a
stand-up battle against raiders.
 Has Colonel Weslyn sent any messages about ammunition and supplies?
 Nothing new except a reminder to be very careful about both& and a statement
that both powder and sulfur are once more getting hard to come by.
 The sulfur comes from Lanachrona, doesn t it?
 It does, Alucius said, glancing ahead at a plume of dust, before looking
back to Anslym once he saw that the dust had been raised by a farmer s oxcart
headed westward toward the squad, presumably to market in Emal.  It s always
been a problem. I d hoped the new Regent for the Matrial would encourage trade
with the Iron Valleys, in goods like sulfur, but it hasn t happened.
 The Madriens don t like to trade that much, do they?
 They don t have to trade as much as we do. They produce more different
things. They don t care for most lands in Corus. That was being generous.
From what he d seen, Alucius wasn t sure that the women of Madrien had much
use for any other land in Corus. Pushing that thought away, Alucius looked
toward the River Vedra, his eyes traveling over the eddies in the black water.
Eddies? He turned and studied the river more closely, seeing not just the
eddies near the shore, but the two yards or so of drying mud on the shore
below the matted grass and low undergrowth that marked a shoreline that, after
the spring runoff, seldom varied much. He couldn t recall seeing the water
level that low, especially so early in the year. That meant there hadn t been
nearly the usual snowfall up on the Plateau. With no snow or rain to speak of
in two months, and none in sight, and the river already so low, the outlook
for the crops wasn t good on top of everything else.
 Sir?
 I was thinking about rain, Alucius admitted.  If we don t get more, then the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]