Archiwum
- Index
- Giovanni Guareschi [Don Camillo 01] The Little World of Don Camillo (pdf)
- Christine Young [Highland 01] Highland Honor (pdf)
- Angela Verdenius [Heart & Soul 16] Soul of a Guardian (pdf)
- Chalker Jack L W Świecie Studni 5 Zmierzch przy Studni Dusz (pdf)
- Dahlia Rose, Brenda Steele, Regina Paul, Dorian Wallace Mating Season (anth.) (pdf)
- Cooper McKenzie [Menage Amour 161 Club Esotera 03] Minding Mistress (pdf)
- Dena Garson [Emerald Isle Fantasies 03] Ghostly Persuasion [EC Twilight] (pdf)
- 33 1 3 087 Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson Darran Anderson (pdf)
- Ciara Lake [Xihirian Shifters 01] Xihirah [Siren Classic] (pdf)
- By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- docucrime.xlx.pl
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
pumped more slowly now as his bright blood poured out upon the silver sands of the arena, and he gave
a last long mournful hooting, very distressing. But what else could I have done, there in the Jikhorkdun
beneath the Suns of Scorpio?
Delia waited for me aboard the voller. I knew Seg and Inch and Turko had had adventures. Seg waved
an arm to me, in between shooting. Inch flailed his Saxon-pattern ax about, cursing, I could so easily
guess, that he could not get into close action. Korf Aighos, too, was there, jumping up and down,
brandishing that monstrous Sword of War of the Blue Mountain Boys. He would be longing for a fast
looting trip to bring him final satisfaction. Away up forward Tom ti Vulheim controlled his band of Valkan
Archers, putting shaft after shaft down in the dense defensive pattern. I could have strolled up to the
voller. Then I saw Obquam of Tajkent, that flying Strom who disliked the volroks, and I understood he
had been that slender flying figure I had seen, and also how Seg and Inch had found me.
Nothing could be heard save the beast roar from the crowd. Not even the shrieks of the wounded and
dying as those cruel steel birds tore into them and their crossbows and shields spilled into the
blood-drenched sands of the arena.
I wondered what Queen Fahia was thinking.
Halfway there I stopped. Naghan the Gnat lay on the sand, his heel wet with blood. He waved at me
and his lips moved. I guessed what he was saying, for a crossbow quarrel at random chunked into the
sand beside us.
Sink me! I said aloud, although no one could hear. I ll not leave Naghan the Gnat!
I scooped him up and a bolt hissed past and so I did not walk, out of concern for Naghan, but raced to
the voller and bundled him up onto the deck, where eager hands grasped him. I took a grip of the side, a
brass-bound lenk coaming near a varter platform, and the airboat shot into the sky. For a lurid instant I
hung there, dangling by one hand, for the other grasped the Krozair longsword which I would as lief hold
on to as to the voller carrying us to safety. Wind whipped past. With a wriggle and a squirm, and with
Seg and Inch hauling at my wrists, I came aboard.
As I stood up a shadow flicked over me, and I swung around, and there was Turko the Shield, at my
back, and a last despairing try sent a crossbow bolt clattering harmlessly from the massive shield Turko
lifted over me.
The noise diminished as we rose.
A Hyrklanan Air Service voller shot past, ripped and torn, her crew strewn across her decks with the
clothyard shafts feathered into them.
By Zim-Zair, my friends! I cried. You are most welcome!
Delia clasped me and Korf Aighos cast a swirling scarlet cloak about her glowing nakedness and I
laughed and drew her close beneath that flame of friendly scarlet.
Seg Segutorio smiled very merrily upon us, his reckless blue eyes and dark hair very dear to me. We
would have been here sooner, with the good aid of Obquam, but our airboat broke down. We had to
take this fine new flier from some onkers who wanted to imprison us and take us to Hamal.
Inch was standing on his head, looking very serious, and we laughed but respected him and his taboos,
and gave him room.
Tom ti Vulheim! I roared up at that massive fore-deck. Come down here and shake my hand!
Korf Aighos produced golden goblets of refreshing wine.
Seg and Inch, old comrades! I cried. Korf Aighos and Turko the Shield! Now we have an armorer
with us in Naghan the Gnat. And a hyr-kaidur in Balass the Hawk. And, also
And also, dear heart, a saucy Fristle fifi!
Aye! And also a rascal who will now aspire beyond the kaidur dreams of the Jikhorkdun. Oby, you
imp of mischief! Let go But with a screech and a clang the varter with whose mechanism Oby had
been tinkering loosed. Everyone gave a great cheer.
A parting shot to a rast s nest!
Oh, yes, as we lifted high and higher and sped far and fast from that reeking blood-fouled arena of silver
sand in the Jikhorkdun of Huringa in Hyrklana, I saw before me a great and dazzling future. One day, one
day, Zair willing, I would return and perhaps, if the people were willing, cleanse the Jikhorkdun.
Now the future opened out bright with that promise. For no ominous clouds boiled about our path and
no supernatural winds contemptuously hurled us back as they had done when I had previously tried to
escape from Huringa. I knew why the Star Lords had prevented my going before, for then I had been in
the past relative to the freeing of Migla, and had I returned I might have met myself so that I had been
forced to wait in the Jikhorkdun until my two presents once again merged.
No such impediment had caused the Everoinye to prevent Delia and me leaving together, and now the
Star Lords were allowing us to go where before they had smashed us back to be captured. A task I had
had no idea I must perform had therefore been carried out in the interim, and, looking at Oby as he joked
and laughed with my good comrades, I fancied I could guess something of the Star Lords purposes.
Oby, in running with our friends into the arena, had saved me twice over!
And, too, no insidious blue radiance crept out to toss me four hundred light-years back across the void
to the planet of my birth. Once again, so I fondly thought in my joyful ignorance, once again I was free
upon the face of Kregen.
In my arms I held my Delia, my Delia of Vallia, mother of our twins Drak and Lela, and the Suns of
Scorpio streamed their mingled opaz light and the sky remained clear and serene above.
A GLOSSARY OF PLACES AND THINGS in the SAGA OF DRAY PRESCOT: THE HAVILFAR
CYCLE
A
apim: Homo sapiens.
arena: See Jikhorkdun.
Astar: Group of islands midway between eastern Pandahem and Xuntal.
B
balass: A wood similar to ebony.
Barrath: An area of Hamal.
Beng-Kishi: These famous bells are said to ring in the skull of anyone hit on the head. This happens
frequently on Kregen.
Bleg: A halfling with a face like that of a Persian leaf bat, without the large ears; fur and skin patches of
green, yellow, and purple. The lower jaw hangs revealing row of thin sharp teeth. Two arms. Four legs
arranged in a quadrilateral. Atrophied carapace on back.
boloth: A large animal from Chem with eight tusks, sixteen legs, a tendrilous mass of whiplash tails. The
hide is hard and gray along the back, leaf-green along the sides, and yellow beneath. Normally slow, but
fast in a short dash. Has an enormous underslung fanged mouth, keen sense of smell; with three hearts.
bur: The Kregan hour, approximately forty Terrestrial minutes.
C
Canopdrin: Island of the northwest Shrouded Sea, devastated by earthquakes.
Canops: Martial people of Canopdrin.
cham-faces: Nickname given to the Miglas. chavonth: Powerful six-legged hunting cat with fur of blue,
gray, and black arranged in a hexagonal pattern. Treacherous.
Chemzite Tower: Dominating structure of the high fortress of Hakal.
Chuktar: Highest of the four main military ranks. There are many subdivisions varying with country of
origin.
Cnarveyl: A country bordering Migla in the northwest of the Shrouded Sea.
coy: Slave or volunteer fighting to become a kaidur.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]