Stasheff, Christopher Rogue Wizard 02 A Wizard in Bedlam

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the Lords, if DeCade ever calls."
"When DeCade calls," the priest corrected serenely.
Dirk felt a sudden, sinking certainty that he'd never find a way to kick this patient
peasant army into motion.
A sudden piercing whistle shattered the calm of the night.
The outlaws leaped to their feet, staring toward the east, where the whistle had
come from. Murmurs rose and fell like surf, with a subtle undertone of rattling
wood, as men and women strapped on quivers, caught up bows.
A runner came bounding into the firelight, glanced about him wildly. "Lapin!"
The leader moved into the firelight like a creasing bow wave. "Speak! What
moves?"
"A hundred Soldiers, at least," the runner cried, whirling toward her. "And at
their head-Lord Core himself!"
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"Core!" Hugh spat, and the outlaws took up the word, passing it about from
mouth to mouth, like a swollen porcupine involved in a dispute about its
ownership.
"Why comes he here, himself?" Lapin rumbled. "Why else?" Gar shouldered up
beside her. "From all I hear, escape from the Games isn't exactly a move
calculated to make the authorities lose interest." He looked up at Dirk. "I think
we might consider a change of climate."
"We all must," Lapin said sourly, and the whole army turned to gather up its
belongings.
"No, wait!" Madelon stepped up. "There's only a hundred of them; we are twice
their number. Why not take them?"
"Aye!" Hugh cried. "Disperse, but only to the borders of this clearing. Then let
them all come in, and when the last is here within the clearing-let fly the arrows.
Cut them down!"
"Rifles," Father Fletcher murmured, but Hugh waved the objection away. "They
won't have time." "Why not?" Madelon cried. "If we take themLord Core! At a
stroke, we've stricken out our harshest hunter!"
"Devoutly to be wished," Father Fletcher admitted. "Still, it lacks the taste of
wisdom." "Why?" Hugh bellowed. "We'd take them all; not a one could live to
run! No one would learn of it. No one could know-save us!"
"Well planned," the priest approved. "But every plan can go awry; and if only one
should slip away, to bear the word-"
"How?" Hugh interrupted. "What Soldier could outrun or hide, in our own for-"
"Enough," Lapin said-not loudly, but with the weight of a new bride's biscuit; and
the argument was killed. Silently, they all turned to her.
"We will hide," she said. Silence stretched a skein.
"Why!" Hugh erupted. "Odd gods, woman! How much chance is this?"
"None," Lapin said with profound calm. "But it would be war, and the Bell has
not yet rung." Hugh stood staring at her in poleaxed silence. Then he turned
away, his face thunderous, and took the kettle off the fire. Madelon stayed a
moment longer, glaring furiously at the older woman; but Lapin turned a granite
gaze upon her, and Madelon turned away, flushing.
Dirk stared, paralyzed. Just one word from this she-leviathan, and a whole
peasant army threw away a certain victory. In his mind's eye, he saw a vast and
ready army, stretching across the length and breadth of the kingdom, armed and
poised to strike -and frozen, immobilized in ice. Because a word had not been
spoken, had not because it could not-because the lips that had to speak it had
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turned to rot and dust, five hundred years before.
A hand clasped his shoulder, jolting him out of his trance.
"It might be best if you would come with me," Father Fletcher suggested. "I know
these woods and can lead you to a safe place."
Dirk raised his eyes, saw Gar and Madelon standing behind the priest. He looked
out over the clearing, saw it almost empty, except for a few stragglers who slung
packs on their backs while he watched, and a hundred brushwood shanties.
He turned back to Father Fletcher, nodded judiciously. "Yah. That might be a
good idea." Father Fletcher strode away toward the trees. Dirk glanced at Gar and
Madelon, then turned and followed the priest.
CHAPTER 9
The rising sun found a party of four wandering down the King's Highway-an old
hedge priest, a young woman in a dark, hooded robe, and two filthy madmen,
crusted with dirt and with only a twist of loincloth for clothing. The one might
have been very tall, if he ever stood straight; but he was hunched and shambling,
shuffling down the roadway.
What the other lacked in height, he made up in energy. He bounded down the
road capering and crowing, howling a hymn of glee to the rising sun.
"Quite well done, I'm sure," Father Fletcher said dryly, "but I think you do it with
too little cause and too much will. I would ask you to remember that I am, after
all, a Christian priest." "Of course, Father," Dirk tossed back over his shoulder,
"but any good Christian would agree that only a madman would chant a hymn to
the sun." "Nonetheless, our good Father has a point," Madelon demurred. "True,
we must be disguised from the King's patrols, and two madmen and a maiden
bound for convent will scarcely be noticed in this land, if they travel under a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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