The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ her firmly by the hips and pulled until her feet hit the ground. Her hands were loosely but securely bound behind her. She found with the sudden change in position that she was dizzy, too dizzy to stand. She swayed to one side and was caught by strong hands, steadied, with her face nestled against rough cloth.

      ‘Sven?’ she questioned blindly, disoriented totally in time and space.

      ‘No, Vandien. I’m sorry, Ki, but it was necessary. I didn’t want to do it, but you left me no choice. How’s your head?’

      It hurt. It made no sense, but it hurt. She tried to raise a hand to touch the throbbing place, but was reminded that her hands were still bound.

      ‘Untie me.’

      She felt Vandien shake his head. She was still leaning into his cloak, talking to his chest. It was humiliating, but she knew without his support she would fall.

      ‘First we talk, then we untie. I want to be sure you understand my reasons and don’t try to kill me.’

      ‘What did you hit me with?’

      ‘Not that it matters, but a rock. Back at the time when you were sitting on my chest, looking as if you might arrange my transport into the next world, my hand came upon it. It’s been in my pocket since then. Ki, believe me, I hoped never to have a use for it. But you are a stubborn person, the stubbornest I have ever encountered.’

      ‘What happened? What are you doing with me?’

      ‘After I hit you, I put you on Sigurd. He has little love for me, I fear, and did his best to stomp me until he realized he could not stomp me without stomping you. The ridge of ice helped; I was above him. Sigmund is a more reasonable beast. Besides, both of them were hampered by their harness. Once I had supplies loaded, I cut us loose from the wagon and got them moving. We have made good time.’ He paused, waiting, but Ki said nothing. ‘I could have left you there, you know. It would have been far easier for me. But I didn’t. I intend to get you out of this pass alive. I feel that by doing that I will have paid back what I owe you. Even if I do it against your will. Now.’

      Dimly, she felt his hands fumbling at her wrists. A thin cord dropped away into the snow. Vandien bent and retrieved his story string. Her hands and arms tingled strangely as she brought them up and rubbed at her wrists.

      As soon as she felt she could do so without falling, she pushed away from his chest and stood upright. She touched the side of her head gently, still eyeing Vandien resentfully. There was a swollen lump, but no blood. Still, just to touch it made her feel sick and woozy. Vandien reached out a hand to steady her as she swayed, but she pushed it away and rested a hand on Sigurd’s great shoulder instead. Sigurd reached his head back curiously, a shade of reproach in his eyes. She patted him reassuringly.

      ‘They are curious beasts to ride. Willing, but broad enough to split a man in two. Just getting onto Sigmund’s back without sliding down the other side took a bit of doing. Even from the ice ridge.’

      ‘I’m going back for my wagon.’

      ‘Don’t be an ass, Ki. It’s nightfall already, and your wagon is hours behind us over the worst part of the trail. And it is in the shadow of the Sisters. Besides, I still have my rock. Come, make the best of it, as I did when I had you over me with a knife. Do you need a boost to mount?’

      ‘Without my freight, I have no reason to wish to see the other side of this pass.’

      ‘Ah, your freight. A moment.’ Vandien opened his cloak to the cold, fished inside his shirt. He produced the leather pouch and pressed it into Ki’s hand. ‘It’s all there, if you wish to check. I would have put it in your own shirt, but I was afraid it would drop down into the snow. Your riding posture wasn’t all it could have been.’

      Ki clutched her pouch to her chest and leaned her face into Sigurd’s warm coat. He shifted, perplexed by her behavior, but did not veer away from her weight. She was silent. Behind her in the snow Vandien moved uneasily. The smile he had attempted faded from his face. She peeked back at him under her arm. He looked vaguely ashamed, but mostly weary. Last night she had thought of killing him. Today he had bashed her on the head, abandoned her wagon, and made poor jokes about it afterwards. She should have been wishing she had killed him. She found that she only wanted to make him understand.

      ‘Rom was the name of Sven’s great black horse. Rom came scarcely to Sigurd’s shoulder, but he was a stallion and bullied my grays unmercifully. Sven and I used to laugh about it at night by our fire.’

      Vandien stepped closer to her to catch her muffled words, but made no move to touch her.

      ‘The grays were Sven’s gift to me, and the wagon built by his own hands for our purposes. Within that wagon I first knew Sven as a man. Two children I birthed within it, with Sven’s great hands to steady me through it. We made our lives as the Romni do, but we were not of them. Sometimes he rode Rom next to the wagon, singing as he rode with a voice like the wind. And sometimes he would put his small daughter on the saddle in front of him, and our son would cling behind him. Then they would tease me for my team’s slowness, and race far ahead of the wagon, out of my sight for minutes, and then galloped back, shrieking and laughing to me to hurry up, that there were new lands to see just beyond the next turning. Have a care for your wagon, old snail woman!’ he called to me as they galloped past me in the trail of Khaddam past Vermintown. They all three were laughing, and their pale hair streamed behind them and tangled together. They went up a rise and over a hill. I watched them go together.’

      The silence grew, stretched, and blended with the cold. Vandien cleared his throat. ‘They never came back?’

      ‘I found the pieces of them when I topped the rise. Just the pieces, and they were only meat in the sun, Vandien, only meat in the sun. It was the work of two Harpies.’ She turned sick eyes on him, waiting to see if his face changed. But his eyes were closed. Ki swallowed. ‘I tracked them, Vandien. I climbed up to their aerie. One I killed outright, myself, and by accident,’ Ki’s voice rose higher, ‘I burned the nest and eggs and scarred the male for life. I put an end to all of them. But it didn’t help! Mine were still only meat in the sun.’ She choked, and it sounded to Vandien like the death of all laughter. ‘I buried a big black horse and a man and two children in a hole no bigger than the seat of the wagon. Harpies do not leave much when they feed, Vandien. “Have a care for your wagon, old snail woman,” he used to say. I carry my home with me. I’m going back for my wagon.’

      She grasped Sigurd’s mane and tried to pull herself up. Her body refused. Vandien took her shoulders, turned her gently.

      ‘Tomorrow, then. When we have light. The wind is rising again, and the horses are done in. You stay here. I can tramp out a place in the snow between the cliff face and the ridge of that cursed serpent. We’ll be all right.’

      Ki had not the strength to argue. She did not even watch him. She looked about, but there was little to see in the dimming light. Her wagon was far back, out of sight around some bend or wrinkle in the mountain’s face. She couldn’t see the Sisters either. The eternal cliff face reared up on one side of her; she and the horses stood on the serpent’s ridge; and down the other side cascaded the mountain. Far down in the valley there were darker specks that might have been brush pushing up through the snow. The light was nearly gone. There was no color to anything.

      She turned her sore head slowly. It throbbed, and any sudden movement was like a hammer blow. Vandien was unloading the horses. Sigmund had let him take off the sack of grain he carried and the oddly shaped bundles that Vandien had made of the worn blankets. But Sigurd was feeling spiteful. СКАЧАТЬ