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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of deep emotion for a Dene, spread over its body.

      ‘Gelding a team is the custom of my people,’ Ki replied. She gathered up the reins hastily.

      ‘You will find no shelter here with us!’ the Dene thundered at her self-righteously. ‘Denes do not associate with sentient beings that mutilate other beings for convenience!’

      Ki nodded wearily, then translated the motion for the Dene. ‘I know. I know. You Denes might be a little more understanding if someone stabled a team of stallions with you for the winter. No, don’t raise a fuss. I’m on my way already.’

      Ki shook the reins, and the team reluctantly leaned into the harness. The tall yellow wheels began to turn.

      ‘The Pass of the Sisters is closed!’ the Dene shouted triumphantly behind them. ‘You will have to go back down the hills. If you wish to cross the range this time of year you must go south, to Carrier’s Pass.’

      ‘I’ve heard I can cross here if I am determined.’

      ‘If you are a fool! It has snowed much already. You must go back! You cannot go on. You will only have to come back this way, and we will not give you shelter!’

      ‘I won’t be back!’ Ki promised over her shoulder. The creaking of the tall wheels over the rutted roadway drowned out whatever other warnings the Dene shouted after her. Ki drove on, trying to put the inn from her mind. At the sight of it she had felt a surge of hunger for a meal of fresh red meat. She had imagined a soft feather bed in a well-lit, warm, dry room. Well, she had heard of Dene inns, she comforted herself sourly, and of what they considered fit lodgings for Humans. Denes preferred a damp environment. Ki would have found no meat, no feather bed, no animal product there, but a damp bed of musty straw and a bowl of warm porridge. Such was the hospitality that a Dene provided for Humans.

      Just as well, just as well. Nonetheless, the wind seemed more chill on her face and hands than it had before she had sighted the inn. Without checking the grays, she slid open the cuddy door and leaned back into the wagon. She snagged a small skin of sour wine off its hook. She wet her mouth with it and drank a mouthful. Habit made her sparing of all her stores when she had an unfamiliar trail before her. She had replenished her food in Vermintown before she left, but her caution was the habit of a lifetime.

      The wagon seat rocked gently beneath her to the music of the eight steady hooves. She smiled down on the wide gray backs and sent a little shiver of encouragement down the traces. Sigmund tossed his head in acknowledgement and skeptical Sigurd snorted. They would carry her through. They had been through much together and had never failed one another.

      It was late autumn in the country they now passed. The grasses were dry on the sides of the trail, and the spruce trees darkest green in preparation for winter. By the time she camped tonight she would be in a country that faced early winter. Sometimes, through gaps in the trees when the trail twisted, she could see the road further along where it snaked across the face of the mountain. The sun there shone on whites and grays and palest blues. Ki frowned at the unlikely circuit the trail followed. It was as if the makers of it had sought the longest path between the inn and the pass itself. The trail dipped into every shallow dale, went around every small rise of land between it and the pass.

      She had driven away from the inn at midmorning. At noon she chewed dried strips of meat but did not stop for a meal. Time enough for that when it became too dark for travel. A light breeze was blowing the chill of the mountain down to her. She shivered in anticipation of the deep cold to come.

      Ki’s wagon passed into the shelter of a rise of land, and the wind eased. The swaying of the wagon, the creaks like small creatures talking to one another, began to lull Ki’s senses. On a familiar road she would have yielded to the temptation to drowse as her team picked its slow way over the trail. But she straightened her spine and pushed her hood back so that the cool air could touch her cheeks. A mountain trail like this could at any time turn into a runnel of washed-away gravel or a slush of standing water and mud. Then was no time to be awakened from a nap, as your wheels stuck with a jerk or your axle smacked against a standing rock.

      And, she admitted to herself as she ran a hand across the back of her neck, the value of her cargo weighed on her mind. It was not the first time she had hauled such a shipment. The hidden cupboard had held jewels before, papers that recognized a bastard daughter as heir, and once a forbidden book sealed shut against curious eyes with green wax imprinted with a wizard’s ring. Valuable cargo was nothing new. But the very elaborateness of Rhesus’s precautions disturbed her. Suppose Rhesus was not the paranoid little man Ki had always supposed him to be? Suppose someone was watching him? Would not they have noticed the number of couriers that he sent out, and wondered? And there was the man’s pompous ego to consider, and his fondness for brandy. It would be a great temptation to a man like Rhesus to boast of his own cleverness. Even if he resisted that temptation for days after Ki had left, what was the speed of a loaded wagon compared to a rider on a swift horse? Ki teased her wits with such questions as the day wore on. The very generosity of Rhesus’s payment made her mission all the more suspect.

      Night had not yet fallen when the grays waded across a shallow river that had spread across the road. It was not a bad crossing, for it was small, sound gravel under the wheels. But it offered Ki fresh water, the shelter of some small trees, and a level place for the wagon to rest. On the other side of the water, she had the grays pull the wagon off onto level ground beside a stand of spruce.

      She cared for her team first, wiping their coats down and covering them with matching blankets. The blankets were a bit worn; she had received them at the same time she had been given Sigmund and Sigurd. For a moment she saw once more Sven’s blue eyes dancing with joy at her surprise, felt the brushing touch of his wide, callused hands as he put into her fingers the stiff new leads that held the wide-eyed three-year-olds. She blocked the image from her mind. The blankets had been too big for them then. Now they were almost worn. She would replace them soon, she promised herself, knowing that she lied.

      Ki shifted the leaky bag of salt at the back of the wagon. She lifted the bag below it, opened it, and shook from it a generous measure of grain. The team came to it eagerly, whiffling and snorting as they lipped it from the dry grass. Ki replaced the bogus salt sack, covering it again with the leaky one. That was one concession Rhesus had made to her: if she must haul a load of mock merchandise, at least let it be one that was useful to her. The team would not suffer in this crossing.

      The horses moved off, cropping the dry grasses that sprouted sparse on the gentle slope. Ki settled into the rhythm of her solitary evenings, kindling a small fire in the wind-shelter of her wagon, putting on her blackened kettle to boil, parceling out food from her supplies. She brewed her tea, letting it steam itself to blackness before she drank. It coursed scalding down her throat until she could almost feel it splashing into the deep pit of her empty stomach. It made her conscious of the hollow hunger inside her. She set down the earthen mug, reached to stir the stewing soup with the meat knife.

      Sigmund stamped and shied. Sigurd snorted and struck out with his front hooves. Ki leaped up as the horses jigged nervously away from the wagon. Her tea overturned as she spun about. She went down swiftly as the shadow from the dark struck her full-force.

      The back of her head bounced off the hard earth, scattering sparks of light before her eyes. She fought back blindly, wildly, against the shape of a man she could hardly see. She kicked up from her position, keeping him from pinning her against the earth. She rolled up onto her knees, but even as she rose a rough shove on her shoulder flung her to the ground again. She tucked her shoulder as she hit, rolled nearly into her fire, and came up staggering on her feet. The man rushed at her. At the last possible moment Ki sidestepped the shape that hurtled down on her, flinging out a clenched fist and stiff arm at throat level. He gave a surprised croak of pain. His own momentum СКАЧАТЬ