[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Goblin could evade the best efforts of her soldiers. "He's still alive, isn't
he?" If he was dead her concern that he might have allowed himself to be
caught would slide down her list of worries.
"Your instructions were perfectly clear, ma'am."
Soulcatcher memorized that man's face. He was mocking her behind a mask of
rectitude. She preferred open defiance. That she could crush without
mystifying anyone. "Take the mask and gag off. Set him up over here." The
Daughter of Night, Soulcatcher noted, was interested enough to forget to hide
her interest.
She could not know the little wizard's significance, could she?
No. Impossible. The girl was just doing what she did whenever anything
happened inside the tent. She paid attention because she might learn something
useful.
Soulcatcher waited until she judged that Goblin was sufficiently recovered.
She told him, "Your former brothers really don't like turncoats, do they?"
Goblin stared at her with eyes colder, deeper and more remote than those of
the Daughter of Night. He did not reply.
She stepped closer. Her mask was just a foot from his face. She purred, "They
came to me for help settling your account."
Goblin twitched but remained silent. He did try to look around.
He smiled when he glimpsed the Daughter of Night.
Soulcatcher said, "They told me all about it, little man. They told me what
you are now. They expect me to just kill you because of what you did to my
foot. They really just want you dead." She rubbed her gloved hands together.
"But I think I'm going to be a lot cruder." She giggled.
"All their days are numbered," Goblin said in a whisper. The voice borrowing
the taunt only vaguely resembled that of the man who had gone down into the
Page 171
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
earth to challenge the Dark Mother.
"Some more closely than others." Soulcatcher's voice was old and emotionless.
Her right hand lashed out, sliced across Goblin's face. Blades a half inch
long on the ends of her fingers destroyed his eyes and the bridge of his nose.
He shrieked, at first as much in surprise as in pain.
The Protector turned on the men who had brought the prisoner in. "Bring me
another cage like the one the brat is in." The cage did in fact exist already.
Such had been her certainty that she would capture Goblin.
The blacksmith had orders to create three more, suitable for housing her
sister, her sister's husband, and that treacherous Willow Swan.
Later, in Taglios, she meant to work with a glassblower to bottle them all so
they could be displayed outside the entrance to her palace. They would be kept
alive and fed until they drowned in their own ordure.
Such was the fate that the Dominator often bestowed upon his most important
enemies, in his time.
Chapter 60
Gharhawnes: Tobo and the Voroshk
The Howler certainly kept busy. He completed his first functional
four-passenger flying carpet two days after the soldiers marched westward.
Gharhawnes seemed deserted, though there were enough of us around to bloody a
bunch of noses the morning the former tenant took a notion to steal his home
back.
Sleepy had a dozen carpets on order, from single-rider scouts to a monster she
hoped would carry twenty soldiers. I do not know who she expected to fly them.
Only Howler and Tobo--and, possibly, the Voroshk--had the power to manage the
things.
I insisted that we have a couple of modest-sized carpets first. Those should
not take too long to make and would be the size most useful to us right away.
And since I was in charge of the left-behinds and the Dejagore strike I got
what I wanted. Well, I got the one carpet.
Tobo had the flying post thing figured out, too. Both Shukrat and Arkana
seemed eager to get along now. One or the other would allow Tobo to borrow her
post when he wanted to run out to visit Sleepy, which he did by night so he
would not be seen from the ground. I never felt comfortable when he did that.
We had too many potentially unpleasant and unfriendly people back here in the
manor. Including a lot of hostages from the leading families of the region.
Both Magadan and Gromovol were increasingly determined not to be won over,
each for his own reasons. I told Magadan, "I'd be tempted to send you two home
just so I don't have to worry about what's going on behind my back," I was not
worried, really. Tobo's supernatural friends saw everything.
Magadan told me, "I don't want to go home. Home no longer exists. I want to be
free."
"Sure. You Voroshk showed what you can do when you're free. I've spent my life
killing people like you. That's people who believe it's their destiny to make
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]