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.She looked down.Too dark to see clearly, but she could see that his glove and much of his sleeve was smeared with something dark.The scent hit her.Blood.He still had the blood of dead men on his hands.“Lendri?”He drew an arrow from his quiver and placed it on the string of his bow.“Run!”He pulled the arrow to his cheek, and in that instant the moon peeked out from a rent in the clouds.In the new light, Hweilan saw that Lendri had nocked a fowling arrow—no arrowhead, just a hardened tip of wood, meant to stun birds without spoiling the meat.“What are you—?”“Run, girl!”A bone-shaking roar came out of the woods behind them, followed by another off to the side.“Run!”She ran.Behind her, she heard the twang of Lendri’s bow, followed by a sharp cry, then the sounds of Lendri following.The woods around them erupted in a riot of sound—many shapes blundering through the brush, high-pitched cries, and above her on the left, the roar of a tiger.The sound washedover her, a physical force, and for three steps her knees weakened, threatening to buckle beneath her.Lendri grabbed her above the elbow, pulled her back up, and dragged her behind him.A huge shape hit the ground several paces in front of them, stirring up a cloud of snow and spraying branches everywhere.Though she couldn’t see it clearly through the snow, she knew it was a tiger.Lendri pulled her to the right, but too quickly.Her feet tangled over an exposed root or branch, and she went down, breaking Lendri’s grip.She scrambled to her feet.Several feet away, Lendri was standing still again, one hand reaching over his shoulder, fingering the nock of another arrow in his quiver.In front of them crouched two tigers.And one of them bore a rider.A small rider, to be sure, child-sized, but the long spear it held looked lethal.In the dim light, the rider’s eyes gave off a pale luminescence.That was when the smell hit her.Flowery almost.But not quite.It had the sharp tinge of cold, like the autumn winds off the Giantspires—the breezes that promised the first storm of the season, bringing days of howling winds, bitter cold, and darkness even at midday.Another tiger had come in behind them, and in the woods all around, more glowing eyes watched them.The nearest was no more than five or six paces away—two pale diamonds seeming to float in the air.But even as Hweilan watched, a form materialized around the eyes—whatever magic had hidden the creature dismissed.This one held a sword, but not like any she had ever seen.It drank in the little light off the snow and seemed to amplify it, so that the cold steel seemed a shard of ice.Jagged edges and protrusions angled off the blade near the hilt, giving it a thorny appearance.And although the creature would have had to stretch up on tiptoes to reach Hweilan’s head, it held the sword with an easy confidence.“Lendri,” Hweilan rasped, “what do we do?”“Do not reach for a weapon,” he said.“Don’t even move.”“Very good advice,” said a voice from the darkness, “coming from a fool such as you, Lendri.”A fierce gust swept down the hillside, rattling branches and snow into a stinging tide that washed over them.The air caught and swirled next to the little swordsman, forming a small cyclone of snow and shadow.When it settled, another figure stood there, much taller than the hunter, snow and frost wafting off his armor like tiny cataracts.The armor itself was more elegant than anything Hweilan had seen—a breastplate, spaulders, and tassets made of many layers of fitted metal, which gave off their own unearthly sheen.A long cloak hung from the spaulders, and in the dark it rippled like a living shadow as the wind died away.The man wore no helmet, and his long hair played in the breeze.He rested one hand on the head of a tundra tiger and scratched it between the ears, as if it were a favorite lap cat.Lendri still hadn’t lowered his hand from his quiver.“Your skills have improved, Menduarthis.”“Your sense has not.” The man spoke in Common, though with enough of an accent that Hweilan could tell it was not his native tongue.“I always hoped you’d come back.But I never actually believed you so stupid.I must say, I am most pleased to have been proven wrong.You and your friend are going to surrender your weapons now.” He motioned to the little warriors all around them.“Valdi sinjolen.”Chapter 15Hweilan stood dumbfounded.had lendri just called the man by name? The man had definitely called Lendri by name.But was he a man? His skin was pale as Lendri’s, but his breath wasn’t steaming in the frigid air, and he seemed quite comfortable in the cold, with no cloak, coat, or hood.Two of the little hunters came toward her, weapons held ready in one hand, the other reaching out to take her bow.She pulled back.“No!”The hunters stepped back, and a dozen spears lowered in her direction.“Voi!” Lendri shouted.“Ele vahat sun!”He had already been disarmed.Even his quiver was gone [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]