[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"Go ahead, then," Rhavas said. "Try not to use any ways where the snow has not
been trodden, or they will trail us the more easily."
She nodded. "A thought of weight . . . Down here now." She turned left. "Now
through this alley." Only a few people had gone through it; she and Rhavas did
their best to step in the tracks that were already there. She pointed to the
right. "Now that way and we should be close to the gate."
The next interesting question was whether they would be able to get out. Were
the gates open? Did plainsmen swarm around them? Even if he and Ingegerd could
escape Skopentzana, what then? Could they make their way across country to the
closest village, or even to the closest farmhouse? How could they keep from
leaving a trail wherever they went?
That wasn't one interesting question it was more like half a dozen. Unless
they could find answers to all of them, they would find answers to other
questions, the ones of the sort where no one who learned them was in any
position to pass them on to anyone else.
The gates were open. Rhavas breathed out a sigh of relief and a young fog bank
to go with it. He and
Ingegerd weren't the first ones to flee this way. He saw no great swarm of
plainsmen, either. The
Khamorth were having better sport inside Skopentzana than they would have had
outside the city. Odds were they thought they could hunt down escapees at
their leisure. Odds were they were right, too, but
Rhavas refused to dwell on that.
"Out!" he said to Ingegerd.
"Out!" she echoed. They both ran for the gate. They ran out through it. Once
beyond bowshot from the walls, they paused for a moment, panting. If anything
was more exhausting than running through snow, Rhavas could not imagine what
it might be.
He turned back toward Skopentzana and shook his fist at the strong stone walls
and at the barbarians inside them. "My curses on the Khamorth!" he shouted.
"May they suffer what they have made others suffer! May they die as they have
made innocent Videssians die! May they burn as they have made
Skopentzana burn! And may pestilence destroy any of the murderers my other
Page 82
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
curses do not overtake!"
He spat in the snow.
Ingegerd nodded somber approval. "That is an excellent curse, very holy sir. I
do not think any of my own people could have laid a stronger one on the
plainsmen. May it bite deep. May it bite as deep as the one you set upon the
man who commanded the militia."
Rhavas wished she hadn't spoken of Toxaras. And then, all at once, he wondered
why. If he had cursed
Toxaras, maybe he really could curse the Khamorth, too. And he wanted to curse
the barbarians. "May it be so," he said, accepting the possibility. "And now,
I think we had better find shelter for ourselves."
"Yes, that would be a very good thing to do," Ingegerd said. "Hard to tell
where the road is with so much snow on the ground."
When the snow finally melted in spring, the road would disappear into a sea of
mud for a few weeks.
Mosquitoes and gnats would make Skopentzana and the countryside miserable. But
that time lay in the distance. For now, winter still reigned supreme here.
Rhavas pointed toward a grove of bare-branched apple trees ahead. "That is an
orchard. Where there is an orchard, there will be a farmhouse. If people still
live there, perhaps they will take us in. And if it should be empty, we can
rest for a while, build a fire "
"Better not," Ingegerd broke in. "The smoke would draw more eyes than we want
to see."
He bowed. "You are right, of course, and I am wrong. But the day is cold, and
the night will be colder."
"I have a thick blanket here." She patted the makeshift knapsack. "If we lie
under it together, we can stay warm, or warm enough."
For a moment, the prelate was shocked. Then he realized she meant exactly what
she'd said: that and no more. He sighed heavily. Lying down together with any
woman would tempt a priest. Lying down with a woman he'd long admired . . . He
sighed again. "Let's get to that farmhouse," he said, his voice perhaps
rougher than he had intended.
On they went. Here and there ahead of them, Rhavas saw other people also
trudging through the snow, singly and in small groups. When he looked back to
Skopentzana, he saw a few more. Maybe others had escaped from different gates
and gone in other directions. Even so, the city that had been the pride of the
north, the city that had stood second or third in all the Empire of Videssos,
stood no more.
Skopentzana had fallen.
"There." Ingegerd pointed with a mittened hand. "That will be the path to the
farmhouse." The wind that had scoured away some snow and the lie of the land
made it easier to recognize than Rhavas had thought it would be.
The farmhouse itself and the nearby barn might almost have been snowdrifts
themselves. No smoke rose from the hole in the roof. The buildings seemed
intact, though. The plainsmen hadn't burned them.
"I wonder if anyone else has taken shelter here," Rhavas said.
They'd drawn to within fifty yards of the farmhouse when a low rumble filled
the air and the ground began to shake beneath Rhavas' feet.
Earthquake
, he thought he'd been through several of them in
Videssos the city, though he couldn't remember any since coming to
Skopentzana. Half a heartbeat later, he thought, This is a big earthquake
.
Half a heartbeat after that
, the quake knocked him and Ingegerd off their feet and into the snow. He knew
he cried out. He thought Ingegerd must have screamed. But he couldn't hear his
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]