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knocked the point aside again, and as the butt swept for his temple, guarded it up,
pushing the shaft
above his head; then whipped his blade down, low, lower than he would have been
allowed to cut in a match, drawing the edge sharply across the tendon behind
Rhomda's knee....
He jumped back as Rhomda lashed out with the butt end of the spear, and fell
sprawling on top of it. Rhomda rolled over, tried to get up, and fell again. Dane,
sheathing his sword, felt a cold horror at what he had done. Hamstrung, the tendons
in his leg gone, the spearman would never walk again.
He backed up a little and discovered Rianna and Aratak behind him, their weapons
at the ready. Joda was looking from Dane to Rhomda in cold horror. Dravash stood
a little apart, his eye-ridges twitching with some unreadable emotion. And the
Kirgon was walking very slowly toward them....
This was the real enemy. Dravash had found that out, in conference with the
Farspeaker, just before Rhomda had come. Dane was glad. He preferred the Kirgon
as an enemy; the thought of having him, even temporarily, as an ally, revolted him.
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He turned his attention back to Rhomda. The Master Spearman had rolled over,
disregarding the spreading pool of red beneath his leg, and using the spear to lever
himself into a sitting position. His arms were shaking with pain and effort. Dane
walked toward him; Rhomda's face, contorted in agony, glared up at him and he
tried to twist the spear-point and level it at Dane, but nearly fell over. Dane ducked
past the point and knelt at Rhomda's side.
"Rianna," he shouted, "bring your pack, get out the medical supplies! Let's get that
bleeding stopped. . . ." His voice was shaking. So were his hands. Rhomda tried to
swing the spear toward him; Dane caught it between his hands and wrenched it
away, hurting his own injured left hand in the process. He flung it out of reach, then
put his arms around Rhomda's shoulders and held him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Stupid thing to say, but it's true. I didn't want to fight you. I
didn't want to kill you even to hurt you. I'm not your enemy, Rhomda."
Pain, panic, rage, all those struggled briefly in Rhomda's dark face. Then he drew a
deep breath, held it, fought to control his gasping breaths, and Dane saw calm and
stoic resignation settling over his face. He made no protest as Rianna knelt beside
him and began cleansing the wound and
stanching the blood. Aratak stood by, holding Rhomda's spear carefully.
The Kirgon came up behind them, naming in the brilliance of the last sunlight.
"Leave him," his voice snarled through the disk in Dane's throat. "My friend will
take care of him."
"No!" Dane snapped his head up and he spoke, deliberately, in Kahram, "I will take
him to a place of safety myself."
The sunlight glared in his eyes as he spoke. The Kirgon had deliberately placed
himself where they would have to stare directly into the sun to see him, and he
flamed and glowed as if he were made of molten metal.
"I have had the blue-robed deadskins on my trail far too long. I don't allow myself
to be harried by slaves! Leave him!" the Kirgon ordered.
Dane felt Rhomda's body slump limp in his arms. Exhaustion, shock, horror had
finally drained the Master Spearman's iron reserves. It would have been kinder to
kill him, perhaps. To give him the same swift merciful death he offered to me.
"You aren't giving us any orders at all here, Kirgon," Dravash snarled. "We are
finished with you! What we do is no concern of yours!" He jerked his head along the
trail. "Go where you please; we won't interfere. But you betrayed our bargain and
we will leave you to the natives, and if they leave you alive long enough, to the
Council of Protectors when they come to investigate. Go!"
Dane lowered the crippled spearman to the ground, standing up slowly, his hand on
his sword. The Kirgon threw back his head and laughed, a ringing sound, flaring
out like the scintillating flames of his hair.
"You threaten me, Sh'fejj? You subhuman fools! You really believe I would lower
myself to make a bargain with such as you? You have been my prisoners all along,
and too stupid to notice! Stupid slave!" He made a menacing movement toward
Dravash. "Get that shuttleship down here, if you want to live! It will be you who are
left at the mercy of the natives if you are quick, and provoke me no further!"
Dravash's voice was deep, calm, reasonable.
"What good would a shuttleship be to you? It cannot even leave this system."
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"No," the Kirgon said, "but it will be equipped with communication equipment, and
once off this infernal planet, I can send a tightbeam signal home, and my friend and
I can
wait in orbit and be warm while we wait for a ship, with no deadskins hunting us. A
warship will be sent to pick me up, and we can snap up a quick shipload of slaves,
and knock a hole in this planet to remember us by besides, our ship is down there
for transport. Now tell your superiors to send a shuttleship down, before I lose
patience there is room to land down in the Gorge there. Quickly!"
Slowly, Dravash gestured in refusal.
"No. No shuttleship will come down on this planet while you are within any distance
of us. Farspeaker has you, and your friend, marked now. It is no use."
"Then," said the Kirgon softly, "you will have the pleasure of watching my friend
eat your companions, one after another. He has worked hard for us today, and has
not been given any real reward. I think I will let him begin with that one . . ."
He pointed to Rianna, where she still knelt beside the unconscious spearman; and
even as he spoke, the birds hurtled up from the jungle and a white blur poured over
the sandstone and loomed suddenly above Rianna, the huge jaws open.
"Do not do anything rash!" warned the Kirgon. "You have until he has finished
playing with the native, to repent your decision and bring the ship down!"
Rianna had dropped her spear to tend Master Rhomda's wounds, but it lay beside
her. She reached out for it and the slave-hound's great paw came down on her wrist,
the huge jaws gaping within inches of her.
"No!" Joda shouted.
And threw his spear.
It was not a good cast the boy had never thrown even a rock before but by sheer
luck it came down point-first and scratched across one golden eye. With a howl like
a rusty door-hinge the thing reared back in a frantic blur, and stood shaking blood [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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