(eng) Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 03 by The Unwilling Warlord

Author:The Unwilling Warlord [Warlord, The Unwilling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Shenna’s shriek awoke Sterren from a sound slumber; he sat up quickly, looking around for the source of the scream.

Everyone else was roused as well, and the other two witches reached her first. After an exchange too quick for spoken words, Hamder turned and called, “Sterren! Shenna says that someone was prowling around the house we’re in, and saw us!”

Sterren was still not really thinking. “Who was it?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” Shenna replied. “I didn’t see him.”

“Then how do you know he was there?” Annara asked.

“I had wards set, and he tripped one, wizard!”

“Well, if he didn’t know we were here before, he certainly does now, the way you screamed,” Emner said.

Ederd and Hamder frowned at that; Shenna chose to ignore it. Sterren said nothing, but mentally filed it away for future reference that the witches and the wizards did not appear to like each other much. He wasn’t sure if it was a personal matter, or something inherent in the two arcane disciplines.

“Did anyone else have any wards, or other spells, set to warn us of intruders?” Sterren asked.

“I don’t even know what wards are,” Annara announced.

“I wouldn’t brag of it,” Ederd snapped.

Sterren raised a hand for silence, just as Lady Kalira demanded in Semmat, “What’s going on?”

“The witch . . . her magic heard something,” he said.

Alder, who had been watching the magicians, heard this and immediately headed for the nearest window, approaching it carefully, then peering around the frame, out into the rain.

Dogal took a window on the opposite side, and after a moment Alar headed for the door. The fourth side of the room was the wall separating the main room from the kitchen; the warlock, seeing what the soldiers were doing, slid quickly through the curtained doorway, presumably to look out the kitchen window.

“There’s someone running off toward the castle,” Dogal announced. “A soldier, I guess — he’s wearing a red kilt and a sword, anyway.”

“What army?” Sterren asked.

Startled, Dogal replied, “How should I know?”

Sterren, not fully awake even yet, could not think of a Semmat word for “recognize” or “identify,” so after a moment’s mental fumbling he just said, “What uniform?” He had certainly had to learn that word in order to function as warlord.

“I can’t tell Ophkar from Ksinallion,” Dogal said, “or from Shan on the Desert or anywhere else, for that matter. It’s not Semman, though.”

Alder had crossed the room during this exchange, and was squinting after the fleeing figure. Lady Kalira came up behind Dogal, as well.

“Looks Ksinallionese to me,” Alder said. Lady Kalira nodded agreement.

“Not Semman?”

“Oh, no,” all three agreed. “Not Semman!”

Sterren sighed. “We’d better get out of here, then,” he said.

Nobody argued, and in five minutes the party had collected its belongings and retired to the porch, where the horses were waiting.

In another five, the Semmans were all mounted, the draft horses were hitched up, and Sterren and the magicians were all settled in the wagon, moving unhappily out of their shelter into the thin morning drizzle.

“Which way?” Hamder asked.

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