06 Legends of The Riftwar 1 - Honoured Enemy by Feist Raymond E

Author:Feist, Raymond E. [Feist, Raymond E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-09-02T05:42:35+00:00

* * *

TEN

Valley

The valley was rich and fertile.

The high mountain peaks which surrounded it blocked off most of the snow so that the tall grass in the pastures was still exposed and stood nearly waist-high.

The stream they were following bubbled over rocks and swirled into eddying pools and more than one of his men exclaimed how they saw fish just waiting to be caught. Even for the unpractised eyes of the Tsurani, game signs were abundant and all were commenting on the fact, pointing out the does grazing in distant fields, wild mountain goats and the tracks of bear and elk.

Dennis asked, ‘How can this place exist?’

Tinuva knelt at the edge of the stream and said, ‘Feel the water.’

Dennis did as he was bid and exclaimed, ‘It’s warm!’

Asayaga knelt next to him and after he had plunged his hand into the water, said, ‘I would not call this warm, but it lacks the icy bite I would expect from melted snow.’

‘Exactly,’ said Dennis.

Tinuva pointed to the northwest. ‘Above us lies Akenkala, a volcano. In my youth she spewed liquid rock and filled the sky with smoke that lasted for more than a year.’ He stood up, wiping his hand on his tunic. ‘She sleeps now, but there is still fire within her.’

‘Which heats the water running down into this valley,’ said Asayaga.

Dennis looked around. ‘The air here is warmer than it is to the south, in Yabon.’

Asayaga nodded. ‘It is a wondrous place.’

‘The bounty of this place is beyond anything I’ve seen,’ said Tinuva. ‘We passed orchards as we scouted.’

They resumed walking. The men were not lulled by the relative kindness of the environment. They were still in enemy territory, and it would be foolish to expect whoever lived here to be a friend.

For they knew someone lived here.

They had yet to find a single person, but the valley was clearly inhabited. They had passed three farmsteads, constructed of heavy logs, all of them still intact. In the fireplace of one the fire was still smouldering and in the barn a dozen chickens were to be found in a coop.

As the afternoon progressed the men became more and more uneasy at the eerie silence, the sense that they were walking through a realm of ghosts.

Tinuva and Gregory had ridden ahead and Dennis finally called a halt, moving the men up towards the treeline to rest, but forbade them to light fires. The afternoon sun, however, was relatively warm and in the still air it was actually rather comfortable. Soon nearly all the men had drifted into an exhausted sleep, including Dennis.

Brother Corwin was quietly tending to the wounded, seeing to their comfort, working with skilled hands to clean an arrow-wound in the arm of one of Asayaga’s men, who wandered over to watch.

The priest deftly bandaged the wound, laid out a blanket for the soldier to rest upon and stood up, wiping his hands. He saw Asayaga watching.

‘All these men have been pushed beyond the limit,’ Corwin said slowly, speaking

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