Bili the Axe by Adams Robert

Author:Adams, Robert [Robert, Adams,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780451120212
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1983-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

The light drizzle which had commenced at about midnight continued on, and because of it dawn was very late in its appearance, though then it was only a bare lightening of the misty gray. And regardless of this natural respite, still was the column more than two more hours late in having the ponderous gate gapped enough for the vanguard to commence a negotiation of the narrow, twisting defile that led out of the safe-glen called Sandee's Cot.

The big man of twenty winters called Bili the Axe—Bili, Thoheeks and Chief of Clan Morguhn, Knight of the Blue Bear of Harzburk, commander of the two hundred-odd men and women making up the Lowlander Squadron of the Army of the King of New Kuhmbuhluhn—cursed and snarled and fretted at the delays—one or two of them major, but mostly minor and all completely unavoidable, in any case—even while he reflected that he had never in all his six or seven years of soldiering known or heard of a movement of a body of troops that proceeded on time and in the order preplanned, not that such rationalizations helped his temper.

Even ahead of the vanguards, the huge prairiecat Whitetip had leaped easily to the ground from the stone archway over the gates and now was at the place where the trailside fortifications ended, mindspeaking back to all of those whose minds could range him his personal reassurance that the way was clear, with no foemen to contest it.

Where two cats had served through the Ganik campaign, only the big male would accompany the march to the north. There were wet nurses in the glen for human babies, but none for kittens of such size as the litter that the female, Stealth, had so recently thrown. Therefore, she would stay behind to nurse and care for them through their weaning. But Bili had promised the bitterly disappointed young cat that should this present campaign spill over into another year, Stealth and her brood could certainly make their way north and join him and the rest of the squadron. He and Rahksahnah also had set the nursing queen a task within the glen—she was to guard the infant, Djef Morguhn, as zealously as she guarded her own get, being especially wary of the crippled Moon Maiden, Meeree.

Rahksahnah rode out with Bill's staff in the main column, but Bili himself stood beside Sir Steev until the last of the lengthy pack train had exited the glen and Lieutenant Kahndoot was beginning to mount her rearguard troops to follow. Then he turned to bid a last farewell to that doughty old nobleman who had for so long been his host, his friend and his ofttimes adviser.

"Sir Steev, thank you again for all your host of kindnesses to me and to mine. I hope that when next I stand here, it will be that we have come back for our babes and our companions that we may ride back eastward. But should this Skohshuns matter be too tough a

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