Future Indefinite by Dave Duncan

Author:Dave Duncan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780759270480
Publisher: ereads.com
Published: 1997-02-14T10:00:00+00:00

Ignoring Shuujooby and the watching Shuujoobyites, the Warband arrived at the riverbank and the jetty. The lead warriors jumped down from the spiny grass to the white plain. Exeter and Dommi followed, then Julian himself slithered after them in a shower of hot sand. As he recovered his balance, he saw Ursula a hundred yards or so off to his right, beyond the hamlet. For a moment he felt a strange reluctance to speak with her. He had sworn not to warn Exeter and then broken his word.

She saw him and waved. She ran down the bank, wheeling her arms for balance, and then stood waiting. He slipped neatly between two of the Nagians and started to run. If anyone tried to follow and was called back by Exeter, the wind stole away the words. He staggered and stumbled in the soft sand, his aching feet reminding him how far he had walked that day.

As he drew close, he saw that she was barefoot, clutching her shoes in one hand; the other held her wide-brimmed hat in place against the mischief of the wind. She was wearing a white dress of the flimsy Nextdoorian fabric the Service called cotton, although its fibers came from a tuber. Her arms were bare and the billowing of the material revealed her ankles and half her shins. It also displayed the curves of her hips and thighs and breasts, the unusual width of her shoulders. He had never heard of such a garment in the Vales, but he would not complain about it. She looked for all the world like a girl playing on a beach at Blackpool or Frinton, and must feel like that, also, for she was laughing as she watched his labored approach, her face flushed by the wind.

Instinctively he reached up to remove his hat and remembered that it was a turban. Good Lord! Kiss a woman with his hat on?

He did. She folded into his embrace and returned the kiss willingly, thumping her shoes against his flank in a one-armed hug. Then she applied her other arm as well, and in seconds the wind stole her hat. She swore. He broke loose and ran to catch it, noting that the Warband was tramping along in the same order as before, heading for the distant ruins. Had Exeter observed the meeting and drawn the appropriate conclusions? No matter—Dommi would certainly have told him how the land lay.

Julian brought back the hat and kissed her again.

“Mm! Walking must agree with you,” she said breathlessly.

“Actually, I was dead on my feet until I saw you.” And now he wasn’t. Ursula Newton intoxicated him.

He exchanged the hat for her shoes, which he held in the crook of his right arm. Hand in hand, they plodded over the riverbed, heading for the rains. He could think of no reasonable excuse not to.

“Those Zulus are Nagians, I suppose?” she said.

“Right on. His old comrades from the Lemond campaign.”

“And how is General Exeter?”

“As well as can be expected.

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