On Silver Wings: RAF Biplane Fighters Between the Wars by Alec Lumsden & Owen Thetford

Author:Alec Lumsden & Owen Thetford [Lumsden, Alec & Thetford, Owen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781855323742
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 1994-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

Tough and sinewy, it turned out, and more than a little bitter. Still, eating something hot and greasy was a welcome change from the salted meat and hardtack they’d choked down for their midday meal. It was also good to supplement the provisions they had, as what was in his saddlebags would have to last them until they passed out of the plains.

Demian was thankful Alyanna was eating, picking out nuggets of flaky white snake flesh from the chunk he’d grilled for her. Her movements were slow and deliberate, but Demian sensed that she wanted to devour what was in front of her; it was wise on her part not to, as despite how ravenous she must be her stomach would surely rebel if she began to gorge. Her glowing eyes were staring into the fire as if she could see something in the burning grass.

“Weaver,” he said, and she turned to him. He forced himself to hold her unnatural gaze, suppressing a shiver. “How do you feel?”

With agonizing slowness, she swallowed the snake she’d been chewing. “I have been gutted,” she finally said, her voice hollow. “Everything inside me has been scooped out. There is nothing but emptiness and this… this light.”

“Does it hurt?”

She blinked slowly. “My body hurts. They cut me. Whipped and burned me. But inside, now… I feel nothing. And that is far worse.”

“Weaver… ”

“The Weaver is dead,” she said harshly. “Alyanna is dead. She was a sorceress.” Tears streaked her face, though she did not sob or cry out. They glowed bright at first, flashing as they fell, but by the time they reached the edge of her face the light had faded. “And I am not one anymore.”

Troubled, Demian stood and heaved another armful of grass on to the fire. Alyanna had the strongest will of anyone he had ever met, but could any mind withstand what she had suffered at the hands of the inquisitors and the genthyaki?

“Where are we going, Demian?”

It was the first question she’d asked of him since the rescue.

“Where he cannot reach you. Where you will be safe.”

“Nowhere is safe,” she countered bitterly. “His hate has been stoked by a thousand years of slavery. He will hunt me down and drag me back beneath the palace and devour what’s left of my soul. I know it. He brought slaves and showed me how he feasted, how he drank the mind, sucked it like insects do blood and left them drooling idiots. He will find me.”

“There is one place he cannot go.”

She glanced at him sharply. Demian saw confusion and hope… and then a dawning realization that made her face pale. “No,” she whispered, her voice now edged by fear. “Not there.”

“It is a sanctuary from the outside world. Nothing can enter the mountain without the daymo’s knowledge. And even a genthyaki cannot stand before the kith’ketan within their home.”

Alyanna bowed her head. “I failed him. The bargain was for the boy Keilan.”

“We failed, as did his shadowblades. But failure is not betrayal.

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