Past Imperative_The Great Game by Dave Duncan

Author:Dave Duncan [Duncan, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

The lyre was becoming unpleasantly heavy on her shoulders when Gim reached his objective.

“We scramble up this trunk,” he said, “along that branch, and across the roof to the wall. Think you can manage that?”

“No. You’ll have to carry me.”

“Stay here then.” He reached for the first branch. “There’s quite a drop on the other side, so don’t break any ankles.”

A couple of minutes later, they were outside the city. Neither of them had broken an ankle, although Eleal’s hip was hurting now, missing her special boot. Gim yanked her back into shadow while he scanned the moonlit meadow. Light shone on a bend of Narshwater in the distance, and the mammoth steps stood like a monument to a forgotten battle. The pen was invisible. Although this was spring, the grass seemed covered with a shimmer of silver frost. Perhaps it was only dew. T’lin’s camp was an isolated patch of darkness, from which the wind brought faint belching noises.

“See anyone?” Gim asked nervously.

“No.”

“This is ridiculous! There’s gotta be soldiers out there waiting for us! Dad said so. T’lin did too, more or less.”

Eleal yawned. She knew she ought to be excited and keyed-up, and she very definitely did not want to be captured and dragged back to Mother Ylla, but…she yawned again. The night had gone on too long.

She understood what was worrying Gim, though. There were few dragons in Narsh and those mostly belonging to the watch. Ranchers owned dragons, but the guard would very soon have accounted for all the dragons in the city itself and learned that none of them had been involved in her escape. The next move would have been to investigate the trader’s camp outside the wall. It was absolutely certain that there would be soldiers there still.

Furthermore, the camp was visible from the city gate, which was closed and guarded until dawn. Two people walking away from the wall would be as visible as a bear in a bed.

“Why’re they making all that noise?” Gim muttered.

“Dragons always make that noise. If there were strangers around, they’d be making a lot more.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Eleal said with a confidence she did not feel at all. She yawned again.

“Come on, then!” Gim said. “It’s trust the god or freeze to death!” He marched off across the meadow, leaning into the wind. Eleal followed by the light of the moons.

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