The Dark Hand of Magic (The Sun Wolf and Starhawk Series Book 3) by Hambly Barbara

Author:Hambly, Barbara [Hambly, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781453216859
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT, Chief.” Ari got up and poured full the cups that stood on the camp table of inlaid ebony—the cups of green lacquer and gold, which, like the table, the tent, the gold-bound staghorn chair to which the young captain returned to slouch, had all been Sun Wolf’s once. Starhawk, sitting quietly on the X-shaped black-oak seat which had customarily been hers, noted how slowly Ari was moving, like a man forced to work at the stretch of his endurance at some hard physical labor, day in and day out and far into the night—a man whose strength is fast running out. In his eyes under the heavy brows she saw he knew it. Outside, rain pounded in whirling frenzy on the canvas tent. Inside, it dripped drearily through a dozen flaws and leaks and faulty seams, making hard little splatting noises on the sodden, carpetless mud underfoot. The braziers filled the air with smoke without warming it one whit.

“Things went from bad to worse after the sack. We got the hell out of there the morning after we were paid. We didn’t even wait to divvy the take, just counted it and pulled stakes. But I’ve never seen so many things go wrong in my life.”

The liquid in the cups wasn’t wine. It was White Death, the cheapest grade of gin mixed with hot water. The wine, Starhawk gathered, had all gone rancid in its skins a day or two out of Kwest Mralwe. So had most of the flour they’d bought for the journey to Wrynde, a journey intended to be accomplished in record time and which had, instead, been plagued by every delay known to equipment, beast, or humankind. “I swear, Chief, we broke seven axles in one day!” Ari gestured with one bandaged hand, a wound received in the sack and still unhealed. “After the third one, I personally went through every wagon and cart in the train, and by the Three Gods’ witness, they were all sound! I’ve never been that close to crying and kicking my heels on the ground in my life! And three the next day, and all the time the men fighting over whose fault it was, stealing liquor and bread from each other... Even the slaves we took from the sack of the town are fighting each other! EACH OTHER for Gods’ sakes! Horses and oxen going sick like they’d been poisoned—which I’ll take oath they weren’t—trees falling in our path, bridges out, a bad lot of beer that kept everybody puking for two days... We never even made it over the Narewitch Bridge before the rains began.”

Sun Wolf was silent, his single eyelid drooping in speculative thought.

For herself, the Hawk recalled well the inner sigh she always heaved when the troop had passed northbound over the three stone arches of that half-ruined bridge. The Narewitch marked the northern bounds of the Middle Kingdoms. In the twisted lava gorges of the badlands of the Gniss River

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