The Sword of the Land by Noel-Anne Brennan

Author:Noel-Anne Brennan [Brennan, Noel-Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Sander Press
Published: 2014-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

By morning Sifuat was so stiff he could barely move. Despite the cloaks with which the raiders covered him during the night, he suffered from the cold. His muscles had cramped and seized, and his shoulder was painful. When they untied him, he could barely stand.

"You will not run today," Scarface told him, not without sympathy. He tore off a chunk of bread from the piece he held in his hand and offered it to Sifuat, who took it, feeling miserable, his hand shaking, his teeth actually chattering.

"Let me see shoulder." Scarface leaned forward, and grasped Sifuat by the arm when he tried to pull away. "Ah," he said, as he prodded, surprisingly gently, at the wound. "Not bad, not bad, just stiff from cold. Good it is not your sword-arm, yes? With luck, you live to fight again. You are a most excellent fighter."

There was sincerity in Scarface's voice when he said this. Sifuat knew he meant it, but it didn't make him feel any better. On the contrary, it made him feel worse. All his life, it seemed, he put too much faith in his physical abilities, but they were all he had, if you didn't count poetry, and he didn't. In a strange way they were the reason he was not in the army himself. He could fight brilliantly, but somehow, when it came to strategy on a broader scale, he just couldn't think, just couldn't see it. And in the army, saedin were officers, high officers. Sifuat knew he would not be an officer, could not be an officer, that he just couldn't do the job. And now, because of his foolishness, no, his stupidity, as Norimin would be the first to point out, he was in the hands of Scarface, being taken north into the Mother knew what.

"Tonight," said Scarface, "you will be warm. We will all be warm. We can make fires, eat hot food. By afternoon we will be out of the reach of Sae Becha. We will be through the Throat, and then we will wait. If Sae Becha comes, and tries to go through the Throat, we will catch her, we will swallow her!" He grinned at Sifuat, delighted with his own humor, and made chewing and swallowing motions. Sifuat looked away. "If I catch Sae Becha, oh, that is very good! That will be best! But if not, if she does not come, I have you."

Sifuat closed his eyes. And then, surprisingly, Scarface patted him gently on the arm. "Don't worry," said Scarface.

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The Throat was a narrow, rocky valley in a thin line of rocky hills surrounded by freezing marshland. Only the marshes were not frozen, at least not completely, and to try to go north through them would be foolhardy. Many an unwary traveller had gone into the marshes, never to be seen again. Only the hills, with the Throat as the highway through them, were passable. An actual road, or something like it, a cleared way, had been made in the Throat valley, and it was toward this that the raider band was headed.

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