Adams, Robert - Horseclans 05 - The Savage Mountains (v1.0) (html) by The Savage Mountains (v1.0) (html)

Author:The Savage Mountains (v1.0) (html) [Mountains, The Savage]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Ahndros should have known better; he had, after all, seen Bill fight. For all his thick waist and hips almost as wide as his shoulders, the young thoheeks was in no manner clumsy or slow, else he would not have lived through over five years of almost continuous warfare. His quick reflexes had saved his life in more than one fierce encounter. They did again.

Experience told him that he could not get the long, heavy sword up quickly enough to effectively parry the attack. To duck would only make him more vulnerable, and to hop back off the small mound would be to give Ahndros the advantage of high ground. Dropping the sword, he threw himself forward, his meaty shoulder striking the center of Ahndros' breastplate, his left hand closing on his adversary's right wrist with bone-crushing force.

Ahndros crashed over backward, his cuirass striking sparks from the rocky ground. They rolled over and over, the gathered men scattering from their path. The fall had sent Ahndros' helm spinning, but Bili could not spare a fist to batter the exposed head or fingers to gouge the eyes or ram up the nostrils, for he needs must use both hands to protect himself from Ahndros' strength.

Cursing in all the languages or dialects he had ever heard, Komees Hari danced about as close to the combatants as their unpredictable writhings would permit, his blade bared, seeking a safe opening through which to thrust or slice some unarmored portion of Ahndros' anatomy.

As for Ahndros, he knew that to release his grip on his hilt was sure death, yet he also knew that he could not retain it much longer. Bili had actually bent the fine steel cuff of his right gauntlet and his relentless pressure was collapsing the high-grade plate more and more, slowly crushing the wrist beneath. Then, while their bodies gasped and thrashed and strained, Bili mindspoke him.

"Ahndee, I don't want to kill you or to see you killed on my account. My mother loves you and I once thought you my friend. What's made you so unreasonable in these last months? Simply that I felt constrained to bring Count Djeen to heel? Why, the High Lord himself averred that the old man had asked for just what he got, and many times over, too."

Ahndros answered telepathically. "You expect me to take your unadorned word on that, do you?"

"If my word isn't sufficient, Ahndee, than why not ask Lord Milo? You have farspeak, he told me, and Whitetip will be happy to assist you."

"I doubt the High Lord would receive my transmission, since I left Vawnpolis without his august leave, lord thoheeks. And, even if he did, I'm certain he'd lie to back anything you chose to say. It must have been quite a strain to keep up with the demands of both of them— swiving that slut, Aldora-the-Undying-Whore, then being poheestos to Milo."

For a moment, Bill's shock at the accusations sent his mind whirling, then he beamed back, albeit sadly. "You are surely mad, Ahndee, mad as Vahrohnos Myros, back in Vawnpolis, gibbering in his cell.

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