They Fly at Ciron by Samuel R. Delany

Author:Samuel R. Delany [Delany, Samuel R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780575119222
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2012-10-14T20:00:00+00:00

For the first minutes behind the horses, Rahm had stumbled and crouched at the end of the rope. Then he just walked, head low and half bent over. Finally he’d come on behind them, the tall, muscular youth Naä knew as Ienbar’s helper and her friend—almost as if, bit by bit, he’d put aside some mime of weakness he’d been performing for his captors that they had not even bothered to notice. It’s amazing, Naä thought, hurrying on beside, they really haven’t looked at him once.

I could run out, take my knife, slash the rope, and the two of us could be free and off in the dark in seconds! She grasped the knife at her belt, finally pulled it loose. But whenever she squeezed the handle, picturing herself sprinting forward, she felt a glittering web of terror, a web flung up between her and the figures moving through the dark streets.

If I surprised him and he really stumbled or cried out—

If just one of them chose to look back, by chance—

If he—or I—made some accidental sound—

This bravery of the body in sight of bodies was a very different act, she realized, from the sort she’d managed earlier, with a camp half asleep under the hottest of the day’s sun.

But still, across the little span of night, not one of the soldiers had actually looked at him, so smug were they in their superiority! Naä was still thinking this when the soldiers, Rahm bound behind them, returned to the common’s edge and started across for the council house. Qualt had been right: the strongest building in the town, now it was being used as a Myetran prison. She stepped out, then stopped as though the stone wall were only feet in front of her instead of catercorner across the square. Naä stepped back into the last doorway, to watch the soldiers and her friend mount the ten stone steps and enter the plank door. Torch light flickered within. She cursed, cursed again. But there was no way to breach those well-set rocks. She turned among the houses and began to hurry down a back street.

Half an hour later, Naä was again among the dark trees, the Myetran camp before her—though, save a cook fire off over there, or a line of light under the edge of a tent to the right, it was all but invisible. She crossed between the underbrush and a back wall of canvas, that, bellying with the night’s breeze, gave a snap, then sagged. Moving closer, she heard a voice within:

“Lieutenant Kire, this will stop! I ordered them executed. You had them flogged.”

A softer voice, with a roughness to it almost menacing: “Nactor, my prince—”

“I want no explanations! You, Kire, have been given a great opportunity, an opportunity allowed to few—to lead a brigade of Myetra. Is this how you use your officer’s privilege? This is how you’d have Myetra known? Were you not so good a soldier, things would go badly for you now—very badly. It is only your skill at arms that saves you from my anger.

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