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either fled into the surrounding woods or surrendered immediately.
The Scholar decided to leave about a hundred men to hold the entrance.
Meanwhile he meant to advance, with the remaining three hundred, toward the
summit.
"Up there . . . up there at the top. That's where things will be decided."
His harried second in command stared at him. "Sir?"
"Up there, Major!"
As Trickster, Katherine's first important decision was that Lord John ought to
be rescued from the punishment to which her predecessor had consigned him and
restored to his proper position of command.
For one thing, his presence as a skilled and familiar leader ought to be good
for his army. For another, she didn't want a son of the Harbor Lord to fall
into Hades's or Kalakh's hands and be used as a hostage to hinder the war
effort.
Not that she approached the task of rescue with any enthusiasm. Through the
Trickster's memory Katy could recall perfectly that Lord John had been ready
to take Carlotta and use her as a slave.
Fortunately, the place where she had taken him, a stone quarry that used up a
lot of slaves, was relatively nearby, not ten miles from the Mountain.
Her borrowed chariot, behind its galloping horses whose hooves magically found
purchase in the air, swooped low to scoop John up, out of a cloud of rock dust
and hammering noise, under the eyes of a gaping overseer who was so astonished
that he dropped his whip.
Looking at the totally bewildered man she'd just dumped beside her in the
zooming chariot, Katy/Trickster told him: "Don't suppose that I have suddenly
become your friend. Maybe before the day is over you'll wish that you were
back there, breaking rocks."
He appeared to be in bad shape, half-naked now and his remaining clothes in
shreds. His costly earrings of course were gone, one having been ripped right
out by some impatient robber, turning the lobe into a raw and ugly fringe.
Slowly he righted himself and got to his feet, fixing his gaze on her with an
expression of haggard hope, mixed with desperation. "Who're you? You're not .
. ."
"Not Carlotta, no. Lucky for you," Katy told him, increasing their airborne
speed with a flick of the reins on the white horses' backs. "But I am the
Trickster, and I remember her and what happened to her. I
suppose you are not a good man but maybe not that bad. In practical terms, you
should be very useful."
Clinging to the low rail in front of him, the man beside her started to
stammer through some kind of explanation, but Katherine wasn't really
listening. She felt troubled by new inner doubts about her relationship with
Jeremy. "The Bride of Apollo," she muttered to herself, wondering if anyone
would ever call her that, and tried to laugh at the idea. There were moments
when it seemed to her ridiculous that the two of them could have any kind of a
future together.
She still felt human and then again she didn't. This new state of existence
was something more. If
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1%20htm).html (202 of 221) [2/4/2004 11:11:05 PM]
Fred Saberhagen - The Book of the Gods 1 - The Face of Apollo neither of them
was going to be human any longer, would marriage between them even be
possible? The
Trickster's memory gave reassurance on that point, as did the old stories, in
which divinities frequently wedded one another and brought forth offspring.
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Driving over the spot where she had left Arnobius and the lancers, Katy
observed that they had moved on to the Cave entrance, less than a hundred
yards away. Bringing her chariot to earth there, she reined its magnificent
horses to a standstill. "Where is Arnobius?" she demanded of the junior
officer who appeared to be now in command.
"Gone up the hill, my-my lady," the man stammered, his eyes as wide as those
of the lowliest common soldier.
Katy/Trickster reached out a hand to assist John out of the chariot. "The
military situation here will be your job," she informed him. "I have other
business to attend to. Don't make me sorry that I brought you back." She [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]