Читать «Rulers of the Darkness (хвв-4)» онлайн - страница 374

No sooner had that crossed his mind than lightning smote the Grelzers, not once but again and again. Each crash of cloven air dwarfed the roars that had come from the bursting eggs. No snow. No rain. Only bolt after bolt of lightning, peal after peal of thunder.

Through those peals, Garivald heard someone laughing like a man possessed. Sadoc, he realized. Awe- or perhaps the aftereffects of lightning- made the hair prickle up on his arms and at the nape of his neck. He's found himself at last. And then, as the Grelzer soldiers fled howling in fear, Well, for sure he picked the right time.

***

As the ley-line caravan glided to a stop on the eastern outskirts of Eoforwic, Vanai squeezed Ealstan's hand in excitement. "Oh, I can hardly wait!" she exclaimed.

He was grinning, too. They both got to their feet and descended from the caravan car. They both popped open umbrellas; it was drizzling. The misty rain hid all but the nearest houses. There weren't so many, anyhow; the city faded away into meadows and orchards and farmland- exactly the sort of landscape Vanai wanted now.

Along with her umbrella, she clutched a wickerwork basket. Ealstan had one just like it. Vanai jumped in the air from sheer high spirits. "Mushrooms!" she squealed, as if it were a magic word. And so, for her, it was.

"Aye." Ealstan nodded. They walked away from the caravan stop. Their shoes got muddy. Neither of them cared. They both had on old pairs. They weren't the only ones who'd got off at this stop, either. Half a carload of eager Forthwegians scattered to pursue their kingdom's favorite fall sport.

"You don't know what this means to me," Vanai said once the other mushroom hunters were out of earshot.

"Maybe a little," Ealstan said. "I remember how excited you were after you found the sorcery last year, just to be able to go to a park and look for mushrooms there. This has to be even better."

"It is." Vanai gave him a quick kiss. He did try to understand in his head. Maybe he even succeeded there. But how could he understand in his belly what being cooped up inside that flat for most of a year had been like? How could he understand the fear she'd felt every time somebody walked along the hall past the door? A pause, a knock, could have meant the end for her. It hadn't happened, but it could have. She'd know that in her belly.

Her husband's thoughts were traveling a different ley line. "There in the park, that was where you got your Forthwegian name," Ealstan said. "It was the first one that popped into my head when we ran into Ethelhelm and his friends."

"Thelberge." Vanai tasted it, then shrugged. "It took me by surprise then. I'm used to it by now, or pretty much so, anyway. Everybody who calls me anything calls me Thelberge these days- except you, every once in a while."

"I like you as Vanai," he said seriously. "I always have, you know." Despite the chilly drizzle, that warmed her. Ealstan shifted his basket to the hand that also held the umbrella so he could put his free arm around her. He went on, "You've had a better year than Ethelhelm did, and that's the truth."