Читать «Rulers of the Darkness (хвв-4)» онлайн - страница 42

"It wasn't anything, really." Garivald didn't want to antagonize Munderic, either. They'd already had a couple of run-ins. To his relief, Obilot nodded agreement.

But they didn't satisfy their leader. "Come on, out with it!" he barked. "If we're going to make the invaders and the traitors howl, we've got to do everything we can." His glare was so fierce, Garivald reluctantly told him what he and Obilot had been talking about. To his dismay, Munderic beamed. "Aye, that'd be just what we need. Footprints in the snow make it hard for us to raid without giving ourselves away. I'll talk to Sadoc."

"There's no guarantee he'll be able to do anything like that, you know," Obilot said. This time, Garivald was the one who nodded.

"I'll talk to him," Munderic said again. "We'll see what he can do. If we've got a mage here, we bloody well ought to get some use out of him, don't you think?" He stamped away without waiting for an answer.

"If we had a mage, we could get some use out of him," Garivald said after the irregulars' leader was out of earshot. "But we've got Sadoc instead."

"I know," Obilot said. They exchanged wry smiles. Garivald knew a certain amount of relief. He'd quarreled with Obilot not so long before, too.

I never wanted to quarrel with anybody, he thought. I just wanted to live out my life back in Zossen with my wife and my son and my daughter. But Zossen lay a long, long way to the west- fifty miles, maybe even sixty. He didn't know if he'd ever see his family again. Obilot was no great beauty, but she wasn't homely, either. He didn't want her angry at him.

He'd been away from Annore for most of a year now. Had Obilot decided to slip under the blankets with him, he wouldn't have thrown her out. But she hadn't. She didn't slip under the blankets with anyone, and she'd knifed a man who tried too persistently to slip under the blankets with her. The other women in the band of irregulars acted much the same way. Garivald looked toward her, but glanced away before their eyes met. What'll you do next? he thought sourly. Start coming up with love songs?

Obilot said, "Maybe nothing'll come of it." She didn't sound as if she believed that.

"Aye. Maybe." Garivald didn't sound as if he believed it, either.

A couple of days later, Munderic gathered the irregulars together in the clearing at the heart of their forest fastness. "We've got to go out and sabotage a ley line," he said. "There's heavy fighting around Durrwangen, south and west of here. If the regular army can take it back, they strike the Algarvians a heavy blow. And the redheads know it, curse 'em. They want to keep Durrwangen, same as they wanted to keep Sulingen. But they've got real supply lines into this place. The more we can do to keep men and behemoths and eggs from getting there, the better we serve Unkerlant. Have you got that?"

"Aye," the irregulars chorused, Garivald among them.

"We've found a stretch of ley line the Grelzer traitors don't guard well," Munderic went on. "We'll plant our eggs there. And we've got a new way of making sure the bastards who call Mezentio's precious cousin Raniero King of Grelz can't follow us. Sadoc will hide our tracks in the snow." He waved to the man who would be a mage.