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.Everything was vague and distant, filtering to hisears through the blustering wind across the hilltop.He had no clue what washappening beyond the circle of stones at the hill's summit, and he was notsure he wanted to know.He strode up and down, his hands opening and closing,and all the while Quai sat on the cart, looking down at Bayaz, silent andinfuriatingly calm.It was then that he saw it.A man's head, rising up over the brow of the hillbetween two tall stones.Next came his shoulders, then his chest.Anotherappeared not far away.A second man.Two killers, advancing up the slopetowards him.One of them had piggy eyes and a heavy jaw.The other was thinner, with atangled thatch of fair hair.They moved cautiously up onto the summit of thehill until they stood within the circle of stones, examining Jezal, and Quai,and the cart with no particular urgency.Jezal had never fought two men at once before.He had never fought to thedeath before either, but he tried not to think about that.This was simply afencing match.Nothing new.He swallowed, and drew his steels.The metal rangreassuringly as it slid out, the familiar weight in his palms was a smallcomfort.The two men stared at him and Jezal stared back, trying to rememberwhat Ninefingers had told him.Try to look weak.That, at least, did not present much difficulty.He did notdoubt that he appeared suitably scared.It was the most he could do not toturn and run.He backed slowly away towards the cart, licking his lips with anervousness that was anything but feigned.Never take an enemy lightly.He looked them over, these two.Strong-lookingmen, well equipped.They both wore armour of rigid leather, carried squareshields.One had a short sword, the other an axe with a heavy blade.Deadly-looking weapons, well worn.Taking them lightly was hardly his problem.They spread out, moving round to either side of him, and he watched them.The time comes to act, you strike with no backward glances.The one on Jezal'sleft came at him.He saw the man snarl, saw him rear up, saw the greatunwieldy backswing.It was an absurdly simple matter for him to step out ofthe way and let it thud into the turf beside him.On an instinct he thrustwith his short steel and buried it in the man's side up to the hilt, betweenhis breastplate and his backplate, just under his bottom rib.Even as Jezalwas ripping the blade back he was ducking under the other's axe and whippinghis long steel across at neck height.He danced past them and spun around,steels held ready, waiting for the referee's call.The one he had stabbed staggered a step or two, wheezing and grabbing at hisside.The other stood there, swaying, his piggy eyes bulging, his handclutched to his neck.Blood began to pour out between his fingers from hisslit throat.They fell almost at the same time, face down, right next to eachother.Jezal frowned at the blood on his long steel.He frowned at the two corpses hehad made.Almost without thinking he had killed two men.He should have feltguilty, but he felt numb.No.He felt proud.He felt exhilarated! He looked upat Quai, watching him calmly from the back of the cart.'I did it,' he muttered, and the apprentice nodded slowly.'I did it!' heshouted, waving his bloody short steel in the air.Page 118 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlQuai frowned, and then his eyes went wide.'Behind you!' he shouted, halfjumping up out of his seat.Jezal turned, bringing up his steels, sawsomething moving out of the very corner of his eye.There was a mighty crunching and his head exploded with brilliant light.Then all was darkness.The Fruits of Boldness« ^ »The Northmen stood on the hill, a thin row of dark figures with the white skybehind them.It was still early, and the sun was nothing more than a brightsmear among thick clouds.Patches of half-melted snow were scattered cold anddirty in the hollows of the valley sides, a thin layer of mist was stillclinging to the valley floor.West watched that row of black shapes, and frowned.He did not like theflavour of this.Too many for a scouting, or a foraging party, far too few tomount any challenge, and yet they stayed there on the high ground, watchingcalmly as Ladisla's army continued its interminable, clumsy deployment in thevalley beneath them.The Prince's staff, and a small detachment of his guards, had made theirheadquarters on a grassy knoll opposite the Northmen's hill.It had seemed afine, dry spot when the scouts found it early that morning, well below theenemy perhaps, but still high enough to get a good view of the valley.Sincethen the passage of thousands of sliding boots, squashing hooves, and churningcartwheels, had ground the wet earth to sticky black muck.West's own bootsand those of the other men around were caked with it, their uniforms spatteredwith it.Even Prince Ladisla's pristine whites had acquired a few smears.A couple of hundred strides ahead, on lower ground, was the centre of theUnion battle line.Four battalions of the King's Own infantry formed thebackbone, each one a neat block of bright red cloth and dull steel, looking atthis distance as though they had been positioned with a giant ruler.In frontof them were a few thin ranks of flatbowmen in their leather jerkins and steelcaps; behind were the cavalry, dismounted for the time being, the riderslooking strangely ungainly in full armour.Spread out to either side were thehaphazard shapes of the levy battalions, with their assortment of mismatchedequipment, their officers bellowing and waving their arms, trying to get thegaps to close up, the skewed ranks to straighten, like sheepdogs barking at aflock of wayward sheep.Ten thousand men, perhaps, all told.Every one of them, West knew, was lookingup at that thin screen of Northmen, no doubt with the same nervous mixture offear and excitement, curiosity and anger that he was feeling at his firstsight of the enemy.They hardly seemed too fearsome through his eye-glass.Shaggy-headed men,dressed in ragged hides and furs, gripping primitive looking weapons.Justwhat the least imaginative members of the Prince's staff might have beenexpecting.They scarcely looked like any part of the army that Threetrees haddescribed, and West did not like that.There was no way of knowing what was onthe far side of that hill, no reason for those men to be there but to distractthem, or draw them on.Not everyone shared his doubts, however.'They mock us!' snapped Smund, squinting up through his own eye-glass.'Weshould give them a taste of Union lances! A swift charge and our horsemen willsweep that rabble aside and carry that hill!' He spoke almost as if thecarrying of that hill, irrelevant except for the fact that the Northmen werestanding on it, would bring the campaign to a swift and glorious conclusion.West could do nothing but grit his teeth and shake his head, as he had done ahundred times already today.'They have the high ground,' he explained, takingcare to speak slowly and patiently.'Poor terrain for a charge, and they mayhave support.Bethod's main body, for all we know, just over the rise.''They look like nothing more than scouts,' muttered Ladisla.'Looks can lie, your Highness, and that hill is worthless.Time is with us.Marshal Burr will be marching to our aid, while Bethod can expect no help.WePage 119 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlhave no reason to seek a battle now.'Smund snorted [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.Everything was vague and distant, filtering to hisears through the blustering wind across the hilltop.He had no clue what washappening beyond the circle of stones at the hill's summit, and he was notsure he wanted to know.He strode up and down, his hands opening and closing,and all the while Quai sat on the cart, looking down at Bayaz, silent andinfuriatingly calm.It was then that he saw it.A man's head, rising up over the brow of the hillbetween two tall stones.Next came his shoulders, then his chest.Anotherappeared not far away.A second man.Two killers, advancing up the slopetowards him.One of them had piggy eyes and a heavy jaw.The other was thinner, with atangled thatch of fair hair.They moved cautiously up onto the summit of thehill until they stood within the circle of stones, examining Jezal, and Quai,and the cart with no particular urgency.Jezal had never fought two men at once before.He had never fought to thedeath before either, but he tried not to think about that.This was simply afencing match.Nothing new.He swallowed, and drew his steels.The metal rangreassuringly as it slid out, the familiar weight in his palms was a smallcomfort.The two men stared at him and Jezal stared back, trying to rememberwhat Ninefingers had told him.Try to look weak.That, at least, did not present much difficulty.He did notdoubt that he appeared suitably scared.It was the most he could do not toturn and run.He backed slowly away towards the cart, licking his lips with anervousness that was anything but feigned.Never take an enemy lightly.He looked them over, these two.Strong-lookingmen, well equipped.They both wore armour of rigid leather, carried squareshields.One had a short sword, the other an axe with a heavy blade.Deadly-looking weapons, well worn.Taking them lightly was hardly his problem.They spread out, moving round to either side of him, and he watched them.The time comes to act, you strike with no backward glances.The one on Jezal'sleft came at him.He saw the man snarl, saw him rear up, saw the greatunwieldy backswing.It was an absurdly simple matter for him to step out ofthe way and let it thud into the turf beside him.On an instinct he thrustwith his short steel and buried it in the man's side up to the hilt, betweenhis breastplate and his backplate, just under his bottom rib.Even as Jezalwas ripping the blade back he was ducking under the other's axe and whippinghis long steel across at neck height.He danced past them and spun around,steels held ready, waiting for the referee's call.The one he had stabbed staggered a step or two, wheezing and grabbing at hisside.The other stood there, swaying, his piggy eyes bulging, his handclutched to his neck.Blood began to pour out between his fingers from hisslit throat.They fell almost at the same time, face down, right next to eachother.Jezal frowned at the blood on his long steel.He frowned at the two corpses hehad made.Almost without thinking he had killed two men.He should have feltguilty, but he felt numb.No.He felt proud.He felt exhilarated! He looked upat Quai, watching him calmly from the back of the cart.'I did it,' he muttered, and the apprentice nodded slowly.'I did it!' heshouted, waving his bloody short steel in the air.Page 118 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlQuai frowned, and then his eyes went wide.'Behind you!' he shouted, halfjumping up out of his seat.Jezal turned, bringing up his steels, sawsomething moving out of the very corner of his eye.There was a mighty crunching and his head exploded with brilliant light.Then all was darkness.The Fruits of Boldness« ^ »The Northmen stood on the hill, a thin row of dark figures with the white skybehind them.It was still early, and the sun was nothing more than a brightsmear among thick clouds.Patches of half-melted snow were scattered cold anddirty in the hollows of the valley sides, a thin layer of mist was stillclinging to the valley floor.West watched that row of black shapes, and frowned.He did not like theflavour of this.Too many for a scouting, or a foraging party, far too few tomount any challenge, and yet they stayed there on the high ground, watchingcalmly as Ladisla's army continued its interminable, clumsy deployment in thevalley beneath them.The Prince's staff, and a small detachment of his guards, had made theirheadquarters on a grassy knoll opposite the Northmen's hill.It had seemed afine, dry spot when the scouts found it early that morning, well below theenemy perhaps, but still high enough to get a good view of the valley.Sincethen the passage of thousands of sliding boots, squashing hooves, and churningcartwheels, had ground the wet earth to sticky black muck.West's own bootsand those of the other men around were caked with it, their uniforms spatteredwith it.Even Prince Ladisla's pristine whites had acquired a few smears.A couple of hundred strides ahead, on lower ground, was the centre of theUnion battle line.Four battalions of the King's Own infantry formed thebackbone, each one a neat block of bright red cloth and dull steel, looking atthis distance as though they had been positioned with a giant ruler.In frontof them were a few thin ranks of flatbowmen in their leather jerkins and steelcaps; behind were the cavalry, dismounted for the time being, the riderslooking strangely ungainly in full armour.Spread out to either side were thehaphazard shapes of the levy battalions, with their assortment of mismatchedequipment, their officers bellowing and waving their arms, trying to get thegaps to close up, the skewed ranks to straighten, like sheepdogs barking at aflock of wayward sheep.Ten thousand men, perhaps, all told.Every one of them, West knew, was lookingup at that thin screen of Northmen, no doubt with the same nervous mixture offear and excitement, curiosity and anger that he was feeling at his firstsight of the enemy.They hardly seemed too fearsome through his eye-glass.Shaggy-headed men,dressed in ragged hides and furs, gripping primitive looking weapons.Justwhat the least imaginative members of the Prince's staff might have beenexpecting.They scarcely looked like any part of the army that Threetrees haddescribed, and West did not like that.There was no way of knowing what was onthe far side of that hill, no reason for those men to be there but to distractthem, or draw them on.Not everyone shared his doubts, however.'They mock us!' snapped Smund, squinting up through his own eye-glass.'Weshould give them a taste of Union lances! A swift charge and our horsemen willsweep that rabble aside and carry that hill!' He spoke almost as if thecarrying of that hill, irrelevant except for the fact that the Northmen werestanding on it, would bring the campaign to a swift and glorious conclusion.West could do nothing but grit his teeth and shake his head, as he had done ahundred times already today.'They have the high ground,' he explained, takingcare to speak slowly and patiently.'Poor terrain for a charge, and they mayhave support.Bethod's main body, for all we know, just over the rise.''They look like nothing more than scouts,' muttered Ladisla.'Looks can lie, your Highness, and that hill is worthless.Time is with us.Marshal Burr will be marching to our aid, while Bethod can expect no help.WePage 119 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlhave no reason to seek a battle now.'Smund snorted [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]