Read Online The First Book of Lost Swords - Woundhealer's Story by Fred Saberhagen - Free Book Online

had not yet performed the task frequently enough to be accustomed to it, and the process seemed, to Mark, endlessly slow.
           Eventually the litter was ready, and the procession could forge on.
     
     

 
    Chapter Six
     
           Even as Zoltan watched, the reflection of dark hair, in an eddy where the surface of the stream was almost still, turned into an image of black twigs and branches.
           He raised his head; there were the branches, part of a dead bush on the other side of the stream, as real as any objects could be. But no, something was wrong. The color of the vision in the water had been slightly different. And he had seen white skin, too. Hadn’t he?
           Zoltan jumped to his feet and waded in without bothering to remove his boots, keeping his gaze fixed on the reflected twigs. He reached the other bank in half a dozen splashing strides.
    He bent over the leafless bush and examined it closely. What must have happened was that she had been hiding in the other bushes just here, and had leaned out…
           He plunged into the streamside vegetation, searching diligently, ignoring the thorns that clawed at him. But he looked in vain for a clue that anyone had ever hidden there.
           Zoltan was about to wade back to the other bank and reclaim Swordface when a changed note in the burble of the water downstream caught his ear. For the space of many heartbeats he stood motionless, listening. It had sounded like a trilling laugh…
           He started downstream along the bank, on foot, then made himself go back and get his riding-beast. He stroked the animal’s head to keep it quiet. Here near the south bank there was almost a pathway, a game trail of some kind, Zoltan supposed. He had now come beyond the area where the marks of recent cavalry patrols had obliterated all other trails.
           The path beside the stream grew easier, and he mounted Swordface again and rode. Before he had ridden fifty meters he arrived at another pool. This one looked deeper, and its depths were even more clear.
           Something else caught Zoltan’s eye. A few long, dark hairs were caught on a rough bush at one side of the pool. Zoltan dismounted and picked the delicate filaments from the bush. He stood there running them through his trembling fingers; the repeated touch of his hands made the hairs turn into threads of common spider web and vanish.
           Enchantment. If only—
           At a sound he spun around. This time he caught a glimpse of movement along the water’s edge, thirty or forty meters downstream, as of pale flesh again, and some tight, silvery garment. This time he did not really see her hair that clearly—what he saw next was more like a pure burst of sunlight, as it might leap back from moving water.
           Unthinkingly he shouted: “Come back! I won’t hurt you!”
           No answer. She was gone. There was a faint sound from somewhere even farther downstream.
           He swore and splashed and waded. Then he went back to get Swordface again.
           The next rapids were steeper, and the path descending beside them was so steep that Zoltan had no choice but to dismount and lead the riding-beast along.
           Presently he was forced to leave the animal behind him, tethered lightly to a bush. The way down through the little rocky gorge had simply become too precipitous. It was easy enough for an agile human to clamber down, using both hands and feet, but the hoofed animal would never have made it.
           Beside the next little space of flat land there was no solemn pool, but a continuous sinewed rush of water. Zoltan stood beside it listening, watching, holding his breath as if even that faint sound might interfere with his catching the clue he had to have. She , being an enchantress after all, might be able to hear his breath above the rush of water. He thought it very likely now that he would be