Read Online The Golden Sword by Janet Morris - Free Book Online

answers. Somehow, seeing him and knowing, I felt less lonely. He struggled to resolve the law within and the stimulus from without, as did I. I sat straighter up before Hael upon Quiris’ back. I sent a gentle probe of strength and comfort, deeper than the cahndor would consciously feel.
    The threx greeted one another. I have often wondered that such high-pitched sounds can come from out of those great beasts.
    “I asked you if you saw yourself upon the board of catalysts, “ Hael reminded me softly. Saer slobbered upon Quiris. Quiris stamped, tossed his head.
    “Perhaps. But one cannot know it,” I said.
    “Perhaps one cannot know it, but one can surely do no better than one expects, either,” he answered, sidling Quiris against Saer until my knee brushed Chayin’s and we were but handbreadths apart. The cahndor’s face, previously abstracted as he toyed with his reins, changed when his eyes met mine. I dropped my gaze, wondering what part I played in the endless traps and tortures his mind made for him, what horrific futures incessantly threatened.
    His hand under my chin raised my face to his, but he spoke to Hael, and his eyes searched the dark terrain over which we had just passed.
    “Here they come. Good. We will need everyone. If you have a weapon within your pack you might choose in battle, get it out now. We will catch us some threx with sun’s rising, I think.”
    Hael said nothing.
    The cahndor reached back and unlaced one of his own packs and pulled forth two short golknives. He put one in his belt and handed the other toward me, almost absently. Hael reached around me to take it. Chayin snatched it back.
    “Not for you. For her. She will not use it upon me. She must use it, though! So I have seen it!” And he pointed at me.
    “No, Chayin,” said Hael gently. “You cannot arm a crell. And what against?”
    The first of the jiasks sighted us and slowed his beast to a walk. I could make out the forms of three others.
    The blade was still in the cahndor’s outstretched hand. The moon played tricks upon his face, and he had but dark holes for eyes. He leaned back in his shadow, tossing his head like an apth with sand in its ears. Then, once more he offered the blade, and his voice was strong and sure and clear.
    “It is no matter what you think, Hael. I am apprised of what is to come, and in time you will be also. You shall not gainsay me. It is your life I would protect.”
    I took the gol-knife. Hael did nothing, but I could feel the muscles cord in his arms. The jiasks were almost upon us, with their uncanny silence. It would be better to show an armed crell to them than open discord. Hael would rather take the chance that I would turn upon him than expose Chayin’s indisposition to the cahndor’s death-sworn men.
    “Arm yourselves, and make all haste. Look well about you, for our enemies steal triumphant through the night. Upon your lives I charge you. Regain what is rightfully ours!” And he jerked Saer cruelly around and sped off toward the north. Quiris, anticipating his master, leaped to follow. Hael did not stay the threx’s headlong flight, but turned to peer behind him into the dark. My gaze followed his, and I saw the knotted jiasks milling in a circle; then the circle became a line of twos, and that line followed in our dust. Hael reined Quiris into an easy lope, fast enough to keep Chayin in sight, yet slow enough that the leading pair of jiasks soon came abreast of us. Quiris tossed his head and fought restraint, his ears flicking.
    “Is the veil again upon him?” the jiask upon Hael’s right shouted.
    “I know not,” Hael called back. Quiris leaped a shadowed depression before us that did not suit him, I was thrown violently forward at his jarring impact upon the far side. I hugged the threx‘s neck, and Hael’s hand upon my shoulder gave me aid as I righted myself. If I had fallen, then, with the jiasks’ mounts racing to pace us, I would have been pummeled lifeless by