Darknesses Read Online Free Page B

that
company. Now, after a little more than a year of service since his return, in
command of the Twenty-first Horse Company, he had just less than a year before
he could return to the stead, and the life of a herder—and to Wendra.
    As
he rode past the outbuildings, he turned and looked back at the stead house.
Wendra still stood there watching. He waved, not knowing whether she might see
his gesture in the darkness, and he could not tell whether she did or not.
    He
had ridden less than a vingt from the stead buildings when he sensed the
others. There were four men—none with Talent, for his Talent revealed that the
being of each was blackness without the flashes of green that revealed herder
Talent or the flashes of purple that revealed the only other kind of Talent in
people that Alucius had come across.
    He
slowed Wildebeast into a walk, letting his Talent-senses reach out to locate
those who waited. They were waiting in the low wash less than two hundred yards
from where the stead lane met the old high road that ran from Eastice south
through Soulend, then through Iron Stem to Dekhron. Two were on the north side,
and two on the south, all of them less than twenty yards from the road—a clear
ambush.
    Alucius
could also sense the grayish violet of the sandwolves, doubtless waiting to see
if there would be carrion left for them. Alucius smiled grimly behind the skull
mask. There would be carrion.
    He
continued to ride until he was less than two hundred yards from the ambush
site. In the darkness, far enough away in the now-moonless night that none of
the men would see him, he reined up, dismounted, and tied Wildebeast to one of
the posts marking the stead lane, then took the rifle from its holster, holding
it in his left hand.
    Moving
as silently as only could a man who had been both herder and scout, he slipped
through the quarasote, using his night vision and Talent-sense to make his way
to the wash on the north side of the lane.
    He
hoped he could use his Talent to stun the men, then sever their lifethreads,
rather than using the rifle. But he had to get within yards to use Talent that
way, and there was every chance that one of them might hear him. So he held the
rifle ready as he eased toward the northernmost of the ambushers. When he
reached the edge of the wash, only about a yard and a half deep, he slid down
onto the lower ground and began to follow the wash south.
    He
froze as he heard the faintest of sounds. Remaining silent, he listened.
    “…thought
I heard something…”
    “…scrats
probably…”
    “…not
at night in winter.”
    “…quiet…he’ll
be along…”
    Alucius
edged along the chest-high miniature bluff toward the men, rifle ready, still
hoping not to use it, especially not at first.
    A
good half glass passed before Alucius reached a gentle curve in the edge of the
wash, a position from where he could sense the nearness of the closest man. He
paused. Then he reached out with his Talent-senses—and struck with full force
at the man’s yellow-brown lifethread—a thread invisible except through
Talent-senses.
    There
was but the faintest gasp, then a muted thump, and the reddish-tinged void that
signified death washed over Alucius.
    “Silyn…you
there? Silyn?”
    Ignoring
the whispered inquiry, Alucius kept moving, until he was less than ten yards
from the second man, where he once more extended his Talent and struck, wincing
as the death-void swept across him.
    Then,
for several moments, Alucius stood silently, shuddering, and feeling the
perspiration gathering beneath the skull mask, despite the chill and the light
night wind that swirled around him, with the iron-acrid scent that always
accompanied any wind on the stead that came out of the northeast and off the
Aerlal Plateau. Finally, he took a long and slow deep breath, then crossed the
ten yards of the wash to the western side, where he climbed out and silently
began to circle west and south toward the remaining two