Fireball Read Online Free

right to make the decisions? He was only a stranger in this country. Providing, of course, this was England. He looked all around again and saw them, about a quarter of a mile back but heading this way. Horsemen—five or six.
    He took Brad’s arm and gestured. Brad said with relief: “Great! People.They can tell us where we are and the right road to somewhere.”
    They were oddly dressed, Simon noticed. It was difficult to pick out the details of clothing at this distance, but it didn’t look right. Not the casual hacking gear you would expect to see in the Home Counties, certainly. Some kind of cloaks?
    He said: “As long as we can be sure the natives are friendly. Can we?”
    Brad paused. “I get you. Might be an idea to duck back among the trees and watch this bunch go past?”
    They started moving quietly uphill. There was a rise of ground which would soon cut them off from the view of the horsemen, provided they had not already been spotted. Then there was a cry, unintelligible but sounding peremptory. Simon looked back as they automatically quickened step. The horsemen had changed direction to follow them. And they had urged their animals into a canter.
    Brad had seen it, too. He said: “Run for it! Into the wood . . .”
    Simon did not need telling. He pounded uphill, ahead of Brad. He could hear cries from their pursuers and felt the beat of hooves on the ground. Theedge of the wood was about fifty yards away—a long fifty yards with the horsemen closing in.
    Brad was falling behind. Simon thought about slowing to let him catch up, but fear kept him running hard; another glance back had shown an arm raised and a glint of what looked horribly like a sword. Then he heard a grunt and looked round to see Brad trip and fall heavily.
    Simon was almost at the trees, and the horsemen were near enough for him to hear the panting of the horses as well as the shouts of the riders. He ran on, and branches whipped his face. He pushed through bushes and heard a clamour behind him. But the din lessened bit by bit as he struggled on through the undergrowth. When at last he leaned, gasping, against the trunk of a tree to get his breath back, he could hear no other sound apart from birds.
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    Simon gave it a long time, at least half an hour, before he started cautiously picking his way back through the wood, and he frequently stopped to listen. The final dozen or so yards to the point where the trees ended he took very warily indeed. When he poked his head out at last, it was in the halfexpectation of hearing a triumphant cry and seeing a menacing figure in front of him. There was nothing but the empty slope, grazing sheep, the river in the distance. No horsemen, and no Brad.
    He sat down on the grass and thought about that. He couldn’t possibly have saved him. If he had stopped and turned back . . . by the time he had reached Brad the horsemen would have been on top of both of them. What help would it have been to Brad for him to be caught as well? There was no flaw in the argument. All the same, going over it again didn’t make him feel any better.
    What had happened to Brad anyway? They hadn’t killed him, or if they had, they must have taken the body with them. Actually the place where he had entered the wood, where Brad had fallen, was a bit further up the slope. He got to his feet and went there, examining the ground closely. No sign of blood. Perhaps the horsemen had been friendly; perhaps he’d been a fool to run away. He remembered the glint of steel; they hadn’t looked friendly. And if they’d merely stopped to pass the time of day and tell Brad the way to the nearest railway station, Brad would have come into the wood and called him.
    For that matter, where were they? Brad’s notion of their having been transported by some atmospheric freak seemed less and less reasonable. Horsemen waving swords on the