The Pleasure of Memory Read Online Free Page B

vowed long ago never to allow. Until this moment, he’d carefully staged every encounter with the savages. He’d always known exactly where he was likely to find the bastards before he got there, and he’d always had an escape plan.
    Until today.
    Today they’d taken him completely unaware, the result of the traitorous complacency he’d lulled himself into. Every cut, every bruise, every break he suffered was as good as inflicted by his own hand. And the grand prize for his arrogance was to find himself running at full whip through this strange forest while a little spot tingled in the middle of his back where a well-earned arrow was scheduled to strike.
    The canopy was woven so tightly that not a fleck of sunlight could breech it, leaving the forest as dark as night. The giant trees crowded the narrow track, making divergence from this path a practical impossibility. Low branches, spindly and barbed, menaced the trail, reaching for him, slapping at his face and hands, and ripping at his clothes. Rocks and roots swelled up from the dirt where none had been an instant before, confounding his footing and complicating his flight.
    A less scientific man might suppose that the elements of this dark forest were working collectively to foil his escape. A less scientific man might wonder if perhaps there were more to the ‘forbidden’ in this forest than he gave it credit. A less scientific man might consider turning back and making tracks for the road, savages be damned.
    He gave himself a reprimanding slap.
    Don’t be a fool. He slapped himself again. Keep your focus. Don’t you dare unravel now! He slapped himself again, and then once more for good measure. And with the third slap, a root seized his foot.
    He vaulted into a sprawling dive, soaring timelessly above the path as the stupidity of his situation passed dreamlike beneath him. Sadly, there was nothing dreamlike about his landing. He hit the ground with brute determination and little cushion.
    Dirt and debris settled in a hushed cloud around him. The forest cheered his defeat in deafening silence. Rogue streamers of sunlight sliced through the gritty fog, hanging like ghostly icicles in the settling dust.
    He pushed himself to his knees. He spit a wad of bloodied phlegm into the dirt and wiped his gritty mouth across a sleeve. Dirt and blood caked the teeth behind a swelling lip. He sat back on his heels, dragged the hair back from his face, and spit again. He’d never felt so tired, so timeworn, so utterly finished with the whole trip in his long, miserable life. He wanted to lay down in the dirt and sleep, wanted to be done with the whole goddamned thing once and forever. It felt like a debt of exhaustion collected over a lifetime was cashing itself in all at once, and for just an instant, he wondered if maybe the time had finally come to quit the game.
    He shook his head clear away the thought. It would be a cold day in the Wyr before he’d quit, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be today. He wasn’t ready today.
    Defying the forest's spite, denying his own exhaustion, he climbed back to his feet. The alarm bells were screaming in his head again. He had to run. He couldn’t stop. He pushed himself back into his flight, running harder, driving more fiercely along a winding and hilly path that was so buried in gloom, it was nearly impossible to see.
    A mile deeper in, he noticed a change in the forest’s mood. A strange sound now loitered at the periphery of his hearing, something even more portending than the death knell his heart was serving him. He could feel the sound more than hear it, like the vibration of a thunder clap that drops its energy far too close to camp. Maybe it was a mill. Maybe it was a sign of hope, a clearing, perhaps. Maybe he’d be able to find a place to take a stand against the savages. It was going to come to that eventually anyway, to stopping and making a defense. The savages were natural runners. It was just a matter of time before