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They were aimed for a large open clearing among the trees in which the cattle animals  wild ordels 
ran in a breaking smother of heaving brown backs and upthrust horns.
My eyes switched back, before whatever was going to happen down there took place, to the Gerawin
and then to the voller.
The thing had stopped moving in. It hung just too far off for a certain leap without a running takeoff.
The men aboard were all looking away from me. The Gerawin were swirling up, clumping together,
stringing out from the lumps into fighting patrol vees.
No one needed to tell the Amak of Paline Valley, which lies close to the Mountains of the West to the
north of these volgendrins, what was happening.
I heard sharp yells from the voller, sounds of violent argument. No genius needed to guess what that
was!
Kov Ornol ham Feoste appeared on the coaming, one foot up and the leg flexed. He held a crossbow.
Deliberately, he aimed at me. When the bolt flew I was ready and swatted it away. It caromed against
the rock and fell far out, dwindling into a mere black speck before it vanished.
The voller was moving.
The Hikdar shouted, impassioned,  He will stay, Kov, until we return! He cannot climb down! And if he
climbs up . . .
The Kov of Apulad had reloaded. He was not very quick. He took another shot and again I batted the
bolt away. The voller rose faster now, the Gerawin up there in their fighting vees heading back across the
volgendrin. The flier moved faster and rose out of my view.
I was left alone, perfectly trapped, to await the return of the soldiers and the law of Hamal.
Well, not perfectly trapped. I could go on climbing down and fall off the bottom of the volgendrin. I
could climb up and be taken prisoner by the guards waiting for me as I climbed over the fence.
The deep booming gong-tones of bells reached me. Now the other volgendrins took up the alarm. The
air vibrated with the tocsin notes. At Paline Valley we had our alarm gongs, also, and our watchmen with
hammers and strong arms.
Then, gazing up into the brilliant sky of Kregen, squinting at an angle against the streaming mingled light
of the twin Suns of Scorpio, I saw the oncoming black dots. The suns threw all my side of the volgendrin
into shadow. But the brilliance of the sky by contrast made me squint hard. Yes. Yes, there flew the Wild
Men from the Wild Lands. They had many names, mostly obscene. I clenched my fists on the longsword.
These were men similar to those who had laid waste Paline Valley. Many of them were not really men at
all; many were more kin to those dreadful crofermen living on the outer skirts of the Stratemsk in
Turismond.
My place was at the side of men fighting to protect their lives and their property from the Wild Men.
And here I was, skulking in a hole in the side of a flying island in the sky!
There had really only been two possible alternatives when the alarm bells rang and the Gerawin massed
for battle. The attackers might have been flutsmen up there, those reiving mercenaries of the skies, or
Wild Men. It would have been better by far for the Volgendrin of the Bridge and the other local flying
islands if those alarm bells had heralded flutsmen! By far and far!
I remembered how I had promised to take the name of Hamun ham Farthytu in Hamal. Names are
precious. I had brought some honor to that name, in the end, after all the playacting, and a marble
monument existed in the Palace of Names in Ruathytu to the greater glory of Havil the Green and ham
Farthytu. I think you will understand that the Havil part was anathema to me; the ham Farthytu I had
come to regard with a strange affection, considering it was the name of a family of a country that was an
enemy to my own country of Vallia.
So, with a blistering Makki-Grodno oath to clear the vocal chords, a dolloping spit on the hands, the
longsword thrust away on my back, I started the climb again.
I climbed down.
I deliberately chose to leave that battle against the Wild Men from over the mountains. I deliberately
chose to continue my quest for the secrets of the vollers and for the good of Vallia.
Now that another chance had been given me I moved with exquisite caution. I tried not to tear my hands
on the rock and I tried not to rip out my fingernails. My boots were inevitably ripped and, very shortly,
now that haste had gone, I took off the boots and pitched them overside. They took a mortal long time to
fall away to nothing.
I saw one of the mysterious winged flyers pounce on a boot and miss, then go planing on past, its little
wings stiffly outstretched, deeply curved, supported on thick wingroots that sprouted like columns from
its shoulder blades.
If they were the exorcs the soldiers had mentioned, with dislike, they appeared singularly clumsy . . .
I climbed down three hundred feet. Toward the end the way became extraordinarily difficult as the
overhang of the island increased and the bottom rounded into a dish shape. Over the years any sharp
edges had been worn away here at the bottom, and I had to grip, cling, and worm my way along fissures
with my body braced, hands and elbows, knees and feet. Occasionally I had to pause and dig away to
form a handhold with that sailor s knife from the scabbard over my right hip. I persevered, there under
that floating mass of earth and rock, and at last was rewarded. Sweat clung thickly to my forehead. I felt [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]