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.The darkness pervaded everything, and consciousness became blotted out completely.How long he hung there, lost in the shades of terror, he never knew, but when he came back to himself, he found a scene of panic down below.He was still swinging from the yardarm, and the ship had drifted perilously close to the rocky shore.Just three hundred feet away the waves were slamming into the rocks.The cliff towered above them, a dirty white mountain of chalk.Officers were bellowing orders.Feet thundered up the stairs.The sun shone once more, but the world of darkness lay just behind them.When he looked back, he could see that the edge between the two was clear and hard.Away to the south beneath the black cloud there was just the darkness and an occasional distant flash of purple lightning.The vast white cliff swung slowly before his eyes as the ship came about.All hands were in the rigging.Sails were furled and unfurled with frantic speed.Voices continued to bellow orders, but the ship was no longer drifting toward the rocks.The ship was changing course, moving back out into the bay, although one outlying spire of rock was still in their way.Slowly, rigging creaked as the sails caught the wind.The great ship swung her nose past the rock, and then they were sliding through the waves just fifty feet from doom.Seabirds lifted off the top of the rock with harsh cries.Ahead, Heuze could see other ships, a great mass of them moving around the chalk headland.Here was the enemy fleet, and ahead was the site where they were going to land their army.And behind the ship lay the grim, eerie darkness blanketing the world.—|—Thru Gillo was hurrying up Bear Hill from Warkeen when he first noticed the strange black clouds forming in the southeast.He was carrying yet another reply from Aeswiren to yet another message from Toshak.Being Toshak's messenger to the Emperor was harder work than it had ever been now that the two generals were within five miles of each other.At times Thru wondered if it wouldn't have been better to just have the two headquarters together in the village, instead of having Toshak on Bear Hill just north of the river and Aeswiren on South Hill on the other side.Certainly that would have made it easier on Thru's boots, which were falling apart again.Yet, he also understood that keeping the two armies apart was a good idea.The alliance between mot and Man was a very young and tender shoot.Every time he passed through the perimeter of Aeswiren's army and found himself surrounded by men, Thru felt a certain oppression.By instinct his hand strayed to his sword hilt when he caught hard glances directed his way, and as he passed by, he often heard muttered curses and insults.Many men clearly hated the folk of the Land, just as the folk of the Land hated the men.When next Thru looked up, he saw that the black clouds had slithered farther up the sky.He hurried his footsteps.He'd missed lunch, but he still had hopes of finding something to eat at the headquarters cook fire.If there was bad weather coming in, he'd rather be in the cook tent than out here in the open.The path up the hill and over to Cormorant Rock had suffered from the passage of Toshak's army.The ground was cut up with ruts, the bushes and trees hemmed back to let the wagons through.The pathway was almost an analogy for the Land itself, torn and beaten ever since the men first arrived.A shadow fell over him as he crested the hill.Toshak's tents were just ahead.He glanced up and saw the clouds had spread right up the sky.They were like long fingers, each separated by a narrow band of blue sky, but the blue was being squeezed out as more and more of the flat, opaque blackness flowed up from the south.The clouds rolled on.The light was dimmed and then virtually obliterated by the time he reached camp, delivered Aeswiren's message to the headquarters tent, and got across to the cook fire."Got anything left?" he said as he poked into the various pots and cauldrons."Oh ho, back for seconds, are you?" said the cook, an older mor missing her right eye.Her fur was whitening at the tips on top of her shoulders and the back of her head."No, I wasn't here for lunch.""Well, in that case, here, take some porridge and some bushpod cake."She slopped a ladle of porridge into a bowl for him."Here, eat it quick.Looks like we've got bad weather coming in.I'll want to close the flaps tight.""Thanks.""Odd-looking storm.I've never seen anything like it."It was very strange.The black fingers had passed on, and the whole sky had gone dark.The sudden flash of purple lightning away in the south dazzled them.After a few moments a heavy boom rolled over their heads.Thru felt his fur standing up.More lightning flickered out to sea."Ooh, this is going to be nasty," said the cookmor.Thru knew in his bones that sorcery was at work here.He'd seen their terrible enemy.He'd witnessed the demonic dance that summoned the pyluk from the hills.Now it seemed this warlock could summon a storm at his whim.He ate the porridge in a few gulps, darted out of the tent as the cookmor battened down the hatches, and hurried across to the headquarters tent, still chewing the pod cake.He was halfway there when a cold wind struck.With it came an overpowering feeling of unease, even of fear.Something dreadful was hunting them, something that promised annihilation.Toshak had finished the noontime meeting with his regimental commanders.They were filing out as Thru came in.He knew most of them well and exchanged nods and a few handshakes."What the hell is happening out there?" said more than one as they stepped out of the tent.Inside, Thru ran into the Grys Norvory, his one-time enemy.The Grys wore the red pin of a regimental commander.He had given Thru an apology for the misdeeds of the past at an earlier meeting, and now they were on cordial terms."So, you got your freedom from the palace," said Thru with a nod to the pin."At last.Think I've served my time as a bureaucrat."Another great boom of thunder rolled overhead."This storm seems unnatural," said the Grys with a look out the door at the darkness above."Sorcery, I'd wager," said Thru."That's what we have to expect, I suppose.May the Spirit preserve us.""May it keep our sword edge sharp, too."Toshak appeared from the back of the tent."Thank you, Grys," he said, taking Thru's arm."Gillo, come here a moment."Toshak moved over to the open front of the tent.The sky was pitch-black except for blast after blast of purple lightning out to sea."What do you think the purpose of this storm is?"Clearly, Toshak understood that this strange weather was the work of their enemy."Our enemy seeks to frighten us," said Thru.The wind was increasing in fierceness, and the tent flaps were closed by the orderlies.In short order the papers were slid into the travel binders and the maps into their waterproof tubes.Thru and Toshak went over to a side flap so they could continue to peer outside.All across the camp, mots and brilbies were hurrying to tie things down.The wind rose steadily until it was fairly shrieking through the trees.All the fires had been put out and covered with shovelfuls of sand.Leaves, branches, and bits of bark were blown out of the forest and right over the tents.The wind rose to a maniacal screech.Here and there a tent collapsed.The tent set up for the orderlies to sleep in lost its pegs at the rear and was torn from its place and hurled away.The orderlies' things went flying after it.The cook tent was barely holding on.One peg had come up, and a corner of the tent was flapping madly in the wind.Thru could hear the imprecations of the cookmor, even over the general howl of the tempest, as she fought to control the loose corner.Then came the rain [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]