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Bonnie Dee [Beloved 02] Beloved Bodyguard (Rock Hard) (
Annie Nicholas [Vanguards 03] The Beta [Lyrical] (epub)
Colleen Helme [Shelby Nichols Deep In Death (epub)
Bernier, Nichole Wolkentaenzerin
Donna McIntosh The Bodyguard
Caine Rachel Wampiry z Morganvi
Diana Gardin [Nelson Island Ever Always (v5.0) (epub)
Camp Rock [Second Session 04] Helen Perelman (retail) (epub)
Czlowiek, ktorego przesladowal Diane Setterfield
Braun Lilian Jackson Kot 025 Kot, ktory sie publicznosci nie

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.Think only of the cylinder.It has the highest priority.I'm relying on you, Delorran.If you fail, we both suffer Jennesta's wrath.' The Captain nodded grimly.'Stryke's death will prevent that fate.I won't let you down, sir.' They were ready to move.The only disagreement was where.'I say we get ourselves back to Cairnbarrow and confess all to Jennesta,' argued Haskeer.A handful of his supporters in the assembled warband murmured approval.'We have pellucid, and that should stand for something.Let's go back and throw ourselves on her mercy.' We'd be in for a hard landing, comrade,' Alfray said.'And the crystal wasn't what she sent us for.' 'Alfray's right,' Stryke agreed.'The only chance we have is to regain that cylinder.' 'If we are going to look for it, why don't we send one or two of the band to Jennesta to explain what the rest of us are doing?' Alfray suggested.Stryke shook his head.'To their deaths? No.All of us and the cylinder, or not at all.' 'But where do we look?' Coilla wanted to know.'It has to be the kobolds' homeland,' Jup said.'All the way to Black Rock?' Haskeer scoffed.'That's long odds, shortshanks.' 'Can you think of a better idea?' rHaskeer's resentful silence indicated he couldn't.'They could have gone anywhere,' Coilla told the dwarf.'True.But we don't know where anywhere is.Black Rock we know how to get to.' Stryke smiled thinly.'Jup's got a point.We might spend our lives combing >this countryside for those bastards.Black Rock makes more sense, and if the group that robbed us aren't there now, they might turn up.' Haskeer spat.'Might.' x'You want to head back to Cairnbarrow, Sergeant, go ahead.' Stryke scanned the Wolverines' faces.'That goes for anybody here.You can tell Jennesta where we've gone before she skins you.' @Nobody took him up on the offer.t's settled, then; Black Rock.What do you think, Alfray, a week?' 'About that.Maybe more 'cause of the horses we lost.Five or six of us are going to have to double up.And don't forget Meklun.It was bad luck not finding a wagon at Homefield.Dragging him's going to slow us.' Heads turned to the wounded trooper, strapped to his makeshift litter.His face was deathly pale.'We'll look for more horses on the way,' Stryke said, 'maybe a wagon.' 'We could always leave him,' Haskeer put in.Til remember that if you ever catch a bad wound yourself.' Haskeer frowned and shut up.^'What about splitting into two groups?' proposed Coilla.'One of the fit, going ahead to Black Rock; the other Meklun, the walking wounded and some able bodies, following on.' 'No.Too easy pickings for more ambushes.I've lost the cylinder, I don't want to lose half the band as well.We stick together.Now let's get out of here.' Some of the Wolverines' less essential kit had to be discarded, and the pellucid redistributed, to make up for the shortage of horses.There were a few petty squabbles over who had to share mounts, but several well-aimed kicks from the officers restored order.Iron rations and water were shared out.Meklun's litter was harnessed.RIt was late afternoon before they set off on a southerly bearing.This time Stryke didn't neglect to send scouts ahead of the main party.He rode at the head of the column, Coilla beside him.'What do we do when we get to Black Rock?' she said.'Would you have us take on the whole kobold nation?' Z'The gods alone know, Coilla.I'm making this up as I go along, if you hadn't noticed.' He glanced behind him and added in a conspiratorial tone, 'But don't tell them that.' 'This is all we can do, isn't it, Stryke? Make for Black Rock, I mean.' 'Only thing I could think of.Because the way I see it, if we can't get the cylinder back, at least we can have the glory of dying while we try.' 'I see it that way too.Though it seems a pity we have to do it for Jennesta, &and a human cause.' There she goes again, he thought.What does she expect me to say? He was tempted to speak frankly, but didn't have the chance.'You've no idea what's in the cylinder?' she wondered.'You were given no hint as to why it's so important?''Like I said, Jennesta didn't take me into her confidence,' he replied wryly.'Yet the kobolds obviously thought it was worth facing a warband to gain it.' 'You know kobolds, the thieving little swine.They'll go for anything they think they can get away with.' 'Your reckoning is that they were just acting on a venture?' 'Yes.' 'So with all sorts of travellers crossing these parts, including merchant caravans, who wouldn't give them half the fight we did, they pick on us, a heavily armed band of a race that lives for combat.All on the off-chance we'd have something worth stealing.Does that seem likely?' 'You're saying they were after the cylinder? But how would they know we had it? Our mission was secret.' 'Perhaps our secret mission wasn't so secret after all, Stryke.' [Chapter 7] ".and ram what's left up your butt!' Stryke concluded.His captain's feelings having been made clear, in vivid detail, Haskeer glowered murderously and tugged on his horse's reins.He cantered back to his place in the column.'Don't bite my head off,' Coilla ventured, 'but didn't he have a point about stopping to rest?' 'Yes,' Stryke grunted, 'and we will.If I give the order now, though, it'll look like his doing.' He nodded at a rise further along the trail.'We'll wait till we get to the other side of that.' pThey hadn't stopped since setting out, travelling through the night and the new morning.Now the sun was at its highest point, its meagre warmth finally dispelling the lingering chill.The bluff surmounted, Stryke called a halt.A couple of troopers were sent ahead to alert the forward scouts.Meklun's litter was disengaged from the horse dragging it, and the makeshift stretcher carefully laid flat.Alfray pronounced him little improved.As fires were lit and horses watered, Stryke went into a huddle with the other officers.'We're not making bad headway,' he announced, 'despite the handicaps.But it's time for a decision on our route.' He drew a dagger and knelt.'The human Jsettlement.what was it called?' 2'Homefield,' Jup offered.FStryke made a cross in a patch of hardened mud.'Homefield was here, in the northern end of the Great Plains, and the nearest hostile human colony to Cairnbarrow.' 'Not any more," Haskeer remarked with dark glee.Disregarding him, Stryke slashed a downward line.'We've been moving south.' He carved another cross at the line's end.'To here.We need to turn south-east for Black Rock.But we've got a problem.' To the right and down a little from the second cross, he gouged a circle.'Scratch,' Coilla said.'Right.The trolls' homeland.It's smack in the path of the most direct route to Black Rock.' JHaskeer shrugged his shoulders.'So?' 'Given how belligerent trolls can be,' Jup told him, 'we should avoid it.' 'You might want to run from a fight; I don't.' 'We've no need of one, Haskeer,' Stryke intervened coolly.'Why make extra trouble for ourselves?' ' 'Cause going round Scratch will cost us time.' 'We'll lose a lot more if we get caught up in a fight there, and a fully armed warband riding through their territory is just the thing to start one.No, we'll skirt the place.Question is, which way?' Coilla jabbed her finger at the improvised map.'The next shortest way would be to head due east now, toward Hecklowe and the coast.Then we'd make our way south, through or around Black Rock Forest, to Black Rock itself.' 'I'm not happy about going near Hecklowe either,' Stryke said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]