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over, somewhat puzzled, to help restrain him.
Emil came down from the man s cottage.  That little house is built like a
fortress and is crammed with guns. With the clear shot he s got of the bridge
he could have held us off all day.
They trussed the bridgekeeper to a tree, where he screamed curses until
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FIRE LOGIC - ELEMENTAL LOGIC BOOK 1 - LAURIE MARKS
they plugged his mouth with a kerchief. Besides the cut in his neck, he had
broken his hand punching it into the pistol that came between his fist and
Zanja s ribs. Anger seemed to be keeping him from feeling it, but he
certainly would regret losing his temper soon enough. Zanja went up to the
cottage to have the bite in her arm washed with soap. She and her
companion returned to the bridge, lugging baskets of food ransacked from
the cottage: preserved meats, bottled pickles, dried fruit, tins of crackers.
Emil and the others had finished inspecting the bridge by then, and,
standing in a group, they fished pickles from the jars with their fingers,
chomped the dried fruit, and smeared preserved meat on crackers and ate
them in a single mouthful. The luxury was wasted: they would have eaten
raw horsemeat with just as much enjoyment.
 A good team of dray horses is what we need, said one.  But that little
horse on the hill won t be worth the effort it will take to catch him.
 What we need is Annis and a couple of bags of explosives.
There was a murmur of agreement.
 What we have, however, is a couple of axes and our bare hands, said Emil.
They glumly studied the sturdy bridge, jaws working, passing the pickle jars.
 I guess we d better get busy, someone finally said.
They chopped through the massive timbers one by one, and pulled apart the
rubble pilings, stone by stone. By sunset, the bridge had begun to groan.
The river joined the game, pushing and pulling at the teetering structure,
until the bridge collapsed into the water, and the river broke it up as though
it were no more substantial than a sugar cake. Not one member of the
company was unbloodied by then, but no one had been carried away in the
collapse of the bridge, so they found the energy to utter a ragged cheer that
was more relief than jubilation. Then Perry looked around at the battered
company and said wryly,  Well, we re in slightly better shape than the
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FIRE LOGIC - ELEMENTAL LOGIC BOOK 1 - LAURIE MARKS
bridge, though not by much. Good thing there s been no sign of the
Sainnites. Rather than fight or escape, I d beg them to put me out of my
misery.
The sun was setting. They dragged themselves a little way into the woods
and lay down on the ground like wounded animals.
Zanja awoke with rocks embedded in her cheek and big black ants crawling
through her hair. The members of her company were strewn like corpses
across the hillside. Others moved among them in the mist, shaking them
awake, offering to fill their porringers with porridge spooned from the kettle
that two people carried between them. She turned and saw Willis squat
down beside Emil to shake him vigorously by the shoulder.
 What were you thinking? You left the bridgekeeper tied to the tree, and he
told us exactly where you had gone. If the Sainnites hadn t turned around in
their tracks 
 What? said Emil in a voice blurry with exhaustion.  When did they turn
around?
 We met them on the road before dark.
 That was before the bridge fell. Emil sat up, rubbing his face.  Shaftal s
Name! Were they just a decoy? What are the Sainnites up to in the flatlands,
while all of South Hill Company is out of the way?
Zanja felt a peculiar, urgent impulse to be alone. She got to her feet with
difficulty, and limped into the woods, where night had not yet given way to
dawn. With the awakening voices of her company sounding far away behind
her, she sat upon a fallen tree cushioned with damp moss. She felt only half
awake: some part of her still dreamed of the ringing ax and the scraping
away of her skin on the heavy stones. Her wandering thoughts vaguely
considered a young man, a Sainnite, cleverer and further-seeing than she,
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FIRE LOGIC - ELEMENTAL LOGIC BOOK 1 - LAURIE MARKS
who knew before she did what she was going to do next, and danced her on
strings like a puppet at a fair. She noticed that in her bloody hand she
clasped one of the bridgekeeper s crackers, and she gazed at it in some
bewilderment.
 What am I doing here? she asked. Then, the storm-battered doors of her
mind creaked slowly open, and she broke the cracker to pieces and lay them
on the log beside her. Like a shadow untouched by daylight, Karis s raven
appeared from the shadows and landed softly beside her.
These seven months of her reclaimed life had largely been filled with hectic
and dangerous effort. In the peace of the wood, Zanja felt how illusory was
all this activity, how empty her life truly was.
In a voice as racked as any smoke addict s, she said,  Good raven, I brought
you this bit of bread.
The raven ate. Zanja said,  Your help has been vital these last few days.
Even though the Sainnites may have tricked us, I am sure that if we had not
destroyed the bridge, the Sainnites would have crossed it.
The raven, his cracker eaten, turned on Zanja an intelligent gaze.  Zanja, at
dawn for just a little while, my soul inhabits the raven.
 Karis! Zanja saw her hand reach out under its own power, as though to
grasp the muscled arm of her friend and not the raven s rasping feathers.
 Karis! she cried, but said no more, for the words that crowded forward
were dangerous and filled with longing.
Karis said through the raven, in a voice as hoarse and frayed as her own
would be at this hour,  I also am surprised. The raven is not supposed to be
in South Hill.
 I understand that. But I think he is watching over you. He intervened to
help prevent the Sainnites from crossing into Darton.
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FIRE LOGIC - ELEMENTAL LOGIC BOOK 1 - LAURIE MARKS
The raven Karis was silent. Whether her silence meant confusion or
displeasure was impossible to know.
Zanja said cautiously,  Surely you did not think it would be too difficult for
me to realize you live in Meartown.
 Well, you aren t supposed to know.
 Like everyone in South Hill Company, I have good reason to protect the
forges and furnace that provide our weapons. My reason is just more
personal than most. Zanja added,  And thank you for my dagger. It is such
a fine blade that I sometimes think it could fight on its own. I often wonder
why you have not made more of them.
 Every time you bloody the blade, I know it, and I feel my responsibility.
Therefore, I make carpenter s tools, mainly. They are rarely used for killing.
Zanja said,  Dear gods and Norina allowed you to forge me a blade? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]