Delia of Vallia Read Online Free PDF Page B

But Tandu caught his son’s eye, and for a moment they reined in to ride knee to knee as Delia trotted on ahead.
    “The empress does not care for flutsmen, father.”
    “So I gather. I do not care, either. But we have the empress with us — so—”
    “So we protect her. I know that.”
    “Shoot as many of the devils as you can before we come to handstrokes. After that — it is the empress, alone, who matters.”
    Riding up ahead, Delia wondered if the two Djangs were laying bets in the way her husband and Seg Segutorio had the habit of doing. Thoughtfully, she drew out her longbow. This was a Lohvian longbow built by Seg, who was, in his friends’ opinion, the finest bowman not only in all Loh but in all Kregen. She had thought she was a good shot having been trained up by the Sisters of the Rose, until Seg had given her of his learning and experience and expertise. Seg had trained her to shoot, as he had trained her children. She had no doubt she could feather two of the flutsmen up there before they landed; but the flutsmen would shoot back.
    They’d use crossbows.
    Delia half-turned.
    “Crossbows,” she said. She spoke in that cross way, reflecting her worries, and then instantly hoped the Djangs would not think she was cross with them. Some empresses of Kregen, in this situation, would blame their retainers for any misfortune.
    “We will shoot them, majestrix, before they land.”
    “Before they shoot us!”
    “Aye, majestrix. As you say, before they shoot us.”
    The thought of cruel iron bolts punching into the bodies of the Djangs upset Delia. It was bad enough to think of quarrels smashing into the totrixes. In all the marvelous diversity of life on Kregen, Delia joyed in the warmth and variety and very profuseness of life, each one precious. Except, perhaps, for inimical forms who wanted only to rip her up and eat her. Then, of course, she had to harden her heart and see they did no such thing.
    Now, and with a heavy heart, she gave her orders.
    “Dismount. Make the totrixes lie down. I do not like this; but it is a thing known and done.”
    The Djangs knew, had done it, and instantly understood.
    Even then, it was nip and tuck.
    The flutsmen swept on, the wings of their fluttrells beating with a pulsing rhythm that drove them through the air and sent them diving down at the little party on the sand. The totrixes didn’t mind in the least that they should stop trotting along, and were no doubt highly pleased that they were actually being allowed to lie down. But, being six-legged saddle animals of contrary natures, they wanted to lie down where they wished, and not where their masters intemperately pushed and pulled them.
    “Giddown!” rumbled Dalki, hauling a totrix around so that his head jutted over the rump of the one ahead.
    “Stay there!” roared Tandu, as his totrix started to lumber up and move to a different place where, it was altogether probable, the sand was much softer and more comfortable.
    Delia laughed.
    “We must make a comical spectacle!”
    “Aye, majestrix. And here come the flutsmen.”
    Three bows lifted and three arrowheads snouted up.
    The Djangs did not have the Lohvian longbow; but their Djang bows were superb in their own fashion. Shooting at a flatter trajectory their shafts could carry almost as far as those from a longbow, and at shorter ranges they were deadly.
    Delia shot in her longbow first.
    The leading flutsman, his feather-streaming hair blowing wildly behind him in the wind of his passage, his accoutrements glittering, his tall aerial spear slanted up and aft, screeched. The rose-fletched shaft pierced him through his face. Delia did not stop to congratulate herself on a fortunate shot, for she had aimed at his body, but whipped out the second arrow.
    Tandu loosed and then Dalki.
    Neither Djang missed.
    Five in ten, six in twelve, were gone.
    Four crossbow bolts thudded viciously into the sand and two of the totrixes. One animal was killed instantly; the