Fall of Angels Read Online Free PDF

five kays long and a little more than two wide, bordered on three sides by rocky slopes that quickly rose into the knife-edged peaks that had shown so clearly on the screens. To the north was a ridge, lower than the surrounding rocky areas, almost a pass, through which he had brought the lander. The entire meadow area sloped slightly downhill from the northwest to the southeast, one of the reasons the landing had seemed to take longer than necessary, Nylan suspected. To the southwest, beyond the rocky slopes, rose a needle peak, impossibly tall, yet seemingly sheathed in ice.
       "Freyja ... blade of the gods," he said quietly.
       "It is, isn't it?" said Fierral from behind his shoulder. "How did you get us down?"
       "It wasn't too bad."
       Fierral glanced back to the west, along the trail gouged out by the lander. "That's not exactly a prepared runway."
       "No." Nylan laughed. "Would you give me a hand? We need to set up the beacon for the others."
       "They can land here?"
       'The beacon makes it a lot easier. You can lock in a direction and rate of descent."
       "I would get the hard landing."
       "We're here."
       "Wherever that is." Fierral wiped her sweating forehead and glanced around the high plateau. "At least it's not too hot."
       Behind them, the other marines dropped from the lander.
       Nylan looked at the track he had made. From what he could tell, most of the rocks were small, nothing that would create too many problems. Rising from the grass between the rocks were small purple flowers, shaped like stars, that rose on thin, almost invisible, stems.
       Nylan forced his thoughts from the fragile flowers and turned toward the lander itself. From what he could see, the ablative coating on the belly had been largely removed by the shrubbery and rocks.
       "We've got some work to do-quickly. We need to set up the beacon and see if we can move the lander a bit." He headed toward the lander and the emergency beacon it contained. Fierral followed.
       One of the marines walked the several hundred steps eastward from the lander, pausing just short of the sheer dropoff.
       "... frigging long way down ..."
       Nylan nodded. They had come a long ways down. He just hoped that they didn't have to fall any farther.
     
     
    VI
     
    HISSL STUDIES THE images in the glass. Four rounded metal tents squat amid the late spring grasses that carpet the Roof of the World. On the high ground in the northwest corner of the grassy area, the silver-haired man hammers stakes in place in a pattern which Hissl cannot determine through the mists of the glass.
       Thrap! At the sound, Hissl squints and the image in the screeing glass fades into swirling white mists that in turn vanish, leaving what appears as a circular flat mirror in the center of the small white oak table. He turns. "Yes?"
       "Hissl, Jissek has recovered, and we are here."
       "Do come in." The man in white erases the frown and stands, waiting, as the two other men in white step into the room.
       Terek closes the door and smiles.
       Hissl returns the smile and bows. "I am honored."
       "What do you make of the people of the iron tents?" asks the rotund Jissek. "From where did they come, do you think?"
       "From beyond the skies-that is certain."
       "Why do you say that?" asks Terek.
       Both Jissek and Hissl look at the older wizard. Terek looks at Hissl as if waiting for an answer.
       Hissl takes a deep breath before he speaks, ignoring the frown his sigh evokes from Terek. "There are many signs. It would appear that the tents flew down to the Roof of the World-"
       "Flew? Iron cannot fly."
       "They flew," confirmed Jissek.
       "The people who were in the tents look mostly like us, but they are not. I have never seen silver hair on young people or hair that is red like a fire. And they sweat, as if the Roof of the World is warm, as though it might be hot like in the Stone Hills or the high plains of