Jane Carver of Waar Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked toward the stone disk and froze, then the weird eye-touching motion again. “So strong. Could you be...? By the Seven, that is worse even than...” He trailed off.
    I stepped forward. “Come on, pal. Don’t leave me hanging. What do you mean? What’s worse? Worse than what?”
    He shook his head. “No man speaks of this.”
    He wasn’t putting me off that easily. He knew what the stone disk was. My heart thumped. Maybe he knew how to get me back home. “Bro, if you know something, some way to get me back to my own people...”
    Suddenly there was an edge in his voice. “I know nothing. Be silent.”
    “Listen, you little pipsqueak. I’m only asking a civil...”
    “Do you dare speak to me this way?”
    “I just saved your life, pal. I’ll talk to you anyway I damn well please.”
    That made him pause. He nodded. “Forgive me, mistress, you are correct. That was ungracious. I owe you a debt I cannot repay. But there is danger here. We must leave quickly.”
    “Not unless your house is right around the corner. You need to eat and rest first. You lost a lot of blood.”
    He scanned the horizon. “Impossible. We cannot wait. There is food in that chest. Help me fill a pack and I will eat as we walk.”
    We? That was twice now he’d said we. “Uh... I’m coming with you?”
    “You may go where you wish, but in exchange for your assistance, I will gladly offer you what meager hospitality I can, though as things stand, this may be the extent of it.”
    I dragged the chest he’d pointed to from the pile. He looked sadly around at the wreckage and the slaughter. “’Tis unthinkable to leave good men unburied, but if we stay we will soon join them. Kedac-Zir will pay for this.”
    I took a pack from a bird saddle and started filling it with stuff from the chest; strange fruits—or vegetables maybe, I couldn’t tell—little round yellow ones, long twisty white ones, like curly-cue string beans, sweet- smelling bread, cold cuts, little meat pies with crust the color of boiled lobster, a clay jar sealed with wax that sloshed when I moved it. “So what was all this about, anyway?” I asked. “Why did those guys attack you and take that girl?”
    “She is no mere girl. She is the Aldhanshai Wen-Jhai, daughter of our Aldhanan, Kor-Har, the ruler of Ora, the greatest nation on Waar. She is...was, my betrothed. The love of my life. He who stole her is Kedac-Zir, Dhanan of Kalnah, and Kir-Dhanan of all Ora. I am Sai-Far, son of Shen-Far, Dhanan of Sensa.”
    Well, that all went in one ear and out the other. The only thing that stuck was that his name was Sai something. I stuck out a hand. “Jane Carver, of...” I remembered just in time. “Of I don’t know.”
    Sai bowed where he was sitting and crossed his wrists like they were chained. “Your servant.”
    “But why did he attack you?”
    He sighed. “Uncivilized barbarians that we are in Ora, we continue an old custom that should have died out in the dark ages; “The Sanfallah”, or to give it a truer name, the bride-napping. Though my family and Wen-Jhai’s had both approved the marriage, custom dictates that I must come to her father’s castle like a brigand, duel with her father—the Aldhanan no less—and drag her off to my lands, defending my right to have her against all comers.”
    I passed him some of the meat pies and veggies. “Eat. You gotta get your strength back.”
    He took the chow, but offered some back to me. “And you? Do you not hunger?”
    I hadn’t realized it ’til then, but I did hunger. I hungered like dammit. Traveling light-years in a second, or whatever I’d done, sure built up a powerful appetite.
    I was worried that the grub might kill me, being from another planet and all, but I was going to die slow and painful anyway if I didn’t eat. I’ll take quick and painful any day. I nibbled one of the meat pies. The meat tasted like pumpkin. I mean it tasted like meat, but like pumpkin meat. Like cows that had been