Korval's Game Read Online Free PDF

what?—personal debt, personal respect?—to the clan of an ally or friend of his clan? And ter’Meulen’s bow acknowledging . . . acceptance of respect and recognition of the—honor, was it, of being so acknowledged?
    She walked with them across the airfield, discussing the war, her limp growing more evident with each step. She stopped them in front of an open hanger housing a vintage ground attack aircraft.
    “Pilot of Korval, I expect you are well-placed to assist us. This is the official airfield defense craft. It and its kin were gifts of Korval, and before the war we had perhaps a double dozen of them. There were five here, but all save this one went off in The Long Raid. I understand that the contingent on the islands were destroyed by our side, and Erob’s allies in the highlands used theirs until they were relieved by the mercenaries. The Long Raid was their idea, I gather—stuff enough fuel and strip enough weight to get them ’cross the ocean . . .”
    Val Con listened, quiet, while Miri nodded at the good sense of the tactic. Sounded like the kind of thing Kindle would pull together.
    “Many planes were shot down—where Clan Kenso got weapons like that I’d give the rest of my leg to know!—and so I have this . . .” She bowed toward the plane—fond respect, Miri thought.
    “Parts are hard to come by, and while this one flies, and will continue in its duty, it would be good to have spare parts. If there might be a way—the patterns and the equipment that built them are on Liad, in your own shops.”
    Val Con bowed. “As time permits I shall speak to the first speaker.”
    Riaska ter’Meulen bowed. “I am grateful.”
    “Cars are yet in short supply,” she said then. “May I call the House and have them send, or may I offer you service of my flitter?” A wave of a hand indicated a tiny craft—barely more than a cabin over a lift-fan.
    Miri stirred, in no hurry to raise the house and seeing no need to deprive a wounded woman of transport.
    “It’s a fine day,” she said to Riaska ter’Meulen, in the mode of equals, “and we’ve been long aboard. A walk will be welcome.”
    The woman bowed again, willing equality. “As you say. Allow me to point you on your way.”
    ***
    They stopped just short of the three low stairs leading to a sort of black stone dais and a front door that was all pieces of high-glaze tile forming a field of indigo, across which a crimson bird stooped toward a gold-limned mountain, far below. Miri felt the hairs lift at the back of her neck and her free hand touched her pouch, where a miniature of that very design rode, perfect in every detail.
    She shook her head sharply and frowned, slanting a glance at her partner’s face; saw him gazing with sharp interest to the left.
    “You gonna ring the bell or not?” she demanded.
    “In a moment.” He set off across that soft, resilient lawn purposefully; fingers still firm and warm around hers.
    And stopped in front of a tree.
    It was a largish tree, Miri thought, with a pleasingly tree-like trunk and nice, broad, four-fingered leaves a shade greener and a shade less blue than the grass. Nuts or seedpods hung in clusters here and there and the whole thing smelled good, in a kind of olfactory tree-ness.
    Val Con loosed her hand, took another step toward the tree and bowed. Deeply. With the stylized hand-sign that offered instant, willing, and unquestioning service.
    “I bring thee greeting, child of Jela’s hope,” he said in the High Tongue, but in a dialect beyond any of those Miri had studied in her crash-course sleep-learning. She thought it might be related to the mode used by the most junior servant to the ultimate authority—and then thought that was crazy.
    “When last this one visited the homeworld,” Val Con was telling the tree, “thy elder kin yet flourished, grew, and nurtured. The charge is kept and the guard continues. When next this one is upon the homeworld, thy name shall be whispered to the