Land of the Burning Sands Read Online Free PDF

just a little too harshly, “I’ll carry these bags wherever you require. Please… once I have, let me go. You don’t need to trust me. Do you think I’ll stay anywhere in Casmantium?” He traced the brand on his face with one thumb. “Believe me, honored sir, my whole ambition would be to avoid meeting anyone at all until I was well into Feierabiand.”
    Amnachudran held up one finger. “You murdered someone.” Another finger. “Or you raped a girl.” He opened his hand again, shrugging. “Those are the two crimes for which a man is put under the
geas
. There aren’t any others. I don’t see how I can let you go. I don’t think girls in Feierabiand ought to be raped, any more than the ones here.”
    Gereint said tightly, “I did not rape a girl.”
    “I’m glad to hear it. Whom did you murder?”
    “I told you—”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “Neither did anyone else,” Gereint said tightly. “Why should you?” He swung away and stamped out the fire. He also picked up all four saddlebags, leaving only the two packs for Amnachudran.
    “I can…” the other man began.
    “Four balance better than three,” Gereint snapped. He strode away, south and east.
    They did make better time with Gereint carrying all the bags. He was too proud to let the pace slacken; an odd vanity, for a man who ought to have had every vestige of pride beaten out of him years ago. But there it was. He let Amnachudran call the halts, which the other man did every few hours. But he was glad to have them. Ten years ago, even five, he would not have needed those breaks. He had hoped, briefly, that he might grow old a free man in Feierabiand. Now that seemed unlikely.
    A little before dusk, they came to the Teschanken. This far north, the river was narrow, quick, and cheerfully violent: It flung itself down from the great mountains and raced through the hills. Far below it would meet the Nerintsan and turn into the stately, broad river that watered the south.
    “We’ll follow the river south tomorrow,” Amnachudran declared. He walked out onto the pebbly shore and stared downstream. “If we’re where I think we are, we should cross it about noon, be home before supper—” He stopped suddenly.
    A griffin flew past not a spearcast away, fast and straight, flinging itself through the air northward along the path of the river. The late sunlight blazed off it, striking ruddy gold and bronze highlights from its pelt and feathers. The light seemed somehow a far more brilliant light than seemed to fall across the rest of the world. The griffin’s feathers seemed to slice the air like knives, its beak flashed like a blade, flickers of fire scattered from the wind of its wings. Gereint could not speak; Eben Amnachudran seemed struck as silent as he.
    There was no time to be afraid, and, it appeared, no reason. The griffin did not seem to see them at all, though they stood so close to the path of its flight. Its eyes, fiery copper, were intent on its own course. Before they could breathe twice, it had flashed by and was gone. Though the sunset still painted the sky in carmine and violet, all the colors of sky and earth seemed somehow muted for its passing. The whole world seemed caught for a moment in a subdued quiet. Not a single bird rustled in the woods around them, and even the river seemed to run more quietly along its swift course.
    At last, Amnachudran cleared his throat. “I believe that may have been one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. Beautiful, but terrifying. But what was it doing on the wrong side of the border between fire and earth?”
    “It was flying north,” Gereint said tentatively. “Maybe it was trying to get back to the desert before full dark. Doesn’t Beremnan Anweierchen write that griffins hate the dark and cling to the day, on the rare occasion that they venture into the country of earth?”
    “But he doesn’t explain why they ever do so venture,” Amnachudran pointed out.