Much Fall of Blood-ARC Read Online Free PDF Page B

too. And Benito jumped.
    As roof jumps went it was a small one—not more than four yards and to a lower branch. It was a branch in another tree, however. Moving fast now, Benito went down that tree, leaving the swearing Illyrians behind him. Someone fell, by the sounds of it.
    That had cleared at least eight of them out of his path. Benito abandoned stealth and ran, uphill, cursing tree-roots. He had about three hundred yards to cover.
    Fortunately, he saw and heard the pursuit—and climbed the next tree. He repeated the trick—not waiting for the fellow to get high before dropping into another tree. And down. And then a few yards on. Up again, unseen.
    He watched as one of the Illyrians passed below. It was tempting to drop on the fellow and teach him to also look up occasionally, but he was here to get up the slope, not to have fun. And Benito had to admit that he was having fun. He had missed this.
    Better not to let fun distract him too much. The trouble was that treed gullies inevitably got narrower and steeper at the top.
    He found a nice weighty dead branch, and, climbing up to where he could at least see the crescent moon, he flung it down slope. That done, he dropped out of the tree and began moving laterally, out of the forested gully. There was no cover out there.
    No cover for the solitary guarding Illyrian either. The fellow was staring at the forest, sitting on a rock cleaning his fingernails with his knife. Benito had less than seventy yards to the top. There were times for subtlety and times for speed—and a good solid dead branch he found lying on the ground.
    Benito tossed a loose rock downhill and to his left, and started running as soon as he heard it clattering. The momentary distraction gave him twenty yards before the Illyrian saw him and ran at him, yelling. There were other shouts from behind him. Benito didn't look back. He just used the branch like a lance, and the moment's shock of impact to sidestep. And then to keep running for the last twenty yards.
    Where a rude shock awaited him.
    He might even have been caught right there, if it had not shocked his pursuer just as much. There was no-one there.
    Benito simply turned and ran the other way. He swore quite a lot too. There was a perfectly good path down the slope to the hut that took him a few minutes, instead of the half hour he'd spend in blundering through the woods.
    The Lord of the Mountains was sitting on the bench outside the hut, with one of his own men, and the other Corfiotes. Benito had had the hill to help him get over his bad temper at being so neatly gulled.
    Iskander hadn't actually said he would be at the top of the hill. He'd just said that he'd go there. Well, if the Illyrian thought he could teach a Venetian how to make deals with weasel words . . .
    "Guiliano," he said conversationally, panting just a little, "Disarm that bodyguard."
    The bodyguard was undoubtedly one of the finest fighters in all Illyria. Guiliano Lozza was still easily his master, especially since the bodyguard plainly wasn't expecting such a command.
    While the distraction occurred, Benito stepped up to Iskander and touched his shoulder. "Reached you," he said. "But I think I will leave you alive, because you are more trouble to Byzantium and to King Emeric than I'd realized you would be."
    Iskander Beg smiled. "The blood feud you'd cause by killing your own kinsman and chieftain would hardly be worth it."
    He stood up, planted his hands on his hips, and watched the panting band straggling up to the hut. "Well? Do you still think the Venetians are soft? And that we should raid now while Kerkeira is war-weary and weak?"
    The remark provoked a fair storm of laughter. Knives were sheathed. Benito found himself surrounded by the group that had tried catch him, grinning and backslapping. Iskander joined them. "Come. Now we will talk. And drink slivovitz, kinsman."
    Sitting and drinking the clear plum liquor at dawn was not something that Benito wanted to