The Protector's War Read Online Free PDF

rattled on him.
    â€œAlleyne!” he snapped. “Pull yourself together, man!”
    His son obeyed with an effort that made him shudder, but his eyes slid down towards Maude’s harsh features again, now relaxed and somehow younger.
    â€œPut her here,” Sir Nigel said gently, standing beside a couch.
    The body had the boneless flaccidity of the newly dead. Nigel closed her eyes and held them for a second, then stood and scrubbed his left hand across his face, forcing a deep breath into his lungs. Hordle and Badding were throwing the wrecked furniture into the doorway again; then the big NCO smashed a lamp on it. Flame splashed up from it as the glass oil reservoir shattered. It roared higher as several others joined it.
    â€œSir,” Badding said. “Out.”
    â€œYou first—”
    â€œSir, don’t play silly buggers with us now. Your lady’s dead and beyond help. You’re what we came here for!”
    The man’s dark-bearded pug features were twisted with concern; Badding, Nigel remembered, had a wife and three children and a farm near Tilford, and a young sister he’d brought through the Change. He nodded, picked up the shield and sword, went to the window and swung himself out. The impulse simply to let fall was strong. Instead he made himself put hands and feet to the ladder. Too many were depending on him.
    Â 
    â€œI am so sorry, Nigel,” Major Buttesthorn said. “So very sorry.”
    â€œFortunes of war, Oliver,” Sir Nigel said, in a voice that forbade condolences, even from an old friend.
    They were stopped in a deep hollow in the Aspley Woods, northwest of Woburn Manor, surrounded by feral rhododendron and waist-high bracken. Those hills were densely forested with oak and beech and ash, ancients two centuries old and towering a hundred feet above them in a canopy that allowed only a rare glimpse of starlight above, the moon having set. The small, almost flameless fire was enough to make tea—or rather the herbal substitute that went by that name these days. He could smell the slightly acrid scent of it over the scent of damp leafmold as he checked automatically for red-ant nests before sitting.
    One of the soldiers thrust a thick mug into his hands; he sipped automatically at the hot brew, heavy with beet sugar to hide the taste. In the distance a wolf howled over the nighted hills—some distant part of Loring’s mind told him it was one of the packs descended from the escapees released by the keepers of Woburn Safari Park and Whipsnade, the country extension of London Zoo near here. The rest of him felt at one with the cold, lonely sobbing that echoed through the night, fierce and solitary.
    Get a grip, Nigel, he scolded himself. And wolves are very social.
    â€œAnd thank you, Oliver,” he said aloud. Raising his voice slightly: “Thank you all. I know you’ve taken a very great risk.”
    There was a murmur, but not much talk; they were too close to possible pursuit, even if their back scouting had shown the remaining Varangians preoccupied with putting out fires and sending off messengers rather than actively following the raiding party. And beyond that, traditional English reserve seemed to be making a comeback in the Changed world—something he rather approved of, along with a good many other things.
    Everyone crouched and reached for weapons when a rustling went through the woods like heavy careless feet in the dried leaves, then relaxed when John Hordle chuckled.
    â€œBadger,” he said. “Does sound like a man bludging about, eh?”
    Buttesthorn sat near Nigel. “Do you want us to take care of the Varangians who’re left?” he said, his voice soft and careful, as if the other man were fragile or explosive or both. “We’ll be going back that way…might actually be safer with no witnesses, don’t you know…”
    Nigel shook his head. His son was standing guard out