The Saga of the Renunciates Read Online Free PDF Page A

at her side. She muttered, in a tone that could not be heard six inches away, "Now, if ever, you must get a message through to your kinswoman. Tell her to be alert to move at a moment's notice; we may have only a few minutes to strike and we must take it when the occasion offers. It will not be until after nightfall; thereafter, she must be ready. Also, find out precisely where she sleeps, and if she is guarded and by how many; and where her daughter sleeps, alone or with other royal daughters."
    Rohana leaned against the Free Amazon's arm, feeling suddenly sick and faint with the enormous responsibility. Now it was suddenly all on her shoulders. Someone jostled them; Kindra glared, steadied Rohana on her feet and the jostler flung a jeering phrase at them that made the Comyn woman blush with indignation, more for Kindra's sake than her own. She knew the Free Amazons were often accused of being lovers of women; she supposed some of them were. Yet all Kindra's kindness to her had been entirely impersonal, almost motherly, and Rohana felt a surge of anger that Kindra should suffer such insult on her behalf. How absurd to be thinking of that now! As if I - or Kindra - could possibly care what some Dry-Town nothing thought of either of us!
    There was a blare of horns, a strange, hoarse fanfare. First came a dozen of his guards, in trappings so alien to Rohana as to make little impression on her except the general one of rude splendor: sashes and baldrics, elaborately gilded tunics, high headdresses. Then cralmacs, furred and tailed humanoids with great gold-colored eyes, wearing only their own fur and elaborate jeweled sashes, riding on the great shambling oudhraki of the far deserts: a legion of them, it seemed. More guards, less elaborately and ceremonially dressed this time, but armed with the long, straight swords and daggers of the Dry-Towners. Rohana thought, Just as well that Kindra's band did not try to strike him encamped by night. And then came Jalak himself.
    Rohana had to turn away before she had more than a sight of his thin, hawk-keen face, sun-bleached under thick pale hair, fierce bristling mustachios; there were times when it seemed to her that so immense a force of hatred must somehow communicate itself to his object, that he could not fail to be aware of her thoughts. Rohana, a telepath since girlhood, lived with that as reality; but Jalak seemed impervious, riding amid his guards with a set, impassive face, looking neither to left nor right.
    Near him rode-she supposed-a couple of his favorites, slaves or concubines; a slim girl with lint-white hair, chains jeweled, her body muffled in a scant fur smock, but her long legs bare to the fierce sun; she leaned toward Jalak and murmured and cooed to him as they passed. On Jalak's other side a thin, elegant boy, a pretty minion: too curled, too jeweled and perfumed to be anything else.
    Behind Jalak and his favorites rode an assembly of women, and among them, outstanding for her flame-red hair (now, streaked faintly with gray), rode Melora. Rohana felt faint. She had been prepared for this; Melora had come to her in thought. But seeing her like this, in the flesh, changed beyond recognition (And yet, Cassilda pity us, I would have known her anywhere, anywhere... ), Rohana felt that her pain and pity would overwhelm her and she would sink down, fainting.
    Kindra's hand closed painfully on Rohana's arm, the nails digging into the flesh; Rohana recalled herself. This was her part in the rescue, the thing only she could do. Deliberately, she reached out and made contact with her kinswoman's mind.
    - Melora!
    She felt the shock, the start and flutter. She was suddenly afraid less Melora should see her, make some sign of recognition.
    - Betray nothing; do not look for me or try to see me, darling, but I am near you, among the Free Amazons.
    - Rohana! Rohana, is it you?
    But Rohana, from her place in the crowd, saw-and felt a sudden, fierce pride in her kinswoman-that