Witches of Kregen Read Online Free PDF Page B

go down with us. We had seen what that would entail during the Times of Troubles. No sane person wanted those times to recur.
    This was not just a question of who would be master in the empire. Those flutsmen we had just seen off were a tiny representation of what the whole island had groaned under, would suffer from, if the evil days returned.
    “Also, majister, you will understand that I had to fabricate a caul for Ling-Li and myself, for had a frog knocked our brains out, well, I need not go on.”
    “In this you judged right.”
    The two mages, Seg, Turko and Nath stood in a semicircle with me, removed from other folk. That suited the other folk. Wizards of any kind, and Wizards of Loh in particular, were held to be unpredictable to any casual wandering person chancing by. The swods got on with clearing up, and very few even raised their eyes to glance curiously at us.
    Because of this isolation, I was able to say, “Now, Khe-Hi, we have been friends a long time. Why are you addressing me as majister all of a sudden?”
    Ling-Li said: “I feared you would be displeased we had taken so long, would judge and condemn us—”
    I almost said that she’d changed her tuneremarkably since she’d called me tikshim and told me to clear off to the benches beside the Jikaida board where they were playing Death Jikaida. I did not smile.
    “If you believe yourself to be guilty of some crime, perhaps you would care to name it?”
    Very quickly Khe-Hi shot out: “No, Dray, we are not guilty of any crime, and we know we are not. We did what we had to do as quickly as we could. It took time. Ling-Li believed that you—”
    “You, Khe-Hi, ought to have known better.”
    “I do. But I could not convince—”
    “Next time, Ling-Li,” I said in that old gravel-shifting voice, and I know my face must have held some of the old devil look, for the Witch of Loh flinched back. “Next time believe and trust in Khe-Hi’s word.”
    She said nothing in reply; but those tell-tale mottlings of color seeped up across her cheekbones.
    Seg with his laugh and apparently brash words cloaking subtle schemings, said, “I’ll tell you, Khe-Hi, when those dratted frogs were tumbling out and bashing us about it seemed two seasons long.”
    “Yet,” added Nath na Kochwold with his military instincts at work: “The time was remarkably short. That it appeared long was natural.”
    That summed up this little minor crisis within the greater.
    There was a great deal to do, most of it unpleasant, and so I will pass over the next few days with but one final word. Repugnance.
    The crazed army of Layco Jhansi did not attack, and Kapt Erndor, the army commander who thankfully had survived, was positive this was because his advance patrol of flutsmen had not reported back. Every last one had been brought down by our flyers.
    “All the same,” said Kapt Erndor as we sat around the campfire on the last evening. “All the same, he will attack, now. I feel confident he will have had news of our disaster.”
    I said: “I do not usually call councils of war. In this case I would be interested to know what you think should be our next course of action.”
    Erndor, one of my old Freedom Fighters of Valka, hard and gritty, lifted his goblet. He stared at me over the rim.
    “Normally, strom, I’d counsel a swift attack on our part. Stick him before he sticks us.”
    “But.”
    Kapt Erndor heaved up a sigh, swallowed a mouthful, wiped his mouth.
    “The army has taken a few hard knocks lately. We had the werewolves. Now the frogs. They’ve suffered casualties in a way that is foreign to a fighting man. I hate this, I hate myself for saying it; but I think a great deal of the heart has gone out of the army.”
    Nath na Kochwold burst out: “It is a terrible thing to have to say; but it is true. I have watched the lads. They are bewildered, fearful, not knowing when a fresh disaster out of their experience will fall on them.”
    “Dratted sorcery,” rumbled