Ice and Shadow Read Online Free Page B

chances. She had already been far too reckless. Roane squeezed between the head of the bed and the cold of the wall, her hands covering her nose against the putrid scent of the bed stuffs.
    She could not see now—the wood before her had no cracks. But she could hear. The newcomers did not speak Basic, of course. But her briefing had given her a working knowledge of the Reveny tongue. And now she began to pick up words. They were coming up the stairs, how many she could not tell, though she tried hard to distinguish voices and number of footsteps. Now and again there was a metallic clang as if something had struck the wall, followed by exclamations she could not translate but thought were curses.
    They moved out into the chamber and she could hear their speech plainly now.
    “—ride on in this? Are you empty between the ears?”
    “—not like it—” The second voice was hardly above a mumble.
    “Back of my hand to him then! I tell you, this is as safe a place to keep her as the underway at Keveldso. Dump her in the bed there, snap this leash on her, and we can wait out the rain below. Think you she can turn herself into a snake maybe to get out one of those windows? And with us sitting nice and easy down here she is not going to come tripping down the stairs and do a flit. Nor is she going to slip this here leash neither. That is made of good sword steel and the collar’s made to hold one of His Grace’s direhounds. Try it, go ahead, try it, man.” There came the sound of metal clinking. “We snap this right around her throat, so. Now she cannot get away withouten this key, and that goes right here on my belt latching. I weren’t a hound help for nothing, not that I weren’t glad to get away from those kennels neither!”
    “He will not like—”
    “Would he like it more if we was squashed into a jelly by some tree coming down on us? You saw what happened to Larkin. Made you sick, didn’t it just? Maybe he has plans for this little bird, but those don’t include having her smashed up—not just yet. He said to see she kept on breathing, and he said that firm, as you heard him.”
    “Yes—” But it seemed to Roane that agreement was made with reluctance. Once more she heard the clink of metal, then a laugh, and the first speaker continued:
    “Nobody is going to break that. She’s as well tethered as if she was half walled in this place. Come away and let her lie. Better do nothing to rouse her up; she is enough trouble limp. She was a fighting cor-cat before Larkin gave her that little love tap.”
    Tramp of feet, the sound of them on the stairway. Roane dared to breathe more deeply. The fetid odor of the bedding was worse, as the settling of the captive within its box had stirred up the nasty remains. How long would she have to hide? And could she stay where she was at all? That stench made her sick. She wished she had not eaten the E-ration in spite of her hunger.
    There was no sound in the room, though any slight one would be covered by the rising wind. The dying of the storm seemed to have been only a lull. It was getting worse again. From the words of the men she was sure that whoever they left here was unconscious. And she must have more air or she would be sick. She could slip along the wall, gain the open beyond the bed by one of the windows. It did not matter that rain was blowing in again; she must have the clean wind on her face.
    But Roane moved with due caution, stopping every few inches to listen. And when she finally got from behind the headboard she froze to watch the head of the stair. There was a faint glow of light from below. They must have brought a lantern with them. But the room was dusky with thick shadows.
    She took another step, heard the rattle of metal, tensed again, turning her head to look at the bed. A dark figure arose from the muck which filled it. And the smell aroused by that stirring brought a coughing, quickly muffled, as if the cougher was trying very hard to subdue