The Stricken Field Read Free Page B

to keep his back turned.
    "I've got fleas, as well," he remarked wryly. "Want to trade?"
    Inos pulled her blouse closed, then enveloped her daughter in a tight hug. It made no difference. Kadie was working herself into hysterics. Not unexpected. Overdue, really. "Hush!" Inos said. "This isn't going to help, dear."
    "Lice! Oh, Mother! Lice! Ugggh!"
    "Hush! There are guards outside, remember. Lots of people have lice. There are lice in Krasnegar. And fleas." "Bet mine are bigger than yours," Gath said.
    "You keep out of this! Kadie, stop it! You've been very brave, dear, and I'm proud of you. And of Gath. But you've got to keep on being brave."
    Kadie gulped stridently for breath, then resumed howling.
    Inos released the hug, took hold of her daughter's shoulders, and shook her, hard. "Stop it!" she shouted. Shocked, Kadie fell into wide-eyed, shivering silence. "That's better." Hug again, tightly. "Now listen! We're in great danger. You know that, and I won't lie to you. All we can do is try to be as brave as we can. Think of your father and try to do what he would be proud of. Think of Eva and Holi, back home in Krasnegar. One day we'll go home and tell them of all our adventures. But that isn't likely to happen if you start behaving like a crybaby." It wasn't very likely if she didn't, either, but one must not say such things. Innocent bystanders caught up in one of the worst wars in Pandemia's bloody history had very poor prospects for survival.
    Kadie sniffled, dribbling tears on Inos' shoulder. She was still shaking violently, and the cheek she pressed to her mother's felt colder than the wash water.
    "That's better," Inos said. What else could she say? "I'm afraid real adventures are not as nice as adventures in story-books. You're not the Elven Queen of Giapen, dear! In real life people die or get hurt. They go hungry and they get lice. Now, look on the bright side."
    "Is there a bright side?" Gath inquired from the background. It could have been Rap speaking. He sounded absurdly like his father when he managed to display his manly new tenor.
    Inos must remember to tell him so.
    "Yes, there is. First, Death Bird is our friend. He owes your father a lot, and he knows it."
    "I killed his nephew," Kadie whimpered.
    "Served him right! Don't worry about that. I don't think the goblins will hold that against you, dear." They were more likely to take it as a challenge. Who would demand the next try at taming the killer virgin from Krasnegar? Don't even think about that . . . "And second, we have magic. All three of us have magic. That's very lucky."
    "Three of us?" Kadie wiped her eyes and her nose with the back of her hand. "My sword? Gath's prescience? You?"
    "I told you," Inos said gently. She thought the fit was over. "Long ago, when your father helped me drive out the jotnar, he put an occult glamour on me. When I give royal orders, people have to obey me."
    "Then why don't you just order them to send us home?" Kadie sniveled.
    For one thing, goblins became so infuriated at being ordered around by a woman that they might easily react by killing her. Don't say so.
    "I could, but how can they? I crossed the taiga in winter once with a band of impish soldiers. That was bad enough-I don't want to try it with goblins. We'll have to wait until summer and then go home by sea. Meanwhile, we have other problems, don't we? Gath, what can you foresee now?"
    "They come for us soon," Gath said. He was dressed again, his bony face pale in the gloom, and he was hovering nearby-longing to be included in the hugging and unwilling to admit such unmanly sentiments even to himself. He was a kid trying to be a man under conditions few men could have handled.
    In a sense, both Gath and Kadie were protected by their innocence. If they had any concept of how the world should be, they would not be withstanding this nightmare transformation of it nearly so well. All that two fourteenyear-olds really could understand was that this was not