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before sheathing it at the small of his back.
J.B. tested the edge against the palm of his hand, stooping and pressing the
steel against the stones of the courtyard, trying out the tension of the
blade.
Ryan also drew the dagger that he'd been given. It had a handle of narrow
strips of hide, bound around a steel hilt. The blade was single-edged, very
sharp, around eleven inches in length and two inches broad at the haft. It was
a workmanlike hunting knife.
He thought that it would probably do.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
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THE SUN RODE HIGH in the heavens, its brassy glare beating down pitilessly on
the forests and streams of the Shens.
Ryan was the first one out of the rattling cart, jumping down, stretching,
feeling the freedom in his shoulders and wrists. His eye was caught by a
flicker of movement high in the wrack of lemon-yellow clouds. He stared up at
it and saw it was a massive mutie hawk with a wingspan of about twenty feet
and a hooked beak that would take the arm off a man.
J.B., Jak and finally Krysty stepped onto the dusty lane. The mounted sec men
gazed blank-faced at them, their rifles slung across their shoulders on
webbing straps. The sergeant with the damaged mouth was in charge of the
patrol, and as they had clattered along from the ville, he told Ryan a little
of what to expect.
"Oxbow Loop's where the baron does his man-hunting. It's 'bout two miles
across.
Be men blocking off this end, so the only way's in. River's too fast and wide
to swim. Muties on far side, if'n you want to try it. Rain we've had'll make
it swollen and twice as fast as usual. Lotta trees in there. Streams. No
buildings. One trail to a gas store for the ville's main generators. Nothing
to help. Nobody to help. And nowhere to go. Nowhere. Best time was a breed,
coupla years back. Made it for better'n two hours. And killed a dog." There
was a note of grudging admiration in the sec officer's voice.
Ryan knew his brother would be along with the pack of hounds in about a half
hour. And more sec men. Dinner had taken longer than Baron Harvey had
anticipated, and the hunt would now begin as soon as the sonorous bell in the
tower of Front Royal tolled once for the hour after noon.
LORI QUINT LAID BACK on the narrow bed, knees tucked up to her chin, watching
a gray-brown spider as it wound its way across the ceiling. She was wondering
who that immensely fat man had been who'd appeared for a moment in the
doorway, licking his fleshy lips and muttering in a monotonous and obscene
whisper. She'd only managed to catch the words "Later, pretty bitch."
It was more than enough to make her restless and fearful. The sudden booming
of the bell in the tower above made her jump and cry out in shock.
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OUT IN THE DEPTHS of the woods, only four miles from where Ryan and his
friends waited, Nathan Freeman also heard the noise of the ville's bell
chiming out the first hour after noon. He wondered where Ryan was and what had
happened to the old man and the beautiful girl with hair like summer wheat. A
little earlier he'd detected the sound of horses moving on the old Oxbow Road.
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The tall young man adjusted the Smith & Wesson Model 39 at his hip and began
to walk toward the sweeping bend of the river.
BARON HARVEY HAD BEEN assisted into the saddle of his huge stallion while
ville servants tucked the silver-and-maroon cloak about his crooked shoulders.
The pair of matched Colts were settled snugly on both sides of his belt. His
thinning hair was protected from the baking sun by a feathered cap of crimson
velvet.
He sat atop his mount, beaming happily and vacuously around his demesne. The
pack of crossbred Rottweilers and Dobermans was behind him, moving excitedly,
muzzles thrust into the warm air, sniffing. Now that the hunt was close, they
made little noise. Their handlers moved among them, occasionally striking out
with short-hafted whips to keep them under control.
The tranks the baron had gulped down after his meal, swilling them into his
gullet with brandy, kept him afloat in a cherry-red cheery cloud of gentle
warmth and happiness.
His son was dead and vanished. His bitch-wife would soon have jolted herself
into the grave. There was a pretty little doll with the longest legs waiting
in the guardhouse.
And his prodigal brother would soon be ragged flesh and gnawed bones.
"Life is so good," he said to himself. The bell chimed once, and he gave the
signal for the hunting party to move out.
"So good, good, good, good," he chanted.
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"TIME," SAID THE SEC OFFICER, looking toward the distant bell tower.
"Yeah," Ryan said, leading the others off among the trees.
Chapter Thirty
RYAN CAWDOR FELT fiercely exultant. There was going to be some chilling done,
and that was something he was good at. Maybe the thing he was best at. He had
three people he could trust with his life, running free in a country that he
knew well. And there was a stout blade sheathed in his belt.
He'd read in an old book once or it might have been in a crumbling vid: If
you're goin' down, take some of the bastards with yer.
Ryan was a realist, and he knew that long before sundown they would probably
all be mangled corpses, dragged behind horses, ready to be shown to the people
of the ville.
"So die all traitors." Something like that.
But right now they were sprinting along a narrow trail, beeches and sycamores
on either side, the sound of their feet softened by the carpet of dead leaves.
Ryan led the way, followed by Krysty, flaming hair tied back to avoid its
catching on branches. Jak came third, his white mane similarly clutched in a
length of twine.
J.B. jogged easily at the rear. Despite his slight build and age, the Armorer
kept himself honed to a critical edge of fitness.
They'd only had a few minutes for a council of war. There had been two simple
possibilities: split up or stay together. They had all agreed that their only,
razor-
slim hope was to keep together.
Ryan remembered the area called the Oxbow Loop. The river was known locally as
the Sorrow, on account of the number of times it flooded and took away
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