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Save This Page"Earlier today, in the Braccio PassOnly a light...
"Earlier today, in the Braccio PassOnly a light spell, a screen for someoneEvidently it was enoughThere must have been a Tracker in one of the southern forts
"There almost always is," Sertino said flatly
"What," Ducas said, "were you doing in the Braccio Pass?"
"Gathering flowers," Alessan said"I'll tell you laterRight now we have Barbadians to deal withHow many will be with the Tracker?"
"Not less than twentyWe have a camp in the hills south of hereShall we run for it?"
"They'll follow," Erlein saidThe spill of my magic will mark me for another day at least
"I don't much feel like hiding in any case," Alessan said softly
Devin turned quickly to look at himAwkwardly, Naddo rose to his feet
"How good, exactly, are your men here?" Alessan said, a challenge in his tone and in the chanel bags pink grey eyes
And in the shadows of what was now almost full-dark Devin saw the Tregean outlaw leader's teeth suddenly flash"They are good enough, and to spare, to deal with a score of BarbadiansThis will be more than we've ever tackled, but we've never fought beside a Prince beforeI think," he added, in a meditative voice, "that I too am grown tired of hiding, suddenly
Devin looked over at the wizardsIt was hard to make out their features in the dark, but Erlein said, in a hard-edged voice: "Alessan, the Tracker will have to be killed immediately, or he'll send an image of this place back to Alberico
"He will be," said Alessan quietlyAnd in his voice, too, there was a new noteThe presence of something Devin had never heardA second later he realized that it was death
Alessan's cloak chanel bags to buy flapped in a gust of windVery deliberately he drew his hood over his face
The hard thing for Devin was that Alberico's Tracker turned out to be twelve years old
They sent Erlein riding west out of the pass, as the lureHe was the one being followedHe had Sertino di Certando, the other wizard, and two other men with them, one of whom was the wounded Naddo, who insisted on being of use even though he could not fightThey had taken the arrow from his arm and bandaged it as best they couldIt was clear that he was in difficulty, but even more clear that in the presence of Alessan he was not about to give way to that
A short while later, under the stars and the low eastward crescent of Vidomni, the Barbadians entered the passThere were twenty-five of them, and the TrackerSix carried torches, chanel jewelry which made things easier
Alessan's arrow and Ducas's met in the Tracker's breast, fired from slopes on opposite sides of the defileEleven of the mercenaries fell under that first rain of arrows before Devin found himself galloping furiously down with Alessan and half a dozen other men out of their concealment in hollows in the passThey angled to close the western exit, even as Ducas and nine men sealed off the eastern end the Barbadians had entered from
And so on that Ember Night, in the company of outlaws in the highlands of Certando far from his lost home, Alessan bar Valentin, Prince of Tigana, fought the first true battle of his long war of returnAfter the drawn-out years of maneuvering, a subtle gathering of intelligence and the delicate guiding of events, he drew blade against dolce and gabbana handbag the forces of a Tyrant in that moonlit pass
No subterfuge, no hidden manipulation anymore from the wings of the stageThis was battle, for the time had come
Marius of Quileia had made a promise to him that day, against wisdom and experience and beyond hopeAnd with Marius's promise everything had changedHe could loosen the rigid bonds that had held his heart so tightly leashed all these yearsTonight in this pass he could kill: in memory of his father and his brothers and all the dead of the River Deisa and after, in that year when he himself had not been permitted to die
They had spirited him away and hidden him in Quileia south of the mountains, with Marius, then a captain of the High Priestess's guardA man with his own reasons for fostering and concealing a young Prince from the replica chanel earrings northl