2 - Blades of Mars by Edward P. Bradbury Read Free Book Online Page B

this.'
                   ‘Is it Priosa work?' I asked quietly.
                   He nodded, checking her pulse. 'She is dying,'
he said. 'It is a wonder she has lived so long with that wound.'
                   As if in response to his voice, Ora Lis' eyes
fluttered open. They were glazed but brightened in recognition when they saw
Hool Haji.
                   A choking sob escaped the girl's throat and
she spoke with difficulty, almost in a whisper.
                   ‘Oh. my Bradhi!'
                   Hool Haji stroked her arm, trying to frame
words which would not come. Plainly he blamed himself for this tragedy.
                   'My Bradhi -I am sorry.'
                   'Sorry?' Words came now. 'It is not you, Ora
Lis, who should feel sorry - it is I!'
                   'No!' Her voice gained strength. 'You do not
realise what I have done. Is there time?'
                   'Time? Time for what?' Hool Haji was puzzled, though some sort of
realisation was beginning to dawn in my mind.
                   'Time to stop the Priosa.'
                   'From what?'
                   Ora Lis coughed weakly and blood flecked her
lips.
                   ‘I - I told them where you were . . .'
                   She tried to rise then. 'I told them where you
were ... Do you not understand? I told them of the meeting I was mad. It - it
was my grief. Oh ...'
                   Hool Haji looked at me again, his eyes full of
misery. He realised now. It had been Ora Lis who had betrayed us - her revenge
on Hool Haji for his rejection of her.
                   Then he looked down at her. What he said to
her then told me once and for all that he was a man in every sense - a man of
strength and of pity also. 'No,' he said, 'they have done nothing. We will warn
the - village - at once.' She died saying nothing more. There was a smile of
relief on her lips.
                   We buried the ill-starred girl in the loamy
soil of the hills. We did not mark her grave. Something in us seemed to tell us
not to - that in burying Ora Lis in an unmarked grave it was as if we sought to
bury the whole tragic episode.
                   It was impossible, of course.
                   Later that day we were joined by several more
fleeing Mendishar. We learned that the Priosa were hunting down all survivors, that they were hot on the heels of the warriors
who had escaped. We also learned that a few prisoners had been taken, though
the survivors could not name them, and that the village had been razed.
                   One of the town-leaders, "a warrior in
middle age called Khal Hira, said as we rode 'I would still like to discover
who betrayed us. I have racked my brains and can think of no explanation.'
                   I glanced at Hool Haji and he looked at me. It
was at that moment, perhaps - though it might have been earlier - that we
entered into an unspoken agreement to say nothing of Ora Lis. Let it remain a
mystery. The only true villains were the Proisa. The rest were victims of fate.
                   We did not answer Khal Hira at all. He did not
speak thereafter.
                   None of us was in any mood for conversation.
                   The hills gave way to plains and the plains to
desert country as we fled in defeat from the Priosa pursuers.
                   They did not catch us - but they drove some of
us, indirectly, to our deaths.
                  

CHAPTER FIVE
    The Tower in the Desert
     
                   Khal Hira's lips were swollen but firmly
clenched as stared out over the desert.
                   Desert it was - no longer a bare wasteland of
cracked earth and rock, but a place of black sand stirred into constantly
shifting life by a