The Assassins of Altis by Jack Campbell Read Free Book Online Page B

way to the horizon. A churned path marked where the woodcutter wagon and horses had come and gone, the wagon itself already well away from the woods but still visible though distant. The legionaries, still spread out in a long search line, were trudging in the wagon’s wake.
    Mari and Alain had to wait until the sun was well down in the sky and the last legionary had vanished behind one of the rises before they bolted from cover, moving as quickly as they could through the snow already disturbed by the horse-drawn wagon so their own tracks would be lost in the muddle.
    After going a good way down the path, they came to a trail running north and south at almost right angles to their movement and already showing signs of some traffic since the snowfall. Mari grinned for the first time that day, leading Alain southward down the trail and away from the searching legionaries. But once the sun set, traveling over the uneven, snow-covered track became more difficult. By midnight, her legs rubbery with weariness, Mari slipped and almost fell before Alain caught her. “Maybe we should stop and rest,” she murmured as if even the task of talking in a normal voice required too much effort.
    Alain urged her onward. “We are out in the open, too exposed to anyone searching for us. More legionaries may come along this way. Once daylight comes again, we must be concerned about Mages searching for us.”
    “You can tell when Mages are coming,” Mari grumbled.
    “If the Mage rides a Roc, such a warning would come too late to be of use.”
    “Do you always have to be right?” Mari complained, but settled her pack again and kept trudging alongside Alain.
    It was still a while before dawn when scattered farms began appearing on either side of what had widened to become a small road. Alain kept them going, worried that the closest farms to Marandur would be obvious places for anyone to search, and though Mari obviously wanted to stop she kept walking with the same stubborn refusal to quit that she so often revealed to Alain.
    The sky was beginning to shown traces of dawn’s light when Alain saw an abandoned barn off the road, its roof half fallen in and two walls sagging drunkenly. He turned Mari toward it and they staggered into the small shelter the structure still provided. Mari dropped to the floor, not even bothering to remove her pack. Alain hesitated, swaying on his feet, then managed to kneel and get Mari’s pack off as well as his own before lying down next to her and falling into exhausted sleep.
    By the time he awoke, most of the day was gone. Mari made numerous tiny noises of pain as she sat up, and even Alain, toughened as he was by his years of acolyte training, wanted to wince as stiff muscles protested any further use. Mari pulled out the last of the food from Marandur. “It’s appropriate we eat this inside a ruin, I guess.”
    A chill wind picked up as they left the barn late that afternoon, blowing snow over the landscape and making their journey much more miserable but also quickly concealing any signs of traffic on the road, including their own. Evening wasn’t far off when their small road intersected a larger one ambling through the plains. Mari studied the road, brushing back snow from its surface. “This road has been used a fair amount since the snowfall. Wagons, horses, mules, not many people on foot. That’s what we’d expect in farm country.”
    “I see no sign of Imperial searchers,” Alain said, “but if they were small cavalry detachments I do not think their signs would stand out on this road.”
    “That’s probably right,” Mari agreed. “We’re a long way away from…you- know-where. Let’s make sure from now on we act like normal citizens out for a walk. Nothing to hide, and nothing to fear from any Imperial authorities.” Mari patted the pocket in her backpack in which she kept their false Imperial identification papers.
    They spent a few hours following the road to the west as the