Free Ordermaster by L. E. Modesitt Page B

cubits away when the man started to turn. Kharl pulled the sight shield around himself and angled his steps more to the right so that he would pass behind the man and reach the wall on the south border of the orchard close to the hedgerow bounding the west end of the meadow.
    He was almost abreast of the sentry when he heard the mud-muffled hoofs of a horse behind him.
    “Sentries! Eyes sharp! Eyes sharp! Got a scout, maybe a spy. Might be coming this way. See him . . . raise the alarm.”
    Kharl kept moving.
    “You, at the point, see anyone?”
    “No, ser! Just rain.”
    The rider moved eastward away from Kharl. He found himself almost stumbling and forced himself to concentrate on maintaining the sight shield as he eased over the low stone wall and began to make his way down the west side of the meadow. The going was slower, because the winter-dead grass had gotten slicker with the rain, and the dirt in the bare patches had turned to slippery mud.
    Still, he made it down the side of the meadow and back through the gate, which he forced himself to secure once more. Once he was out of any possible sight of the sentries to the north, he released the sight shield. He followed the hedgerow eastward, then south.
    He made it halfway up the slope, within a few hundred cubits of where he had set the ambush, when he heard hoofs and riders on the road. He sensed a squad of riders. They reined up almost on the other side of the hedgerow from him.
    “There’s no one on the road. Not any tracks in the mud.”
    “What about the fields, behind the hedgerow there? Someone could walk or ride there and not be seen.”
    Kharl looked around. He certainly couldn’t move fast enough to outrun a horse, especially the rain, and he had real doubts about how long he could hold a sight shield.
    “Senstyn! Take your four and check out the fields to the west. Derk, you check the east fields there.”
    The hedgerow closest to where Kharl was offered no real concealment. He looked back north. That was too open. To the south, perhaps a hundred cubits ahead, the hedgerow widened, just slightly, and it looked like there was an opening of some sort. Maybe.
    He picked up his steps and hurried toward what he hoped would provide cover.
    On the road, the riders also began to move.
    Kharl began to run, if slowly, trying to pick his way over and through the muddy grass and uneven ground toward what looked to be his only chance of hiding without using the magery that he knew he could not hold for long.
    He was within cubits of the slight overhang in the hedgerow and a depression that looked to be hidden from view, especially from the south, and he looked toward the end of the hedgerow, hoping that the riders had not started to turn past the hedgerow.
    At that moment, with his eyes off the ground, Kharl’s boot caught on something, and he found himself flying forward, helplessly. The ground came up and hit him—hard.
    A flash of pain—and then blackness—washed over him.
    When he woke, for a moment, he wasn’t certain where he was. But the patter of rain on the hedgerow told him that he was partly under cover. His clothes and jacket were soaked, and he was shivering. Each shudder sent dull spasms through his chest.
    He was sprawled in a muddy depression overhung by the hedgerow, and he could taste the mud in his mouth and on his lips.
    He started to move, to wipe it away, and dull reddish fire surged over the left side of his chest, all the way into his shoulder and down almost to his waist. His eyes blurred. Then, slowly, very slowly, he rolled to his right side and gathered his knees under him.
    It took him some time to get to his feet.
    He glanced around. Up the short slope was a root, thick as a heavy rope, and below it was the heavy gray rock he’d come down on. From what he could tell, someone had tried to dig out the rock, and failed, leaving a hole between the rock and the hedgerow. Over time the hole had softened into a depression and the grass