Free Darwath 3 - The Armies Of Daylight by Barbara Hambly Page A

for jollies.”
    Again that fugitive smile appeared, going no farther than her eyes. Wind rattled in the branches of the court trees, a thin clattering, like the dangling bones of hanged men. Little spits of rain scampered over the wet ground and stung Rudy's burned cheek. Over the broken turrets of the city, he thought he heard a child crying again—or perhaps it was only the moaning challenge of a tomcat.
    “Rudy?” Kara asked softly. “What did you see in the nurseries?”
    “You didn't see them?”
    She shook her head, “I explored sideways rather than down. I never reached them.”
    “Count your blessings.” Rudy pulled his old coat a little tighter about him as a tongue of wind licked at his flesh. The curly wool of the collar felt stiff against his jaw.
    “Were they so horrible?”
    He was silent, staring out into the darkness of the frozen court. Kara blew on her knuckles and rubbed them, her dark eyes never leaving his face. Finally he said, “You grew up in the desert.”
    She nodded, “Yes.”
    “You know what a tarantula-wasp is?”
    “Of course,” Kara said, a little surprised at this non sequitur.
    “Then don't ask me about what I saw in the nurseries.”
    He waited for a moment while she thought that one through. She made a dreadful, stifled noise in her throat and relapsed into sickened silence.

Chapter Four
    “It scarcely matters when they return, my lord Chancellor,” Bishop Govannin said quietly, looking across the laced fingers of her white, bony hands. “In some ways it might be better if they never did.”
    Chancellor Alwir did not turn his head; but, from where she sat on the corner of the barracks hearth, Gil could see the white gleam of the glowstones dart across his brocaded shoulders as his muscles stiffened. On the other side of the hearth, the captain of the new-formed firesquad, Melantrys, stopped in the midst of her exposition of flame throwers to a group of her fellow Guards. At the room's long, central table, Minalde, who had been talking with the Keep's other Bishop, the lanky, ragged leader of the Penambran refugees, turned her head sharply. Conversation in the main room of the Guards' barracks was suddenly stilled.
    Govannin continued with silky malice. “You cannot pretend that the powers that rule the Empire of Alketch will agree to lend their might to an endeavor led and counseled by wizards.”
    Slowly and deliberately, Alwir regarded the prelate where she sat in the room's single, carved armchair, with her white hands linked before her and the hearth fires dancing in the purple depths of her episcopal ring. “Ingold Inglorion, my lady,” he declared quietly, “neither leads nor counsels in this fortress. I have appointed him chief of the Wizards' Corps, since that is where his talents lie. And I might point out to you that the Church has yet to produce either reconnaissance, protection, or weapons to aid us against the Dark.”
    Govannin's chin went up. “And of what merit is any wizard's work against the salvation of souls?”
    “You know more about the salvation of our souls than I, my lady,” Melantrys said in her low, sweet voice. “But these devices are going to be the salvation of our hides, and no mistake.” Her small, dainty hand caressed the looping rigs of wire and tubing that festooned the flame thrower's glass bubbles. She shook back her barley-gold hair. Under soot-black, impossibly long lashes, her eyes were as pitiless as a hawk's. Rudy had left two rifle-sized flame throwers with Melantrys, with instructions to organize the firesquad among those born with the lesser magical powers capable of wielding the weapons. The lovely captain had taken him at his word. “The troops of Alketch won't quibble with magic on those terms,” she added.
    “The ignorant won't,” the Bishop replied softly. “The godless won't. But ignorant and godless warriors march in all armies. Sometimes they even command them.”
    Alwir swung around, bristling, and met