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.Words, half familiar, swirled around him, but they did not make any sense.Finally, he opened his eyes.He had to squint because he saw two images of everything.He lay on the stones in the open area of what had once been the Third Company barracks.Several other militia troopers lay there.He started to turn his head, and even more pain radiated from his shoulder.He swallowed, breathing heavily.Finally, he struggled into a sitting position.Only then did he realize that something had been fastened around his neck.He lifted his left hand to touch whatever it was.His fingers stopped short.He was wearing a Matrite collar.Below the collar, he could feel crusted blood.Gingerly, his fingers brushed the back of his head.He winced as an even more intense pain flashed through his skull.The huge lumps and matted blood made him wonder how he'd even survived.How long had he been unconscious? What had happened?His sleeves had been rolled back, which seemed odd, but there were no cuts or scrapes there.And his parka had been opened, but not removed.He glanced slowly to his left, but did not recognize the man lying there with a gash across his forehead, and his arm bound in a sling—except he knew he'd seen the veteran at some point.On his right was Haldor—a trooper he'd seen a few times.Haldor had turned and propped his back against the wall.His leg was splinted with what looked to be broken rifle barrels.He smiled ruefully."Wondered if you were ever going to wake up.Quite a lump on your head."'I got hit from behind with something." Alucius gingerly felt the front of his skull.He had another lump, right above his forehead, in addition to those in the back."What about you?"'Right after their machine exploded… thought we'd do all right.Someone shot my mount from under me.Almost got clear.Then one of the Matrites rode over me, busted up my leg."'Then what?"'Rounded us up, asked our names, wrote them down, and left us here.Asked three of us your name.I guess to make sure we told the truth." Haldor stopped, then whispered, "Look out.Here they come."The machine had exploded? How? And why were they asking names? Alucius turned his head.A tall blonde woman walked swiftly toward the small group of militia wounded.She was followed by a trooper, and without his riding jacket the dull silver torque around his neck was partly visible above his collar.The woman wore the forest green tunic of the Matrites, but with accented crimson piping on the sleeves, and a silver four-pointed star insignia on her collar.Even with his aching head, Alucius tried to sense what the woman was doing, although he needed no Talent to feel the arrogance she radiated as she stopped a yard away from him.He shivered as he realized that he could sense nothing with his Talent.Nothing at all.Was his Talent gone? Or was it the collar around his neck, blocking his abilities?The woman stepped up to Alucius."Ask him how he is." Although she spoke in a tongue Alucius had never heard, he thought he understood her words.He looked blankly at her, wondering if she were the source—or one source—of the purplish sense that he had felt as evil, and could no longer feel.The loss of his Talent left him feeling more empty, made the splitting pain in his head seem as nothing, even though it was severe enough that almost any movement of his head made his eyes water and everything dance before him.'How are you feeling?" The trooper spoke in the dialect of Lanach-rona, similar to that of the Iron Valleys, thick, but understandable.'My head is splitting, and my entire back is sore," Alucius admitted.'His head hurts; his back is sore," the trooper said in the other tongue, which Alucius assumed was Madrien.'Tell him he's lucky to be alive.Tell him about the collars."'You're fortunate.You're alive.You have a collar around your neck.If you try to escape, it will kill you.If you try to remove it, it will kill you.If you disobey orders, you will be punished.If you fail in your duties you will be punished.Do you understand?"What was there to understand? Alucius nodded.'He shows no respect," the officer says."Tell him he will be punished, and that is why."The Matrite trooper looked to Alucius."You must show respect.You must bow, and you must not look her in the eyes."'I understand." Alucius looked squarely at the woman.The officer fingered something at her belt, and Alucius could feel the torque around his neck tightening.He continued to look at the woman blankly until the blackness overwhelmed him and he pitched forward into it.When he woke a second time, he was lying on something hard.A continued squealing and squeaking seemed to pierce his ears.For a time, he lay on the hard surface before opening his eyes.Above was a gray sky.A single thin blanket had been draped over him.He still had on his undervest and tunic, but his winter parka had been stripped from him.He looked around, then discovered it had been folded under his head—by someone.His belt knives and bootknife were gone, and, of course, his sabre.His nightsilk undergarments were still in place, but he guessed he'd only been searched for weapons.'You all right, fellow?"The words were in the hill dialect spoken by the Reillies and, supposedly, the Squawts, although the Squawts lived in the south hills east of Dekhron bounded mainly by the River Vedra, and Alucius had never seen or heard one.He'd heard only a handful of Reillies, women usually, at the market square in Iron Stem.Alucius sat up slowly, steadying himself with his left hand on the sideboard of the wagon.His head still ached, slightly less than when he'd awakened the first time.He remained somewhat dizzy, but he only saw double images every so often."I'm no worse." "I'm Jinson.Used to live west a' Soulend." "Alucius."'They got some sort of thing, it's linked to the collars.You don't do what they want, they punish you.Send pain, or just choke you."'How do you know what they want?"'You learn real quick." The whispered words were sardonic."You don't know, best you go right down on your knees and grovel.They like to see men grovel.They don't like you valley boys much.We don't either, but rather deal with your militia any day than this bunch.They got something bad against us—most of the time, they kill any one of us—especially men—just on sight.Only thought they killed me.Made me a captive after that."'Where are we?"'On the road back to Hieron.That's what one of the troopers said."Alucius glanced around.From what he could tell, they were in a short column, guarded by no more than two squads of troopers.He saw no officers nearby.'Don't try it," the Reillie said.'Try what?"'Escaping.See that silver box in the cage there?" The man pointed to an enclosure of steel bars, within which was a silver box roughly the size of a man's head, mounted on the front of the wagon between two posts.Alucius followed the gesture.'You go more than half a vingt from that, and you can't breathe.The officer in charge doesn't like you, and she'll tie you to a tree or a post and keep moving.When the box gets far enough away, you'll choke to death, slowly, as the wagons get farther away.Or maybe they'll leave you free, and not feed you when they're on the move… and you have to stay far enough away not to get shot and close enough not to stop breathing, and, sooner or later you die.Oh… and you even touch one of the officers—you stop breathing."Alucius couldn't help frowning, even as he shivered in the cold [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]