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Goblin told her to attack, to get what use she could out of the troops she
held in thrall. She did attack. Straight toward Sleepy, ignoring the missiles
falling around her. Our people had no choice but to run from her while trying
to weaken her from extreme rage. Anybody who got too close underwent a sudden
change of heart and took up arms on behalf of the Deceiver messiah, without
understanding what was happening.
Because she was indifferent to how many of her helpers perished, Booboo was
able to chase around everywhere, breaking up everything before it got
organized, gaining a recruit for each two or three men she lost, making it
emotionally ever more difficult for our archers to hurl missiles at soldiers
who had been comrades not that long before. The girl even came near
recapturing Soulcatcher.
Then Tobo screwed up.
He assumed that his strength, combined with that of the Howler, would be
enough to overpower an untrained girl if they came at her suddenly, from an
unexpected direction. And maybe he was right. But he forget that her companion
was not the Goblin he had grown up around. This Goblin was infected with
wicked godhood.
That urine-colored light caught the flying carpet a glancing blow just before
the Howler and Tobo cut loose with the best they had. A chunk of carpet turned
into fluttering black scraps. Howler and Tobo and the rest of the carpet
hurtled ahead, safe from spells but not from a brutal beating by the branches
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of the trees into which they plunged. The Howler got off a couple of heartfelt
shrieks.
The urine-colored bar of light did the magical equivalent of jostling the
mystical elbows of the young sorcerer and the ancient one alike. Their spells
did a lot of damage to Booboo's defenders. They even managed to stun their
intended targets. But because the spellcasters were bouncing around in the
branches in the woods, instead of reporting in, the rest of us never got a
chance to take advantage.
Chapter 72
Midway Between: The Rescuers
We had a standoff of sorts. We could not get at Goblin and the Daughter of
Night when they were most vulnerable. Their thugs did not know that we had
lost our most potent weapons, at least for a time. My ravens, who had returned
conveniently only when it was time for them to become Tobo's mouthpieces,
informed me that Howler and Tobo had survived but were hurt. They were hidden
in the woods a few dozen yards from where the Daughter of Night and Goblin,
barely recovered enough to keep breathing, were hunkered down.
I tried to let Sleepy know quietly but Sahra was too alert. In moments she
worked herself into a state that even Murgen could not soften. "You've got to
do something!" she shrieked.
"The Daughter of Night will hear you," Murgen growled.
"You've got to get him out of there!"
"Be quiet!"
I agreed. Somebody had to do something. That somebody might be me. But the
only useful help I had was my two raven assistants. They alternately reported
Tobo unconscious or quietly delirious. They could not get reliable orders from
him. They refused to let me use them to transmit orders to the other Unknown
Shadows. Those were gathering in numbers such that it was impossible not to
catch glimpses of them when you turned or moved suddenly.
"We can't get close to him," Murgen told Sahra. He shook her. She was not
listening. If she listened she would have to hear uncomfortable truths.
Shukrat stepped forward. She told us, "I can bring him out."
Sahra shut up. Even Sleepy stopped pulling the remains of our army back
together and offered her attention for a moment.
"I'll need my own clothing back," Shukrat told us. Her accent was slight. "The
enchantment won't touch me if I'm protected by my own clothing." Her use of
Taglian had become conversational.
Sahra's hysteria faded immediately. I will never understand that woman. I
would have bet on it getting worse.
The rest of us exchanged glances. We could not survive without Tobo. Not in
this world. Not with our enemies. We had to get him out of there before the
Daughter of Night discovered the opportunity that fortune had thrown down at
her feet.
Shukrat said, "You've got to trust me sometime. This might be a good time to
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take a chance."
Maybe she was not as dumb as she put on.
Tobo trusted her.
I looked over her head to where Sleepy had resumed expostulating angrily with
Iqbal Singh and an officer in badly dented Hsien style armor. She had heard.
She waved a hand and nodded to indicate that the decision was up to me. I knew
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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