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ran for the corridor door. But he was fast blindingly fast. I was fast myself and he caught me before I'd
gone five steps.
He grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me backward against him. I kicked back hard into his knee.
He flared yellow with pain and relaxed his hold on me for an instant. I broke free and ran again.
He was not so quick this time as he came limping after me, but I could not find the outside door. I could
have found it if I had not been so frantic. I didn't have much trouble with hidden doors any more
because, normally, I memorized their location in relation to other objects. This one I had been too
frightened to memorize.
Diut came up behind me, caught me by the neck, and threw me to the floor. "Will you make me kill you,
Alanna?"
I had no doubt at all that he would do it. I lay there looking up at him.
"Get up."
I rose slowly, faced him. He knocked me down again with a single openhanded blow. My head rang
with the strength of it. And again:
"Get up."
I stayed where I was, waiting for my head to clear. I wondered why he didn't just grab me and rape me
the way the wild human had. It would be simple enough. It would even be simple for me. I would not
dare to kill him. I knew that now. Not unless I was also ready to kill myself before his people caught
me. My moment of unthinking rage had passed. Now why didn't he just take what he wanted and get it
over with.
He kicked me. "You will get up."
Bruised and furious, I stood up, half expecting to be knocked down again. Instead, as though nothing
had interrupted his earlier attempt, he opened my robe again, slipped it off me, and stripped off my other
clothing.
He walked around me, inspecting me much as Gehnahteh and Choh had on my first day with them. I
stood glaring at him. At least I could glare at him now, without turning away. He was becoming for me
nothing more than an extremely ugly man. His size and strength were more impressive now than his
appearance.
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"Well, get on with it," I said. "You are an animal and you want to mate. Mate then."
His coloring whitened. "People kept coming to me telling me that you were a fighter."
"I am a thing. A thing that you have become curious about. Satisfy your curiosity."
He took me by the shoulder and led me back into the bedroom to the bed. I lay down among the furs
waiting for him, not looking at him.
Nothing happened.
After a while, I looked at him, saw that he had sat down on the edge of the bed and was watching me.
He spoke quietly.
"It is a custom among the Garkohn to capture Tehkohn fighters and force them to eat meklah."
I frowned, wondering what that had to do with anything.
"Sometimes my fighters starve themselves, refusing to trust any food offered them. Sometimes the
Garkohn let them starve themselves to death. Other times though, it's more amusing to the Garkohn to
wait until my fighters are weak, and then force meklah down their throats."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because your behavior with me is much like the behavior of my captured fighters. When they are
forced to give in, they continue to speak arrogantly, challengingly. When they can no longer fight with
their bodies, they continue to fight with words."
"What else can they do?"
"Nonfighters submit at once. Abjectly."
I sat up looking at him. "Garkohn humiliate Tehkohn because the two are enemies. Why do you
humiliate me?"
"There need be no humiliation in this for you, Alanna. I am the leader of my people." He paused for a
moment, then flashed white blindingly. "And you have distinguished yourself. You are the only woman
ever to try to refuse me."
And he flashed white on that. It amused him.
"What do you want of me?" I asked. "Only the night?"
"Many nights. And many days. I'll continue your teaching help you live as a fighter among us. As I
have said, you will be Tehkohn when you leave me. Tehkohn, and your own person, not dependent on
others to guide or guard you."
I frowned, re-evaluating him in spite of myself. "I will be free? It will be as though I had some blue in
my coloring?"
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. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]