Tigana 精彩片段：
chapter 14
“RIDE!” ALESSAN CRIED, POINTING TOWARDS A GAP IN THE hills. "Theres a village beyond!”
Devin swore, lowered his head over his horses neck, and dug his heels into the animals flanks, following Erlein di Senzio west towards the gap and the low red disk of the sun.
Behind him, thundering out of the brown twilight hills, were at least eight, possibly a dozen brigands of the highlands. Devin hadnt looked back, after their first startled glimpse of the outlaws and the shouted command to halt.
He didnt think they had a chance, however close this village might be. They had been riding at a bone-jarring pace for hours and the horses Alienor had given them were tired. If this was to be a flat-out race against fresh-mounted outlaws they were probably dead. He gritted his teeth and rode, ignoring the ache in his leg and the sting of reopened cuts from his leap in the mountains earlier that day.
The wind whistled past him as they rode. He saw Alessan turn in his saddle, an arrow notched to his fully drawn bow. The Prince fired backwards once and then again into the twilight, his muscles ridged and corded with the effort. An improbable, desperate attempt at such speed in the wind.
Two men screamed. Devin quickly looked back and saw one of them fall. A handful of erratic arrows dropped well short of the three of them.
"Theyve slowed!" Erlein rasped, glancing back as well. "How far to this village!”
"Through the gap and twenty minutes beyond! Ride!" Alessan did not shoot again, bending low to urge more speed from his own grey. They fled into the wind along the track of the sun, between the shadowy bulk of two heathery hills and into the gap between.
They didnt get out.
Just where the path bent to follow the curve of the encroaching ridges eight riders were waiting in a line across the gap, bows calmly leveled at the three of them.
They pulled their horses to rearing halts. Devin flung a glance back over his shoulder and saw the pursuing outlaws entering the pass behind them. There was one riderless horse, and another man clutched at his shoulder where an arrow was still embedded.
He looked at Alessan, saw the desperate, defiant look in the Princes eye.
"Dont be a fool!" Erlein snapped. "You cant run through and you cant kill this many men.”
"I can try," Alessan said, his eyes darting across the defile and up the steep hills on either side, wild to find a way out. He had stopped his horse though, and did not raise the bow.