Beneath the Forsaken City by C. E. Laureano Read Free Book Online Page B

from the land. Men fought far more fiercely to defend their homes than for plunder.
    At last they came to a larger longhouse down another wood-planked road. The guards pushed him through the door. The man holding his leash dragged a bench into the center of the room next to a stone hearth, and the other man shoved him down onto it. He bound Conor’s arms behind his back, looping the rope around the chair legs, and then did the same with his ankles.
    “Don’t move,” one of the men said. “Haldor has given us permission to kill you if you try to escape.”
    Conor studied the man. He was lying. The leader wanted him alive.
    That certainly worked in his favor. He just needed to discover what the commander wanted from him. He looked around the rectangular cottage, hoping for some sort of insight into the warrior they called Haldor, but the room gave him very little. A raised wooden platform ran around the outside edges of the structure, several wooden benches and chests spaced along it. A thick straw mattress covered in woolens and furs indicated a bed, and a meager collection of cookware sat by the square wooden hearth. Haldor had no woman or children with him here. That was telling. Either he didn’t plan on staying permanently or their settlement was too tenuous to bring his family from Norin.
    The door opened once more, and Conor turned his head toward it. A man stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly touching the sides of the frame, his head brushing the lintel above. Blond hair, naturally pale rather than bleached yellow like that of the other warriors, barely reached his shoulders, brushing a blue wool cloak fastened with an intricately wrought silver pin. The pommel of a sword peeked from beneath the cloak.
    The man jerked his head to the warriors in dismissal and watched Conor until the door shut behind them.
    “You heal fast,” he said in Norin. “A few days ago, you would not have been able to make the journey here.”
    Conor said nothing. Unlike the other Sofarende he had come across, this man was completely unafraid of him. The commander retrieved a bench from the platform and set it near Conor. His massive frame made it look as if it were sized for a child. He leaned forward, his forearms braced on his knees.
    “My name is Haldor the Brave. To distinguish me from my father, Haldor the Fierce.”
    Still Conor said nothing. He met the man’s gaze, determined to show neither fear nor curiosity.
    “I could attempt to coax information from you, but you have already shown you can endure pain. So I find myself in a quandary. You are plainly a warrior. Warriors are of no use to me. I give you a tool, you try to kill your guards. Yet you intrigue me.”
    Conor noted the carefully chosen wording, the soft intonation. Haldor was no barbarian. He was an educated man, a thinking man. He would not fall prey to fear and superstition like his warriors.
    “Have you nothing to say?”
    Conor stared at him blankly.
    “Very well. Just listen then. I understand you were asking about a woman.”
    Conor couldn’t keep the flicker of alarm from his expression. He couldn’t recall having mentioned Aine, but who knew what he had uttered while in the throes of fever?
    “Ah, I see I have gotten your attention. In answer to the question you will not ask me, I do not have her. But I could find out if another settlement does.”
    Conor moistened his cracked lips, contemplating his answer. “In return for what?”
    “I want to learn of your people. Your language, your religion, your magic.”
    “I know nothing of magic.”
    “I do not believe you. But let us assume I do. My Gwynn slave tells me the Fíréin are something of legend. I take a particular interest in legend.”
    He only wants to know what kind of threat he might face should he invade Seare. To come out and deny him would only earn Conor a quick death. He tried to turn the conversation another way.
    “Why the interest in magic? Your men seem to fear