Blood Ties by Peter David Read Free Book Online

dead who wound up calling Mourningwood their new home. Unfortunately, that caused a severe jump in the number of hollow men and dissatisfied spirits stalking Mourningwood. Not that anyone in Bowerstone gave a damn.
    Long story short: One needs to pay attention in Mourningwood since you never know when something nasty is going to go for you.
    Despite my best efforts, I found my thoughts returning to Page. I felt there were things she wasn’t telling me, things that I needed to know. Clearly, though, she wanted to keep them to herself. Well . . . so what if she did? It was of no consequence to me how she lived her life or what aspects of it she elected to keep under wraps.
    On and on I went around in my own head until I was well and truly sick of it, and yet I couldn’t turn my attention away from her. Here I was, a full day’s journey from Bowerstone with more days to come, plus I had bedded a comely wench the night before, which you’d think would give me some emotional distance. But no. Page wouldn’t get out of my head. I started to wonder if she weren’t actually practicing some manner of witchery on the side, and I was simply a pathetic victim of her magics.
    Had I been paying the least bit of attention to my surroundings, as I damned well should have been, I would never have been in any danger. As it was, though, I was so preoccupied that a brass band could have come up behind me, and I would have been oblivious to its presence. Imagine, then, when something was approaching me stealthily and I was busy with my head securely up my own ass, all lost in thought.
    All things considered, it would have been a monumentally stupid way to die. And the reason I know that is because of the words I heard just before it nearly happened :
    â€œHey! This is really going to be a stupid way to die!”
    The voice was flat and harsh, dripping with sarcasm like leaves dripping rain after a storm. It penetrated even my thickheaded reverie. I stopped in my tracks and looked around in confusion, trying to discern the voice’s origin. It was impossible to determine, but the words continued to be clear enough: “How do you not see them sneaking up on you? Instead of contemplating your navel, why not contemplate your death? It’s about to pay you a visit!”
    Immediately, I no longer sought the origins of the voice. Instead, I looked around, desperate to see if the unknown individual was speaking truly or if he was simply harassing me for no good reason.
    Turned out to be the former.
    The two hobbes had been sneaking up on me, attempting to be as stealthy as any of those disgusting creatures ever managed to be. When they saw that I had noticed them . . . hell, “noticed” was far too generous, let us say instead that I had my attention drawn to them . . . they could have retreated into the woods and perhaps awaited a more opportune time. They chose not to. Rather than do that, they embarked upon the time-honored hobbe tradition of simply charging into battle and hoping that luck turned in their favor.
    These were not the diminutive, goblinesque creatures that most people encountered on the occasions that they ran into hobbes; these bastards were clearly soldiers, even warriors of a type. More like elite versions of the standard hobbes. To start with, they were bigger than typical hobbes. Much bigger. They were also reasonably well armed. One was coming at me with a club, the other with what appeared to be a large war hammer. Having tossed aside any caution since my focus had been placed squarely upon them, they howled battle cries and snarled in outrage; although what they had to be outraged about, I really couldn’t say.
    Their faces were red, as if they’d been left out in the sun too long, and twisted into frightful snarls that might well have paralyzed average individuals with fear. I, on the other hand, had been in plenty of situations where life and limb were being threatened, and