Book 2 - An Ill Fate Marshalling by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

and Nu Li Hsi. He had come forth from the shadow a man of vengeance and had pulled the old empire down. And when he was done he had discovered he had nothing more for which to live. Nothing except a presentiment that one day a woman would be born that he would love. If he would wait.
    Waiting had become more agony than joy, for the woman, when the time came, fell in love with another man. A man who, as the fates snickered, proved to be Varthlokkur's own son by a brief earlier, loveless marriage.
    The woman was Nepanthe and the man Mocker, and they, before Mocker's death at Ragnarson's hand, had brought into the world a single son, Ethrian, who had fallen into the hands of enemies during the Great Eastern Wars and not been heard of again, except as the lever by which the Pracchia had compelled Mocker to attempt assassinat ing Ragnarson.
    Ethrian. It was a name accursed.
    The man who had fathered the wizard had been named Ethrian and he had been the last emperor of Ilkazar. The woman had named her child for the father, though he had shed the name upon entering the Dread Empire. And he, in his turn, had named his son Ethrian, though the child was but a babe when carried off from his parents and did not know he bore the name till later years, when he had borne the Mocker sobriquet too long to change... .
    Varthlokkur had, at last, attained his dream after Mock er's death and the fourth Ethrian's disappearance, four centuries of patience rewarded. He was obsessed with the woman, and dreadfully frightened of losing what had been so difficult to obtain.
    And she? Perhaps she loved him. But she was a strange and closed and lonesome person even in a crowd, even with sworn friends, for the winds of doom sweeping the world had stolen from her everything she cherished. The last of her many brothers, Valther, Mist's husband, had fallen at Palmisano. And the war had claimed her only son. And now she had a second child on the way and her mind was filled with a poisonous dread of what price fate would now demand. ...
    Very softly, Michael Trebilcock said, „There is only the hint of a ghost of a rumor. My source in Throyes speaks only of matters concerning his own goals, not of Shinsan's greater tribulations. But there is something happening in the far east. Something that has drenched the entire Tervola class in dread yet which they will not discuss even among themselves. It seems to be something they fear as much, or more, than war with Matayanga. Yet the only token of it I have been able to unearth yet is a name or title. The
    Deliverer. Don't ask! I don't know."
    „But that's what has the wizard all cockeyed?"
    „I don't know that. But I suspect it."
    „And he and Mist know more than they are willing to say."
    Trebilcock let one of his rare chuckles escape. „We all know more than we are willing to tell. About anything. Even you."
    Bragi considered ways to pursue the matter, possibly to dig out something Michael did not know he knew, but a grand hoot and holler broke out about a quarter mile away, somewhat toward the Guards' castle.
    „Damn!" Bragi swore. „Know what they did? Decided to stick to their plan. Come on." He charged through the woods. Michael bounced along in his wake. In minutes Ragnarson was puffing like a wounded ox.
    They joined several teammates atop a grassy slope over looking a free-for-all. Twenty-five Panthers surrounded the Guards' balls. A dozen Guards were trying to break their formation.
    „Everybody get down," Bragi told the half dozen men around him. „Out of sight." He heard teammates flounder ing through the brush. Those idiots from the deep line had left their positions. „We'll hit them when they get up here." He flung himself down in the grass.
    Black patches swam before his eyes. He could not breath deeply or fast enough.
    The ruckus rolled closer. Bragi peeked. Not long. More men joined him. „Wait till I go," he told them. „Give me a couple steps, then follow me."
    The Panthers had formed a