Diablo 3: The Reaper of Souls by Elias Vandoren Read Free Book Online Page A

darkness.
     
    "You there," he called, waving his torch.
     
    Dalya turned her head cautiously, squinting through the firelight at the soldier's silhouette. Her heart thrashed against her ribcage. She made to respond but the words never came, and she held silently to the branch for several seconds. Harringer shuffled forward, his left hand resting on his sword hilt. Dalya swallowed hard and steadied her nerves with a deep breath.
     
    The trees were too dense on this side of the path. However, if she dropped from the branch, found her feet, and sprinted for the brush across the way, she and Istanten might disappear before the soldier even considered pursuit. But if she landed wrong—if she lost her balance or twisted an ankle...
     
    She ran through options in her head as Harringer's silhouette approached. Frozen by indecision, she held tight to the branch and watched the soldier grow closer and closer until he neared the base of her tree. Her fist squeezed the shears and her arm strangled the branch. She tensed and prepared to make her leap, but Harringer kept walking. Dalya felt the heat of his torch as he passed nearby, and spotted the small man forty yards down the path as Harringer's light found him in the gloom of the orchard.
     
    "Sir!" the soldier hollered. "You can't be here."
     
    The diminutive man had no answer. He just shook his head absently, hands kneaded in front of him, and stared up at the young woman dangling from her noose. Harringer repeated himself, slightly increasing his pace. The man pointed at the body and smiled sadly. "My wife," he said. Harringer advanced warily and patted the man's shoulder. Gently he ushered him from the orchard and into the darkness.
     
    Dalya expelled a shaky breath. She pried her fingernails from the bough and held to her perch, wind tousling her hair and clothes. The hanging corpse rotated with the breeze, and the rope gave a dry groan. Istanten wobbled from the brush, waved to Dalya, then pointed at the corpse.
     
    "What is it?" she whispered.
     
    The rope twisted, whined, and gave a final pop, and the body thudded to the earth. The branch shook viciously and tossed Dalya, and she landed hard atop the carcass. Istanten helped her to her feet and allowed her a moment to find her breath before he seized the body by the armpits and dragged it toward the brush.
     
    Dalya tucked the shears into her waistband, swiped the dirt from her clothes, and grabbed the old man's feet. "Careful with his head," she said, and together the children carried the corpse into the trees and toward Middlewick. Neither made a sound as they trundled through the fields; the rush of the river and the squawking of crows were their only company in the middle of the night.
     
    Dalya stripped the rags from her grandfather's emaciated body. She ripped a tatter from his shirt, soaked it, and gently scrubbed the dirt from the old man's chest and face. She cleaned the edges of the lacerations that ran down his form—a bizarre series of symbols carved cruelly into his flesh—and then dragged the cold corpse into the front bedroom. The first splashes of sunlight colored the early morning sky as she pulled him into bed and drew the sheets up to his stubbly chin. She planted a quick kiss on his forehead and trudged out to the shack behind the cottage.
     
    There she traded shears for shovel and set off for the woods outside of town—the cluster of trees opposite the orchard. As she strolled through acres of twilit fields, her mind rendered numb from last night's raid, she found herself curiously engaged by her grandfather's spade. The old man had owned it for decades, but the tool had acted more like ornament than instrument; elaborate hieroglyphs decorated the dark wood of the shaft, spiraling downward until they dead-ended at the base of the ivory head. The head itself was narrow and acutely pointed, finely etched with patterns of flowers and vines.
     
    It was a striking tool, and in her twelve years,