Edge of Destiny by J. Robert King Read Free Book Online Page A

too.” Logan spat a glob that sailed just past Rytlock’s mark.
    The charr glared at him.
    Logan said flatly, “I have to check on my troops.”
    “I as well!” Rytlock grumbled. “But I’ll still kill you afterward.”
    “Course.”
    They staggered out into the darkness of the canyon and checked for signs of life, but there were none.
    “We need more light,” Logan said.
    Rytlock rumbled, “We need pyres.”
    “Which means we need wood.”
    “Which means you gather wood.” Rytlock looked at the sword that flamed in his hand. “I’m the one who has the light.”
    Nodding wearily, Logan strode to the woods and gathered deadfall. He hoisted it and dumped it in a pile, his forehead dappled with sweat.
    “One more pyre,” Rytlock said. “Can’t burn charr with humans.”
    “True,” Logan replied. “That’d be disgusting.”
    “Hey!”
    Logan returned to the forest, gathered another armful of wood, and dumped it on the other side of the canyon. Rytlock stepped up to him, thrusting his sword into the pyre and igniting it. Then he went to the other pyre and did the same.
    “All right, then,” the charr said. “Let’s get to work.” He sheathed the blade.
    The two foes turned their backs on each other and went to gather their dead. Logan knelt above each of his fallen friends, speaking a prayer to Grenth and kissing their foreheads. Rytlock meanwhile knelt above his comrades and sang an ancient war song of the Blood Legion. He cradled the head of each warrior just as the primus of their fahrar had first cradled them—“First breath to last . . .”
    The man and the charr hoisted the fallen and carried them to the pyres and bedded them in flame.
    Soon, twin fires sent twin columns of soot into the sky.
    It was hard work—kneeling and whispering and lifting and hauling and burning—eleven humans and ten charr. And when the work was done, Logan and Rytlock staggered, bloodied and soot-blackened.
    “I suppose we have to kill each other now,” Logan said.
    “Yeah,” Rytlock replied dully.
    “You’re going to die like a dog.”
    “I’m more like a cat,” Rytlock pointed out.
    Logan shook his head. “You can’t die like a cat. They have nine lives.”
    Rytlock spread clawed arms. “That’s what it’s going to take!”
    A new voice—a woman’s voice—broke in and said, “You two have the strangest conversations.”

GOLEMANCY
    G arm yelped—a strange sound from a dire wolf—and his claws skittered on the stone floor as he ducked back from the huge golem.
    Eir also leaped back, her mallet before her.
    “Oh, nothing to fear,” Snaff assured. He patted the golem’s metalwork ankle. The leg was articulated with arrays of aura pumps and servos. “She’s harmless.” Snaff frowned. “Well, not exactly harmless. She could kill us with one swat if she wanted to . . . but she doesn’t want to.”
    “How do you know?” Eir asked.
    “Because she doesn’t want anything, ” Snaff explained. “Oh, let me show you!”
    He scrambled up onto the stone table where the golem sat, clambered onto her leg, and climbed the metal piping that crisscrossed her barrel-shaped torso. Reaching the golem’s face—Zojja’s face at five times the height—he waved his hand in front of the stone eyes. “See? Nobody’s home.”
    Garm trotted in a wide circle around the golem, watching it warily.
    Eir had not lowered her mallet, and her other hand hovered near the chisels on her belt. “But why?”
    “Why, what?” asked Snaff, lounging happily in the metal collar of the creature.
    “Why make this thing?”
    Snaff slid down the broad torso of the creature and landed on the thing’s legs. “I just feel that every golem ought to have a good head on her shoulders—especially the eighteen-foot-tall ones. Not that the Arcane Council agrees. They’re churning out golems with no heads at all—easy to build, sure, but they’re as dumb as posts. What’s the point of that?”
    “He doesn’t do anything