Graynelore by Stephen Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

ankle, she pitched and fell, though I gave her scant notice until she scrabbled awkwardly to her feet again and turned to face me.
    Why did I stop at her? Why dismount then? All three were easy victims. I liked women, of course. But this was another Elfwych and I was a Wishard. I felt the first unwanted physical stirring of my body. But then, violation – was that really my intent? – was such an impotent weapon upon a killing field. I might have smiled at the paradox. Violate them with your sword. Cut off their heads. Rip out their bellies. Do not try to fuck them. They will only fuck you first.
    Yet, there I stood.
    And there was
something else…something far more curious: a connection between us I was at a loss to explain. What was this? A fleeting shadow, like wild bird flight, crossed my mind. For the second time that day I felt as if I was standing in two places at once. I was become an unwilling partner in some waking dream. The real world was less solid than a drift of smoke. And this Elfwych woman was my accomplice. We were conjoined and could not easily step apart. From somewhere there were questions, words were spoken, but so softly, I could not make them out; or their source…if they were not hers.
    It was enough to hold my sword arm.
    ‘Shit!’
    Kill her. Kill her and be done with it, Rogrig Wishard.
    She was yelling at me now, but still I could not make out what it was she said…only understand the anger, the fervent anger showing on her twisted face, the fierce warning in her voice.
    Her kin – the youth and the old man – were already well beyond my reach; above me at the top of the gulley now, only legs moving against a still blue sky, scrambling out of sight. If they were meant for a bodyguard, they did not intend to stay and make a fight of it.
    I must use my sword. I must not look her in the eye…before or afterwards. One quick, clean stroke would finish it, Rogrig Stone Heart. She had led herself into the frae she must take the consequences of it.
    Only, I held off. Only, I did look her in the eye.
    And I will swear this to you: it was
her
…the dead woman. Yes. Impossibly, it was the same dead girl I had killed already. Living again, breathing again. Her eyes, her hair, her skin…they were the very same. Of course, there was a simple answer to this riddle, if only I could truly believe in it. Surely these two were close kin. This was a sister, then, or a cousin at the least? Though, my obvious inaction began to reveal my doubt.
    In truth, I did not yet understand or recognize just what it was I had been privy to here. What I had witnessed – no, something more than that – what I had unwittingly become a part of. I might have guessed, and called it wychcraft – wychcraft at the hands of an Elfwych. Or else, it was some other unearthly masquerade…a trick; a faerie’s Glamour, or the work of a fell-wisp. Though, none of it was likely in a world that believed only in the certainty of a cold sword. I, a grown man, was far beyond faerie tales!
    ‘I saw you dead…’ I said.
    ‘You mean you wanted me for dead, Wishard!’ she returned with a fury.
    ‘I saw you…your head was broken, taken from your shoulders, played with for a bloody football!’
    We had begun to sidestep each other. I was already holding my sword between us. We were circling warily about it.
    ‘What think you? I was in hiding,’ she said. ‘What better place to conceal myself upon a killing field, than in among the dead?’
    Only, there was an obvious deceit in her voice that betrayed her.
    ‘I think you are an unpractised liar,’ I said. ‘And this is impossible…’
    I raised my sword to make my stroke. What did she have to lie about?
    ‘Oh please, not now!’ she cried. ‘Not him!’
    ‘Eh?’
    Her outburst seemed nonsense. It was not a response to anything I had said. Yet she repeated herself, with even greater venom.
    ‘Please! Not now!’
    Then I felt the heat of the blow. My hesitation had cost me. She