Kingmaker by Rob Preece Read Free Book Online

main highway. For the first four hours of their ride, they didn't see anyone else on the road. The few farmhouses they passed were rough stone with thatch roofs. Scrawny cow-like animals, some as big as the huge horses she was riding, nibbled on grass but moved well away from them as they rode by. Once, Ellie thought she saw a farmer moving among his crops, but if she did, he quickly managed to hide because she didn't see another trace of him.
    She couldn't prove it, but it seemed that the people were frightened. Could Ranolf have been such a bad Baron that the farmers hid from him? Or was this part of the general deterioration of a nation in the middle of a Civil War?
    At noon they reached a clearing in a wooded area they were riding through. Arnold held up his hand and announced that they would stop for a meal.
    The guards fanned out, checking behind the few trees scattered within the clearing while Arnold jumped down and started pulling food from his saddlebags.
    Mark climbed down from his horse, tried to stand, then collapsed as his legs buckled under him.
    His horse would have bolted if Arnold hadn't grabbed her bridle and brought the animal under control, losing what looked like an oversized chicken-leg in the process.
    "You are trouble,” he told the American.
    Mark nodded. “Sorry.” It was a key word to learn in a new language. Ellie was glad Mark had picked it up quickly.
    But Mark's accent was atrocious.
    Arnold frowned, suddenly reminded of their foreignness. Mark's lack of riding experience had to be additional evidence that they weren't like him, that they were a threat.
    Ellie couldn't magically teach Mark the language but she could do one thing to assure Arnold that she, at least, came from a warrior culture like his own.
    "You promised me a chance to spar. How about now?"
    Arnold grinned. “If you know how to use that oversized bar of iron."
    Ellie had spent plenty of time practicing her draw and cuts. But Kendo sparring was done with bamboo shinai rather than with real weapons. With a sharp-bladed Katanga, the chances of an accident were too high and the consequences too severe for casual sparing. It didn't look like Arnold cared.
    Arnold handed Mark's horse to one of his sisters, then yanked off his jersey.
    He had a build on him. With his long blond hair and ripped muscles, Arnold could have featured on the cover of a romance novel back home. Ellie couldn't help appreciate it, but she was also interested in the thicket of scars that crossed his arms and chest. Either he'd been in the wars, or he had plenty of dueling and brawling experience.
    Arnold drew his rapier and slashed it through the air. “You aren't going to strip? Do you really think you can defeat me so easily you won't even sweat?"
    Ellie wasn't going to take her shirt off for this guy. Instead she bowed, then stepped into a long front stance, her katana still sheathed by her side.
    Arnold looked at her curiously, then sketched a European-style salute through the air. “Are you ready?"
    Obviously he wasn't used to facing someone who hadn't drawn. Which meant he might not be prepared for her style. “Of course."
    He was quick. He lunged before she had closed her mouth, his bladed weapon extended like an epee. She drew, engaged, and then slid her heavier sword down his blade, forcing him to back up quickly when she disengaged and sliced at his arm.
    "Ah. Wonderful. You do have some skill."
    He shifted his stance. He'd rely more on his edge now, she thought. Perfect. Kendo masters certainly know the thrust, the skee , but their blade is fundamentally a cutting weapon. Now he was playing her game.
    She shortened her stance, gripping her scabbard with her left hand. When Arnold tried an overhead attack, she used the scabbard to trap his blade while she whipped the Katanga toward his torso.
    He stepped back quickly and she followed with a thrust kick to his solar plexus.
    "They didn't teach you that in the salon,” Arnold told her. “But if