Mask of Dragons by Jonathan Moeller Read Free Book Online Page A

it. Easiest way to fight valgasts I’ve ever seen.” 
    Timothy nodded. “After we arrived with the…ah, prisoner, I was able to raise warning spells around the camp. The valgasts have not attacked since. I suspect their wizards are able to detect the spells and so have held their fighters back.” 
    “Good,” said Mazael. “Once we smash the Skuldari, perhaps the valgasts will reconsider their raids.” A lord had to show confidence to his men. Mazael could share his doubts with Romaria, but with no one else. “How is the prisoner?” 
    “Behaving himself,” said Arnulf.
    “Though his tongue is…rather abrasive,” said Timothy.
    Arnulf snorted. “Earnachar son of Balnachar was always abrasive. Now that he’s vomited up his heart spider, he’s almost pleasant.”
    “Have you decided,” said Riothamus, “what will become of him?” 
    “No,” said Mazael. Sigaldra wanted Earnachar executed for his attack on Greatheart Keep, as did most of the Jutai, and Adalar was inclined to agree with Sigaldra. The Tervingi, however, wanted Earnachar forgiven. He had been under the control of one of the Prophetess’s heart spiders, and ever since the spider had been expelled, he had cooperated willingly. 
    Mazael didn’t like Earnachar. The man was grasping, ambitious, and abrasive. Once, that would have been enough for Mazael to kill him. 
    Now, though, that was the kind of impulse Mazael needed to control if he wanted to keep his Demonsouled nature in check. For that matter, he knew firsthand the coercive power of the heart spiders. 
    It was a vicious dilemma. Fortunately, Mazael had an easy way out of it. 
    “I already told you,” said Mazael, “that I have placed his fate into your hands. You are the Guardian of the Tervingi.”
    “You are the hrould of the Tervingi,” pointed out Riothamus without rancor.
    “True,” said Mazael. “And the hrould of the Tervingi has put this decision into your hands. The Guardian defends the Tervingi nation from dark magic, and Earnachar was under the influence of powerful dark magic. You, therefore, shall decide how responsible he was for his actions.” 
    “You should either forgive him or kill him,” said Arnulf. “Anything else, you insult him and gain his lasting enmity. If you do an injury to a proud man, better to kill him with one blow. Else you shall leave him wounded and plotting your downfall.”  
    “I agree,” said Molly. “Kill him and be done with it. The Tervingi will complain, of course,” she glanced at Arnulf, “but most of them don’t like Earnachar anyway, and half of them will be secretly relieved they don’t have to listen to him babble any longer.” 
    “I will give the matter some thought,” said Riothamus. “He did commit evil, evil he wished to do, but he was not under his own will at the time.” He shook his head, frowning. “A matter for latter.” 
    “Aye,” said Mazael. “We’ve a war to plan. The Prophetess is fleeing for Armalast, which is just as well, since that’s the chief city of the Skuldari. We’ll besiege the place, burn it down around the Prophetess’s lying ears, and take Sigaldra’s sister back.”
    It sounded so easy, but Mazael knew the task would be far more complicated. 
    “The holdmistress will wish to see you at once, my lord,” said Timothy.
    Mazael grunted, turning his mind back to the more immediate problems. “The lords and knights have been heeding her?”
    “Aye,” said Arnulf. He shrugged. “After Greatheart Keep, I don’t mind listening to her. Some of the lords and knights and headmen objected, but Talchar One-Eye and Lord Adalar follow her everywhere, and no one wants to cross either of them.”
    “Really?” said Mazael. “Adalar?” He found it hard to think of Adalar as intimidating. Yet that was Mazael’s own fault. Sometimes he still thought of Adalar as the earnest boy he had met upon his return to the Grim Marches. Adalar had grown since then, becoming stronger and