Master of Whitestorm by Janny Wurts Read Free Book Online Page B

between the two men. Haldeth knew better than to press with questions. Instead, he prepared a mix of barley dough and told of a gamble on a card game that had won him employment at a forge. On impulse, he had bought back the fake rubies from the Mhurga galley’s figurehead. One he wore set in silver as a belt buckle; the other he kept loose with his coins.
    “I wanted the things to remind me.” The smith’s hands stilled over the flour sack, and his eyes lost focus into distance. “Something by which to recall that the cost of survival came dear.”
    If Korendir also thought of loved ones left barbarously slaughtered, he ventured nothing in comment. Since time had not blunted his reserve, Haldeth most wisely kept silent.
    * * *
    Perched beside a lancet window beneath the tower’s upper battlement, the witch Anthei leaned across the sill and braided a clothyard length of pale gold hair. Intent as a cat, she studied the man recently arrived; this one she knew had come with the king’s blessing, his intent to destroy her father’s vengeance against the court of Torresdyr. Very soon he would be dead. Anthei had savored the challenge, even toyed with the lives of seventy-four of his predecessors; but this time she did not smile with her customary anticipation. Never before had a man approached her tower unarmed. Now, one had dared. The precedence disturbed her.
    Korendir, she heard the white-haired smith call him. The word did not harbor any resonance of power. Yet names could be misleading. Shabby clothing and cracked boots could not hide the bronze hair and cold light eyes, coloring unknown on Aerith except among the blood of White Circle enchanters. Anthei knotted her braid with slender fingers and fretfully started another.
    In the campsite, Korendir leaned forward and burned his fingers on a barley cake. He swore mildly, sat back, and blew on his blistered thumb with the chagrin of a common vagabond. Assured now of his mortality, Anthei eliminated the fear that the White Circle had sent an initiate against her. She pulled a blood-red ribbon from her lap and bound it into her hair with langorous enjoyment. She had been left to herself for a very long time. Sage or fool, this man’s struggles would amuse her well before he died; the corpse she returned to the King of Torresdyr would hereafter deter even the most destitute adventurerer from fouling her garden air with cooking smoke.
    While twilight settled ghostly gray over her tower, Anthei leaned on her elbows and began very softly to sing. Intent on their supper, the mortals below never noticed Korendir’s gelding raise its gaunt head, ears pricked taut with attention.
    * * *
    Night fell. The dunes muffled the boom of the surf and the snap of burning logs seemed brittle, almost crushed by the weight of a greater silence. When the gelding sucked a sudden, sharp breath into its damaged lungs, the sound parted the air like the rip of a knife through cloth.
    “Snail!” Korendir leaped to his feet. A barley cake fell from loosened fingers as he ran, but his action came too late. The gelding gathered itself on bony haunches and launched itself over Anthei’s garden wall.
    The horse’s forehooves flung a spray of gravel as it landed on the pathway beyond. Its form became hidden in darkness, but a quavering scream betrayed its suffering. Haldeth surged to his feet. He seized a brand from the fire and raced for Anthei’s front gate.
    Korendir checked, whirled, and saw the streaming sparks thrown off by the torch. Guessing Haldeth’s intent, he shouted. “Don’t touch the latch!” But his warning was masked by the gelding’s dying convulsions. The smith rushed heedlessly onward.
    Running also, Korendir tore the belt from his tunic. The buckle was plain wrought metal, next to worthless. But earlier he had noticed Anthei’s gates were forged entirely of bronze; perhaps, like an earth witch, she could not make a spell which ruled cold iron.
    The horse’s cries