Mordraud, Book One by Fabio Scalini Read Free Book Online

a mask of distorting detest. Eglade wept and murmured something in her tongue, perhaps an apology for what had happened, or maybe just a long and yearned-for goodbye.
    To her house, to her land.
    To her people.
    Varno and Eglade fled into the night, enveloped in a silence heavy with pain and fear.
     

III
    The cool breeze slid in through the half-closed window shutters. A blade of reddish light painted faint reflections on the bases of the pans hanging on the wall, above the washbasin with the dishes. Eglade had just finished making the dinner: a stew with vegetables she’d picked that morning from their patch behind the house. Outside, a dog’s barking broke the silence of crickets and foliage fluttering in the wind.
    ‘ Varno should be back from the village soon,’ she thought with a smile. Her hand subconsciously slipped down to her belly. It wouldn’t be long now. He’d be with them any day now.
    Her son kicked in eagerness to be born .
    Six years had passed since their flight into the night. They’d left the Aelians’ forest behind them and had trekked for days, following the most secluded and winding paths. They’d managed to get far enough away before Aris’s murder was discovered. But they didn’t know where to go. Varno had merely a handful of coppers in his pocket. He’d hunted what little he’d managed to catch with his bare hands to provide for her. She’d never eaten so many squirrels in her life. He was extremely nimble at grabbing them, she mused, moved by the memory.
    As she deserted the only place s he’d ever grown to know, Eglade wept miserably. She’d dreamt many a time of travelling in the outside world, but only in her imagination. She never thought she’d actually find herself outside her tiny and pointless realm, with a Khartian, on a quest for a new home for them. When she spoke out loud about that period, she felt like she was narrating an improbable fairytale.
    “ We walked so long...” she murmured. Varno had no precise destination in mind, she even less so. They’d simply gone on moving, avoiding the villages, the taverns and any place frequented by the Khartians. He was constantly tormented by the idea that somebody would notice her. She’d cut a strip off her cape to make a scarf she could tie around her hair. He never slept, except for the rare times he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. He’d watched over her for countless nights, his sword ready on his knees. He’d used more energy and marched harder than when he’d gone to war. It had been tough, terribly tough. But it had also been the most exciting moment of their lives.
    Fear, sorrow, curiosity and wonder. Eglade had never experienced so much all at the same time. Each day was new, and full of hope. Each night, she and Varno would steep their dreams in everything they would do and achieve, together.
    The first predicament to deal with was finding a home. They solved this one when they came to a circle of rubble near an anonymous village, many weeks’ walk from the battlefield where he’d been injured. They’d had to cross Cambrinn’s mountains, hiking along the most inaccessible paths to avoid the defence posts manned by the rebels of the east, who had set up the most northern front of the war in that area. They’d stopped at the first quiet settlement to draw some water from its well. Combing the zone, Varno had uncovered the remains of an old abandoned dwelling. Far enough away not to attract attention, close enough to the village to avoid feeling too cut off. They were a great distance from the Aelians’ forest, on the eastern slopes of the cluster of mountains dominated by Cambrinn, the fortress once under Cambria’s control. But above all, they were inside the Rebel Alliance territories. About north-west of Eld, the fiefdom helming the resistance against Loren’s Imperial Lances.
    Varno was convinced the best option was not to side with anyone, but to stay near the area governed by Elder, the