Riddle in Stone (The Riddle in Stone Series - Book One) by Robert Evert Read Free Book Online

don’t you think?” The unnamed dog sniffed at an orange leaf that had landed in the road in front of her. Nearby, a blue jay screeched in the bright autumn sky.
    Edmund gestured to the branches dangling over their heads. “D-do, do, do you know that the Undead King hung people from these very limbs? He used to torture anybody he captured, women, children . . . it didn’t matter to him. He pulled out their intestines while they were still alive. Horrible. Just horrible.”
    Edmund shuddered.
    “In fact, this road was lined with thousands of bodies. Most of them were hanging from these big hooks that were im-im-imbed-imbedded under the victims’ jaw. They were then strung up and left to die slowly in the hot summer sun. You can still find the hooks from time to time, rusting in the grass. Big grizzly things with barbed ends. Farmers use them to pick up bales of hay.”
    Gaping up at the trees, the dog moved closer to Edmund.
    “At any rate,” Edmund said, feeling compelled to go on, “back to what I was saying. That’s a horrible name for a town, Endris Haflen. It means, r-rough-roughly, roughly translated, ‘Hill of Protection.’ But people often called it Endris Hedland. Which means ‘Hill of Shit.’”
    The dog looked at him, evidently checking to see if she had heard correctly.
    “Actually, that’s not quite an accurate interpretation. You see, ‘Hedland’ is a term for lands directly downriver from large cities, where all the refuse from the sewers go; hence the association with excrement. Which gets us back to what I was saying previously about the utility of names. You see, you need something good. Or else your future will be substantially limited. Heaven knows you don’t want to deal with a bad name for the rest of your life.”
    There was another long silence.
    “How about . . . Trudy or, or maybe Glenda?”
    The dog stopped and squatted in the road, a yellow puddle growing on the ground beneath her.
    “That bad, eh? Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I can’t imagine ‘Glenda’ charging up the Stone Heights to do battle, you know? And I don’t foresee many ballads being written for a dog named Trudy.”
    More nodding.
    Dry leaves crunched under their feet as they wound their way toward the hill, following the grass-covered road. Over head, nearly bare branches swayed in the warm breeze.
    “It’s just that there aren’t many female heroines in the old tales,” Edmund said eventually. “So finding something appropriate is a bit, a bit challenging. You know?”
    The ruins of Endris Haflen loomed closer in front of them. The collapsed walls and towers of the fortress were now in view. Edmund and the dog began passing the hulking wreckage of siege engines and other rusted equipment of war. A flock of country sparrows nesting in the remains of an attack tower took to the air as they walked by.
    “What about Arta? Atheana? Anfala? Aubrey?”
    None of these sparked a reply.
    “Bashna? Betty?”
    Betty got a wag of the head.
    “Chelsea?”
    Edmund continued as he climbed the steep hill to Endris Haflen, his hands pushing on his knees with every tedious step. When he approached the summit, he was on the T’s.
    “Taperall?” he said, sucking in air, forcing his legs to continue onward. “Thorax?”
    At Thorax, the dog barked.
    “Really?” He wheezed. “Thorax? You sure?”
    She raised her shaggy eyebrows.
    “Well.” He attempted to catch his breath. “It’s not . . . it’s not exactly a feminine name. Actually, it’s not really a name at all. Not a proper one, that is. I just threw . . . I just threw it out there, you know? Without thinking. But I’m certainly not going to argue with you. Thorax it is. Although, I must say, you don’t strike me as a . . . as a Thorax.”
    Edmund hung his backpack on a broken hitching post outside of what used to be a general store.
    “I’ll tell you what,” he said when his heart stopped hammering his ribs. “Tell you what. Let’s, let’s take a