Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten (Order of Fire Book 1) by Kameron A. Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

that their king had no part in it.” Tharid laughed. “You made them believe it was—”
    “The Turagols,” Thae interrupted, laughing. “Like those savages could do anything quietly and in order.”
    “Or how about the time when Father was sick with fever and we thought he might die. His bastard son with that eastern whore both showed up to lay claim to the throne. It was you who found out what they were up to, and you silenced the woman with a few drops of poison in her wine.”
    “And you embraced the man as your elder brother and legitimate prince,” said Thae, ever smiling, “and gave him a horse and rode with him through the northern woods.”
    “A ride he never came back from,” Tharid added with a smirk.
    Mother and son both laughed for several moments, and Thae said, “ Se e , it was not only me. You’ve helped greatly.”
    “Aye, but they have been your plans, and your ideas, and there are many other times than those. You are clever and you see things coming before I, and you always know how to handle them.” Tharid brushed his hand across his mother’s pale cheek and kissed her. “You’ve kept us in power.”
    Thae’s eyes flickered.
    “But Father doesn’t understand such things,” Tharid went on. “So let us make the decision ourselves next time. I’m afraid one day we won’t like the answer we get from him.”
    “Aye, son,” Thae agreed. “These kinds of decisions must not be left to your father.”
    Tharid pulled the large comb from his mother’s crown all the way down through the hair that rested on the ground in one fluid stroke, coming to a squat at the end of the motion. “Snowstone is great because Father is mighty,” he said, standing back up to repeat the motion. “If he was wise it would be even greater.”
    Thae smiled at her son’s words. “ You are wise. Even in your youth you are wise.”
    “You flatter me, Mother.”
    Thae patted down her hair with her hands. “Have I told you that you will make a fine king?”
    “Aye, Mother, many times,” Tharid said, “though I never tire of hearing it.”
    Thae beamed. “How does it look?” She stepped forward and turned slowly.
    “Fit for a queen.”
    Thae smiled as she walked over to her chamber window. “Banas and Krin are waiting in the yard. Go on down so I can watch you again.”
    “Do I improve?” Tharid waited with a grin for the answer he knew would follow.
    “With every lesson,” said the queen, nodding. “There was a time I thought Krin was the best man to swing a sword in Snowstone. Now I know it is you. As for Banas the Brute, if you can stand against him, you can stand against any man.” And Tharid did more than stand against him. He outmaneuvered him. Banas, big, burly, and positively intimidating to look upon, was his father’s most trusted retainer. His skin was dark as coal and etched generously with deep scars. His face was ever grim, eyes cold and mean. He had fought under Tiomot’s command since they were both young men of the Highlands, and now he was a lord of Tiomot’s making with his own castle in Sirith and some two- hundred odd men at his command.
    Tharid parried a blade, shuffled out of the way of another, and darted in quickly, touching his sword’s tip to Banas’s ribs. A few movements later that same edge tapped against the other man’s neck—Krin, who was captain of the castle guard and had been appointed such when the previous captain Harol was killed over a decade ago. He was short and lean, but strong as an ox and dangerously adept with any manner of blade one was fool enough to let him get his hands on.
    Both men had been raised in battle, nurtured on spilled blood and cracked bones, made hard and rugged by years of war. Even so, the prince held them off, and not by overpowering them, being a lean lad himself, but by gracefully out dancing them.
    Tharid’s body moved with the sword, as if he was a part of the blade, swinging it with as much precision as his own arm. He