Sandstorm by Christopher Rowe Read Free Book Online

this Yamun was one king from the East, and Azoun, he was another king from the West, and they were both humans, so that meant there was nothing for them to do but fight. Shan and Cynda make a big show of it, but this time I’m thinking of, we were up North, in country where everybody knows the story. So they spiced it up.”
    The goliath flopped down on top of Cephas, driving the air from his lungs and pinning him to the canvas. “The West-man used a steel long sword as all those West-men do in the stories, and the East-man had a curved one. The West-man wins unless you’re telling this story on the other side of the Rift.”
    The goliath rolled away, and Cephas reacted to the incoherent shouts from the gamemaster’s box by shoving free, seeking to gain advantage.
    “But as I said, we were in the West, and they all knew what would happen, even if the twins were up on their wire. Well, weren’t they surprised when they switched out the swords in the middle of the fight! Oh, I laughed!”
    The goliath held the double flail in one huge hand and the suspect mattock in the other, the hammer’s head resting in his left palm.
    For once, the man didn’t say a word before gently tossing the mattock to Cephas. Instinctively, Cephas reached up and caught it. Instantly, he was borne back down by its incredible weight.
    It was not a prop, then.

    When Shaneerah realized the younger dwarf was not drawing in his little book, but was instead chanting something written in its pages, she thought for an instant that she could stop whatever plot was underway. She believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that the dwarf could cut her down sword to sword, but if he was casting some sort of spell, he was distracted.
    The span of time from realization, to decision, to action, was less than the time it would take her to say Azad’s name, and her sword cleared its sheath almost as soon as the dwarf’s first syllable reached her ears.
    She was not nearly as fast as Legate Arnskull.
    The old man, his eyes not rheumy at all, but as clear and blue as an autumn sky, stood leaning against the wall of the hewn cavern. The dwarf’s deliberate raising of his twin silver canes matched Shaneerah’s desperate grasp for her sword, but then he bested her in the way he twisted their handles together, the silver flowing away to reveal rich, ancient wood curved back on itself into the formof a greatbow. The dwarf had no need to string the bow, because a glowing thread joined the two ends of the magical weapon. The dwarf held an arrow, tipped with glinting silver and fletched with scarlet feathers, and he spoke to her while he seated it against his golden bowstring.
    “He will be only a moment,” he said, speaking the common trade tongue with a Northern accent. “Then we will leave you in more peace than you deserve.”
    Shaneerah considered her chances of landing a blow against the chanting dwarf before the bowman could draw and release, but she dismissed the idea even as the chanting stopped.
    “So you don’t speak a half-dozen dialects of the Elemental tongue like your fellow, eh?” she asked the bowman.
    The old man didn’t answer, instead just indicating that she should step to the side so the bondsman, sword again in hand, could step past her and lean against the wall beside him.
    “He doesn’t even speak Dwarvish,” the bondsman said, then made a clicking noise that could not have come from tongue and teeth.
    Behind her in the chamber, then from the recesses across the canyon, and in the other stations around the curve of the mote, Shaneerah heard the familiar sound of the cables releasing. She had never heard all of them released at once.
    Shadows swirled around the dwarves, and they were gone.

    It was a day full of madness, so perhaps Azad had simply lost his mind and ordered the canvas to fall away, expecting Cephas to fight this secret ally in midair.
    The goliath lurched forward and grasped Cephas and the mattock. Unmindful of the plunge