Son of Soron by Robyn Wideman Read Free Book Online Page A

would travel with a second pair of shoes just in case, he thought to himself as he walked down the road.
    Half a day’s ride north of the village of Birchone, his horse had come up lame, and so he walked. For two days now, he walked to keep the horse from suffering further injury. He looked forward to reaching the village of Elderwood, where he could get the horse looked at by the blacksmith and spend a night at the local inn. If he remembered correctly, they served darn good pie there.
    Raul was one his way to Progoh, the largest of the nine cities that comprised the kingdom of Tarnstead. Raul along with his brother Paulo ran a large trading company in Venecia. Once every couple of years one of the brothers would make the journey up from the coastal city through the eastern plains and into Progoh. Searching for new vendors and goods to send back in return for the goods they sold.
    This trip, however, he was also acting in an official capacity as an emissary of the Venecian council. Bandits were starting to cause serious losses for many of the wealthy families that ran Venecia; losing money was not a popular pastime in Venecia. Raul was carrying a letter to the king of Broguth, demanding action as much of the bandit activity was situated just outside the lands surrounding the kingdom of Broguth—the very roads he walked on now, Raul mused to himself. He regretted the impatient decision that had led him to leave the safety of his company’s well-guarded caravan. The blasted group just traveled too slowly. Now, with a lame horse, he was in a precarious position. With luck, he would reach Elderwood soon. Tired of the walking he decided that when he reached Elderwood he would wait there for the caravan. That would give his horse a day or two to rest and he would enjoy some of that town’s famous pie.
          …
    Edmar, a short, shifty-eyed bandit scout, quietly yet swiftly moved up to the large oak beside the road where the bandit leader Ungar waited. For three days now, Edmar had been scouting the road from Birchone to Elderwood and had found several interesting targets. The one with the most potential was coming up the road now.
    ”He is coming around the bend now, and will be walking up the path in a minute,” the scout reported. Ungar was, even by bandit standards, a vicious man and the scout did not want to cross him, so he quickly finished his report. “He is well dressed, southern style. He has a high-quality saddle on a good-looking horse with two saddlebags. His horse has a sore front right hoof and, for at least the last day and a half, the southerner has been walking to save the horse.”
    Ungar nodded, quietly absorbing the quality scouting report. All of Ungar’s men were good woodsman and fighters, many having deserted or served time in the king’s army. The gent would be tired, an easy kill. The horse would be valuable if its front hoof had no permanent damage. If the hoof was bad, no matter, the rest of the horse would fill their bellies nicely.
    “I want that horse and it’s about time I had a decent saddle. Kill him. Don’t give him any chance to escape.” The bandit scout was used to this type of order. Often, if the intended victim argued about being robbed, he ended up dead. Apparently, this poor sod was not even going to get the chance to argue, the scout thought to himself.
    A minute later, as Raul walked up the road into the clearing before the oak tree, he caught a slight movement to the side of the tree. Before his brain could recognize the danger, the arrow was in his heart. Quickly the bandits descended onto his lifeless body, looting his possessions and grabbing the reins of the horse.
    Ungar slowly walked up and stared down on the recently deceased stranger, feeling no remorse or pity. “What did he have?” he grunted to the bandits looting the body.
    “A couple gold coins and a letter for the king. It seems our friend here was an emissary from Venecia,” came the reply from one