Soulvine 03 A Bright and Terrible Sword by Anna Kendall Read Free Book Online

filtering through branches of the oak, his eyes met mine. Never, never will I cease to follow where you go … Still that steady gaze held mine, and I saw in them the same burning look as when he first trained his gun on me. Ever, ever will I be the hound upon your doe …
    Then Leo laughed. ‘It’s merely a song, yes, Roger?’ He put away his lute, lay down, and went to sleep.
    But I lay awake for a long time.

5
    We travelled together one day more. I set a punishing pace, one that tested my returned strength to the limit. I wanted to tire Leo as much as possible so that he would sleep deeply. Before my illness I had been toughened by months of mountain walking; it was clear that Leo was unused to moving much at all. He was meant to be a musician or a scholar. Why had the Brotherhood chosen him to follow me? There must be a reason. I needed to know what it was.
    ‘That’s a village … ahead,’ Leo said, panting. ‘Could we stop … for ale?’
    ‘I have no money,’ I lied.
    ‘I have money.’
    ‘Then you may stop. I will go on.’
    He scowled, his dark eyes flashing with the strong feeling that always seemed to lie just below the surface. I quickened my stride. He kept up, with difficulty, and so we passed through the tiny settlement, which did not seem to be having any trouble with tranced children.
    The village was followed by fields, which gave way to sheep pastures thick with clover, and then to rolling hills dotted with great tracts of wood. Here the road, obviously less used, dwindled to a track. The long afternoon was warm and fragrant, and it was The Queendom at its loveliest. Wild cherries and plums blossomed pink and white. The nightingales had returned from their winter home. Finally, just as the sun set in tender pinks and golds, I left the road to camp by a noisy stream borderedby bulrushes. Weeping willows grew along the bank, dipping their branches into the water and filtering the light to a green glow. I dropped my pack under a huge willow tree. Leo, groaning, sank to the ground.
    ‘Hunter, go find!’ I said. He bounded off. ‘Leo, gather some twigs for a fire.’
    ‘I can’t. I can’t move any more.’
    I snorted and left the willow. When I returned with twigs Leo had unwrapped his lute and was strumming it softly. His whole body drooped with weariness.
    ‘Do you think,’ I said sarcastically, ‘that you can bestir yourself enough to skin a rabbit if Hunter brings one?’
    ‘You skin it, Roger, and I’ll make the fire.’
    ‘Don’t tire yourself too much.’
    He raised those burning eyes to me. ‘I cannot help it if I am not strong.’
    ‘No, you cannot. But since you are not, why did you agree to bring me that miniature?’
    ‘I told you, your father was kind to me in Galtryf.’
    I made the fire while Leo rested. Finally I said, ‘So you knew my father in Galtryf.’
    ‘I already told you so.’ He had laid his lute aside and sprawled full-length on the ground.
    ‘And what is ”Galtryf”?’
    ‘It is an old castle used by the Brotherhood as their command post.’
    ‘How did you come to be there?’
    ‘I was captured in the war we wage with Soulvine Moor.’
    We had come to the information I wanted. Hunter returned with a rabbit and I took it from him, drawing out my knife and making a great show of skinning the rabbit so that Leo did not have to. I wanted him to feel in my debt.
    I said, ‘What was your part in the war?’
    Leo took a long time to answer me. ‘I was a decoy.’
    ‘A decoy?’
    ‘You don’t know how the war is waged, do you, Roger?’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘I cannot tell you much because I don’t know much. Until I was approached by the Brotherhood, I lived at the manor house of Lord Jasper Vincent, at the northwestern edge of The Queendom, in the mountains near the border with the country of Queen Isabelle. I was musician there. And a kitchen boy and jack-of-all-work; whatever was deemed within the feeble powers of a weakling like me.’ His voice held