The Bitterbynde Trilogy by Cecilia Dart-Thornton Read Free Book Online Page B

as the saying went, When the ship’s a wreck, what’s one more storm? Yet when he chanced to overhear them whispering together, his curiosity mastered him.
    â€œUstorix will bribe the treasury guards tonight.”
    â€œHow many and of what purity?”
    â€œTwo, of alt four hundred. He says there is no activity scheduled for Gate South Four Hundred at moonrise. We meet there.”
    At night, nothing much lit the winding internal stairways except moon and stars slicing pale light-blades through slits in the thick dominite walls. The servants all lived below Floor Fourteen, but for someone who was used to effacing himself, melting into shadows and doorways at the first hint of approaching torchlight, it was not difficult to reach Floor Twenty-six unnoticed.
    Gate South Four Hundred stood open, its portcullis upraised. The floor of the gatehall formed a road that went out to the edge of the jutting doorsill and ended abruptly there, hard against the night sky. Far below, beneath a wispy cloud-layer at two hundred feet, pocket-handkerchief horse-yards and orchards gave on to a carpet of forest.
    On each squadron level, alcoves and vestibules led off the gatehalls to either side, filled with an array of equipment for Stormrider Relayers and their steeds. These entrance rooms opened onto wide corridors that circumnavigated the fortress’s walls and rejoined themselves. The floor of these circuits was strewn with straw, for this was where the strappers walked the Skyhorses to cool them down after a long, hot ride.
    Hidden among racks of saddles and tack beside a lift-shaft, the eavesdropper was able to glimpse a pattern of silver constellations on an ebony backdrop, dominated by a pale ship of a moon surfing cloud breakers. Somewhere in the dank and secret courses of the walls, water hammered in the pipes, or perhaps something else was pounding in there.
    The festoons of lead-ropes, saddles, saddlebags, stirrups, surcingles and girths, reins, bits and bridles, martingales, cruppers, and breastplates about his ears were disturbed only by a scuttling of serpiginous rock-lizards that were in the habit of basking daily on the outer walls. Cool air brushed the back of his hand like lily-petals.
    Three youths entered the gatehalls silently, two of them pulling their taltries up over their heads and tightening the drawstrings. They carried a horn lantern. The third was clad richly in black velvet edged with silver braid, colors denoting a Son of the Seventh House, for he was the heir of the Storm Chieftain. The noble youth wore a high-collared doublet, belted at the middle; full sleeves were slashed to show a lining of gleaming jet satin beneath a cloak that swung to meet turned-down boots just below the knees. Relayer uniform besported a V-shaped embroidery from shoulder to waist to shoulder in the colors of the House, and epaulets starred to indicate squadron status. The belt buckle was cast in the form of the zigzag Stormrider device, which, with its motto, “ Arnath Lan Seren ”—some relic of a dead language—was also emblazoned on the left side of the chest, over the heart. Two daggers were slung from his belt, in ornamented sheaths, black leather embossed with silver. The young lord’s long, walnut-brown hair was combed smoothly back and bound tightly into a club with cords of black and silver. His taltry, thrown back daringly, was edged with tiny diadems like the glints in dominite rock and sported a sable plume. Shining boots rang on stone as he approached the gate and carefully unwrapped a heavy package he carried, a blue metal box whose lid he opened. Two lustrous ingots gleamed dully in moonlight.
    Grod Sheepshorn, a lanky servant-lad with a receding chin, laughed nervously in his throat.
    â€œGo on, Spatchwort,” he said to his friend, “you be first since you are the clever one.”
    â€œIt matters not who is first.”
    So saying, Lord Ustorix tossed the silvery bars