The Conqueror's Shadow by Ari Marmell Read Free Book Online Page A

history,” her husband told her with a straight face. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”
    Tyannon smiled, rising to her feet. “And how are you today, Tolliver?”
    â€œOh, I can’t complain, Tyannon. Well, I could, actually. It’s bloody hot out there. But it wouldn’t do a one of us any good, so I’ll pass.”
    She brought towels, and the three of them sat down around the table with mugs of ale and a platter containing a heavy wedge of cheese and a variety of vegetables.
    Tolliver looked around him, taking it all in as he did each time he visited. The house was the same on the inside as it was without: plain and simple, homey in a way that his own much larger dwelling could never be. Wooden cabinets lined the walls in the kitchen, simple but comfortable chairs surrounded the thick table at which they sat. This was a place of peace; a family could be quite happy here.
    It was Tyannon who broke the meaningless small talk that filled the first few moments of their repast. “Tolliver, you’re always welcome here, and it is a joy to visit with you. But I’m afraid I don’t quite believe you’re here for entirely social reasons.”
    Tolliver’s lip quirked. “Am I that transparent, Tyannon?”
    â€œOh, no,” Corvis said, hiding his grin behind an upraised mug. “Many things, Tolliver, but not
transparent.”
    But this time Tolliver didn’t rise to the bait. “I fear you’re quite right, Tyannon. The truth is, I’m here to invite the both of you to a town meeting tonight.”
    Corvis and Tyannon frowned as one. Chelenshire held town gatherings on a regular basis to discuss policies or changes in local law, problems with crops, that sort of thing. But …
    â€œThis month’s meeting isn’t for another two weeks,” Corvis observed. “Who called this one?”
    â€œI did, actually.”
    â€œWhy?” Tyannon asked, the slightest catch in her voice.
    Tolliver sighed. “Audriss struck again a few nights back.”
    Despite the blazing heat outside, the room grew chill. This man calling himself Audriss had appeared some few months before, a great army at his back. Since then, several towns and even a pair of small cities had fallen to his relentless advance. So far, Duke Lorum was either unable or unwilling to send his own armies to meet them.
    Corvis himself felt a shiver of fear trace its way slowly, caressingly down his spine. He knew which cities and towns had fallen; he knew, more than any other man alive, what their significance was.
    He was fairly certain, too, that he knew what news Tolliver was about to deliver. For the first time in years, he found himself praying: praying, in this case, that he was wrong.
    â€œIs he moving in this direction?” Tyannon asked quietly.
    â€œNo, not that we know. It’s just … he’s never done anything of this magnitude before.”
    Corvis closed his eyes. He wasn’t wrong. He could have spoken along with Tolliver, word for word.
    â€œDenathere has fallen.
    â€œAgain.”

Chapter Two
    â€œWe’ve breached the gates, my lord.” The triumph in Valescienn’s voice was layered with a thick coating of contempt, like a morning frost that refused to melt away beneath the feeble sun. “If you want to
call
them gates. Denathere is ours.”
    Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East, grunted softly and nodded—both acknowledgments utterly lost within the confines of his death’s-head helm.
For
long moments he stood atop a small hillock and stared, almost mesmerized by the columns of smoke that reached tentatively upward as though uncertain how best to reach the clouds above. The screams of the city reverberated in his mind, echoed within his helm. He knew the scent of blood and burning couldn’t possibly have reached him yet; he must be imagining it, remembering its like from a dozen prior cities.
    He