The Dread Wyrm (Traitor Son Cycle) by Miles Cameron Read Free Book Online Page A

powers.”
    Gabriel sat back on his heels. “I’m glad. Let’s eat.”
    They walked companionably into the common room. There were boards laid on a trestles and long benches and boxes, and grey-clad drovers sat intermixed with the knights and archers of the company. It was warm, and there was food—piles of cut bacon in big, deep wooden bowls cut from tree burls, and bread fried in fat with egg on it; good maple syrup in pitchers, buttermilk and hot wine and sassafras tea. Again, the inn staff moved like the professionals they were—huge wooden platters of food emerged from the kitchens to replace those emptied by guests—hot wine was produced, and honey.
    There was a hush when the captain came into the hall, and then everyone went back to eating. The captain sat at a table with Father Arnaud, Sauce, and Ser Alcaeus. Bad Tom paused to talk to a drover and then came and settled next to Sauce, making the bench creak.
    “Well?” Tom asked.
    Gabriel shook his head. “We have to be very careful about our talking,” he said.
    “Do you trust him?” Sauce asked with a head jerk to indicate the absent Wyrm.
    Gabriel wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something bad and shook his head rapidly. He pulled a knife and a pricker from his baselard sheath and began to eat.
    Tom nodded. “I need to move while the weather holds,” he said. “My lads will be that sorry to miss another night here, but I have—” He shrugged. “Three thousand head or more for Harndon. Last year the whole herd went to Lissen Carak. And the army.”
    Gabriel didn’t quite look up, but their eyes met. “You’re going to Lissen Carak and then to Harndon? Yes?”
    Tom frowned. “If I can find a buyer at Southford, I’m of a mind to sell him part of the herd for Lissen Carak—for the fair.”
    “I need you at Ser James’s council,” the captain said.
    Tom was entirely reasonable. “I wouldn’t miss it. But that’s Albinkirk, and I don’ need to risk me beasties one league west o’ the fords.” He leanedforward. “Keeper says there’s daemons in the woods and the Huran are moving.”
    Ser Gabriel’s smile was thin. “Then we should probably stop talking and get a move on. Corporals and above, outside in the yard. Then we move.”
    His authority was so palpable that Ser Gavin almost saluted his brother.
    Armoured and ready to ride, Sauce stood by her horse in her ancient arming jacket, the one she’d stopped wearing almost a year before. She’d been forced into it this morning because her new, beautiful scarlet arming coat with its finely worked grommets and fancy quilting had torn—two grommets ripped clean through by the lace that held her right arm harness. The old one was smelly and too tight and crisp with old sweat on old leather and linen so filthy it felt like felt.
    She mused on the feeling. Considering, as she munched an apple still hale after a winter in the inn’s cellars, that she’d once been used to clothes this filthy; she’d once been quite a tough thing, and now she chafed, her shoulders unused to the rough fabric.
    “I’m getting soft,” she said.
    Mag was already up in her wagon seat, high above Sauce. “Don’t you believe it, my sweet,” Mag muttered. “What you are getting is
older
.”
    Sauce winced.
    Mag was sewing away at her nice arming coat, and Sauce, who was virtually blind to both
ops
and
potentia
was still able to feel the strength of the older woman’s working, the way a blindfolded prisoner might feel the kiss of the sun.
    Around them, one by one, the knights and men-at-arms of the company came out of the common room, paid their tabs and tallies at a long table set in the yard for the purpose and went to get the last points tied on their harnesses, or to get a strap or buckle looked at.
    Ser Dagon La Forêt paused by Sauce’s horse. He was shifting uncomfortably inside his new six-piece breastplate. He settled it on his hips and winced. He gave Sauce a rueful smile. “Must we ride in