The Lost Library of Cormanthyr by Mel Odom Read Free Book Online

Recognition dawned in Jaeleen’s eyes over the edged bolt of the hand crossbow.
    “Yes.” Baylee took a tentative breath, really surprised when it didn’t hurt too badly.
    “What are you doing here?” Jaeleen remained behind cover, her attention divided between the ranger and the approaching group bashing their way through the forest.
    “Camping,” Baylee replied. He turned his own attention to the crashing noises coming through the brush. The group no longer worried about remaining quiet. He pointed at the hand crossbow. “Would you mind aiming that somewhere else?”
    Jaeleen shifted the crossbow, but not far. She reached up and knocked leaves from her hair. Oak seeds whirled around and descended to the ground. “You expect me to believe you were camping?”
    “Not since you’ve been spying on me.”
    Dark anger coasted across the shadowed planes of the woman warrior’s face. “Spying is kind of a harsh term, don’t you think?”
    Baylee let some of his own anger sound in his voice. “What exactly would you call it?”
    Jaeleen’s mouth made an O of surprise. “You think I followed you here!”
    “I’ve been here for hours,” Baylee retorted, “and you’ve only just arrived. What would you think?”
    The crashing through the forest neared, sounding remarkably like hounds taking to the brush. The bellowed commands became clearer, and this time Baylee was able to recognize the language being used.
    An orc raiding party, Xuxa said. They must have cut your trail, or the woman’s.
    “How dare you think I would follow you! I swear by the fair hair of Tymora, my chosen goddess, that I had no idea you were here until I saw you on that hillside!” Jaeleen looked indignant.
    Her words rang true, but Baylee knew the woman had the gift of making any implausibility sound like the truth. He’d had experience. “Then what are you doing here?” he demanded.
    She hesitated. “Traveling.”
    Baylee snorted his disbelief, an obscene sound that Xuxa instantly rebuked him for through their silent communication. “Ranger’s Way is six miles to the east. You’re out in the rough.”
    “I was hoping to shave a few days off my journey to Plungepool.”
    “What business have you in Plungepool?”
    “I went to see the falls, if it’s any business of yours,” Jaeleen snapped. “Which, of course, it isn’t. I’ve heard a lot about the area.”
    “You’ve never been there?”
    “No.”
    Baylee struggled to believe that. Still, most of the times he’d occasioned to meet Jaeleen had been along the Sword Coast. Though there had been that time in Mulhorand when he and Golsway had recovered the Orb of Auras, which had contained a codex that had given scholars clues into one of the dead languages contained in that country.
    It had been the third meeting with Jaeleen, and the first time they’d been intimate with each other, giving in to the impulses both had. However, Jaeleen had taken advantage of that tryst to steal the Orb of Aurus. Golsway had been incensed, and it had taken them six days to track her down and steal it back only moments after she’d sold it to a rival collector. She got to keep her money, and Baylee and Golsway had barely escaped with their lives. The Orb was now part of a collection in Candlekeep where scholars still worked on divining the languages detailed in its codex.
    “Why are you on your way now?” the ranger asked.
    “I was responding to an invitation.”
    “From whom?”
    “Tarig Phylsnan.”
    “Who is that?”
    “I don’t owe you any explanations,” Jaeleen retorted angrily.
    “You’re here,” Baylee replied, “and you’ve brought a war party of orcs down on us.”
    “Me?”
    “You!” The ranger was surprised at the feelings of jealousy that assailed him. After all, Jaeleen was most likely the last person he’d ever want to trust again. Memory of the wine of her lips and the smoothness of her skin haunted him at times, up in the stillness of the mountains or the