The Nethergrim by Matthew Jobin Read Free Book Online Page B

mother’s side, a great bush-bearded hulk of a man almost twice Nicky’s size.
    “No, he’s just sitting up there with his head in his hands.” Nicky whittled at a stick of wood. “No helping him.”
    Martin looked up over Baldwin Tailor’s roof toward the distant top of Wishing Hill. “So who found ’em, then?”
    “Your cousin Katherine. Says she was giving one of the horses a run about this morning, and—Edmund! Did you hear about the pigs?”
    “No.” Edmund kept moving, unwilling to stop in case he betrayed too much of what he knew. The day promised to be fine, as fine as anyone could ask so late in the year, and he would not waste a moment more.
    By the time he had gone half a mile up the Dorham road, he had come to regret his choice of shoes in bitter earnest. He jogged awhile, then loped, then walked. The country north of the village broke up into hills, banded rows of crops rolling eastward to the river and pasture rising west into the foothills of the Girth. The village was halfway through harvest, half the fields cut to stubble but the rest still bursting with growth—acre after acre of wheat, oats and barley mixed in the furrows with beans and pulse. Tomorrow they would all be back to it hard, bent first in the lord’s fields, then their own, trying with all their might to reap and bind and thresh enough to last them through to spring. Knowing it gave the day a special shine—for the sheer stupid joy of it he nocked and loosed an arrow. It shanked and spiraled in the wind, landing sideways in the pasture. The cattle nearest by spared him a look, then got back to grazing.
    Edmund followed the inside wind of the road, between a pair of pasture hills crowned with oaks going scarlet with the dying days. He caught a blur of motion just beyond them—Katherine hurtling at a full driving gallop through a strip of open pasture on the back of a dark gray horse. Her hair streamed out behind her, nearly the same shade as the horse’s mane and tail, a triple banner giving full account of their speed. She held a lance couched in the crook of her arm, which she lowered in one smooth action to point at the cross-shaped device at the near end of the pasture. From one arm of the cross there hung a weighted sack; a round shield had been bolted to the other with a red dot painted on the boss. She leaned into a crouch, bracing herself in the stirrups—and struck the target square in the middle, swinging the weight out, up and over her ducked head as she thundered past.
    The horse saw Edmund coming first. He twitched his ears and snorted, thumping one great hoof into the turf.
    Katherine raised her free hand. “Edmund! Sorry—I suppose I must be late.” She tightened the rein and rode over to the railing.
    Edmund looked over at the device, still spinning from the impact. “What happens if you miss?”
    “I don’t miss.” She handed him the lance butt-first. “You remember Indigo, don’t you?”
    Indigo’s massive flanks heaved in and out. His mane hung damp with sweat down his hard-muscled neck. In full sun his coat had a sheen like blue slate from the white hairs that grew amongst the black. Edmund was no more a horseman than most peasants, but he knew perfection when he saw it. He considered reaching out to stroke Indigo’s long, straight nose, but one look into the stallion’s eyes told him how very bad an idea that would be.
    Katherine leapt down. “I like your shoes.” She hooked a finger in the reins and led Indigo back across the pastures, to the stables and cottage at the heart of the farm. Edmund walked alongside, savoring the feeling of carrying her lance, still warm on the end from her grip.
    “Papa, Edmund’s here!” Katherine pushed back the stable door.
    “Over here, child.” Katherine’s father, John, the Marshal of Elverain, stood in the middle of a paddock, walking a very young horse in a wide circle on a lunge line. He twitched a whip, no more than a touch, and the horse changed