The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7) by Sarah Woodbury Read Free Book Online Page B

in a roundhouse motion Goronwy saw coming before the thought of hitting him had formed completely in Mabon’s mind.
    Although Goronwy had many weapons at his disposal, he didn’t need any of them. He merely sidestepped Mabon’s punch, such that Mabon, who’d expected to connect with Goronwy’s face, lost his balance on the follow through, spun, flailed, and then, having reached the edge of the road where it ended in a downward slope, lost his balance. He shrieked in a satisfyingly ungodlike fashion and fell.
    Catrin edged closer to Goronwy as they looked over the edge of the road at Mabon. “He will hate you forever for this.”
    “He will, but how is that different from how he felt about me—and all of us—before today?”
    Mabon growled as he clambered back up the slope. Despite his supposed lack of power, his clothes showed no evidence of dust, which meant his glamour was firmly in place. He glared at Goronwy, and then he transferred his gaze to Catrin. The god’s lecherous smile made Catrin look down at her feet, and Goronwy wanted to punch him for real this time.
    But instead, he took Catrin’s elbow and set off with her down the road towards the abbey. Meanwhile, the awful truth resonated through his whole being, and he didn’t need to tap into his sight to see it: controlling Mabon in human form might prove to be even more difficult than controlling him as a sidhe .

Chapter Six
    Catrin
     
    “ H ow far to the abbey from here?” Mabon hustled to catch up with them instead of affecting his usual arrogant saunter.
    “Eight miles,” Catrin said.
    Mabon was silent for a moment. And then, “Did you say eight?”
    Catrin didn’t answer. Neither did the men, though Catrin caught the twitch at the corner of Goronwy’s mouth. He would have complained about the distance if Mabon hadn’t been with them—and he knew it. Taliesin, of course, didn’t usually answer any questions or say anything at all. He’d spoken more in the last hour than Catrin had heard from him ever. Sometimes Taliesin’s silence was an aggravating trait, but in this case, he was right not to answer. Mabon had heard Catrin fine the first time.
    “What’s wrong with riding horses?” Mabon planted himself in the middle of the road and spoke in a loud voice—loud enough to wake the peasants in the house across a pasture from the road.
    It was Goronwy who answered. “Taliesin likes to feel the earth beneath his feet.”
    Mabon snorted at that—a remarkably similar sound to the one Goronwy had made in response to the same information. This time Goronwy defended Taliesin, which was equally amusing in its way. “Taliesin says that where we’re going, horses would be a hindrance.”
    Mabon stared at the back of Taliesin’s head while the bard marched steadfastly on, ignoring them. Catrin had come to understand that it wasn’t that he was absentminded. It was rather that he was listening to so many different voices—in his head, from the earth, from the sidhe —that it took all his focus and energy to keep them distinct. Speaking to an actual, living person was a fourth voice that at times was beyond his abilities.
    For her part, as Catrin started walking again, avoiding the rain-filled ruts made by centuries of cart wheels, she felt connected to the earth for the first time in weeks. She tested the currents in the air and breathed deeply. Neither the unrest within Mabon nor her uncertainty about journeying with Goronwy once again, could dismay her. When she’d arrived at the gate and seen Taliesin leaving, she’d known that it was her role to go with him. It hadn’t been in any way part of her plan—and quite the opposite, in fact—to find Goronwy alongside her too.
    “You mean the world of the sidhe .” Mabon hurried to pass Taliesin and then turned around to come to a halt in front of him, forcing Taliesin to choose between stopping or going around him.
    Taliesin stopped.
    “How are you going to get there? My mother