The Storm's Own Son (Book 1) by Anthony Gillis Read Free Book Online

calls. At last, when the heroes were all wounded and seemed on the verge of defeat, they came together, attacking as one to deal the death blow to the enemy. The black shape collapsed and the fires in its eyes went out.  The heroes raised their weapons to the sky in triumph, and the scene faded gently away.
    Then followed a sentence in letters of brilliant golden flame. They were words carved here and there on the older monuments in the city, and used occasionally on civic architecture. The letters were an archaic form of the Imperial alphabet, and the words they spelled were antique enough that few could read them. Talaos had memorized them once. They were themselves said to be a translation of words written in glyphs on the obelisk, in a language now lost even to scholars.
    "What do those say?" asked Katara.
    "It was here that the first battle was won," he replied.
    Katara wondered at the words in silent thought. For his part, Talaos had thought them poetic, but the legends he'd heard around their meaning were varied and contradictory.
    The vast crowd, in the plaza and on the buildings all around, erupted in cheers and applause. Though it was not the first time magic had been used to enhance the festival, Talaos thought it was by far the most spectacular he'd seen in his lifetime. He smiled in appreciation.
    Katara however, seemed unimpressed . "Why waste such great power on something with no real effect? So people can clap and cheer as if it was a juggling show? It makes no sense."
    Talaos l aughed appreciatively, then answered, "I suspect we have a lot more wealth and power to waste here in Carai than you you've got up in Vorhame."
    The Northwoman seemed to be working out whether that came out as mockery, but she never got the chance to finish as Talaos grabbed her by her braids with his right hand and pulled her back from the balcony into the room. He kissed her lips, and then put his teeth to her neck.
    Sorya closed the slatted doors behind them and pulled off her top. Talaos turned to kiss her, left hand cupping her bottom, then shifting to hold her tight by her tiny waist. She started working on her pants. Meanwhile Katara kneeled down between his legs, parted her lips, and undid the strings of his own.
     

 
    3 . Downsides
     
    Talaos made his way home to his latest little garret of an apartment. He planned to get cleaned up and then ready for his lunch with Daxar. It had the promise of a new path entirely, probably dangerous, but quite unlike the one he'd followed for nearly eight years. Eight years... The thought put him in a more philosophical frame of mind about his life and choices, and the consequences of those choices.
    There was Sorya, who wanted more than he was ready to give, and Katara who asked for nothing, yet whose eyes were already hinting at more. There were all the other women he'd known and loved, all the friends he'd made and lost, and all the trouble he'd found in a wild life on the streets. Still, it was the life he'd chosen, the life he'd made fighting his way up from a penniless urchin childhood. Whatever it was, it was his.
    But that didn't mean it couldn't be better. War, on however small a scale, was what he'd known, and war seemed to be looming everywhere. Palaeon, in his relentless way had kept up the pressure to help him take on Cratus.
    However odd things seemed to be with Cratus now, and however bad the truth about the man, Talaos had worked with him for many years. He'd never taken the full oaths, but he'd been close, and he'd pulled off the near-impossible by breaking those ties without Cratus coming to kill him. At least until the fights with Borras in this war, and he considered those a separate matter. Much as his skin crawled at Cratus's deeds past and present, Talaos wasn't fighting for a cause, and didn't see the current war as his.
    Daxar's words from a few days past, about things changing for the worse, came to mind. They were certainly changing. More news was trickling in