The Sword and the Sorcerer by Norman Winski Read Free Book Online Page B

the queen and her daughter, who were sitting astride a handsome white stallion. Without asking permission, he lifted Natalia out of the saddle and placed her on the ground.
    “The king awaits you on the boat, your highness. Leave the horses with me.”
    He offered the queen his hand, the pasty, strained smile on his face bothering Talon more than his usually unreadable face.
    Malia took Karak’s hand and allowed him to help her to the ground, her long billowy robes and cape getting in the way.
    “You’re so kind, General,” the queen said, affectionately touching his arm. She glanced in the direction of the boat. “My heart thrills at the prospect of being with the king again!”
    Henry jumped out of the saddle on his own and with no small flourish of manly independence.
    The queen, Henry, and Natalia walked a few yards towards the river and stopped, realizing Talon was still aloft his mighty steed, tense, expectant, battle-ready. Karak approached the young prince and offered him his hand too. Talon observed Karak’s flinching jaw muscles and a twitch around his eyes. He had never seen Karak this nervous and he declined Karak’s extended hand.
    Karak angrily pulled his hand away. “Come now, boy—dismount!”
    It was a command and nobody had ever spoken to Talon in that tone of voice save his father. Talon seemed to grow taller in the saddle as he glared down at the increasingly fitful general. “Something is wrong!”
    The queen automatically hugged her children close to her. Like his father, Talon had an uncanny nose for trouble and she trusted it.
    “Nonsense!” Karak flared back. “Now get to the boat!”
    He reached to pull Talon out of the saddle but he kicked him away. Karak rubbed the shoulder where the boy’s booted foot had landed, peering from side to side into the surrounding forest, as if hoping no one had witnessed his humiliation.
    More than ever Talon was convinced danger lurked nearby.
    Karak moved menacingly toward him once more. “I said, get off that horse now, or I’ll—”
    With one swift jerk Talon flashed his tri-bladed sword to within inches of Karak’s face, frightening the general back a few feet.
    “Or you’ll what !” Talon demanded, still brandishing the sword at him.
    Panic seized the general. Without uttering another word, he tore from the clearing and began to frantically zigzag through the woods.
    “Get to the boat, Mother!” Talon screamed, now certain that Karak had somehow betrayed them. “Quickly!”
    Malia snatched Natalia into her arms and with Henry at her side began to run as fast as she could toward the ketch, Natalia crying fearfully.
    Talon turned his steed around and took after Karak at breakneck speed. The general ran along the path they had broken with their horses.
    The pounding of the hoofs and the driving obsession to get Karak at any price for the moment eclipsed Talon’s concern about his mother, baby sister, and brother. “Treachery must be punished with the sword,” he remembered his father once saying, and Talon welcomed being Karak’s executioner.
    “Father! Father!” Henry cried for help, running to the boat well ahead of his mother and Natalia. He was only a few yards from the ketch when two hulking Klaws sprung up from lying low on deck. They leaped to the sand and proceeded to savage the boy into bloody quarters with razor-sharp scimtars. It happened so fast that Henry didn’t even have time to scream—but his mother did, for the whole grisly slaughter happened before her and Natalia’s eyes.
    Now Natalia’s screams fused with her mothers, but Talon heard none of it. He was too engrossed in bearing down on Karak.
    The general was running out of breath and he knew he’d certainly never outrun Talon’s stallion so he decided to stop running and fight the enraged boy.
    But no sooner did Karak unsheath his gleaming sword and whirl around to take his stand against the prince than Talon galloped along side him and severed his head with