The Sword of the South - eARC by David Weber Read Free Book Online

had been said and tried to envision the implications of his own agreement. Wencit’s pipe smoke curled in strange swirls and patterned clouds that seemed to hold secret meanings just beyond comprehension, and it was the wizard who finally broke the silence.
    “I suppose you need a name, don’t you?”
    “It might be useful,” the red-haired man said tartly, stretching his arms high in a spine-arching yawn. He held the stretch for a heartbeat or two, then settled back on his bench. “I can’t go on being ‘my friend’ forever. But a man’s name should say something about his life. So would you care to suggest one?”
    Unveiled irony glittered in his tone, but Wencit declined to rise to the bait.
    “Names are very personal,” he demurred. “I suggest you pick one for yourself.”
    “All right,” the red-haired man agreed, concealing any trace of disappointment as his probe bounced off the armor of the wizard’s silence. “How does ‘Kenhodan’ strike you?” he asked finally, green eyes glinting with bitter humor.
    “So you remember the Old Tongue,” Wencit said.
    “Some of it.”
    “A good choice, then,” the wizard agreed calmly, and silence fell once more, emphasized by the crackle of the fire and the hiss of raindrops dying in its flame. Both men knew the name was both acceptance and challenge, for in the Old Tongue of High Kontovaran, “Kenhodan” meant “born out of silence.”
    * * *
    A conspiracy of thunder, wind, and lightning-shot rain ruled Belhadan as the night dragged towards a stormy climax. Even the most optimistic finally abandoned hope of a lull, and one by one the Iron Axe’s patrons paid their scores and made their unhappy ways out into the blustering dark. In the end, only a handful of diehards remained, and Bahzell gave up the bar to an assistant and joined his guests in the kitchen.
    The staff had withdrawn, leaving their mistress with her daughter and guests. Gwynna’s bedtime had been extended in honor of the visitors, and she half lay across the direcat’s forelegs with the fanged head laid gently but watchfully across her lap. She drowsed sleepily, but her mother sat in deep conversation with Wencit and the man now called Kenhodan.
    Leeana’s distrust had been conquered by Wencit’s acceptance of the stranger, and now she sat across the table from Kenhodan, beside Wencit with her head propped against the wizard’s shoulder as she sipped tea and sought to help Kenhodan come to terms with his maimed memory. She couldn’t be many years older than he was himself, yet she approached the mystery of his amnesia with a calm far beyond her years. Her lively sense of humor was never far from the surface, but her verbal jabs were reserved for Wencit, not Kenhodan, and there was something almost…maternal about her. That wasn’t the right word, but it came closer than any of the others he could think of, for there was a wisdom behind her compassion which seemed oddly out of place in someone who couldn’t possibly be a day over thirty—thirty-five at the most. Whatever the “right” word might have been, however, he certainly wasn’t about to complain. He found her quiet sympathy and acceptance, now that Wencit had vouched for him, soothing to the raw wound in his mind, and the little group floated in the warm comfort of people who hear violent weather rage beyond a snug roof.
    And then Bahzell burst upon the quiet like a jovial thunderbolt, his deep voice echoing until Gwynna roused enough to demand her father’s lap while Leeana shushed them both. Bahzell lifted his daughter from her perch on the direcat, and Blanchrach’s deep purr rumbled as his head butted the hradani’s knee affectionately. Gwynna snuggled her arms about her father’s thick neck as he swung a mighty leg over Wencit’s bench and cuddled her close. Leeana poured tea for him, and their eyes met warmly.
    “And would it happen you’ve been and unraveled our mystery, love?” Bahzell asked, bussing her