The Tiger's Eye (Book 1) by Robert P. Hansen Read Free Book Online Page A

narrow ruts cut
between thick groves of maple trees, and by the third day it was a carved path
through the forest. Then it turned southeast, gradually leaving the densely forested
foothills and entering long, sloping, wooded hills. Most of the trees were
still maples, but there were also clumps of pine and oak. Beneath them, in the
undergrowth, were a myriad of flowers—pink, blue, yellow, white, large,
small—and thousands of tiny white butterflies, blue moths, and honeybees. He
thought about tracking down a beehive, but decided against it; there was no
sense wasting time only to end up stung to death. Still, his magic….
    At the end of the first week, the nauseating stench of
stagnant, standing water drowned out the sweetness of the flowers, and
mosquitoes replaced the butterflies. Fortunately, the road only skirted the
edge of the swamp for two days, and the villages were close enough together for
him to find lodging and food at the end of each day’s walk. Then the road forked,
with one prong continuing to skirt the southern border of the swamp, and the
other heading due south. He took the south road, and by the end of the next
day, he had escaped the stench altogether. The villages were further apart, but
there were well-established campsites along the way. For four days, the road
lay between gradually steepening, rocky foothills heavy with brittle brown
grasses, berry bushes, and thorn-encrusted shrubs on one side and rolling,
grassy hills on the other. It was easy going; the road was well-traveled, and
there were wooden bridges over the rivers and streams that could not be easily
forded.
    By the end of the second uneventful week, Angus was tired of
hills.
    Low, rolling hills lined with tall brownish-green grass in
need of rain. Flowers reeking of powerful, sickly-sweet odors that overwhelmed
his sense of smell. Honeybees, butterflies, and moths fluttering all about like
massive tiny armies patrolling their kingdoms.
    High hills dappled with a patchwork of trees—maple, pine,
oak—and a rich variegated undergrowth of tangled clumps of the same tall grass,
more brown than green. Long peals of shrill birdsong grated on his nerves and
gave him a steady throbbing at the base of his neck.
    Steep foothills riddled with berry-bearing thorny thickets,
maple groves, and snakes. Lots of snakes. Thin little brown ones that lay in
wait on the thickets’ branches, occasionally striking out at a passing songbird
enticed by the berries. Gray-black ones large enough to swallow his hand
huddled on the ground. And the bright yellow ones that screamed poison.
    Long, arduous climbs up the hill left him breathless, and
the quick, easy glide down the other side left his knees quivering. Then up the
next hill….
    Little village after little village after little village
after little village.
    There were brief moments between villages when he
encountered fellow travelers, but most of them had followed the same dull
pattern: greet each other, ask about the road ahead, and continue on. When
riders came up behind him, he had to step off the road to allow them to pass.
He was always wary during these encounters, but they had all proven to be
benign interludes. Occasionally, he shared a meal and pleasant conversation
with his fellow travelers, and once he had camped for the night with an
eccentric old dwarf who had been driven nearly mad from claustrophobia before
he’d finally fled topside and found peace.
    He fished in the evenings when the river was near enough to
his camp, but mostly all he did was walk. Then, early in the evening of the
fifteenth day from Woodwort, the well-traveled ruts turned into mortared
cobblestones fitted neatly together. The cobblestones were alternating two-foot
square slabs hewn from gray-green and reddish-brown granite. He had been told
to expect them, and he knew what they meant: Wyrmwood, a major crossroads where
the east-west road from Tyrag intersected the north-south road going