The Western Wizard by Mickey Zucker Reichert Read Free Book Online Page B

this cause, Colbey would fight until either he or every last Pudarian lay dead.
    “Very well,” Prince Verrall said calmly, though runnels of wine stole all dignity from his bearing. He strode the fine line between compromise and surrender. The first would make him seem a diplomat, the second as weak as Colbey had implied. “But Santagithi’s army stays outside the walls. And you stay only long enough to get the child. If you cause any disturbances, I will see you punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
    Santagithi pursed his lips, unaccustomed to allowing others to speak to him in this fashion. Still, for the sake of peace, he allowed the pronouncement to go unchallenged. “It will be as you say.” He threaded past the guards to Colbey’s side. “Let’s go.”
    Nodding, Colbey turned to leave.
    The prince called after him. “Oh, and General.”
    Colbey and Santagithi both looked back.
    “Colbey, you’re relieved of your command as of this moment. I can lead my own forces, thank you.”
    Colbey nodded once, barely managing to make it through the tent flap without grinning. He whispered to Santagithi. “With such leadership, let the Pudarian army hope that we meet no enemies en route.”
    Santagithi’s answering laugh was strained.

CHAPTER 2
The Night Stalker
    Weeks later, the fields just outside the walled city of Pudar became a crowded chaos of jubilant soldiers and civilians. Wives and children clutched husbands and fathers in grips that seemed unyielding, tear-streaked faces buried in war- and travel-stained leather. Others wove frantically through the masses, seeking one face among four thousand soldiers, while a few stood in huddled misery, knowing they would never see a loved one again. Among so many, these last seemed terribly alone.
    Arduwyn paused just outside the open bronze gates, unable to take another step. The strings of his eyepatch crushed his spiky red hair in crisscrossing lines. His bow lay slung across one shoulder. His quiver held half a dozen arrows, each crafted on the return trip, and each decorated with his crest: two gold rings and one of royal blue. He studied the crowd through his single dark eye. Hope blurred every woman to the plump, beautiful shape of his wife, Bel. Every child seemed to be one of the three she had borne her first husband who had also been Arduwyn’s closest friend, children who had become the little hunter’s own by right of marriage. Yet, clearly, Bel had not come.
    Grief crushed Arduwyn, and he clutched the irregular blocks of stone composing Pudar’s wall. For hours he stood, watching couples and families sort from the hubbub and disappear through the gates. Some of the citizens slunk back into the confines, empty-handed. Yet no soldier returned alone. No soldier except Arduwyn.
    A long, staring vigil blurred Arduwyn’s vision, until the people became milling outlines. In the fields, fires sprouted, red against dusk, as Santagithi’s army prepared their camps outside the gates. Beyond their campsite, forestloomed, and evening turned the trees into tall, brooding shapes, dark except for a tinge of green. Despite its murky appearance, the forest beckoned Arduwyn like a mistress. He had spent most of his childhood in the wilds surrounding the city of Erythane. There, his father had taught him the ways, habits, and haunts of the animals and the finest points of bowmanship. There also, Arduwyn had learned to hide in times of stress, sadness, and joy.
    Despite his sorrow, the thought made Arduwyn smile. He thought of the cool kiss of night air winding through the trees, heavy with the scent of pine, elm, and moss. He heard the click of needles and the rattle of leaves in the limbs above him, knew the branch-snapping footfalls of deer as they brushed through copses, nostrils twitching to catch his scent. Foxes whirred and yelped in the night, their sound easily identified over the constant chitter of
wisules
, and the rumble of night insects.
    Arduwyn had