The Witch's Daughter by R. A. Salvatore Read Free Book Online Page B

busy summer sits before me.” He stopped and snapped his fingers as if he suddenly remembered something, then reached under his robes.
    “Grrr,” came a muffled reply to his intrusion.
    “Oh, silly puss,” Ardaz huffed, rubbing the newest of many scratches on his hand. He reached back into his robe more forcefully and pulled Desdemona from her catnapping slumbers. “Go now!” he demanded, and to the astonishment of his companions, he threw the cat high into the air.
    Desdemona shrieked in protest, but her cry was transformed into the excited caw of a raven as the cat shifted into her avian state and flew off ahead of the wizard.
    “Got to light a fire under them sometimes,” the wizard explained to the others.
    “She likes her sleep,” Rhiannon agreed.
    “But she likes the adventures more,” Ardaz replied. “You just have to remind her of that sometimes.”
    High overhead, Desdemona squawked out a complaint at the wizard’s delay.
    “Well, good-bye again,” Ardaz said to them. “And have a fine summer. I will return to the north before winter. Or maybe I won’t. One can never tell about such things. But I will return, I do dare say.”
    “With new tales to tell?” Rhiannon asked hopefully.
    The wizard put his arms out wide. “One never knowswhen one might walk into a tale,” he said, and he kicked his horse off into a blinding run that seemed impossibly swift.
    In the springtime sunshine on the peaceful Calvan plain, none of the group, or the wizard himself, could have guessed how prophetic those final words would prove to be.

Chapter 4

The Western Fields
    T HEIR ROAD TOOK no definitive course, meandering east away from the river, then north or south to whatever community they could find, only to return eventually to the riverbank. Gradually they moved farther south, but spring was still in the air and they had no need to hurry. At Rhiannon’s request, they spent an entire week in one village, just talking to the farm folk and learning their ways. With her knowledge of nature, Rhiannon had more than a few bits of good advice for them.
    And then they went on to the next town, and the next after that, truly an easy-paced holiday. Belexus approved of the comfortable pace; he saw Rhiannon reveling in the many meetings and budding friendships, and he saw something deeper, something wonderful, growing between the witch’s daughter and his ranger friend.
    Surely Andovar cared not where they were or where they were going. All that came to matter to him was that Rhiannon was by his side, sharing his adventures and widening his smiles.
    And Rhiannon, Belexus was observant enough to know, felt the same way.
    *   *   *
    They rolled down from the rocks of the Kored-dul like the black clouds of a thunderstorm. Ten thousand strong and hungry for blood came the army of Morgan Thalasi. The master himself led the march, borne in a pillowy litter by four of his largest talon soldiers.
    Rain greeted the army as it came down from the mountains onto the dreary beaches of the western shore of Aielle. Unbothered, the single-minded force trudged onward. They would leave the beaches soon enough and turn inland, where their feast awaited.
    The master had promised.
    But as the group prepared to camp that first night down from their rocky homes, they were met by something more tangible than a gloomy weather front. Facing them, fanning out to encircle the front half of the vast camp, loomed a second army of talons, larger than the force that had accompanied Morgan Thalasi.
        Rhiannon continued to become more and more comfortable with each village the threesome crossed, and now she was fully at ease with the strangers they met on their way. The little troupe had been out of Avalon for the better of two months, riding that meandering, though generally southern, course along the edge of the great shining river. As summer came in, though, their excursions to the east grew less frequent, for Belexus had some definite