The Wizard's Coming by Juliet E. McKenna Read Free Book Online Page A

they can. It's also an opportunity for me to say thank you to all those established readers who've supported my writing for a decade and more. Have this story on me.
     
    - Juliet E. McKenna

The Wizard's Coming
     
    On the cusp between winter and spring, snowdrops shivered beneath thorn bushes swelling with buds in a sheltered nook at the heart of the copse, though the wind slicing through the bare and twisted oak trees was bitterly cold. Grey clouds above threatened the rain that still turned too easily to sleet or snow.
    'Another frost-killed bird.' A young man with tousled brown hair gloomily nudged the pathetic corpse with a booted toe. 'Why don't they just fly away?'
    'You're supposed to be looking for firewood.' As his older, balding companion kicked at a heap of sodden leaves and bent to retrieve a blackened, rotten branch, a sharp whistle raised both their heads.
    'Find some god-cursed fuel before that fire dies!' As the man out on the exposed headland shouted angrily at the two of them, everyone else scattered along the cliff-top grassland halted. Three men were walking horses around, in charge of two or three apiece, each beast saddled and bridled. The foremost, lithe and wiry, hauled on the reins wound around each hand and broke into a run, forcing the reluctant animals to trot beside him.
    'Come on.' The second man groaned as he gathered up their meagre haul of sticks and thorny twigs.
    'Elkan, Serde and Treche have got the horses to warm them,' the first man complained.
    'Stop your moaning,' his companion said wearily.
    Both shivered as they left the inadequate shelter of the trees. The man out on the headland huddled into his rough grey cloak and scowled at them as they headed for a shallow hollow in the slope running up to the cliff edge. Two tents were angled to shelter the fire pit from the ceaseless wind.
    A man seated cross-legged on the turf was skinning a brace of winter-starved rabbits. 'Maewelin's tits,' he muttered. 'My hands are so cold I can't tell if I'm cutting coney or my fingers.'
    'There'll be more meat on your fingers.' The younger man who'd found the dead bird dumped his burden.
    'This is all we gleaned, captain,' his bald companion apologised.
    'Then bind the faggots tighter so they burn hotter,' a tall man ordered curtly. His close-cropped hair as steely as his eyes, his gaze didn't shift from the man isolated out on the headland who was staring out to sea once again. The cold grey waters ran away to the horizon to merge with billows of leaden cloud.
    Where the rest wore rough woollens beneath scuffed buff leather and coarse cloaks that could double as blankets, the captain boasted a linen shirt beneath his padded green tunic, scarlet embroidery vivid as blood around the high collar. His cloak was woven from sturdy green wool and lined with brown.
    'What about that thicket beyond the track, captain?' The older of the wood-gatherers twisted strips of bark to secure the sticks into a bundle. 'I could take an axe to an ash tree.'
    'Perhaps at dusk. When we know he's not coming today.' The captain withdrew his gaze to glower at the youth standing idle. 'Hosh, if you're not helping Avayan, relieve Narich.'
    'It ain't my turn,' Hosh protested. 'Bair's next.'
    The stolid, square-faced man continued butchering the rabbits. 'Do you want to eat or not?'
    'Relieve Narich, Hosh,' the captain ordered sternly.
    The youth opened his mouth, shut it and began walking. If he was muttering under his breath, the words were lost as hooves pounded the turf and harness rattled. The men exercising the horses hurried towards the tents, the restive beasts' whinnying initially drowning out the first man's words.
    'Unlil whistled us, Captain,' he repeated, soothing the dappled grey with a stroke on her soft, mottled nose.
    'What's he seen?' the captain wondered.
    'Not the wizard.' Elkan rapidly gathered all the reins thrust towards him by the two others who'd been exercising the horses.
    The wind tugged at the