War in Tethyr by Victor Milan, Walter (CON) Velez Read Free Book Online

Zaranda had struck down. She rode Goldie back around the side of the cot, swinging well wide to avoid flames billowing from window and roof.
    On the last grassy rise Zaranda and her comrades had crossed before hitting the farmhouse, a lone rider sat. He was a vast man, a good eight feet tall, astride a horse at least eighteen hands high and as broad as a beer-cart, which might have served a northern knight as a destrier but more likely was born to pull a plow. The man wore a hauberk of tarnished scale armor and, across one mountainous shoulder, bore a great double-bitted battle-axe with a six-foot helve. The restless wind made the hair of his topknot stream like a greasy black pennon.
    Beside him, four ragged men on foot had Father Pelletyr by the arms. One of them held a knife blade, crusted with rust and ominous dark stains, against the cleric's throat.

4
    "Zaranda," the priest said apologetically, "these gentlemen claim to be tax-collectors. If they're about their lawful business, it's wrong of us to interfere."
    Farlorn had emerged from behind the house on his dapple-fannied gray. He answered Zaranda's query-look with a shrug to indicate the man she'd struck was no longer an issue. Then he glanced up the rise, and a smile quirked his handsome lips.
    "Our good father was always one for following instructions," he murmured.
    "Who dares," the monstrous rider bellowed, "interfere with the servitors of Baron Pundar on their lawful business?"
    "Zaranda Star dares that and more," Zaranda declared. "Especially since I happen to be Countess Morninggold. Father, this beast's misled you; this is still County Morninggold, and these men no more than looters-and murderers."
    She tossed her head haughtily, making her namesake blaze flash in the sun. "Who dares to name that hedge-robber Pundar of Little Consequence 'baron'- and to prey upon my people?"
    The morningstar man with the injured leg had circled round and now rode up to join his apparent leader. He stopped and turned back to the house. "Pundar is too a baron," he called through cupped hands. "He has a piece of paper from the capital that proves it!"
    "The capital?" Zaranda said, half to herself. "Since when is there a capital in Tethyr?"
    "Why, Zazesspur- ow!"
    The giant man had ridden a few steps forward and with a great backhanded clout knocked the morningstar man from the saddle.
    "I do the talking here," he roared. "I am Togrev the Magnificent, lord high commander of the armed forces of Pundaria! We claim these lands by ancient right, as approved and attested by Zazesspur."
    Zaranda and Farlorn had begun to ride forward. They could see the house's front now. Two of the footmen lay in unmoving lumps in the pigsty; the other four stood with hands up, looking nervously at Stillhawk, who stood covering them with an arrow nocked.
    "By rights," Zaranda told Togrev, "we should hang the lot of you as the murderous bandit scum you are."
    "You forget," the lord high commander said, and gestured with a black-nailed hand. A few feet from the captive cleric the little ass had its head down, cropping obliviously at the sweet spring grass. "I have your priest."
    "For all the good that does you," Zaranda said. "It's poor practice to negotiate for hostages, and as a rule I won't do it."
    Father Pelletyr squirmed his right arm free enough to touch himself four times on the breast in the sign of the rack on which Ilmater suffered. Then he crossed his hands before his breast as if they were bound and rolled his eyes heavenward, accepting. The cleric had a notable reluctance to face physical danger, but this was martyrdom, which made all the difference in the world.
    "However," Zaranda said, stopping her horse twenty yards downslope from the huge man, "somebody needs to be left alive to tell that mound of ankheg droppings Pundar that if he troubles my people again he'll wake some fine spring night with a fireball in his lap."
    "And who would cast such a fireball?" demanded Togrev in an