Witch Queen by Kim Richardson Read Free Book Online Page B

been any time for questions, and what I’d
learned from Will and Leo in the last few days wasn’t much. Most of
it I had already heard from Jon.
    I had learned that the great rebellion to
overthrow the priests had started in Anglia two hundred years ago,
and that the leaders from all but two of the other realms of
Arcania had been planning in secret for years. Romila and Girmania
had not participated. Had the Romilians and Girmanians been in
league with the necromancer priests all this time?
    I was all too aware that we needed to cross
both their realms to reach Witchdom. I’d tucked one of Rose’s maps
inside my saddlebag, and I knew that if we continued our steady
pace, we would reach the border of Romila in about ten days.
    I cringed at the icy fear I felt, and I
pushed it back. I wouldn’t let it take over. I stole a glance at
the faces of the men. Even in their silence, I could almost hear
their fear. It was in the shadows of their eyes, the gauntness of
their faces, and in the tension along their shoulders.
    Young Garrick was the worst. His jaw was
clamped tightly, and he appeared to be in pain. His eyes darted
around nervously, never settling on anything for longer than a
fraction of a second. I felt sorry for him, and I wondered why he
had volunteered. He cast a glance my way and I quickly turned away,
afraid that he would sense my own fear. That couldn’t
happen. I was leading them. I couldn’t risk them seeing the
terror in my eyes. Leaders weren’t supposed to be frightened. They
were supposed to lead. And that’s what I was going to do.
    As we rode, I stared at the vast landscape
that spread on either side of the main road. The warm red and
yellow hues of fall were missing. The trees stood gray and
leafless, like skeletons. The few leaves that still hung on the
branches were blackened and spotted with dark stains. The lands
surrounding Soul City had been hit the hardest by the black blight.
Death and disease affected everything.
    I cringed as we passed withered and
blackened farmers’ fields that looked as though they’d been burned,
and I clamped my mouth shut as swarms of flies and locusts hit my
face. I nearly gagged as one hit me in the eye and clung to my
eyelashes. Resisting the urge to open my mouth, I pulled the insect
out of my eye and tossed it into the wind.
    There were no horses, cattle, sheep, or
goats—no animals at all as far as I could tell. Come to think of
it, I hadn’t spotted any birds or heard any bickering squirrels
either. It wasn’t natural. None of it was. The acrid smell burned
my lungs. It smelled of bile, rotting flesh and death. The
infection of the black blight had spread for miles beyond Soul
City.
    Torak snorted loudly and shook his head. I
felt his legs quicken beneath me, as if he, too, needed to pull us
faster down the road and away from the rotting lands. Horses were
much cleverer than people let on or knew. When the Eternal Bogs had
risen against us, Torak and the other horses had fled to the
shelter of Gray Havens. I knew without a doubt that Torak’s
instincts recognized the unnatural evil of the necromancer priests’
black magic. He couldn’t stand the smell or the sight of the
blight. And I didn’t blame him. Torak’s aversion only deepened my
own sense of dread and urgency.
    We rode on steadily for four days. At first
we met a few travelers, mostly farmers and merchants pulling carts
stuffed with provisions. Their faces were gaunt, but their clear
eyes showed that they had not yet been infected with the black
sickness. But as the days went by, we met fewer and fewer
travelers, until the main road was deserted except for us.
    At night we rested and made camp. Max built
a fire and made tea while the rest of us ate our scarce provisions
of dried meat, stale bread, and cheese. We took our meals in
silence, and I slept away from the others.
    On the fifth day, we came to a crossroad
that went down into a green valley with winding rivers and other
intersecting