William Jones
Stories
10
Chapters
3,868
Words
2.6 M
Comments
0
Reading
8 d, 21 h
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Tristan, sitting on a stone, idly strummed at strings that did not exist. The supplicant’s cithara in his hands was but a petrified piece of wood without the additional accessory of a priest with mastery of the Gloam to weave strings and pluck at them. The first might not be so impossible, but the second was rather more of a hurdle. So, in the hours past midnight but before they left, Tristan asked a burning question. “Can you play cithara?” Sarai eyed him like he’d tracked mud all over her nice…-
560 •
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Angharad flinched, but she did not die. No, the ball hit the tree about a foot to the right of her head. Bark went flying and a heartbeat later both cultists keeping watch turned her way - she felt Cozme going still as he was caught leaning out of cover. The cultists shouted, and just like that the traitor had killed them. There should have been a burst of movement, of surprise and fear and hatred, but instead Angharad breathed deep. The urgency bled out of her, slowly but surely, as a great silence…
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560 •
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It had already been a difficult day, so naturally it began raining. Only a patter at first, nothing like the sheets of icy water Peredur’s coasts enjoyed springing on its dwellers, but it grew. Within an hour they could hardly see in front of the even with the lantern, stumbling along carefully. Master Cozme pointed out a silver lining, that few lemures could fly in such weather and none could follow a scent through it, but wet feet spoke louder than his optimism. It did not stop there: Angharad had…
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560 •
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They began to feel the bite of the missing supplies on the third day. Angharad had measured her portions from the start, planning for four days’ worth of meals. Formal registration with the duelling circuit had exempted her from ever having to attend Angharad cut her meal in half, then in half again, and wordlessly gave a quarter to each. “Thank you,” Beatris sincerely said, bowing her head. “It is very kind of you,” Briceida added. The sheer gratitude on their faces made her uncomfortable.…
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560 •
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Lady Ferranda Villazur, wide awake and miffed at rats invading her camp, pointed her pistol at him. Though she must be a decent shot, Tristan was more worried by Sanale carefully aiming his long-barrelled musket. Malani had a reputation for being good shots and the same was true of huntsmen: a man who was both was not to be trifled with. Pressing his knife tighter against Lan’s throat, he forced her to stand between him and the threats. “Muzzles down,” Tristan ordered, “or I slit her…
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560 •
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It was an unusual experience, Tristan mused, to be treating others using a poisoner’s kit in ways he had largely learned through study of interrogation. Not that anyone could tell the difference. “I don’t need a stick to bite down on,” Felis insisted. “It’s just a little pain, I can take it.” In most circumstances, the man might even have been right: regular use of dust could dull one’s sense of pain. Not so here, however. Aines fretted at her husband’s side but he kept pushing her…
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560 •
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Angharad woke with wet eyes, the way she always did after dreaming of her mother. She could only be grateful that it had ended early this time, before her father’s whisper in her ear and the last of the horror. Her neck was beaded with sweat but she stayed there, lying in her cot, and tried to blot out from her mind the bloody, broken figure the nightmare had fixed in her mind. She hated it, that this was how she should remember Mother. Rhiannon Tredegar had been long and lean, like the crack of a whip…
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560 •
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It was an old road, nibbled at by the elements the way crabs would nibble at a corpse, but it had held up well. Enough so their pace across the plain was swift even though two of their crew were old. Vanesa was in better shape than Francho, whose cough resurfaced with often, but Tristan would still bet on the toothless old man in a fight: she’d candidly admitted that without her spectacles she might as well be blind. In truth, the thief thought, it was all going a little too well. According to…
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560 •
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They’d not left the campsite for half an hour before it got worse. “We “I gave no word,” Lady Ferranda Villazur evenly replied, “and go back on nothing. If you assumed, Cerdan, that is on your head alone.” The eldest of the Cerdan brothers was the one barking the loudest but he was not the one Angharad was wary of. Twice now Remund had tried to catch Cozme Aflor’s eye, to give him a silent order, and only the retainer’s obstinate pretence he had not noticed was preventing that disaster…
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560 •
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Lieutenant Sihle had said the road began half a mile ahead and that was where they found it. Tristan was no tracker, not so far from dirty alleyways, but though the ancient paving stones were half-covered by dirt and dead leaves they were too large to be missed by anyone with eyes. The woods were light on either side but grew thicker swiftly, leaving the impression of a path cleared thoroughly long ago and since left for the forest to reclaim year by year. Most fighters banded at the front and the back of…
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560 •
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