3 Weaver of Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

were about thirty of them and they were a tough looking bunch, all garbed in fringed leather and buckskins, carrying bows and long vicious hunter’s knives. They stared back at him, some resentfully, some with mocking grins, most with interest.
    “I am going to tell you how to save your lives and your souls,” said Kormak. He spoke evenly but in a voice that would carry, the sort he had used before to address men before a battle. “You’re going into a Shadowblight. Some of you have probably been coming and going through it, and think you know what you’re about. I want you to forget that. What’s on this side of the river is a pale shadow of what will be on the other side.”
    “Some of us have been across, Guardian. We’ve seen what it’s like.” There were nods.
    “Then I want all of you who have been across before to come talk with me after this.”
    “Why?”
    “I’ll need to check you for the taint of Shadow.” There were groans and mocking shouts from the men who had been across but the rest of the woodsmen were looking at them seriously. Kormak had just made an accusation that could get a man burned in many places, and deservedly so.
    “None of us are Shadowbrood,” someone shouted.
    “Most likely,” said Kormak, “but it needs to be tested. Or do you have something to hide?”
    It was a speech Kormak never liked to make but it had to be done. He could whip these people up into a lynch mob if he had to. They were already scared and suspicious enough.
    “You said you were going to tell us how to survive in a Blight.” This came from Jaethro, the man who had almost started a fight in the bar last night. “You going to get on with that?”
    “It’s simple,” said Kormak. “Drink nothing you find there. Eat nothing either. We take food and water with us, and we keep it sealed in bottles and skins until we need to use it. When we get out we wash ourselves and we burn everything we took in with us, unless I tell you different.”
    “Why?”
    “Because the Shadow will cling to most anything that passes through its land. It will be in the plants. It will be in the beasts that eat the plants. It will be in the beasts that eat those beasts. It will be in the water. And the Shadow changes anything that it touches.”
    Some of the men grinned mockingly but some nodded agreement. “I can see some of you know what I am talking about. You’ve seen creatures warped and mad and behaving unnaturally. You’ve seen trees twisted out of shape. Unless you want to see the same thing happen to yourselves, you’ll heed what I say.”
    “And what if we don’t?”
    “If I find any of you are tainted, I will kill you.” He kept his voice absolutely neutral but he saw some of them flinch.
    Kormak raised up his hand. “I want you to understand this— if I do kill you I will be doing you a favour. I will be saving you from the warping of body, mind and spirit. I will be saving you from becoming a twisted Shadowbrood changeling, a madman who would kill and betray his loved ones, whose soul will be consigned to eternal torments. I have seen these things happen. I don’t want it to happen to you.”
    Something in his tone must have convinced them for they fell silent and when he stopped speaking a bunch of them shuffled forward, most with the worried looks on their faces of men who had been told that they might have the plague.
     
    “How did it go?” Grogan asked. He checked the sky. The sun said it was noon and the day was wasting away. He wanted to be under way, but he was thorough and he was careful.
    Kormak watched the last of the rangers go. He had spoken the words of the Sun’s prayer over them and touched them on the forehead with his Elder Sign amulet, which would burn anyone sufficiently saturated with the Shadow.
    “No one is ready to turn purely from being possessed by the spirit of the Shadow,” Kormak said.
    “Then why do you sound so unhappy.”
    “A man can be a long way from that and