A Sword for Kregen Read Online Free PDF Page A

the door burst open and Nath the Needle and Master Hork were there. And, with them, Delia, her face strained and worried, hurried in ready to fuss over me as only she can.
    Despite all my protestations Nath insisted on a full examination, and when he pronounced me fit and well and the wound healed, I, for one, was heartily glad to be rid of the sickroom aroma.
    “I have work to do, and work I will do!”
    “But, my heart — so soon?”
    “Not soon enough.”
    “The wound has healed with remarkable rapidity,” said Doctor Nath. He shook his head. “Your powers of recuperation, majister, are indeed phenomenal, as I have observed before.”
    Well, he did not know that I, along with Delia and our friends, had bathed in the Sacred Pool of Baptism of the River Zelph in far Aphrasöe. That little dip, besides giving us a thousand years of life, also conferred great recuperative powers. But that would by itself not account for the complete disappearance of all traces of the arrow wound. The Everoinye had accomplished that.
    I said, “There is work to do. I am going to do that work and you, good Doctor Nath, have my thanks for your care and attention. As for you, Master Hork, I do not think I shall have the pleasure of your instruction in the more arcane aspects of Jikaida from now on.” I stretched, feeling the blood beginning to find its way around my body and go poking into long disused corners. “And for that I am truly sorry. But with Vallia as the Jikaida board, well...”
    “My help is always at your command, majister.”
    “And valued.” I bellowed then, a real fruity old-time bellow in my best foretop hailing voice. “Emder!”
    When Emder came in, smiling at my recovery, he very quickly organized the essentials. A most valuable and self-effacing man, Emder, what you might call a valet and butler and personal attendant — I disliked to call him a servant — a man whom I valued as a friend.
    Enevon Ob-Eye and his corps of stylors were soon hard at work writing out the orders. The Pallans were seen and their doings checked up on. The Presidio met and agreed on much, and disagreed on a number of points, also, which was healthy.
    It is not my intention to go into details of all the work that had to be done, and that was done, by Vox. But being an emperor, even an emperor of so small an empire as I then was, takes up more time than Opaz hands out between sunrise and sunrise.
    The news from Seg was that he was keeping the clansmen in play, baiting them with Filbarrka’s zorcamen. The zorcas, being so close-coupled and nimble, could ride rings around the more massive voves with their eight legs; but I felt that itchy feeling anyone must when he tangles with vove-mounted clansmen. Seg had started the Second Phalanx on their way back to Vondium and the Lord Farris was ferrying them in a detached part of his fleet of sailing skyships.
    When the Second flew in, Kyr Nath Nazabhan flew with them.
    Delia and I and a group of officers went out to meet him as his sailing flier touched down on Voxyri Drinnik. The wide open space outside the walls beyond the Gate of Voxyri blew with dust, the suns shone and streamed their mingled lights of ruby and jade, and the air smelled sweet with a Kregan dawn.
    Here, on this hallowed ground, the Freedom Fighters and the Phalanx had won their victory against the Hamalese and brought Vondium the Proud back once more into Vallian hands.
    Nath Nazabhan jumped down and walked most smartly toward us. He wore war harness, dulled with use, and his fresh and open face showed tiny signs of the care that had been wearing at him. But he was his usual alert, cheerful self, and a man I valued as a friend and a commander. Mind you, he never forgave himself for the debacle at the Gates of Sicce where a Phalanx had been overturned by the clansmen. But he had more than made up for that.
    We had not seen each other since the Battle of Kochwold. “Majestrix! Majister!” He thumped the iron kax encasing his