Blade Kin Read Online Free PDF

reached the bay, through the fog he saw two sailboats in the harbor. In one sat a Blade Kin in red armor, fingering a pistol.
    He looked up at Tull, pulled off a shot. The bullet exploded into a fir tree not three feet away. As the man hurried to reload, Tull raced to the water’s edge.
    Tull leveled his pistol at the Blade Kin. The warrior tossed the gun, as if to surrender, and then reached for his sword.
    Tull fired into the Blade Kin’s unprotected throat, blowing the man backward into the water.
    He began to sink slowly as water filled his leather armor.
    Fava came and stood, stunned. The fog around Tull and the boats dimmed the scene, making it seem surreal.
    “Who were they?” Fava asked.
    “Judging by their armor, palace guards to the Slave Lords in Bashevgo—a thousand miles from home,” Tull said, unable to stifle the awe in his voice.
    He glanced back uphill. The old Neanderthal had come down to the ridge above them, and sat in the ferns, gasping, resting on his spear.
    The feathers on his spear fluttered in a slight wind. Tull saw now that what she’d taken for furs were really ratty old woolen rags, the kind of clothes many others would throw away.
    The old man tried to speak, grunting and making urgent gestures, but the slavers had removed his tongue, a practice common in the houses of the Slave Lords where secrecy was a way of life.
    Tull’s eyes rested on the map case. The old Neanderthal held it protectively, as if to guard it even from Tull and Fava.
    “I think he is a slave of some importance,” Tull said.
    The whole incident seemed unreal, and he found himself shaking.
    “How did you know there was a third Blade Kin?” Fava asked.
    “I heard him running,” Tull answered.
    “No you didn’t—he was sitting quietly in the boat. How did you know he was here? You couldn’t have seen him through the fog.”
    Tull started to say something, and his eyes widened as he sought an explanation. “I just … I heard.…”
    “Ayaah, you heard him,” Fava said, “just as I heard him a week ago, in my dreams while sleeping on the altar of stone.”
    ***

Chapter 4: From out of the Wilderness
    The night that Tull and Fava returned from their wedding journey, the young Pwi of the village gathered to celebrate three miles south of town at the edge of a small lake that the Pwi called “Perfect Mirror for a Blue Sky.”
    They sat beside a bonfire, singing and drinking beer all evening, and told stories about Tull and Fava in the same way that humans will when someone dies. In a way, Tull and Fava would be leaving their single friends forever as they clung to one another in their new life.
    Beside Tull the old Neanderthal sat, looking suspiciously at the group in his ragged clothes. He still clutched his map case and spear, as if fearing that someone would attack him at any moment.
    Since he could not tell his name, Tull called him Uknai —the Pwi word for “cripple,” and the old slave seemed not to mind.
    Tull’s little brother, Wayan, was combing Tull’s hair, and as one boy finished telling a story, Wayan asked Tull in Pwi, “You feel buttery. What makes you feel buttery? Is it because the moon is shining on you?”
    “The word is sweaty. I feel sweaty because I am too near the fire and I’m dressed in hot furs.”
    The smoke from the crackling fire crept low over the lake; two of old Anorath’s dogs yapped as they hunted mice beneath a tangle of mossy logs. Thor hung overhead, yet enormous redwoods blocked the moon and starlight, deepened the night.
    On the other side of the fire was a human girl, Darrissea Frolic, a dreamy-eyed young artist who crafted finely scented paper by hand, then inscribed love poems on it.
    The love poems were sold to men who were too clumsy or too illiterate to create a poem themselves, and seldom did a ship leave Smilodon Bay without a sheaf of Darrissea’s poems. Tull felt honored to have her here this night.
    Darrissea pulled her wool cloak tightly around her