Book 3 - The White Rose Read Online Free PDF

twin of that I had received
only half a day before. He offered it to me. I tucked it inside my
shirt. “Where’d you get it?”
    “Oar.” He told the same story as the other
messenger.
    I nodded. “You’ve come that far, then?”
    “Yes.”
    “We should take him in, then,” I told One-Eye. He
caught my meaning. We would let this messenger come face to face
with the other. See if sparks flew. One-Eye grinned.
    I glanced at Goblin. He approved.
    None of us felt quite right about Tracker. I am not sure
why.
    “Let’s go,” I said. I hoisted myself off the
ground with my bow.
    Tracker eyed the stave. He started to say something, shut up. As
though he recognized it. I smiled as I turned away. Maybe he
thought he had fallen foul of the Lady. “Follow
me.”
    He did. And Goblin and One-Eye followed him, neither helping
with his gear. His dog limped beside him, nose to the ground.
Before we went inside, I glanced southward, concerned. When would
Elmo come home?
    We put Tracker and mutt into a guarded cell. They did not
protest. I went to my quarters after wakening Otto, who was
overdue. I tried to sleep, but that damned packet lay on the table
screaming.
    I was not sure I wanted to read its contents.
    It won the battle.
     
----

----

Chapter Seven:
THE SECOND LETTER
    Croaker
:
    Bomanz peered through his transit, sighting on the prow of the
Great Barrow. He stepped back, noted the angle, opened one of his
crude field maps. This was where he had unearthed the TelleKurre
axe. “Wish Occules’ descriptions weren’t so
vague. This must have been the flank of their formation. The axis
of their line should have paralleled the others, so. Shifter and
the knights would have bunched up over there. I’ll be
damned.”
    The ground there humped slightly. Good. Less ground water to
damage buried artifacts. But the overgrowth was dense. Scrub oak.
Wild roses. Poison ivy. Especially poison ivy. Bomanz hated that
pestilential weed. He started scratching just thinking about
it.
    “Bomanz.”
    “What?” He whirled, raising his rake.
    “Whoa! Take it easy, Bo.”
    “What’s the matter with you? Sneaking up like that.
Ain’t funny, Besand. Want me to rake that idiot grin off your
face?”
    “Ooh! Nasty today, aren’t we?” Besand was a
lean old man approximately Bomanz’s age. His shoulders
slumped, following his head, which thrust forward as though he was
sniffing a trail. Great blue veins humped the backs of his hands.
Liver spots dotted his skin.
    “What the hell do you expect? Come jumping out of the
bushes at a man.”
    “Bushes? What bushes? Your conscience bothering you,
Bo?”
    “Besand, you’ve been trying to trap me since the
moon was green. Why don’t you give up? First Jasmine gives me
a hard way to go, then Tokar buys me out so I have to go digging
fresh stock, and now I have to dance with you? Go away. I’m
not in the mood.”
    Besand grinned a big, lopsided grin, revealing pickets of rotten
teeth. “I haven’t caught you, Bo, but that don’t
mean you’re innocent. It just means I never caught
you.”
    “If I’m not innocent, you must be damned stupid not
to catch me in forty years. Damn, man, why the hell can’t you
make life easy for both of us?”
    Besand laughed. “Real soon now I’ll be out of your
hair for good. They’re putting me out to pasture.”
    Bomanz leaned on his rake, considered the Guardsman. Besand
exuded a sour odor of pain. “Really? I’m
sorry.”
    “Bet you are. My replacement might be smart enough to
catch you.”
    “Give it a rest. You want to know what I’m doing?
Figuring where the TelleKurre knights went down. Tokar wants
spectacular stuff. That’s the best I can do. Short of going
over there and giving you an excuse to hang me. Hand me that
dowser.”
    Besand passed the divining rod. “Mound robbing, eh? Tokar
suggest that?”
    Icy needles burrowed into Bomanz’s spine. This was more
than a casual question. “We have to do this constantly?
Haven’t we known