By the Sword Read Online Free PDF

on a makeshift pallet of ta blecloths and blood-soaked cloaks. Some of the blood was probably his; he peered up at her from beneath a cap of bandaging, and his right arm was strapped tightly to his side.
    â€œShe’s taken, Lady,” he repeated. “I saw. They took her, and that’s when they left.”
    He coughed; she seized a goblet from the floor and found a pitcher with a little wine still in it rolling under the table. She knelt down beside him and helped him drink; his teeth chattered against the rim of the metal goblet, and he lay back down with a groan. “I saw it,” he repeated, closing his eyes. “I been with Lord Rathgar for ten years now, sworn man. Lady, I don‘t—this’s no lie. I swear it. There was a mage. ”
    â€œA— what?” For a moment she was confused. What could a mage have had to do with all this carnage?
    The armsman opened his eyes again. “A mage,” he said. “Had to be. One minute, I’m on the wall, hearin’ nothin‘, seein’ nothin’—then there’s like a breath of fog, kinda cold and damp, an’ I can’t move, not so much as look around. Then this bunch of riders comes in, nobody challenges ‘em—they get in through the gates, an’ I can see they’re scum, but somebody’s given ’em good arms—” The last word was choked off, and he lay for a moment panting with misery, while Kero clutched the goblet so hard her knuckles were white.
    â€œStill couldn’t move, couldn’t yell,” he continued, staring up at nothing. “Couldn’t. Then I hear the yellin’ from the hall, an’ I can move—ran right straight in—right into the ones waitin’ for me. ” He coughed, and his face spasmed with pain. “Waitin’ around blind comers, like they knew the place, Lady. Got free of ‘em, made it as far as th’ hall. That’s when I seen ’em take the bride-Lord Rathgar, he was down, gods save ‘em; they got th’ last of her guards, an’ they took her. An’ that’s when the fightin’ stopped; they just packed up and grabbed what they could an’ left. ” He blinked and focused again on her. “I tried, Lady. I tried-”
    Now she remembered his name; Hewerd. “I know you did, Hewerd,” she said absently. That seemed to satisfy him. He closed his eyes and retreated into himself.
    A mage—That made sense. Especially when I think how Father hated mages. Maybe he had an enemy that was a mage, or became one. He had other enemies, too; maybe one of them got together with this mage. They might have been waiting a long time to catch him off-guard, to take revenge when he wasn’t expecting it. She shivered, and stood up, staring out over the shambles of the hall, but not seeing it. That must have been the—thing—the dark thing I touched with my mind. Maybe one of Father’s enemies bought a mage. That could happen, too. It would have to be someone who knew him well enough to know that he didn’t have a house mage of his own. And it would have to be someone who knew about the wedding....
    Agnira’s Teeth! She shuddered. He’s destroyed us! There’s no one to go after Dierna—there isn’t a man fit to ride in the whole Keep! And if we don’t at least try—I know her uncle, he’ll call blood-feud on us. Kill every last one, take the Keep....
    Dierna’s uncle, the powerful Lord Baron Reichert, had used the pretext of familial insult to add to his lands more than once. He wasn’t likely to turn down an opportunity like this one—and by the time the King found out about it, the Baron would have ensured that there was no one left at the Keep to argue Lordan’s innocence. If they were lucky, they’d escape with their lives. If they weren‘t—the Baron had no percentage in their survival.
    We won’t have a