Byzantium's Crown Read Online Free PDF Page B

wind had never been so fresh or the salt tang sweeter. The moon shone, a sharp perfect sickle in the heavens, reflected in the water. Marric's city, his world. He loved it fiercely.
    Then Alexa shrieked, and the light about her was quenched. Hacking down the man he fought, Marric started toward her. She lay on the ground, surrounded by soldiers and roughly clad strangers.
    Marric saw himself, covered with blood, reflected in the water. The druid! he thought, and screamed in pain, rage, and despair. Just let him hold her dead form in his arms or die avenging her. He leapt across a dying Varangnian. Where was she? And to think he had struck her! Fighting on with insane strength, Marric reached the place where Alexa had lain. The men backed off from him, preparing to rash him as one.
    Her body was gone.
    With a final snarl, Marric turned at bay. The grief-maddened strength flowed out of him with his blood, and he was moving slowly, so very slowly. The noise behind him was a torment. The moonlight hurt his eyes. He whirled to face a danger to his left. But as he turned, a sword hilt smashed down on his skull.
    Marric's world exploded in flaming agony. He spun, astounded. He had not thought that anything remained after death. Why hadn't the priests warned him that one reached the horizon through a world of smoldering trees, screaming men, and devouring pain?
    Alexa, wait! he thought into the darkness.
     

Chapter Three
    Someone was moaning. Was it the soldier who had defended him? Marric must help. He struggled to wake from the safety of unconsciousness. The sickening stench of sweat, mold, and carrion made him gag; and the moans added to his misery. Whoever it was could not control his suffering like a man. Then he realized he was the one moaning. Shame scalded him, rousing him fully.
    With awareness came the beginning of fear. Marric lay in total darkness. Had that blow to the skull blinded him? He thrashed his legs and jackknifed his body until his face scraped the dank stone of a cell wall. One arm was raised stiffly above his head, secured by a wrist shackle and chain too short to let him lie at ease. His arm felt as if molten lead had been poured from his wrist to his armpit, stinging each separate wound. He tugged at the chain weakly. If the iron were as corroded as this place was vile, perhaps he could snap it. But he was too weak, and he could not see what he was doing. Trapped away from the light, unable to see! In panic Marric squeezed his eyes shut until lights burst like flaming naphtha behind his lids. Did blinded men ever forget what light was like? He forced his eyes open. Gradually shadow separated from shadow. The edge of the wooden door to his cell glowed with rot. This grisly light revealed to Marric the curve of a stone wall, the low arch of the ceiling, and dark splotches of filth on a floor littered with musty straw. Dark blood stained his body. They had taken most of his clothing, and he shivered.
    Again he tried his chain. This time fire leapt out of the links. A bondspell! He would believe anything now. Stung by the magic fire's pain, Marric abandoned his attempts to break the chain. The fire of the bondspell faded and he lay again in the dark.
    From the pain of his wounds, no one had tended him. He was giddy with fever. He blacked out for a time.
    When he woke, he was disoriented. There was . . . there had to be a reason why he was in chains. Had the rebels trapped him shamefully in the governor's residence? Back in Byzantium, the wits would make epigrams: The prince whom banquets, not battles, conquered. Then he remembered. Marric lay pent in a dungeon of Byzantium, buried deep and bearing so foul an aspect that he would have challenged any man who claimed the place existed to prove in blood that he did not lie.
    Memory flooded over him like blood from a slit throat. He struggled against a keen of anguish. Why amuse any guard who might be eavesdropping? His tears made the shadows shimmer, and Marric