Children of the Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

smarten up.”
    Darin wanted to speak. He didn’t. Instead, he waited until Kerren was close enough to touch and held out his hand as inconspicuously as possible. Kerren didn’t usually notice subtle things, but he noticed this, and his own hand snaked out quickly.
    Kerren had always been strong; once or twice, when they’d played a game of hand-grip, he’d crushed Darin’s fingers hard enough to numb them, and his parents had come out to break up the ensuing squabble. Not tonight. Darin felt the cold prickle
start up the side of his right hand, but he didn’t pull away. He could see, by the light of the campfires, that Kerren was crying.
    He didn’t expect Kerren to be as careful as he himself had managed to be; Kerren had never, ever been that. But he felt his own throat constrict as he thought about everything they had lost—and everything that they could still lose.
    At least we’re together, he thought. And we’re still brothers. They can’t take that away from us.
    But he wasn’t certain. So even though he let Kerren cry without saying anything or warning him not to, he held his own tears as if they were a secret.
    They followed the brisk lead set by the black-armored Swords, watching the glint of light off the links of chain that they wore. No one spoke, but the feeling of dread grew as five more slaves were picked up from the tents that housed them.
    As they continued to walk, a scream cut the air.
    Darin froze.
    A sharp nudge at his back reminded him of the imperative of not being noticed, and he began to walk by rote, one shaking foot following another.
    He smelled it before he could see what was ahead. It was acrid and sharp, even wafted as it was by damp, earth-sodden breeze. His brow furrowed as he tried to identify what had caused it.
    Then he froze, and even the sharp nudge at his back could not make him move forward again.
    Kerren looked at him in confusion and tried to pull him along. “Fire,” Darin whispered. “They’re burning people.”
    “Not people,” a voice said from directly behind him. “Slaves.”
    Darin spun around. He saw the shadowed face of a Sword, black helm trailing down the wide, large nose like an iron finger. No comfort there, not in the wide, even grin that broke the line of the square jaw, not in the crinkles around the comers of dark eyes.
    He stood transfixed a moment longer, and then Kerren swung him around, still maintaining a strong grip on his hand. “Come on,” he whispered. “It’s okay. They’re lining us up.”
    He dragged Darin forward, and Darin didn’t resist this time. The Sword at his back was a known death.
    They joined the line that moved slowly forward. Darin studied the dirt-stained robes of the woman in front of him; caught a hint of a human smell that robbed the burning of some of its
acridity. He inhaled sharply, trying not to breathe through his nose. Maybe he imagined things. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe—
    Another scream cut the air. It lingered in the breeze before working its way firmly to the base of Darin’s spine. He shivered, silent, as he felt other bodies huddle behind him.
    “It’s stopped,” Kerren whispered.
    Darin gave his friend a warning glance.
    “No. It stopped. Look—if they were burning someone, don’t you think it would go on longer?”
    The thud of boots silenced them both. Darin looked down at his own white toes and flicked them gently against the flattened grass. He felt ashamed. He knew why Kerren was speaking—to try to comfort him.
    He couldn’t stop shaking.
    “If they wanted to kill us, we’d be dead,” Kerren whispered, before the footsteps had fully died away. The grip on Darin’s hand tightened briefly and then relaxed. “It’s okay.”
    Another scream.
    Darin closed his eyes. He would never dream of being a hero again, never. He was the one who was line trained, or should have been if he had paid attention; he was the one who had some touch of the Bright Heart within him. Kerren was his best