Daggerspell Read Online Free PDF

an old hag and have the evil eye and poison people with herbs? When she realized that she couldn’t even share these fears with her father, she began to cry.
    “Oh, here, here,” Cullyn said. “My apologies. Now don’t think of it anymore, and we’ll have a bit to eat. But now you know why you can’t go babbling about Wildfolk where other people can hear you.”
    “I won’t, Da. I truly, truly promise.”
    In the middle of the night, Jill woke up to find the world turned to silver by moonlight. The gray gnome was hunkered down near her head as if he were keeping guard over her. Since Cullyn was snoring loudly, Jill risked whispering to him.
    “You’re my best and truest friend, but I don’t want to be a witch.”
    The gnome shook his head in a vigorous no.
    “Isn’t it true? Do only witches see you?”
    Again came the reassuring no. He patted her face gently, then disappeared with a gust of wind that seemed to send the moonlight dancing. For a long time Jill lay awake, smiling to herself in profound relief. Yet she knew that her Da was right; from now on, she would have to be very careful.
    The folk of Deverry have always been the restless sort. In the old days of the Dawntime the ancestors wandered thousands of miles before they settled the old kingdom, Devetia Riga, which was part of a faraway land called Gallia. The bards still tell many a tale of how the ancestors fled the encroaching Rhwmanes and sailed across a vast ocean under the leadership of King Bran to find the Western Isles. They rode all over the Isles, too, beforeKing Bran saw the omen of the white sow that told him where to found the holy city of Dun Deverry. Even during Jill’s time, there were still people who lived more on the roads than at home—priests on pilgrimages, young men riding from one lord to another in hopes of finding a place in a warband, and, of course, silver daggers. After a few weeks of riding with her father, Jill realized that the lure of the road had caught her, too. There was always something new to see, someone new to meet; she wondered how she’d ever endured being confined to one small village.
    Since Cullyn had plenty of coin, Jill was surprised when he began to look for another hire. As they rode aimlessly east through Cerrgonney, he was always asking for news of feuds and border wars.
    “The summers half gone,” he told Jill one night at their campfire. “A silver dagger has to think about coin for the winter. Well, not that many of my wretched band do think, mind, but they don’t have a daughter to worry about.”
    “True spoken, Da. Did you ever have to sleep out in the snow?”
    “I didn’t, because I could always ride back and winter with your mother.” All at once, Cullyn turned melancholy, his face slack as if he were suddenly exhausted. “Ah, ye gods, I only hope no word of this comes to her in the Otherlands. Her only child, riding the roads with a man like me!”
    “Da, you’re splendid, and this is splendid, too. When I grow up, I’ll be a silver dagger like you.”
    “Listen to you. Lasses can’t be warriors.”
    “Why not? They were, back in the Dawntime. Like Aiva. Have you heard those songs, Da? Lord Melyn’s bard used to come to the tavern, and he’d sing for me sometimes. I always asked for the ones about Aiva. She was splendid. She was a Hawk woman, you see.”
    “Oh, I’ve heard the tales, but that was long ago. Things are different now.”
    “Why? That’s not fair. Besides, there was LadyGweniver, too, and she was only back in the Time of Troubles, not the Dawntime. These men insulted her honor, and she gets them for it.” Jill laid her hand on her heart, just as the bard did. “‘Back they fall, and bright blood blooms, on helm and heart as the hells claim them.’ I learned that bit by heart.”
    “If ever we ride back to Bobyr, I’m going to have a thing or two to say to Lord Melyn’s bard. Ye gods, what have I sired?”
    “Someone just like you. That’s what Mama