Diamond Warriors Read Online Free PDF Page B

the courage to look at me as he said, 'It was there, waiting.- Val. During our passage, it attached itself to you. It has been following you ever since.'
    'Following!' I half-shouted. 'All the way to Hesperu. and back, to the Brotherhood's school? And then here, to my home? Why could I not ice it? And why could Abrasax not see it - he who can see almost everything?'
    Again, Alphanderry shrugged his shoulders.
    'But how is it,' I demanded, 'that you can see it?'
    It was Daj who answered for him. He passed his hand through Alphanderry's watery-like form, and said, 'But how not, since they are made of the same substance!'
    Master Juwain regarded the glimmering tones that composed Alphanderry's being. He said, 'Similar, perhaps, but certainly not the same.'
    I waved my hand at such useless speculations, and I called out to Alphanderry, 'But why did you never tell me of this thing?'
    The look on his face was that of a boy stealing back to his room after dark. He said to me simply, 'I didn't want to worry you, Val.'
    'Oh, excellent, excellent!' Maram muttered, shaking his head. 'Well, I am worried enough for all of us, now. What I wonder is why that filthy Ahrim, whatever it is, attacked us here? And more important, what will keep it away?'
    But none of us, not even Alphanderry, had an answer to these questions. As it was growing late, it seemed the best thing we could do would be to leave these strange woods behind us as soon as possible.
    'Come,' I said, clapping Maram on the shoulder. 'Let's go get some of that roast beef and beer you've been wanting for so long.'
    After that, I pulled myself up onto Altaru's back, and my friends mounted their horses, too. I pointed the way toward Lord Harsha's farm with all the command and assurance that I could summon. But as we rode off through the shadowed trees, I felt the dark thing called the Ahrim still watching me and still waiting, and I knew with heaviness in my heart that it would be no easy task for me to become king.

Chapter 2

    W e came out of the woods with the late sun touching the farmland of the Valley of the Swans with an emerald blaze. To the west, the three great mountains, Telshar, Arakel and Vayu, rose up as they always had with their white-capped peaks pointing into the sky. Lord Harsha's large stone house stood framed against the sacred Telshar: a bit of carved and mortared granite almost lost against the glorious work of stone that the Ieldra had sung into creation at the beginning of time. We caught Lord Harsha out weeding his wheatfield to the east of his house. When he heard the noise of our horses trampling through the bracken, he straightened up and shook his hoe at us as he peered at us with his single eye. He called out to us: 'Who is it who rides out of the wildwood like outlaws at this time of day? Announce yourselves, or I'll have to go and get my sword!'
    Lord Harsha, I thought, would prove a formidable opponent against outlaws - or anyone else - with only his iron-bladed hoe to wield as a weapon. Despite a crippled leg and his numerous years, his thick body retained a bullish power. And even though he wore only a plain woolen tunic, he bore on his finger a silver ring showing the four brilliant diamonds of a Valari lord. A black eyepatch covered part of his face; twelve battle ribbons had been tied to his long, white hair, and in all of Mesh, there were few warriors of greater renown.
    'Outlaws, is it?' I called back to him. 'Have our journeys really left us looking so mean?'
    So saying, I threw back the hood of my cloak and rode forward a few more paces. I came to the low wall edging Lord Harsha's field. Once, I remembered, I had sat there with Maram, my brother Asaru and his squire, Joshu Kadar, as we had spoken with Lord Harsha about fighting the Red Dragon and ending war - and other impossible things.
    'Who is it?' Lord Harsha called out again. His single eye squinted as the sun's slanting rays burned across my face. 'Announce yourself, I say!'
    'I am,'