Fugitive Prince Read Online Free PDF Page B

reached, and lifted a heavy document weighted with state seals and ribbons.
    All eyes in the room swung and trained on the parchment. Against the expectant, stalled quiet, something creaked in the gallery, behind and above the seated audience.
    A snap of air flicked across a taut bowstring, then the whine of an arrow, descending.
    Its humming flight scored through Captain Skannt’s scream of warning, and above these, the shout of the archer, in sheared, clanborn accents, “Such claim is unlawful!”
    A sharp crack of impact; the four-bladed point impaled the parchment and skewered it to the table. The chink of shattered wax became lost in the noise as the dignitaries chorused in panic, “Barbarian! Assassin!”
    Pandemonium rocked through the room. Scribes bolted for cover. Overdressed trade magnates and timid mayors ducked, trembling and frightened to paralysis. Entangled and cursing, war-hardened commanders surged erect and charged, bowling over spilled hats and cowering figures. They heaved empty benches before them as shields and pounded for the stair to the gallery.
    “I want him alive!” Lysaer cried through the clamor. Uncowed and looking upward, he wrested the arrow from the tabletop. The lacquered red shaft gleamed like a line of new blood against his stainless white tabard. The hen fletching also was scarlet, the cock feather alone left the muted, barred browns of a raptor’s primary.
    “That’s a clan signal arrow. Its colors are symbolic, a formal declaration of protest.” The speaker was Skannt, the headhunter from Etarra, his lidded eyes bright in his weasel-thin face, and his interest dispassionate as ice water. “In my opinion, the archer struck what he aimed at.”
    Lysaer fingered the mangled parchment, slit through its ribbons and the artful, inked lines of state language. He said nothing toSkannt’s observation. Motionless before his rumpled courtiers who crowded beneath the shelter of tables and chairs, he awaited the outcome of the fracas in the gallery. Five heavyset war captains rushed the archer, who stood, his weapon still strung. He wore nondescript leathers, a belt with no scabbard, and soft-soled deerhide shoes. In fact, he was unarmed beyond the recurve, which was useless. He carried no second arrow in reserve. As his attackers closed in to take him, he fought.
    He was clanborn, and insolent, and knew those combatants who brandished knives bore small scruple against drawing blood to subdue him.
    Fast as he was, and clever when cornered, sheer numbers at length prevailed. A vindictive, brief struggle saw him crushed flat and pinioned.
    “Bring him down,” Lysaer said, the incriminating arrow fisted between his stilled hands.
    Scuffed, bleeding, his sturdy leathers dragged awry, the clansman was bundled down the stairs. He was of middle years, whipcord fit, and athletic enough not to miss his footing. Space cleared for the men who frog-marched him up to the dais. He stayed nonplussed. Through swelling and bruises, and the twist of fallen hair ripped loose from his braid, his forthright gaze fixed on the prince. He seemed careless, unimpressed. Before that overwhelming, sovereign presence, his indifference felt like contempt.
    Through the interval while rumpled dignitaries unbent from their panic, to primp their bent hats and mussed cuffs and jewelled collars, his captors lashed his wrists with a leather cincture borrowed from somebody’s surcoat. The clansman never blinked. He behaved as though the indignity of bonds was too slight to merit his attention.
    “Slinking barbarian,” a man muttered from one side.
    Another snapped a snide comment concerning the habits of clan women in rut.
    No reaction; the offender held quiet, his breath fast but even. His patience was granite. The royalty he had affronted was forced to be first to respond.
    “If you wanted a hearing, you have leave to speak,” Lysaer s’Ilessid said, forthright. “Consider yourself privileged to be given such