Guardians of The Flame: To Home And Ehvenor (The Guardians of the Flame #06-07) Read Online Free PDF

things that can happen to somebody in our line of work, and many of us simply prefer to pay a small fine.
    So I practice. I've spent far too much of my life practicing at how to shoot with some things and cut with some others, but there you have it. Part of the dues.
    But you don't tell anybody everything.
    "I like this better," I said. "Out on a nice day with some good company, clean air, maybe the chance of making a few marks . . ."
    " . . . off some sucker," Tennetty said, with a smile.
    But it wasn't a nice smile, and it almost ruined the morning.
     

CHAPTER TWO
In Which I Discuss Some Family Matters
Chi fa ingiuria no perdona mai. (He never forgives those he injures.)   
    —ITALIAN PROVERB
     
    Most of the time, things go from bad to worse, but every now and then the human universe shifts for the better: it's clear that something bad's going to happen, but then something else entirely does, something gentler.
    Sometimes it's nice; sometimes it's just something bad that declines to happen. Either is just fine with me.
    The first time I remember it, I was about seven, I guess. My parents had gone out for the evening, and my brother, Steven, had a date, so they'd hired a baby-sitter. Mrs. Kleinman, her name was; she lived on some sort of widow's pension in a set of funny-smelling rooms in the red brick apartment building down the block from our house. Ugly old biddy, who really didn't like kids. Never wanted to play, or talk; all she wanted to do was turn on the television, take off her shoes, and fall asleep on the couch with one hand in a bowl of potato chips.
    Well? What would you do? I'd done the obvious thing, and there had been trouble when Stash and Emma got home. Whenever old Stash—it's an old Polish nickname, okay?—got angry, there was this tic in his right cheek; it would twitch with every pulsebeat.
    He came into my room, the light in the hall casting half his face into shadow, his fists unclenching. Stash was a short, broad man, but he had huge hands, and they made huge fists.
    He wouldn't have punched me, but he was going to spank me. His face was so red from the chin to the top of his balding that I thought he was going to blow up, and the tic was pulsing two to the second, the speed of a fast walk. I was worried about him more than me, I swear, as he loomed over my bed.
    "Walter . . ." he always called me Cricket, except when he was angry at me, and he was furious.
    And then he swept me up in his huge arms. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. Gales of laughter rocked me. His laughter.
    "God, Cricket, I guess that old biddy did deserve to have her shoes nailed to the floor."
    I guess that's why the smell of whiskey on somebody's breath doesn't bother me.
    * * *
    I was currying the mare when I heard Bren's footsteps behind me. The cleaning stalls at Castle Furnael—Castle Cullinane, that is—were well designed, with a low, calf-high open wooden box in the center of the stall. You stand the horse in the box, which inhibits it from moving around, and prevents you from getting kicked.
    I wasn't worried about being kicked. There wasn't any good reason to be concerned about anything at all. One of the stableboys and two of the horse soldiers were just outside, reshoeing a stubborn gelding; the other stableboy was across the way, working on Jason's horse, and the house guard was within a quick shout. If we were going to have a problem, it wasn't going to be here.
    Besides, Bren Adahan would hardly be here to give me a problem, eh?
    "Hello, Baron," I said, turning slowly, resting my hand on the partition separating the cleaning stalls. It's reflex—ever since my first day on This Side, I've always looked for a place to run. I've always had a reason. I haven't always had a place to run, mind, but I've always looked for one. "Where've you been keeping yourself?"
    "All over, Walter Slovotsky," he said. "I spent the morning at two of the tenant farms. Then I came in and did an inventory at the