Healer's Ruin Read Online Free PDF

Then the big black eyes settled on Chalos and Mysa Tundra-Shadow dropped onto his shoulder, ruffled her feathers and clacked her curved, unnaturally long beak.
    'Good to see you, Mysa,' the healer said.
    'What did I miss?' the Accomplice asked.
    'You're the one with the bird's eye view,' he sighed. 'So come on, what news from ahead? Are the Duke's scouts right? Is there some sort of ravine up there?'
    He was aware of Samine watching him. She would be able to hear his questions but not the bird's answers. Of course, he would hear only one side of any conversation she would have with the iguana. Accomplices could only be heard by their slingers, after all.
    'Yes, a miserable depression in the miserly ground of this joyless place. To think, a sea once flowed through here! But that was in aeons past.'
    'You could have stopped after that first word.'
    'And spare you the learning? Pah!' Mysa fidgeted. He felt her thin, strong claws poke the flesh of his robed shoulder. 'I tried the water there. A pleasant spring from a deep river. We will be well-rested after a night there but the dawn will bring fresh horrors.'
    Samine leaned over and poked his arm. Chalos started as though torn from a dream.
    'What does the bird say?'
    'Something about fresh horrors ,' Chalos said. 'She's in a good mood.'
    'What does she mean?'
    'Yes, Mysa, what do you mean?'
    The bird clucked.
    'So in demand am I. For my wisdom? Oh, yes. We head into an ancient land, where nine eyes watched over petrified guardians as vast as the gods themselves. Our boots disturb things we should have avoided. It was foolish to try and take the straight line to Aphazail.' Again, the bird ruffled those silken black feathers, at times so black that they made the bird seem like a hole in the world. 'We should have skirted around the mountains and avoided the basin. There are reasons why the Riln are not camped on this very earth and why there is no city built over the spring.'
    She was twittering now and agitating, flexing her claws fretfully. Chalos raised his left hand and cupped it over the bird, gently soothing her trembling form. He made soft, susurrant noises and Mysa sighed before becoming still. Through his palm the healer could feel her small body pulse as the heart – powered by magic, but made of flesh – beat steadily beneath the feathers and hollow bones.
    'Well, Chalos?' Samine pressed eagerly.
    'Golems,' said Chalos. 'We are passing through Pheg-Tol country.'
    A whistle escaped the girl then.
    'We must advise Jolm,' she said, wheeling away on her majestic shadamar. 'It seems we may have sport before we even glimpse this great forest!'
    And with that, she was gone, tearing northward parallel to the column. In minutes she would be relaying the warning to Jolm, the enormous mesh-clad lieutenant who led the detachment. Chalos considered, for a moment, going with her. He liked her company, even though he did not share her courage or exuberance. But he found himself hanging back with the sherdlings and the herd of pavarine.
    For some reason, it felt like he belonged amongst them. The herd went towards the killing blade in complete ignorance, after all. Only the Black Talon, and their talismanic and mighty Dread Spear, galloped knowingly into the slaughterhouse, thinking they might find glory instead of a row of hooks.
    Is ignorance what I seek, rather than knowledge? He asked himself as he hunched his left shoulder to help Mysa snuggle into the curve of his neck. I must be the only slinger in creation that wants less wisdom rather than more.
    Somehow the steady beat of the herd's hooves and the glum chatter of the sherdlings lulled him almost to sleep, and he rode on to the ravine in a daze.
     
     
     
    'So tell me, slinger,' boomed a voice from behind a jagged grille set into a pock-marked demon-face of black steel, 'of the myth of the Pheg-Tol. '
    They were seated around a campfire in the centre of the ravine. All around them were tents, sleeping animals and piled