Healer's Ruin Read Online Free PDF Page B

supplies. The walls of the ravine stretched up to merge with the night sky where a stunning volume of clear stars sparkled. Chalos knew that the jagged ledges of the ravine were lined with sentries of the Black Talon but he could not see any evidence of them. Proof, he supposed, that they were doing their jobs well.
    Mysa was resting in his tent, huddled on his bedroll. The bird had just come back from an exhausting reconnaissance of the basin's remaining terrain, right up to the dark line of trees that marked the southern edge of the Dallian Woodlands. That she had returned with precious little to report had brought suspicion rather than comfort.
    The healer was sitting around the fire with Samine, who was draped in a thick cape of beast-hide, two sullen Krune officers and the terrible form of Jolm of the Twisted Root. The lieutenant of the Black Talon sat awkwardly on the earth, his legs – which both bowed outward slightly at the knee, a birth defect that he had somehow turned to his advantage in both combat and mounted soldiery – curled beneath him. He wore his full-face helm even now.
    'This pale Rovann whelp is an expert on Riln lore?' one of the officers asked, his tone dripping with cynicism.
    Jolm growled something in the jarring, staccato language of his people. The officer seemed to shrink back at the words, falling utterly silent.
    'I do not pretend to be a student of Riln Lore,' Chalos felt compelled to explain. 'But the story of the Pheg-Tol is well-known by the people of Rova. They are not native to the kingdom of the Riln, having come here from the far south-east, a place called Daran al-pat, where the land is ochre desert, with lush arable lands hugging the clear blue rivers that segment it, coast to coast.'
    He had already lost the two Krune officers. One was picking at his nails, the other glancing away from the others and into the night. Even Samine seemed to have lost interest, staring heavy-eyed into the fire. But Jolm was looking straight at Chalos. Even with the Krune leader's face hidden behind the war-helm, the healer could feel his eyes on him, stripping him to the bone.
    'They were built of clay, stone, metal and anything else that was at hand, and sent to investigate faraway cultures. Legend tells us that they had eight glowing eyes and a ninth invisible one that recorded all they saw, but could also be used to release a lethal beam of magic energy. These riders absorbed the history and wisdom of the entire world but when it came time to return home, they found that the empire that had made them was gone, and the people that now lived there regarded them with terror.'
    'Go on, slinger,' Jolm said, gripped by the tale.
    'They had heard tell of a city called Ranoum P'haktar ,' the healer went on, the fire crackling, 'rumoured to be the greatest in all the world. This city had been the one place they had never been able to find, for it was hidden from them by powerful magic. As legend has it, they eventually found the city, but were appalled by what they discovered. The denizens were experimenting with forbidden and unnatural sorcery. Something to do with preventing souls from leaving their bodies at the time of death. So the golems laid waste to the city and, when the killing was done, immediately regretted their actions. In sorrow, they fell into a miserable sleep. And they sleep still, until such a day as the world provides something to pique their jaded curiosity.'
    A pavarine was lowing, softly. A harsh noise from a sherdling, somewhere in the darkness, put an end to it.
    'The Ruin,' Jolm said. 'The city you speak of is the Ruin.'
    'I think so.'
    'That old name you used for it.. what does it mean?'
    'Ranoum P'haktar?' The healer shrugged. 'It translates to Defiant Wellspring. The old words have strange, elastic meanings. Poetic, but oblique.'
    Jolm nodded with a soft grunt.
    'Why do you think this legend is relevant? It sounds like ancient history,' said one of the Krune officers.
    'Well, Mysa