In the Shadow of Swords Read Online Free PDF Page B

blackened, scorched, as if efreeti of the Rim al-Saraya had flown over the mountains with a demon-wind and burned the land in their wake.
    Everything was gone .
    Dry winds carried black streamers of smoke, streaking the horizon with long fingers of darkness.
    His mount reared up as he pulled the reins tight and stared at what had once been his refuge—now razed to the ground.
    This had not been part of the plan.
    Sarn cursed, spurring his horse forward, hooves pounding the sun-baked earth.
    As he descended the hill, he was met by the powerful, acrid odor of burning grapevines. Some grapes still clung to the vines, their once plump bodies now withered and bled dry.
    Sarn slowed the horse to a trot, his eyes scanning what was left of the riad . The house showed no signs of life.
    His nose detected a different scent on the wind. He knew it all too well.
    The sweet, sickly stench of death.
    Sarn slowly led his mount through the ruined gates of the estate, toward the burned-out riad . A grisly horror lay before him.
    The reek of charred human flesh hung in the air. Vineyard workers had been cut down in the fields and left for the fire to consume. Most were scattered amid trellises and stone debris. Some had been hacked, some speared; arrows protruded from others’ bodies. Others had been beheaded, or disemboweled.
    Sarn jumped from his horse and approached the qoos , which still stood in the aftermath of the fire that had engulfed the house.
    Some of the stone and brick from the riad had held firm against the flames. Most of it, however, lay in a pile of blackened rubble, still smoldering. The panes of lead-crystal windows were gone. Two lower walls and a tall chimney remained intact. But otherwise, everything was gone.
    In the gloom of dust and ash that dimmed the light of the second sun, Sarn perceived movement within the ruins, a long shadow creeping across the smoldering wall.
    It was Dassai.
    9
    “IT IS a shame that it had to come to this.”
    Fajeer Dassai stepped forward, facing Sarn. It was the same man Sarn had known for years; yet it wasn’t. The fierce brown eyes still gleamed above the sharp nose. But his hair had retreated to the farthest reaches of his scalp, cut short and graying around small-lobed ears. Lines grooved his cheeks, intersecting the caverns that extended from the tip of his nose. Time had not been kind.
    “Really, it is a shame,” Dassai said calmly. “It pained me deeply to learn that my wife would consort with someone like you.”
    “I imagine it did.”
    Dassai smiled. “But I take some satisfaction in the discovery,despite your both taking such great pains to conceal the affair from me.”
    “You learned of it only because I wanted you to,” Sarn said.
    For the briefest fraction, Dassai’s eyes widened in surprise before relaxing again. Few would have caught it, but Sarn was one of those who could.
    He grinned.
    When Sarn had entered the burned out building, he’d instinctively put his back against the qoos . It served him well now. Dassai pulled a slender, silvery-white rod from his robes and began tapping it against his left palm as he paced in front of Sarn.
    Maneuver all you want , Sarn thought. You can‘t get behind me .
    He made no move to counter Dassai. Sarn was better at the game than his opponent, and Dassai knew it. There would be no attack. Dassai would not take the gamble.
    The source of the riad’s destruction was now apparent. The firestorm that had swept through the place had sprung from the mystical artifact in Dassai’s hand.
    Dassai stopped. “Interesting,” he said. “You haven’t asked about Jannat.”
    Sarn shrugged.
    His opponent cocked his head to one side. “Have you no interest in her fate?”
    “Not particularly.”
    “The whore got her wish. I sold her as a harem slave. Now she’ll pleasure hordes of beggars until she’s dead.”
    “I wouldn’t underestimate her.”
    “How so? She’ll never escape.”
    Don‘t be too sure .
    “Probably not,