King's Shield Read Online Free PDF Page B

Buck, watched from the dining chamber windows as their father limped across the courtyard below toward the stable. When old Hasta was out of sight, his thin gray-white horsetail flopping on his broad back, Cherry-Stripe elbowed Buck. “See that? He’s like a boy again.”
    Their father had returned for a short time from the enormous horse stud the Marlo-Vayirs maintained in their plains, a day’s ride to the north. He had begun this past winter brooding and quiet. Though no one referred to it, they could not forget that shortly after the previous New Year’s Convocation, Hasta had been drawn into Mad Gallop Yvana-Vayir’s conspiracy, which had led to a royal bloodbath.
    When it came time to depart for the royal city for this winter’s Convocation, as all Jarls had to do each New Year’s in order to renew their oaths, Hasta had insisted on his elder son going to make his vows to the king as the new Jarl of Marlo-Vayir. “Young kings need young Jarls,” he had said. His son obeyed—but he’d been afraid he’d return and find his father dead.
    Instead, old Hasta had retired to the horse stud, where he seemed happier than he’d been for years. He came back only to consult with Buck about the crop rotation and arrange for some supplies, then he was off again.
    Buck shook his head in silent amazement, then grabbed a last bread roll from the plate on the table. “Cama up yet?”
    “I don’t think so,” Cherry-Stripe replied, rolling his eyes as he dropped down onto his seating mat before the long, low table his ancestors had had put in generations ago, when Marlovans had first taken over the Iascan castles.
    Buck snickered. “Mran?”
    Cherry-Stripe groaned. “Wailing like balladeers.”
    Who could have predicted that little buck-toothed Mran, Cherry-Stripe’s practical, quiet, efficient twig of a wife, a daughter of the ancient and efficient Cassads, would conceive the grandest of passions for the handsome one-eyed Camarend Tya-Vayir? No, that was to be expected. All the females seemed to lust after Cama. What was strange was that he—the handsomest man in the kingdom and once the lover of the handsomest woman, Joret Dei—had fallen for Mran just as passionately.
    Buck found the absurdity hugely entertaining. He laughed as he loped down the stairs to begin the day. But Cherry-Stripe lounged on his mat, one elbow on the table as he slurped down a last cup of steeped mountain-leaf. He scowled at the prospect of facing the icy air. Wasn’t winter supposed to end some day?
    His sour mood received an unexpected diversion, the quick step of his First Runner. The man ran in, amazement widening his eyes. “Word from the outer perimeter Riders.”
    “Attack?” Cherry-Stripe leaped to his feet.
    “No. They encountered a party on the west road at sunset, about to camp. Two men, two women, all dressed in outlandish garb. Four horses from the south—river lending stock. One of the men says to tell you, and the words are these.” His expression smoothed into the studied neutrality of formal mode, approximating the tone of the verbal message as close as was humanly possible, “Tell Cherry-Stripe Inda is here.”
    “Inda,” Cherry-Stripe repeated, at first thinking of his old academy mate Noddy’s newborn baby, and then he grabbed the Runner by the tunic laces and yelped, “ Inda ?”
    The man’s head rocked. “Yes,” he wheezed, eyes bulging.
    Cherry-Stripe let go, threw back his head, and yipped the ancient cry of Marlovans on the charge.
    From far below came his brother’s voice, Yip! Yip! Yip! And then from the guest rooms above came a faint answer: Yip! Yip! Yip!
    All over the castle servants, Runners, armsmen, bakers, brewers, weavers stopped what they were doing and exchanged wondering glances.
     
     
     
    It was inevitable the first one they noticed was Tau.
    Buck, Cama, and Cherry-Stripe drew rein on a grassy bluff above the curve of the road. As the newcomers rode sedately around the bend below,