Master of Craving Read Online Free PDF Page B

loyalty to him, only to my mother and to you, sister. If he should awaken and find me gone, ’twill not be the first time, and, as all the other times, he will not care.”
    She placed her fingertips to his cheek, where dark stubble shadowed the chiseled lines of his handsome face. “Do not make the same mistake as he, Rhodri. Find a worthy wife, but one you can live without.”
    He smiled a tight, crooked smile. “As have you, sister, I have learned that lesson well.” He looked over his shoulder to their sire. “Prepare to depart at first light. I will handle him when he awakens.”

THREE
    The droning buzz of flies was Stefan’s first conscious thought, but the intense pain along his right cheek and right thigh soon overshadowed it. Something heavy pressed upon his chest, and the stench of death clogged his throat and nostrils.
    He coughed, and tried to move his legs, but they were pinned by a greater weight. He opened his eyes, only to be met by darkness. Alarm filled him when he could not make out his surroundings. His burning body twitched. Had he lost his sight? He stilled the wave of confusion. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, and slowly he opened them again. Inhaling deeply, he exhaled slowly. “Thank the saints,” he muttered hoarsely. From where he lay on his back, he could see the slight twinkling of stars above.
    Carefully, Stefan absorbed his surroundings, and as his gaze moved across the darkened field he knew where he lay. On the battlefield at Hereford. Low voices far off carried over the still, sultry night. He attempted to move his right leg, but fire burned white-hot in his thigh. He raised his hand to his cheek and winced. His gauntlet was gone, and his callused fingers touched an open wound, sending the flies from it.
    “God’s blood!” Was he in hell? And his brothers, where were they? Had they fallen? Had they been left for dead as he? In a great surge of strength, he pushed the body from his chest and tried to sit up. But his legs too were pinned. He scowled, and his heart stopped for a brief moment and he felt it constrict. In the soft glow of the moon, Fallon, his stallion that he had raised from a colt, lay dead at his feet, his great head resting upon Stefan’s shins. A hard knot of emotion clogged his chest, making it difficult to breathe. The steed had given his all for his master, and had asked only for love and respect in return.
Stefan lay back down on the trodden grass, and as he mustered his thoughts, the voices from afar came closer. Saxon voices. Laughter, and the sound of clanking steel. Looters.
    Setting his jaw, ignoring the pain, with great effort and precision, Stefan maneuvered his legs from beneath his steed’s head. He was close enough to the forest’s edge that if he could drag himself there, he could observe and wait. Taking a full skin of wine from his saddle, Stefan tied it to his sword belt, then he dug in the rear saddlebag for the small sack of dried venison he always carried, as well as several pouches of healing herbs, salves, linens, and a needle and sturdy thread. As the horse master, he was never without a balm or herb to soothe his or his brothers’ horses before, during or after a battle.
    Once fortified, under the cloak of darkness, with what strength he had left, Stefan slowly, with only his arms and one good leg to aid him, half crawled, half dragged himself over the bodies of Norman, Saxon, and Welsh alike, into the protective shroud of the forest.
    In his gut, he knew Normandy had lost this battle, and when he thought of the loss of his brothers, his heart could scarce stand the pain. He had failed them. He had been given the command and he had failed them!
    It took everything Stefan had to crawl to the forest edge. His strength sapped, he leaned against a fallen oak and took great deep breaths. When he gained a normal breath, he carefully prodded his damaged thigh. He could feel the separation of the snug-fitting circlets of steel, and,