Mourning Cloak Read Online Free PDF Page A

mumble the Invocations in time to the click of the beads, but the mist is back.
    It tugs my mind, pulls me off balance, darkens my world.
    That is the way of this land. The sun may burn away the fog, but then night descends and the mists rise again from the chilly mountain lakes.
    Voices echo as if in a tunnel. The two men, the Chosen and the
eilendi
, talking.
    The Chosen. Kato Vorsok. I know this one as more than just a name, but when I probe my hidden knowledge, there is pain there, as if I picked at a half-healed wound. I turn back to my chants, but I cannot block out their words.
    “…you’re not surprised…”
    “…heard reports of our people being taken, from the south…”
    Tauria dey baradari tauria dey baradari tauria dey baradari
    “…so she is…?”
    “One of ours? Can’t say.”
    Tauria dey… tauria dey… tauria… tauria…
Can’t hold on, mind and memory turn to vapor. Shadows creep into their place, shadows with their own demands and compulsions. Cold commands replace the faltering prayers, pounding the inside of my head in relentless, unchanging litany.
Return to origin. Return to origin.
I see the world in crystalline facets, smoky grays and dark browns, made up of flickers of movement.
    The men talk, words almost lost in the boom of their voices.
    “…names?”
    “None.”
    Senses spin out from self, unraveling being like threads from cloth.
    “So, it’s Flutter for now, then.”
    Stench of metal and ozone and alcohol and wrongness. Movement, sharp-edged, jagged. Fast. Very fast.
    Head jerks up.
    “Fl-?”
    Rise in one fluid motion. Voice is buzzed, thin. “They’re coming.”
     
    Flutter’s warning gives me just enough time to whip out my sword. Cobble crunchers squirm in through cracks in the walls, swarm through gaps around the door. Toro slants a sharp, sideways glance at me, most of the
itauri
gasp out of sheer reflex—not at the crunchers, but at the sword. I bite back the words, “Yes, that’s the sword. Now x sword.stop gaping and take charge of your own destiny” as the
itauri
begin their foot-stomping dance of cobble cruncher extermination.
    One of the crunchers, a cross between a rodent and a wizened six-inch-high man, tries to climb my leg. I poke him off with my sword and face the door. Waiting for the next wave.
    Metal sizzles, wood splinters, and the door gives way with a crash. Three eerie men bound in. Their blue hair is raised in spikes all over their heads, their compact bodies are hunched and heavily-muscled. Ear-piercings and sharpened teeth gleam as they catch the light.
    The first meets my blade with a casual swipe of his claw-tipped hand and loses it. Blue blood spurts from the stump. He howls, the piercing tones making everyone wince. The other two join in his cacophony; it reverberates in my bones, shoots up my nerves, and plugs straight into my brain, the part that screams fear and panic and flight.
    Spiders, sluggish from the aborted transformation, stir.
No. Not that.
Two transformations in so short a time, after so many years? That would kill me. My muscles are still clenched from earlier.
    I grit my teeth, ignore the knot in my belly, the ache in my thighs and arms, the tension of veins and nerves. Some of the
itauri
break ranks and flee to back exits unknown, others cower against the walls. Toro marshals his novices, starts the Invocations going, summoning his unreliable prayer magic—
if
Taurin happens to be in the mood to grant wishes—but I can’t pay attention to that right now.
    The eerie men uncoil the whips at their belts.
    I duck the first lash, jump the second. The third catches me in the stomach, with a jolt and a buzz. I double over. A thousand needles prick all the way up my spine and barbed darts twist in my gut. The next lash falls on my shoulders, then on my hand. It spasms and I nearly drop the sword.
    The whip comes at me again. I can’t escape it in time.
    And then Flutter is there, one delicate forelimb upraised, almost in