Nightlord: Shadows Read Online Free PDF

probably help you summon your horse.”

    I nicked a finger and smeared some blood on the wick of an unlit candle. I backed away as they each lit their own candles, stood around the unlit one, and concentrated. Together, they extended their candles and lit the one in the center, causing it to give off a small cloud of grey smoke. This formed into the shape of a horse and seemed to gallop off to the south, dissipating as it went.
    “Good job,” I observed. “That was very well done.” And it was. I couldn’t help them from inside my magical barrier, so they had to do all the heavy lifting. They also had to supply the mental focus on Bronze; I only supplied a drop of blood to provide some helpful correspondence for the magical resonance, and to help Bronze recognize a legitimate message.
    They seemed unreasonably pleased at the praise. I wondered if anyone ever complimented them on their work before. They also seemed quite tired. Well, it was a long climb up the circling road to the upper courtyard and an unfamiliar spell; each is exhausting in its own way.
    “Come on in,” I told them. “We’ll find someplace to sit down, out of the sun, and maybe find a way to cook that goat of yours.”
    They followed me in, Torvil and Kammen pushing the cart like a wheelbarrow while Seldar talked.
    “The goat is actually for you,” he told me. My stomach-knot tightened again at the idea of roasted goat. It’s really amazingly good. Then again, almost anything is when I’m hungry.
    “How did you know I’d be hungry? No, scratch that. How did you know I’d be awake?”
    “We did not. But our families always send boys to Karvalen for their coming of age.”
    One sentence, lots of mental associations. My brain kicked around a bunch of information.
    Karvalen, in the Rethvan language, translates pretty much to “kingdom of the living stone.” Khar was the original word for stone or rock in the language of Zirafel, along with vael , or life . Eyn , used as a suffix, denoted an Imperial property—in this case, royal property. So, with a bit of grammatical and pronunciation evolution, vael-khar’Eyn in the old tongue became Karvalen in Rethven.
    I thought that rather appropriate, given that the mountain is self-aware. Very slow, but self-aware.
    I also found it interesting to realize that Rethven was derived from Rhiatha , a province of the Imperium. Over time Rhiatha’Eyn evolved into Rethven . Don’t I sound linguistic and knowledgeable?
    At the same time, half a dozen rites of passage from different cultures danced through my head. Four out of six—five out of seven, counting this one—involved some sort of religious ceremony, as well as a test of either courage or endurance or both. These kids were here for something like that and I wondered just how difficult it was supposed to be. Was this a real test of manhood, or just an unsupervised field trip?
    “And what happens during this coming of age ceremony?” I asked, rubbing one temple. I suddenly had a minor headache. Is that a sign of vampiric indigestion?
    “We make the journey,” Seldar replied, “make sacrifice, stand vigil, and endure any visions or hauntings that might present themselves. If we are brave and true, like our fathers before us, we might emerge from the mountain as men, with stories to tell and enchantments on our blades.”
    I wondered about the visions and hauntings, but I suspected there might be undigested ghosts involved. If so, I didn’t want to know. I’d deal with that when and if they presented themselves, probably by chewing more thoroughly.
    “What sort of enchantments?” I asked, instead.
    “My father’s sword needs never be sharpened.”
    “The edge on my father’s sword never chips,” Torvil offered. “He’s parried axes that should have broken it, but it’s still whole. And my elder brother’s is very good at thrusting through armor.”
    “My father killed a were-beast with his, and it died like the blade were