Once A Hero Read Online Free PDF

Reilhrese, then ended with a newly carved piece nearly a full rod in length. "Look at the frieze."
    The Elf frowned. "Vulgar blasphemy. Look at how the . . . artist has placed the Reithrese above Elves in creation."
    "Not that, my friend, the last piece." I pointed to the newly added section. "The banner there, lying under the bulky figure's feet. That's the Green Viper banner of Duke Harsian of Irtysh."
    The Elf smiled. "Tashayul's last victory. That piece looks movable, too."
    "They just rent this space, not own it." I moved to the right and threaded my way through the pillars. In the center of the room, with its back to us, a huge stone throne faced the newest piece of the frieze. "I'm thinking that either we've stumbled onto the right place . . ."
    ". . . Or another of the generals who perished in the Roclaws is here." Aarundel followed in my footsteps, though being an Elf, he moved more quietly and had less trouble picking out the path through the half light.
    I came around the corner of the throne. "No, this is Tashayul,"
    I shivered as the light from outside flared and I got a good look at what my old enemy had become. Seated in the stone chair, a skeleton stared at us with empty eye sockets. Wisps of his black hair decorated his bare shoulders and rib cage, yet barely a scrap of flesh and no trace of muscle remained on him. Only his jaw had dropped away from the skeleton—it had landed on his lap. A few lost emerald teeth decorated the bare stone seat between his femurs.
    I glanced at Aarundel. "This explains it, then."
    "Remarkable."
    Outlining his skeleton in bronze, a metal framework of long and short, straight and curved pieces had been created for him by Reithrese artisans. Metal posts ran from each and every piece and attached themselves to his bones at the points where metal bands had been fitted. His femurs each had four attachment points, the shins and arm bones three, and each vertebra had one. A series of articulated joints connected the metal bones and allowed them to ape normal movements. It all ended at the back of his neck and, as nearly as I could tell, the last five vertebrae had been entirely replaced by metal substitutes.
    "The metal lay close to his flesh except where it pierced it." Aarundel pointed at Tashayul's skeletal forearm. "I cannot imagine that did not hurt."
    I nodded. "Constantly, I'd wager."
    "Constantly, I would hope."
    "Indeed." I smiled. "This explains a great deal."
    "So it does."
    After my escape from the monastery, the Reithrese conquests had slowed for a season. Aarundel and I both thought having his spine cut had taken the fight out of Tashayul, but then he was back. It was rumored that he was bigger and stronger. The two of us even scouted his forces during a battle in Barkol, nearly two years before he reached the mountains, and again in Irtysh. In both places he did seem much more massive than before. The two of us knew his being up and able to fight could not be possible, but the Reithrese were masters of vile magicks that might bring dead limbs new life, so we could not really even guess at what had healed him.
    Aarundel dropped to his haunches and peered up through the rib cage. "You will be unable to see it, Neal, but a piece of your blade is still lodged in his spine. A blow struck four years before caused his expiration when you saw a score summers."
    "Better it be believed I killed him in a duel than the real story come out."
    The Elf shook his head. "Roclawzi vanity. You killed him."
    "I did, but expediently, not heroically."
    "Heroism is the judgment of ages."
    "Then remember me kindly, my friend."
    Aarundel nodded, then froze with his head cocked toward the doorway. "If I have not misheard, your entrance will have the desired effect right about now."
    Together, our faces bared, we mounted the ramp and entered the larger chamber without attracting any notice. Referring to the space as a chamber is only half-correct, because it made up the central courtyard for