Prince of Thorns Read Online Free PDF Page B

the heat out of him. He just had wind and noise now. “That fecker of a count staked them all out to burn already.”
    I made for Midway Street, leading up to the burgermeister’s house from the market field. As we passed him, Brother Gains looked up from the cook-fire he’d started. He clambered to his feet to follow and watch the fun.
    The grain-store tower had never looked like much. It looked less impressive now, all scorched, the stones split in the heat. Before they burned them all away, the grain sacks would have hidden the trapdoor. I found it with a little prodding. Rike huffed and puffed behind me all the time.
    “Open it up.” I pointed to the ring set in the stone slab.
    Rike didn’t need telling twice. He got down and heaved the slab up as if it weighed nothing. And there they were, barrel after barrel, all huddled up in the dusty dark.
    “The old burgermeister kept the festival beer under the grain-tower. Every local knows that. A little stream runs down there to keep it all nice and cool-like. Looks like, what, twenty? Twenty barrels of golden festival beer.” I smiled.
    Rike didn’t smile back. He stayed on his hands and knees, and let his eye wander up the blade of my sword. I imagined how it must tickle against his throat.
    “See now, Jorg, Brother Jorg, I didn’t mean . . .” he started. Even with my sword at his neck he had a mean look to him.
    Makin clattered up and came to stand at my shoulder. I kept the blade at Rike’s throat.
    “I may be little, Little Rikey, but I ain’t a bastard,” I said, soft, in my killing voice. “Isn’t that right, Father Gomst? If I was a bastard, you wouldn’t have to risk life and limb to search the dead for me, now would you?”
    “Prince Jorg, let Captain Bortha kill this savage.” Gomst must have found his composure somewhere. “We’ll ride on to the Tall Castle and your father—”
    “My father can damn well wait!” I shouted. I bit back the rest, angry at being angry.
    Rike forgot about the sword for a moment. “What the feck is all this ‘prince’ shit? What the feck is all this ‘Captain Bortha’ shit? And when do I get to drink the fecking beer?”
    We had ourselves as full an audience then as we’d get, all the brothers about us in a circle.
    “Well,” I said. “Since you ask so nice, Brother Rike, I’ll tell you.”
    Makin raised his brows at me and he took a grip on his sword. I waved him down.
    “The Captain Bortha shit is Makin being Captain Makin Bortha of the Ancrath Imperial Guard. The prince shit is me being the beloved son and heir of King Olidan of the House of Ancrath. And we can drink the beer now, because today is my fourteenth birthday, and how else would you toast my health?”

    Every brotherhood has a pecking order. With brothers like mine you don’t want to be at the bottom of that order. You’re liable to get pecked to death. Brother Jobe had just the right mix of whipped cur and rabies to stay alive there.

8

    So we sat on the tumbled stones of the burgermeister’s house and drank beer. The brothers drank deep and called out my name. Some had it “Brother Jorg,” some had it “Prince Jorg,” but all of them saw me with new eyes. Rike watched me, beer-foam in his stubbled beard, the line of my sword across his neck. I could see him weighing the odds, a slow ballet of possibilities working their way across his low forehead. I didn’t wait for the word “ransom” to bubble to the surface.
    “He wants me dead, Little Rikey,” I said. “He sent Gomsty out to find proof I was dead, not to find me. He’s got a new queen now.”
    Rike gave a grin that had more scowl than grin in it, then belched mightily. “You ran from a castle with gold and women, to ride with us? What idiot would do that?”
    I sipped my beer. It tasted sour, but that seemed right somehow. “An idiot who knows he won’t win the war with the King’s guard at his side,” I said.
    “What war, Jorg?” The Nuban sat close by, not