Soulvine 03 A Bright and Terrible Sword Read Online Free PDF

others might do so. I walked towards the river, Hunter at my heels. Once away from the faire, I struck out across the fields back towards the main road.
    Someone followed me.
    At first, I wasn’t sure. The figure stayed far enough behind me that I could not tell anything about it – a man? Woman? The figure seemed to be carrying something. Some poor farmer lugging home on foot goods bought at the faire? Perhaps a girl, blanket in hand, stealing away from her parents to meet a youth in the woods. Or had someone in Stonegreen recognized me? There were many in The Queendom with good reason to wish me ill. Loyalists to Queen Caroline. Kin to soldiers I had caused to be killed in battle. Those who would burn anyone suspected of witchcraft.
    As the miles increased and the figure neither disappeared nor gained on me, I became certain. I was being followed. ‘Hunter, go see,’ I said to the dog. He wagged his tail, licked my hand, and stuck his nose in a rabbit hole under a hedgerow.
    Nonetheless, Hunter made me feel safer. I had seen what dogs like him could do. Even though I knew that, having had Hunter more than a week, I would not have him much longer. And then – would I be sent another dog? Sent by whom?
    The figure was no longer behind me.
    Startled, I put up my hand to shade my eyes against the lowering sun, setting at the western end of the road. Had the person turned off into the woods to follow sometrack to cottage or wood cutter’s hut, or to make camp in the woods?
    Uneasy, I left the road to make my own camp. A half mile through the trees, walking as carefully as I knew how to leave no trail. The evening was far advanced but enough light lingered for me to discover a spring of sweet fresh water gushing from a hillside. I would not risk a fire lest it call attention to me; the night was warm enough and I had bread and dried cherries in my pack. I ate with my back against an old oak, Hunter curled beside me. The moon rose, full and round and yellow as one of Maggie’s sweet cheeses.
    Maggie … what was she doing right now? Asleep in her sister’s house at Tanwell? Sitting beside the hearth, sewing garments for our child? Or maybe gazing at this same moon in sorrow at the wreck I had made of her life: a fatherless babe, a husbandless mother. Did she hate me for abandoning her? Maggie, I will make it up to you, all of it—
    ‘Hello, Roger Kilbourne,’ a voice said behind me, and my world shattered.

4
    I leapt up to face the intruder. He was small, a few years older than I, much shorter and even scrawnier. He wore rough brown clothing, old boots, and a large pack strapped to his back. With the moonlight falling full on his face, his scar stood out vividly, a long half-healed gash from hairline to chin running over the left side of his mouth, so that both upper and lower lip swelled and twisted. He pointed a gun directly at my heart.
    And Hunter merely gazed up at him curiously.
    I fought to control my fear. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’
    ‘What I don’t want is to hurt you. This savage weapon is merely because I don’t want you to hurt me . I am not much of a fighter.’
    This last was said with bitterness. But I could see that he would indeed be bad in a fight. His shoulders were no wider than a girl’s, and the hands that held the gun were small-boned and dainty. Even I, one-handed, could probably take him in a struggle. But there was nothing dainty nor timid about the dark eyes above the barrel of his gun . They burned with feeling.
    Hunter scratched absently at a flea.
    Irritation at the dog kept me silent. Wasn’t Hunter here to protect me? He was doing a piss-poor job so far. But I have learned that if one says nothing, often the other person will begin to talk. Few can bear an unbroken and tense silence.
    This youth was not one of them. His voice, high with strain, tumbled out words as a grinder tumbles out sausage meat. ‘I said I mean you no harm and it’s true, Roger Kilbourne. You must