Steel and Stone Read Online Free PDF Page A

tenuous grip on her temper.
    Her blade, dripping hobgoblin blood, swept to the right of Tanis’s head and whacked off a trista blossom; the blade found its way unerringly to the bare inch of stem below the ground-hugging white blossom. Tanis marveled at her control.
    “How
dare
you spoil my fun?” she spat out.
    Tanis tried again. “Fun? It was six against …”
    The sword blade halted above him, and the half-elfhad the notion that the woman was moments away from plunging the weapon into his ribs. He bit off his protest and tensed, ready to fling himself aside if an attack came.
    Tanis probed the darkness for anything he could use to vanquish her. His elvensight, sensitive to heat released from objects, showed little but a half-dozen rapidly cooling hobgoblin corpses, two of which were only a few feet away.
    “Eight,” the woman corrected at last. “It was eight hobgoblins to one. Near-even odds for me. You missed the two by the river.” She paused. “Although I’m sure you heard them.” A crooked smile creased her face for the first time, and Tanis felt the deadly moment pass.
    “Eight hobgoblins,” he echoed, swallowing.
    “I’m no amateur, half-elf. I’ve been a mercenary for over half a decade,” she said.
    How many enemies, Tanis wondered, had heard those silken tones as their life’s blood drained away?
    But the voice continued, warming again as to an old injury. “And when the day comes,” she ranted, “that I can’t trounce eight hobgoblins without help from a half-dressed half-man, half-elf, I’ll gladly retire!”
    She raised her sword in a mock salute to Tanis, wiped the bloody blade on a leg of his fringed breeches, then slid the weapon into a battle-scarred scabbard. Insolently she let her gaze flicker over the supine half-elf. His pointed ears, his most obvious elven heritage, showed through his shoulder-length hair. Her dark eyes also took in the broad shoulders and muscled chest that broadcast his human blood, and her smile grew wider. Tanis felt a flame ripple through him; then he shivered as the dampness of the ground permeated the back of his shirt.
    Above him, the woman thrust out a hand. “Kitiara Uth Matar,” she proclaimed. “Originally of Solace, most recently of wider horizons. Including the employ of numerous lords who are my business only.” She raised a mocking eyebrow and stood back, arm stretched toward him. “Come on, half-elf. Get up!” She gestured impatiently. “Afraid of a woman?” Her smile curved lopsidedly again.
    After some hesitation, Tanis met her handclasp, but she dipped forward at the last instant, clenching his forearm with a strong right hand. He, in turn, ended up grasping her arm at the elbow. Then the woman stepped back and began to haul upward, raising the half-elf despite his greater weight. “My name is Tanthalas,” he said, letting himself be drawn to a half-seated position. “Also most recently of Solace.”
    “Tanthalas,” she repeated. “A Qualinesti name.”
    “I was raised there. Most humans call me Tanis.”
    “Tanis, then.”
    He returned her smile in what he hoped was a disingenuous manner. Suddenly he tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her toward him. Kitiara’s eyes widened in surprise. She began falling forward, and Tanis braced for the impact of her body on his. He would flip her; she deserved it—he’d tip her over and sit on her like a big brother until she cried uncle. He relished the thought.
    But Kitiara, after her initial surprise, caught herself. Obviously guessing her opponent’s intent, she used her momentum against him. Her right arm still caught in Tanis’s grasp, she dove over him into the beginnings of a somersault.
    Tanis refused to loosen his grip on Kitiara’s arm. Her somersault halted in midflip, and she landed, with an exhalation of breath, on her back.
    Tanis released his hold, then rolled onto his left side and leaped to his feet. He scrambled toward the woman and lunged, his body slamming