Storm Breakers Read Online Free PDF Page B

easier, to make out detail. She had a sense of looming walls, a steep pitched roof and great solidity.
    As they approached up a path that crunched with gravel beneath her boots, the front double doors swung wide. An almost intolerable blaze of light poured out onto the broad front steps.
    Silhouetted against that light was the tall figure of Baron Frost.
    “Welcome to Castle Stormbreak, my friends,” he said. “Come in.”

Chapter Five
    “He seems pretty sure we’re friends,” Mildred muttered darkly behind Ryan as the friends followed the tall, black-clad form of Baron Frost down a wide corridor lit by kerosene lanterns.
    “Are you complaining?” asked Krysty, walking beside her.
    “They have permitted us into their stronghold,” Doc stated, “and not relieved us of our weapons. So, apparently so.”
    “Don’t check a gift blaster’s bore till you get out of sight,” Ryan said. “Stow it.”
    Mildred emitted what sounded like a low growl. Ryan ignored it. J.B. was dangerously wounded and she was upset. Well, so was he.
    He was glad Doc seemed to have pulled his focus together again. Yes, the Stormbreak locals, from their black-mustached baron on down, seemed well-disposed toward them. And had they harbored bad intentions it would have been easy to take down Ryan and his companions a dozen times over, starting with allowing the slavers to take them down before mopping up the slavers.
    But as a baron’s dispossessed son himself, Ryan knew that if there was any bigger mistake than relying on a baron’s gratitude, it was relying on his consistency. Or anybody’s in the Deathlands. He’d learned that lesson the hard way, growing up alone as a young teen.
    “Not cold now,” Jak said with satisfaction, bringing up the rear with his new best pal Ricky.
    That summed it up as far as Ryan was concerned. For Jak, who almost always far preferred being outside of walls to being inside them, to be pleased at being indoors, for once, told the tale.
    Baron Frost led them between framed portraits of thin, austere women and burly, grim, bearded men to a right turn, which took them into a large room. After the crushing gloom and marrow-biting cold outside, its shining chandelier, white walls and roaring fire both dazzled Ryan’s eye and seemed to scorch his face.
    A woman stood before the giant hearth, which looked big enough to roast a bull moose whole without sawing off the antlers.
    “Katerina, my dear,” the baron said in his deep voice, “I want you to meet our new friends.”
    The woman turned. She was tall, with black hair veined by silver. Startling blue eyes looked out of a finely chiseled face. The black fur-collared dressing gown she wore wasn’t so loosely tailored as to conceal the fact that she had kept her figure despite the onset of middle age. Or that it was a pleasing one. She was strikingly beautiful.
    She seemed well matched to her husband the baron. Ivan Frost’s black beard had his namesake in it, and he had a white blaze in the close-cropped raven hair above his rugged face. His eyes were a paler blue than his wife’s.
    She smiled.
    Ryan glanced back at Krysty, who stood by his right shoulder, half a step behind. She wasn’t touching him, but he felt her warmth and knew her presence.
    She gave him a tiny wink.
    Baron Frost was already introducing Ryan and his companions in a resonant baritone. His manner was certainly that of a baron, though Ryan couldn’t forget watching him lead his two fellow riders into the thick of battle.
    Nor could he see any reason for the baron to take part in a battle. At the very least, Baron Frost would be a bad man to underestimate.
    Katerina Frost shook Ryan’s hand and gave him a warm smile. She did the same with Krysty and Doc.
    When she got to Mildred, the physician said, “Listen, my lady, I’m pleased to meet you and all. But your husband decided that my man should be brought here. I want to see him now.”
    Ryan gave her a look. Belatedly she accepted