The Black Star (Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

to himself. The duke was presenting this as a bit of frivolous entertainment, one more idle to get them through the dreary days of aristocratic life, yet Pendelles suspected it was a not-so-subtle test of his mettle. His success or failure at bashing some bunny's terrified brains out would hold deep sway over Dilliger's choice to enter a business arrangement with him.
    Pendelles tugged the brim of his floppy hat, pulling it rakishly off-center. If the duke wanted a show, then a show was what he would get.
    The autumn afternoon was barely warm. A hesitant breeze wove through the tall grass outside the mesh fence. They walked past the hutch; the servants there nodded in salute. At the top of the hill, the two conveyances were chocked in place with wooden blocks. Just behind the vehicles stood the rack of mallets, each a different color, the heads a variety of shapes and weights. All were flecked with rusty stains.
    Dilliger gestured. "As the guest, you have your choice of sword—and steed."
    Pendelles approached the rack, hefted a black lacquered mallet, frowned, then replaced it and took a red one instead. "Red makes it go faster."
    The top of the steering column on one of the plank-carts was carved into the head of a dragon. Pendelles shook his head. "Too common. It's the tiger for me."
    He touched the figurehead of the second, a snarling cat, and stepped atop the planks. The platform was springy and better balanced than he'd anticipated.
    Dilliger took a bright white mallet with flared striking surfaces and mounted the dragon. "Are you ready, sir?"
    "Born to it." Pendelles smiled. The expression was his most sincere since arriving at the manor. Dangerous as this game appeared, it was good to be back in the saddle, so to speak.
    Anyway, even if he suffered a broken bone or two, Run was far less dangerous than the game he'd been playing for the past year.
    It had been three years since he'd dashed from Narashtovik. Initially, he'd installed himself in a border town on the river between Gask and the newly independent norren territories. For weeks, he plotted revenge against Dante for the death of Lira. Then, fearing he might actually take it, he sailed away.
    Across the north coast of Gask. The heaving white seas of Umbur. South past the metropolis of Voss and the black bluffs of Pocket Cove. It felt good to be alone. Anonymous. For the first time in a long time, he had no responsibilities at all; he'd hired on as a mercenary, but the vessel encountered no strife besides a couple of storms.
    He spent a long time on the deck watching the water. He tried to forget and failed badly. But the waves numbed him. Endless, gray, and empty.
    After the fragmented Middle Kingdoms, the ship hooked east past the rocky Carlon Islands—Lira's homeland—and all the way to his homeland of Bressel, capital of Mallon. There, he made port for good. He intended to stick around a while. To kick back and catch up with old friends. But it had been better than seven years since he'd last lived in Mallon, and he hadn't had many friends to begin with. The few who remained knew nothing about him except that he'd once been a kid named Blays. The awkward talk made him keenly aware how little Mallon meant to him; he'd been born and raised in that place, but the city had since become something else, and so had he. Within days, he hopped a barge upstream to Whetton.
    There, he fell in with Robert Hobble, who had retired from the city guard to pursue a life of leisure. Robert was overjoyed to see Blays and didn't press for news of Dante. They passed the next year as drunkards. Tossed out of a new tavern every night. Sometimes they passed out in their chairs. Other nights, they swapped stories and rambled about life until dawn showed up to expose them. It was so easy to do; he promised himself it was temporary, but each morning brought him a new hangover, and each hangover demanded another evening of drinking. Within two months, he was getting his start in the