The Brotherhood: Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

wood resounded from within the house and entered his ears. A short moment later, the door opened to reveal a woman in her mid-thirties—tall, wispy and bearing a frost of white in her hair despite her youthful appearance. “Hello?” she asked, her voice so clear it sounded much like a bird’s song.
    “Hello ma’am,” Ectris said, steadying his hands at his side. “A friend of mine said that I should come and ask for your help.”
    “What might you need?”
    “A child… he’s without his mother and I have no idea how to care for him.”
    “You’re calling on me as a midwife then,” Karma said, stating her words rather than asking them. She pushed her hand aside to hold the door open and examined him with a pair of eyes Ectris compared to something like a predatory bird’s before a smile graced her face and revealed fine, if somewhat-aged dimples. “Give me a moment to gather my things. I’ll see to the child this instant.”
    When the door closed, Ectris took a deep breath.
    The hardest part was out of the way.
     
    “You say this child was delivered to you?” Karma asked, securing the pack of tools and supplies at her side before turning her attention up to Ectris.
    “I did.”
    “By what?”
    “I… don’t know,” Ectris said. “That’s the thing that bothers me.”
    “You think this child may be something other than human?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “No matter,” the midwife said, straightening her posture and turning her head to the sky as a few drops of rain began to fall from the clouds above them. “How ironic.”
    It seemed a perfect time for it to rain when Ectrus was delivering to his child the service of a caretaker that might possibly see him as something more than what he felt the baby to truly be.
    Don’t think about it, he thought. It doesn’t matter right now.
    Whether Karma approved of the child or not, he was going to seek the best treatment possible, no matter the outcome or potential consequence.
    “It’s here,” Ectris said, “right around the hill.”
    “Ah,” Karma replied. “Close.”
    Ectris nodded.
    It would, he realized, take no more than a simple walk up the road to summon the woman who would have the answers to all his questions.
     
    “He’s quite small,” Karma said, taking the child into her hands and examining the shock of lengthening, raven-black hair atop his head. “You say he’s only just been born?”
    “He’s a month old,” Ectris said, nervous at the fact that the unease seemed to grow increasingly strong as the midwife continued to examine the baby. “Do you need anything?”
    “Light would help.”
    Ectris set about the room gathering as many candles as he could, positioning them on both the table Karma stood before and at the corners of the room before striking a piece of flint and rock together to bring light to the room. Throughout the process, the midwife continued to look over the baby—first staring into its eyes, opening his mouth, then examining his skin, which over the weeks had gained some semblance of color to his small, frail body.
    “His ears,” Karma said.
    Ectris raised his eyes from his work on lighting the candles. “What?” he asked.
    “His ears are malformed.”
    Stepping forward, Ectris brushed up alongside his companion and peered down at the baby’s face.
    As the midwife had said, the child’s ears appeared to be curved at the tips and bore several strange, unwarranted bumps and dips throughout them. It looked, to Ectris, like an uneasy hand had dragged a knife across the surface of a wax candle, but had strayed and faltered one too many times and permanently scarred its pristine, perfect surface. “What does it mean?” he asked, both mystified and uneasy at the knowledge that his preconceived thoughts were slowly but surely coming true.
    “Given his eyes,” Karma said, “and the fact that his ears look the way they do, I would have to say that you are dealing with what can only be a Halfling, Mr.