The Crown of the Usurper Read Online Free PDF Page A

hostage without their knowing. The tears were hot with anger as well as grief. She buried her face in the shoulder of her sister, wetting the cloth of her pale yellow dress. "Salphors took my two beautiful men from me, Meliu. They've taken both of them."
      Meliu continued to run her hand over Allenya's head, whispering words that meant nothing.
     

II
    The chamber was well-furnished, with carpeted floor and tapestries on the walls, but it was no less a cell than if there had been bars and bare stone. Sitting on a bench constructed to take his huge bulk, Erlaan-Orlassai fumbled at the pages of his book with multi-jointed, taloned fingers. Eyes etched with golden runes tried to focus on the words of Sanctities of Lawmaking , but he could not concentrate. He needed to stretch, to run, to fight. His immense body was eating away at his resolve, demanding platters of food every day to be sustained. If he wanted, he could have drained the life force from the blind Brother that brought the tray of meat and bread every few hours, but Lakhyri had warned him against such behaviour.
      Erlaan-Orlassai put the book on the table in front of him and flexed arms as thick as tree trunks. His muscles rippled beneath iron-hard skin scarred with more of Lakhyri's runes. Bronze plates were riveted into his flesh, creaking as he moved and scratching him. There was nothing physical stopping him from leaving his chamber; not a Brother nor a door could bar his path if he really wanted to leave.
      It was no way to be treated, he thought. He was the true heir of the Blood, and ruler of the Mekhani tribes. The empire was his by right, and there was not a day that passed without the temptation to quit the Grand Precinct and take the Crown for himself.
      He daydreamed a lot; of the time when he had led a horde fifty thousand-strong, and brought Ullsaard to the brink of defeat. The humiliation gnawed at him. He had so much time to himself, without distraction, that he relived the moments again and again: the spears that had pierced wrist and ankle and arm and leg, pinning him to the ground; Ullsaard's sword a hair's breadth from his throat; the chains that had bound him and the thick cord that had stitched his lips together.
      For nearly a year and a half he had been confined in the Grand Precincts, at first in genuine bonds, and later by promise to Lakhyri to bide his time. The High Brother's plans were coming to fruition. Erlaan-Orlassai had to believe that. When the time came, when Urikh's mock rule had served its purpose, Erlaan-Orlassai would ascend to the throne as he should have done before.
      A growl escaped from Erlaan-Orlassai as he contemplated the future. It was with a mixture of happiness and disappointment that he thought of Ullsaard's death; happiness for the fact, blighted by the knowledge that it had not been by ErlaanOrlassai's hand. He contented himself with dreaming up the ways he would visit pain on Ullsaard's heir, and inflict misery on Urikh to match the misery Erlaan-Orlassai had suffered at the hands of the former king.
      With a sigh, Erlaan-Orlassai reached for his book and started reading again. He would not be a tyrant, he told himself, as he tried once more to understand the principles of Askhan property law. He would be a proper king and the people would accept him as such, despite his monstrous appearance.

RUINS OF MAGILNADA, SALPHORIA
    Early Winter, 213th year of Askh
     

I
    A few scattered stones and hillocks were all that remained of the once-mighty city of Magilnada. The ground was still bare, turned over and salted by the vengeful legions of Ullsaard. Dark earth spread like a bloodstain from beneath the white cliffs at the coldwards extent of the Altes Hills. A few miles to duskwards were the blackened mounds of the pyres, where the bodies of thousands of men, women and children had been burnt. Their bones littered the grassless hills, broken and picked clean by scavengers.
      Gelthius was