The Dragons of Dorcastle Read Online Free PDF

they issue orders. The short answer is that I have some unique skills that Ringhmon needs.” Her voice held undeniable pride as she spoke that last sentence.
    Alain almost frowned, too, barely catching himself in time. If everything the Mechanics did was a trick, why import this girl when more experienced tricksters surely lived in Ringhmon? How could she have unique skills? But it was obvious now that what he had been told about Mechanics, or their weapons at least, was at best incomplete. “Are these unique skills of yours the reason why the bandits seek you?”
    “No. No, that’s impossible. They’d have no possible use for my skills, unless they were thinking of ransom,” she said. “But kidnapping a Mechanic? The Guild would never stand for it.”
    “The attackers had many of the weapons made by your Guild,“ Alain pointed out.
    “Yeah.” The Mechanic’s lips twisted, her feelings once again hard to read. “A bandit gang with as much firepower as an army could afford.”
    Twelve years of Mage Guild training had never been able to suppress Alain’s curiosity. “Why would your Guild elders permit that?”
    “I told you that my…elders…don’t provide reasons for what they do. They don’t listen and they don’t explain.” Her feelings didn’t seem so much anger as frustration now. “I wish—” The Mechanic’s eyes went to him, startling him with the intensity of her gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about things like that with a…”
    “I am a Mage,” Alain said. That was not a matter for the comfort or discomfort of others, whose feelings did not matter anyway, but he understood the Mechanic this time. There were things that should not be discussed with any outsider, and especially not with a Mechanic. But perhaps there other things she would explain. “I have been trained in tactics, since my work would involve the military forces of the common people. Perhaps that is why I was thought able to handle this contract alone. Tell me your thoughts on your tactics. Why did you choose to run up the side of the pass instead of back down the road along the way we had come? Why did you choose the harder path?”
    The Mechanic slumped, then to Alain’s amazement began laughing softly. “That’s who I am, I guess. If I’m working on a piece of equipment, say a locomotive or a far-talker, I do things the best way I can. Not the easy way. And I’m like that in everything. I don’t do what’s easy. The Senior Mechanics, my elders, haven’t always appreciated that.” She sighed, her eyes gazing bleakly at nothing. “From what I’d seen of the road to the pass, it was wide open. We’d have been spotted and run down in no time. So going up the side of the pass was the harder road, but the right one.”
    “You were correct,” Alain said, then wondered why he had felt any need to tell her that. “Once I had the opportunity to think it through, I realized that you were right.”
    Her gaze went back to him, puzzled. “Why is a Mage telling a Mechanic that she was right?”
    “I…”
do not know
. “Because we survived and have a chance to reach Ringhmon.”
    “Yeah. A chance.” The Mechanic closed her eyes again. “Do you have any food or water? I don’t.”
    “I do not, either.”
    “How long can we survive in the Waste without water?”
    It took him a moment to realize she was not expecting him to answer that with some exact number of days. “The caravan master’s map showed wells farther up the road once we had cleared the pass.”
    She opened her eyes, looking at Alain with hope. “You’re sure? How far?”
    “I am sure, but I do not know how far.” Mechanic Mari nodded wearily, leaving Alain wishing he had been able to tell her something more hopeful.
She is a shadow. Do not forget. Nothing more than those you have fought today
.
    He felt a cold hollowness inside himself. He had never fought in earnest before today, never killed before today. The common folk he had