The Golden Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

knew it was time to be off. He helped Seamus to his feet, Seamus snagged the whiskey bottle with his left hand, and they headed out the door.
    Amazingly, the storm clouds were scudding by fast instead of lingering like they usually did. Gallen could see pretty well by the slivered moons that shone down like twin sets of eyes, gazing from heaven. Seamus’s old mare was across the street, tied in the livery stable with plenty of sweet grass piled before it. Gallen saddled the horse and helped Seamus climb atop, then led the horse out of the stables north toward An Cochan. The mare’s hooves clattered over the paving stones. At the back of the inn, in the dim starlight Gallen saw two bears feeding in the rubbish bin and stopped the horse, asking, “Orick, is that you?”
    One of the bears grunted in a deep voice, “Hello, Gallen.”
    “What are you mucking in the slop for?” Gallen asked, surprised that he hadn’t seen Orick leave through the back door of the common room. “I’ve plenty of money. I can have Maggie fix you up a platter.” Gallen felt nervous to make the offer. Bears eat so much that they’re notorious for always being broke.
    “Don’t bother,” Orick said. “Maggie saved a nice plate of leftovers for me. When I finish here, I’m going up the hill to hunt for a few slugs. It will be a grand feast, I assure you.”
    “Well, to each his own,” Gallen said, appalled as ever at his friend’s eating habits. “I’ll be back at dawn.”
    “Do you want me to come along?” Orick asked.
    “No, go get some dinner in you.”
    “God be with you then, for I shall not,” the bear said. Seamus hunched over in his saddle and began singing. Gallen shivered at the sound of Orick’s cryptic farewell, but pulled the mare’s reins, urging her forward.

    That night in Mahoney’s Inn, the Lady Everynne paced at the foot of her rough bed. The smell of its thick down tick and the soft texture of its heavy red quilts called to her, but even though she was weary, she could not rest. A single dim candle lit the room. She had taken two rooms for appearance’s sake. Her guardian, Veriasse, sat at the foot of the bed, head bent in a forlorn attitude.
    “Get some sleep, my daughter,” Veriasse said. He had slept little in two days, yet she knew he would stay awake at the foot of her bed and keep wide-eyed until they reached safety. His brown hood was pulled back, revealing his weathered face.
    “I can’t, Father,” she said honestly. “Who could sleep? Can you still taste their scent?”
    The aging man stood up, shook his head so that his long silver-gold hair spilled down over his shoulders, and went to a basin in the corner of the room. There he poured a pitcher of cool drinking water over his wrists and hands, then toweled them dry. He opened a small window, raised his hands and held them out, long thin fingers curled like claws, and stood for a time with his piercing blue eyes closed as if in meditation. Though the old man could catch a scent with his hands, Everynne could see no sign that he was testing the air.
    “Yes,” he said at last. “I can still taste the scent of a vanquisher. He is distant, perhaps no closer than twenty kilometers away, but I am sure he’s here. We can only hope that when we destroyed the bridge, the vanquisher got trapped on the other side.”
    “Perhaps vanquishers have another reason for coming to this world?” Everynne asked in a tone that was part argument, part plea. “Just because you taste the scent of a vanquisher, it does not mean he has come for us.”
    “Don’t fool yourself,” Veriasse said at last. “Tlitkani has sent her warriors to kill us. With only one gate to watch, this world is the perfect spot for an ambush.” He said it as one who knows. Tlitkani had enslaved Veriasse for four years, had forced him to become her advisor. Veriasse was gifted at reading personalities, at studying motives and moods. He could anticipate an adversary’s actions so