The Haunted Wizard - Wiz in Rhym-6 Read Online Free PDF Page A

lord?" the Bretanglian cried, enraged. "I'm only a common soldier, you fool!"
    "Oh! Well, if you're only a trooper, then I might as well give you a drubbing till you pay!" The Bretanglian soldiers came to their feet, hands going to their daggers. Their Merovencian fellow gamblers stood up, too, reaching for clubs and dirks, suddenly much less hospitable. The landlord, seeing a riot coming, stepped up, crying, "Please, goodmen, not in here!" A tall, older man in peasant dress stepped up to the nobleman. "Your Highness, this is not fitting! You shame yourself!"
    "Get away from me with your mealy-mouthed preaching, Orizhan," the nobleman snarled, and shoved the disguised knight away. He stumbled back and fell.
    "I do not preach, and my mouth has no meal!” a Bretanglian sergeant said, stepping up to glare at Pargas. "I am Sergeant Brock, and I shall grind your bones if you defy my lord!" Sir Orizhan scrambled to his feet, his face red. "We are guests in this land!" But the nobleman took courage from the sergeant's support and snarled at Pargas. "Insolent fellow! I'll teach you some manners, and your whore some honesty!" He leaped on the pimp, dagger flashing. Pargas howled, stumbling back against the wall, blood spreading from a gash in his left shoulder—but his right arm swung its club.
    The Bretanglian sergeant shouted and leaped in to block the club, his own dagger stabbing. Two Merovencian toughs bellowed in anger and jumped him.
    Sir Orizhan ran to help Sergeant Brock, crying, "Put up your weapons, I beg you!" A Merovencian tough whacked him with a club. He fell back into the arms of the nobleman, who tossed him aside in disgust, leaving him to rise again or not, as the fortunes of battle might have it. Then the Bretanglian nobleman took a firmer hold on his dagger and went after Pargas again as two Merovencians Page 15
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    jumped on Sergeant Brock. Two of Brock's troopers ran to help, and four Merovencians fell on them. As one, the foreigners turned on the locals, and in seconds the whole room was one huge brawl. Stools swung as weapons. Men lifted other stools as shields. Knives streaked, clubs cracked, and men bellowed rage at one another.
    Then a scream cut across the shouting, a scream of such horror and anguish that all the men froze and turned to stare.
    Laetri was shoving herself into a corner, screaming and screaming, and Pargas, bleeding from half a dozen knife cuts, stood in front of her, panting but with his club still raised— and staring, appalled at the same sight that terrified Laetri.
    The Bretanglian nobleman lay on his back in a pool of his own blood, a bruise on his forehead, his eyes wide and staring but seeing nothing, nor would those eyes ever see anything again. The silence of shock gripped the whole room. Then Sergeant Brock shook off the brawler who had fallen on top of him, shoved himself to his feet and sprang to the fallen man. "Your Highness!" Sir Orizhan moaned, sick with dread.
    "Highness?" Dread washed over Pargas' features.
    "Of course!" the sergeant shouted. "You knew he was no common soldier, no matter how he was dressed!" He glared at Laetri. "You have been honored with the touch of the heir to the throne of Bretanglia, woman—Gaheris, Prince of Wales!"
    "Hon—Honored?" Laetri could only touch the bruise on her cheek, a sob catching in her throat. Then the innkeeper pointed, howling. "Stop him!"
    Whirling, everyone saw the man just as he sprang out the window and into the night. With the howl of the hunting pack, locals and visitors alike tore out the door to give chase. The innkeeper turned to Pargas and Laetri, shooing them toward the kitchen. "Out of my house, scoundrels! Out the back door and into the alley, for I'll have no more of your troublemaking here!" Half a dozen Bretanglian soldiers stepped into their path, and a hard hand caught the innkeeper's arm. He turned to see Sir Orizhan, flint-eyed and