The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

here.
    Certainly the Powers of Right wouldn't hold him to an oath he'd made in anger, on the spur of the moment! Especially now that he'd had a chance to realize what he'd really gotten himself into.
    Would they?
    Surely not! So he could go back to Merovence easily, just by reciting the right spell! He thought one up, started to speak it--then paused, with the words on the tip of his tongue, remembering about Alisande's journeyman wizards being able to detect his use of magic--and Ibile's sorcerers as well. Well, it wouldn't matter if he was out of there. He took a deep breath and chanted,
    "Send me back to Merovence,
    Where the flying songbirds dance,
    And the dawn comes up serenely,
    Giving sinners one more chance!"
    He held himself braced, waiting for the momentary disorientation, for the sudden jolt of ground against his feet...
    Nothing happened.
    He swallowed against a sudden thickness in his throat and tried again. After all, maybe the Powers just didn't like his choice of destination.
    "Take me back to Bordestang,
    Where the swinging church bells rang.
    Let me stand by the cathedral
    Where the outdoor choir sang!"
    He held himself braced and ready, knees flexed, breath held... Nothing, again.
    He let his breath out in a sigh, relaxing and reluctantly admitting to himself that he wasn't going to get out of this one that easily. He'd been dumb enough to swear to unseat Ibile's evil tyrant, and Heaven had taken him at his word. He couldn't really complain.
    Actually, he didn't dare. What might happen, if he let loose a stream of profanity about the situation? He was going to have to be very careful what he said from now on.
    Well, if Heaven wouldn't help him get back to Merovence, he'd have to do it on his own. He turned toward the sun, noticed a trail that seemed to go more or less in the right direction, and set out toward the east--and Merovence.

He'd been hiking for an hour, and he could have sworn the mountainside hadn't come any closer. Optical illusion, no doubt--the roadside brush had been passing at a steady rate, and when he looked back, he saw a long trail of footprints. Then he heard the shouting. And screaming. And the clash of arms. He was sprinting before he knew it, lurching over the uneven ground, just barely avoiding the occasional pothole. The sound was coming from the other side of a hillock, off to the right of the path.
    He darted up the side of the rise and saw the outcrop of scrub at the top. Discretion put the brakes on valor, and he dropped to his belly, wriggling up under the bushes, pushing them carefully aside till he could make out the scene below.
    It was a little village of round huts walled with wattle and daub and roofed with flame. Every thatch burned, and the flames were starting down the walls. Two soldiers were still running from house to house with torches, laughing and touching the flame to anything that would start a blaze. Four other soldiers were catching women and girls as they ran out of the houses, herding them toward the village common, while a dozen more cut down the old men and big boys who were valiantly trying to hold off the soldiers with clubs--but sticks against swords stood no chance, and several grandfathers and a boy were down in pools of their own blood, while the others were on their knees, or staggering back, clutching wounds that spread red stains over their tunics. They had delayed the soldiers long enough, though--the men of the village were coming in from the fields at a run, their scythes waving.
    The soldiers turned, their halberds flashing, and the men fell, bellowing in anguish, clutching at stumps of arms or welling gouges in their chests. The four men on the round-up squad herded the women and girls into a circle. Only four of the husbands still stood, so three soldiers turned away from the carnage to start sorting through the pile of pitiful possessions ransacked from the houses. The sergeant turned away, too, and started sorting through the