The Pleasure of Memory Read Online Free PDF

grip. He eventually managed to seize a passing boulder and swung around to the downstream side of it. His knees ground deep into the sharp gravel built up behind it while white water roared along both sides of him.
    “Bastards!” he yelled. The words sprayed the rock red.
    In response to his challenge, a volley of arrows pelted the water around him, though they were quickly lost to the current.
    He hugged into the boulder, pressing his face into the sun-heated rock as he tried not to scream. He cursed himself for not just dying back there on the road and being done with it. He should’ve stood his ground and died in the warm sunlight like a man, just him, Gerd, and a gentle breeze.
    Another arrow ricocheted off the rock above him. He struggled to hold his ground. The crossbow strapped across his back bit into his ribs as the current twisted him back and forth. The pain crushed him. He pulled tighter into the rock and fought to stay calm. It was a fool’s dream to think he could maintain his position much longer. He needed a plan.
    He steadied himself against the pain he couldn’t avoid, and then slowly worked his way up the boulder. The climb was worse than he could have feared. Once his broken ribs settled enough to let him breathe, he peered over the edge of the rock and studied his route through his one working eye.
    The river upstream was a storm of boiling white froth raging through a battleground of boulders and mangled trees. The insanity ran on for hundreds of yards before disappearing into an oppressive cloak of mist. From that spectral vapor arose the gruesome head of the waterfall. It towered above the spray like a timeless wave, a screaming wall of violence that might throw itself down on him at any moment. Atop the waterfall, on the right side of the river, was a broken arch of stone. It stabbed out across the head of the falls like a natural bridge that had long ago surrendered itself to the river. That was where he fell.
    His vision abruptly fogged over. He risked his security long enough to splash the blood from his working eye, then returned his surveillance to the waterfall.
    There they were. The Vaemyn. They were standing on the tongue of rock in their muddy green cloaks. He could see their pale faces watching him from within those dark hoods. They looked more civilian than warrior, bearing no evidence of armor or mail. They might’ve just been rangers, or nomads, or just simple herders out grazing their goats in the Nolandian Plains.
    Moron! Of course, they’d disguise their assassins as civilians! He should’ve goddamned well expected it. He cursed himself an idiot. Blunders of misjudgment like this were going to kill him one day.
    They watched him from that cliff above the falls as casually as if they were at a horse race. One particularly large savage was pointing at him. Gerd’s face bullied its way into Beam’s head, his sorry four-tooth grin rising up unsolicited and unappreciated. Beam could still hear the poor old bum’s harried voice insisting there couldn’t possibly be savages in the Nolands.
    You believe it now, don’t you, Gerd? They both believed it now.
    He again splashed the blood from his eye. He sucked up a mouthful of water and swished it around before spitting the bloody fluid back into the river. When he looked upstream again, the warriors were gone.
    Calina help him! They were coming!
    He looked over toward the nearest bank, which was only a dozen feet away to his left. It was the opposite side of the river from where he’d taken his dive. Another dozen paces further up from the bank stood the edge of the forest. It towered over him like a dark cliff face. That would have to be his escape.
    Carefully adjusting his position, he looked across the river at the opposing bank, the side he’d fled from, the side where he was confident the savages would deliver themselves shortly. That shore was nearly two hundred feet away beneath the shade of an equally oppressive forest. The