The Right Hand of God Read Online Free PDF

fires burned on into the early morning. Then, as dawn smudged the sky with a pale light, a great cry rang out across the water and the Pei-ra sprang for their canoes.
    'They're leaving for Astraea?' Leith said, surprised at the lack of preparation. 'Just like that?'
    'No, they won't go for a long time yet,' replied Geinor of Nemohaim. His voice, unused during the long evening and night, sounded reedier than ever. 'They will wait until the turning of the winds later in the year, when the summer is over and the rains come. They could not easily sail to the coast of Cachoeira with the wind from the west, as it will be for months yet.'
    'Well, where are they going, then?'
    The old counsellor paused over his reply. 'I know not, but guess that the Aslamen will travel to their own islands to bring their people the news. You did not think these few were all of the Aslamen, did you? They occupy a hundred or more islands spread across the southern Wodhaitic Sea. It will take them many weeks to prepare.'
    Geinor continued, hands clasped firmly together in front of his tunic like a young boy accounting for displeasing his parents. 'Were this to have occurred without our knowledge while I was responsible for Nemohaim's intelligence network, the king would have dismissed and exiled me instantly. It is - was - my business to know everything about the lands and the people who surround us. I have to admit to having given the Aslamen little or no thought.
    That they are in truth the Pei-ra come to live in these islands is something neither I, nor anyone else in Nemohaim, would ever have guessed.'
    The man was obviously having trouble not behaving like a functionary of the Nemohaim court. It was as though he looked for someone to whom to apologise for his oversight.
    Leith turned to the magician. 'Did you know?'
    Maendraga nodded slowly 'I ought to have. My greatgrandfather was the last Guardian to encounter the Pei-ra,
    and he told us terrible tales of the wars that ravaged Astraea. One or two of the Pei-ra escaped into the Almucantaran Mountains, and he cared for them until they died or were well enough to leave.
    'Leith, I don't think you realise what you've done. Now that you've told them Astraea is uninhabited, the Aslamen will try to return to their ancient home. I have no doubt they will succeed, and I also have no doubt they will be seen. What will happen when some fool from Tabul or Nemohaim - no offence, Geinor - decides that if the Pei-ra want Astraea enough to return from the dead, then he wants it too?'
    'It'll be a bloodbath,' Graig said sadly. 'Like it was last time, like Vassilian on the Plains of Amare, like it always is.' He glanced at the Jugom Ark which, though subdued, still commanded his attention as it had since the day he intercepted Leith and Maendraga on the road south of Bewray. 'Unless something can be done about it.'
    But Leith no longer listened. He did not see how all this could possibly be part of the task that lay ahead of him. Uniting the Sixteen Kingdoms of Faltha would be difficult enough without concerning himself about the Pei-ra - or the Children of the Mist, or the Widuz, or the Fenni, or the Fodhram, or any of the losian who lived on the margins of Faltha, regrettable as their plight was. The Bhrudwan army was coming, and he and his friends, scattered as they were across southern Faltha, represented Faltha's best hope - maybe Faltha's only hope - of turning them aside.
    Though the ocean had many moods, and showed them all to the seafarers, Leith and Maendraga never felt unsafe. The Pei-ratin navigator exuded an air of confidence in, even command of, the sea. It was as though the Wodhaitic forbore

    to trouble them, respecting the seamanship of the men from Pei-ra and the artistry of their navigator. Certainly, the dark-skinned Pei-ratin revered the sea, almost to the point of worship; and surely no deity would willingly take the lives of such a devoted subject. Or perhaps the vast open ocean feared to