The Shaman Read Online Free PDF

you
will scream soon enough—and long enough.” The back of his hand cracked across
Lucoyo’s face.
    “It
was only a jest,” Lucoyo said, then had to pause to spit blood. The bruises on
his face were burning, and he knew they were already swelling. “Only an idle
prank. The spider wasn’t supposed to bite. I didn’t know it could bite.”
    “You
knew it well enough!” Kragni’s fist caught him on the cheek, sending the bruises
aflame and adding his mark to the others’. “ Everyone knows that the
white crone has a bite—and that it can kill!”
    It
was true enough—but the huge, hairy spider was also the most frightening of its
kind, which was why Lucoyo had chosen it to hide among the rushes Palainir
would use for weaving. If truth be told—which Lucoyo was determined it would
not be—he had hoped the crone would bite. Palainir deserved it, for not
only had she spurned his invitation to go walking out to watch the sunset,
which he had expected—she had also given a shriek of laughter and called her
friends to come see the stub of a halfling who had the temerity to approach a
real woman. Burning with shame and seething with anger, Lucoyo had gone away
and thought long about the manner of his revenge. He had made sure to be near,
currying a pony, when Palainir had taken out her basket of rushes to begin
weaving a hat; he had barely kept himself from laughing out loud as she jumped
back with a shriek. But even he had been appalled when the shrieks went on and
on as she flapped her hand, trying to throw the spider from her. Her mother had
seized the whole basket and knocked it against her hand, which was fine, but
she had also turned and pointed a trembling finger at Lucoyo while she tried to
soothe her daughter’s sobs, which was not. None doubted he had done it, though
none had seen him—and Palainir now lay laughing and crying by turns in fevered
delirium.
    Actually,
Lucoyo couldn’t blame the spider. After having been tumbled among the rushes, it
had no doubt been frightened and angry; he would have bitten, too. In fact, he
wished he had. But he could fault the crone for bad taste, considering
how long it had held onto Palainir’s hand. On second thought, perhaps he would
have, too—the girl was very pretty. On third thought, no—he would not have
wanted to keep that taste in his mouth. If beauty was in the heart and soul,
Palainir was sadly lacking.
    Lucoyo
turned his head to spit more blood. “You wrong me, Gorin. I, too, hope she
recovers.”
    “I
am sure you do—now that you are caught and bound. For the fright you gave her,
you have been punished with blows and kicks, and you deserve it richly.”
    Well,
Lucoyo could have argued that—but it didn’t seem like the time or place.
    “But
for her illness, you shall be punished with the ordeal of fire!” The chief’s
eyes blazed. “And for her death, you shall be punished with your own!”
    That,
Lucoyo just couldn’t abide. “Go to Ulahane,” he croaked.
    The
back of the hand rocked his head again. Through the ringing in his ears he
heard Gorin say, “No. That is where you are bound.”
    Holkar
and Kragni laughed richly, though Lucoyo could see little humor in the remark,
and surely no wit. Gorin spat in his face—surely a subtle piece of satire,
that—and sneered. “Ponder the ways of your wickedness, half-elf! When my
daughter’s agony is over, yours begins!”
    He
turned away, and so did Holkar—but Kragni lingered long enough to slam in
another blow that made Lucoyo convulse against his ropes in agony, and said, “Point-eared
jackass!” with malice and satisfaction before he, too, turned away into the
night, leaving Lucoyo to hang alone in the dark.
    The
old, old insult, Lucoyo thought as he struggled for breath and waited out the
waves of pain that radiated from his groin. How he hated the tired old
phrase—they could not even invent a new one! He had been hearing the same
worn-out curses ever since he was old enough to