The Sword Read Online Free PDF Page A

against the bigger man’s chest, she would have tried to squirm free. If she weren’t exhausted—physically, mentally, and emotionally—from the turmoil of her life over the past few years and these incomprehensible last few minutes, she might have had the energy to struggle in earnest.
    Not that Kelly knew where she could have run to. One simply didn’t go from a bed in the middle of a burning, collapsing inferno of a house to a medieval castle chamber that looked like some kind of magician’s lair. Not in a sane and sensible world. Not in her world, at any rate. She wasn’t crying anymore—being held so awkwardly seemed to cure her of the urge—but she did have to sniff a couple of times, as the unshed tears in her eyes finished draining into her nose. No doubt her skin was awfully blotchy by now, too.
    And why am I thinking about my skin tone, when I’m god knows where, with a pair of men doing god knows what?
    The other man finished taking care of the mess made by the dropped jar or whatever, then carefully used the few leaves that hadn’t touched the floor in the accident, throwing them with a pair of glass tweezers into a large ceramic goblet that he had been muttering over and filling with other odd things. That goblet was now full of something muddy colored; it puffed a funny, opalescent mushroom cloud when the leaves disappeared below the liquid that rested just under the brim. Kelly stared; she’d never seen that particular trick before.
    Shifting away from the workbench he was standing at, the second man carried the goblet toward her, slowed, eyed the man holding her, and shook his head disgustedly. He glared pointedly at the larger, somewhat older man who was holding her and rattled off a string of instructions that got her more or less righted in the bigger man’s arms. Into a drinking position.
    Eyeing that cup very warily, Kelly had visions of assorted date-rape drugs dancing in her head. When he held it up to her mouth, she shook her head hard, sealing her lips tightly. The man holding the goblet, his light brown hair drawn back in an odd style for a man, in a bun-knot at the back of his head, sighed and muttered something to the man holding her, the one with chest-length, lighter, honey-golden hair.
    They argued back and forth a few moments, not very long, then the man holding her allowed the younger one—his brother, Kelly realized, or at least his cousin, taking into account the similarities in their features—to tip the cup to his own lips. This close, cradled upright in his arms again, she could see that he really was drinking the liquid, not just pretending.
    She also caught his grimace, as the cup was pulled away, before its milky white contents had been more than half drunk. The younger man holding the goblet nudged his brother’s arm sharply, and the muscular one holding her approximated a smile and an “mmm!” sound, as if trying to convince her it tasted good.
    â€œYeah. Right ,” she muttered under her breath, then watched as the man holding her winced, tipping his head. He frowned down at her as the wince eased, and shocked her, by speaking in perfectly understandable English.
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    Her eyes flew wide, aquamarine staring up at still-frowning gray. Kelly eyed him. “What did you say?”
    He didn’t reply to her. Instead he looked over at the other man and shrugged, asserting sarcastically, “At least we know it works. Thanks for not poisoning me. This time.”
    The man holding the chased gold goblet shook his head and smiled, muttering something that, from his rueful expression, sounded like “I can’t understand a word you just said, remember?” But one of the two men in the room knew what was going on, and that was good enough for her. In fact, she recovered enough of a burst of energy to demand that very fact.
    â€œWhat the hell is going on? Where am I? How did I