The Swordbearer Read Online Free PDF Page A

Then a second black blade joined the slaughter.
    Now there were Toal atop the wall. Ventimiglian soldiers tossed up grapnels and joined them.
    Attackers poured through the gap opened by Nieroda. Here, there, a hard-pressed Toal simply pointed a finger and men fell, torn apart from within.
    Anyeck whimpered, "Gathrid, we've got to get out of here."
    He had never been this frightened. He thought the end was near. But he snapped, "Control yourself!" He turned and started downstairs.
    She followed. "Where are you going? Don't leave me."
    "To find myself a sword. Father can't stop me now." Brave words, he thought. He hoped his voice hadn't trembled too much. He turned away and limped down into the cool inwards of the tower that had been his home.
    The keep gate exploded inward. Oak beams flung about like straws in a gale. A woman screamed.
    Gathrid's palms were cold and wet on the leather-wrapped hilt of his great-grandfather's sword.
    Men flung through the broken gate. His father's men, fleeing, dragging their wounded with them . .
    .
    "Here they come!" Gathrid shouted. The keep guards crouched behind a barrier of overturned furniture. Ventimiglian soldiers popped inside, keeping low behind their shields. The retreating Gudermuthers scrambled over the furniture.
    An old man dropped beside Gathrid. "Belthar! I thought ..."
    "I'm a tough old buzzard. You did all right here, boy. Your mother and sister upstairs?"
    "Next level. Father? ..."
    "I don't know. Hang on here. I'll get the women. We'll break out and run for the hills.'-' The old soldier darted away.
    A Toal came striding through the shattered gate, a dark tower against the light. Someone hurled a boar spear. It missed. The Toal gestured. A bolt of power blasted a gap in the furniture wall.
    Ventimiglian soldiers sprang forward. Blades darted and clashed. Men cried out. The Toal came on like something out of nightmare.
    Belthar thundered orders. A boar spear smashed against the Toal's breastplate. The Dead Captain staggered. "Go!" Belthar roared. He slapped Gathrid's shoulder as he passed. The youth threw a clumsy stroke at the nearest Ventimiglian, joined the rush. His mother and sister were beside him, eyes huge with terror.
    The Toal flung an arm around in a hard horizontal arc. People toppled like wheat at the stroke of a scythe. A black mailed fist smote Gathrid's chest ... and a darkness closed in. And then it went away, he knew not how much later. But enough later that he was left alone with the dead. He wept for his mother, who lay within his narrow field of vision.
    It wasn't over yet. He could hear it going on still, elsewhere in the castle. He tried to move.
    His limbs responded shakily.
    Got to hide, he thought. Got to hide till I can get out and run to the peasants in the hills...
    .

Chapter Three
    The Savard The smoke no longer rose from the ruins. The Mindak Ahlert had gone on to enjoy the rape of Gudermuth. But the Dark Champion and the Twelve Dead Captains remained at Kacalief. They searched tirelessly, their dead eyes burning angrily. If Gudermuth would die before surrendering Daubendiek, so be it. The Sword's pommel would rest beneath the Mindak's palm even so.
    Gathrid crept through the ruins like a frightened rat. The Twelve were everywhere. How long before they flung him onto the mound of dead and tortured flesh growing in the main court?
    Those who had fallen, sliced like sausages by the witchblades of Nieroda and the Toal, had been lucky. The wretches who had not perished were singing arias of agony for the Mindak's questioners.
    The screams were declining in number. Gathrid wished someone knew where the Sword of Suchara lay.
    The knowledge could be traded for swift, merciful death.
    Gathrid was trying to reach the gap Nieroda's sorcery had blasted through the wall. He was close enough to see stone that had run and lumped like tallow on the flank of a candle. He fought his impulse to jump and run.
    There was no fight in him anymore. His only desire