The Swordbearer Read Online Free PDF Page B

absorbed him, but tendrils of hatred had begun trickling through the mist of unbelief. Every thought of Nevenka Nieroda initiated a promising,
    "Someday. ..."
    Such emotion frightened him. It could become compelling, could make of him a man as bleak and driven as the fabled Aarant.
    He was too stiff to walk. He crawled toward sunlight. It blinded him briefly when it splashed into his eyes. Outside, morning birds sang solar praises, infuriating him with their indifference to what had happened at Kacalief. A squirrel chattered. For the first time he let his thoughts touch on his mother and sister.
    The younger women had been spared. The Mindak had dragged them off to Katich.
    Gathrid wanted to rend, to tear, to make the Ventimig-lians bleed for Anyeck, for his parents, for his brothers and for Gudermuth.
    His vision adapted to the light.
    One of the Twelve, still as a statue of an ebony general, sat his dark horse not fifty feet beyond the brush masking the cave. A sparrow settled onto its shoulder, chirruped in surprise, fluttered to a nearby tree. It alternately scolded and cocked its head questioningly.
    The Dead Captain's head slowly turned Gathrid's way.
    Terror hit him like a blow from a giant's fist. They could not be escaped! He scrambled back, scraped his scalp on the cave roof. He fled into darkness, crashing from one cavern feature to another till his reason returned. By then he was thoroughly lost. The more immediate threat of the cavern banished his fear of the Toal.
    He wandered for hours, occasionally pausing to indulge in a fit of tears. So many angers, fears, losses, frustrations. It was not fair.
    The last time, after wiping tears with the backs of grimy hands, he noticed a pale, ghostly light ahead. With hope and fear writhing together like wrestling snakes, he crept toward it.
    His fingers, brushing the cave walls for guidance, caressed scars left by ancient tools. They encountered beams supporting the invisible ceiling. He frowned. There were no mines in the Savards.
    He stepped into a bedroom-sized chamber, manhewn from poor limestone. It contained two pieces of antique furniture. They were illuminated by a sourceless witch-light. One was a small, heavy chair. The other was an open coffin.
    In the chair slept a gnarly, dusty dwarf. He was half buried by a beard in which crawling things nested.
    Gathrid wanted to believe that he had found one of the mythical creatures who, with trolls and elves and giants, supposedly haunted the forests and hills and night.
    But in the coffin, on dusty cerulean velvet, lay a long black sword. Its edges were nicked and crusted.
    Gathrid stood, one hand sealing his mouth, vainly trying to contain a cough. It all fit the legends.
    His free hand strayed to the weapon's hilt.
    Sparks. Power flooded his arm. Pain and fear evaporated. His weak leg strengthened. The dead side of his face quickened and joined the other in an expression of wonder. The blade vibrated in his grasp. Dust danced off its dark gloss.
    And the dwarf opened his eyes.
    The gaze of a Toal was warmer.
    "Daubendiek has chosen." Theis Rogala spoke softly, chillingly, with a curiously jerky accent, like the sound of bones being crushed far down a long cold hallway. "There will be blood for Suchara."
    Gathrid tried to drop the Sword. His fingers would not open.
    The question of which had been master and which tool pervaded the legend of Tureck Aarantl, As the Sword, against his will, rose in salute, Gathrid suffered the despairing suspicion that it had been Aarant who had been the controlled.
    Bones creaking audibly, Rogala dropped to one knee. In the same death-edged voice he croaked,
    "Suchara's will be done. Her servant swears fealty to her Swordbearer till Dau-bendiek severs the bond. Sucnara's will be done."
    Nothing in Gathrid's sixteen years had prepared him for this. Beyond daydreams he had never really wanted to be a warrior. Nor did he want to be a slave. Most of all, he did not want to replay the tragedy