The Very Best of Kate Elliott Read Online Free PDF Page A

western portal of stone and lintel. Sparks flowered above the stones in a pattern like the unfurling of wings sewn out of gold, the fading banner of a phoenix. So brief its passage; the last embers floating in the air snapped, winked bright, and vanished.
    Edek stared, mouth agape.
    The woman, not so very far away, watched them. She had black hair, bound into braids but uncovered, and a brown face and dark hands. She wore sandals bound by straps that wound up her calves over tight leggings suitable for riding. A close-fitting bodice of supple leather was laced over a white shirt. But she wore no decent skirts or heavy knee length tunic or long robe; her legs were gloved in cloth, but she might as well have been bare, for you could imagine her shape quite easily. She wore no other clothing at all unless one could count as clothing her wealth of necklaces. Made of gold and beads, they draped thickly around her shoulders like a collar of bright armor.
    A woman of the Quman people who displayed herself so brazenly would have been staked down and had the cattle herd driven across her to obliterate her shame. But this woman seemed unaware of her own nakedness. Edek could not stop staring at that shapely bodice and those form-fitting trousers even as the woman hefted her spear and regarded them with no sign of fear.
    “Chsst!” hissed Edek, warding himself with a gesture.“A witch!”
    “A witch, maybe, but armed with stone like a savage,” muttered Kereka in disgust. Anyway, even a woman who carried a spear was of no use to her.
    A shape moved behind the foreigner: broad shoulders, long hair, sharp nose. Of course no woman would be traveling alone! Edek did not see the man because he was blinded by lust. Let him hesitate, and she would take the prize. This was her chance to take a head and never have to marry the Pechanek begh ’s son.
    Kereka sliced the halter rope that bound Belek’s horse to her saddle, and drove her mare up the hill. A Quman warrior rode in silence, for he had wings to sing the song of battle for him. She had no wings yet— only men were allowed to wear armor and thereby fly the honored pennant of warrior’s wings—but she clamped her lips tight down over a woman’s trilling ululation, the goad to victory. She would ride in silence, like a man.
    The horse was surefooted and the hill none too steep. Edek had only a moment in which to cry out an unheeded question before he scrambled for his mount. Ahead, the woman retreated behind one of the huge stones. The man had vanished. Kereka grinned, yanked her mare to the right, and swung round to enter the stone circle at a different angle so she could flank them.
    “Sister! Beware!”
    The words rasped at the edge of her hearing.
    It was too late.
    She hit the trap with all the force of her mare’s weight and her own fierce desire for a different life than the one that awaited her. A sheet of pebbles spun under its hooves. A taut line of rope took her at the neck, and she went tumbling. She hit the ground so hard, head cracking against stone, that she could not move. The present world faded until she could see, beyond it, into the shimmering lights of the spirit world where untethered souls wept and whispered and danced. Belek reached out to her, his hand as insubstantial as the fog that swallows the valleys yet never truly possesses them. It was his spirit voice she heard, because he was strong enough in magic for his spirit to bridge the gap.
    “Sister! Take my hand!”
    “I will not go with you to the other side!” she cried, although no sound left her mouth. In the spirit world, only shamans and animals could speak out loud. “But I will drag you back here if it takes all my strength!”
    She grasped his hand and tugged . A fire as fierce as the gods’ anger rose up to greet her. She had to shield her eyes from its heat and searing power. She blinked back tears as the present world came into focus again.
    It was night. Twilight had passed in what