The Way of the Blade Read Online Free PDF Page A

me. Now.”
    Canto and the other man followed Shual through a side door. Before he left the hall, the man turned back and said, “Don’t forget the past. It will happen again. We will be hurt just as it happened when Harskill came here.”
    Malja called upon all her strength and will to keep a steady face, but her heart pounded in her chest. Harskill .
     
     
     

Chapter 4
    Javery
     
    As he followed his father and future brother-in-law to the deliberation room, Javery’s ears rang with all he had heard — or more accurately, all he had not heard. This woman and her companions had been quiet, calm, and amiable. Harskill had behaved far differently when he appeared on a blustery winter day ten years ago.
    Javery had been a boy when Harskill arrived. Still several years from becoming a man, he had been busy all morning performing his daily chores around the farm — feeding the cortocks and polys that provided eggs and milk, hauling water from the river to fill the tanks above the house, and stealing a bit of time to read from the scholarly texts he had smuggled out of his father’s study. The commotion had broken out down the hillside in the center of town, and as Javery headed home to wash for breakfast, he saw several adults racing for the house. Before Javery could walk half the distance home, they had Father and Ronnic outside, hurrying back to town. Javery followed. Partly because he wanted to know what could be so important that they needed Father, but mostly because his older brother, Ronnic, had been included.
    Shaking off the memory before he relived that horrible day, Javery entered the small room that had nothing but stiff chairs lining the walls and bare wood on the floors. A single chair on the far wall had a purple cushion and above it hung a single portrait — Carsite and Scarite with Pali between them. Shual lumbered across the room and eased his wrinkled body on the cushioned seat. Canto plunked down on a chair opposite Shual. They each waited for Javery to do the same.
    Stomping his feet once against the hardwood, Shual said, “Stop being petulant. You wanted to be heard, you’ve always wanted to be included in decisions, well here you are. The least you could do is show us a bit of respect.”
    Javery sat, crossing one leg over the knee of the other, and glared at Shual. The old man would not be baited, however. Shual glared back but said nothing.
    At length, Canto broke in. “The two of you can deal with your family problems later.”
    “They’ll be your family problems soon enough,” Javery said.
    “Then permit me, my dear brother-to-be, to tell you that you’re being a hot-drop.”
    Javery held back his laughter. Not since childhood had heard the term hot-drop — a description of the way feces in the winter smoked like hot coals.
    Canto ignored Javery’s mocking face. “This is a serious threat to us, and you’ve done nothing but stoke up the fear of these people.”
    “They should be afraid. Or did you forget all the lost lives we’ve seen in the last ten years?”
    “I’ve seen that these three are different. They didn’t burst into our town demanding our praise. They haven’t promised us knowledge and power. All they wanted was a few apples.”
    Shual scratched his cheek. “That is strange, isn’t it?”
    “And the woman’s answers,” Canto went on, “bothered me more. She had no arrogance to her voice, no condescension to her words. It was as if she believed the things she said.”
    Javery jumped to his feet. “You told the people you believed her. Now you’re talking as if you think she lied.”
    Canto remained seated but his broad shoulders pulled back. Javery didn’t miss the suggestion that Canto had no need to stand in order to argue with such a scrawny adversary. “I asked her questions under the assumption that she would lie. I told the people I believed her because I wanted her to think she had fooled me. And I wanted to keep the people calm. If they react to