The Western Wizard Read Online Free PDF Page B

Annoyance suffused Colbey, and he glanced directly at the speakers for the first time. Santagithi stood with one foot propped on a weathered stump. Dark blond hair flecked with gray fringed features just beginning to wrinkle. Tall and broad, he towered over the darker Pudarian soldier, yet the smaller man glared back with a look of controlled defiance. Colbey, not Santagithi, was the leader of Pudar’s army, and the man seemed determined to make that point clear.
    Colbey jabbed his remaining sword into its sheath. “Prince Verrall will not wait for a man to finish his prayers? Then ‘your grace’ has none. What does he want?” Colbey did not mince words, nor question semantics. King Gasir of Pudar had died in the war, leaving no direct heir. Of his four nephews from two brothers, Verrall had legal claim to the throne. Until his coronation, however, he could not use the title “king,” so he had chosen “prince.”
    The Pudarian blanched beneath Colbey’s intense scrutiny. “He . . . his grace wants to speak with you as soon as possible.”
    “About what?”
    “I don’t know, sir.”
    “Very well,” Colbey sighed in resignation, the conversation sounding almost too vivid and real in the wake of his holy experience. “Take me to him, then.” Colbey had no interest in politics, and royalty meant little to him. The other seventeen Northern tribes, and most of the West’s largest cities, were separate monarchies, each country organized under a high king. But the Renshai had never had a government. For the rare matters of diplomacy, they had chosen whoever seemed the best speaker for the occasion.
    “This way, sir.” The Pudarian turned, relaxing as he no longer had to confront Colbey’s cruel features andhard blue-gray eyes. He headed toward the center of the camp.
    Colbey followed, and Santagithi joined him. The broadboned Westerner dwarfed the slight Renshai.
    Colbey smiled. “You would join me?” They wound between trees and tents.
    “I think it would be best.”
    “Your company is always a pleasure, but you don’t often offer it.” Colbey could not help asking, “Do you think I’m in danger?”
    “Do I think
you
are in danger?” Santagithi’s mouth twitched upward. He cleared his throat, as if to make one of his ringing diplomatic or strategic announcements. “Isn’t that rather like worrying about a wolf being attacked by a flock of starving hens?”
    Colbey chuckled, watching the back of the Pudarian’s shaking head. It went against Santagithi’s usual tactful finesse to insult anyone, especially within earshot of a soldier so closely linked to the prince of the West’s largest city. He tried to guess the reason as they finished the trip in silence, and he believed he understood. For Santagithi, the war had proven taxing—physically, mentally, and emotionally. He had lost both of his captains to death. Despite being Renshai and a cripple, Rache had been like a son. The second had been Santagithi’s confidant. His only daughter had run away from home with Garn, the gladiator who had paralyzed Rache. Nearly a year later, the Great War reunited father and daughter, only to reveal that she had borne him a grandson, married Garn, and, taught by Colbey, she had become as skilled at war as any of his soldiers. Named the West’s prime strategist, Santagithi had had to orchestrate the Great War, coordinating armies of mixed backgrounds and even a single tribe of Northmen. The lives of thousands of men, and ultimately of their wives and children, had lain in his hands. Even the kings and generals had pinned their hopes on the man that the Eastern Wizard had called their finest strategist. Now, Colbey suspected, Santagithi simply needed a chance to shake off the lead weight of responsibility heaped upon him.
    The Pudarian came to halt before a huge, enclosed tent in the center of the camp. Four Pudarian guardsmen stoodwatch at the corners, each clutching a bladed pole arm that Colbey’s