Under A Colder Sun (Khale the Wanderer Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

reason, are you not?”
    “My death, Khale,” King Alosse said. “You know that. It is what must happen here, between us, tonight.”
    A moment passed in which both men’s eyes met; one with its xanthic taint, and the other with its rheum and bare mortality.
    Khale sighed and stroked his fingers through his unwashed mane. “Aye, your death, and then?”
    “You take Milanda to Neprokhodymh.”
    “Your daughter’s life will mean the end of your line and your blood, Alosse.”
    “Truly said, but in exchange for the soul of one so pure as Milanda, the Autarch will see Colm spared for a time.”
    “They will come for the city eventually, Alosse. Barneth and Farness covet this land. You’re buying your people a breathing space, no more.”
    “I know, I know. I hope and pray it is enough. A new leader will arise, I’m sure of it, and the people will follow him ... or her. For my city, my people, love for my own blood must come last.” His voice dropped to the barest of whispers. “Milanda must die. She is a sacrifice that I must make.”
    The old King’s eyes were steel points in the dark of the room. “Do it, Khale. I cannot bear this life much longer. I should have died years ago. I’ve been clinging because ... because there’s been nothing else for me to cling to. Do you know how many years I’ve been resting my backside on that bastard throne?”
    “No.”
    “No, you wouldn’t. I’ve been here since we drove the last of the mages into the Heart of the World to die. You know, there’s something I never told a soul. Something that happened to me when we were fighting that blasted war.”
    Khale nodded, listening.
    “I found him in some ruins. He’d been wounded.”
    “Found who?”
    “One of them, Khale. A mage. You should have seen them. They were all like him, the wounded one I found that day. Oh, he was immaculate. Perfect. A beautiful creature. I killed him.”
    “Really, Alosse? You surprise me.”
    “He’d never done anything to me, and I put my sword through him without a second thought. Do you know why?”
    Khale said nothing as the King went on.
    “Life wounds young and old alike, Khale. You know that more than most, but few will admit to it. It doesn’t discriminate, the world we live in, though we like to think it does. That’s why I killed him. He was beautiful and his eyes were so peaceful, even with all that blood pissing out of his side. He was beautiful. He’d done me no harm. I couldn’t stand to look at him. I couldn’t let him live. Not one moment longer. He had to die.
    “Get out, Beauty, that’s what I thought to myself as I did it. I thought, go from us. No longer make us see and feel how low-born, lost and petty we are. Leave us our spite, our bitterness and our malice. Leave this world to us alone.” Alosse sighed and was wracked by a prolonged bout of coughing.
    “I was young once, and when I was young, I was a hero. You were there. You remember it, don’t you? The battles. The glory. The swords in the wind.”
    “I do.”
    “And then I became this ... thing . I grew old, and I became an old man. I wasn’t a hero anymore. Nothing can replace that, you know: not wealth, not beauty, not wonder. Not even love. I could not find it in myself to weep when Milanda’s mother died, not a single tear. I can’t remember her face anymore. And ... what was her name?”
    Khale shrugged.
    Alosse went to the table and poured himself a generous cup of wine. It spilled as he lifted it and soaked his beard thoroughly as he drank it down. “I was a hero, Khale, and I’ll not leave this world with a lie as the last words on my lips: it never got better. It never got any better. It never could, and you knew that didn’t you?”
    “I did, Alosse, and you would not listen when I told you so.”
    “Get on with it, then. I’m done talking ... done with everything.”
    Khale came at him and drove a knife into the King’s heart. “Goodnight, old man.”
    He caught Alosse’s