Women of War Read Online Free PDF

cut of the roasting mutton joint and a whole heel-end of new bread for his supper.
    That night Moonflute broke his indentures. He was nobody’s fool. He had no intention of ending his life as someone’s gelded prettyboy, and if the stranger who had given him a whole silver coin for serving him had anything else in mind but that, it was probably worse. So he left. He’d meant to do it sooner or later. He wasn’t going to be a pot-boy all his life. He was going to be a hero. Moonflute was going to find the Starharp, just like the legends said.
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    Heading south from Corchado he wandered for a trackless while, then found his luck in the defeat of a nest of bandits where all that was needed was recklessness, a torch, and a borrowed—he meant to return it, truly—horse. Moonflute continued south with a new sword and his own horse and the beginning of a name, drunk on possibilities. Perhaps his fortune lay in Alarra, in the army of the Emperor. But how much better to come to that a hero rich with deeds and exploits. He was young; the world was wide.
    He gathered deeds as a miser gathers coins; each one never enough. Years passed without his notice, and each shift and diversion he was led to was only temporary—but he had years to squander. What he did in these scant few would—he thought—leave no mark upon his soul.
    He was young, and hungry for more things than food. It was not adulation that he craved, though he did not know it yet. It was a sense of place. Fierce, impatient, idealistic; he held himself as the minimum acceptable standard for humanity and had no compassion for those who were less. And though he was not so very gifted, there were many who were less.
    His father’s father’s father across a score of generations had burned as ardently—but the needs of each priest, beggar, soldier, and clerk in the Gray Duke’s duchy had schooled him, if not to compassion, at least to kindness. But Moonflute had no ties to earth; the heavens drew him to fiery cometary progress.
    When word came to him of the Monster of Paloe, it was plain to Moonflute he must attempt it. All the pat celebrations of the singer’s tales vied for pride of place in Moonflute’s imagination. A hero had a place in the world, and this triumph would surely be enough to make him one even in his own eyes. His mind veered among expectations that ranged from anticlimax to fable. Certified monsters were nearly as rare as real wizards; to ride into Alarra with its skin for a saddlecloth would be a splendid thing, and to ride into the village whose fields it terrorized with the great beast dead across his saddlebow would be ...
    Almost enough. Almost.
    So with some work he found the village and announced that he had come to end their trouble. The villagers were glad to see Moonflute, with his fine horse and his fine armor and all the gaudy trappings of heroism. The forester who had tried to trap the monster had been eaten, and the monster was not yet enough of an impediment to the collection of Alarra’s taxes to warrant the sending of kingsmen. The headman was lavish in his relief, and promised the wanderer liberal reward for fear he should change his mind and leave instead. They feted him richly, and at dawn they sent him forth to the hunt.
    His horse was silky black and grain-fed; skittish and neat-footed, with a mane as fine as a woman’s hair; splendid and suitable for the hero he would someday be. He had won it at dice.
    It died a little after mid-morning.
    The forester had died in these hills; the monster’s lair must be nearby. As he rode, a shadow blotted out the sun.
    Before he could remark on it, before he could look, the creature he had sought landed slipshod on his horse’s neck. He had one glimpse of a flat spade-shaped head and eyes that glowed pale silver before he was flung, savaged and dripping, from his frenzied beast. That was not the worst.
    Nor was lying at the