Worldbinder Read Online Free PDF

leave the hunt today. I suspect him of foul deeds. I need to know where he goes.”
    Alun must have looked worried. At the very least, he did not know how to answer.
    “Are you up to the task?” Madoc demanded. “Would you risk the wastes alone, with nothing but that dog?”
    “I’m—not afraid,” Alun said. “Wanderlust will warn me if there is any danger about.”
    “Do this for me,” Madoc said, “and I’ll make you Master of the Hounds….” He fell silent, letting this sink in. “With the title comes your freedom and a grant of all of the rights owed to a warrior of the clan….”
    Alun’s jaw dropped in astonishment. He and his ancestors had lived as serfs for generations. They were the most ill-bred of mankind—the servant caste—made slaves by nature. As a child, Alun had often been told that warlord Madoc would geld him when he got older so that he wouldn’t pollute the blood lines. Alun had never dared to dream of rising above his fate.
    But as a warrior of the clan, he would gain the right to own property. He would someday be able to buy himself a fine house instead of sleeping in the kennels among the dogs. He would eat at the warlord’s table and drink the warlord’s wine, instead of eating scraps. He would be eligible to marry a fine woman, a warlord’s daughter. “Master Finnes is growing old,” Madoc explained. “He tells me that you know dogs as well as any man alive, and you will be a great service to the clan. You are ready to move up in this world.”
    Alun listened, but worried. Compliments, he found, were like grease on an axle. When applied liberally, they will speed one along on a journey—but soon wear out.
    Madoc was offering too much for this one small act of service. There was more going on here than Madoc let on. At his back, Drewish only leered.
    Madoc is afraid to his send his own sons to spy on Daylan Hammer, Alun realized. This game is more dangerous than it appears. It’s not just the wyrmlings I have to fear—it’s Daylan himself. If he’s involved in someplot, he might kill to cover it up. That’s what Madoc fears. That’s what he suspects.
    Indeed, Sir Croft had died under suspicious circumstances on the hunt some four weeks past, off on the trail alone. Now that Alun thought of it, hadn’t someone said that Croft had gone out to search for Daylan Hammer?
    But at the time, Alun hadn’t given that a second thought. He’d imagined that Croft was slain by a wyrmling before he found the immortal.
    Daylan Hammer seemed to be a virtuous man, wise and brave. He was as handy with a joke or a song as he was with a bow—and after centuries of practice, no one was handier with a bow. Everyone admired him. He was … the kind of lord that Madoc could never hope to be.
    Is Madoc’s jealousy clouding his judgment? Alun wondered.
    “You suspect him of Croft’s death,” Alun said.
    Wanderlust inched forward, pressing her muzzle into Alun’s chest, reminding him that she needed her cuirass. Up at the castle gate, hooves thundered on the drawbridge as a pair of warriors issued forth, and in the fields below the castle, a murder of crows began to caw and fly up out of a field of oats.
    Madoc grinned. “Smart lad,” he said. “There’s more to you than meets the eye. I suspect him of murder, and more. If he is the traitor that I think he is, I’ll tie his hands behind his back and let the headsman take a few swings at him.”
    Drewish laughed, “Then we’ll find out just how immortal he really is.”
    If I follow Daylan Hammer and find something to accuse him of, what then? Alun wondered. If Madoc succeeds in taking vengeance, for the rest of time people will remember me as the man who betrayed Daylan Hammer.
    Madoc seemed almost to read his mind. “It is possible,” he said, “that Daylan Hammer is as fair as he seems. But I have found that it is a rare man who can really be trusted. Every man’s hand seeks his brother’spurse, especially in days like