All That Glitters Read Online Free Page B

please.”
    â€œI’m looking!”
    The savages were parting, allowing someone at the back to push their way to the front. Tyvian knew whoever it was probably wasn’t there to bail them out. “Look much, much faster.”
    â€œThey in the big pocket or the side pockets?”
    â€œBig pocket, dammit. Big pocket!” Tyvian kept his eyes fixed on the person approaching, though all he could currently see was a mop of matted red-­orange hair drawing close. He heard Artus fumbling around inside the pack, cursing under his breath.
    Tyvian found himself looking at a young woman clad in only a loincloth, a few elaborate tattoos, and a colossal mane of hair that spilled over her shoulders and fell almost to her knees. Were she cleaner and not flanked by men who planned to kill him, Tyvian might have spent a good minute ogling her rather taut, compact frame and athletic curves. He reflected, suddenly, that he usually seemed to meet the most attractive women the exact same way—­just before they tried to kill him.
    The woman drew a spike from her hair that looked like a very large thorn with a crossbar that allowed her to hold it, with the “blade” portion poking between her middle and ring fingers. She pointed it at Tyvian. “You Destroyers have defiled the holy temple of Isra. Why?” Her voice was clear and penetrating—­the voice of an orator.
    Tyvian looked back at the hole. “Is that what that was? Honestly, we were just looking for somewhere to—­”
    â€œLies!” she snarled, showing her teeth.
    â€œGot them!” Artus announced, slapping something into Tyvian’s hand—­a smooth, elliptical amulet fashioned from an alchemical mix of lodestone and steel.
    Tyvian slipped the amulet over his head. “We were robbing you of your giant enchanted diamond—­there, happy now?”
    The woman’s green eyes seemed to glow with anger. “Your blood must be used to cleanse the temple space! Surrender to the Ja’Naieen and we will only kill one of you!”
    Tyvian shrugged. “Hardly tempting—­I need Artus to carry the packs.”
    That did it. The woman chirped something angry at the Forest Children archers, and they loosed their arrows in one terrifying salvo.
    Tyvian, of course, knew that the Vel’jahai’s weapon of choice was the bow, which was why he had invested in bow-­wards for both himself and Artus. The thing was, however, that bow-­wards were designed to stop only a few arrows at a time, working under the assumption that you weren’t, say, standing less than five paces from twenty archers who had nothing else to shoot at but you and your friend. So, when all of those razor-­sharp projectiles came whistling straight at Tyvian’s torso and struck the boundary of the ward more or less at the same time, the result was a complete overload of the ward’s capacity. This, of course, meant Tyvian’s ward exploded with a flash of blue light and a thunderclap roar that caused everyone present to hold their ears and fall to their knees.
    Everyone, that was, except Artus and Tyvian.
    â€œTime to run!” Tyvian grabbed his pack and sprinted, Artus just behind him. He kicked one of the Forest Children in his skinny, beardless chin as he rose to stop them but otherwise didn’t break stride. They dove into the forest like a pair of big dogs through a hedge, eschewing dexterity and stealth for sheer, brute speed.
    Arrows began to zing past their ears shortly thereafter, embedding themselves in trees or sticking in their packs as they ran, bobbing and weaving among the broad mossy trunks of the deep forest.
    â€œWhere the hell is Hool?” Tyvian snarled, more to the air than to Artus.
    Artus answered anyway. “She’s probably by the temple entrance. We came out the back!”
    Tyvian leapt over a dead stump and ducked back into a hollow, Artus just beside him. This