Blood and Honor (Forest Kingdom Novels) Read Online Free

now.”
    Ten thousand ducats … maybe more … a chance to start over again … a role that could be a real challenge … There’s got to be a catch, but I don’t give a damn .
    “I’m your man,” said Jordan. “We can leave as soon as I’ve brought fresh provisions.”
    “We already have everything you’ll need,” said Argent. “Roderik, start the spell. We’ve wasted enough time in this filthy hole.”
    “Wait just a minute,” said Jordan quickly. “You want to cast the glamour spell right here and now? Where everyone can see us?”
    “No one will see us in this light,” said Roderik. “The spell is quick and quite painless, I assure you. There’s nothing at all to worry about.”
    Jordan looked suspiciously at Roderik. There’s nothing to worry about was the kind of thing the traveling dentist said as he knelt on your chest and poked his pliers into your mouth. But he couldn’t argue. He’d agreed to take on the role, and the spell was a necessary part of it. He’d just thought he’d get a bit more warning …
    Roderik took Jordan’s silence for assent, and raised his left hand. He frowned, and muttered something under his breath. Jordan strained his ears to try and catch the quiet words, but the few he caught were in a language he didn’t recognize. They sounded harsh and grating and somehow … disturbing, and Jordan suddenly wondered if perhaps he’d made a mistake after all. Count Roderik fell silent, and made a sharp, twisting motion with his left hand. Jordan gasped, startled, as his skin suddenly began to itch and creep. His face twitched convulsively. He started to lift his hands to his face, and found he couldn’t. His whole body had locked solidly in place. He couldn’t even blink his eyes. He struggled furiously, to no avail, and then his anger gave way to panic as the first changes began. His bones creaked and groaned. His flesh shuddered, rising and falling like a series of ripples on the surface of a pond. He tried to move or run or scream, and couldn’t. His panic rose another notch when he found his breathing was becoming increasingly shallow. Sweat poured off him. His vertebrae popped one after the other as his back stretched, giving him an extra two inches in height. His fingers tingled painfully as his hands grew long and slender. New cords of muscle crawled along his chest and arms and back. His legs grew thick and sturdy. His face trembled as his features lost definition and then grew firm again in a new shape. And as suddenly as it had begun, the paralysis was gone, and his flesh grew still again.
    Jordan swayed on his feet, and Sir Gawaine was quickly there at his side. Jordan clung to the knight’s arm as his head slowly cleared, and his harsh breathing gradually returned to normal. He finally straightened up, and let go of Gawaine’s arm. He gave Gawaine a quick, grateful nod, and then stared in something like horror at his hands. He lifted them up before his face and looked at them, turning them back and forth before him. They weren’t his hands. The length, shape, and shade were wrong. But the fingers flexed obediently at his command, and he could feel the cool of the evening moving over them. He lowered his hands and looked down at his body. His clothes no longer fit him. He was taller now, and his arms and legs were longer. His shirt was tightly stretched across his new chest and shoulders, and his belt hung loosely about his flatter stomach. Jordan felt a brief surge of vertigo as his mind refused to accept the new body it found itself in, and then the feeling died away as he brought it under control. Jordan was used to being different people at different times. He was an actor. He looked at Count Roderik, who bowed formally.
    “Your Highness. Would you like to see a mirror?”
    Jordan nodded dumbly. Argent produced a small hand mirror from a pocket in his cloak, and handed it to Jordan.
    The face in the glass was traditionally handsome, in a dark, saturnine