Dawn of the Ice Bear Read Online Free Page B

shifted and blew in the ever-present winds. Gorian didn’t like it. The sand stung when it blew at him, particularly since his skin had been dried out and burned by the heat of the sun. With the fall of night, however, the wind had died, and the temperature dropped with it.
    Now he hunkered down on the ridge looking out toward Kuthmet. Somewhere down there was the crown that Kanilla Rey wanted. He hoped they could achieve their goal. The nineteen soldiers he’d started with had been winnowed down to eight, plus himself and Sullas. And one of those eight, Elonius, was back on the Restless Heart to make sure the sailors didn’t just take off and leave them stranded here.
    He had seen those damnable Stygians at work once, and knew that the whole force of twenty would have had a hard time defeating them. The only hope would have been for some of the men to rush the wizards while the others were blasted by their mystical ways. Or course, it was possible that Kanilla Rey could help, even over this distance, as he had with the pirates back in Shem.
    Still, twenty would have been better. An army, better still.
    The other unknown was the young people, the strange trio of the Pict and his two Aquilonian friends. They had never given any indication of why they had come to Stygia. The longer they traveled with his group, the more he wondered if they were after the same thing. After all, the crown had Pictish origins, it was said. That in itself had raised his suspicions from the start. But the Pict in particular had proven useful from time to time, so as long as they weren’t too near the goal, he had not bothered to do anything about them.
    Now, however, they were near the goal. Something would have to be done.
    The Pict would be a hard one to kill. The Aquilonians easier, although the ship’s boy from the old Barachan Spur would likely complain when they went to do the girl. She was a fine-looking one, at that.
    Maybe they could just kill the Pict and the brother, and keep her alive. Looking back down the slope, he spotted a Gunderman mercenary named Hakon squatting down and drinking water from a bladder. He called the man’s name and beckoned him up the ridge.
    â€œYes?” Hakon asked when he arrived. He dropped to his haunches next to Gorian. He was a tall man, well over six feet, with muscles like corded steel. His shoulders were wide. A massive two-handed broadsword hung in a scabbard on his back, tied across his huge chest. His light brown hair was trimmed close to his head, and Gorian had seen him shaving his beard with a dagger most mornings, scraping its edge across a prominent jaw. Like all the mercenaries Gorian had hired, he spoke Aquilonian well.
    â€œThat Pict boy. What do you think of him?”
    Hakon considered the question only briefly. He blinked a couple of times, long, almost feminine lashes fluttering over eyes of a deep cerulean blue. His lips were thin and pale. “A good fighter. I saw him put down what seems like ten of those Argossean dogs, back on that beach in Shem.”
    â€œHe is that,” Gorian agreed. “Anything else?”
    â€œSmart, I think. For a savage. I spent some time on the border, and made a few raids into the Pictish wilderness. I have no love for that kind. I’ve seen what they do—taking heads, boiling the skin off, and piling the skulls in their villages like some kind of . . . mementos, I guess. And you would not want to be a woman in that land, I can tell you. But most of the Picts I encountered—not that they lived to have conversation with—seemed little more than forest beasts to me. Might as well have been wolves as men. This one—he’s different. Not just that he’s friends with those two Aquilonians. I have heard him speak, and he uses the language well. Not like a native. But nearly as well as I. And more than that. He seems to be thinking, all the time. I know not what about. But there is intelligence in his