Falconfar 01-Dark Lord Read Online Free Page A

garden last summertide, Lhauntur. I had wings then."
    Lhauntur frowned. "Brae... no. Taeauna?"
    The Aumrarr nodded. "Taeauna am I. Or what is left of her."
    "And this?"
    "A man who came out of the fray to fight beside me... with a hayfork. Where he left his clothes, I've no idea, and know not even his naming. Worse than that, though he seems calm enough, pleasant company even, he knows not his own life nor remembrances. Are any healers guesting in Hollowtree, perchance?"
    The warsword shook his head, his frowning gaze never leaving Rod. Though he appeared to make no signal, three arrows were suddenly aimed at Rod's head, riding straining bowstrings.
    Rod swallowed, tried to smile, and decided it was safer to look at Taeauna than anywhere else. Pleasanter, too.
    "Lord wizard!" the knight snapped suddenly, raising his sword, and Rod opened his mouth to answer without thinking. In front of his nose, Taeauna stiffened.
    Oh, shit.
    Quickly he asked, "Where?"
    He turned his head to look behind him first, heart icy as he waited for the hiss of arrows that would slay him.
    None came, so he swung around again to look at the warsword. "A wizard?"
    Lhauntur sighed, and almost seemed on the verge of smiling. "As artful as a lad caught chewing in the pantry. Down, please, goodman! And keep your hands stretched out flat!"
    Rod stared at him.
    "You," the warsword snapped, and his mouth definitely crooked into a smile this time. An unpleasant smile.
    Rod went down to his knees and then slid onto his belly, keeping his arms spread. The heels of his palms skidded away from him until his chin was resting on the moss. His boxers, now stiff with Taeauna's blood, scratched him as he moved.
    The archers hastened forward, and Lhauntur's sword flashed a warning as he advanced on Taeauna.
    "You understand our caution?"
    "Of course," she replied calmly as she stepped back. Then pointed leather boots were treading firmly on Rod's hands, and men who smelled of rank sweat and forest earth were kneeling over him, fumbling at their pouches. A length of crude cord that looked more like an old root or a knotted length of horse's tail was produced, and Rod's wrists were quickly and snugly knotted together. Then calloused fingers took hold of Rod's armpits and hauled him to his feet.
    He found himself looking into Warsword Lhauntur's cool brown eyes—down the shining length of the man's short, broad, and deadly looking sword.
    "I'll gag you if I hear even the first sound of what might be a spell, wizard," the knight promised calmly. "And if I find you've been working at that cord, I'll personally break your thumbs and your forefingers." Then Lhauntur smiled and with the same ironic tone that Rod favored when dealing with publicists, added, "So be welcome in Hollowtree Keep."
    Rod gave him an empty smile, and then turned to Taeauna and asked innocently, "Lady, are these bad men?"
    Emerald eyes widened ere Taeauna said soothingly, "No, goodman. I've been well treated here in the past. Just do as they say." She reached out a finger to his chin, as if to guide him into looking straight into her eyes, and gave him a silent look that said as clearly as if she'd shouted it: "Don't overdo it, Dark Lord."
    "Yes," Rod told her, trying to sound vague and yet contented. "Yes, of course."
    Only the emerald eye that was farthest from the four Hollowtree men rolled derisively, a feat that left Rod staring at Taeauna in fascination. How did she do that?
    Probably because I once dreamed Aumrarr could, he reminded himself ruefully, as the warsword made a curt gesture with his sword and they all started to trudge along the lane up to the castle.
    The map wasn't a sheet of weathered parchment at all, but a table covered with faintly evil-smelling mud that had been painstakingly shaped into what was presumably a miniature duplicate of the landscape of Falconfar. Every inch of the terrain close to Rod bore overlapping thumbprints; it had obviously been worked and reworked with care.