Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) Read Online Free

threw something small and white at
the feet of the ruffians surging around the swordsmen. A column of lemoncolored smoke erupted from the cobbles where it hit, and the front-runners
collapsed in apparent swoon a heartbeat later. As their companions recoiled in astonishment and alarm, Rhiad grabbed Eldrin and dashed for an alleyway
looming between the brick buildings on the side away from the mob.

    Seeing their prey escaping, the mob surged forward again. Another egg
plumed yellow smoke, and three more men dropped. Eldrin inhaled a whiff
of sulfur, and a wave of wooziness washed over him. Rhiad jerked him
onward. He caught a glimpse of the Guardian’s amulet flaring red with
Eidon’s protective light, saw men leaping toward the alleyway to cut off their
escape-and then inexplicably slowing and stopping well short of the opening, staring at Rhiad as if they were enspelled.
    A chill of awe rushed up Eldrin’s spine.
    His Light will be my protection….
    They were going to make it!
    Then a rock bounced off the back of Rhiad’s head, collapsing him to his
knees, and the frozen men surged forward again, blocking off the alleyway.
As Eldrin stepped to the Guardian’s side, something slammed into the back
of his own shoulder. He staggered forward, the rush of pain stealing his breath
and loosing a sudden, furious aggression.
    A rod struck him across the back, the new pain stoking the fire. Before he
knew what he was doing, he’d grabbed the weapon on the second downswing, twisted it from his attacker’s hands, and cocked it back, ready to
swing. Only to find himself looking into a ring of shocked and frozen faces.
    Their shock became his own.
    I will touch no weapon of warfare. His Light will be my protection.
    Horrified, he dropped the club. Holy Eidon, what have I done?
    His tormentors leapt forward in a tide of stinking, filthy bodies; hands
punched him, jerked him, shoved him. The furious clamor of their voices
assaulted his ears. Nearby a horseman pressed his mount in Eldrin’s direction,
beating the rioters off with his quirt.
    Then something crashed into the side of Eldrin’s head and the world
spun. His ears rang, his knees collapsed, and white light exploded in his brain,
enveloping him as the ground flew up to jar the wind from him. Sucking air,
he struggled to hands and knees, fighting to stay conscious. His hair slid forward around his face and arms like a veil, hot blood flowing down the side of
his neck and dripping onto the cobbles. Bands of fire wrapped his chest as he
braced for more blows.

    Instead hard hands dug into his shoulders and closed round his legs, lifting
him upward as someone stuffed a rag in his mouth. He struggled to breathe
past the obstruction and the smothering veil of his own hair, seeking vainly
to free himself as the light in his brain flared, burning everything away.

C H A P T E R

2
    Eldrin awoke as a deafening crack of thunder rolled across the city, rattling windows and shingles. He lay on his side, wrists bound behind him and
pressed between his back and a cold stone wall. Wet cobbles dug into his
shoulder and head, and the pungence of smoke and damp wool was all but
suffocating. His head pounded rhythms of outrage; beneath that pulsed various lesser aches from shoulder, back, and ribs.
    He stared at the backs of his eyelids, breathing slowly, trying to move his
awareness past the symphony of pain to his surroundings.
    Where was he? What had happened? Had they left him for dead?
    A faint rhythmic clicking answered the unvoiced questions.
    He cracked his eyelids.
    Stone walls soared around him, reaching up to narrow clerestories that let
in the dim light of an afternoon darkened by storm. Bales of cream-colored
wool stacked ten high filled the main space and formed the fourth wall of the
ten-foot pocket in which he lay, clearly the back end of some Southdock
warehouse. A veil of smoke hung in the air.
    Two men crouched near the base of the stacked