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

bales, gambling at kadfli,
the gold-tipped black wands clicking softly as they were tossed onto the cobbles. The men bent to study the fall, murmuring over the results. Then one
of them laughed and scooped up the wands with a scab-covered arm to begin
another round.
    Outside thunder rumbled again and raindrops briefly spattered the roof.
    From this vantage Eldrin could not see his captors’ faces. They were rough, working-class men clad in dirty homespun tunics and britches. Their
hair was long and tangled, their beards unkempt. Sheathed short-blades dangled at their belts beside scarred coin pouches, the latter hanging in empty
folds.

    Not far from them a rat emerged from a pile of loose wool and stopped
to watch them, its whiskered nose working, eyes shining like ebony stickpins.
When they ignored it, it scurried forward, keeping to the shadows along the
wall until it left Eldrin’s field of sight.
    One of his captors loosed a crow of victory, recapturing Eldrin’s attention.
As the other man leaned back in apparent disgust, light flashed off something
on his chest, and Eldrin stared, slowly going cold with recognition. It was a
golden shield, fused into the man’s flesh by the power of no man. The mark
was an indelible visible sign of the evil to which its bearer had sold his soul,
the mark of those called Terstans.
    Servants of the Adversary, Terstans hated the Flames above all else. If they
had their way, there would be no Flames, no Brotherhood, no Mataio at all.
They blasphemed the tenets of Holy Writ, ridiculed the work of the Guardians, and scoffed at the power of the Flames to protect. Only their own
power, they claimed, would save Kiriath.
    But all their power did was drive them mad, corrupt their bodies, and
eventually kill them.
    These two already sported the telltale boils on arms and faces, and even
from where he lay, Eldrin saw the ring of white curd encircling the irises of
the man facing him. Eventually that curd would fill his eye sockets; his spine
would twist and bend; his hands would stiffen into claws. Then his organs
would fail, passing his suffering soul straight to the arms of his Master in
Torments.
    Though this was the closest Eldrin had ever come to these servants of evil,
he had long been warned of their guile, their perversity, their tenacious antagonism to the truth. Terstans had been a blight to the realm for centuries.
Some Mataians considered them the cause of all Kiriath’s troubles, wanted
them cast out-even killed-if they wouldn’t renounce their heresy. Of all
the sects in Springerlan, the Terstans had most reason to fear Eldrin.
    “Your brothers are dead … you stand but a heartbeat from the throne.”
    Wearing the crown, he could easily revoke the laws protecting freedom
of faith and see the Terstans destroyed or driven from the realm. No wonder they’d kidnapped him. He was surprised they hadn’t killed him. Did they
hope to convert him? To ensnare him in their evil and brand their mark upon
his chest against his will?

    He shut his eyes, shuddering. His Light will be my refuge.
    Click, click.
    Please, my Lord Eidon. You know my heart. I only want to serve you, however
that may be.
    Even, he asked himself grimly, if it’s to give your life for your faith?
    He shuddered again, praying he would find the will to endure if it came
to that.
    A faint, frantic scritch-scritch-scritch erupted from somewhere beyond the
top of his head. Fluffs of wool floated out into his field of vision. The rat
again. It paused in its rustlings as thunder rumbled and the rain spatter
increased. Then a flurry of tiny clicks raced toward Eldrin, and the creature
burst into sight, inches from his face. It stopped to sniff and lick a dark bloodstain on the cobbles. His blood.
    The rodent drew closer, eyes bright, whiskers quivering. Fat, gray, smelling of sewage, it seemed bigger close up. Its nose touched his brow, his eye; a
delicate paw rested on his nose.
    With a