Llewellyn’s Song Read Online Free Page B

behemoth
came, he’d piled a heap of dry tinder near the branches that he could set on fire
to chase the beast away. Tamara had mentioned ice demons too, but it had to get
much colder before they left their northern home. He still had three months
before dead of winter. Three months to find Frostbone and find out what pushed
the ice demons south and what evil made behemoths leave their mountain refuges
far to the northeast.
    * * * * *
    Tamara watched beneath lowered lashes as the elf man moved
around the cave and wove a rack to smoke some fish he’d caught. Didn’t he ever
sleep? It worried her, for some reason, to think that men didn’t sleep. It
would give them an unfair advantage over women. Was that how they’d subdued her
sex in other lands? Then there was the question of size. He must be almost
twice her size. That didn’t mean anything except that they surely dominated
their women by size and strength, giving them no rest and beating them into
submission.
    Her heart beat faster, but she didn’t move. He thought she
slept, and she wanted to examine him more. He moved back into her line of
sight. Straight black hair tied back with a leather strip. Skin burned brown by
the outdoors. A patch covered one eye, the other eye caught the light and
glittered like a dark amethyst. He turned and stared straight at her and for a
moment she thought he’d seen she was awake, but he turned back to his task.
    His hands moved deftly and the rack soon took shape. Laying
it against the wall, he took the fish he’d laid by his side and hung them on
the rack. Fascinated despite herself, Tamara watched the first man she’d ever
seen up close. The differences fascinated her. His shoulders seemed so broad,
and his hands, with their tendons standing out as he worked, looked strong and
capable. She shivered, a strange tremor running through her. At that slight
movement he looked up, his eye dark with concern.
    “Are you feeling better?” He got up with a fluid movement
and was at her side in an instant.
    Her stomach contracted, but she let none of her fear show
through. Her clan mother had said often enough, “Never let them see your fear,
otherwise the brutish males will ravish you”.
    Tamara studied him, but he only looked concerned, not
aggressive. You never knew though. “I feel much better. When will you take me
to the trading post?”
    “Your wounds are too grievous, if you receive another shock
you won’t survive.”
    She heard the truth in his words. Her chi, drained by the
effort of healing herself as fast as she could force it, would not last.
Especially if she were jolted. She had to be patient. “You said you wanted to
speak to Frostbone. How is it you know the ice demon king?”
    A shadow passed over his face. “I fought in the last war
against the Mouse King. Before, I hadn’t realized the ice demons even had a
king.”
    She sneered. “You wouldn’t, coming from Hivernia. The fae
never bother to learn anything about the world to the north, except when it
happens to bother them.”
    “As far as I know, d’ark t’uath are part of the fae kingdom.”
He spoke quietly but his one eye flashed.
    The d’ark t’uath part of the fae kingdom? She shuddered. “You
know nothing then. We come from the east, whereas you came from the sea, from
the south.”
    Her words must have surprised him, for his eyebrow shot
upwards. “That’s part of our legends, yes, but we have lost all trace of our
ancestors, and have never found them again. Ships sailing south rarely return,
and when they do they bear stories of huge sea monsters and tempests, but no
land. It’s as if we came out of nowhere. How is it that you know of this?”
    “Our winters are long, and our legends many and oft told. As
for the creatures you call ice demons, they are not true demons, being made of
flesh and blood, though their flesh may be icy and their blood a poison ichor.
But I forgive your ignorance. In Hivernia, ice demons must be rare. How is