Mystic Warrior Read Online Free

wounded dignity, Murdoch swung sword and rapier in tandem, a feat few others could imitate. In a whirl and slash of silver blades, stripes disappeared from uniforms, buttons flew, and more drawstrings were severed. The soldiers were suddenly too busy covering their indecency to aim their muskets. With an assist from his boot applied to a fat derriere, Murdoch tumbled the sergeant headfirst into the parched weeds.
    â€œGentlemen, I suggest you stand back so we may be on our way,” Murdoch thundered, his greatcoat flaring around his boots as he swung up in the stallion’s saddle without need of stirrup. Disarming his foes hadn’t eased his ire. Violence too easily became a way of life when one faced it daily, and he’d been facing it for four years now. Four years in which he’d learned violence wouldn’t win him what he wanted. Rather than risk venting his volatile temper, he would let the scoundrels live another day—provided the ones in the shrubbery didn’t interfere.
    Standing in the stirrups, he held his saber in one hand and urged his mount on with the other. Beside him, the wagon lurched forward. The defeated soldiers rolled and scattered from their path. The cape of Murdoch’s coat fluttered in the dry wind.
    Still standing so he could better flourish his weapon, Murdoch urged the wagon’s animal into a close approximation of a gallop, aiming for the safety of the nearby village. The passengers gasped and grabbed the cart’s sides. Dust flew in a cloud, separating them from the humiliated thieves.
    As his stallion raced down the dirt road, Murdoch flashed a wicked grin of triumph through the stubble of his beard. “Praise Aelynn and may the road rise up to greet us!” he shouted to the heavens.
    The heavens responded by releasing a ball of blue flame.
    It arced toward Murdoch in a shower of sparks, igniting a host of memories—of legends he’d heard of the blue spirits of the gods wreaking their revenge or issuing their blessings. Legends of gods he no longer believed in. Only, instead of striking him down, the light bathed him in warmth before coalescing in the black pearl of his Aelynn ring, a ring that had been part of him since birth. Dazed and bewildered, he dropped back to his saddle.
    A gunshot exploded, blasting him from his high perch and knocking him to the ground.
    In a rage of agony and disbelief, Murdoch rolled across the grass, flipped over onto his uninjured shoulder, and with a power he could no longer control, conjured up lightning from the clouds that had been gathering since the encounter had begun. Thunder boomed as the first bolt struck. The wind hit the treetops in gusty gales.
    The rotten wood of a hollowed-out tree trunk erupted in flames. Sparks spread to drought-stricken weeds. In seconds, fire raced with the wind of the rising storm—not in the direction of the villains, but directly toward the nearby village and its unsuspecting inhabitants.
    Once again, Murdoch’s good intentions had ended in disaster.

Two
    Standing over her mother’s deathbed, swallowing a lump of grief, Lissandra Olympus looked out over what had once been Aelynn’s lush jungle. Now brown palm fronds drooped onto wilting gardenias, baked by a relentless sun. Since the disappearance of the Chalice of Plenty four years ago, the volcano had rumbled and spilled ash as it never had before, and the island’s temperate climate had become increasingly unpredictable.
    The marriage of Lissandra’s brother, Ian, to Chantal two years ago had pleased the gods enough to make them return the summer rains that fed the river and wells, but now the water was drying up in the excessive heat. Last spring a late frost had blackened fruit blossoms, and before that, winter storms had begun to wash away the sandy beaches that protected their shoreline. The people’s anger and fear stirred unrest throughout the island. With their chosen Oracle incapacitated