Of Shadows and Dragons Read Online Free Page B

steps, then slowed again to its natural, plodding pace.
    “Do they really?” asked Therian, not bothering to look back down the trail to where Gruum pointed. He seemed only vaguely interested. “I had not thought they had the stomach for a fight.”
    “Yes,” Gruum agreed. “I’d expected them to waylay us back in town if they were going to try anything.”
    “No,” said Therian with certainty. “Not with the Duke watching. But now we are out of his city, and they seek to make their move.”
    “They look like a hard lot, sire. We can’t match their speed, and they will not be put off with words.”
    “You are wrong on that point, Gruum,” said the King. He pulled upon his horse’s reins and climbed down unhurriedly.
    “Ah, sire? What are we doing?”
    Therian’s black gloved hand rose to halt Gruum’s words. “Do not disturb me. I must recall certain… thoughts.”
    Gruum sat upon his horse nervously. The men that followed—mercenaries by the look of them—were only minutes behind. He watched with concern as Therian worked with the contents of a leather pouch. Therian kneaded it and squeezed the pouch, as a drunk might work at a flagon of wine in an effort to extract the final drops.
    “Milord, we must go,” hissed Gruum. He thought to hear the clatter of hooves rising up from the switchback below them.
    Therian flashed up the gloved hand again. “No more words, Gruum. You must not frighten it.”
    Gruum licked his lips and watched, wide-eyed. Frighten what? his mind asked.
    Something slid from the pouch then. It was dark, and thick, and… silky. At first, Gruum thought it might be a serpent… but no. As he watched, he came to realize he gazed upon nothing living. In fact, he gazed upon nothing at all.
    A gauzy wad of shadow slipped like a mass of baker’s dough from Therian’s pouch. Gruum wondered with considerable alarm just how long this substance—if it could be called that—had lain within that pouch. He himself had carried the same pouch a dozen times for his master. Never had he ventured to probe within and learn the contents. It had always felt like a very light liquid, or perhaps an oily fat. He had assumed it was some kind of cream or powder his master might use in a ritual.
    Now, as he watched, he learned the truth. There was nothing in the pouch. A solid form of nothing , a void that had shape. A shadow with volume.
    The shadow fell upon the cold, snow-covered stones of the road with a tiny plopping sound. It quivered there on the fresh, white snow, as black as black could be. Gruum watched with growing alarm. Was this thing akin to the shadow-being that had sought to strangle him on previous occasions? Or was it a creature apart from the man-shaped shadows, but equally vicious?
    Therian knelt beside the quivering blob of blackness and spoke softly to it. The words, though spoken in low tones, caused pain to Gruum’s ears and even more discomfort to his mind. Still sitting upon his horse, he urged it further up the road. The pony needed no spurs, as its eyes rolled in fear and its breath came in white, labored plumes.
    Gruum tried to avoid looking at the thing on the roadway, but could not keep from glancing over his shoulder again. He saw Therian caress the thing on the path and whisper to it, his lips almost brushing the glistening black surface as might a young maid’s when she spoke to a favorite cat. Gruum’s lips curled upward in disgust.
    “I hear them now, milord,” Gruum said. “They can’t be but a single turn behind on this road.”
    Therian stood and brushed frost from his knees carefully. A crusting of snow had formed upon his cloak while he bent over the thing on the roadway. Gruum noted that the snow did not pile upon the shadowy blob. Perhaps the flakes melted the instant they touched the thing—or perhaps there was nothing for the snowflakes to cling to.
    Therian mounted and goaded his horse into a trot. Gruum followed in great relief. At last, they were