Return of the Guardian-King Read Online Free

into the gloomfilled valley. And sure enough, there they were—seven dark forms bounding through the deep snow, not nearly as close as they’d sounded, their voices amplified and carried by a trick of the wind.
    “They’re still a ways away,” he said, turning back to the others. They stared at him mutely. His eyes lifted to the tramped-out path beyond them, the kelistars’ light reflected in a long ribbon of illumination that stretched up the slope all the way to the monastery gates. It was a straight path, not too steep, not all that far. Most of them could probably make it. . . .
    On the bridge, a man cried, “We’re trapped! They’ll have us for sure!”
    “Let’s all fall down and pretend to be dead,” another suggested. “Maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
    “Aye, there’s naught else we can do—”
    “SILENCE!” Trinley bellowed from the bridge’s far side. When he had it, he rebuked them angrily. “Listen to yerselves! Are ye cowards or men? We didna come all this way t’ lie down and die. So put away that woolwash and stiffen yer spines. If they do get us, let’s make sure they pay fer it.”
    “Pay fer it?” his own wife protested. “How about making sure we stay alive, instead? If we take refuge under the bridge, we could defend ourselves easily. Tuck the little ones under it—”
    “Have ye even looked under the bridge, woman?” Trinley snarled at her. “The ravine’s far too deep to provide shelter, even if we could get t’ the bottom of it.”
    “I didna mean go t’ the bottom. There’s a ledge just under the bridge. Ye’re practically standing on it.” She leaned over the edge of the bridge. “There’s even a path to it, Oakes. Right there. Don’t ye see it?”
    The wolves’ cries clamored around them. Abramm eyed the path up the hill again, noting how it wasn’t filling with snow, though fat flakes were coming down thickly all around them. He glanced toward the portion of the broken trail they’d already come up. Sure enough, it was already losing its definition as the snow gathered upon it. It was also significantly dimmer in reflecting the kelistars’ light, especially near the forest’s edge where it began.
    And there was still no sign of the men who’d made it, though they had to have been out tramping the path until right before Abramm and the others had shown up. Now his glance caught on something else—the trees beyond the trail, all of which glowed with at least one rhu’eman occupant. They’d been more spread out before. Now it was as if they had gathered to watch. . . .
    He looked again at the gleaming line of light at the trail’s midst, thinking it seemed too bright and too localized to be merely reflected light. What if. . . ?
    His heart pounded with sudden excitement. Of course!
    “We have to keep going!” he shouted, breaking into the Trinleys’ argument.
    Again the entire gathering turned to look at him, eyes haunted with fear.
    “Have ye lost your mind?” Kitrenna demanded of him.
    “I think the path they broke for us here is protected,” he explained. “As long as we stay on it, I think we’ll be safe.” He shoved his way through the clot of women and children on the bridge, and stepped smoothly between Oakes and Kitrenna, pulling the man away from his wife and off the bridge onto the path.
    “Look at it,” he said. “Can you see the way it sparkles all the way up to the monastery? I believe it’s under Eidon’s Light.”
    But from the length of time Trinley looked at the path, the lack of comment he gave, and the troubled expression in his eyes when next he looked at Abramm, Abramm knew he’d seen nothing.
    “Just look at the trough itself, then,” Abramm pressed. “The way it’s not filling up with snow when by all rights it should be. When the part we’ve already come up is, and if anything, that should be the clearer of the two.”
    “The wolves will be here any moment,” Kitrenna protested. “And ye want t’ spread