Shannivar Read Online Free Page A

cub!”
    â€”and others dim and distant, the surging roar of a great army—
    â€œKhored! Khored!”
    The Gelon recovered with a grunt of surprise and raised his sword again. Overlaid on that image, Zevaron saw a thousand other swords, flashing in the sun.
    He stood on a hilltop, looking down on the massed armies, knowing they waited only for his command. Snow-crystal clouds glowed across the horizon. Wind whipped his cheeks, tasting of ashes and ice.
    Retching, half-blind, Zevaron lifted his hand to the gathering storm. Almost too late, he saw the hilt of the sword clenched between his fingers. Instinct and training took over again. Quicker than thought, he scrambled to his feet. He parried and fell back, fighting for balance.
    The voices rose about him, a whirlwind—
    â€œKhored! Khored!”
    â€”and somehow, beyond all hope and reason, his mother’s voice sang in his blood, rising and falling in ancient rhythm.
    May the light of Khored shine ever upon
you;
    May his wisdom guide you,
    May his Shield protect you . . .
    The sky went dark, as if the shadow of something vast and terrible stretched across the living world. At the very margin of Zevaron’s vision, light gleamed on steel. A face loomed over him.
    He staggered backward. Slow, too slow.
    The storm reached down to him with fingers as cold as ice. Burning white and beautiful, they plunged into his side. For an instant, he felt no pain, only wonder.
    In the distance, someone screamed his name. The world slipped sideways.
    He raised one hand to the place where the ice had branded him. His fingers came away hot and sticky.
    Pain shocked through him. Laced his breath. Sent him to his knees, sword loose in his grasp.
    He looked up, forced his bleared vision to clear.
Get up
, he screamed, but no sound came. He hauled himself to one foot, then the other.
    Someone appeared in front of him, beating back the Gelonian soldier, not the one he himself had fought, but another man.
    He could not breathe. The wound in his chest burned, molten. His fingers were going numb, and yet he managed to lift his sword again, bracing one hand over the other. Darkness lapped at him.
    â€œZev! Let’s go!”
    At the sound of Danar’s frantic shout, a mist fell away from Zevaron’s vision. He was standing, but just barely, on a darkened street, lit only by a guttering torch and a string of garish paper lanterns. The knot of people had scattered. The one remaining Gelonian soldier sat in an awkward jumble, clutching the front of his shoulder. Blood streamed through his fingers.
    â€œZev?” Danar sheathed his own sword and reached out his free hand to Zevaron. “Can you walk?”
    Zevaron’s injured side throbbed with each pulsation of his heart. He struggled for air, managed to wheeze out, “Got to—” and then toppled into Danar’s outstretched arms.
    Danar cursed in earnest now, phrases in Gelone Zevaron had never heard, not even in all his time with Chalil. Zevaron didn’t care what the words meant. He had to stay on his feet and keep moving. Grunting with the effort, he straightened up and managed a shambling run.
    â€œHold on, Zev. I’ve got you. Just stay with me. A little further and then you can rest.”
    Air rasped through Zevaron’s chest. From the pain and his shortness of breath, he thought his lung had been punctured and collapsed. Once in Tomarziya Varya, he’d seen a wound like this.
    He couldn’t think what to do. His muscles had turned to powder. Grayness, like a surging tide, washed in waves across his vision.
    Hold on
, the voice had said.
    He held on.

Chapter 3
    S TREETS blurred, lights smearing together into a wash of agony. Zevaron heard Danar’s voice, asking directions.
    Which way to the river barges? Do you know where the
Mud Puppy
is? Down this way?
    His hand pressed over the still-bleeding wound, Zevaron leaned heavily on Danar. Somehow he managed to stay