Shattered Shields - eARC Read Online Free

was so much better than me , Dval thought. I have not even earned a title beyond my family name. I suppose now that I never will.
    Dval had been convinced that his father had been murdered, but the elders of the clan had not investigated.
    Who would want to kill Dval Kartinga, hero that he was?
    Suddenly, Dval recalled his uncle, with his crimson bow and silver elk mask, taking aim.
    Never had he imagined such a thing. His uncle, Dval Oormas, had shared a womb with Dval’s father.
    Could Dval Oormas have killed his father?
    The pieces fit together like the scales on a fish.
    Of course. Dval’s father, as the Supreme, had been the chief elder to the clan, next in line to become its leader. If he died, it left an opening for those who might want to take his place.
    Dval’s uncle might harbor such hopes. As an uncle, it was Oormas’s responsibility to raise Dval to be a warrior, like one of his own. But it was a responsibility that Oormas had hated.
    Dval remembered the constant sneer in his uncle’s tone, the insults and belittling.
    His uncle had sent Dval over the mountains into enemy territory to find his blood mare, and Dval had seen moccasin prints while following her trail. He’d imagined that one of his cousins had driven the horse over the mountains, playing a cruel trick.
    But what if it was his uncle who had done it?
    Of course, Dval thought. Why else had he shown up at just the right time?
    Dval was a strong young man. As his mother had put it, “Your father’s blood runs strong in you. You shall be Supreme someday.”
    That was reason enough for someone to try to kill me.
    Perhaps when I entered the carriage, Dval reasoned, my uncle hoped that the wolves would finish me, so that my blood would not be on his hands. Or perhaps when the Mystarrians showed up, he imagined that they would kill me.
    But neither had happened. The Princess Avahn had begged her father for mercy.
    So Oormas had taken matters into his own hand, and had shot an arrow at Dval.
    Suddenly, it all fit together in Dval’s mind, and he was so excited, so eager to take the idea back to the burrows and tell the clan, that he almost did not see the two Toth emerge from under the trees.
    Before he knew it, they were halfway across the clearing, racing soundlessly, four arms folded tight against their chests. One of them was small and fast, about twelve feet tall. The other was much heavier, a large female, and ran sluggishly.
    She held what looked to be a long rod of crystal that glimmered under the starlight, and blazed red, as if fire leapt up from its heart.
    The grass had been burned all around the city, so she could not have intended to burn that. Only one thing stood to reason. She would burn the last of the humans standing atop the fortress.
    “Ya-chaa!” Dval whooped a war cry as he leapt over the fortress wall and charged the enemy.
    * * *
    “Oh, schiesse !” Sir Bandolan shouted, and Avahn leapt up from her corner, fighting sleep.
    The giant grabbed his great war staff and stood firm, a wall between Avahn and the Toth. Avahn peered out into the darkness, and could see little.
    A huge Toth was out there, and it wielded a club that blazed like living fire, whirling it in the darkness. On the ground beneath it, the boy Dval was shouting, his white frame turned red beneath the spinning flames.
    He had his spear out, and did battle with two Toth at once.
    “The boy is fearless!” the giant said in amazement.
    More than that, he moved now as quick as a serpent. His foe was a smaller Toth, one with the shadows, and Avahn could barely see it in the darkness. It leapt and twisted away, teeth gaping. It hissed and shrieked, an alien sound, and bore a huge axe with three double heads.
    It swung at the boy, but for some reason, as Dval pressed the attack, the creature kept fading back, the philia waving madly upon the frills of its head-plate, as if terrified and unbelieving of what it faced.
    “Go save him!” Avahn shouted to Bandolan, for