The Final Quest (The Parsival Saga Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

playing.
    “Go away! Go away!” a little girl screamed.
    “Mercy, lord,” importuned an ancient man.
    “Good folk,” the knight said, “I’m hungry and thirsty and have come far.”
    “More will follow,” the crone coughed after them. “You’ll see. Feed one dog and the wolves follow!”
    He stopped at the well, surrounded at a safe distance. Drew water for himself and leaned his sword on the stones. The people were quieter now. The crone was still coming across the grassless stretch of field, hobbling, knife flashing the fierce, steady summer light.
    “I don’t understand all this,” he was saying. “I’ve come a long way and much … much is clouded in my brain.” Drank deeply. “I’m alone, as you see. None follow me.”
    “What do you want?” a voice asked from the crowd.
    He was staring at the road that veered under the trees beyond the village and vanished. His hand touched his hurt skull again.
    The barn was behind him and one of the boys was standing on the big stone to get a better view.
    “To eat,” the knight was saying. “Rest …”
    Rest from time , he thought, dark eyes troubled. He kept finding strange things in his mind: pictures … words … things inexpressible as longings, too … He sighed and stared at the road, the dark bluish tree shadows barring it …

 
    IV
     
    “You needn’t bind this one,” Howtlande said, pointing to the short, soft-faced woman who was staring, numbly, straight ahead, not even trying to cover her breasts where the cloth was ripped away. The sacklike garment hung to the ankles, streaked blood showing on her thighs through the rents. Skalwere was knotting the ropes on a sullen, chunky girl’s wrists and looping them to the next in line, a weeping, thin red-haired woman. “Get them moving,” he went on, staring meditatively at one of the peasant men who was face down in the ditch, legs uptilted as if he were diving into the earth, up to his eyes in his own caking bloodmuck.
    Howtlande was sitting on the mule. The bulk of his men started straggling ahead in drifting and approximate line. No one even bothered to joke about the women now among the twenty-five or so bandits. Most, he reflected, were masterless men-at-arms, with a few gallows birds and that one, odd, actual knight. The only other knight besides himself in the band. A darkhaired, longjawed, dour middle-aged bastard who told you nothing in any conversation and was unmatched in battle viciousness. Howtlande felt certain he would know the name if he ever were to learn it. He’d only asked once and the eyes had looked at him like dark stones as the fellow said:
    “You have the sword.” Voice hard and smooth. “Why trouble further? Call your own horse your own way.”
    Howtlande had readily agreed, though he hadn’t tried calling that horse anything just yet. But he couldn’t help speculating about the possible past … he was well-trained, that showed at once, a perfect captain. He must have served kings; perhaps even his own former master, the ball-less wizard.
    Hah , he thought, who finally ran short of spells, too … the cringing son-of-a-bitch, I don’t see how he ever took me in to begin with … well, he took enough others. There’s no such thing as a lonely disgrace, it’s always shared with someone …
    He spat into the fine dust that was rising and hanging behind them like yellowish smoke. A butterfly rose, erratic, sudden, falling, tipping, tilting through the air with exquisite awkwardness. He barely registered it stuttering across the road and vanishing as if blown dissolving into the glitter of underbrush and long grasses.
    “How far do we march?” Skalwere wanted to know.
    “Tired already?” Howtlande joked.
    “No, fat man,” was the unsmiling reply. “But it be well to know your destination.”
    “Not far. Half a day on foot. I know the place, Viking.”
    “Spare me,” Skalwere cut in, “more answer than question.” And moved toward the head of the scraggly