The Golden Shield of IBF Read Online Free Page A

devour them all.
    Swans heart beat savagely, her chest visibly pulsating, her breathing labored. It was the magic of the Handmaidens at work against her body.
    Swan started to raise her hand, to counter the magic the six Handmaidens worked, but this was what her mother wanted her to do, waste her magic, waste the precious eyeblinks it would take. So there must be an option, something that she could do in order to survive.
    And though her mother was now trying to take her life, if Swan survived she would have her mother to thank. Her mother had spoken once of a casting she had made, taken from an old scroll. It drained Eran of almost all her magic for a period of several hours.
    Swan let her mind drift back to the Memory Pool, to recall the incantation if she could.
    Another crossbow bolt. To deflect it would not drain her. Swan waved her hand. The Mist of Oblivion rolled toward her, was only a few spans from her feet. Two warriors lunged toward Swan with their glowing hot fireswords.
    Swan stretched out her arms, her hands grasping for the magic in the air around her, feeling its current surging through her body, strengthening her. She uttered the words of the incantation as she pressed her palms together between her breasts, becoming one with the energy around her.
    Light, dazzlingly bright, filled her, exploded from her, magical energy beyond anything she had ever experienced or even imagined, a sound crackling like thunder from chain lightning—
    A darkness that glowed like light but was neither light nor dark was all around her, then gone.
    Swan looked up. There was a different light, that of the sun, but the sun was different, too. Tall castle towers, unlike anything she had ever seen, soared into the blue sky above. Her gaze trailed downward along the castle walls. They were filled with windows, larger than any she had ever seen. An army of coaches moved along smooth black stone roadways on either side of her, but no horses or other beasts drew them.
    There was magic here. Of that, Swan was certain.
    Someone spoke to her in a tongue which she did not understand. Swan turned toward the voice. It belonged to a girl, a girl about her own age, black coloring around her eyes, a spiked animal collar around her neck. The girl spoke again to her and smiled. Swan smiled back. The girl was attired only in a leather binding around her breasts and a skirt that was too short to be a skirt and boots which rose to her thighs, their heels too high to be practical for riding.
    The girl spoke still again, and when Swan did not respond, the girl nodded, then began using her hands in some sort of gesturing symbology. Swan did not comprehend the gestures, but realized clearly their intent: the strangely dressed girl thought that she was deaf. A very large lantern swayed over the road. It had been emitting a red light, which seemed to serve no practical purpose of illumination on such a bright and sunny day. The light changed to green and the oddly dressed girl touched at Swan’s elbow and propelled Swan with her into the road.
    Swan was about to protest, but then she saw something on the other side of the road which gladdened her heart. Yes, there were men in odd metallic suits carrying strange weapons, a female creature that seemed to be half cat and woman, other oddities. But, she saw a girl attired similarly to herself, in long dress and hooded cloak, although the girl carried no sword, no spell bag. With her were two men, one of them a great teacher or philosopher from the look of his cowled robes, the other dressed in the finery of a courtier, like the ones whom she had seen pictured from the days before her mother’s reign, in bright red hose and gleaming black knee boots, a black jerkin over his white shirt, a bonnet with a feather plume on his head. A sword—a little too flashy looking to be very good steel—hung from an elaborate frog at his hip.
    Reaching the far side of the road, Swan saw others dressed in similar finery, and