The Lady's Man Read Online Free Page B

humiliation.
     
    Though she had given the captain some of the reasoning behind her belief that Yorik was in fact a paladin, the most telling sign of his true nature she hadn't shared. He might or might not have understood, but in any case it was a matter private to Yorik. If he survived he wouldn't have wanted it shared. And she was certain he would survive.
     
    Paladins were knights like many thousands of other humans, but separated from their comrades by their vows. Rather than serving a noble, a house or a state, paladins served a greater cause, a cause to which they pledged themselves with vows of obedience and fealty such as only a priest might make to his god. Vows greater and more important than anything else in their lives; family, friends, wealth, comfort – anything. Vows that bound them for life to a single cause.
     
    And those vows left a mark on a person. A mark that someone attuned to the reading of souls could see clearly. Yorik had such a mark in his soul. But his was a mark that was slowly being obscured by the terrible darkness that had possessed him. It was the mark of vengeance and unfulfilled rage.
     
    Yorik was a paladin on the verge of giving up on his vows, something that would probably kill him. But the hurt that had been done to him ran so deep that he wouldn't have cared. He couldn't hear his calling any longer. He was lost in his darkness, unable and unwilling to find his way out, or even to call for help.
     
    What had been done to him to leave him this way she didn't know, though she was sure it was a matter of death and blood. His soul under the darkness was pure, and only the truly righteous and innocent could be hurt so badly, too often through the harming of loved ones. The real question was who guided him, and who could save him from himself?
     
    All paladins of whichever order, save of course the Iron Hand, followed someone. A historical figure, a supernatural being or a prophet, and in some cases all three. They obeyed their teachings and in many cases even had some supernatural abilities conferred on them by their patron.
     
    There were five orders of paladins in the human world as far as she knew. Two of them were copies of a couple of the same orders that lived in the elven world, though that was not widely known in the human lands. What he stood for and what magic Yorik had would depend on which order he belonged to.
     
    The most ancient was the Order of the Just, a sect that followed the teachings of Lyrin the Just, the first law bringer in human lands, and a man not quite human. It was said that some of the blood that flowed in his veins came from the eldest of the dragons themselves and while that seemed fanciful in the extreme, their magic had many similarities to that of the great beasts.
     
    Lyrin's followers devoted themselves to bringing the light of law to the furthest reaches of their people, and had many powerful houses throughout the human lands. They carried the symbol of the sword and shield of Lyrin emblazoned on their armour, and all the magic that went with that worthy patron. They had the ability to tell truth from lie instinctively; they could spot a guilty thought among a crowd and know a man by his sins. However if Yorik was such a paladin he could not seek revenge under any circumstances. To do so would be to violate his most basic vows, and probably to sentence himself to death even if he didn't die when his vows finally broke.
     
    The Order of Kyla the Red took defence of the weak as their most sacred duty. Their patron Kyla, had been a human woman who had lost her husband and children one by one to bands of marauders during a terrible summer. But after her husband had been slain she had taken up his arms and taught herself the skills of combat. Then one by one even as the marauders attacked and her family were killed she had used those skills to kill their assailants, taking an ever greater toll on them. At the end though, when her last child had been