The Lair of Bones Read Online Free

Crowthen, nearly a thousand miles to the northeast of Averan. The sun would not be up for half an hour, yet the sky glowed silver on the horizon. The early morning air felt chill, and dew lay heavy on the ground. “It was a strange dream.”
    She glanced suspiciously at South Crowthen's knights nearby, who were busy breaking camp. Captain Gantrell, a lean, dark man with a fanatical gleam in his eyes, stood ordering his men about as if they'd never broken a camp before. “Sweep the mud off that tent before you put it in the wagon,” he shouted to one soldier. To another he called, “Don't just pour water on the campfire, stir it in.”
    By the surly looks he got, Erin could tell that his troops did not love him.
    As the men bustled about, occupied with their work, for the first time since last night, Erin felt that she could talk to her husband with a measure of safety.
    â€œYou dreamed a dream?” Celinor inquired, one eyebrow raised. “Is this unusual?” He drowned his canteen in the shallow creek almost carelessly, as if unconcerned that Gantrell's men surrounded them, treating the crown prince and his new wife as if they were prisoners.
    â€œI think it was more than a dream,” Erin admitted. “I think it was a sending.” Erin held her breath to see his reaction. In her experience, most people who claimed to receive sendings showed other signs of madness too.
    Celinor blinked, looking down at his canteen. “A sending from whom?” he asked heavily. He did not want to hear about his wife's mad dreams.
    â€œRemember yesterday, when I dropped my dagger into the circle of fire at Twynhaven? The dagger touched the flames and disappeared. It went through the gate, into the netherworld.”
    Celinor nodded but said nothing. He watched her suspiciously, daring her to speak on.
    â€œI dreamt last night that I saw a creature of the netherworld, like a greatowl that lived in a burrow under a vast tree. It held my dagger in its beak, and it spoke to me. It gave me a warning.”
    Celinor finished filling his canteen, then licked his lips. He trembled slightly, as if from a chill. Like most folk, he felt uncomfortable when talking of the netherworld. Wondrous beings, like Bright Ones, peopled it, but there were tales of frightening creatures too—like the salamanders that Raj Ahten's flameweavers had summoned at Longmot, or the Darkling Glory they gated at Twynhaven. “What did this… creature warn you about?”
    â€œIt warned me that the Darkling Glory could not be slain. A foul spirit possessed its body, a creature so dangerous that it strikes fear even into the hearts of the Bright Ones. The creature is called a locus, and of all the loci, it is one of the most powerful. Its name is Asgaroth.”
    â€œIf you are convinced that this Asgaroth is a danger,” Celinor asked, “then why are you whispering? Why not shout it to the world?”
    â€œBecause Asgaroth may be nearby,” Erin whispered. A squirrel bolted up the side of a tree, and Erin glanced back at it furtively, then continued. “We can slay the body that hosts the spirit, just as Myrrima slew the Darkling Glory, but we can't kill Asgaroth himself. Once a locus is torn from one body, it will seek a new host, an evil person or beast that it can control.” She paused to let him consider this. “When Myrrima slew the Darkling Glory, a whirlwind rose from it—and blew east, toward South Crowthen.”
    Celinor looked at her narrowly, anger flashing in his eyes. “What of it?”
    â€œYou say that your father has been suffering delusions….”
    â€œMy father may be mad,” Celinor said curtly, “but he has never been evil.”
    â€œYou were the one who was after telling me how his far-seer turned up dead.” Erin reminded him. “If he killed him, it may have been an act of madness. Or it may have been evil.”
    â€œI only suspect