The Shadow's Heir (The Risen Sun) Read Online Free Page B

was cold and dark between them. For a moment she had the irrational feeling that they had gone underground, but after a while, the pass opened up a little, and the sun warmed her face.
    She looked ahead, her heart thudding now in anticipation. They were nearly there.
    They reached Guard’s Post by evening. Laela, standing up on the back of the cart to look ahead, had seen it some time ago, and she watched it come closer.
    Guard’s Post had been partly carved out of the walls of the pass and consisted mostly of a huge archway. Below it was an enormous iron gate that had to be raised and lowered by chains. Above it there were towers, built on the cliff-tops. Laela thought they looked familiar, but it took a while for her to decide why.
    She remembered a drawing she had seen once, in a book. A tower, tall but solid, its sides full of strange, arched openings, each one with a platform jutting out from it. A griffiner tower, her father had explained. The platforms were for the griffins to land on, and the openings led into nesting chambers.
    The towers at Guard’s Post had openings just like that.
    Laela hugged her knees and shivered with excitement. Griffiner towers! She had always wanted to see one, and now she was seeing two.
    There didn’t seem to be any griffins around them, though. Privately, she was relieved. Griffins were notoriously dangerous and temperamental creatures—not even a griffiner could really control one, or so her father had told her. They had magic. They also had beaks and talons meant for tearing flesh, and they were carnivores. That last part bothered Laela far more than magic.
    The cart reached the gate before the driver pulled the oxen to a halt and waved to a small figure standing on the crenulated wall above. The figure waved back.
    The driver sat down.
    “An’ now we wait,” one of his companions muttered.
    Laela got off the back of the cart, suddenly nervous.
    At first it seemed nothing was happening; she kept expecting the huge gate to open, but it never did. Were they going to have to turn back?
    The driver tensed in his seat. “Here they come,” he said. “Throw yer weapons down.”
    Laela pulled her sword around to the back of her belt and took her blanket-roll down off the cart and slung it over her shoulder, hoping it would hide the weapon. Nothing would make her part with the sword unless it was a matter of life and death.
    A few tense moments passed, while the travellers laid their weapons down at their feet in plain sight, and the driver got down off the cart. Laela stood tall to look past them, and her heart beat fast as she saw a group of men come toward them.
    “Who are ye an’ what d’ye want, Southerner?” a harshly accented voice demanded of the driver.
    He bowed nervously. “I’m here to trade, sir. I’ve brought plenty of goods.”
    Laela, keeping well back, clenched her fists with nervous impatience. She desperately wanted to see the Northerners, but the bulky forms of her fellow travellers were in her way, and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.
    “Out of the way,” the first voice said, and the travellers obligingly moved away from the cart.
    The Northerners—six in all—surrounded the cart, while two of their number climbed up on it and began to search through its contents.
    Laela, seeing them at last, felt her breath catch in her throat.
No.
    The Northerners were tall and long-limbed—lightly built, but sinewy. Their hair was black as coal, and they had pale skin, and when one of them turned toward her Laela saw his eyes—glittering black, impassive.
    Oh, Gryphus,
she thought, suddenly trembling.
    One of the Northerners lifted up a box. “What’s in this?”
    “Melon seeds, sir,” said the driver.
    The Northerner grunted and prised the box open. Laela saw his fingers, long, elegant fingers . . . his face, sharp-featured and cunning . . .
    Without thinking, she ran a hand over her own face. Was that what
she
looked like? Was she one of