The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) Read Online Free Page A

that Emorians do terrible things to their women, but I had known better than to pass that information on to Mira; my sister is a terrible gossip. Besides, Titus has lived in Koretia for three years now. He has had time to become civilized.

When I told Mira what I needed done, she treated me as though I was still a boy. "Fetch him yourself," she said, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. Then she said to Chloris eagerly, "Go on. What did he do next?"

Chloris turned pink; she was trying to bite away a smile. I sighed and stepped back out of hearing, turning my eyes toward Drew.

At that moment, though, I heard my father call for silence, and I knew that it was too late. I ran over and was just in time to scramble onto the speaking rock beside Fenton. My father remained below us, waiting for the moment when he would be called forward to help administer the vows.

I looked round from the heights of the speaking rock at the view before me. All in a cluster around us and the balefire were the men and women and children of the village – about thirty households in all, along with a few unmarried men who had become members of our village by vowing their blood to a blood-brother. That same vow – the one I was about to take with Hamar – is always taken by the village's boys when they become men, as a way of showing their loyalty to the village . . . and also, of course, because a double bond of blood to one's village, through birth and through friendship, makes a man more likely to exact vengeance in a feud.

So there were blade-carrying men and boys there, and very young boys who yearned to carry blades, and the women and girls who brought new sons into the world – and daughters too, for women and girls are needed to help with the healing of wounded men and the preparation of corpses. The last is a secret among women: the art of preparing a corpse so that it will stay fresh for three days, even in the hottest weather. But other than that, women are never allowed to take part in blood feuds. I'm glad I was born a boy rather than a girl.

Beyond the villagers stood the wooden houses, built on rock and dirt, including our own house: a hall, along with a loft where Hamar and Mira and I slept.

And beyond that was the Sea of Koretia, as it is called: the long stretch of green woods, nearly unbroken within the triangular bounds of the mountains that enclose Koretia. Sometimes, on clear days when I'm on top of the mountain, I've thought I could see Capital Mountain, where the priests are trained, and at its foot the city where the King lives and his lords meet in council. But my father says that the capital is much too far away to be seen – many days' ride away. Only Capital Mountain serves as a dim and distant sentinel of the capital's position.

We of the borderland are almost a people apart, for it was here, the stories say, that the tribesmen from the northern portion of the Great Peninsula met the tribesmen of the southern portion of the Great Peninsula – who, it was said, had originally travelled over the Koretian Straights to the east, from mainland areas that were turning into desert. And when the northern people met the southern people, they intermarried and formed a common language. And that language was what we now call Border Koretian.

Then, after a few generations, most of the people left the borderland, the northern people spreading north and the southern people spreading south, so that the Three Lands of the Great Peninsula came to be formed: Koretia and Daxis to the south, and Emor to the north. But here in the borderland, some villagers stayed, preserving the ancient manners of speech and living. We who are their descendants hold the memories of what the Great Peninsula was like, back in the years before the Three Lands were formed.

Or so Fenton has told me. None of this was on my mind on my birthday, so I know that the reason I am writing all this down is to avoid writing what came next on that