Victim of Fate Read Online Free Page A

more trusting with us. Well, boys,
that's not the way of royalty. They've got to have their fingers in
everything. Mark my words, control and power is all they're after.
Makes living like simple men such as you and me seem like a far
better fate."
    Alto frowned as Tristam droned on. "We live
well enough with our laws, don't we?"
    "True enough, but that don't mean I'd want to
be running this show! Too many things to keep track of, the way
they do things. And so much of it's nonsense, stopping us from
getting good contracts when we're better suited than the rank and
file of their armies."
    "So, um, what job did you get?" Namitus
reminded their leader. "Babysitting another caravan through roads
that haven't seen a bandit in years?"
    "There a problem with those?" Tristam asked.
"We come back alive and with coin in our pocket."
    Namitus chuckled. "Fair enough. Just a bit
boring is all."
    "You'd rather be spending time wooing a
merchant’s daughter?" Alto teased.
    Namitus's cheeks flushed red and he clamped
his mouth shut. Tristam laughed and reached to carve off a block of
cheese from a wheel on the table. He found a loaf of bread in a
basket to go with it and then sat down at the end of the table. He
chewed a bite of the bread slowly while both of his men watched
him. "We're headed into Kelgryn lands," he said after he'd
swallowed the first mouthful. "See if there's any work to be had
there. If not, then we head north."
    "North? Back to the Northern Divide?" Alto
asked.
    "Into it, and beneath it."
    Both men groaned and shared another look.
"Our last time under those mountains didn't go so well. We lost
Gerald and Drefan," Alto said.
    Tristam nodded. "I know, and I miss them
still. Well, most of the time. We're not searching for mines taken
by trolls and goblins and such."
    "What then?"
    "What indeed?" a fresh voice said as a man
wearing black robes came through the door from the street. The
wizard eyed the food on the table and walked over to help himself
to it.
    "Kar, I trust you're ready?" Tristam asked by
way of greeting.
    "As ready as a man about to set foot in
dangerous lands can be," Kar muttered around a mouthful of
cheese.
    "The Kelgryn aren't dangerous," Alto
protested. "We're welcome there!"
    Namitus laughed and found a chance to poke at
his friend. "At least welcome in the halls of the jarl's
daughter!"
    Alto's eyes mirrored his mouth, both wide
open at the rogue's comment. Tristam and Karthor chuckled at the
warrior's embarrassment. "I meant the depths Tristam means to take
us, the very bowels of the mountains."
    Alto turned to Namitus, expecting to share
another look of confusion with his friend. Instead, he saw Namitus
staring at the wizard until his lips curled up into a smile. "Have
you found them? The mines?"
    Alto groaned. More mines. The other three
ignored him.
    "I've studied enough I think I can locate it.
When the dwarves were driven out, they brought down the side of a
mountain on the main entrance. Rumor has it this was to contain the
things they'd unleashed from escaping."
    "And you want to go in there?" Alto blurted
out.
    "Only rumors, lad," Kar reassured. "No dwarf
that escaped ever spoke of it. There were precious few that
escaped, though. Even the village of Rockwood outside the mines was
buried by the avalanche."
    "You just said they were driven out!" the
young warrior protested.
    "Did I? Well, they were. Out as in killed. A
few emissaries or merchants were away, but they had no idea of what
transpired."
    "What about the dwarves nearby, or did the
mountains swallow them, too?"
    "Man, woman, and a child," Kar said. "Dwarves
live in the mountains, not like you and I would in a city of house,
but underground. There's more to a dwarven mine than just mining,
lad! They have great halls, kitchens, underground housing, and
much, much more."
    "That's impossible!" Alto refuted.
    Tristam held up his hand to stop the wizard
before he responded. "It seems a far stretch, to be sure. I've
never seen such things