Wings of Flame Read Online Free

themselves—
    â€œSeda,” said Kyrem. “Your name is Seda. That is what the Old Ones would have called you, because you speak softly, like an echo, a whisper. Will that do?”
    A tear brimmed out of one wide eye by way of answer. Kyrem tried to reach out and wipe it away, found that he could not quite do it and turned his back instead.
    â€œCrazy Vashtins!” he shouted at the distant peaks, and the words came echoing back to him.
    â€œAre you mad? That will bring all the rabble within hearing after us,” the captain said sharply. “Let us ride.”
    Kyrem and Seda drank at the spring, for Kyrem would not be hurried. Then they mounted, with Seda on Omber behind Kyrem as before. Omber was the largest and strongest stallion of the lot. “Omber,” someone remarked. “That means ‘shadow.’ The echo rides the shadow. You choose strange names, Kyrem.”
    The prince made no comment as they rode to the fern-fringed lower edge of the meadow and into the shadows of the black forest.
    No rabble came after them, for the time. They rode through tree shade and out into yellow sunlight again, into another spring-green mountain meadow, this one contained by shelving red rock. The blue rose of the wilderness grew there. In spite of tense thoughts and an empty belly, Kyrem smiled at the beauty of the place. But as they traversed it, with ominous silence and suddenness a moving shadow swept over them. “Curse you! Curse you all!” a voice rasped from overhead.
    The horses shied, coming dangerously close to the rocky edge, and the riders could not control them, for the riders themselves were staring skyward, as unnerved as their mounts. The horses spun and circled, striking against each other, and great black wings wheeled above them, the wings of a mighty raven larger than any ordinary raven, but the baleful face that glared down was that of—how could it be? A horse, a black bony horse’s head with flaring nostrils and long yellow teeth. The yellow, scaly, reptilian legs of a bird were tucked under the thing’s feathered tail, but instead of claws, the legs ended in two hard black hooves. They hung heavily from the bird’s body, making it lurch and lumber in air, clumsy, ugly.
    â€œCurse you!” the thing said again quite plainly, eyes rolling whitely in its black equine head.
    â€œDemon,” Kyrem breathed, gaining control of Omber at last, and he sent his long knife darting up at it like a javelin. The weapon flew both short and wide, out of its element, and came to earth somewhere on the rocks with a clatter. But the weird horse-bird swung away nevertheless and flapped off, lifting itself with difficulty toward Kimiel, the tallest mountain.
    The men quieted their horses, soothing themselves as much as the steeds, and then sat staring at each other, pallid.
    â€œWhat in the name of Suth was that?” someone faltered at last, breaking silence. At once a hubbub went up.
    â€œWatch out how you mention the name of Suth! That might have been Suth himself, come to punish us.”
    â€œI have heard that Suth is a mighty flying horse, but I never thought of him in such form as that!”
    â€œBut it must have been a god, it was so big it blotted out the sun. Bigger than any natural bird—”
    â€œDid I see hooves?”
    â€œI saw blood in its nostril and fire in its eye.”
    â€œHad we not better pray and make sacrifice? If Suth is angry at us—but we have nothing to sacrifice—”
    â€œSilence,” Kyrem said, not too loudly, but the babble stopped at the sound of his voice. “You are talking nonsense,” he said fiercely. “What reason could Suth have to curse us? That was some sort of demon, and a paltry one at that, not much bigger than a raven, forsooth! Not nearly grand enough to be a god. Think on what little learning you have, and be silent.” Glowering, he slid down from Omber and marched off