3 Weaver of Shadow Read Free Page A

river anyway. The settlers drove them out.”
    “It could have started earlier deeper in the forest, blights take time to spread.”
    “Some of the locals claim that the Weaver was responsible for the Blight, with her magic and her evil god.”
    “I am not saying they are wrong. I am just trying to understand what happened here. When your neighbours go bad and a Blight appears at the same time, it’s usually safe to assume it’s not a coincidence.”
    “What will happen if it keeps spreading?”
    “Things will change. People will go to the bad. There will be physical changes: in the woods, in the beasts, in the people. It won’t be pretty. In the worst places, the dead won’t stay down unless they are burned.”
    “The Settlements will have to be abandoned, won’t they?”
    “Most likely, at the very least.”
    “Lot of people round here won’t like that. They’ve poured their sweat and their blood into this land. Their fathers and mothers before them, too.”
    “It’s better than death and worse than death.”
    “You are not cheering me up, Kormak. We’ve got the Weaver stirring up the elves to bad craziness and now you’re telling me the Blight is going to drive us all out anyway.”
    “I did not make the world, Grogan. I am sorry to be the bringer of bad news though.”
    “Anything we can do to stop it?”
    “Usually when things have gone this far, the only thing that can be done with a Shadowblight is to burn it out, cleanse the land with fire and salt and the sword.”
    “A Burning? Your Order can call those, can’t it?”
    “If anyone listens, yes. We don’t have the influence we once had but I think in this case, if it’s as bad as it seems, the nobility will listen. The ones on the border, at least.”
    “Not the ones fighting in the civil war though.”
    “Times of turmoil are always bad. When men are disunited the Shadow grows in strength.”
    For the first time Grogan looked scared. “You think it’s out there in the forest, the Shadow or its minions.”
    “Yes. It is making its presence felt in the world. That’s what blights are, or so the scholars say, a manifestation of the Shadow in our world.”
    “They draw the bad ones, don’t they? I heard there’s something in them that whispers in men’s sleep.”
    “Any whispers in yours? You are close enough.”
    “Sleep like a baby. At least when I take enough whiskey. Speaking of which…” He raised the flask, offered it to Kormak. The Guardian put his hand over the beaker. One drink was normally his limit. He needed to keep his wits about him.
    “I am wondering about the bloodroot,” said Kormak.
    “We get a few who go out into the woods to harvest herbs. I would not put it past some of them to take bloodroot, black lotus and the nastier spectral mushrooms. You can make a small fortune selling that stuff to the right people. Or rather the wrong ones. I would have thought this civil war would have put a dent in the trade but no.”
    “Mages use the stuff,” said Kormak, “and every ambitious noble in Taurea is doing his best to get a mage as a bannerman.”
    “And bloodroot is a perk of the job?”
    “It makes a sorcerer very powerful… among other things. In the long run it twists the mind, drives them mad. It’s why no few of them fall to the Shadow. They get addicted to the stuff and it changes something in them.”
    Kormak produced the green-fletched arrow he has been carrying in his kit since his encounter with the walking dead man. He put it on the table. “Ever seen anything like this?”
    Grogan picked it up and turned it over in his hands, inspecting the markings closely. “It’s a Shadow-killer. The runes show the maker was Kayoga Nation. The light-green fletching say the owner is Speardancer sept. Where did you get this? The Kayoga hunting grounds are about a score of leagues northwest of here. It’s all Mayasha land round here, starts on the far side of the river.”
    “I pulled it from a corpse that