Beneath the Forsaken City Read Free Page B

his arms felt as though they would be pulled from their sockets.
    At last, two brothers lowered the ropes. Eoghan lay facedown on the ground, his muscles cramped and his throat raw, while calloused hands unbuckled the straps around his wrists.
    “On behalf of my son,” Riordan’s voice whispered, “thank you.”
    Eoghan managed to lift his head. “It is my privilege to serve Comdiu.” Then he collapsed on the hard ground.

CHAPTER THREE
    Thirst, powerful and insistent, broke through the haze of Conor’s unconsciousness, followed by an ache that seemed to come from everywhere at once. A distant roar sent his head into a furious hammering that squelched all thoughts of movement. He lay still and gritted his teeth against the pain until it passed.
    Slowly, he opened his eyes to the source of the roaring, which was actually just the lap of low tide. He was sprawled on a sandy beach, sand in every last crevice: eyes, nose, mouth. It hurt to move or even blink, and it took every last bit of strength to push himself to a sitting position.
    A level swath of shoreline stretched in either direction, long grasses marking dunes along the gentle slope. Not Seare. Amanta perhaps. But how had he gotten here?
    Memories flooded back. The storm that stalked them from Seare, biding its time like a living thing. The massive waves. Aine struggling in the churning sea.
    His heart nearly burst from his chest with its sudden pounding. He scrambled to his feet and scanned the beach. He’dalmost had her. Their fingers had touched just before something had knocked him unconscious.
    But Aine couldn’t swim. The chances she had survived . . .
    “Aine!” The shout cracked his salt-parched throat. “Aine, can you hear me?”
    He stumbled up the beach, straining his eyes in the filtered light that shone through the clouds overhead.
    She was dead. She couldn’t have survived that storm, not when she couldn’t swim.
    No. Conor shut his eyes to clear those dark thoughts. He hadn’t been able to swim when he was unconscious. If he had washed up on the beach, perhaps she had as well.
    He trudged along the shoreline, hope battling logic in his foggy brain. The southern coast of Amanta was sparsely settled. He might walk for miles without seeing another living soul. But even as he called Aine’s name, he knew it was futile. If she had survived, she could be anywhere. The chances against both of them surviving and then washing up together on the shore were astronomical.
    She’s dead, Conor.
    I thought that before.
    That was a dream; this is real.
    But she can’t be dead.
    That’s only your own wishful thinking.
    Movement in the grasses caught his eye, so fleeting that he thought it was just his imagination tormenting him. But, no, there it was again. Hope swelled. Could she have wandered inland and, now that she heard him calling, come back to find him? He took a step toward the grassy dune.
    Then the heads of three men crested the rise, followed by bulky, muscular bodies. Bleached hair fell around the shoulders of their brightly dyed cloaks, beneath which were knee-lengthtunics and close-fitting trousers. Their movements as much as their weapons marked them as warriors, but he knew immediately that they weren’t Gwynn or Aronan. In Amanta, that left only one other possibility.
    A sharp, humorless laugh slipped from him. He had escaped certain death in Seare, only to be captured by the Sofarende who plagued Gwydden’s southern coast.
    Conor’s amusement was fleeting. A fighting man caught on foreign shores was too dangerous to keep as a captive and useless as a hostage. That left only one probable alternative.
    If he were going to die, he would die on his own terms, not at the hands of some barbarian executioner. He reached over his shoulder for his sword and remembered he had left it hanging in the Resolute ’s cabin.
    He still had his dagger, though, secured on his belt. He would never get close enough to use it if he gave them any