Death of a Darklord Read Free

drowning-deep, face solemn. “This might be our last visit together, Calum. Not that I wouldn’t want to see you again, my friend, but you may simply not be here. If you die before our bargain can be struck.…” He leaned close, whispering against Calum’s skin. For a moment, he thought the man would kiss him gently, as you would kiss a sick child. He was loathe for those lips to touch his skin. But only Harkon’s words burned along his wrinkled cheek. “Once dead, I cannot help you.”
    A wave of bone-grinding, stomach-churning pain burned upward from his rotting gut. When the pain receded, he lay gasping, staring up into Harkon’s dark eyes. “What do you need me to do?”
    Harkon smiled. “Very little, my friend, very little.”
    Calum waited for the words to fall from Harkon’s lips, waited to hear how he would betray his friends, how he would destroy one of them utterly. They both knew Konrad would not survive in Harkon’s body. He, too, would be killed. Calum knew that, and yet he listened.
    His eyes flicked to his desk and the waiting skull. He felt he should apologize to the bones of his friend for forcing them to watch his fall. He had fought the land his entire life, but finally it had offered him something too precious to refuse. He wanted to live. And he was willing to pay the price, even if that price was another person’s blood. Even if someday he paid with his soul. For a second chance, even that seemed a small price to pay.

e L a IN e C la IRN KN e L t IN f RON t of t HE HU ge KI t CH e N fireplace. The children crowded close to the fire, not for the heat, but so they would not miss any movement of Elaine’s hands.
    Her small, slender hands passed in front of the flames. Fingertips fanned wide, so close to the flames that heat wavered round her skin. She stared into the leaping fire, the backs of her fingers touched together. Her wrists rolled outward like flower petals unfolding. From the tips of her fingers images leapt. A tiny, perfect man walked in the flames. It was as if the fire were a wavering mirror on which the man moved.
    He wore a white fur cloak, hood thrown back to reveal shoulder-length yellow hair. The hair was the same pale gold as the winter sunshine. He strode through knee-deep snow, surrounded by black, winter-bare trees. Elaine whispered, “Blaine.”
    A second man walked with him, wearing a three-cornered hat tied round his head by a multicolored scarf. The grip of a great two-handed sword showed at his coat collar. “Thordin.”
    The two men passed under a tall tree. It was the great tree. It towered over the rest of the forest like a giant among dwarves. Lightning had killed it two years ago, but its dead, barebranches were still a landmark for miles around.
    The branches twitched, swaying above the men. A branch began to move downward, a slow creaking effort that had nothing to do with wind. The skeletal bough reached for Blaine, icy twigs like daggers.
    Elaine screamed, “Blaine!” She plunged her hands into the flames, as if she could grab him to safety. Flames licked at the sleeves of her robe. Her hands touched the back of the fireplace, flames flaring around her shoulders, her face.
    Hands jerked her backward. “Elaine!” A blanket was wrapped around her smoking clothes, smothering the flames. Her skin was untouched, protected by her magic. The cloth was not so lucky. “Elaine, can you see me? Can you hear me?”
    She blinked upward; a bearded face came into focus. The smell of stew hung thick and heavy in the air. Fresh-baked bread was cooling nearby. Elaine lay in the familiar clatters and smells of the kitchen and knew she was safe. But others weren’t. “Jonathan, help them.…”
    “Help whom?”
    “Blaine, Thordin.”
    “I saw the vision.” The cook’s oldest son, all of eight, knelt beside them. The other children were huddled at a safe distance.
    “What did you see, Alan?”
    “The great tree attacked them.”
    Jonathan stared down at Elaine.