Devastating Hate Read Free

minimum. Each individual commander was responsible for internal discipline within his camp. Much of this enmity was down to the intensely motivating effect of greed, which Carmondai was fascinated by. That’s where the differences lie: the lower orders will die for the sake of gems and riches, while the higher beings kill for their ideals.
    He stood watching the óarco horde as they shoved and pushed and punched each other. No surprise that these green-and-black-skinned beasts with their decorated tusks and their stinking fat-coated armor tended to try to bump each other off at the slightest annoyance.
    “Ye gods of infamy, would you look at that scum,” he murmured. “They are a disgrace.”
    “But we’ll be leaving them here, of course,” said an älf-woman at his side. She had come up close on her night-mare, unheard over the whistling wind. “That way we will be permanently free of them in Ishím Voróo.” She smiled at him. “You must be Carmondai?”
    He took half a step back to see her better. Her armor told him she belonged to the nostàrois’ personal guard. The symbols on the tionium-reinforced leather cuirass showed her to have killed over one thousand enemies, and proclaimed her as the unpartnered daughter of two great warriors.
    She looks so young. Carmondai was usually quite good at guessing the age of other älfar, but her face was hidden by a half visor. Fifty? Sixty? But how could she have killed so many in that short time? “Yes, that’s me.” He looked at her inquisitively and received a slight nod in return.
    “Then I have an invitation for you. The nostàroi have heard that you are with the troops here and they want you to be present at supper. You are to record the event in word and picture so that the Inextinguishables may receive a report drawn up by an inestimable talent.”
    Carmondai felt hot and cold shivers run up his spine. At first he was flattered, but then his old resentment reared up: he hated taking orders. It was not only that he considered himself an artist of high repute. If it had been his own idea to take notes and to sketch the occasion he would have considered it an honor to be allowed to do so. But like this . . .
    “What’s wrong?” The älf-woman was astonished at his hesitation. “Tell me what you have planned that’s more important and I’ll kill whoever it is you are meeting, then you’ll have no difficulty deciding.”
    Her remarks amused him. “Why don’t they find an ordinary scribe?”
    She leaned forward, crossing her wrists on the pommel of her saddle. “Let me put it this way, O Master of Word and Image: an invitation from the nostàroi is not something you can decline.” Her words were spoken carefully, but were as cold as the breath of night. “If you fail to accompany me willingly I shall find other ways to take you to the nostàroi, and believe me”—she said, sitting upright again but keeping her voice low—“I am perfectly capable of that.”
    “Oh, you are?” replied Carmondai with a dangerous smile that did not quite match his harmless appearance. There was an icy silence, but after a short while his curiosity got the better of him and he sighed, relenting. After all, the woman was attractive. Warrior-women were not normally his type but this one had a certain something. “Do I get to know your name?”
    “Morana, my mother called me.” She held out her hand. “Will you ride with me or do you want to walk? My night-mare is good natured. He doesn’t usually bite.”
    His arm stretched out toward her as if of its own accord, then his hand clasped hers and he swung himself up behind her. She wore an unfamiliar perfume that came through over the metallic leather smell of her battledress and he could see strands of black hair escaping from under her helmet. “Take me to the nostàroi. I shall thank them in my own words for their invitation. ”
    With a laugh, Morana urged her mount in a ruthless line through the horde of