Kormak 01 - Stealer of Flesh Read Free Page A

now, of all times. It seems an odd coincidence.”
    “In what way?”
    “I cannot believe you would be here, in the middle of this forsaken wilderness, for no reason.”
    “I was sent to recover something that was stolen, lady.” He was not exactly sure why he was telling her this but he was tired and it was on his mind and he felt the need to talk. Perhaps it was the medicine and the illness.
    “And perhaps to kill the one who ordered it so?” There was an edge to that question, an under-current of nervousness and anticipation. What had he stumbled into here, Kormak wondered.
    “I have said too much already.”
    “No you have not. I bear you no ill will.”
    “I am very pleased to hear it.” She leaned forward and without really knowing why, he reached up to move a strand of her hair that had fallen into her eyes. He was all too aware of the soft curves of her body. Kormak wondered why he was flirting with this woman. If she was, as she said, the wife of the local lord it was a very dangerous thing to do. Of course, that might have been part of its attraction. And there was the situation. It was night. They were in his room. He was affected by the medicine he had taken earlier.
    “You are not what I expected at all,” she said. Her voice was soft and thoughtful.
    “What did you expect?”
    “A fanatic and a killer.”
    “A killer I am, lady. One who wonders why you felt the need to visit him alone in the dark.”
    She seemed about to say something then shook her head. “I do not think I am any wiser than when I came in but I shall deny you your rest no longer, Guardian.”
    She rose from the chair and went to the door, taking her candle with her. When she left the room, more light than its went with her. Kormak lay awake in the darkness for a long time, listening to the wind howl, watching the fire die. Tired as he was, sleep would not come. At some point he thought he heard a scream but it might have been the wind or it might just have been the edge of a dream intruding into the world.
    The wind still howled outside when Kormak woke. He rose from the bed and tottered to the window, throwing aside the curtains. Outside it was day but the snow storm made it hard to make out any details. He saw flakes falling hard and fast into a courtyard and beyond that he thought he saw a high stone wall. It was obvious he was in a fortified manor of some sort and quite a large one. His head felt fuzzy and vague and he still felt weak. Someone had come in through the night and put more wood on the fire. It alarmed him that he had not woken. Normally he slept lightly and the faintest noise would wake him. He was in worse shape than he thought.
    He moved back towards the bed as he heard footsteps in the corridor. He was sitting upright as Tarsus entered. The wizard looked even older in the daylight. His face was deeply lined, etched with marks of pain. Crow’s feet made trenches around his eyes. His hair was a dirty grey. The whites of his eyes were yellowish. Kormak noticed that his nails were long in the manner of the eastern aristocracy, a scholarly caste who liked to show they did not need to perform manual labour, or even wield a blade.
    “You have made a better recovery than I expected,” Tarsus said. “You must be a very strong man.”
    Kormak looked at him. “You have come to check up on me?”
    “I have. It would do my reputation no good for me to save you from the effects of cold, only to die of something else.”
    “Your reputation is important to you?”
    “You don’t like wizards, do you, Guardian? I suppose that is understandable.”
    “I have seen too much evil worked by wizards.”
    “We have no monopoly on wickedness, sir.”
    “That is nothing less than the truth.”
    The wizard raised one bushy grey eyebrow. “I am surprised to hear you admit it.”
    “Only a fool denies what his eyes can see,” Kormak said.
    “Sometimes what we see is an illusion.”
    “We were doing so well there, wizard.