Mystic Warrior Read Free Page A

to deliver, a life of sorts to get on with. He didn’t have the time or patience for fools.
    Despite their pretense, the soldiers weren’t protecting the village from traitors by asking for documents proving the cart’s passengers were loyal citizens. They were intent on robbing Murdoch’s weary charges of purse and life.
    This was what France’s glorious Revolution had come to—highway robbery. For four long years Murdoch had ridden as an officer in support of the noble ideal of taking wealth from greedy aristocrats to feed the starving and downtrodden masses. Four long years of penance for his sins had deteriorated to a farce in the face of France’s monetary and moral bankruptcy. Without wealth, power always fell into the hands of the best-armed bullies.
    Two of the cart’s more elegantly garbed passengers, helpless despite their once-great riches and prestige, cursed the thieves and began hunting for the few gold coins sewn into the hems of their fashionable attire—their only fare for passage to a safer life.
    The youngest traveler, a small girl in a bonnet spilling golden curls, fell into the arms of her shoemaker father, who was driving the cart, and buried her face in terror. Wearing a moth-eaten frock coat, the driver hugged his child and stared defiantly through sunken eyes at the thieves. He had no money to bribe anyone, but the shoemaker had once given Murdoch a home and a helping hand when he’d needed them most. He would not desert the man.
    Wearing the coat of the Revolutionary army, Murdoch had been using his disguise to lead escaped prisoners to safety. His charges were idealistic political leaders and innocents who had been unjustly incarcerated by power-hungry officials little better than the lawless miscreants who were confronting them now. Murdoch worked to see justice prevail—if only because he knew what it was to be denied an impartial trial.
    Ever since the French king’s execution at the beginning of the year, Murdoch had been unable to reconcile the Tribunal’s penchant for blood and revenge with the principles of equality, fraternity, and liberty for which the original revolutionaries had fought. He’d envisioned Aelynn’s leaders crippled and brought low in the same manner as France had assaulted theirs, and he could no longer stomach the bloodshed.
    Saving refugees from the methodical madness of Madame Guillotine was his only means of holding the tattered remains of his soul together these days. That, and the message he meant to carry to his former friend Trystan, warning him of the latest outrage that would endanger his fellow Aelynners. He hoped Trystan wouldn’t hold the past against him and would listen to his warning.
    Aware of his own unpredictable gifts, debating his choices in this all-too-public venue, Murdoch held his temper and did nothing in haste. Still wearing his officer’s braid, he insolently slouched on his horse while considering his prey. The angry fire of his youth had been diluted by experience—the people outside his island home were no challenge except to his imagination. His caped greatcoat hid his weapons and disguised his tensing muscles. He’d learned to conceal his taut, angry jaw behind a week-old beard, just as he hid the burning flare of his Aelynn eyes in his hat’s shadow.
    â€œI carry their documents,” he informed the soldier with cool scorn that hid his fury. “What right have you to demand them from your superiors?”
    â€œWe demand equality!” the heavyset rogue shouted. “They’re naught but a bunch of filthy aristos. Why should you or Paris share their wealth when we starve out here?”
    â€œJustice demands they be tried fairly,” Murdoch replied with insulting insouciance, slapping the reins of the stallion so that it pranced nervously.
    The younger soldier dropped back a step to avoid the huge beast’s hooves. “What care we?”