Saving Thanehaven Read Free

another tack. “Not that it’s much of a risk. Your chances are better with me than they are with your friend the carnivorous sidearm. Especially in a marsh full of mouths.” He laughs and shakes his head. “I mean, I’d like to know who dreamed this one up. A marsh full of mouths? It’s
seriously
sick.”
    “Why are you doing this?” Noble demands. “Why did you come here?”
    Rufus shrugs again. “Let’s just say I’m a freedom lover,” he replies. “Power to the people, and all that stuff. You’re living in a repressive system.”
    “And you don’t like that?”
    “Do
you
?”
    Noble thinks about it. He realizes that he’s never followed his own inclinations. He’s rarely
had
an inclination, until now. Sometimes he’s wanted a halberd—and has ended up with a mace instead. Sometimes he would have preferred to avoid a dark doorway or a suspicious-looking shadow, but Smite’s raging appetite has always impelled him forward.
    “No,” he confesses at last, “I don’t like it much.”
    “Then let’s make peace, not war!” Rufus cries cheerfully. “It’ll be heaps of fun! The only thing is, you’ll have to get rid of your friend.” He cocks his thumb at Smite. “This won’t work if you bring her along. And you’ve still got your knife, remember—which you probably won’t need.”
    Noble looks down at his weapon. She’s covered in blood, and white-hot with rage. Her teeth are embedded in his wrist. She’s glaring at him with her beady little eyes as she squirms and coils and lashes about like a serpent.
    “I’d like you to stop this,” he tells her.
    But she refuses to stop. So he yanks her free and throws her away.

CHAPTER TWO
    T he road to the fortress is wide, flat, and dead straight. It’s also in excellent shape, with no weeds or potholes. The cobblestones are so white that Noble wonders if they’ve ever been touched. On each side of the road, bronze gargoyles are perched atop a series of black stone plinths. The plinths are separated by a thick hedge of thornbushes.
    Noble doesn’t like the look of this hedge. It’s clearly been planted to disembowel anyone who tries to push through it. The dazzling white cobblestones also worry him, because they offer no more protection than a salt pan or an ice floe. As for the gargoyles, they seem to be chained to their plinths. And why would Lord Harrowmage do something like that unless they posed some sort of risk?
    “It
could
be a security measure, to stop them from being stolen,” Rufus says quietly, surveying the creatures from a safe distance. “But if you ask me, it’s because they’re not statues at all.”
    Noble grunts. He has a nasty suspicion that Rufus is right. The chains are long enough to allow some freedom of movement—enough, at least, to launch an attack. Noble can see exactly what will happen if he tries to pass between the first pair of gargoyles. One of them will pounce on him, distracting his attention from its partner across the road. Gargoyle number two will then launch itself at his back, propelling him toward the next pair of gargoyles, which will jump off
their
plinths to maul him.…
    Without a sword or mace, defeating those gargoyles is going to be very, very difficult. Noble finds himself missing Smite. He’s been feeling so odd since he threw her away. It’s as if he’s lost a limb.
    “Don’t worry,” Rufus whispers. “I can deal with these guys, even if they
are
alive.”
    He and Noble are crouched in a shallow ditch, peering through a screen of thorns. The road begins where the dry sea ends, so there’s a lot of windblown salt scattered around. Perhaps that’s why all the nearby undergrowth looks so sparse and sickly. Even the ground is more gray than purple, as if the salt is slowly killing it.
    Could the giant mouths be staying shut becausethey don’t like salt? Or is Noble still alive because he’s taken off his boots?
    According to Rufus, Morwood has been cleverly designed to kill